Seven days later, we were ready. I'd spent those days stressing over and over again to everyone who would listen--- or rather, ranting about it whenever Dodger was in earshot--- how I WANTED THOSE BOOKS. It apparently sank in as I'd hoped; Eiderdown reported Dodger complaining of literally dreaming about the mission, and of being chased down endless library corridors by angry librarians with moon cutie marks... I kept my fingers crossed that was a sign that Luna had picked the bogus info from Dodger's dreams, and proceeded as planned.

I'd been busy elsewhere too; I'd had Pumpkin Patch, Black Fang and my other lieutenants who'd made outside contacts start dropping gossip back in their contacts' ears that I was frothing at the mouth to get those grimoires. It worked like a charm; word trickled back that Celestia and Luna had taken all of their Royal Guard but a skeleton crew and put them on duty guarding the grimoires--- or rather, had half their guard standing around looking militant and the other half lurking in the corners of the library with cartoon hammers and butterfly nets, ready to pounce on me the moment I stuck my black helmeted head through a library door.

Perfect.

The day of the big heist, Artful Dodger, Eiderdown (both disguised and with full-body dye jobs--- Eiderdown had saddlebags over her wings and was dyed pale green, while Dodger was consigned to wearing a much less ostentatious bowler derby and had been dyed by Eiderdown's Breezy attendants a lovely shade of periwinkle) and WolfTooth (hiding in the aforementioned saddlebags) had arrived in Canterlot, posing as day visitors and strolling idly around the city. They meandered their way to a small park within an hour of sunset, just across from the Library in question. They shared a snow cone and pretended to watch the slowly setting sun, while they watched the guards marching patrols around the library, and waited.

Dodger didn't know it, but they were waiting for two entirely different things. Dodger was waiting for the small team of thestrals and diamond dogs he'd been told he would lead on the heist to show up in the shrubbery behind them. Eiderdown was waiting for a signal.

As the sun crept down toward the horizon, Dodger got steadily more fidgety and agitated. He cast around, frustrated. "Where are the buggers?" he muttered more and more frequently. he got up and paced around the park bench, fretting. Eiderdown bit her lip and said nothing. It was just as the sun touched the horizon that Dodger finally burst out:

"Devils bugger it, where are they? What in Tartarus is going on?"

Then the city alarms started ringing.

Celestia had never had the sense to set up a proper communication network. She did have a system of alarm bells throughout Canterlot for the Guard. They were ringing now, a clanging din audible from anywhere in the city. Dodger yelped and nearly bolted out of his own skin when the tintinabulation rose all around, but Eiderdown stopped him. "WAIT!" she shouted.

Neither of them knew what the rhythm ringing out meant, but results were obvious. Guards boiled out of the Royal Library, galloping off down the streets or winging through the air, headed for the watchtowers as if Tirek himself were on their tails. In minutes, the once ridiculously overprotected building was empty of all but a hoof-full of guards.  Dodger gawked at the fleeing mob of lawponies in confusion. "Bugger all's going on--??"

Eiderdown put a hoof on his chest and pushed him back to the bench. "It's okay, it's part of the plan," she said.

"Wot...?"

She gave him the envelope. Dodger tore it open, confused and began reading. It took several minutes; it was a rather detailed letter. His confusion only grew as he read; then it clicked. He sat there motionless, stunned.

"That cheeky bugger," he said in awe.

Eiderdown winced. "You're not angry, are you?" she asked. "About me not.. telling you?"

Dodger regarded her with a poleaxed expression. "Nah, nah," he said. "'Ad to be done, dinnit." He pondered for a minute.

Wolf Tooth wriggled out of the saddlebag. "Is der time noo?" he asked.

Dodger looked down at the letter. "No," he said. "Not yet."

"Den vot dus ve doo?"

Dodger looked at the letter again. "According to this, we wait till just after the sun sets. Then step two."

Several miles away on the Canterlot River, a river barge captain was having a very bad day. He'd taken the job to haul the gold bullion to the capital with aplomb. He had years of experience cruising up and down the river in his ironclad boat. He had cannons fore and aft, he had spear-carrying guards on his decks starboard and port, he even had two or three pegasi flying overhead on lookout and a pair of seaponies swimming below.

What he didn't have was a plan to cope when none of this mattered.

