28 - Grab the Money and Run (Or Not)
With Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki looking like a doll in his paws, Thorax-Bear-Grizzly plowed through the wall of the conference room. His restraints had shattered like sugar glass when he shifted, drywall was reduced to dust, people scattered like sand in a gale, and what ponies and griffons weren’t on the ground were sent running when he roared. A group of guards came from one end of the hallway, and from the other, a griffon-leopard-vulture charged, claws bared. Thorax-Bear-Grizzly bowled over the group by chucking Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki at them, then batted the griffon-leopard-vulture’s claws aside easily and bull-rushed her all the way to the end of the hallway.
Somepony was screaming orders, but Thorax-Bear-Grizzly barely heard them. Emotions were running high and he was caught up in the flux. He tossed the unconscious griffon-leopard-vulture aside, his gaze jumping over the ponies and griffons in the halls. Bears were big and powerful and very easy to target. Once the guards managed to regroup, he’d be swamped. He needed a different shape, someone who could slip under the radar, someone who-
There. That terrified worker-earth-mint looked unassuming enough. She spotted the way he was eyeing her and bolted. Thorax-Bear-Grizzly scrambled after her and any ponies in his way were tossed into the wall. Nothing slowed him down; bears were fast and big, among the freight trains of the animal world. (If you ignored dragons and tatzelwurms and maulwurfs and manticores and… a whole oodle of other things. Man, Equestria’s predatory scene was fierce.) She attempted to turn a corner, but bumped into an oncoming guard-unicorn-pinto and tripped. Thorax-Bear-Grizzly dodged around the guard-unicorn-pinto and pounced.
Mid-jump, he slipped out of the bear’s shape and into hers. Changeling and worker alike tumbled tail over tail down the hall. Thorax-Earth-Mint wound up on the bottom, which was fine. As the mare-earth-mint stared down at him in confusion, he pointed at her and screamed hysterically, “That’s him! That’s him, he’s the changeling!”
Before the mare-earth-mint could protest, the few guards still on their hooves or claws had ripped her off Thorax-Earth-Mint and dogpiled her. Thorax-Earth-Mint cringed as he wiggled away, even before the shock pouring from her almost made him vomit, and wished he’d had a way to apologize to her.
Somepony put a hoof on Thorax-Earth-Mint’s shoulders. He nearly had a panic attack and tried to throw it off, but the somepony said, “Come on, we’ve got to get you away from the changeling!” He gave in and was quickly hustled down several halls, far from the commotion.
The somepony doing the hustling was a guard-unicorn-pinto, probably the same one he’d pushed past getting to the mare-earth-mint. He quickly patted Thorax-Earth-Mint down and gave him a once-over. “Are you hurt?” His emotions were genuine concern. “It didn’t hurt you, did it?”
“No, no,” Thorax-Earth-Mint said quickly. “I’m fine.” He took a deep breath. “Can- Can I go home?” He didn’t entirely fake his shaking voice.
The guard-unicorn-pinto grimaced. “Uh, no, sorry. Goumada’ll want to talk to you.”
Thorax-Earth-Mint’s fear spiked for a brief moment before the rush of smashing through guards as a bear overtook him. He could get away from this. He just needed to… “W-what?” he stammered (completely-fake stammered, this time). “B-but… But I… Didn’t you see what happened?”
“Yeah, sorry,” said the guard-unicorn-pinto — and Thorax-Earth-Mint tasted some genuine embarrassment there — “but you’ll have to-”
With a left hook, Thorax-Earth-Mint hit the guard-unicorn-pinto. The guard-unicorn-pinto hit the wall. The guard-unicorn-pinto hit the ground. Five seconds later, Thorax-Earth-Steel was running down the hallway, keeping his head down. He retraced the steps he had taken to get in and was quickly back on the casino floor. He slunk into an out-of-the-way corner, keeping his head down while still keeping his shape. You never knew when being a guard might come in handy.
“Doc?” he whispered. “It’s Thorax. I’m out.”
