Chapter 2: Planning and Preparation

“So it’s simple, we just sneak in through a window, find Rainbow Dash’s room, chat for a little while, then sneak out like nothing ever happened!” Scootaloo proclaimed much to Sweetie Belle’s and Apple Bloom’s confusion.

“Don’t you think that’s a bit...simple?” Sweetie Belle asked. It was a bit of a basic plan and stuff like this in the movies always involved complex planning montages.

“Yeah and...the windows will be closed. And we can’t just smash ‘em!” Apple Bloom made a light punch in the air in front of her.

The three were sitting in their clubhouse, which was the normal for their planning sessions. But even missions to get their cutie marks had more planning than this.

Scootaloo tapped her chin with her hoof, thinking. “Hm, then...we’ll just throw a rock at it!” She grinned to herself; she was such a genius.

“Won’t that be a bit...loud?” Sweetie Belle questioned, once more.

“I know!” Apple Bloom exclaimed, raising a forehoof. “We can cut in a lil’ neat circle and just climb through! We’ll be as quiet as mice!”

“That’s a great idea Apple Bloom!” Scootaloo responded, then paused, frowning a tad as she realised something. “We’ll need something really, really, sharp though.”

“Sweetie Belle’s horn?” Apple Bloom pointed at the filly in question, which triggered a confused look from Sweetie Belle.

“Nah. Too blunt.” Replied Scootaloo, in a blunt fashion, oddly enough.

“Hey!” Sweetie Belle protested, but her cries were ignored and they moved on.

“Wait...Sweetie Belle; doesn’t your sister use Spike to dig up gems?” Scootaloo looked at Sweetie Belle, as did Apple Bloom.

“Sometimes. I think he uses his tail though.”

“His tail? Doesn’t he have claws?” Apple Bloom wondered.

“I imagine he doesn’t want them to get dirty.” Scootaloo said, all three snickering at the joke. “Well, he’s the best shot we got for the time being.”

“Let’s recruit him then! C’mon!” Apple Bloom commanded, leading the charge out of the door with a brisk pace.

____________________________________________________________________

“No.”

“Aw c’mon Spike! It’ll be awesome!” Scootaloo begged in a whiny fashion.

The three Crusaders were stood outside of the library, which was carved into a tree. A pretty impressive feat, especially since the tree was still living. Its leaves were a healthy, emerald green and the bark was a bold brown. It was probably the only library that was carved into a tree in the whole of Equestria. Well, the Crusaders liked to think that; it made them feel more proud about their town. They always found it odd though how a dragon who could breathe fire lived inside an extremely flammable place...

Spike stood in the way of the entrance, holding the door open. He had little patience and his body expression showed it, eyes narrowed and his left foot tapping on the floor repeatedly. Twilight Sparkle was out collecting various items and so Spike was left to do his chores, as was the norm for him.

“Every time you three do some scheme, you always fail and get covered in tree sap. I’m not going to humiliate myself and get covered in gooey sap!”

Apple Bloom interjected at this point: “To be fair, we only get covered in tree sap sometimes.” Her fellow Crusaders nodded in agreement.

“That doesn’t change my opinion. I mean, if you’re not covered in sap, you’re probably covered in something else.” Spike snicked, imagining various liquids covering the three before him.

“Wait! We’ll pay you!” Sweetie Belle yelled so she would have the dragon’s full attention.

Spike rolled his eyes, shaking his head softly. “I’m not interested in getting-“

“In gems.”

Spike paused for a moment, his face going blank. He then licked his lips and brought his full attention on the white filly.

“Go on.”

“Um...” Sweetie Belle looked at the floor, thinking, then back to Spike. “Uh, two?”

“Only two?! Make it six.”

“Three?”

“Six.”

“Three and a half...?”

“Still six.”

The other two fillies looked at the two as they spoke, as if they were watching a heated game of tennis. Sweetie Belle sounded increasingly desperate the longer the exchange went on for.

“Four and that’s my final offer!” Sweetie Belle flailed her forelegs around a bit.