Changelings can grow manes, tails and coats of any color, unicorn horns, feathered wings, fur, scales, porcupine quills even. Gills were barely a challenge. The three seaponies swimming escort below the barge never had a chance; red, glowing eyed bugponies exploded from the riverbed mud like lobsters from Hell and overwhelmed them in seconds. They were bitten and left bound and anchored by ropes to the river bottom, drifting in a blissful stupor, while  changelings crawled up the sides of the ship.

The ponies aboard went into a panic and rushed to stab at the horrifying boarders with spears.  This however was a distraction. On the underside of the boat changelings worked feverishly, bolting a heavy chain to the ship's iron underbelly. The craft jerked to a stop. The Captain swore and struggled with the engines to no avail. The sternwheel churned but the boat made no headway.

Then it started sinking. The aft of the boat began sinking lower and lower in the water. Baffled, the captain looked back. To his horror he realized that the changelings had thrown a cable into the wheel, and the boat was literally winching itself down into the water. In seconds the prow of the flat-bottomed boat was several feet above the waterline as the stern threatened to pull below the waves.

He shut off the engines just in time, the stern barely an inch from being flooded. He glared back at the changelings battling all over his decks behind him and laughed. "HA!"

The changelings looked at him, looked at each other, and as one ran back to the stern of the ship and jumped onto the railing. That was just enough weight. The stern sank and river water flooded in. The captain howled his laments as his boat began to sink in earnest. Fortunately for his livelihood, the pallets of gold bars, subjected to the sudden change in direction of gravity, snapped loose from their moorings and slid backward, smashing through the railing and plunging into the river, taking the railing, the sternwheel and the cable with it. The riverboat's nose splashed down in the water, righting the ship and saving her from an early, watery grave.

The guards were either tumbled about like jackstraws, fighting to untangle their limbs from one another, or running about in confusion. The captain of the waterlogged boat looked back along the river; he could see the other two barges, under attack as well. Cursing, he grabbed a signal flare and fired a shot off into the sky.

Canterlot was only three miles away as the crow flew.  The reinforcements flying in would arrive ten minutes too late.

On a train winding its way from Manehattan to Canterlot, Boss Hoss was about to have a very bad day. The sun had started to set, and he had retreated to his private car at the back of the train.  He had nothing to fear; he had a car full of made stallions between him and the rest of the train, and a bunch more riding behind him in the caboose. Both doors were solid steel and bolted; the windows were magic-proof glass and covered with steel shutters; he had a loaded crossbow within hoof's reach of his bed. He took his repast, climbed into the silk sheets of his oversized bed, and drifted off almost instantly, soothed to sleep by the sound of the clacking wheels as his freight train full of money, power and influence steamed its way to Canterlot.

He never felt it when his car gently glided to a stop.

He awoke to near pitch blackness. There was no motion, no sound of clacking wheels or chugging of the distant engine.  Instantly his heart was in his throat. Even before his eyes adjusted, even before the circle of glowing eyes around his bed opened and fanged mouths gleamed, he knew he was not alone.

He was surrounded by batponies. Friggin batponies.  He lunged for his crossbow and fired it at the smirking mare standing in the center at the foot of his bed. That was a mistake. He had no way of knowing it, but they had fed very, very recently.

The bowstring twanged; the batfilly's head blurred;   the next instant she was standing there, STILL smirking, with the crossbow bolt clenched between her fangs like a rose in a dancer's teeth.  He tried to lunge out of bed; the batstallions standing to either side pinned the burly crime boss in place with their hooves as effortlessly as if they were  holding down a foal.

The mare spat out  the bolt. "Guess what. You dun goofed."

"KNEECAPS! BLACKJACK!" Hoss bellowed frantically. The mare shook her head.

"Forget it," she said. "We disconnected the caboose twenty miles back. And we disconnected YOU from the train five miles back. You're all alone, Hossy." She crossed her forelegs and rested on the foot of the bed. "Now, you're sitting in a little spur off the main track, about ten miles from Canterlot. We could have just left your little car sitting on the track, and your wakeup call would have been the next Canterlot Express smacking into your little rolling boudoir at fifty miles an hour. " Boss Hoss shuddered, his fat frame jiggling.

