Chapter 2
Spike watched as Twilight sighed again.
Last night had not gone well, from what he learned. Not long after midnight, a unicorn managed to break into the castle, sent the guards on a wild goose chase, and then stole three incredibly powerful artifacts.
According to the report that…
Miss Inkwell
...gave him, the current count stood at the Bewitching Bell, which had the power to absorb magic from a pony; the Animamulet, which allowed ponies to speak with animals, and/or become enchanted into a feral state; and finally, Twilight’s own focusing amulet, the one she used to help her raise the sun and moon.
Any one of them was dangerous, honestly. Grogar’s Bewitching Bell had the most obvious effect. Most ponies still remembered last year, when three of Twilight’s enemies stole the power of Discord, the local primal manifestation of Chaos, and used it to terrorize the country. Though, if used correctly, the others were equally bad.
The Animamulet, for example, had enchanted their friend Fluttershy. The enchanted gem soon brought out the deeper, baser, animal parts of her brain to the fore, leaving her attacking ponies around Ponyville. Making the right pony go feral, then could be incredibly disastrous. Especially because they had no way of knowing how to break the Enchantment, and the only thing that they found that worked was eating the gem itself.
Normally, dragons could digest a gem easily enough, but the magic preserved it, much to Spike’s misfortune.
Then, of course, there was Twilight’s Focus amulet. Yes, Twilight had enough practice these days to lift the sun and moon on her own, but without the focus, she’d be basically useless for the rest of the day. Her magic reserves as an alicorn were huge, that was the point, but moving the sun and moon without the help would drain her of all of her energy to the point where she’d have to lay in bed and sleep until someone brought her meals to eat. She would roughly recover around sunset, where’d she have to do the whole thing over again.
Those three artifacts could be devastating to the Equestria as a whole, especially if put in the hooves of the right, or wrong, pony.
Which, apparently, was the point.
“So you’re telling me,” Twilight said, staring Azure Heart straight in the eyes, “that not only was he telling me the truth that he works for me but he was hired, specifically, to steal from me.”
Azure glanced down. “Yes, Your Highness.”
“Why?” she asked.
“He’s...” Azure began. “He’s what he would call an expert, Your Highness. He is frequently hired to test our defenses at random times to simulate an actual thief.”
Twilight nodded. “That part I understand,” she said. “The term is ‘White Hat’ right?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“The part I don’t understand is that you’ve confirmed for me that he is still actively stealing things in a criminal sense.”
Spike raised an eyebrow as he glanced over his report, expertly hidden by a comic book just for Miss Inkwell’s sake.
“It’s...complicated,” Azure said. “From what my predecessors tell me, Princess Celestia had a working relationship with him, and hired him because of his criminal activity.”
Twilight looked at him like he was growing a second head.
Spike simply shook his head. “Hope you came prepared, Azure,” he thought. “She’s going to want proof.”
“Do you have proof of this?” Twilight asked, and Spike mentally chalked up another point for himself.
“Unfortunately not, Your Highness,” Raven interjected. “Those records no longer exist.”
Twilight turned to her. “Why?” she asked.
Raven blushed. “B-because I...got rid of them, Your Majesty.”
“Did you now?” Spike said as he looked over to her, smiling. “That’s going to hurt your score there, Miss Inkwell.”
Raven glared up at him, anger burning in her eyes. “I did,” she said.
“I feel like a broken record here, but why?” Twilight asked.
“It was my mistake, Your Highness,” she said in a resigned tone. “I was making room in the archive and...underestimated the value of those documents.”
Twilight brought a hoof to her face and sighed. “Okay, so he was here to steal from us, but that’s because we hired him to do it. He’s a criminal, but Celestia hired him despite that, but we don’t have proof of that. Is that about right?”
“Yes, Your Highness,” both Raven and Azure answered.
Spike decided he’d finally speak up. “Well, if that’s the case, you should probably go talk to him.”
All eyes turned to him.
Spike shrugged. “Look, Twilight, if you’re going to have to make a call about whether to trust him or not, then you’re going to have at least talk to him to know what kind of person he is.”
Twilight nodded. “That’s fair.”
“I think it’s unnecessary,” Azure said. “He’s shown himself trustworthy under Celestia.”
“Competent, I can believe,” Twilight said. “Trustworthy? Well, I’m much less sure about that.”
Azure nodded.
Twilight stood. “Come on, Spike,” she said, “let’s go talk to our thief.”
