Twilight Steals a Watch

by Stygius Nix

Preparations

Plundering her many wooden filing cabinets, Twilight raced around the room for designated ‘planning paper’ while a multitude of stationery supplies followed her like a swarm of bees bathed in a lavender hue. There was a plethora of charts and graphs already strewn about the room but none of them seemed to make any sense, at least to anyone who wasn’t Twilight Sparkle.

Once she had all she needed to begin planning, Twilight collected all the important information out of the newspaper article she could. She began to read aloud as her enthusiasm got the better of her, “Location: ‘Celestia’s Bottom’, Canterlot. Time: eleven-thirty — I’ll have to get in and snatch the watch before Celestia’s Bottom opens to avoid being spotted, and to reduce the number of ponies that can say that the watch was there, then I can destroy the evidence of it ever being there at all. Oh, right, to do that I need to have a map of the building and find out where their office is located; I think it’s time to use these wings for something other than flying. This is so exciting!”

After jotting down all the information she had at hoof, Twilight wrote out a quick formal letter to the curator asking for the building layout sent to her for ‘archiving’ — as she put it. The letter disappeared with a pop of magic. Unfortunately, the letter would be evidence of Twilight wanting to know about the floor plans; so Twilight, being the smart pony she was, put a gradual destruction spell on it; after a few days it would be gone — reduced to atoms.

Deciding she had nothing else to do until she got a reply for her request, she locked the doors to her planning room and headed into town to grab lunch.

Twilight happily meandered across the Ponyville market. She made her way towards the Hayburger restaurant with pep in her step until what she thought was a cyan feather pillow knocked her to the ground. That was until the blue pillow asked if she was all right.

“Wha?” Twilight said dumbly as her brain rebooted.

“I asked if you were alright. So, are you?” Rainbow Dash asked as she tried to keep her composure at the sight of her friend planted upside down with her horn stuck in the dirt.

“Ugh, I feel cold, I think I’m dying. Bury me with my money…” Twilight proclaimed as she used some of the drama lessons Rarity gave her and went limp.

“Hah! Twi, you legally have no money since you get an allowance from the crown to use each month. And the ground does tend to be cold, so ya know,” Dash reasoned before freezing as she realised how their roles have been reversed. “Hey! I’m not allowed to say smart things and you’re not allowed to be dumb. I think we both must’ve hit our heads pretty hard, huh?”

“Dash, you’re not dumb. You just have brain damage from crashing all the time,” Twilight bantered snarkily before she took on a more caring tone once she was back on four hooves. “But you are definitely not dumb; think about it, you’re smart enough to get into the Wonderbolts and whenever you say anything sarcastic or make a joke, more often than not, it makes sense and you put thought into it.”

Rainbow Dash looked up from the hole created by Twilight’s horn and smiled thankfully at Twilight before shrugging off the sappiness of their conversation — Twilight was known to do little friendship speeches that were pretty heavy, so Rainbow perked up when Twilight managed to do it with a bit of jest and informality. “Thanks, Twi, that means a lot coming from you. Anyway, do you want to come to Hayburger with me?”

“I’d like that, it just so happens that I was heading there myself,” Twilight said as she began stretching her limbs like a cat to relieve some of the pain and built-up pressure from the crash. She began to trot ahead when an idea popped to mind, causing her to stop and grin over her shoulder. “Race you there!”

---

After Twilight and Rainbow crashed through the doors of Hayburger and had lunch together, causing a few of the patrons with identical manecuts to obnoxiously yell at the manager, they went their separate ways to what they needed to do — Twilight needed to stash some bits away in case she was removed from power and Dash needed to nap.

Twilight had just closed the doors to her castle when a loud crash on the other side of the main doors interrupted the silent crystal halls. Wondering what in Equestria the source was, Twilight begrudgingly opened the door again. Her face scrunched up slightly and her eyes widened as she discovered that it wasn’t a meteor that crashed into her door but something — or somepony — even more destructive, Derpy.

The mail mare shook off her daze, making her eyes briefly align before they drifted apart again, and then nuzzled through her saddlebags. “Hey, Twilight, I got mail for you from Canterlot. I tried to catch you before you closed the door… but you kinda closed it on me,” Derpy chirped before she pulled out a letter and a blue scroll.

“Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry Derpy, I didn’t see —” Twilight’s apology was stopped short when she noticed the blue scroll. She immediately grabbed the letter and scroll in her telekinesis and ran inside. She then reappeared a couple of seconds later with a small pouch of bits and tossed them to the muffin mare.

“Umm, thank you Twilight. But you don’t have to tip post ponies, so you can have them back,” Derpy tried to say but half her words landed on wooden ears when Twilight closed the door on her again. She sighed before picking up the purse in her teeth and putting it on her back, deciding to use the bits to buy Dinky a birthday present from Twilight.