“You are? Splendid!” said the Doctor-Earth-Brown. “Starlight and Bon Bon are in a, ah, bit of a pickle at the moment, but we think they’re fine.”
“You think?”
“Well, it’s complicated. See-”
Thorax-Earth-Steel let the Doctor-Earth-Brown ramble. If Starlight-Unicorn-Heliotrope and Bon Bon-Earth-Tan were in trouble, he needed to help. And he needed to give better help than he had with pretending to be Goumada-Unicorn-Marble. But he didn’t have anyone he could ask for advi-
Who was that guard they’d talked with? Gus-Griffon? He was outside, right? Maybe he could help. Maybe. His bits were on the line, and if Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle had taught him anything, griffons loved bits. Thorax-Earth-Steel trotted out of the casino.
There were worse ways to spend a weekend. Probably. Maybe. At least they were getting exercise.
Starlight, Bon Bon, and Gilda raced pell mell through the offices, walls blurring around them, confused workers jumping out of the way. Somewhere behind them, somewhere around them, guards were closing in. And none of them knew the way out. They kept jinking around corners to try to lose their pursuers, which meant they never got a good handle on where they were.
Starlight’s heart was pounding in her ears and her legs were burning, and yet she kept on running. This was probably her most physically active day in… ever, really. She needed to build up some muscle. Living with Twilight helped absolutely nothing. When this is over, she resolved, I’m going to exercise every day. Cardio. Endurance. More. Whatever kinds of training there are. I’ll do them all.
Of course, if her muscles gave out, she’d never have the chance.
They rounded another corner and a T-junction loomed ahead of them. In spite of the guards behind them, Bon Bon slid to a halt, trying to read the signs on the wall. “Left or right?” she mumbled. “Left or right?”
A massive spell sailed down the hall and blew a hole right through the signs. Goumada herself had forced her way through the guards and was running at them, horn aglow and murder in her eyes. Gilda squawked and bolted down one hallway while Bon Bon pulled Starlight down the other. When a unicorn charged at you looking like that, you wanted to put as much space between the two of you as possible.
“Ignore the griffon!” yelled Goumada. “After the ponies! They have what’s mine!”
Well, at least Gilda would be safe. Maybe.
Bon Bon smashed a door open at the end of their hall, finally stumbling back into the hotel. Starlight shot out after her and slammed the door behind them, a quick spell further sealing it to keep it from opening again. Dull thuds marked when guards collided with it and failed to open it. Jiggling the knob did them nothing. But haste and headaches had made it a simple, weak spell that wouldn’t last long, and that was without guards coming from elsewhere.
Like the two quartets exiting the stairwell at one end of the hallway.
Bon Bon pulled Starlight along, away from the guards, only to stop when she saw another set of guards coming from the opposite end. “For peat’s sake, how many guards are in this place?” half-squealed Bon Bon. She turned around, then half-unturned. They were right by a small panel in the wall. “Laundry chute?” She yanked it open and looked down. “Laundry chute. Bye!” And she dove in headfirst.
Starlight wasn’t about to ask questions. She almost dropped their bag down the chute first, then a thought hit her like a frisbee. After pulling the anklet out, she cast a quick spell on the bag to reverse the gravity and dropped it up the chute instead. Then, bracing herself, Starlight clambered into the chute and let herself fall.
It was narrow, barely large enough for her to fit. As she slid down, her head kept banging against the walls, exacerbating her headache even more every inch. She was sure her coat was getting delicately peeled off her back from the way it scraped along the metal. Down and down and down. And just when she was wondering where the bottom was, the chute turned a tight corner and she dropped out through a flap, onto a pile of sheets.
“-and here’s another one!” someone screamed. “See? I told you! That’s four today! FOUR! We need some kind of locks on the doors, I don’t CARE what! That stupid sunblasted…”
The chute had dumped Starlight out into a large laundry room, an angry mare and a befuddled mare staring at her. Bon Bon was nowhere to be seen. “Follow your friend and just go,” said the first mare in exasperation. She pointed at a door. “I need to get those washed and you don’t know who’s slept in them.”