Spike stood with a smile, before sending one more sideways glance at Raven, before following Twilight out of the small meeting room.
Raven glared at him. “I hate how smug he is.”
Azure sighed. “Spike the Dragon is a hero of the Crystal Empire, and one of Princess Twilight’s oldest friends. It’s natural to be jealous of the attention her Highness gives him.”
“I am not jealous of that runt,” she growled.
Azure nodded. “Of course not,” he said flatly.
Raven glanced at him. “I have served Princess Celestia for a decade; I have more experience at running this country than her Royal Highness herself. That little winged runt has nothing on me.”
Azure shook his head. He wasn’t sure how this mutual hatred between the two advisors began, but he certainly didn’t want to get caught between them. “I have some business to attend to. Best of luck, Raven.”
---$---
Spike followed Twilight down to the dungeon. She carried a light with her, down the stairs, and straight to the thief’s cell.
“And there she is!” Night Silk said as he got up from his cot. “I was wondering when we’d get a chance to talk properly.”
“Night Silk, was it? I heard you were hired to test our security.”
“That is correct!” he said, from behind his bars, smiling. “By the way, you need to seriously improve a few things.”
“Oh, do I?” Twilight asked.
Spike watched her as she spoke. She was definitely trying to keep a royal, imperious air. She worked very hard on that tone, he knew, and he also knew that it gave her an edge when dealing with ponies that she wasn’t sure to trust.
“Oh, definitely,” Night replied. “For one, your guards were a little over-zealous. They all rushed in, ready to prove that they were competent, and in doing so, were easily distracted. That’s the main reason why I don’t tell the ponies I’m testing when I’m coming.
“The second problem was one that I’m sure is easily fixed, and that one is: lock the doors to your magical item vaults. You never know when somepony can just walk on in and take whatever they want.”
Twilight raised an eyebrow at that.
“Third,” Night continued, “your guards need to be more conscious of what they pass when moving through hallways. I wouldn’t have been able to get to your bedroom if the guard who’d been outside your door had: first, stayed at his post, but more importantly, if he had been aware of what was going on around him when he moved. I was hiding above him as he moved through the hallway, all he had to do was look up to catch me, but well…”
“I find it hard to take that advice when you have shown that you’re an illusionist,” Twilight said. “My guards reported that you used Thornoak’s Transposement—”
“Control Image,” Night said.
Twilight paused.
Spike could see the royal facade crack for a moment as her thought was interrupted, and smiled to himself when her inner nerd began to show itself.
“Y-yes...Thornoak’s Transposement does use the Control Technique with the Image Form, but to simplify Thornoak’s work to just the Technique and Form ignores so much of the astral geometry and refinement of the spell—”
“Princess, I’m no mage. I know Control, Create, Matter, and Image. That’s average for a unicorn, at best. Yes, I do have illusions that I can use, but when I’m with clients, I use them for distractions at most. I play fair, after all.”
“And you expect me to believe that a thief plays fair?” Twilight asked, returning to her colder mask.
“I not just a thief, Princess,” Night said with a smirk. “I’m a Master Thief.”
“And the difference is?”
“Why, Princess, I’m hurt,” Night said. “I would have thought you and Celestia would have discussed this.”
“We never got around to it, between saving the world and my coronation,” she replied.
“That’s a shame, but I understand,” Night said. “The difference between the common thief and me is that I steal from ponies that deserve to be stolen from.”
“And what makes somepony deserve it?”
“A few things. The challenge is one factor. That’s why I work for the castle, stealing from a compound with well-protected treasures and a full team of guards to work against. Speaking of,” he said, before reaching back into his mane to pull the Time Twirler free. “The fourth problem: your guards need to search your prisoners better.”
Twilight’s facade broke again. “Give me that! Don’t you know this thing can explode?” She grabbed the amulet with her magic, before pulling it into a magical bubble to protect it.
“Yes,” Night said simply. “That’s why I stole it, Princess.”
She glanced up at him.
“If I, a thief, can get a hold of something like that, then you weren’t protecting it well enough. That’s why I targeted the magical artifacts that I did. Each of these pieces could devastate the country if used properly, so each of these needs to be properly protected.”
Twilight put her facade back together, but Spike was sure that the thief had seen through it by this point. “So Challenge, what else then?”
“Well, the challenge is only a part of it. You’re a decent pony, at least from what I’ve seen so far, and that means I shouldn’t take from you in any permanent sense. You’re the kind of pony I return things to. No the ponies who deserve it are typically, well, thieves themselves.”