Back in the castle, Twilight blinked straight into her planning room and flattened out the blueprint on a drawing board. Snatching a pencil and stool, Twilight sat in front of the building plans and opened the letter.

Dear Princess Twilight Sparkle,

I would like to personally thank you for taking an interest in our business, despite the unusual request, and I hope to receive more requests in the future. The blueprint attached is a copy of the building plans and shows a completely detailed map of the building and the premises: all up-to-date, of course.

Kind regards,

Shoddy Silver

Twilight appreciated the letter, but raised an eyebrow at the name ‘Shoddy Silver’. Twilight felt a twinge in her chest when she realised that she won’t be archiving anything and she won’t be sending any more requests, but they would send the same response to any ‘archivist’ so it wasn’t personal — it was just business.

So, it was just business when Twilight picked up a match and set fire to the incriminating letter.

The ashes spiralled in the air and landed on the floor in a grey heap, creating a rather ugly centrepiece. Being the neat freak she is, it wasn’t surprising when Twilight fetched a broom and recited her sweep song. “Sweep, sweep, sweep. Sweep. Sweep… Sweep,” a particularly stubborn lump of ash built its house squat on the stone floor. “Grrrr, SWEEP!”

After a brutal war between mare and ash, Twilight was left victorious at the cost of a broom. Twilight had used all of her enhanced earth pony strength in a final last-ditch effort with the broom; rewarding her with the ash retreating under a desk and the shaft of the broom snapping like a biscuit.

Getting back on track, Twilight sat back down and began making notes about the building. Her plan was forming before her eyes with various notes and drawings. As time went on, the Sun began its descent — as did Twilight’s eyelids and, eventually, her face unto the desk.

The Moon sat up from the blanket of the horizon and stretched its legs to walk across the navy blue sky. It splashed stars across the sky as it went, some falling as they failed to stick to the black canvas of night. If you squinted enough or were drunk enough, you might’ve seen a smile on its face as it looked down at Twilight Sparkle snoozing on a desk.

Twilight’s eyes fluttered open as moonbeams lanced in through the windowpane and assaulted her face. Scowling over at the empty cup of coffee on the table next to her, Twilight scolded it for failing her.

Six hours were spent planning, and eventually memorising, for Saturday. But Twilight had no idea how long she had nodded off for. A platinum pocket watch appeared in front of her muzzle, held in a weak magic field. Flipping it open, Twilight smiled at the family portrait before grimacing as she saw the positions of the hands next to it.

“Ten-thirty, that means I only have three days and... thirteen hours until the heist. I was hoping to have more time, and now I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to ask Rarity to make my new stealth suit. Unless…” — Twilight briefly considered going back in time to tell her not to fall asleep — “nope, not doing that again, I think I’ve had more than my fair share of time travel for this decade. I’ll just have to pay Rarity overtime,” Twilight reasoned with herself.

Deciding to call it quits, Twilight staggered to the door while she left the organised chaos behind her to deal with tomorrow. Twilight’s big brain was spamming the snooze button as she stared at the door handle, expecting something to happen. She reached out a tired hoof and, after the third try, grabbed the handle and squeezed it.

But nothing happens.

The door was just how she left it when she went for lunch, locked. So, abandoning her efforts, Twilight stepped up to the windowsill and threw open the window with the back of her hoof. She flared her wings. The darkness would surely aid her in finding the light of her bedroom.

Embracing her inner moth pony, Twilight took off into the night with a single flap of her wings. The purple wings cut through the darkness, smacking the belly out of the air and causing the window to shut behind them. With that single flap, the light became far more intense with half the distance covered. The night air was so cold that it managed to wake Twilight up a bit and give her the energy she needed to make up the difference. She landed with half-lidded eyes and a frazzled mane.

She couldn’t even remember getting into bed when the silken covers found themselves resting over her withers. Her eyelids slid down like butter in a pan as she quickly began to nod off.

---

Twilight came out of the vivid colours of a dream about Spike and Rarity to pale darkness. She was awake, that was for sure, but why couldn’t she see? An approaching thump in her ear began to quicken as she lay there in bed, stock-still. Losing her sight was Twilight’s newest fear.

Straining her eyes, Twilight tried to lift her eyelids but was met with some resistance. Tentatively lifting her hooves to her eye, she started to push her eyelids away from each other. Although, when she felt crumbs on her hoof, she stopped. Her breathing calmed down as she realised the situation anew. Her eyes had crusted over.

Gently, Twilight rubbed at her eyelids and was soon greeted with the sight of her chambers but she didn’t take in the sight long before she threw herself out of bed. Almost having a panic attack sure does wake a pony up.

The sound of a hinge in need of oiling and the patter of scaly feet swiftly followed a knock at the door. “Morning Twi, did you enjoy your lay in?” Spike asked as he wheeled in a cart of pancakes and berries. “I brought you breakfast in case you were planning on being lazy all morning.”