"Now we're sending you a little message from Darth Vulcan," she went on. "You can work WITH him, or work FOR him. But you work AGAINST him--- well, whistle whistle, choo choo, SPLAT." Hoss shuddered again. "Now, as compensation for the Dark Lord's pain, suffering and inconvenience, we'll be taking... umm, pretty much the train and everything on it. And Darth Vulcan will call your accounts balanced. Try and shaft him again, and penalties will apply." She patted his leg with a hoof and trotted for the nearest window... which he now saw had been shattered and its steel shutter peeled off its frame like an orange rind. "Now be a good little colt and send off your distress flare." With that, she and the others jumped out the ruined windows and disappeared into the night.

The instant they were gone, Boss Hoss grabbed the pull cord hanging by the bed and yanked. Rocket flares shot from a pipe on the roof, sending a distress dart up into the night sky.

His fury that the Guard took nearly twenty minutes to reach him and his stranded men was only surpassed when he discovered that his train, and its countless tons of cargo, had apparently turned off onto a spur track a mile on-- a spur track that hadn't been there the day before--- and disappeared from the face of the earth.

I was having a bad day.

Well, I'd been having a fairly nominal day up to a point. The plan had been sent into motion, there hadn't been anything epically disastrous occur, at least noone from my teams had sent out a distress signal yet, and my group, let by yours truly, had managed to teleport aboard the Crystal Express as it slowed through a long set of hairpin turns through the Unicorn Mountains.  It was dicey for a second, but I pulled it off.   We appeared in a cloud of purple smoke in the first car of the train, right behind the engine. Mongo tore the door off and we charged into the engine room, catching the engineer and his crew completely off guard. Skank, Runt and Mange leveled their guns on them, freezing them in place.

"Keep this train rolling!" I roared, the eyes in my helmet glowing hellish red. "If we stop, if we slow, you DIE!" The engineer gulped and nodded frantically. I left Mange and Mongo in the engine and led the others with me back into the train. The mirror was being kept in the middle car of the train, guards on either side. The plan was for me to bull a path to that car, subdue Shining Armor and Cadence, and secure the mirror. Then push any ponies on the train into the last one or two cars, disconnect them and make our escape. We had thirty minutes max before the train reached the end of the line... we had to accomplish this before that clock ticked out or it was over. I raced down the length of the train, a load of custom-made Flim-Flam knockout bombs in my belt, flash and stun spells tingling in my fingertips.

At first I thought we were in luck. The first two cars were empty. Then I realized: the first two cars were empty. There were only seven so where were the guards---

Then a rainbow-and-cyan blur shot up the length of the train and cracked me right in the jaw.

I lay flat on the floor, momentarily blinded by pain. Sonuva fraggin monkey buckin' ramjammin' frickin jock she-male pegasus frickin clocked me AGAIN... "Gotcha!" she crowed.

Of course. The Mane Six were on board the train.

I staggered to my feet, reeling from pain and seething with rage. Friggin' facemask was dented in--- I spent a second and used my magic to bend it back out again.

And got clocked in the BACK of the head. Sonuvabitch!

She pulled a hairpin turn and shot out an open window just as I lost it. With a roaring eruption of power, I turned the passenger car into an open flatbed. Shredded bits of train car and shards of crystal rained down. "GET THAT PEGASUS!" I roared.

Fortunately for everyone, my minions were still in the previous car when I blew up the one I was in. When the smoke cleared they hustled to obey my order. Guns boomed; the shots didn't even come close to the pegasus, who was now flying figure eights over the train and yelling mockery down at us. The two batponies with me went airborne, but they were outmatched; she literally flew circles around them. They couldn't lay a hoof on her.

At least she was preoccupied. I yanked the door open, only to get nailed in the chest by two orange hooves. I did a backflip halfway back up the  length of the car and landed on my back. "Gotcha, ya varmint!" I heard someone say.

Oh that tore it. I got to my feet and charged, only to have to hit the floor as a lash of purple magic shot over my head. Hurray, Princess Sparkle was up in the mix. I saw her standing in the door, wings flared and horn flaring. I got to my feet AGAIN and pulled up a shield of dark energy... and she slammed the door shut and magically sealed it. I ran up and banged on it like an idiot. It had about as much give as the rock of Gibraltar.  One of them actually put her face to the glass and stuck out her tongue at me.

