RoMS' Extravaganza

by RoMS

2014 project - Sons and Girls of the Badlands - 2 v1

Story

[ α Ω α ]

We stood in front of a massive marble building that bore the mark of the two sisters. As the night’s breeze blew through our furs and manes, we shared grins and amused looks. Two royal guards lay unconscious on the ground. Kril cracked a giggle and stretched her exoskeleton with her translucent wings buzzing with satisfaction. The changeling mare winked at me with her bluish-glowing eyes.
“The bodies? What’re we going to do with them?” Macahauilt bashed angrily as he pointed his finger at the first guard.
I eyed him big. He was noisy and we were supposed to keep low profile.
“It’s not like that they’re not going to wake up at some point,” Maca continued, whispering. “They gonna make a fuss. Leaving them just… here… it’s stupid, Kril.”
Disgruntled, Maca stretched his hand-tail and dragged the second guard closer to his fainted comrade. Ahuizotls made so great scoundrels and Maca was a benediction from our cunning, shining star. With his dark blue fur, he was hard to distinguish in the dead of the night. The moonlight that poured on the two yellow markings that travelled along his back was the only gave-way that he was here.
“Dammit,” Maca growled. “They’re fucking fat.”
Our little dramaqueen was not very sneaky.
“Let’s do a barbeque,” Kril giggled softly, rubbing her holed hooves together before she prodded the nearest guard’s flank.
Maca and I glared daggers at her.
“What…?” she defended, throwing her hooves over her cocked up head. “I’m. Just. Joking.”
Maca shook his head and looked at me with his eyes, starkly yellow in moonshine.
“Can’t you dig a hole and dump the two down the bottom?” he asked me.
I looked at my paws and stretching the claws out I grunted.
“I’m not a savage, Maca,” I spat lowly. “I may be a sand dog, but I ain’t burying ponies alive.”
“What are you doing?” a fourth voice berated behind us.
Kril, Maca, and I jumped up with a gasp. In an instant, Kril had reached out for her knife sheathed under her green belly and Maca had pulled a small baton from his strapped bag.
One pony was facing us, hidden in the shadow of one of the nearby columns that circled the building. We fall into scoundrel stance – which was a common street-slang for running away like chickens. We were tense.
“Come on. It’s me, idiots,” the mare hissed.
A light blue unicorn slipped out of the darkness. Her slightly glittering, purple cap was waving behind her as she closed in.
“Trixie,” Kril gargled. “Don’t do that!”
“You’re sitting butts,” Trixie scolded back. “What are you…”
She looked down at the two knocked-out royal guards and stopped cold in her track. She sighed and buried her face in her hoof.
“Luna…” she muttered.
“Does the Great and Powerful Trixie have an idea on how to deal with those two?” Maca teased back.
Trixie’s backside slopped in a thump as her bottom hit the ground. With a hoof on her chest, she breathed in and out slowly. I could even hear her heart bumping. It was her first time after all.
“Why did I agree to come?” she complained slightly louder than the whispering tone we had kept all along.
“Hey, we saved your ass back in the Badlands,” I mentioned with Maca agreeing with a smirk next to me. “You owe us one.”
The mare rolled her eyes and pouted.
“Hush!” Kril commanded as she pulled Maca’s pocket watch out of his bag. “There is a patrol every ten minutes around the building. The next one is set to come in three minutes. Remember the plan? Stick to the plan.”
I nodded and looked back at the two unconscious ponies.
“I…” I started.
“I have an idea,” Kril cut me off. “Help me out.”
Without a word, we dragged the two ponies away from the building entrance and left them beneath a nearby boutique that had been built on short stilts. Canterlot had such weird architectures sometimes. Who would build a house on stilts… on a mountain?!
After Kril had stripped the guards from their armours, she swiftly slid her hoof in my backpack and took one of my ropes.
“Make yourself at home,” I sneered.
She winked at me and began to lick her straight, black lips. I hated her when she did that, acting like she was all thug and stuff, landlord of our bags and shit… I sighed.
After she worked on the first stallion, tying him to one of the wooden piles, she drifted her attention on the second guard. She stared at the remains of the rope and her eyes narrowed. A wicked grin drew on her face and she chuckled. This time rummaging through her own saddlebag, she pulled out one single bottle… Whiskey.
“I’m sorry,” Kril apologised with some kind of deep religious respect. “May you find rest once life is drained out of ya.”
