Love in all the Mane Places

by EpicGamer10075

Chapter 1: Heart-Stolen Thief

The air was silent.

The lighting was dim.

The whole room was tense enough to cut with the point of a heel.

And the mare that had those heels was watching the one spot that everything was different.

The glass case in the center of the museum’s gemstone exhibit shone brighter than the rest of the room combined, with the security lasers around it thumm-m-ming loudly enough to sound nearly deafening in the otherwise dead silent room.

It was always a strange sight to the mare—there were silent and invisible trip lasers after all, so why even bother with these... quite frankly, disgusting ones that gave her a headache and nothing more?

Perhaps they simply didn’t bother with the more expensive kind because most thieves already wouldn’t be able to make it past these ones—but that hardly proved an issue for her, as she was no normal thief.

High Heel danced her way through the bright red beams of magic and light, their colour only accentuating the crimson sheen on her suit, the one she wore to keep her fur tamed down so it didn’t catch on anything, with the same logic applying to her mane and tail, which lay it tight purple buns. She flipped and slid her way past the haphazard array to approach the central case, with the gem nearly glowing in the light, its magical characteristics cut and polished into a very enticing piece of jewelry, one that she knew would fetch quite a lovely price at the underground auctions.

All too soon, and with nearly laughable ease, Heel stood before the gem and raised one of her hooves, clad in her signature crystal blue high heels with black shafts, and admired it for a moment.

‘“Lonsdaleite,”’ She read off the plaque within the case, ‘“A crystal that can only be forged within a shooting star, and found within the craters they leave behind. It’s enchantment potential is superiour to every other crystal in known science, but the true capabilities of it are unknown due to limited samples.” Interesting...’ She mused, her amber eyes, framed well by her pale yellow fur and blue headpiece with its fake red horn, reflecting within the glass of the case as she observed the silver hexagonal prism of a crystal inside, ‘Why would they keep such a precious jewel like you locked away in a stuffy case like this, hmm?

‘Well, I suppose I ought to fix that...’ She added while knocked her hoof twice against the glass, activating the enchantment within her heel and making it glow just a bit before she pushed its tip into the glass. The magic in her heel quickly and quietly pierced the glass, and kept slicing through it like butter as she moved her hoof in a large circle across the face of the case, then pulled the tip of her heel away. Next, she pressed its front edge of that same heel into the center of the cut circle, using the adhesive enchantment to pull it out and set it down on the wooden floor below.

Finally, Heel reached her hoof in through the hole left within the case to grab the gemstone and pull it out, admiring the perfect cut, colour, and clarity of it for a moment before turning back to—

CRASH!!

“Eep!” Heel yelped and started in fright as she heard the sudden noise of glass shattering not too far away, and her sudden motion pulled one of her legs through a trip laser under her, and she started again as she heard the telltale ‘VWHRRR! VWHRRR!’ of the security klaxons of the museum, and saw flashes of the red alarm lights swipe across the room.

“Ah, flip-flops...” She muttered out in irritation, before shaking her head and turning around and galloping past the case towards the rear of the massive room, uncaring for all the other lasers she hit along the way, though still making sure to store the gemstone in the small black pouch around her neck so she could gallop at full speed (even if the pouch did chafe a tiny bit at her neck with each of her hoof-falls).

All too soon, she heard guards busting through the main door of the room behind her, the sounds echoing around despite the blaring klaxons and their voices cutting through even that.

“Thief, stop!” One of them shouted, blithe and inexperienced, as he clearly wasn’t aware of who they were dealing with.

“Rook, Copper, Brick; stop her! The rest of us still need to deal with what happened out front!” Another commanded, her voice louder and more controlled, with the three ponies she just addressed continuing to gallop after Heel, while the others followed the leader and headed the other way.

High Heel quickly slammed open the back door, ignoring the ‘STAFF ONLY’ plastered across it, and nearly slammed into a murky grey stone wall right in front of her, but quickly swiveled to the left and darted down the stone stairs into the basement, the guards hot on her heels.

“Get back here, High Heel!” One of them shouted, thankfully not being the rookie and letting her words instill a surge of pride in Heel from getting recognized.

“We’re not stupid enough to let that distraction stop us!” The last guard blared at her in his brusque, foolish tone that raised a few questions in Heel’s mind, not the least of which was...

“Do you really think I was behind that crashing?!” She asked of them while sprinting down through the maze of dark stone halls that made up the basement, which she was smart enough to memorize from the floor plans beforehand. “Not all us villains are teamed up, you know!”

The female guard replied with a scoff, and helpfully elaborated, “Oh please, that timing was far too convenient! We’re just lucky enough that you messed up and tripped the alarms!”

‘Ah, a smart mare with a lovely voice... a shame you’re still on the “good” side,’ Heel thought for a moment with a smile as she sharply turned left at an intersection and continued sprinting with ease, the guards a second later skidding and slipping over themselves as the they struggled to follow. “Actually, that ‘distraction’ is the reason I got caught in the first place! Perhaps you could let this little incident slide if I grant you a date, dear?!”