"Oh screw this," I said. The car with the mirror was just beyond this one. I couldn't go through? Fine, I'd go OVER. I stepped backward and, with a burst of earth pony magic, jumped up on top of the car. If there was a tunnel coming up behind us I was gonna be pissed...

No tunnel behind us. But somehow, the biggest frickin' circus cannon I'd ever seen was up on the roof of the car ahead of me. A pink mare with a frizzy mane peeked over the top of the cannon at me, firing cord in her hoof.

BOOM!

Yeah, I know she only loaded that thing with confetti and ribbons and party crap. Ever get hit by a bunch of party hats or a stack of paper plates coming out of the barrel of a cannon? I tumbled backwards the full length of the car, arse over teakettle. I hopped back up to my feet, shellshocked but still raging.

"PARTY POOP-PERR!!"

BOOM!

"PARTY POOP-PERR!"

BOOM!

"EVERY PARTY NEEDS A POOPER THAT'S WHY THEY IN-VI-TED YOU! PARTY POOP-PERR!"

BOOM!

"PARTY POOP-PERR!"

BOOM!

I'd braced myself with Earthen strength, and staggered into the blasts, stomping forward one step at a time. Every blast still knocked me flailing, but I was making progress. The second blast dented my chestplate and left it spattered with cake. The second ripped my sword from my hand, leaving me clutching a fistful of streamers. The third blew my helmet clean off my head.

The fourth, My control over my mental shield wavered, and I took a load of confetti straight to the face.

"AAAAAARRRGH!" Ever see those pictures of loose straw embedded in telephone poles after a tornado? That's what that confetti did to my face. I screamed, falling to my knees and clutching my face. My eyes had been closed, lucky me-- but I had taken a cannon blast at almost point-blank range. The paper, tinsel and confetti had all but ripped of my skin. Almost instantly gloves went slick with blood.

I writhed and thrashed on my knees as pain exploded through my skull. I opened my eyes and saw Pinkie looking down at me, her eyes round and her jaw slack with horror. Her poufy mane had gone completely straight and flapped in the wind like a mourning shroud.

Pain turned to rage. Still screaming, I came up off my knees swinging. I caught her completely flatfooted; I landed a punch square on her snout that blasted her off her hooves. Teeth flew. She tumbled backwards, flopping like a ragdoll over the side, but I grabbed her by the tail and dragged her unconscious body back up with me. Her party cannon took a steel-shod boot from me and went sailing off into the bushes racing past.

Still reeling from the pain and shock, I looked around , trying to focus my rage on my goal. Where?

There, the next car. It was covered in a shimmering coat of magic that rippled pink and baby blue. They'd better have kids soon or that color combo is going to be awkward to explain. Why hadn't they cut the car loose when we'd boarded?

I hefted the weight of unconscious pony in one hand. Oh, right. Didn't want to abandon their sister and in-law and her friends...  I dropped down to the narrow walkway, dragging Pinkie's unconscious form behind me, and banged violently on the shimmering magic covering the door. The crystal wall of the carriage actually went transparent, revealing Shining Armor and Cadence standing inside next to the covered mirror, horns glowing. Their looks of defiance turned to shock and horror when they saw my bare, bloody face.

There was a thud from the roof. A bound and gagged rainbow pegasus had been dropped on the roof by a pair of batponies. "You caught her?" I said,  surprised even through my pain.

They blinked in shock at my injuries, but rallied. "She got overconfident and t-boned a railway sign," one of them said. The pegasus glared at him fruitlessly.

I jerked my head. "Get up front, tell them to chuck the engineers over the side at the next slowdown," I said. They saluted and flew off.

The door behind me rattled as the rest of the mane Six tried to come to the rescue. Turnabout's fair play: I heated the door behind me till it glowed like a blast furnace. I heard cries of pain and thumping as they hastily backed away. I magically sealed the doors and windows, then turned back to the royal couple. I held up Pinkie's limp form and smiled humorlessly. No words needed to be said.

They stared at me in shock, then in anger... then in resignation. The forcefield fell and the door opened, and I stepped inside. I never released my hold on Pinkie for a second. "Hello again," I grated at Shining through pain-clenched teeth. "I think I'll be taking that, now." I pointed at the mirror.

"It won't do you any good," Cadence said. "Even Celestia doesn't know how it works."