With a pop, Kril opened the bottle and spilled the content all over the two stallions. Then, she dragged the second guard, still untied and let him rest over his strapped comrade. Maca gave a short laugh. Kril was, however, still unhappy.
She looked at me, then at Maca. Finally she winked at Trixie who prudely grimaced and looked away, foreshadowing what was sure to happen. We shared Kril’s wide and smug grin as she took the empty bottle and stuck it up in the untied stallion’s manly flower. With such a job done, it was really hard not to laugh.
Meanwhile, the Royal guard patrol had finally reached the building’s corner and started walking along the massive stairs that led to its huge and pristine porch. Each scanned their surroundings with their torches yet they never caught up on the fact that guards had gone missing. Meanwhile we hid, enjoying our luck.
As we waited for them to disappear, I spent much time studying the building’s architecture. It was a massive five-storey high marble construction which colonnades stretched out all around it. It was that kind of classical era type of building I’d say, all majestic and pompous and probably a thousand years old. The tympanum, decorated with warmongering sculptures, sported three massive words: Equestria Central Bank.
“Sit on a dragon’s log!” Kril growled through her gritted fangs.
“What?” Maca whispered.
Kril had been silently picking out any items the guards had in their armours and equipment. She was definitely angry.
“The key,” she rumbled. “They don’t have it.”
“The key…?” I began, “… of the front door?”
I shot a look back at the bank’s carved, ebony door. Fuck.
“So,” Trixie initiated, febrile, “are we still going with plan A?”
“No,” Maca broke in the conversation. “We can’t use the guards to our advantage now. Thanks to Dire Teeth, here. Thank him and his heavy paws.”
My ears hung low and I sheepishly smiled.
“Sorry,” I mouthed.
“What do we do, now?” Trixie breathed shakily.
“Calm down first,” Kril brought out with a grunt.
She paused, breathed in, and looked at the stars hung in the sky.
“We missed the first opening,” Kril mentioned. “We can’t go through the front door anymore. We don’t have the key anyway. We can’t hack our way through; Teeth is as noisy as Trixie is egomaniac.”
Trixie and I tried to set the big-mouthed changeling on fire with our glares.
“I don’t want to go through the sewers,” Trixie whined after a long silence.
Kril shook her head, staring unfocused at the ground.
“No,” the changeling said just before her glowing eyes rose and locked on Maca and I. “I hope you like climbing.”
We both grimaced at the same time. I was okay to be standing up on a ladder, a chair, whatever… but climbing, that was a no-no.
“Clench yo butts, kids,” Kril said as she pointed at the bank’s roof. “We’re going for a ride.”
Kril smiled and gave Maca and I a small slap behind the head. We whined.
We… I. Hated. Climbing. At least, I had an excuse. I was a sand dog! And even though I was an educated one, I belonged to the underground. Walking on the surface still had me on edge. How could ponies or anybody walk up around there without a ceiling above their head? What if… what if suddenly we all started falling upward? Damn physics scare!
“Hey?” Kril called me out of my reverie with a second slap behind my head.
We had climbed up one of the building’s pillars. I had to lift myself up there with my claws deeply buried in the stone. It would have been easier if I hadn’t had a wiggling unicorn clogged up on my back.
“Damn you’re heavy, Trixie,” I panted, my head between my legs.
“Humpf!” Trixie pouted away, her chin pointing at the starry sky.
“So?” I growled between two breaths as I looked at Kril. “Why did you took us up there?”
“You’ve got pretty sharp claws, don’t you?” she asked me with a smirk.
I showed up my middle claw to join proof to the word. She nodded with that same stupid grin cast on her face. I didn’t like where it was going.
“Come with me,” Kril ordered.
As we followed, my glare wandered across Canterlot’s skyline. From our high position, we had a good view on the city. Similarly, the view on the castle was breath-taking and though it was very late at night, some rooms were still lit up. Somehow I missed how it was like… living in luxury. The four of us were hoodlums, outcasts… sometimes outlaws. We lived out of the derelicts of the society. But today, this all would end. We had a plan, and even if it wasn’t perfect before the sun would rise, we would be rich.
“If I remember the map we stole,” Kril thought out loud, “Here. Dig a hole here.”
Kril lifted one of the roof tile, unveiling the wood plank that lay below. With the tip of her hoof, she drew a small circle on it.
“Saw it off,” Kril ordered.
With my left claw buried in the wood so that the sawed-off part wouldn’t fall and alert anypony below, I unsteadily began to cut it out with my other paw. I instantly stopped and cringed at how noisy the process was.