“Thanks, Spike, it looks really good. Say, do you know the time?” Twilight asked as she levitated a plate of berry covered pancakes to the table on the balcony.

“Just after eleven, but don’t worry though, I got up at ten.”

“Okay, wow, looks like I’ll be in a bit of a rush this morning,” Twilight said as she made her way towards the table only to stop when she realised the pressure of her bladder. “But first I need to freshen up a bit,” Twilight said, changing direction.

“And take a whizz?” Spike pointed out, noticing his adoptive sister’s pained expression.

“That too,” Twilight finally said as she shut the bathroom door.

After the flush of the loo and the hasty brushing of teeth, Spike — with half a pancake hanging out his mouth — witnessed Twilight exit the bathroom a tad more chipper. She sat down and completely ignored the knife and fork, tucking into the sweet breakfast with just her chompers.

Spike just rolled his eyes; living with Twilight all his life had revealed to him parts of her that others seldom get to see, one of them being her table manners. That’s why he would never see Twilight as anything other than his crazy big sister, although nopony who saw her just then would ever see her as a princess again — other than the Princess of Pancakes.

Shining silver plates sat before the two, looking licked clean — maybe they had. “Hey, Spike, you wanna hear about my dream last night?” Twilight asked with a beard of cream that would give Starswirl a run for his bits — yep, definitely licked clean.

“We both know that nopony wants to hear about another pony’s dreams; they don’t make sense to anypony else and just makes you look weird,” Spike stated as he stacked the plates and stood up.

“It was about you and Rarity,” Twilight said nonchalantly with a smirk, not moving from her seat.

Spike sat back down.

After a quick, but very detailed retelling of her dream, Spike was left with a full-body blush and conflicting feelings about his sister. As a result, Twilight failed to make further contact with Spike after recovering from her giggling fit so she decided to just get on with the rest of her day.

A couple of seconds after closing her bedroom door, there was the sound of the opening and closing of the en-suite door. Shaking her head, Twilight started down the hall.

---

Twilight was just about to knock on the door to the Carousel Boutique when the door opened, nearly pushing her off balance. The door had opened to reveal a snowy unicorn mare, known as Rarity. Twilight smiled happily at her in greetings.

“Twilight, darling, I was expecting you,” Rarity said with a smile before she turned around to lead Twilight into her shop.

Her smile dipping into a frown, Twilight felt paranoia creep into her thoughts. How does she know? Does she know? Who else knows? Did somepony tell her? Who? I thought I was being careful. “How did you know that I was planning on —?”

“Coming to my shop? I saw you heading this way through the upstairs window. So, how can I help you?” Rarity asked politely from behind a counter.

Letting out a breath she hadn’t realised she was holding, Twilight quickly trotted up to the counter. “I need you to make me something… off the books,” Twilight whispered over the counter.

“Off the books, my, whatever are you up to, Twilight?”

“It’s best if you didn’t know.”

Digging through her saddlebags, Twilight pulled out a scroll of paper and passed it to Rarity. Cocking an eyebrow, Rarity proceeded to flatten out the paper on the desk. Detailed drawings of a full-body suit dotted the paper with a quick summary of the specifications for it.

“This is very detailed, Darling. Hmm, yes, I think I might be able to get this done for Friday. I just need your new measurements since it’s going to be skin-tight,” Rarity requested.

“New? I didn’t think I put on that much weight,” Twilight grumbled as she peered back at her flanks.

“Oh, of course not, it’s just because the last time I updated your whole body measurements was when you were still a unicorn.”

Rarity proceeded to head upstairs to her fitting room, followed closely by Twilight. Stepping up on the shallow plinth in the centre of the room, Twilight allowed Rarity to make a few quick — and slightly invasive — measurements. “Are we done?”

“Just need to make one more measurement,” Rarity sung as she lifted Twilight’s tail and stretched a measuring tape across the Princess of Friendship’s butt.

“Was that last one really necessary?” Twilight asked with annoyance and stepped off the platform.

“Why, of course, Darling. You don’t want your suit to rip there; you’d get quite the draft,” Rarity laughed while jotting down the measurements on a notepad.

“I suppose. Thank you for this, there isn’t anypony I would trust more with this. How much will I owe you?” Twilight said as she began to riffle through her bag of bits.

“I want ten per cent of the cut.”

“Rarity, that’s not what’s going on.”

“Wait, you’re not robbing a bank?” Rarity asked in confusion.

“No, that’s Celestia’s thing. I’m just acquiring a specific item to keep it out of the wrong hooves,” Twilight cleared up as she played with the bits in her magic, subconsciously ordering them in stacks of value.

“Like Daring Do?”

“Sure, if that’s how you want to think of it. Just don’t tell anyone.”