I dragged it to me, magically. "Good," I said. I wrapped the drape covering it around it tightly, doubled up my gauntleted fist and shattered it.  They let out a cry of shock. I picked up a shard and regarded it. "Don't look so surprised," I said. "I can't use it now, but neither can Sunnybutt." I threw Pinkie bodily at them, sending Shining Armor tumbling to break her landing. "I will be taking a consolation prize though." With a massive push of effort, I teleported myself two cars ahead. A bolt of magic severed the hitch between the Mane Six's car and the shattered remnants of the one I was in. We were on an uphill grade; their uncoupled cars rapidly fell behind.

"Your train makes a nice souvenir!" I shouted back at them. As a parting gesture I fired off the royal distress flare. The guards would send out another swarm in this direction now, just in time to be tied up rescuing the royals... and nowhere near soon enough to ever catch us.

Flim, Flam and Earth Root had been busy the past few days. For months they had been trundling machines up and down the tunnels in the Everfree on rails; the past week they had spent ripping up those rails and laying out new, unmapped spurs on the main Canterlot lines. Ones that branched off and dove down into carefully dug subterranean tunnels...

Barely sixty seconds later the Crystal Express took an unscheduled detour down one of those unmarked tunnels. The instant the last car on the train disappeared down those tunnels, teams of diamond dogs collapsed the entrance.  Now two entire trains of the Equestrian line had vanished from the face of the earth without a trace.... along with all their cargo, boxcars, passenger cars, loads of coal, steam engines, and all the other recyclable goodies one could get out of several thousand tons of magically enhanced Equestrian engineering.

I dragged myself up to the first car, where the rest of my little raid team was-- save for Mongo, who was "driving the choo choo." We had a mile or so to go before we rejoined the tunnels in the Everfree; the magic that kept the smokestacks from polluting the pretty Equestrian sky would also keep us from suffocating on the smoke. The others looked at me. I wasn't sure if it was the blood, or what. Oh yeah, it was the blood. "What?" I rasped.

"Why did you smash the mirror?" one of the batponies asked.

I leaned against a bench for support. "Useless," I said. I gritted my teeth as my face flared with burning pain. "World wasn't my world. It would just screw us all up if we used it... turn us all into magicless humans, or house pets, or crap like that when we passed through." Man, that Spike kid really needed to go on strike; he was seriously getting screwed hanging out with those magical pony bimbos. Spending a month as a DOG... I shook my head and focused. "Worse, there was another group of Element Bearers on the other side. Last dang thing I want is Celestia getting clever and bringing them over here. Six of 'ems a pain in the ass, no way in hell I want to deal with TWELVE of 'em."

"So, this trip a bust?" Skank said.

I grinned through bloody teeth and held up the magical mirror shard still clutched in my fist. "Oh, might not be a total loss," I said. Things went grey and fuzzy. "Okay, take over Skank... I think I need a little rest..." I slumped down as blood loss finally made the world fade out. "Hope the real target pans out..."

Up in her tower, Luna was seething with anger. They'd been suckered! Somehow Darth Vulcan had not only seen through the trap at the library, he'd somehow managed to use Artful Dodger to trick them into thinking that he'd fallen for it. Instead of going for the bait, the weasely human had taken advantage of their guard being concentrated at the library and hit multiple targets scattered all around Equestria--- just out of reach of quick response.  She'd already gotten reports of a gold shipment being stolen, of an entire freight train being plundered... not just the cargo, but the whole thing,  train and all...

She growled and brooded some more over the dream-crystal before her. The glass globe was replaying her infiltrator's last night of dreams. They had continued much as expected.... It had been fairly easy to tease out that Darth Vulcan had taken the bait of their little trap, and would attack soon. But something about the dreams the past night or two had changed, ever so slightly. As if there were a second layer to the dream being revealed, as if old memories were surfacing that changed its content.

The dream reached the critical point in the replay. The spectral librarian was chasing Artful Dodger as always... except now he stopped. What he did next had varied the past few days, but it was always peculiar. This time he stopped, held up a hoof to the librarian, and proceeded to set up a little card table that the vengeful book-ghost regarded with curiosity.

Luna's eyes went round. She was a thousand years out of date, but gambling games were as old as history, and even she couldn't miss the symbolism when Artful Dodger set up a ball and three cups and began shuffling them about... only to have Darth Vulcan sneak up from behind and switch the ball to another cup.

