I look at the guy in front of me, unsure if he’s joking. “An offer, you say?” I ask.

“Exactly,” he replies. “It’s very easy: you’ll do something for us and we’ll forget about my cousin and his money.”

“And what if I don’t?” I ask. Not that I don’t want to do that, I’m just wondering what are the limits of their creativity.

“Do you know Wild Hunt?” the stallion asks, glaring daggers at me.

“Why wouldn’t I? I bit her ear off...”

“She proposed an enema made of battery acid. How do you like that option?” He smirks in a way telling me that he’ll be more than glad to perform that on me.

I had quite a few horrible things in my ass, but that’d be too much for me to handle. “Okay, so what do I have to do? I have to warn you – if you want me to kill somepony, it’ll fail. I’m an assassin like goat’s ass is a trumpet, you know.”

“Well, I know a griffon in Scoltland who plays bagpipe... And it’s made of goat’s ass...” he says. “But that’s not the point. The point is, we’re kinda impressed.”

“By what?” I ask. “That we’re still alive despite your best attempts?”

“Just between me and you, my cousin is an idiot surrounded by idiots. You live because you were a little wiser than they.” He smirks. “The thing is, you somehow managed to break into his safe. I’m pretty sure one more will be easy for you...”

Shit. Am I, like, an expert now? My mother would beat the crap out of me with a shovel if she heard that I became a professional burglar. “Where’s that safe?” I ask.

He looks at me like an expert looks at another expert. “Not far away from the town there’s an old castle. We’ll drop you there. In the dungeon, there’s a chamber where the owners of the castle keep an ancient sword of The Great and Powerful Cedric Lulamoon.”

“Who?” I look at Trixie unsurely, but she also looks completely clueless. “Let me guess, only the rightful heir of that sword can touch it?”

He shakes his head. “No, it’s just a very expensive piece of rusty metal, which, according to the legends, protects its owner against magic,” he says. “Still, we’d really want to have it.”

“Well, I’ll need Trixie anyway,” I say. “She can cast a camouflage spell I need to get there. I assume that the sword is well-protected.”

“She’ll go with you,” he replies without even a moment of hesitation. “But don’t even try to escape, or else we’ll kill Scratch...”

I try my best to keep a straight face. Unfortunately, I fail.

“Okay,” he mutters. “We’ll kill Scratch and those two who are currently trying to figure out fillyfooling in the nearby room. Then we’ll proceed to your brother, his wife, and their child.”

I sigh. “Can you kill his wife anyway? I hate her.”

“We charge at least one hundred thousand bits for that.” He sounds as if he was speaking about buying groceries.

“I can afford that, but I wouldn’t be able to live knowing that I wasted so much money on that cunt...” I say. Still, I’m tempted to do that. But, on the other hoof, I’d have to take care of Hannibal then.

“Yeah... We all have that one family member we’d rather see on the bottom of the sea...”

Bacio della Morte, if I were you, I’d watch out for that guy... Suddenly, my common sense whispers something into my ear. Finally. I haven’t heard it since I started to hang out with Trixie and Vinyl.

“Is there a possibility to see the castle before we go there?” I ask. “I’d rather not go there without knowing what awaits there for me...”

“Sure,” he replies. “After all, it’s a museum...”

Finally, I feel like a tourist. Those guys even gave me a camera, a shirt with flowery pattern, and a silly cap with “I love Prance” written on the front. Trixie’s wearing a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, a beret, and a t-shirt saying “My friend was in Prance and all I got was that crappy t-shirt”. In other words, we look like a pair of typical tourists from Equestria who made a stop in Prance to see some sights before going to Neighterlands to smoke weed and marry each other.

“Trixie likes this castle...” Trixie mutters, watching the enormous gate in front of us. We’re standing on the bridge with a group of other tourists, mostly elderly griffons. “It’s a very nice castle...”

“Qu'est-ce que vous avez dit?” one of the few ponies in the group, a young mare taking care of a griffon so old that he probably fought in the battle of Stalliongrad, asks.

“Trixie likes this castle!” Trixie replies, this time slower and louder. I don’t know why, but many ponies think that if you speak Equine slowly and loudly, everypony will understand you.

