Chapter 11
A week passed.
Twilight hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Night Silk, but that just meant that she had more to think about.
Night doubled down on his point, this time focusing on the help that it gave the individual. Twilight could argue that if her guard were more vigilant, they could have noticed and caught the thief, and done something, but this rang hollow even in her own ears. He had a point about the immediate help, and it was an immediate help that she now knew was just as vital as the long-term help.
The thief that she caught last night already had his charges handed down to him with a bail of ten thousand bits posted. If left unpaid, he had a fine of the 1,100 bits and an additional two years in jail. Twilight sat, happy with the ruling, all the way up until she heard that the bail had been paid.
Twilight nearly destroyed her teacup at the news and asked for all the details. Azure himself reported that a noble, Moon Light, offered to pay his bail because of a favor that he owed the stallion.
Twilight asked why the bail was accepted.
“Why wouldn’t it be accepted, Your Highness? This is the nature of bail.”
“Because! Because he... He’s obviously just going to turn around and steal again!”
“Then we can only hope to arrest him once he does it again,” Azure said.
“I…” Twilight began. “That’s not—”
“That’s how it’s always been, Princess,” another voice said, and both ponies turned to see Night walk into the Princess’ office. “By the way, I found this key on your bedside table, and while I haven’t checked it yet, I’m pretty sure it goes to your vault.”
Twilight sighed and took the key back. “Thank you, Night.”
“Look,” Night said, “if you learn nothing else from me, you need to make sure your bedside tables are clear. That’s where most ponies keep their important documents and such.”
“Noted,” Twilight said before she watched as Azure suddenly look away. “Why are you here, Night?”
“I have another job for us, Princess.”
Azure frowned.
“Well, what’s your plan?” Twilight asked.
“We’re going to Manehatten. We have a job there that I think will do a lot of good, but it’ll take a while to get there.”
“Alright,” Twilight said, standing. “When do we leave?”
“You wish to go with him, Princess?” Azure asked.
“I do. It is definitely his most powerful argument, and one that I feel does need proper exploring.”
Azure shifted on his hooves. “Do you think that is wise?”
“I do,” Twilight said. “Mostly because Night is terrible at arguments, and this seems to be the best way for me to understand exactly what he actually means.”
Night shrugged.
Azure frowned. “I...assume, you have a way to disguise yourself?” he asked.
“I had that taken care of last time,” Night said, “but she wound up not needing it.”
“There was a last time?” Azure asked.
Night turned to Twilight. “You didn’t tell them yet?”
“It’s how I caught the thief last week, Azure,” Twilight said. “We’ll be fine.”
Azure nodded. “Of course, Princess.”
“Have Raven and Spike hold any business until I return. I need to get ready for the trip.”
Night smiled and began to head out behind her before a heavy hoof fell across his back. “Mr. Silk,” Azure said, nearly whispering into the pony’s ear, “I just need you to understand one thing. If anything happens to her—if anything hurts her persons or reputation—I will hunt you down. Am I understood?”
Night slipped out from underneath the stallion. “I understand perfectly well, Captain. Don’t forget, my job’s already on the line. My life’s just another reason to make sure things go well.”
Azure glared at the unicorn as he slipped out of the room and followed behind the Princess. He watched them leave, and once he was sure he was alone, Azure sighed and made his way to his quarters.
He had to clear out his bedside table.
---$---
“And welcome to Casa Chez Night,” Night Silk said as he led Twilight into the small room.
“I’m not sure why you’re trying to impress me with both this ‘safehouse’ and your proficiency at butchering two separate languages,” Twilight replied.
If you could call it that, the room was situated between the crawl spaces of a few apartments in a Manehatten tenement building. Apparently, when the flats were first built, the first few rooms had been divided into tight sections. Supposedly this was so that they could fit as many ponies as possible into the building. When Celestia later ruled about the proper sizes of livable spaces, many of the dividers had to be knocked down to make larger living spaces. The room that Twilight and Night occupied now would have given the previous tenements a larger room for the same rent as everypony else, so these tight spaces remained, though unlived in.
So when Night offered to take the place, at full price, if the landlord kept quiet about it, he simply took the money and forgot about the room.
