3 - Familiar Faces Are Always Nice
The train kept a-rollin’, and Bon Bon kept glaring out the window at the landscape as it passed by. If Lyra hadn’t been so insistent, and the situation just a tad less dire, she wouldn’t be here. She’d be sitting back at the shop, nice and cozy, serving the first few customers of the day. But, no, Starlight just had to make a mistake that could potentially threaten all of Equestria (which, from what Bon Bon had heard, seemed to be only slightly unusual for her). So now, here she was, sitting on a train headed for Trotter Gorge in order to break into a casino. Not her first rodeo of this sort, but the last rodeo hadn’t gone so hot, and she didn’t want a repeat.
“Hey. Hey, Bonnie.”
And Lyra didn’t seem to be getting the gravity of the situation. This was all a game to her, like she was the protagonist, or at least a major side character, of some cheesy pulp adventure. (Although if it was a cheesy pulp adventure, at least things were guaranteed to turn out okay.) In fact, Starlight was the only other pony whom the gravity seemed to affect, which was probably because she was the one responsible in the first place (not really, but Bon Bon wasn’t feeling charitable at the moment). Rainbow appeared to be under the delusion that she could punch her way out, the Doctor was almost as disconnected as Lyra, and Derpy was Derpy.
“Bonnie. …Bonnie. …Bo-”
Bon Bon grunted to indicate she’d heard.
“Lighten up, Bonnie.” Lyra managed to squeeze in between Bon Bon and the window, grinning fit to burst. “What’s the big deal?”
“As a former secret agent, I know exactly how badly this can go pear-shaped.” Bon Bon lightly pushed Lyra out of the way and back into her seat. “I’ve seen it happen. I’ve been involved in it. A-”
“I thought you were a monster hunter,” Lyra said curiously, leaning forward. “How do you do a heist on a chimera den?”
“I was a monster hunter when that division got shut down. Before then, I… sometimes got shuffled around.”
“You never told me that!” Her ears twitching back and forth, Lyra was practically bouncing on her seat in excitement. “You never tell me anything about your time as a secret agent mare!”
“Because, for the last time, it’s incredibly illegal,” Bon Bon said with a scowl. “I already broke at least three secrecy statutes telling you about the bugbear.”
“We’re breaking laws now,” Lyra pointed out. “What’s one more? Or two or three? Dozen? How’d your heist go wrong? Pleeeaaase?”
“Lyraaaa…” scolded Bon Bon.
Lyra made big eyes.
“Lyra, I told you not to make that face outside the bedroom.”
Lyra made bigger eyes.
“Lyra Heartstrings, I have quite enough on my plate as it is. Please don’t make me do this.”
Lyra pouted and crossed her front legs. “Well, you’re no fun,” she mumbled, sticking her nose in the air.
“No. I’m not.”
Contrary to (what she assumed was) popular opinion, Rainbow Dash really did grasp what was at stake. In fact, that was half the reason she was so hyped up. It’d been way too long since she’d had a good adventure. The last time anything extraordinary happened to her was, what, Flurry Heart’s Crystalling? And that just involved a snowstorm. Big deal. This was Important.
The only real reason Rainbow was winging it was because she worked best while winging it. She had a plan. The rough outline of a plan. It was even a plan, not just “step 1: steal the Amulet”. First, they had to scope the place out, get an idea of the place they were heisting. (“Heist” was a cool word, punchy and sneaky at the same time.)
Actually, first they needed to know what place they were heisting.
The train had been traveling for a while, the landscape slowly growing less lush and more mountainous as they headed north. Supposedly, the next stop was Trotter Gorge. Rainbow was practically bouncing on her seat, ready to get moving. Starlight was sitting across from her, twisting her hoof around one of the locks of her mane, mumbling. “Why are we doing this? We are we doing this? Why are we do-”
Rainbow leaned forward and bopped Starlight on the muzzle. “Calm down, Starlight. We’ll do fine.”
“You said that already.” Starlight rubbed her nose.
“ ’Cause it’s true! Look, here’s something to get your mind off that: we still need a place to stay while, right? Let’s get a list of hotels. You and the others can find rooms for us, I’ll go and start reconning the casino.”
“Reconnoitering, and how do you know which casino to do it on?”
“I don’t. But how many casinos can there be in a small town like this?”