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “You steal from thieves?”
“Of course, who better to steal from?” he asked. “At that point, it’s hardly even stealing. Celestia used to hire me to free all kinds of things from rival thieves.”
Twilight sent Spike a glance.
He shrugged.
Honestly, it was hard to say if that was a thing Celestia would do. It certainly had the mischievous flair that Celestia was known for, but the legality of it put it somewhere in the questionable realm. Spike wasn’t sure if that was the truth or not.
“And,” he thought to himself, “without the records that Miss Inkwell got rid of, we don’t have a real way of knowing for sure.”
“I also provide all kinds of espionage services and the like. Or at least I hope to,” Night added. “The deal I worked out with Celestia was rather profitable, with something like a few million bits from the security budget, and I would enjoy seeing that deal continued.”
Spike raised an eyebrow at that, and he looked at up the Princess, who was already returning his gaze.
“Well, that’s interesting to hear,” Twilight said. “Because I was going to have to call you about that security budget.”
“You were?” Night asked.
“Yes, specifically to say that I don’t think your services will be necessary for the future.”
Night blinked at her. “You’re only saying that because you don’t understand the services that I do offer.”
“No, I think I do,” she said. “Now, yes, you have pointed out the large problems with our current security set up, and I will be making moves to fix the problems you described. Yet your additional services, the ones that Celestia supposedly asked you take care of for her, are not something I’m interested in. At all. Honestly, Equestria, the Equestria I have been building since my coronation, is not the place for this kind of activity.”
Night blinked. “I’d laugh, but that statement actually, physically hurts me with how naive it is. Princess, what you want doesn’t matter. A country, no matter how well policed, or how filled with love and tolerance as it might be, will have a criminal element. That’s why it’s a crime.”
“And I have guards to take care of that criminal element,” she replied.
Night brought a hoof to his face. “Princess, I’m not talking about your common criminal. I’m talking about organized crime. Organized crime doesn’t fall because one pony was arrested.”
“It can if I arrest the right pony.”
“The right pony isn’t going to be arrested because they’re just hiring ponies to do the job for them. That’s how organized crime works!”
Twilight shot back with an argument, but Spike could already tell that it wasn’t going to mean anything to the stallion. Admittedly, he had a point, so shutting him down wasn’t going to be easy, but Twilight had a history of trying to argue a point she thought she was correct about, as though tearing a hole in one argument was all it took. He could tell that this was going to go nowhere quick.
“Twilight, can I make a suggestion?”
Both ponies, nearly in a full argument now, stopped to turn to him.
“I think what he needs is a chance to prove that he’s as indispensable as he claims.”
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “And what do you mean by that?”
“Exactly what I said,” Spike replied. “He can argue that the ponies he steals from deserve it, but without giving you the breakdown of how, you’re not going to believe him.”
“Well, yes, but…”
“So I think what he needs to do is show us how useful he is. He does some jobs, and if we think that it’s worth it, then we keep him. If not, we make him a security consultant.”
“How’s that supposed to help?” Night asked. “I can break down my jobs all she wants, but—”
“It’s fair, at the very least,” Twilight admitted. “I’m not the biggest fan of the idea, but it is fair.”
Night blinked. “You’re going to go with this?”
“Spike brings up good points, and if I’m going to end your job—which Celestia supposedly allowed—then the last I can do is offer you a chance to plead your case. That’s the fair and just thing to do.”
Night raised an eyebrow. “Alright. You want to make this a bet, let’s make it a bet. You’re going to let me go, and then I have three months to prove that what I do is indispensable. Any job I do during that time will have no legal consequences, because I’m sure that’s going to come up eventually, and I’m not going to be held responsible for stuff I did to try and make a point to you.”
Twilight blinked, before looking at Spike.
“He…” Spike began. “He does kind of have a point. He’s literally going to be admitting to you about breaking and entering.”
She nodded. “That’s...fair. Why give yourself a time limit, though? I was going to assign one myself, but you offered one on your own.”
“I never work without a time limit,” he said. “Typically, because the security teams have a few minutes before they hit peak efficiency.”
“Alright, three months then,” she said. “If you don’t manage to convince me by then, we’ll arrest you for any thefts you make that aren’t to help us improve security. Though, if I’m honest, I don’t know if we even need you then.”
“Princess, you’re going to have to be able to catch me for anything that’s not testing your security systems, and even then, you’re going to have a hard time.”