Starlight quickly scrambled off the sheets and put her anklet back on, only to have Sunburst screaming in her head. “-at’s going on, the, the second floor looks like-”
“Shut up, Sunburst,” said Starlight.
“Starlight! Oh, thank Celestia. Are you alright?”
“I’m fine. Bon Bon and I are in the laundry room.” (The two workers exchanged glances; the angry one rolled her eyes and went to work on the sheets.) “We got separated from Gilda, but I don’t know if she got captured.”
“I, I don’t think so. She, it looked like she forced her way into one of the, one of the elevator shafts. The Doctor, he, he’s trying to find her now. Starlight, you’ve got the WHOLE BUILDING looking for you. You’re not gonna slip away; they’ve got your colors, your tribes, your, your cutie marks, everything. I don’t-”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Keep quiet; I need to think.” Starlight almost ripped her anklet off again, but it was too risky in case she needed to contact him for some reason.
“Um. O-okay.”
Bon Bon was hanging out right outside the laundry room, pacing a rut in the hall. Her head whipped up when she heard the door open, but she went slack when she saw it was just Starlight. “Hey,” she said vaguely. “Anypony follow you?”
Starlight looked over her shoulder. The laundry room was still empty except for the two workers she’d run into and there were no sounds indicating a guard was sliding down the laundry chute after them. “I don’t think so. We-”
“Where’s your bag?”
“What?”
“Your bag.” Bon Bon’s voice sped up. “Your bag that we were using to carry the Amulet that was the entire reason we did this in the first place. THAT bag.”
“Oh. Right. I didn’t want it to get taken away if we were caught, so I reversed the gravity on it in the laundry chute. It’s sitting on the ceiling of the chute right now. Lyra can get it later.”
“You just chucked all our stuff away?!” Bon Bon shrieked. “Not just the Amulet, but all of our gear, all of our-”
“Like we’d need it while on the run!”
“…Okay, maybe. Come on.”
They ran off.
“…Do you know where we’re going?”
“…No, do you?”
“Oh, boy.”
There was a guard at each side of the casino entrance, neither of them a griffon. Thorax-Earth-Steel tasted some nervousness from them, but nothing too potent. They stood at their posts, watching ponies come and go, and didn’t give him a second glance.
Thorax-Earth-Steel pretended to be on a meandering patrol route around the casino. He watched closely at the guards he passed. That one wasn’t a griffon… Neither was that one… That one was, but he was nervous just-
No. That guard-griffon-lion-bald eagle wasn’t nervous in the same way as the others. The others were nervous in that distant way about something that only loosely affected them; this guard-griffon-lion-bald eagle was nervous in that close way about something that very much affected him but was out of his control. If he hadn’t spent so much time in poker, Thorax-Earth-Steel probably wouldn’t have noticed the difference.
Promising start. Thorax-Earth-Steel walked up to him. “Hey,” he said. “Gus, right?”
“Yeah,” the guard-griffon-lion-bald eagle grunted, not looking directly at him. His temper sounded like what Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle had described. “Do I know you?”
“Probably not.” No time for subtlety. “But do you know a griffon named Gilda? Maybe a unicorn named Starlight?”
Gus-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle’s anxiety spiked and he twitched, but he managed to keep it together, sort of. “D-don’t really sound familiar,” he said, his voice a half-step higher. “Why do you ask?”
Praying that the pony aptitude for friendship had worked its magic, Thorax-Earth-Steel whispered, “Because they need help. I’m the changeling they’re working with.”
A flurry of emotions buzzsawed its way through Gus-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle’s head and his face went blank; Thorax-Earth-Steel was ready to see his brain leaking out of his ears (wherever those ears were). He slowly turned his head to look Thorax-Earth-Steel in the eye. “What’s your name?” he asked quietly.
“Thorax.”
Some of the suspicion vanished from the flurry. Gus-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle further lowered his voice. “What are they stealing?”
“The Alicorn Amulet.”
Even more. “How much are they paying me?”
Wait, he was supposed to remember that? “Um. Ten thousand bits? Fifteen?”
“Close enough. Where are they?”
“I don’t know exactly. Somewhere in the casino.”