Starlight gave Rainbow Dash a Look and returned to staring out the window. Rainbow shrugged to herself. Pessimism was overrated.
The train rounded a curve and Trotter Gorge came into view. It was sitting on a long, broad plane at the top of a short cliff. Most of it was unassuming, the usual small town, but there was, of all things, a broad, expensive-looking tower in the middle of town. Rainbow guessed it was about twenty stories tall, give or take. Obvious place to heist? Obvious place to heist.
Once the train pulled into the station, Rainbow zipped out through one of the windows (to avoid the crowds) and snatched up a tourist brochure. She flipped through it, looking for- O-ho. The tower was the “Canyon Rim Casino and Hotel”. Promising. Any other casinos? She fanned through the brochure. Nope, no other casinos. That was easy! She jumped to the hotels. Short list, but it ought to be good. (As long as they avoided the casino, obviously.)
Rainbow Dash snatched up another brochure and zipped back to the train, where the others were only just now managing to get off. She smirked at Starlight. “List of hotels!” she said, holding up one of the pamphlets in Starlight’s face. “And the place we’re robbing is that big tower in the middle of town. I’ll be there.” She saluted and took off for the casino.
(Behind her, Starlight looked at the brochure, looked at Bon Bon, and said, “How’s she going to know which hotel we’re at?” Bon Bon groaned and facehooved.)
From the air, Trotter Gorge looked larger than Rainbow Dash had expected. Not much, but a bit more built-up and not quite so small-towny. But Bon Bon had said it was a trading hub, right? So it shouldn’t be nothing. A rift split the town in two, carved out over the years by a roiling river. Rainbow took in the basic street plan with a glance, then headed for the tower.
The Canyon Rim Casino was big, grandiose, overblown, and out-of-place in a town like this. It was right up next to the canyon, proving just how “creative” whoever named it was. The main entrance faced into Trotter Gorge, while a large deck took up the space between the building and the actual gorge. Nearly every surface was some shade of red.
Rainbow Dash circled the casino, not entirely sure what she was looking for. There were some ponies wearing security-guard-ish uniforms. There weren’t many windows on the bottom three floors. The sign over the front entrance was big and flashy, the entrance itself flanked by small fountains. There were steam-driven machines (not all that different from the design of the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy) driving around some of the streets. There was one entrance in front, one in back, and a few side doors, all watched by at least three guards. And-
“You ponies are all racist!”
No… She knew that voice…
“Ma’am, that was uncalled for, and-”
Not that one, the other one.
“If it was uncalled for, then stop being racist!”
That one. It sounded like-
“I’m not even sure it’s the right word-”
“I can use whatever word I dang well feel like and you saying otherwise is racist!”
“…Just go. I don’t have time to deal with you.”
“Good. Racist.”
Rainbow had narrowed down the source of the sound. She flew around the corner, descended to street level, and there she was: Gilda, of all griffons, was arguing with one of the security guards. They broke off and walked away from each other, Gilda heading towards Rainbow and rolling her eyes at the guard.
“Hey! Gilda!” said Rainbow Dash. She shot forward in excitement. So quickly that she forgot about slowing down and collided with Gilda. They got tangled together and fell to the ground in a tumble, much to the bemusement of onlookers.
“Gah!” squawked Gilda. “Son of a- Watch where you’re-” She forced her head around one of Rainbow’s wings and her beak dropped. “Rainbow Dash?!”
“Hi, Gilda,” said Rainbow. She wiggled slightly and disentangled the two of them. “Sorry about that,” she said with a giggle.
“Heh.” Gilda pushed down her headfeathers. “Nah, I know you didn’t mean it. You’re cool.” She turned in the guard’s direction. “Unlike some people!” She made a strange griffonic gesture at him with one claw.
“Were they being racist?” Rainbow asked, dropping her voice. “Or… specist- Speciesist? Whatever.”
“Not really,” whispered Gilda. She headed away from the building, Rainbow following. “But their boss, Gouda Feta or something, that loser’s gotten in trouble with ponies and griffons around here for actually being… for actually discriminating against griffons, so if you just scream discrimination, she’ll want to get rid of you as soon as possible.”
“I’ll keep- How long have you been here to learn that?”
“I- Ehm…”
“Actually, what’re you doing here in the first place?”
“It’s kind of-” Gilda squinted at Rainbow. “What’re you doing here? I thought you were going to the zebras or wherever.”