“Oh no!” The rookie gasped out, “Don’t let her get you under her spell, Copper!”

“Oh, for the love of—” Copper swore, then loudly slapped the rookie over the head while they all kept galloping—a quite impressive display of coordination, if Heel had anything to say about it—and then shouted back at the other mare, “The only way I might let this slide is if you give that gem back to us right now!”

Heel laughed back in her refined, tinkling voice while she took another left and sprinted towards the stairs all the way at the end of the hall, and shot back, “I’m afraid I can’t do that, dears! A girl’s gotta make money somehow!”

“And you have to resort to stealing!?” The third guard shouted in anger, his already harsh hoof-falls getting even louder.

“Hey, don’t judge!” The rookie shot back, his voice noticeably more laboured than the others now, “The economy’s in shambles; you don’t know what some ponies have to do to make a living!”

Copper growled and didn’t respond to Heel’s chuckling as they all kept sprinting, instead whacking the other guard over the head again and spitting at him, “Be quiet, Rook! With everything she’s stole, she’s got to be richer than all of us, combined!”

“Yeah, so why do you need to keep stealing more!?” The other stallion—named Brick, by process of elimination—shouted at Heel while arrived and started up the stairs, taking them multiple at a time to get even further ahead of the less dexterous guards, even if Copper took in better stride than the stallions.

“Ah, why not, dears!?” Heel replied simply as she went up to the door at the top of the stairs and barged her way through it, ending up in the main hall of the museum that spanned far from her left to her right, and then darted to her right to go outside, only to quickly skid to a stop a few steps in.

A vendor cart lay smashed before her, its gaudy colours slightly dimmed by the moonlight that streamed in through the large window to her left, the glass that once stood then now shattered and tossed across the otherwise pristine wooden floor, thin silhouettes swiping through the the light, prompting her to look through the empty and see...

“Hahahahaha! You foolish Power Ponies have all fallen for my Mane-imization darts!”

...The Mane-iac, a short ways away from the museum and laughing it up, using the tendrils of her green mane and tail to easily dodged around the Saddle Rager—clad in her usual teal bodysuit that was ripped in several places and showed through her pale brown fur, framed poorly by her messy brown mane and tail—as she kept swinging fruitlessly at the supervillain, though oddly with none of the other—

‘No, wait, I see them!’ High Heel started in her mind as she spotted the multicoloured specks that quickly flitted around, with the blue one summoning tiny clouds and sparks of thunder clearly being Zapp, and elemental rays of fire and ice that were no thicker than a piece of twine must’ve come from Masked Matter-horn. The others were there as well, with Radiance’s cobalt constructs limited to tiny needles and thimbles, the tiny pink trail zipping about belonging to Fili-second, and Mistress Marevelous’s glowing golden Lasso of Truth being reduced to a useless strand of hair.

Of course, not a single one of their attacks did anything to Mane-iac herself, who, now that Heel truly looked at her...

‘Wow, she’s even more gorgeous than the newspapers made her out to be...’

The notorious Mane-iac had a coat of lovely amethyst, with most of it covered by her pristine magenta bodysuit with black socks overlayed with golden trim. The parts of her coat that were left open though, were clearly well-cared for and very fluffy, visible even from the distance she was from Heel, and her face, taunting in its expression, showed even clearer the wicked grin across her maw as well as the violet eyeshadow above her eyes. And those very eyes, with their concentric irises of stark green and red, were the most striking pair Heel had even seen.

But the mare’s namesake, her mane (and tail), was beautiful.

The purest of emerald green in colour, the the lengthy strands of the Mane-iac’s mane and tail swirled together in thick tendrils, pressing into and splaying out against various parts of the streets and buildings around her, lifting her up with their incredible strength and with their owner not sweating a drop as she deftly darted around the Saddle Rager’s pitiful attacks. A half-dozen or so of the ‘Minimization Darts’ the lovely mare spoke of were held in her mane as well, the otherwise normal darts painted green and purple, each one held separately in a delicate grip by a separate small tendril of her unfathomably versatile mane, clearly all laying in wait to get pricked into the wrathful superhero after their inventor was done taunting her.

That taunting clearly only angered her even more, as several large objects like fire hydrants, news stands, and even a stray minion kept getting thrown around and imbedded into the ground or smashing through windows—although, oddly none of the trees got uprooted or damaged in any way... perhaps Saddle Rager was actually an environmentalist at heart? Regardless, at that moment, she ripped a big mailbox out of the sidewalk and threw it at the Mane-iac as she passed between her and the museum, resulting in the mailbox flying towards Heel herself!

Yelping loudly and jumping to the side out of the way, Heel just barely dodged the mailbox, but the guards who just arrived at the ground floor behind her weren’t so lucky, and got throttled by it and tumbled back down the stairs, the box coming along with them. And, maybe it was just Heel’s adrenaline getting the better of her, but was that a foal screaming alongside the guards?