As they spoke, several of those steam machines pulled up the road and came to a stop in front of the casino, each one with a cop or two. As the cops ran inside, Gus-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle frowned. “Then we better get in there quick.”
They made for the casino as quickly as they dared. But just as they were about to head inside, a guard-pegasus-yellow trotted up to them from her side of the doorframe and put a hoof on Gus-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle’s chest. “Hey, Gus. Where do you think you’re going? You need to stay out here.”
Gus-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle was silent for a second before he said, “Um, Spear here needs my help with something inside. It’ll only take a sec.”
“Does he.” The guard-pegasus-yellow narrowed his eyes at Thorax-Earth-Steel. “What if that’s the changeling we need to look out for?”
“Nah, he’s good,” Gus-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle said promptly. “I asked him a question only he would know. Several. What kinda idiot do you take me for?”
The guard-pegasus-yellow blinked and slouched back to her post. “Sorry. Just… being cautious,” he mumbled.
And so the two re-entered the casino. “You better figure out where they are fast, ’cause there’s a lot of ground to cover,” whispered Gus-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle. “And I don’t want to find them after the cops do.”
“Right.” Thorax-Earth-Steel cleared his throat. “Um. Doc? Where are Starlight and Bon Bon?”
Starlight did not like mazes. The Castle of Friendship, Name Pending, was a maze. The offices in the upper floors had been a maze. And now these halls were a maze. It was almost enough to make one consider becoming a tyrant (again) so she could ban labyrinthine floorplans altogether. Almost.
“You used a lot of magic in the vault,” Bon Bon said as they ran. “And I didn’t notice a lot of magic missiles up there. Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m fine,” said Starlight. “Just…” A vein in her temple throbbed and she massaged it. “Just a headache.”
“And your magic?”
“Don’t expect anything too complicated too quick. My head hurts and I think I’m almost tasting colors.”
“Hmm.”
“Give me, I don’t know, ten, fifteen minutes.”
The pair ran through the halls, completely unsure of what they were looking for. They didn’t even have the benefit of signage. Whatever maintenance halls they were in were sparsely populated, the few ponies they met often pushing broken gambling machines and definitely not guards. But that was only temporary. The guards upstairs had seen them go down the laundry chute, so they knew where they were.
At least the running gave Starlight’s headache time to go down.
“Wait, wait,” said Bon Bon. Her trot slowed to a walk slowed to a stop. “We need to think this through. I mean, how many halls can this place have?”
Starlight thought back to the Castle of Friendship. “You’d be surprised.”
Bon Bon tapped herself on the forehead as she thought. “Okay, let’s just follow this hall straight. If it dead-ends, turn… right. Do the same, except turn left. Repeat. We’ll at least reach the edge. Come on.”
And they were off, much more thoroughly and a bit more slowly. They zigged and zagged and Starlight felt less lost and more merely disorientated. It wasn’t long before they saw a door to the stairwell, the bright red EXIT sign glowing above it.
Naturally, that was when a unicorn guard stepped out of the stairwell and noticed them. Out of pure frustration-born rage, Starlight tried to blast her. But with her headache, she couldn’t muster much, and this guard was (naturally) one of the only ones with the mind and skill to put up a shield. It wobbled under the impact of Starlight’s spell, but held.
“Rippitey riggety friggety…” muttered Bon Bon.
“You!” yelled the guard. “Stop right there!”
Bon Bon pulled Starlight back down their hallway. Starlight stumbled after her, her mind still racing. Okay. What do you know? Magic. Lots of magic. Lots of magic that isn’t nearly as effective because of my headache. Offensive magic that’ll scream out, “We’re the thieves!” Teleportation that doesn’t work. Shields. Removing cutie marks. Half-effective invisibility-
Wait. Sunburst said they had our cutie marks. Maybe-
Starlight slammed into Bon Bon when the latter stopped on a bit. She looked up; there was another guard, a pegasus at the other end of the hallway, charging them. She looked behind them. The unicorn guard was quickly narrowing the gap between them. “We’re dead,” mumbled Bon Bon.