“That’s just Twilight,” said Rainbow, waving a hoof noncommittally. She lowered her voice even more. “I’m here for a heist!” Of course she could tell Gilda this. Gilda was a friend — no way she’d blab — and from the looks of things, she liked Goumada just as much as the rest of their motley crew; i.e., less than a root canal without anesthetics.
“…Okay,” Gilda said flatly, “who’d you hear about it from?”
“Hear about what?”
“You know what!”
“No I don’t!”
“Yeah you do! ’Cause there’s no way you’re coming to Casinotown, Nowhere at the same time as me without planning it!”
“Wait, you’re here for a heist, too?” Already, Rainbow Dash’s mind was racing almost as fast as her wings. If that was true, maybe-
“Whaddya mean, ‘too’?”
“…We’re heisting the Alicorn Amulet. What’re you heisting?”
Gilda blinked and looked away. “Idnwntkbtit.”
“C’mooooooon, Gilda!”
“Ntsyngnthn.”
“Pleeeaaase?”
Gilda whirled on Rainbow, her eyes looking particularly hawkish. “Fine. But don’t tell anyone, okay?” she snapped.
“Oh, yeah, yeah,” said Rainbow, making a mental note to tell Starlight ASAP. Help was help, right?
“Short version,” said Gilda. “Gouda Feta conned Griffonstone into giving her money for a bunch of worthless land and nobody cares enough to do anything about it, so I’m stealing the money back.”
“…Why’d you jump straight to theft?”
“ ’Cause.” Gilda shrugged.
That seemed reasonable. “You want some help?”
Gilda’s laugh sounded a lot like a caw. “And you just happen to-”
“Not just me!” protested Rainbow. “There’s like five other ponies with me. I told you we’re trying to get the Alicorn Amulet, right? You help us, we help you, you get your money, we get the Amulet, everyone wins! Except for Goumada, but that’s the point.”
Gilda clicked her beak a few times, then snorted. “Eh. What the heck. Sure. Ain’t like things can get that much worse.” They shook on it. “So, do you guys have a place to stay yet?”
“We’re working on it.”
“ ’Cause there’s a villa near here that a griffon family owns and they’re letting me use it. Cheaper than a hotel, anyway. Don’t mess things up too much and you can stay, too.”
Rainbow stared at Gilda, then laughed. “Heh. That’s convenient. Starlight’ll go nuts.”
“This is nuts,” Starlight muttered, staring at the building in front of her. It wasn’t anything particularly special, but it was free.
Rainbow had tracked them down as they left the second hotel (both it and the first one lacked room for the whole group), told them the whole story, and escorted them to the smallish property Gilda had called a villa. And while Starlight usually associated the term “villa” with houses in warmer properties (Louisianeigh, for instance, or Bitaly), this was definitely a villa. It had the larger-than-strictly-necessary yards, the slightly sprawling floor plan, the squattish design, the “keep out” perimeter wall that did nothing for determined intruders. It was old and could probably use a bit of cleaning, but looked perfectly functional.
“And this other griffon, Ginevra, she just gave it to you?” Starlight asked Gilda.
“To stay in, not to own. But why? Dunno.” Gilda shrugged as she wrestled with the rusty gate lock. “Maybe she just wanted to get rid of me ’cause I- Ha! Got it.” She shoved the gate open in a squeak of unoiled hinges. “Knock yourselves out,” she said, waving the group in.
As the other ponies filed in, Rainbow Dash pulled Starlight aside. “Now that you’re in, I’ve, uh, I’ve got something I need to do.”
“What kind of something?” Starlight asked.
Rainbow grinned. “You’ll see.”
“And you can’t tell me,” Starlight said, rolling her eyes, “because that’ll ruin the surprise, right?”
“Exactly!” Rainbow said brightly. Her voice turned a touch more serious. “But really, trust me. This’ll be great. Be back in an hour, alright?”
For the Element of Loyalty, Rainbow Dash had a very strange sense of loyalty, Starlight decided. Refusing to tell ponies about things because it would be cooler for them to be surprised, borderline narcissism, leaping before she looked no matter how much her friends cautioned her not to. And yet, she always came through in the end. A very strange sense of loyalty, yet loyalty nonetheless. “Alright. I guess I’ll… examine the villa.” What else was there to do yet?