“Trixie?” I called. “Don’t you have something for… the sound?”
The blue unicorn rubbed her right eyebrow, thinking about it. After a dozen of seconds, she dragged a little book out of her bag, opened it on the tiled floor, and flipped through the pages.
“I think I have something,” she finally answered.
After a few minutes spent trying and wasting her sweat, Trixie’s horn finally glowed bright and we enjoyed a short moment of nearly unaltered silence. Without a pop, I ripped out a thick, roughly round piece of wood off the rooftop. It was big enough that we could see what lay beneath.
We were right above a lit up corridor. The floor was littered with crimson carpet and the walls were decorated with paintings enclosed in massive golden frames.
“Give me some space,” Maca asked.
Taking a pocket mirror out of his own bag, Maca slipped it in the opening, holding it with his tail like only ahuizolts could do.
“There is nobody down here,” he concluded after looking at the reflection.
“Fine,” Kril said. “Do you see a window? I don’t want us to cut out a bigger hole in the roof. That’s a give-away.”
“Yep,” Maca replied. “But it’s too small for Dire’s fat ass.”
“Hey!” I boomed.
Trixie’s eyes widened as clanging noises broke out on the streets below.
“Somepony’s been roof-walking again!” a voice called out. “Don’t let that Mare-Do-Well fly away again!”
“Mare-Do-Well?” Krill wondered with a cocked-up eyebrow.
“Hurry up!” Trixie panicked, kicking me in the flank.
I resumed cutting out the roof, breaking the tiles that barred us access one after the other. I finally broke open a hole of Trixie’s size who swiftly jumped in and crashed over the carpet below. Kril followed up and landed right on the unicorn’s comfy rear with a giggle.
“Sorry,” Kril apologized as she dragged a distraught Trixie away from the landing position.
Meanwhile, Maca and I worked relentlessly to get a hole large enough for both of us.
“What are you doing!?” a new voice barked just in front of us.
Slowly, we both looked up and our eyes met the piercing glare of a pegasi stallion, wearing the tight Wonderbolt uniform. As we stared in silent at each other, he slowly reared up on his two backlegs and lifted his hooves above his head. Maca and I gulped.
Kril jumped from beneath. Propelled by her buzzing wings, she hit the stallion right between the legs. Maca and I cringed and gargled at the sight. The stallion didn’t even gasp. His eyes bulged and rolled over as he gagged with a bit of frothing drooling from his hung-open mouth. The pegasus slumped over and fell through the hole. His face hit first the carpet in a small thump.
Hovering with just her head hanging through the hole, Kril looked at us with a sickening and toothy smile. Maca and I stepped back, protecting our family jewels. She smirked and with a little gesture of her head motioned us to move down.
“Come on,” she cackled before she arched up one of her chitineous eyebrow. “Afraid to be geld.”
“More than anything,” I replied as I fell in the hole.
Maca followed behind.
“What are we going to do with the hole?” Trixie muttered. “It’s not like the wonderbolts aren’t going to notice it or…”
Trixie looked at the febrile and passed-out stallion slumped on the ground with a grimace. Kril was already tying him up, putting a bit of carpet in his mouth to keep him put.
“Or a missing comrade…”
“I may have an idea,” Maca retorted.
The corridor was lit with a long series of candles, throwing everything into a stark fanciness. Maca rushed around and left behind nothing but fuming, put out wicks. Soon we were drowning in darkness. I guess without lights pouring through, a hole was going to be less visible.
“Well,” Kril smirked, her eyes glowing like lamps, “I don’t know if you come with in-built night vision but I do.”
“I do too,” Maca added.
Trixie and l looked at each other’s general direction. At least I could see her outlines. Trixie however… that was another challenge.
“Eeh… guys,” I called out.
I pointed my claw at Trixie who had clamped up on my leg. Kril flew up to us.
“So, pupil one and pupil two, hold your hooves and do not let go. Would be a shame to lose you up on the way down to wealth and glory,” she mused.
I smiled, hearing Trixie sticking her tongue out at the changeling.
“Creep,” the unicorn whispered.
At this time of the night, the bank was completely empty. Only weary guards roamed its corridors. They weren’t a problem to be honest… The parquet however. It creaked like my grandmother’s rusty ankles and it had to creak all the wall down to the first floor. We were lucky though. One guard had been sleeping on duty. A second one was too busy humping the girlfriend he’d sneaked in the place. The third one wasn’t even a guard, just a simple accountant from an obscure treasury team, far too focused on closing his fiscal year to hear us creaking around him. All in all, this bank was a big cheese-holed pile of gold. Let us blame pacific ponies that have never known the wickedness of the Badlands.