Twilight found the place a little claustrophobic, though, given the place’s history, she wasn’t terribly surprised at that. “How on earth does a pony live like this?” Twilight asked, glancing up at the dusty chalkboard, the cot to the side of the room, and the table with the single chair that dominated the center.
“Fairly well, though the neighbors are a little loud, and these walls are thin,” Night said, “but be it ever so humble…”
Twilight shook her head. “So, ignoring the fact that there’s barely enough furniture in here for just you, I imagine we’re going to be staying here until nightfall?”
“Oh, no, Princess,” Night said with a smile, before hanging up his cloak. “We’re only staying long enough to get a few things in order.”
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “We’re not going to wait for it to get dark out?”
“Some crimes don’t happen at night,” the thief replied before he pulled out the chair. “Take a seat.”
Twilight did.
“So, as we’ve discussed before, Blackjack works in this area and frequently runs protection rackets with her gangs. We’re going to grab their collections as they go through and return bags when we have them.”
“Okay,” Twilight said.
“Now, we do have to be careful with this one,” Night continued, “because this one has the greatest chance of backfiring on us. If the gang members found out that the ponies they just shook down got their coin back too fast, they might shake them down again. Our best bet then is to make sure that we take the cash, and then sneak it back into their homes.”
“Okay,” Twilight nodded.
Night paused for a second. “You seem rather okay with all of this.”
“I’m letting you make your argument.”
Night nodded. “I see, then I guess I should point out that your guard can’t do much for this kind of job, as Blackjack typically calls this ‘collecting donations.’ The ponies that she’s extorting are typically too afraid to tell the guard otherwise, so they get very brazen with this.”
Twilight frowned but nodded.
“Anyway, I can handle returning the coin to these ponies, but the first part has a great chance of succeeding with both of us.”
“What do you mean?” Twilight asked.
“Well, while I certainly can pick pockets, having someone to watch me, and if needed, distract ponies, will make this a cakewalk.”
“Distraction?” Twilight said. “Need I remind you that I literally went to the Underworld, several times.”
“I remember, Princess.”
“Then why do I get the feeling you don’t believe me?”
“No idea, Princess,” Night said, before grabbing an eraser and wiping the chalkboard clean. “Now, I do want to run a few things past y—”
Night blinked and suddenly found himself outside, facing a black, slate door with red patterns inscribed on it. “F-first…” Night trailed over, before turning around to see Twilight standing on the center head of a three-headed dog.
“Night, meet Cerberus,” Twilight said, as the massive bulldog towered over him.
“Uh...good boy?”
Twilight smiled before another flash of teleportation magic took them back to the apartment in Manehatten. “I will be fine, Night. I have been adventuring.”
Night blinked for a second before nodding. “Of course, Princess. Um...well…” he said, trying to collect himself after staring death’s guard dog in the face. “Well...there is one more thing we need to talk about.”
“And that is?”
“Well…” he said, still collecting himself. “Y-you have a disguise, but that’s not enough.”
Twilight glanced at the changeling amulet. “And why not?”
“Because,” he said, finally back in his calm, smug tone. “I’m not calling you Princess out on the street. I need something that I can call you.”
Twilight blinked and nodded. “Um...I...I guess you can call me Twilight…”
Night blinked. “Really?”
“What? Plenty of ponies have that name,” Twilight said. “It’s not like I’m asking you to call me ‘Twilight Sparkle, that mare from Ponyville’ or anything.”
Night sighed and shook his head. “Let’s... let’s just talk about what we need to do when we get down there. First and foremost, we need to talk about one thing. Getting the money back.”
“Can’t you just steal it all back at their hideout?” Twilight asked.
“I could, but that’s more work that we need to worry about.”
“Is it?” Twilight asked.
“We can’t take the bags as they go, they’ll catch on. We’ll have to grab the bag at the end, and we need to take it in a very spectacular way, so they know we stole it, and the ponies that paid up are innocent.”
Twilight smiled. “That sounds like something we can do.”
---$---
Strong Arm was a large pony, though that surprised no one. No one was then further surprised when he grew up into a thug, who was better at punching ponies than thinking. Strong Arm walked down the street of one of the more impoverished neighborhoods of Manehatten, along with his excellent buddy Black Mail.