Maybe not.
It was only adrenaline and a near-lifetime of casting the spell that let Starlight gather enough willpower to cast the cutie mark removal spell through her headache. She’d never cast the spell on herself before and didn’t know what it felt like. When she pulled her cutie mark off, she felt like she was pulling away a part of herself, bit by bit. But of course she was; that was the point of the spell, to remove a pony’s talent. Without sparing a second to ponder the implications, Starlight did the same to Bon Bon. Separated from their ponies, the marks swirled around, trying to find something to attach to. Without anything stopping them, they’d naturally be attracted back to their original ponies.
So Starlight instead stuck her cutie mark on Bon Bon and Bon Bon’s on herself.
She felt something change in her, deep down, on a metaphysical level. She couldn’t say what, but she knew something was wrong, like Twilight turning down a book or Fluttershy ignoring animals. It made her coat stand on end and her skin crawl, and she felt sick to her stomach. If this wasn’t the only possible way to get out of this situation, she wouldn’t even think of it. (Part of her nagged that she’d been doing this to ponies all the time back in her town, but her survival instinct beat that down.)
It was hard to tell if Bon Bon was having it any better. She didn’t seem to be reacting as viscerally, but her pupils were contracting and dilating wildly and out of sync. She snapped around to look at her rump. Then she glared at Starlight with barely-restrained rage. “Do the world a favor,” whispered Bon Bon, “and never do that again, or I will murder you in your sleep.” Given everything that had happened recently, Starlight didn’t doubt her. “You better know what you’re doing.”
Starlight hoped so, too.
The guards closed in on them, the unicorn slapping a suppressor ring on Starlight’s horn as soon as possible. “Finally,” she grunted. “Do you two know how much trouble you’ve caused? Don’t answer that,” she added when Starlight opened her mouth. “A rhetorical question.”
“But can you imagine the bonus we’ll get?” the pegasus said, grinning. “I mean, did you hear what they did to the-”
“Wait a second…” The unicorn leaned down and examined Starlight’s rump. “The cutie marks were supposed to be candy and a glimmer, right?”
“I’m pretty sure it was more of a sparkle. Or maybe a shimmer? Or a twinkle…”
“Whatever. But the pink unicorn had the glimmer, right?”
“The heliotrope unicorn had the sparkle.” (Starlight managed to keep her mouth shut.)
“Either way, this isn’t her, because she’s got candy.”
“Really?” The pegasus glanced down. “So she does. So what?”
“So she’s the wrong mare, obviously.”
Bon Bon stared at Starlight, looking as surprised as one possibly could without actually looking surprised. Starlight wasn’t sure how she was pulling it off. Starlight herself just tried to look mildly confused.
“Is she? We’ve got a tan earth pony and a heliotrope unicorn, one of which has a candy cutie mark and the other with a sparkly cutie mark.”
“Glimmery,” mumbled the unicorn.
“Whatever. They’re the same marks on the same ponies. Let’s-”
“They’re just similar cutie marks, not the same ones.”
“Come on, two candy cutie marks?” scoffed the pegasus. “Marks are unique.”
“I’m sure there’s a pony out there with a peppermint cutie mark that’s got fifteen stripes and another with a peppermint cutie mark that’s got sixteen stripes. They’re technically different-”
“Fun fact!” the pegasus said mock-brightly. “If you ignore everything that has ‘technically’ in front of it, the world is a much better place! Look, they’re close enough.”
“We just spent a minute arguing over whether that was a glimmer, a sparkle, a shimmer, or a twinkle! They are not close enough.”
“It was hardly a minute. More like-”
Bon Bon cleared her throat. “So, um, can we go?”
“I- I mean,” Starlight offered, “if we don’t have the cutie marks you’re looking for-”
The unicorn said, “Yes,” at the same time the pegasus said, “No.” They looked at each other.
“It’s not them,” said the unicorn.
“It might be them,” said the pegasus.
“When Goumada hears about this, she’ll want to see them. And if you want to argue with her that there’s a spell out there that can change cutie marks, you be my guest!”