“Great!” Rainbow saluted and rocketed away. Actually, to compare her to rockets would be high praise for the rockets.
Starlight entered the villa and immediately her nose began to itch. No one had been here in a while, and the procession of ponies and griffon was kicking up small clouds of dust. To be honest, given the way things had been going, Starlight wasn’t all that surprised that “clean up villa” had been added to her list of things to do, right under “do friendship reports”, “lose Alicorn Amulet”, and “panic” but before “continue panicking” and “steal Alicorn Amulet (somehow)”. Aside from the dust, the inside was pretty bare. It had the essentials with regards to furniture, a few tacky decorations, and not much else. At least the trim looked nice.
A lot of saddlebags had been dumped in the entry hall. Starlight followed suit. The ponies had dispersed throughout the house, although Gilda was lounging on one of the walls, looking bored, her tail flicking back and forth. Starlight decided the first thing to do was to get to semi-know the new addition to their little team. “Hey,” she said to Gilda. “Thanks for, uh, providing this place for us.”
Gilda shrugged. “Whatever.”
Do something do something do something, Starlight screamed at herself. “Do you, uh, know the ponies here?” Rainbow Dash had vaguely introduced Gilda to them and vice versa, but nothing major.
“Not really. Don’t care to.”
Here we go, friendship training. “Well, if we’re going to be working together, you need to know who you’re working with.” No response from Gilda. “So, um… I’m Starlight Glimmer, and I’m, uh, kinda the reason we’re here.” She attempted to smile and failed so miserably flowers were in danger of wilting.
“I heard.”
“Okay, so, why don’t we-”
Bon Bon slid around a corner, half-trotted half-cantered up to Gilda, and looked her straight in the eye in a way that implied she was quite close to snapping (in other words, normal for the past few days). “So where are the stairs?” she asked.
“The stairs?” Gilda asked skeptically.
“Yes. The stairs. The things used to go from one floor to another?”
“Um, hello? Griffon villa?” Gilda flared her wings. “We don’t do stairs.”
“So seventy percent of us are stuck on the first floor.” Bon Bon sighed and shook her head. “Super.”
Starlight declined to mention her own experience with flight for the moment. “Gilda,” she said quickly, “this is Bon Bon. She’s a candymaker-”
“I can tell,” cut in Gilda. “She’s just so sweet.”
“Oh, look,” said Bon Bon flatly. “My shoelace is untied two rooms over.” She flicked her tail and stomped out of the hall.
“…and she’s also a bit of a pessimist right now,” continued Starlight. “The whole, y’know, heist thing.” Gilda’s beak tightened, but when she didn’t say anything, Starlight pulled her in the opposite direction.
They wound up in the kitchen. Every cabinet and cupboard was open as the Doctor and Derpy combed through them. “Empty…” mumbled the Doctor. “Empty… Empty…” Hearing Starlight and Gilda enter the room, he looked up. “Ah! Starlight. And… Gilda, was it? Charmed. Anyway, good news and bad news, Starlight. Bad news: no food. I hope you enjoy shopping. Good news: we’ve got tea strainers.”
Derpy stood up from behind the counter. “And the icebox, stove, and oven all still work and we’ve got pans and plates and silverware. But the coffee grinder needs to be cleaned. It’s got dust everywhere.”
“Why would we need coffee?” the Doctor snorted. “We are in possession of tea strainers.”
“Because some ponies don’t like tea?”
The Doctor gasped. “That’s like not liking breathing! They must-”
As the Doctor and Derpy bickered good-naturedly, Starlight said, “That’s the Doctor-”
“Doctor who?” asked Gilda.
“Well, Dr. Hooves, actually, but we just call him the Doctor — I’m not sure why, to be honest — and that’s Derpy.”
“How much did her parents hate her?”
“MOVING ON.” Starlight practically shoved Gilda to the next room, a living room with a massive picture window and a huge couch Lyra was sprawled face-down on. “And, finally, this is Lyra. Lyra, this is Gilda.”
Lyra’s ears turned in their direction, but she otherwise didn’t move. “Huh Gihva.”
Gilda shot a Look at Starlight, who laughed nervously. “Is… Is something wrong?”
Lyra lifted her face up, just a little. “This is the best couch in the history of forever…” She rolled onto her back, grinning, eyes closed. “…and I never want to get up never ever.”