The mare nods. “Merci,” she says. “But who’s Trixie?” she asks, pronouncing ‘r’ in a really sexy way.

“She’s Trixie,” I reply. “Don’t think about that for too long.”

The guide appears and we follow him inside. It seems that first we’ll have to look at the old walls and pretend that we’re interested in the fact that the mortar was apparently made of eggs. Of course, since that time, the castle has been repaired way too many times to count and the eggs are now replaced with concrete.

“Cameras,” I mutter to Trixie. “Lots of cameras.”

“Don’t worry, we have a spell for that,” Trixie replies.

“Iron grating. I guess they lower it at night...”

“We’ll have to tell our new friends that we need a hacksaw...” Trixie says, checking if nopony listens to us.

“Too much time, even with your spell.” I wave my hoof dismissively. “The guards may see that something’s wrong with the grating... Maybe we’ll dig a tunnel? No, it’s even longer... Or maybe we’ll get a balloon...”

Trixie scratches her chin. “How about... a catapult?”

“A catapult?”

“We’d hurl ourselves into the castle... Over the gate!” Trixie replies.

“That’s retarded...” I facehoof.

“Well, Trixie doesn’t see you coming up with anything...”

Suddenly, a thought hits me like a freight train without brakes and with a drunk crew consisting of three Vinyl’s clones. “We’re unicorns... You can teleport us inside...”

“Trixie hates to admit it, but it sometimes fails,” Trixie replies. “Like, you could end up with your head switched with your ass...”

“Not much of a difference...” I reply. Something tells me that this explains many things.

“Excuse me,” the guide says. “Could you, please, be a little quieter? Most of the tourists are more interested in the history rather than their partners’ asses...”

“I’m sorry,” I reply. “I was just explaining my friend a difference between a catapult and a trebuchet.”

The guide nods and continues telling us the history of the castle. We go into the dungeon – I don’t usually have claustrophobia, but when I do, it’s in the places like that one. Dark, moist, and smelly, with torture devices on display. I really need to ask the guide if I can borrow the iron maiden. I’d lure Vinyl inside with candies.

“Terminal,” Trixie mutters to me. I look at the wall near the door. Indeed there’s a magical terminal there. Its colour makes it almost indistinguishable from the wall, but there’s a small screen there and a microphone. When we walk through the door, I take a quick look at it. Luckily, it’s not one of the newest models with retina scanning and voice recognition. We won’t have to poke somepony’s eye with a spoon or record their voice to get through. We’ll just need a password or somepony to hack it.

Or rather, we’ll definitely need a password. I suck at hacking.

Finally, we’re in the chamber with the sword. It lies in a display cabinet – the kind of lock is one of my favourites, I can open it in two minutes with nothing but a pin. The guide stands next to the cabinet and begins a story of the battle of the Briard Hill. Apparently, soon there’ll be 950th anniversary of this battle between ponies led by Starswirl the Bearded, his beloved son-in-law Cedric Lulamoon, and his not-so-beloved son Shining Sparkle, and Diamond Dogs, led by their king, Fluffy the Terrible.

The whole story was really long, but actually quite interesting, at least for me. Forgive me that I’ll tell you the shortened version.

First off, the battle is known as the first one in which a firearm was used. It wasn’t very widespread – Starswirl the Bearded himself said that this rusty pipe filled with gunpowder and using stones as ammo, brought on the battlefield by a young archer called Apple Buck would never catch up. According to the chronicles it was pretty dangerous to everypony standing next to it, but Apple Buck was apparently fearless. Before the battle, he shot down one of the five griffon scouts working for Fluffy the Terrible. One of the sources mentions that the griffon’s brain sprayed on Starswirl the Bearded, another adds an exchange between Apple Buck and another archer just after the lucky shot:

“Jolly good shot!”

“Jolly good shot mine arse,” Apple Buck replied. “Ah aimeth at ye griffon in ye middle.”

According to the sources, he was using his bow during the battle.

Anyway, three thousand warriors, the half of the ponies’ forces, led by Shining Sparkle, engaged the Diamond Dogs on a plain. It was a fierce battle, not to mention that archers from the both sides were firing at them constantly. Meanwhile, a smaller group of spearponies and warriors, led by Cedric Lulamoon, was walking through the swamps to attack Fluffy the Terrible and his elite guards – Diamond Dogs and some minotaurs, hidden behind the archers. They were pissed, since the pegasi led by General Firefly didn’t arrive and they had no air support.