“Well, I can’t say I’m not worried… but I trust that you know what you’re doing. All I can say is that I wish you all the luck in your quest. Oh, and you owe me fifty bits.”

Twilight place a stack of fifty bits down on her dressing table and, after waving goodbye to Rarity, went back downstairs into the main shop. Making sure she had hadn’t left anything behind; Twilight looked over herself and her surroundings before leaving the shop to go home.

---

It was Friday morning and all the birds had awoken from their roosts to sing in celebration of a new day. Similarly, the Ponyville early birds had already started going to work. From the window, ponies could be seen setting up their stalls in the market and putting fresh produce on their shop’s displays.

Rarity smiled enviously at those ponies; they had so much energy in the mornings to do that every day with nothing but their will to run a business — but Rarity was a different story. Although the shop didn’t officially open for another two hours, Rarity has to get up early to maintain her beauty. Involving her having to shower, style her mane, apply makeup, and wake up Sweetie Belle. That last one often meant starting her routine all over again.

A half-full cup of tea sat on a saucer in front of Rarity as she nibbled on an unburnt slice of toast — wholegrain of course. Fortunately, Sweetie Belle was camping with the other crusaders (including Diamond Tiara) so Rarity didn’t have to worry much for time, besides, Friday mornings were slow anyway.

She relished the peace that early mornings brought.

That peace would be soon disturbed when Rarity’s content eyes lazily followed a vaguely familiar purple unicorn in the distance cantering towards the boutique. Then the purple dot started floating into the clouds.

Rarity rubbed at her eyes to clear the purple spot from her vision before opening them. It wasn’t surprising when the purple dot pressed up against the window. It was terrifying.

Spilling her tea in the process, Rarity fell backwards off her chair only to land in the plush carpet of her bedroom. She could probably sleep on that carpet, truth be told. Sleep was certainly not an option as Rarity’s chest heaved in and out.

Shaking her head, Rarity sat up to see the squished, but worried, face of Twilight. As she moved to the window latch, Twilight’s eyes stalked her every movement. This was not how Rarity was hoping her morning to go. Twilight ripped the window open and shot inside, as soon as the latch lifted.

As soon as Rarity had stood up, she was superplexed by Twilight and she became one with the floor once more. Having an alicorn literally stand over you makes you incredibly nervous; having Twilight Sparkle stand over you with a maniacal grin makes you soil yourself. Nevertheless, this has happened far too many times for Rarity, as she didn’t even scream in terror.

“IS IT READY!? IS IT READY!? IS IT READY!?” Twilight chanted far too close to the marshmallow unicorn’s ears.

Remembering she was a black belt in martial arts, Rarity gracefully thrust Twilight into the air and swatted her away with her tail.

Twilight had lost herself in the depths of the luxurious creamy carpet for so long that she failed to notice that Rarity was now sitting at the table with an unamused expression. “Err, sorry Rarity. Is my suit ready?” Twilight asked less Pinkie like. Her body still refused to move from the clutches of the carpet.

“That is no way to talk to the person doing your commission, Twilight. I said I’d have it done for Friday and today is Friday, is it not? But, yes, it is complete. Normally you would have to wait for me to actually open before I can give it to you, but since I’m so generous and you’re my friend, I suppose you can try it on now. It’s just behind the curtain to your left,” Rarity said, motioning to her right with a hoof.

Like a zap, Twilight disappeared behind the curtain. The sound of a zip undoing was shortly followed by the smack of spandex against her flesh, resulting in a shrill squeak. Rarity giggled into her hoof as she waited for her friend to reveal herself.

Just as Rarity was about to get up and check on Twilight, the mare glided out of the sparkly curtain and landed with her wings flared in front of the fashion horse. “Sweet Celestia, Rarity, this is brilliant. Good idea not covering the wings so I can fly, the textured hooves is a nice touch as well — now I don’t have to worry about slipping or squeaking against the floor. Thank you, Rarity,” Twilight said with gratitude.

“Oh, it was nothing dear. Although the light-absorbing enchantment you wanted me to weave into the fabric was a pain, you didn’t tell me I had to join it up at each end. I didn’t realise that it covers your eyes and tail as well,” Rarity gossiped at the black two-dimensional silhouette of Twilight Sparkle.

“Yes, well that’s an adjustment I made to the enchantment as I was trying it on. I just needed you to do the foundations for it so I could build on it. This level of black is only slightly lighter than Luna’s ‘Event Horizon’ spell, but this makes me look two-dimensional enough.”

Rarity turned around, picking up her cup and plate to wash up downstairs. A pop of energy behind her caused her ears suddenly to begin ringing; preventing her from hearing Twilight’s hurried goodbye. When she turned around, Twilight was gone. Rarity just shook her head and went downstairs to start her day properly — hopefully with no more weirdness, but this was Ponyville.