Black Mail, the small pegasus that he was, walked in the shadow of the larger pony, smirking and growling as he spoke to his friend, though neither of the ponies watching them on the roof could hear what he said.
Twilight frowned as she watched the two move, walking from door to door in broad daylight. “This should not happen in my kingdom.”
“Well, you’re normally not here to stop them,” Night said.
Twilight rolled her eyes. “He’s just added another sixty-five bits to the bag.”
Twilight was keeping a modified Pricetag spell on the bag. Night typically split up the money into even shares and spread them out best he could. “Well, that’s very admirable of you but horribly inefficient,” Twilight had said, before coming up with this plan. Perceive spells did not drain magic like the others, and Twilight’s reserve was big enough that she could run this kind of spell for hours.
Night flipped open a notebook. “Sixty-five to Mrs. Caramel, good to know.”
“How many more buildings are they going to hit?” Twilight asked.
“As many as they feel like,” Night said. “Like I said, the guard can’t do much about this one.”
Twilight sighed. “This isn’t right.”
“No argument there, Ms. Twilight.”
“Just Twilight, please,” the disguised unicorn replied.
“If you say so.”
They continued to follow the two thugs on the street, shadowing their movements. They moved as quietly as they could, leaping from building to building needed, making sure that they kept the ponies in their sight.
“I hate waiting on them.”
“Waiting is half of what I do, Twilight,” Night said. “You’d be surprised how much waiting is in sneaking around.”
They continued to watch as the two thugs kept collecting, smiling, and smirking all the way before they finally turned away and began to head the other way down the street. “And that’s our cue, Twilight,” Night said. “Do you still want to go with your plan?”
Twilight smirked. “It’s going to be too much fun not to.”
“Honestly, I have to agree with that.”
Twilight made the first move then, as she cast a Control Matter spell, “Gem’s Gravity Well.” The bag, its physical weight suddenly increasing one hundredfold, rolled off of Strong Arm’s back, where it landed hard on the cobblestones.
“Something wrong, Strong?” Black Mail asked.
“Bag’s heavy all of a sudden,” Strong Arm replied.
“Yeah, it’s because of all the coins we got in there,” Black Mail said before he went to pick up the bag. He grabbed the bag and went to lift it, only for his body to slip out from beneath him. He turned around and tried to lift the bag again, but it didn’t even come off the ground.
“Alright, I’ll see you in a few, Twilight,” Night said before he hooked his rope to the side of the building. He leaped down the side of the building, sliding down his rope at incredible speed, before hitting the sidewalk.
Both thugs glanced at him before Night moved, running past them. They moved to avoid him, standing back as Night dove for the bag. He grabbed the sack, and both thugs charged him in that exact second, not daring to let him get away with all of their hard-earned cash. Strong Arm bucked, wildly, missing Night by inches as he dived back, away from the sack. Black Mail shot forward, drawing a blade, but Night sent a kick into the pegasus’ jaw.
Black Mail’s skull was ringing, but Strong Arm had recovered and charged Night again. The Master Thief backed away from another powerful blow, as both ponies tried to stop Night from grabbing their bag.
In fact, they were so dedicated and focused on keeping Night away from the bag that they didn’t notice a sunset-colored unicorn mare pick up the sack and begin walking away.
Night waited for Twilight to move out of sight from the street, before he leaped back, smiling. “You know, Gentlecolts, you need to pay more attention to what’s going on around you,” he said, before pointing to where their collections had been.
They both turned back to the bag and found nothing.
And when they turned back around, Night, or at least his image, was gone.
---$---
“That went off without a hitch,” Night said as he returned to his apartment to rendezvous with Twilight.
The sack of coins sat on Night’s singular table, along with the small notebook that Night wrote the entries in. Twilight was already sorting through the bags when Night joined her, and she casually looked. “So you did make it, I was starting to wonder.”
“It’s good to see that the Princess has such care for her servants,” Night said.
Twilight rolled her eyes. “Are you going to help me sort all of this or not?”
“I will, I will, but I have a better question for you. What did you want for dinner?” Twilight glanced up at him as he held a bag of coins. “The guys we’ve been following all day offered to pay for us.”
“Now, that is just a crime. There’s no need for that,” the Princess said.
“Well, you say that, but they are also sponsoring the purchase of another chair so I can help you with that mess,” he said, pointing over at the bits that covered the table.