At the same time, Shining Sparkle’s spearponies managed to break through the first line of Diamond Dogs’ forces, but their losses were so big that they retreated, letting the heavily-armoured infantry charge at the second line of the enemy, who was quite busy trying to convince the remains of the first line to not run away. Soon, they all had to make it up, after Shining Sparkle rammed into them. According to the chronicle, the guts of those who were unlucky to be in the front landed on the archers standing two hundred metres behind.

Cedric Lulamoon encountered a small problem. Fluffy the Terrible stood on the top of the hill, surrounded by the archers and his elite warriors. Charging at them would be a suicide, so he decided to stand in the woods and look menacingly enough to scare the Diamond Dogs away. Additionally, his warriors engaged in a psychological warfare, throwing at the enemy insults like “ill-born fen rat”, “I fucketh thy mother”, “onion-eyed oaf”, "Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries", or “catamite”.

According to the sources, one of the loudest soldiers there was a spearpony called Minuet. Starswirl the Bearded mentions him in his memoirs as the most foul-mouthed pony he’d ever encountered; he also said that Minuet was the most skilled in peeing his name in the snow and had a nasty habit of aiming his spear at the enemies’ private parts.

Anyway, Cedric Lulamoon waited till Shining Sparkle charged at the Diamond Dog archers first and attacked Fluffy the Terrible from behind. Most of the sources say that he beheaded the king with the sword I was looking at, but one of the minotaurs who survived the battle later wrote that, in fact, it was the moment when the pegasi finally appeared above the battlefield. According to him, General Firefly shot Fluffy the Terrible with her crossbow just when Cedric was charging at him. The minotaur even mentions that Cedric looked at the sky and yelled, “Thou stealeth Ye Great and Powerful Cedric’s kill, arseling!”, to which General Firefly replied “Go and fornicate thyself, thou harlot!”.

The battle was won. According to the legend, Minuet cut the balls of Fluffy the Terrible off and kept them as a trophy.

Hmm, and I wondered what was in that ancient jar I once found in the attic. Can you believe that Vinyl almost opened it? She thought there were pickles inside.

Okay, time to go back to the present times. Our trip slowly ends. Trixie and I walk out of the castle and go back to the cart where our mafia friends are waiting for us smoking cigarettes and playing poker.

“And what do you think?” I ask Trixie.

“Cedric beheaded Fluffy the Terrible,” Trixie replies. “Trixie doesn’t care about what some minotaur said.”

“Yeah, and I’ve never tried to pee my name in the snow. It’s kinda hard when you don’t have a dick. But I meant, what do you think about our chances.”

“The terminal will be the hardest part,” Trixie replies. “But my spells and your skills will be enough for the rest.”

We approach our escort. One of the ponies, a really nasty guy with a scar across his face, looks at us and asks, “Done with the sightseeing? Are you gonna do that tonight?”

“We’ll need some time,” I reply. “Three days will be good.”

“What?” He raises his eyebrows. “Remember that we can kill you, your friends, and family...”

“Listen, dickhead,” I say. “Have you heard about things that can be done cheap, quickly, and well?”

“No,” he mutters. “Also, call me a dickhead again and you’ll eat a stew made of your teats.”

“Kinky... We must try this sometime,” I say. “Anyway, things can be done cheap, quickly, or well. You can only choose two of those three things and, since your boss decided to hire us, you apparently are already settled on ‘cheap’. It can either be done quickly or done well. And guess whose balls your boss will put in a jar for the next nine hundred and fifty years if we fail?”

He scratches his head. “Okay,” he says. “You have three days.”

We spent those three days being quite busy. First thing I did was getting a catalogue of Golem Magical Protection Inc. (Trixie and I actually forgot to check the name of the system, so we had to send Vinyl and Inkie to the castle, disguised as tourists. Vinyl set the alarm off in order to read the brand name on the terminal during the ensuing chaos) and reading it thoroughly.