“Great team we’ve got, eh?” asked Gilda, her eyebrow raised.
“It’s fine, we’ll be fine,” said Starlight, convincing nobody.
“And, to be fair,” said Lyra, raising a hoof, “this is a damn fine couch.”
Gilda rolled her eyes. “Uh-huh, sure.” She jumped onto the couch next to Lyra. “So fine that- that…” She paused. “Oooh, wow,” Gilda muttered. “This is a comfy couch.” She wriggled a bit further into the cushion and spread her wings. And purred.
Starlight facehooved. “When you’re done,” she enunciated, “we should clean this place up a bit. I’ve never seen so much dust.”
“Yeah, sure, we’ll get to that,” said Lyra. “Eventually.”
Eventually, Starlight had managed to extricate Lyra and Gilda from the couch and corral them (and everypony else) into dusting the house down, or at least the first floor. Getting to the second floor still wasn’t an option for most ponies. There were a few “atriums” where someone who could fly could go up or down a story, but no stairs. As for the ground floor, cleaning it up took the better part of an hour and an awful lot of feather dusters. (Gilda had angrily announced that there was no way they were taking some of her feathers in case they ran out.) Still, they got it done eventually.
But all that work gave Starlight sufficient time to think about how they were really just putting off the real reason they were here, and the more time they wasted, the less time they had for actual heisting.
When all the surfaces were relatively dust-free, everybody was sort of drawn to the living room. Lyra, the Doctor, Derpy, and Gilda got suctioned to the sofa (enormous enough to fit all of them easily) and debated the finer points of couch potatoism. Bon Bon stared out the window, one of her hooves twitching. And Starlight paced back and forth over and over, waiting for Rainbow Dash to return. They needed everyone here to-
The front door slammed open, drawing everyone’s attention. “I’m back!” said Rainbow Dash brightly as she strode into the room. “And I brought friends!”
Starlight groaned internally. More ponies? It was as if Rainbow Dash didn’t know the definition of subtlety (which, okay, was actually a distinct possibility). Starlight turned to her to say something about discretion, only for the protest to die in her throat.
Sunburst was standing in the doorway, shuffling from hoof to hoof and nervously stroking his beard, standing alongside Thorax, currently in his little Crystal Hoof body but unmistakable from that forced smile. Rainbow Dash seemed altogether much too pleased with herself.
“Hi, um,” said Sunburst, “I, I’m Sunburst. I, I’m a friend of Starlight’s. And, um, this…” He and Thorax looked at each other. A second later, Thorax bobbed his head up and down by about an inch. “And,” Sunburst continued, pushing his glasses up his muzzle, “this, this is Thorax. He’s, he’s a changeling.”
“Hi, um,” said Thorax. “I’m Thorax.” His crystal pony body dissolved in a flash of blue into his changeling body. “I’m a changeling.” He did his best to smile warmly, which was complicated a bit by his fangs.
Gilda screeched, jumped several yards straight into the air, and dug her claws into the ceiling. Bon Bon shuffled three or four inches away. The Doctor yelped and somehow managed to fall over the back of the sofa. Derpy just waved. And Lyra hopped off the sofa, grinning broadly. “Hey!” said Lyra. She trotted up to Thorax and held out a hoof. “Twilight told us about you. You didn’t like stealing love and wanted true friendship instead, right?”
“Uh, yeah,” said Thorax. “The Hive, um… Let’s just say it’s not a nice place.” He nervously reached out and touched his hoof to Lyra’s.
“Well, you’re cool,” Lyra said, shaking hooves. She tilted her head a little to look at the holes in his leg. “You look awesome.”
Thorax twitched, bared his fangs and hissed, and clapped his hooves to his mouth, all within half a second. “Sorrysorrysorry!” he squeaked, shuffling away on his rump. “Instinct! Hardtocontrol! Sorry!”
By the time Lyra had registered Thorax’s actions, he was already apologizing. She laughed. “Oh, don’t worry about it, that’s fine. I’m Lyra-”
“So are we all just gonna ignore,” Gilda shrilled from the ceiling, “that he turned into a giant horse fly thing outta nowhere?!”
“He’s a changeling,” Lyra said, squinting up at her. “That’s kinda his thing.”
“Well, that’s just dandy and not creepy at all!”
“Gilda, Thorax is not going to hurt you,” said Starlight. “Get off the ceiling.”