Luna scrambled to her hooves and galloped for her sister's chambers. "Sister! Sister! We have been flummoxed!

"The wretch is pulling a double fake!!"

The library, which had just a short while ago, had been a teeming mass of guards, was now eerily quiet. Nearly every guard on duty had been pulled away to respond to the multiple alarms.  

Up on the roof, a feathered form settled in ghostly silence next to the skylight. Eiderdown hunkered down in the shadows, and as Darth Vulcan's letter had instructed, waited.

It didn't take long. Who should come soaring down to land in front of the royal library but Celestia and Luna themselves. "Open the library immediately!" Luna shouted at the unicorn guards at the front door, her voice ruffling the crest on their helmets.

The guards saluted--- and looked from Luna to Celestia, as if seeking permission. "Your highnesses, we have magically sealed the building for the night---"

"Your concern is appreciated, soldier, but time is of the essence," Celestia said. "Quickly, break the seals and open the door." The guards nodded and complied. Even from her perch Eiderdown could see Luna stifle a seethe at the subtle slight to her royal authority. The seam around the door flared, then went dark... along with the seam around every other door and window. "Stand guard here," Celestia ordered them. "And reseal the other doors and windows. Whoever entered may seek to flee behind us." With that, the Princesses galloped inside.

The moment they were out of earshot, Eiderdown hurriedly pulled a screwdriver out of her saddlebag and pried open the skylight next to her. She propped it open a few mere inches with a stick, just seconds before the guards reset the seal. When the cracked-open window didn't trigger the seal, it was obvious she'd gotten it open in time. She breathed a sigh of relief, then resumed waiting.

Inside, the Princesses galloped to the center of the library... and skidded to a halt. The display cases were there, untouched. All the grimoires were inside. No sinister armored figure awaited them; no team of trained minions, no ghostly avatar or servant, nothing. All was as it should be.

The two circled the room warily, horns glowing as they searched for signs of their enemy. When after several minutes' search revealed nothing, Celestia let her horn wink out. "Sister, all is as it should be," she said. "Are you sure?"

"As certain as the sunset and the dawn," Luna said grimly, still scanning. A hint of levity crept into her voice. "Assuming thou hadst not been drinking the night before."

"Ha, ha, Luna," Celestia said dryly. "But seriously... are you truly certain you understood the symbolism of the dream?"

Luna rolled her eyes. "Tia, as I have told thee before-- it would take weeks of teaching you about dreamwalking and dream symbols for you to even understand the explanation," she said. "Trust me, I knew."

"Yet everything here is undisturbed... Perhaps that was Darth Vulcan's plan, but it has been interrupted," Celestia proposed. "I have received word that he was involved in one of the raids outside the city personally tonight--- and that he may have been injured. Perhaps grievously."

Eiderdown stifled a gasp.

"Mayhap," Luna said reluctantly. "But twill be prudent to keep a weather eye on this archive of tomes for a few days yet at least."

"True enough," Celestia admitted. "Let us leave and let them reseal the building, Luna. We've got our hooves more than full dealing with the calamities that wretch has already unleashed tonight." With that the two of them trotted out of the building.

Eiderdown let out her breath. Darth Vulcan had been hurt? What did this mean for the rest of them....? She shook her head; now was not the time for that. She scanned the streets below, searching. She spotted Dodger, hiding in the shrubbery surrounded in a cloud of his own magical darkness. He was serving as her lookout from the street level. After a few minutes he waved the high sign at her. All clear. After a moment, the familiar buzz of the sealing spell was back. The only difference was now the building was magically locked with one skylight a few inches open. One of the tiny flaws in that kind of security.

Eiderdown let out another breath and opened her saddlebag. 'It's all you now, WolfTooth," she whispered. "Good luck." The tiny breezy saluted and dove down through the skylight.

Another flaw in the security was that it wouldn't react to anything smaller than a foal. Noone wanted to be roused from their sleep to go chasing spiders and moths... so the motion spell didn't even react to WolfTooth fluttering about.

Once he was inside, he flew to the grimoire display. The glass cases were arranged in a star-like pattern at the center of the room, directly under the single largest skylight. Rows of book-filled shelves clear to the ceiling could be seen going off in every direction, and beyond them, open wings of still more books. WolfTooth carefully hovered in the dead center over the display and pulled something out of his little breezie haversack.