I don’t know if you know that, but every magical alarm system has a different spell which may be used to disable it. Most of them are easy, as the producers assume that their clients are idiots who’ll surely forget the password they set. The key is stored on a crystal, but a skilled unicorn can cast a disabling spell easily, if they know its matrix. After reading the catalogue, I had a general idea what kind of spell is used by the guys from Golem Magical Protection Inc. and a short trip to the local library allowed me to learn the general pattern. It may need some adjustments, but it won’t take long.

Before you ask, the magic books in the library were in Prench, but Aryanne went with me and translated it to Pferdisch and to Equine for me. You know, when I repair various things, I usually have to read user’s manuals translated to Equine from Neighponese by an old zebra hermit living on the top of the highest mountain in Maretonia, so it wasn’t that hard to figure out what was going on.

Now I only had to think about the conventional locks. I asked Mr. della Morte for some tools and I got the best ones available. Remember my uncle who got caught robbing Fancy Pants’ house? Well, before that, he taught me almost everything he knew. Opening doors without key, opening safes just by listening to the clicking of the lock... Hell, most safes don’t even need to do that. The most popular model of safe in Equestria has a six-digit code. In the factory, they set the locks on one of three default codes: 000000, 123456, and 654321. Guess how many buyers bother with changing them. And even if they do, it’s usually their date of birth.

Of course, I usually open only those safes whose owners forgot the codes or inherited them from somepony and wanted me to open them. I’m not breaking into other ponies’ flats, unless someone asks me to because they lost a key or something. And I don’t approve of burglary. And if Berry Punch ever tells you a crazy story about me breaking into Princess Celestia’s palace to steal her gem-encrusted slippers, remember that Berry is the only pony who survived having a BAC of 1.5% and most of things she says is a drunken rambling. And I really didn’t jump out of the window to land in some thorny bush. It really hu– I mean, it’d really hurt if I did.

Anyway, we’re ready. It’s night, we’re wearing black spy suits (I’m not sure why – after all, we’re supposed to be invi... pardon, unnoticeable, not to mention that Trixie’s ass doesn’t really fit her suit). I also wear a vest with pockets for my tools. I even have a rope I stole from Inkie and Coco – Aryanne had given it to them when they first heard about bondage. I took it away from them since they’d almost surely strangle each other.

Trixie casts a spell and we approach the gate of the castle unseen by any guards or cameras. The grating is lowered. At least they don’t raise the drawbridge for night. Not that it’d stop us.

“Ready?” Trixie asks. I still don’t know why she whispers. After all, we’re unnoticeable, not to mention that, since she’s usually very loud, when she does whisper, she tries too hard. As a result, I can barely hear her.

“Ready when you are,” I reply, instinctively whispering too. I guess it’s just some kind of reflex.

She embraces me and focuses on teleporting us and maintaining a spell. I close my eyes. Not that it helps much when the botched teleportation changes your eyeballs into jelly, but I just prefer not to see as magic changes my body into a cloud of thaums only to materialise it in some different place (sometimes in a few places at once) a split second later.

The spell turns my stomach upside-down for a moment. Trixie is rather rough with teleportation; normally I’d teleport myself, but Trixie said that it may cause a thaumical interference between my magic and her magic and the consequences would be unpredictable – maybe I’d get a cunt itch, or maybe pieces of my brain would land on the head of some filly in Vanhoover.

The magic vortex calms down. I open my eyes to see that we’re still on the same side of the grating at before. Trixie scratches her head and looks at the gate.

“What’s going on?” I ask. “Some small horn disfunction?”

“It’s that grating,” Trixie replies. “It’s enchanted and we can’t teleport through it...”

Crap. Why didn’t we think of this? Invisibility... Sorry, unnoticeability spell, terminal hacking spell, a skilled burglar... I mean, Opener of What Shall Remain Closed, and we forget about checking if we can teleport through the gate? This universe fucking hates me.

“What now?” Trixie asks. “Trixie thinks we should go back and ask those guys for a catapult.”

I sigh and glare at her like somepony who’s about to set a school full of orphans on fire. “Stick that catapult into your ass and spin,” I say slowly. “Even a bat pony would do... Though I’d rather not let a pony like Wild Hunt carry me anywhere...”

“So, we’re going to get some bat pony then?” Trixie desperately avoids looking into my eyes.