“No thank you!” shrieked Gilda. “I’m staying right here, where-”
Starlight shot a spell at the ceiling; the plaster around Gilda’s claws crumbled. She fell halfway down, twisted around in the air, and managed to land on her feet. She scrambled to a corner of the room and glared at Thorax. Sunburst quickly stepped between Thorax and Gilda and said loudly, “HI! I’M SUNBURST! AND I-”
Rainbow Dash quickly waved Starlight aside. “Whaddya think?” she said, grinning. “I sent Sunburst a letter a few days ago. I figured we could use the help.”
“Rainbow…” said Starlight disapprovingly. The last thing she needed was even more ponies, particularly ponies close to her, knowing how badly she’d messed up. She’d never live this down at this rate. Was Rainbow going to just shout their plight from the rooftops? “He’s probably-”
“Well, we could!” protested Rainbow. “Sure, he’s not good at casting magic, but he’s super good at developing it, so if he makes the spells and you cast them, it’ll turn out great!”
“You dragged him-”
“I told him he didn’t need to come,” Rainbow said defensively. “He’s only here because he wants to be. And for the record, I didn’t say anything about him bringing Thorax. That’s all him.”
Starlight glanced at the newly-arrived pair, who appeared to be going through introductions. Okay, so it was nice to see Sunburst again. Okay, so his magical knowledge would be useful. Okay, so having a changeling on the team would be a very very very very valuable asset. Okay, so maybe their being here wasn’t the worst thing in the world. “Fine,” she said, “but-” But what? Rainbow was Loyalty. Her heart was in the right place, at the very least.
“But what?” Rainbow asked.
“Nothing.”
Rainbow didn’t reply, and suddenly Starlight was aware of just how quiet the room was. She glanced at the others; introductions seemed to have finished up, and everypony was waiting for somepony else to say something.
After a moment, Bon Bon cleared her throat. “Alright,” she said. “We’re all here. We’ve got a mission. We need to start making a plan.”
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is doctor whooves actually in this?
This was a nice chapter and I was surprised by Gilda's presence and her reaction to Thorax though her rudeness is unsurprising. Though given how Griffonstone is Gilda's behavior maybe polite by their standards.
Interesting to see that Bonbon considers that a possibility.
I'm honestly impressed that Dash has enough self-awareness to recognize other ponies might think she's clueless.
This is all the more amazing when one considers that pony shoes don't work that way.
Well, someone had to say it.
I do like the feline behavioral elements you're giving Gilda. Nice touches.
The gang's all here, apparently. Now comes the tricky part.
1. Go to Casino
2. Improvise
3. Alot
Will they take the couch home once they're finished here?
That is the most amazing couch in all existence. Clearly we have found the true treasure of this story.
Has anyone seen that episode of the animated series The Tick where the villain is an evil upholsterer whose master plan is to make a couch so comfortable that anyone who sits in it basically goes brain dead? I bet with minimal effort they could improve this couch to that point and trick Goumada into sitting in it, and they'd win automatically.
Gah-hahaHahaha! I've never heard someone describe a changling as a horse fly before, and it's making me laugh more than it should!
As the Doctor and Derpy bickered good-naturedly, Starlight said, “That’s the Doctor-”
“Doctor who?” asked Gilda.
Lol I see what you did there I like that reference like that was like the ultimate question to any Doctor Who series
Well things are going a little too smoothly and they got more creatures to join in so they were on their way to the small town where the casino is Bonbon is still kind of worried about this whole situation and she's not the only one starlight was also kind of worried about this as well and once they got there they were going to find a hotel to stay while they figure out how to plan a heist and Rainbow dash wanted to Recon the casino which it looks like it's pretty heavily guarded but it looks like rainbow just bump into one of her old friend Gilda the Griffin apparently she really wants to get the money back from the Casino so rainbow ask her to join with them and somehow she accepted and she also have a house or whatever that they can use which unfortunately it's meant for Flyers which that's going to be a problem for ponies who has no wings and the house is a mess so they clean it up but then rainbow came back again and even bringing another Pony and a changeling in Sunburst and thorax joining in which it had mixed feelings on the changeling but somehow Derpy and Lyra are okay with him around so with that said now all they got to do is to come up with a plan this should be very interesting
I'm surprised Bon Bon didn't try to attack Thorax, considering her former employment with S.M.I.L.E.