It wasn't much to look at; just a tiny rectangular chip of plastic , not much bigger than a thumbnail. I had found it and a couple others in the bottom of my costume pockets one day while I was idly fishing around, seeing what I might have brought with me from my home dimension. And up until now, it had been effectively worthless. Thanks to magic, though, it was about to become the most priceless artifact in Equestria:

A single, brand spanking new 1 Terabyte SD chip.

I'd experimented with one of them, of course, so I knew this would work. But it was still pretty mind boggling to think about. I'd been told by Chrysalis that what I was about to have done was preposterous (her word); that the Royal Library of Canterlot contained over a million volumes.

I'd savored the look on her face when I told her that a one-terabyte chip... which I'd bought to use on my laptop at home... could hold up to four.

And the awesome thing about magic was that it didn't discriminate between different types of storage media. I'd pre-enchanted the chip, so all WolfTooth had to do was trigger it. He held the chip overhead and spoke one word three times.

"Transcribe."

A misty web of glowing lines shot out of the SD chip, linking to every book in the room, spreading onward down every hallway and cubby-corner, till the room was filled with misty, intangible gossamer threads. beads of light--- words, names, pictures--- began racing down the threads, pouring into the seemingly bottomless chip with the literal speed of lightning.

This was the tricky part. While the jimmied skylight had let him past the seal on the doors and windows, and his size had let him slip past the motion sensing spell, there was no way to conceal this from the magic-detecting enchantments. Alarm bells sounded all over the library. Of couse, by the time what few guards were there had even responded the transcribe spell was already done, but the doors and windows had been sealed-- again, this time with a spell that wouldn't be fooled by a two-inch gap. WolfTooth quickly found a potted plant and hid amongst the blooms.

Outside, the two guards were just unlocking the door when clods of magically propelled dirt hit both of them in the back of the helmet. "Hey!" they shouted. They spun around to find a gangly white colt in a bowler hat leaning against the fence, smirking at them cheekily.

"Ello, lads," he said. "Wot's the word?"

"Halt! Stand your ground, colt!" They brandished spears at him. "Who are you?"

Dodger actually looked annoyed. "Oo am I? I'm Artful Dodger, you gilded knob polishers, right-hoof stallion to his Nibs, the Dark Lord Darth Vulcan." He sneered. "An two bits says you fillies can't lay a hoof on me."

The guards glared. "Halt! You're under arrest for treason to the crown!"

"Treason to the crown? Which you mean, the fat cake-arse who's been sittin' on 'er duff for a thousand years, or her moon-arsed bitch of a sister who finks nuffin' of usin' black magic to poke around in ponies' heads?" Dodger's sneer practically dripped. "You an' them both can go get bent-- iffen you aren't already."

The guards growled and charged. Dodger ran off down the street and ducked down an alleyway. The guards followed in hot pursuit, leaving the unlocked door behind them.

The library was lit up like day inside, and the few guards that had been ordered to stay were prowling the shelves with spears and magic at the ready. Eiderdown panted with relief when she heard the seal-spell fizz out. She whistled like a nightjar. WolfTooth heard the all clear and flew like an arrow for the skylight; not a soul saw him. The moment he was clear of the skylight Eiderdown stuffed the plucky little tooth breezy into her saddlebag and flew off, silent as the night on her cotton-soft wings.

In one fell swoop, they had literally stolen the entire Royal Library of Canterlot, and not so much as creased a single page.

They rejoined Dodger trotting down a side street, his periwinkle disguise restored. She alighted and trotted along next to him, both of them trying to look casual despite their hearts racing. That was it, just two ponies out for a night stroll... "The guards?"

"Left 'em down a back alley, chasing their own shadows," Dodger said, letting a puff of nightmare smoke drift off his horn. "Anyone spot you or 'Tooth?" at Eiderdown's shaken head Dodger grinned. "Bee's knees. Let's get back to our little rent room, rest up a bit, then catch the next train to Ponyville."

"A nap sounds good," Eiderdown said. She leaned against Dodger wearily, the adrenaline crash catching up to her. It would be while yet before they got back to the lair, and learned if everything they had stolen had been worth the cost...