Spike stroked his chin, thinking this over. “Hmmm. Fine, you got a deal.”

The three Crusaders then leapt into the air and cheered, then landed, grinning at Spike.

“You won’t regret it Spike!” Scootaloo said, nodding rapidly.

“We promise!” added Apple Bloom.

Spike sighed lightly, nodding to the three, and then closing the door on them, muttering to him as he resumed his chores. “I think I will.”

Outside, the Crusaders checked their flanks. Still blank, as expected.

“Darn it, I thought we might one for persuasion!” Apple Bloom stomped her hoof on the ground in annoyance.

“Um, Sweetie Belle?” Scootaloo turned to the white unicorn.

“Yeah?”

“How are we going to get four gems?” Scootaloo asked, sounding a little snarky.

Sweetie Belle tapped her head with a hoof, smiling smugly. “I got it all figured out. Follow me!”

____________________________________________________________________

“So, we’re gonna steal from your sister?” Apple Bloom seemed very unsure of this idea. Mess with the Rarity, you get the horn. And hooves. And magic. And loud screams of anger.

“That’s the plan!” Sweetie Belle replied, sounding chirpy and a little naive.

The Carousel Boutique was certainly an extravagant building. With its decorations and flashy colours, it was a stark contrast to the innovative library they were just at.

Sweetie Belle led the way, pushing the front door open with her head. The bell rang as the door made contact with it. The three left the door to shut by its own accord and looked around the main room. Rarity was no where to be seen.

“She’s probably working on some clothes.” Sweetie Belle suggested, leading the others up the stairs and to the door that led to Rarity’s working room. Or, her ‘creative process room’ as she sometimes referred it to. Didn’t change the fact it was a complete mess though. She tried to justify that by calling it ‘organised chaos’.

Sweetie Belle slowly nudged opens the door, revealing the chaotic mess of a room. Rarity was inside, using magic to add accessories onto new dresses she had made (both were very extravagant to say the least). She dropped everything however when she saw the door opening, frowning a bit at Sweetie Belle.

“Sweetie Belle, what did I tell you about knocking?”

Sweetie Belle blinked; she completely forgot about this rule. “Oh, sorry sis...”  She looked down at the ground, avoiding Rarity’s gaze.

Rarity then noticed the other Crusaders and her eyes suddenly lit up. “Oh you brought your friends! Perfect!” She wasn't sarcastic in saying this, for once.

This unexpected response from Rarity mystified all the Crusaders. They looked at each other, sharing their confused looks, and then titled their head at Rarity. All three saying: “What?”

Rarity never normally liked the three together in her home. She had nothing against them personally, in fact, she found them very endearing. It was just their antics often made ‘organised chaos’ all over the Boutique.

“Yes darlings! I have a new line of clothes for fillies and I need you to try them out!” Rarity trotted closer to the trio.

Sweetie Belle immediately pushed Scootaloo and Apple Bloom closer to Rarity. “They will!”

This trigged an annoyed response from Scootaloo, and a look of confusion for Apple Bloom.

“We will?” they both asked, but their different reactions meant their tones were vastly different.

Before they could say anything else, Rarity brushed past them and exited the room, shouting from the stairs: “Come along then you two! You’ll look so precious!”

Both Apple Bloom and Scootaloo sighed with frustration, mumbling quietly to themselves as they shuffled slowly out of the room, their heads held low.

Sweetie Belle rubbed her hooves together with glee. This was the perfect distraction! And a bit of a sacrifice for the others. They’d get over it.

Sweetie Belle rushed over to Rarity’s gem chest and used her forehooves to open it. It wasn’t easy to open, as it was quite heavy for the filly, but at least it wasn’t locked. She then went to the window and pushed it open. All she’d have to do was drop the required gems out of the window. Simple!

She returned to the chest and grabbed a gem with her teeth. This was bright and sparkling sapphire in colour. But it was also quite heavy for her. And hard to bite. She hurried to the window and dropped the gem down below. She repeated this process three more times, but each time used a different coloured gem. She wondered if, to dragons, different coloured gems stood for different flavours. After dropping the last gem, she licked her teeth, now aching slightly from the effort, and closed the window before closing the trunk.