Twilight sighed. “Fine.”
“Again, though, what do you want?” Night asked. “There’s a decent Chineighes place nearby, but of course, this is the place to get Manehatten-style pizza.”
“Hayburger,” Twilight said.
“Hayburger?”
“They’re everywhere, they’re cheap, and they’re delicious.”
“Well...yeah...but it’s Hayburger.”
Twilight glanced up at him. “Hayburger. Number 3, extra pickles, hold the mustard.”
Night shook his head. “Alright, guess I’ll go get some Hayburger, and a chair,” he said. “I’ll be back in about half-an-hour.”
Twilight nodded before splitting another pile of gold. The door closed, and Twilight glanced up at it, before sighing.
Honestly, this was going to make things better for both of them until Twilight came to a decision, and if he didn’t need to learn new words, he should be able to pick them up pretty quickly.
She stood out of her chair and suddenly popped into the Castle back in Canterlot.
This was her third long-range teleport today, and her body was starting to feel it. As an alicorn, her reserves were massive, but even they had a limit.
She appeared in the Royal Library, one of the most familiar locations in the entire Castle for her. When she was simply Celestia’s apprentice, she had spent so many hours here, it was her home away from home. She barely had to think before she was already heading down the magical studies branch and plucked a book about Matter and one about Image from the shelves. She flipped the book open before casting a second spell, “Shillouette’s Speed read,” a Perceive Matter spell that Twilight frequently used to get the basic gist of a book.
Both books had exactly what Night needed, and she carefully slipped them into a saddlebag before teleporting back to the apartment.
She pulled the saddlebag and set them on what passed for a kitchen counter by Night’s surprisingly well-stocked fridge, before sitting back in her seat and picking up exactly where she left off.
When Night did return, he almost didn’t notice that she left. He handed her a greasy bag of fast food, unfolded a camping chair, and was about to get to work when he saw the books. “Did...did you bring those?”
“They have a few spells you might want to learn,” Twilight said without even looking up. “The Catapult spell is in there, and it should help you get around, without having to rely on that piece of rebar you have.”
“Hey, I like my hook, thank you very much.”
“It’s literally a piece of construction debris,” Twilight said.
“And Hayburger is a step up from eating garbage, but I was willing to eat it quietly.”
“I will have you hung for treason with that kind of talk,” Twilight said with a glare.
Night sighed. “Get some sleep tonight, Twilight,” he said, sardonically using her name, “I’m going to introduce you to Newsie tomorrow.”
“Who?”
“The mare who’s going to give us our next job.”
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NGL, each Chapter so far has felt like slow but sweet extensions of the story.
Thoroughly enjoying this, and I'm glad it's getting updated as frequently as it is.
Would be better written as: “Why wouldn’t it be accepted, your Highness?"
He...kinda is, not gonna lie. I mean, I can still see the points he intends to make underlying them, but the way he presents them verbally makes them too easily shot down. Showing rather than saying seems to be more effective for him.
That said, I still think the best solution to this problem is meet them halfway--let Night do what he does but with a few new caveats for practicality reasons, while Twilight also works to reform the guard so to apply some of the lessons she's picked up from Night there as well so they can help fill in some the gaps that Night, try as he might, just can't. By the sound of it, I daresay the operations of the guards could use a little tweaking in this area anyway. Night's proved that point quite a few times now.
But! Story's not over yet, so maybe Night will finally find the means to truly drive his point home in the end.
I've got them all beat--I don't have a bedside table to begin with.
Now I'm sort of wondering what sort of things Azure has been keeping in his bedside table, if for no reason other than curiosity's sake.
I'm also wondering if Celestia ever did this sort of tag along thing with Night as well...it would probably explain a thing or two...but then again, surely Night would've thought to resort to this far sooner with Twilight than he did if he had.
"In fact, they were so dedicated and focused on keeping Night away from the bag that they didn’t notice a sunset-colored unicorn mare pick up the sack and begin walking away."
Was Twilight disguised as Sunset Shimmer?!
10461734
No, similar but no. I'll get around to actually describing her disguise someday.
Typo for "hollow".
Typo for "person".
Accidentally a word.
Best line so far. This made me laught out loud.
Really love the story.