At one point though, Maca had to choke out cold one guard. The unlucky stallion had been doing his own stuff in the toilets. He had unfortunately caught us red-pawed while we were putting out the nearby candles. His face when he had opened the toilet door had been a mix between panic, surprise, and unconsciousness... Maca’s large hands had done their work on him. We left the guard in a fancy wooden locker.
Though the bank had a big name on the front porch, we had expected it to be an easy target. It had been two hundred years since the last time somepony tried such a cocky stick-up. We were sure to break the tradition that very night.
“Hey, guys!” Kril called as we closed by corner. “Look at the beauty.”
Kril had found a massive mirror. Bolted to the wall on our left, it stretched all the way up to the next corner where a sign mentioned one among many staircases.
If changelings are mostly brainless drones, I can testify before a court under a oath that the one remaining percent of those mind-gifted insects do make it up in terms of ego. I buried my head in my head, trying to avoid watching Kril waving her belly in front of the mirror.
“I’m such a shame,” she smirked at me, “aren’t I, sweetie puppy?”
“You’re a walking embarrassment,” I retorted.
“Because I’m worth it,” the changeling cackled, throwing her messy, pitch-black and dark turquoise mane behind her horn and ears.
As I stood in the middle of the hallway, I let Trixie and Maca pass by me. The Unicorn had finally shaken off the quirks and shivers she’d experienced in the street. Though her cape hid the major part of her leather saddlebags, one bump in the fabric acknowledged she still had her hat neatly folded in there. Since she had nicked it up in the Badlands where we’d found her, she had grown very protective of it. I still wondered why she kept that cape, with all those flashy stars and all. It wasn’t a good outfit for a yet-to-be good burglar.
I laughed to myself… As if Kril, Maca, and I had ever been good at that game. At least, I hoped that would change that very night.
Maca called me out of my reverie and motioned to me to move forward. With his baton slowly clicking against his shoulder bag as only background noise, I looked at the mirror. I met my own yellow eyes, small between my large and furry eyebrows. My white fur contrasted badly with the crimson walls and carpet and my relatively small and anaemic build for a sand dog gave me a ghostly look. Maybe could I have scared ponies away for fun, who knew? I just wore a ripped apart linen short and my only possession was my loyal long and thin wooden box, strapped to my back like a backpack. I smiled; this sole item of mine had seen a good load of travel. Twenty years it had belonged to me.
“You’re alright, Teeth?” Trixie asked, making me jump.
“Yeah,” I lied. “Just checking on my health.”
Sticking a claw in my mouth, I stretched my cheek to see the bottom of my dentition. No tooth decay. Never had one anyway.
“Come on, then,” Trixie hesitated. “The stairs goes down to the hall. There’s nobody in sight. The vault is down in the basement.”
I nodded and followed. The basement was deprived of all the fanciness we had experienced above. The bland, white concrete walls were flacking away and only one corridor led to a one single massive, twenty-ton heavy, round-shaped steel door. The cherry on the cake? The was just one guard standing behind a metallic counter. Unfortunately, he saw us before we did.
“You shall not pass,” he said shakily, pointing his spear at us.
“Yeah, sure,” Kril mocked out loud.
The guard was pinned between the massive steel door of the bank’s vault and us. He had absolutely no way out. In panic, he reached out to something under his desk. Kril blasted forward instinctively and slammed into the guard. Both hit the wall and sent specks of paint flying aloft.
Kril shot a glare back at under the counter and screamed in rage. Dropping the shaken up guard, she kicked the counter over. Ripping its top, she revealed a series of cables that had been linked to a red button.
“Classic,” Maca growled.
“What do you mean classic?” Trixie urged.
“How long?!” Maca asked, not paying heed at Trixie.
“Five minutes at most!” Kril blared back. “Teeth, Maca? Get over with the door.”
We ran and clung up to the metal wheel that throned in the middle of it. Kril engulfed herself in bright turquoise flame and melted away into the shape of a big male griffon. Trixie had positioned herself at the entrance of the vault antechamber, spying for any sign of activity.
We gave three… Five… Seven turns to the wheel until a breath of air washed over our faces. Grunting, we dragged the vault’s door aside. When it was large enough to let Maca go in, we stopped and ushered forward.
“Trixie!” Kril called out.
“Nopony yet,” we heard back.