‘So that’s where Humdrum was all this time. Poor foal...’ Heel thought sorrowfully before looking back to the Mane-iac and her continued taunting of Saddle’s rage.

And, of course, it was only a matter of time until that level of overconfidence got the better of her...

At some point, it seems accidentally, one of Saddle Rager’s hind legs came to land upon a tendril of the Mane-iac’s tail, and when she tried to pull away to dodge another, she found herself unable to, leaving herself open for just long enough for a powerful swipe from the superhero to slam into her and, because of her still-trapped tendril, she got swung down into the pavement below.

“Gaah!” Mane-iac shouted out in pain, and High Heel’s heart started to race for reasons other than the beauty of the other mare and nearly just getting barrelled over by a mailbox, and as she saw Saddle Rager tower over the supervillain, raising her thick, obscenely powerful legs again and prepared to strike down the mare below her, who could barely look up in terror, Heel knew she had to act.

Taking a deep breath and letting it come out with a determined expression on her face, Heel shouted out as loud as she could, “HEY, UGLY!!”

Immediately, the monstrous superhero jerked her attention over to Heel, making her shudder in the other mare’s looming presence, but she wasn’t deterred. “GET YOUR FILTHY HOOVES AWAY FROM HER!! THERE’S NO WAY YOU’VE EVER WASHED THOSE THINGS!!”

Saddle Rager squinted at her in confusion, but she was clearly irritated enough by the taunting to snort out a wrathful exhale before starting towards Heel, her intentions toward Mane-iac completely forgotten.

“That’s right, idiot...” Heel muttered to herself as she back away, moving down the hall away from the window which Rager was approaching, and she shot a quick glance to Mane-iac, who was clearly surprised at her action, but thankful nonetheless. “IF YOU WEREN’T SUCH A DUMB BRUTE, I’D BE HAPPY TO WASH YOU MYSELF!”

Heel herself wasn’t entirely sure on the intent behind that particular comment, but it did only anger Rager even more, and she started moving faster, her thunderous hoof-falls shaking the floor below the two mares as she stepped inside through the empty window and stomped after her prey. Slowly backing up, Heel decided one more taunt was in order; “HOW MANY MORE OUTFITS DO YOU REPLACE BECAUSE OF YOUR STENCH THAN TEARING THEM APART!?”

That got the intended effect; Saddle Rager immediately snarled in rage and galloped towards Heel, who immediately turned heel and sprinted away towards the far exit.

“There we go!” She commented to herself as she ran, feeling the floor shake with each rapid step of the monster behind her and hearing the wrathful roaring of that beast, and while she was certainly thankful to get that her away from Mane-iac, she was also quite terrified of what may end up happening to herself because of that decision.

She hardly wanted to find out, of course, and kept sprinting through the main hall to the pair of glass double doors at the end, and with the threat of Saddle Rager after her, it took barely a dozen seconds to get there burst through the doors out into the cool, open air, where she quickly turned left and continued sprinting down the street. Only a second or so later did she hear Rager burst through the wall of the museum, doors getting thrown down onto the ground while chunks of the brick wall sprayed everywhere, though the dust cloud Heel glanced back to see kept Rager a moment longer before she saw the escaping mare and starting chasing after her again.

“Aaaalright, Heelie, how do you want to shake this beast?” High Heel couldn’t help but ask herself as she felt the very ground shake with each galloping hoof-fall of Saddle Rager while she darted down the street, spotting quite a few dark alleys she could duck into, but she knew that doing that on its own wouldn’t be enough. She looked at each of the buildings she passed while sprinting, taking note of any potential benefit as her thieving career so required her to do, but none of the banks, apartment complexes, stores, or miscellaneous businesses seemed to be of any practical use here—but then she saw it; a park.

She recalled how Saddle Rager kept the trees in front of the museum safe, despite them being well within her strength to uproot and prime candidates for throwing at a taunting supervillain, so with the possibility of that environmentalist aspect of her managing to pierce through her hulking mental state...

Smirking to herself, High Heel darted over across the street and into the park, then weaved her way through the many trees that stood within it, and once she finally got deep enough inside did she look back at Saddle Rager, who did indeed stop just beyond the treeline as to not harm the flora. Heel’s smirk faded into an exhausted as she laughed wearily to herself and slumped back against a tree, watching the beast snort and stomp away in indignant fury, leaving pot-holes in the street as she went.

Lifting a hoof up to her neck, Heel was relieved to find her pouch still there despite everything that just happened, and she opened it up and pulled out the Lonsdaleite, admiring for another moment before stashing it back away. From there though, she really only had a few more thoughts on her mind; she was happy to still be alive, she still needed to keep herself away to escape from the police later, Humdrum deserved far better, and... the Mane-iac was the most beautiful mare in the entire world.