“Do we have a deal?” Twilight asked.
“We have a deal,” Night said. “I assume the guards will come by with the key to my cell?”
Twilight nodded. “I'll send somepony.”
“Wonderful. In the meantime, I suggest a decent lock on your artifact door in the donjon.”
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Noted.”
Night smiled. “Until we meet again, then, Princess.”
“Until then,” she said, before turning and leaving.
They marched up the stairs for a bit, but once Spike was sure they were out of hearing range, he spoke up. “That wasn’t a bad meeting.”
Twilight sighed. “I didn’t keep my cool as much as I wanted to.”
“No, but to be fair, one of those times, he revealed that he was basically holding a bomb.”
She sighed again, before holding up the Time Twirler. “I really should just return this to Sunset,” she said. “Keeping this in Equestria is too risky at this point.”
Spike grimaced. “I-I think that was kind of his point.”
“Yes, Spike,” she sighed, exasperated. “That is his point, and it’s a great point, and he’s right about this one thing. He’s not right about robbing ponies blind, though.”
“I didn’t say he was,” Spike said.
Twilight sighed, and Spike could see her shoulders relax. “I know, he just...He gets under my skin for some reason.”
Spike shook his head.
Twilight turned to one of the other guards. “Go release the prisoner; he was here to test our security.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” he replied before he disappeared down the stairs.
“Do you think it’s because he’s a criminal?” Spike asked.
“I don’t know what it is,” Twilight said. “Not that it matters. By the end of three months, he’s not going to be a problem anymore.”
Spike smirked. “You still did a good job,” he said. “I’d bet Celestia would be proud of how you handled that.”
She nodded. “Unless, of course, she actually did hire him.”
Spike frowned before the sound of armor clanking sounded behind them. They both turned to see the guard coming up behind them. “Your Highness! Your Highness!”
“What?” Twilight asked.
“He escaped!”
“What?”
The guard held out a small piece of parchment. “He left this.”
She took it and glanced at the page.
P.S., you should also try better locks on your cell doors.
Until next time, Night Silk.
Twilight sighed.
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Well, you could always just go and ask Celestia. And hope she will actually tell you the full truth of the matter, though I'm not totally sure why she wouldn't--I feel like this is knowledge Celestia could trust Twilight with, though I can also still see lots of reasons why she neglected to bring up the matter in the first place, so...
And even then, even if you do manage to snag the right pony, he or she will quickly become the wrong pony again once the next pony in line takes over the whole shebang and then the crime continues, only now in the hooves of someone new who may not play by the same rules as before.
The context for this seems off to me given the lead-in to this statement--do you really mean Twilight will be able to catch him for non-security testing crimes, or did you mean she would not be able to catch him for said acts?
This should be interesting to see play out, because I get both sides of this argument and see the upsides and downsides to both. I strongly predict Night Silk will win out because even Equestria isn't a perfect world, but the point isn't that, it'll be convincing Twilight of that fact that'll be the point of focus for this tale, at least for this stage of it.
10430189
Yeah, I'm in agreement here. Just because Celestia retired doesn't mean Twilight cut off all communication with her. And Spike can still send her messages vis dragon-fire. That should have been the first thing Twilight thought of.
The side-plot about the rivalry between Spike and Raven is somewhat intriguing though. They've actually known each other for all of Raven's employment, and possibly all of Spike's life, but this is the first time they've been "forced" to spend long periods together in a working relationship. Spike naturally doesn't like others hogging his "territory", and Raven feels somewhat lost without Celestia to guide and listen to her, since Twilight would, naturally, be more comfortable with Spike instead. But in a way, both are needed. Spike can get through to Twilight about issues and behaviors she finds personal (as shown in this chapter), but Raven knows more about affairs of state and how to organize the bureaucracy.
10430249 10430189
I'm getting there with Celestia, guys, I'm getting there. She's had a total of six hours, give her a chance.
I am really enjoying the palace life bits of this fanfic~
Still need to read more of Night Silk night to say if I like him too...
Twilight has an Arsene Lupin in her employ. Maybe she should consider a Golgo 13 as well. Or maybe she can hire him to train others in the Royal Guard and set up a special Section 9 or Wraith Squadron or IMF.
I've never seen Raven portrayed like this.
I like it
That probably didn't feel good coming out the other end. It probably felt like passing a kidney stone...
10450431
OK, and what are those specifically?
Why am I not surprised
Dang It, I told Celestia that the Locks needed Changed