“Fuck bat ponies. I have a rope,” I reply. “It’s long enough to make a lasso and throw it at the battlement.”

Before she can say something I start to spin the rope. I’ve seen Applejack doing that hundreds of times, it can’t be that hard...

The first throw misses not only the battlement, but also the wall. I really hope the rope is also affected by Trixie’s spell, or else somepony could just observe a disembodied rope flying through the darkness. The second throw isn’t any better. Then the rope wraps around the battlement. Almost.

“Can Trixie say something?” Trixie asks.

“What?”

“You can just levitate the rope. There’s no need to throw it...”

Oh... Indeed. “But... How about the interference?” I ask.

“Levitation shouldn’t disturb Trixie’s spell.”

Shouldn’t? Not very reassuring... But I have to try. It goes better than expected. I manage to tie the rope around the battlement and I start to climb. After covering a few metres, I feel that the tip of my horn is getting cold – a sign that it’s outside the range of Trixie’s spell. I turn my head to see that she’s still standing on the bridge.

“What’s going on?” I ask, sliding back to her.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie is afraid of climbing...” Trixie replies, smiling sheepishly.

Just great. Time for a motivational speech. “You’ll go first,” I say.

“What?”

“If you fall, I’ll catch you,” I reply. Good luck with that, but she doesn’t have to know about it. “Hope you won’t need to drop a deuce on my head halfway through in order to be lighter?”

“No, Trixie went to the toilet before we left,” she says, blushing. “Though Trixie feels she needs to pee... Can we go to those bushes?”

“Those bushes are the very fancy garden, don’t be like Vinyl... Feel free to use the moat,” I say with a sigh. “We’re under your spell, nopony will see you.”

“But you’re still here...” Trixie mutters, wincing and shifting her legs nervously.

“I won’t be watching...” I reply. I don’t want to creep her out by saying that I find it kinda hot, so I walk as far from her as the spell lets me (which is the other side of the bridge) and look into the water. Hey, it’s like playing poohsticks, but without the sticks. I don’t think it’ll ever catch up – it’d be hard to see the water turning yellow, even during the day.

It takes some time before Trixie manages to free her strategic places from the catsuit and relieve herself into the moat. If I recall correctly, the water was dirty before, so it won’t get much worse.

“Okay, Trixie can climb,” Trixie says.

“Wait a minute... How about me?” I ask. You know, I also feel that it’s better to take care of some things now.

“What about you?” Trixie looks at me unsurely and facehoofs. “For Luna’s sake, Minuette...”

“Simple psychology: you mentioned it, I have to do that too...” I reply. Before she manages to say something more, I simply move my catsuit out of the way, lift my tail, and begin to make changes to the moat’s ecosystem. Trixie winces; I’m not sure why, she sees only my front. Call me shameless, but I’m not gonna drag that load up the wall.

I finish, letting the last drops sink into my catsuit (after all, washing it will be the mafia’s problem) and approach Trixie. “C’mon,” I say. “I’ll be right behind you.”

She starts to climb slowly. After she’s about two metres from the ground, I climb behind her. From time to time, she throws nervous glances down, sweating profusely. I don’t have a problem with that – why should I look down when her preety, pudgy posterior, wrapped in a tight spandex, is right in front of my face. If she slipped, I’d deflower it with my horn...

Shit. Shouldn’t have said that. You know, I’m heterosexual, but my cunt doesn’t exactly know about it. Especially now, when my hind legs are wrapped around the rope which rubs my teats and what lies below them. I’m tempted to look down but I can’t take my eyes off Trixie. The smell of her sweat, her muscles working as she climbs up the wall.

Aargh! I slip down the rope. Fortunately only a bit, but the pressure on my... umm... body almost sent me over the edge. Really, I need to find someone to scratch that itch. I got really sensitive down there.

I climb to catch up with Trixie. It’s not easy – a part of the rope got a bit slippery for some reason, not to mention that I’m panting and moaning with every move upwards. My suit got torn when I was sliding and now I’m directly exposed to the rough surface of the rope. Ugh... Only a few more metres to go... Ah... Trixie is already on the wall; I can see her crawling through the crenel. Ooh... Soon I’ll be...

Oh. Oooh!