She smiled to herself proudly, this being simpler than she thought, and she skipped out of the room and headed downstairs. She burst out laughing as soon as she reached the ground floor.

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were both standing there, both in the same outfit, but in different colours (Apple Bloom in green and Scootaloo in blue). They wore big sun hats, with fancy, multi-coloured feathers sticking out from the hats. Apple Bloom’s bow, therefore, was absent. They both wore fancy dresses, with big cuffs on the sleeves and fabric that covered the top half of their body, which was covered in shiny, silver gems. Stemming from this was the rest of the dress, transparent and very long, reaching the ground. Suffice to say, both of them looked more than annoyed.

“Perfect!” Rarity commented, “You both look adorable!” she said in a voice that probably wasn’t intended to sound patronistic, but to the pair, it certainly was. Scootaloo gritted her teeth and glared at Sweetie Belle, which made her control her laughter to a stop.

“You owe us soooooo much.” Scootaloo said, narrowing her eyes.

This only made Sweetie Belle giggle more.

____________________________________________________________________

The Crusaders, all back in their normal state, were making their way back to the library. Sweetie Belle had to go grab her saddlebag in order to carry all the gems. The weight bore down upon her though, and she was getting tired. Granted, it was suitable revenge for laughing at Apple Bloom and Scootaloo.

Scootaloo looked to Apple Bloom, “Let’s never speak of this again.”

Apple Bloom nodded firmly once, “Agreed.”

Sweetie Belle giggled again, “I will!”

The other two glared at her. “It’s not like you haven’t been in that situation before. Remember the school paper and those pictures?” Apple Bloom reminded her of that shockingly awful photo.

Sweetie Belle stopped giggling, the joke now not funny at all. She not only wanted to burn that picture physically, she wanted to burn it from her mind. But successive banging on walls only gave you a headache.

“I’m just glad ma bow’s back.” Apple Bloom looked forward, smiling at she patted her red bow.

Scootaloo looked at the filly’s accessory. “Don’t you always wear that? Don’t you ever, you know, wash it?”

“Oh no Scoot, I just have hundreds of them lying around at the farm.” Apple Bloom replied sarcastically. Scootaloo just rolled her eyes in reply.

By now they had reached the library and all three knocked rapidly on the door in unison. After a few seconds, the door swiftly opened, revealing Spike once more. Twilight hadn’t returned yet, it seemed.  The rapid opening of the door meant the three fillies knocked at thin air for a short while, after quickly realising this, they all retracted their hooves and smiled awkwardly at the dragon.

“You got the stuff?” Spike peered around; three fillies giving him an enclosed saddlebag looked kind of...odd. At least in his view anyway.

“Yep!” Sweetie Belle happily said, the other two pointed at her saddle bag.

Spike walked over to Sweetie Belle and opened her saddle bag, saying: “These better not be fa-“he interrupted himself as he saw the gems, his eyes grew big and he started salivating. “Yeah they’re real...so real...”

Sweetie Belle shied away slightly as she felt dragon spit on her body. It was warm...

Spike juggled the gems in his arms and tossed them inside the library. “Different colours. Nice!”

Sweetie Belle blinked, “So they do have different flavours...” she whispered to herself.

Spike then went back over to the entrance of the library and looked over at the three.

“Haven’t you considered the moral implications of this?”

The Crusaders titled their heads, not understanding what he meant. Living with Twilight, you learnt a lot of complex words other people, especially fillies, couldn’t understand.

“Moral whut now?” Apple Bloom asked, raising an eyebrow slightly.

“Y’know...it’s a hospital and ponies won’t want to be disturbed in the dead of night.” Spike clarified, scratching his belly.

“We just wanna see Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo exclaimed, grinning, all thoughts of morals gone from her young mind.

Spike merely shrugged in response.

“Fair enough.”

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