“Fine!” The pegasus flared her wings. “I will! I’ll tell her I was just being careful. Like she wants us to be! And besides, one way or another, they’re trespassing. Don’t you think that’s a little coincidental?”
“With ponies breaking into the vault, we need to prioritize. What if these aren’t the thieves?”
“What if they are? Let’s take them and you can just lay all the blame on me.”
“Fine, whatever.” The unicorn glared at Starlight and Bon Bon. “Run and you’re dead.”
“Goumada won’t like that,” said the pegasus.
“…Run and I break your legs.”
Starlight and Bon Bon were half-dragged, half-led through the halls and up the stairs, collecting a few more guards along the way. Starlight glanced sidelong at Bon Bon, who just shrugged helplessly. At least the Amulet was safe. Hopefully.
At the top of the stairs, they were pulled onto the main casino floor. Starlight immediately noticed that it was just as packed as it had been earlier in the week, even though it was slightly less high-energy. She was honestly surprised there was anyone left at all, after the impact of that safe. Maybe Goumada had been able to calm everyone down.
Through the crowds, Starlight spotted Goumada arguing with some cops. Cops. Of course. Starlight tried to drag her feet, but was shoved forward. Towards the cops. Towards Goumada.
As they slowly pushed their way through the throng, Starlight’s heart sank a little more with every step. The Alicorn Amulet was safe-ish, but she wasn’t. She had no magic. She didn’t know where anyone was. She couldn’t talk to Sunburst without drawing attention to herself. Her only plan had failed. She had nothing. She was going to be handed over to a psychotic crime boss and there was nothing she could do about it.
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OH COME ON! That Pegasus is being an ass.
The smart thing would be to grab them both and keep blasting them until one (or both) of them drops the disguise. I'm glad they didn't think of that
Someone tell Pharynx about this. He'd be proud
Agent Bon Bon, you should know better than to stop in mid-chase to look for directions. That's just asking for trouble-
-case in point
Question. How does the gravity-reversing spell work? If Starlight undid it so she could fall down the shaft, shouldn't gravity pull the bag down after her? Is the spell limited to the ipper part of the shaft, did she cast another spell to make the bag stick to the ceiling regardless of what happens with gravity, or did she forget what would happen under normal gravity?
Wouldn't have half-effective invisibility worked, Starlight? There had to have been a dark enough corner somewhere in that maze that would compensate for the 'half' part of invisibility...
Why do I get the feeling they won't be able to reverse it? And that they'll have to ask Twilight for help even though she's never performed that spell herself?
Let's hope Thorax can be a cop temporarily, and hopefully with more luck than on a previous occasion
Gus ex machina in 3...2...1...
Since they don't actually have the stolen items with them the cops may just let them go because of everypony's dislike of Goumada. I hope Lyra or else Rainbow Dash will be able to get the bag.
I really like that. Better than the show's "for pony's sake," although I suppose that when not in print, it would be confusing.
Clearly she underestimated the resolve and single-minded focus of obsessed gamblers.
My prediction seems a little more unlikely now that a separation has occurred. But now that Starlight has handed her gift for magic off to a hornless pony, I don't see any other way to set that right.
So the plan is for guards to find a unicorn with candy mark and an earth pony with glimmery mark, compare them with their description of unicorn with glimmery mark and earth pony with candy mark and decide that it's totally different thing?
Ok things are really really not good but it looks like thorax got himself out of there even though it created a lot of panic but so far he needed to get out but then he heard from the doctor that Starlight and the others are in trouble so he decided to get help and the only one he can know is Gus the Griffin guard meanwhile Starlight and the others are still running for their lives especially getting caught and looks like they split up Gilda went the other way and Bonbon and starlight with the other but they concentrate to the two ponies it's been a while they've been running around but looks like Starlight had another idea hopefully this will work she used a cutie mark remover try to confuse the guards even though it kind of work but unfortunately they are taken to Goumada this is really not good at all I helped thorax and the others can help
I've been hoping Starlight's skill with manipulating cutie marks would come in handy!
Admittedly, it didn't, but still.