When I join Trixie, my cheeks are flushed and I’m still panting. She looks at the back of my catsuit and winces. “Are you sure you took it off before you urinated in front of Trixie?”

“Yes...” I mutter. “It’s not...”

“Then what... ewww!” Trixie moves as far from me as possible without leaving me outside the spell. “We need to find the other way to get out of here. Trixie is not using that rope again!”

“I know, I’m sorry...” I say, trying hard not to add “worth it”. “I think I’ll get rid of that suit... It’s useless anyway...”

“What if there’s DNA on it?” Trixie asks. “Trixie thinks there may be some...”

Some? As the wind chills my private bits, I feel that I left on the catsuit enough DNA to clone me several times and make a tape called “Minuette Fucks Herself Repeatedly”. After considering all the options for a while, I take my suit off, fold it, and hide it in my saddlebags. Same with the rope.

We walk to the courtyard. There are several guards there, but their gaze slips from us. Sometimes they’re staring through us, but never at us. As long as Trixie maintains the spell, we’re safe.

The door to the dungeon is locked. I tell Trixie to look if the guards aren’t interested in a lock opening by itself and levitated my tools. A minute and twenty four seconds later, we’re in the dungeon. I light my horn – it’s pretty dark in here but I don’t have to worry about guards spotting me. Though I guess they wouldn’t spot us even without the spell – judging by the sounds coming from behind the iron maiden, two guards, male and female, are very busy with each other. We walk through that place as fast as possible.

“Do you think there may be any ghosts here?” Trixie asks, looking at the walls.

“Well, the only ghost here would probably be your great, great, whatever, great-grandfather,” I reply. “I guess he won’t mind that you take his sword...”

“Trixie hopes so,” Trixie mutters. “Of course, Trixie would be able to scare away every ghost...”

Yeah, right. She’d probably challenge The Great and Powerful Cedric Lulamoon on a duel in chewing the scenery. And I’d rather not be in the same place with them.

Finally, we’re in front of the passage leading to the chamber with the sword. The terminal is blinking, there’s also a kind of pink mist in the passage – an indication that the spell is working. If somepony walked into it, they’d be stunned, blown across the room, and shot with a tranquiliser dart. And then, of course, the system would call the guards to scrap the unfortunate burglar off the wall.

I, of course, don’t like being scraped off the wall, especially only three weeks after a near-death experience – I’m trying not to show that, but I still have headaches that make me even more short-fused than usual. Though, on the other hoof, I just had the weirdest orgasm in my life, so I can die happy.

I aim my horn at the terminal, casting a hacking spell. Nothing happens. That is, not exactly nothing – Trixie’s camouflage spell flickers a bit.

“We have an interference,” I say to Trixie. “Are there any cameras here? You’ll have to drop the spell for a moment.”

“There’s one, there,” Trixie replies, pointing at the camera. A moment later, the camera is disabled by her spell. We actually bought the same model for Trixie to practice – she’s able to make it look like a camera is still working, showing the empty corridor. Trixie drops the spell and I aim my horn at the terminal again.

This time, something finally happens.Two words flash on the terminal’s screen.

Code Outdated

“What?” I ask. For some reason, the spell gave me access to logs and options such as changing the colour of the screen. In fact, it gave me access to all the option but turning it off and changing password. I open the log – maybe I’ll find out what the hell just happened. After searching through numerous “System Check – Everything’s All Right” messages, I find the right one:

12/7/04 – Changed the matrix of the spell. The old crystal had bugs and was too easy to access by an unauthorised pony. Gizmo Poindexter, IT Specialist.

Fuck! Celestia should gather all those IT specialists in one place and send them to the Sun. I turn to Trixie, who, seeing that I finished, casts the spell again.

“Some idiot changed the matrix,” I say. “We need a password... What do those historians think about all the time?” I ask myself.

“Minuette...” Trixie mutters.

“Historians... Hmm... They’re all nerds... ‘Slut’?” The pink mist is still there. “‘Dirty whore?’”

“Minuette...”

“Okay, I was joking. Too much stress.” I sigh and roll my eyes. “The password is probably ‘Cedric Lulamoon.’”

Nothing.

“Umm... ‘Cedric’s Large Sword’? Fuck, I was never good in that...”

“Minuette!” Trixie yells. I really hope her spell is as good as she claims it to be. “Listen to Trixie when she’s talking to you!”

“What?” I ask. “Don’t you see that I’m trying to guess the password?”

“Maybe you should start with that yellow sticky note on the wall, with ‘Password’ written on the top?” Trixie points at the said note. Well, that’s far too easy...

I reach for the note and read it. Well, that was easy. “We’re supposed to read it aloud, clearly and correctly, huh?” I ask Trixie. Even I can hear that my voice sounds like I’m going to charge at the bathroom door with an axe.

“Yes, why are you asking?” Trixie looks at me unsurely and backpedals.

“Look.” I pass the note to her. She reads it, furrowing her eyebrows. Then she scratches her head, trying to read the note upside down.

“What’s that?” she blurts out, giving me the note back.

“No idea,” I reply. “How’s your Prench?”

“Doesn’t exist,” Trixie replies. “How’s yours?”

“My closest contact with Prench was when I walked in on Vinyl blowing my brother,” I reply. “Unforgettable experience, but it’s definitely not enough to pronounce ‘si ces six cents six sangsues sont sur son sein sans sucer son sang, ces six cents six sangsues sont sans succès’ correctly. Not with my lisp.”

“You have a lisp?” Trixie asks. “Since when?”

“Since I nearly died and woke up only because I saw Vinyl preparing to resuscitate me,” I reply, glaring at the terminal angrily. We were going to die because none of us knows Prench. So unfair. “Maybe my brain got damaged. You may not hear it, but I can feel it.”

“The Great and Powerful Trixie doesn’t think you have lisp.” Trixie shrugs. “Also, you just said it.”

“Said what?”

“‘Si ces six cents six sangsues sont sur son sein sans sucer son sang, ces six cents six sangsues sont sans succès.’” Trixie replies. “And then that pink barrier disappeared.”

“Oh...” I look at the door. Indeed, the terminal is no longer working. We proceed inside.

The sword is in the display cabinet, just like before. Finally, I find a lock I can open without having to take weird stuff into account. Just me, my tools, and that tight piece of stubborn metal. Two minutes and the lock is open.

For a moment, I admire the beauty of the sword. Its pommel made of a red ruby, a smooth grip, a perfectly balanced, still sharp edge; A crossguard with the words “Mater tua me irrumavit” engraved on it. I levitate the sword gently and grab it with my hooves.

Immediately, I feel cold and I realise that I’m perfectly visible. Shit. I totally forgot that this sword protects the wielder against magic, which apparently includes the spells cast by your allies. Good thing nopony’s here, except of those three masked pegasi flying just below the ceiling, who’re now diving at me...

Wait, what? Before I realise what’s going on, one of the pegasi tackles me. The sword slides on the floor to Trixie, who levitates it. She drops her camouflage spell and throws her head backwards, her eyes burning. When one of the pegasi flies at her, she swings the sword, nearly slicing them in two.

I have no time to watch her, though. I jump backwards, turn around and kick one of the pegasi in the stomach. I roll on the floor to avoid the third one. My backpack makes it a bit harder, but it also gives me an idea. When the pegasus I kicked flies at me again, they suddenly get a serious case of a wet catsuit to the face. Poor guy. I almost felt sorry, when they hit the wall. Almost.

In accordance to the family’s best tradition, I should now get a spear and cut their balls off. I run towards the body and reach my hoof to check something...

Fuck tradition. It’s a mare.

Meanwhile, Trixie managed to hit the other pegasus with her magic, stunning them. She raises the sword, ready to behead them...

No, no beheading in my presence! I charge my horn and hit the pegasus with a spell, causing them to collapse when Trixie’s sword misses.

“Hey!” Trixie yells. “You stole the Great and Powerful Trixie’s kill, asshole!”

“Suck it.” I chuckle and then I’m tackled by the third pegasus. Trixie rushes to help me, but it seems that my spell didn’t hit her opponent as strong as I hoped – they managed to get up and catch her legs.

My pegasus proves to be quite competent. For a moment, I manage to get an upper hoof, only for them to slid off my grasp and pin me to the ground. That’s one flexible motherfucker, if you ask me. Next to me, Trixie is held in a similar fashion. The third pegasus wakes up and turns the light on.

“Time to end that masquerade,” she says in a familiar voice, limping towards us. She takes off her mask.

“Hello, Flitter...” I mutter, smiling sheepishly. “W-what are you doing here?”

“Going to puke after somepony threw a rag they’d wanked themselves into on me,” Flitter replies. The pony holding Trixie takes off her mask, revealing herself to be Cloudchaser. Mine turns out to be a pale mare with green and lavender mane.

“Trixie thinks we should get out of here,” Trixie says. “The guards–”

“We’re helping the guards,” Cloudchaser says. “They won’t disturb us. And, if you shut up and listen to us, we’ll also help you. Blossomforth,” she turned to the mare pinning me, “Release her. Let’s go to the social room. We need to talk.”

The social room is just like any place in the universe where the workers go to drink, eat, think about the string theory, or keep a chained and gagged hostage. Luckily, we’re not chained and gagged. We just sit at the table, drinking tea (due to some law of the universe, there’s always more cups than workers there), with Cedric Lulamoon’s sword lying between us and the group of pegasi.

“So,” I say. “Can you explain us what’s going on?”

“Long story short, we’re agents in Princess Celestia’s secret service,” Cloudchaser replies. “Our current task is to destroy the della Morte mafia.”

“Agents?” Trixie asks. “B-but… You two are sisters who, umm…”

“I don’t see why it’d be a problem,” Flitter says. “Also, it’s a great cover. When I opened the trunk of our cart, you only saw the sex toys. Didn’t notice our other gadgets.”

“Blossomforth is our martial art specialist,” Cloudchaser explains. “She’s probably the most flexible pony in the world.”

You know, I could stop myself from asking that question. But I didn’t want to. “Can she eat herself out?”

“I can, but I don’t,” Blossomforth replies. “Not after, umm… a certain accident I still haven’t quite forgiven you for, guys.” She gives Flitter and Clouchaser a nasty look.

“Okay, nevermind,” I say. “You want to put della Mortes in jail and I’m fine with that. But then, why do you need us?”

“You’re our only chance, unfortunately,” Flitter replies with a sigh. “We had to chase you across half of the world covering your ass. Hope it was worth it…”

“Covering my ass?” I exclaim. “When exactly? Because I don’t remember you doing anything except of giving Vinyl wet dreams when you were with us…”

“Yeah, and who stopped those bat ponies from shooting you down after you stole that flying blender in Hollow Shades?” Flitter asks.

I try to recall those events, which costs me a headache. But I do remember the two armour-clad pegasi I’ve seen just before we had to crash land in the field. “Thanks,” I say. “What do you want us to do? Give the sword back?”

“No,” Blossomforth replies. “Exactly the opposite. You’ll bring that sword to the mafia and get out of our way. We’ll do the rest.”

“Just you three? Are you sure?” Trixie asks. “There are lots of ponies there, with guns and everything…”

“We can handle this,” Cloudchaser say. “You get Vinyl, those two lesbians in training, that blonde smartass with glasses, and your sorry ass back to Equestria. We don’t want any collateral damage. Got it?”

“Get Vinyl, Inkie, Coco, Grace, and my sorry ass back to Equestria and don’t fuck around because we may accidentally get shot by Flitter. Ten times.” I say. “By the way, how do you know about Coco and Grace?”

Flitter smirks in a way that even I, the master of creepy smiles, don’t like. “We’re watching you sleeping,” she says. “In fact, we’re watching everypony… We know what Vinyl thinks about before she goes to bed and what’s the name of that guy with moustache Aryanne clops to.”

“What does Vinyl think about before going to bed?” I ask.

“The same what she thinks all the time,” Cloudchaser replies.

“Oh…” I can’t help but chuckle. “You know nothing then…”

“Very funny,” Blossomforth says with an expression as if she was training before a staring contest with Maud Pie. “Now, get your sword and get out of here…”

Author's Notes:

Qu'est-ce que vous avez dit? - What did you say? in French

I have no idea what "si ces six cents six sangsues sont sur son sein sans sucer son sang, ces six cents six sangsues sont sans succès’", but well, try to say it quickly.

Mater tua me irrumavit - I fucked your mother in Latin