Avarice

Chapter One

Your eyes shined when you finally laid eyes on the mountainous pile of loot. With a grin that everybody else called 'greedy', but you called 'avaricious', you quietly snuck your way over to the massive stash that was full of gems, gold, and just about everything else that would fill your pocket with the cold, hard coins that was the currency of this world.

And they called me crazy for even thinking about taking this job, you thought as you started stuffing the largest precious gems and the nicest golden jewellery into the reinforced bag that you carried over your shoulder. I feel like a reverse Santa Claus! you thought joyfully. You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch... You almost started whistling along with the song, but you caught yourself before you revealed your position to the dragon that was currently stretching his wings outside the cave.

A violent rumble jolted you out of your whimsical memories, causing you to lose your balance and fall into the treasure trove. What the fuck was that?! God damnit! you thought as you righted yourself. You checked yourself for any injuries, wincing when you noticed that the sharp edge of something had cut you through your shirt, deep enough to bleed, but not deep enough to be a serious injury. Fuck! you thought agitatedly when you realized that you had left your blood at the scene of a theft.

Your thoughts flickered wildly on how to remove the blood. Bleach? No, they don't have that here. Fire? Can I burn this place down behind me? A quick look around reminded you that you were currently in a cave embedded deep within a mountain. Shit! Am I going to have to-

Your frantic thoughts stopped with a sudden realization. Smacking yourself in the head, you muttered aloud, "What the fuck am I thinking? They can't track my DNA here. I'm in a goddamn whole other world." Stupid idiot, you thought, scolding yourself.

Feeling annoyed at your short-sightedness, you continued to grab the most valuable objects that you could. Your thoughts drifted to what could have caused the tremor that knocked you over. The dragon must've gone for a quick flight or something, you guessed. As long as he doesn't return in the next minute or two, I'm golden.

As you rummaged through the pile, you found a strange, smooth statue made of an unknown material. You subconsciously brought one hand to your chin as you studied the statue, stroking the two day beard underneath the balaclava you wore over your face. The ski-mask wasn't to hide your identity, as you were easy to spot, given that you were the only one of your kind here. You only wore it out of habit and nostalgia, as it was one of the only things you still had left from your own planet.

As you studied the statue, you noticed some faint, glowing inscriptions that wound throughout the strange effigy. Being the consummate kleptomaniac that you were, you had a list of rules for the unknown quantities that your heists would inevitably uncover.

Rule One: If it looked valuable, it probably was.

Rule Two: Refer to step one.

Smiling to yourself as you remembered the rules, you merrily chucked the statue in with the rest of the loot you had acquired. God, I love my job. You continued to fill up your swag bag, your gloved hands nimbly picking out the most valuable items of the bunch. By the time your bag was finally reaching its limit, you realized that you had actually made a sizeable dent into the dragon's hoard.

Hah! 'Don't steal from a dragon,' they said. 'It'll charbroil your pasty flank,' they said, you exclaimed inwardly as you tied the bag and hoisted it over your shoulder, glad that you paid the extra money to have the unicorn put a weight-reducing spell on it. The enchantment that had been wrought upon it reducing the weight of the contents to nearly one fifth of their original weight, which continued to please you to no end.

Even with the enchantment however, your bag of loot was still somewhat heavy. Unfortunately, it was still extremely cumbersome, as the weight-reduction did nothing to decrease the amount of space that the objects took up. With a smile that turned into a grimace when something sharp poked you in your spine, you tiptoed back to the hole in the cave that had been your entry point. Piece of cake, you thought confidently as you lowered yourself into the hole first. I should do this more often. There's gotta be around nine to ten thousand bits worth of loot just in this bag alone!

You pulled the bag in after you with your fingers crossed, praying that the bag would be able to fit, as you hadn't measure the diameter of beforehand. "Hell yeah!" you exclaimed when the bag fell in after you, its bulky form managing to fit by a margin of only a few centimetres. Note to self: measure the fucking hole next time. Wouldn't want to go through all that trouble had have it get stuck, would we?

Laughing with maniacal glee, you dragged the bag through the small tunnel that you had dug in preparation for the heist. The clinks and clanks of the treasure inside the bag were music to your ears as you hoisted it over your shoulder and jumped down the incline of the mountain, the thrill of the theft pumping your body full of adrenaline. "Kiss my ass, you flying lizard!" you yelled triumphantly as you slid down the side of the mountain, narrowly avoiding the brambles and trees that grew along the slope.

As you cackled again, you heard the dragon let out a blood-curdling roar, a sound that chilled you to the bone, took away your sudden burst of energy, and caused you to freeze in place. Maybe he just-

*ROAAAAAAAR*

"OH FUCK!" you screamed as the adrenaline your kleptomania provided you with was replaced by the adrenaline caused by pure, unadulterated fear. Your legs started moving of their own accord, sprinting down the side of the mountain with the power of gravity on your side. This can't be happening! you thought, trying to convince yourself. I'm going to wake up and this will be a bad drea-

*ROAAAAAAAR*

The roar of the dragon came from almost directly above you, which sent another wave of primal fear through you. You put on an yet another extra burst of speed as you ran. You were going so fast that the vegetation was starting to blur around you, the sack of loot that kept jabbing into your back the only reminder that this wasn't a crazed, nightmarish fantasy. You directed yourself into the thickest patch of greenery that you could, trying to lose the dragon that was right on your metaphorical tail. Crashing through the shrubs and flora, you kept running, the voice in the back of your head telling you, Don't slow down for anything!

When you noticed that you had ran out of the patch of vegetation and were now running straight towards the edge of a cliff, the voice rescinded it's earlier statement by saying, Except for cliffs. You can slow down for cliffs. Taking your own advice, you abruptly stopped running and dug the heels of your shoes into the rocky ground beneath you in an attempt to slow down. This had the unfortunate side effect of causing you to lose your already precarious balance and trip, making you fall ass-over-teakettle. Good job, dumbass, the voice said helpfully just before you made impact.

You hit the ground face-first, with the bag crushing you further into the ground as it landed on top of you. You heard a sickening crunch as your vision filled with stars from the impact. Groaning, you opened one eye and almost had a heart attack when you saw nothing below you but the tops of various trees. "Gah!" you exclaimed as you scrambled backwards from the several hundred foot drop.

With the hand that didn't currently have a death-grip on your loot bag, you quickly checked yourself over for any breaks or sprains. Luckily, you only had two broken ribs and a broken toe (you weren't sure which one). "Fuck me, that was close," you said wearily as you wiped the sweat of off your brow. Your glove came away sticky with blood. Great, you thought as you added head wound and possible concussion to your ever-growing list of injuries. So this is why they called me nuts. Fence better have made nice with Silver; these wounds ain't gonna heal themselves.

A gust of hot air coming from right behind you caused you to whip around in surprise, all thoughts of your companions in crime dissipating. No fucking way! you exclaimed. There's no fucking way that something that big can sneak up on me! The large, red dragon that you had tried to outrun stood on the same plateau as you, its tree-trunk thick foreleg blocking off any chance of escape. You slowly craned your neck upwards, your eyes slowly going over the dragon's massive, scaled body. After an eternity, you finally managed to look at the overgrown reptile's eyes. They were pitch black, and they did not look amused.

"Oh shit."

The dragon's eyes glittered and seemed to say, 'Yep'.

The winged beast looked up at the sky and opened its maw, a torrent of white flame came out, the air around it distorted from the intense heat of the flames. You knew that the lighter coloured the fire was, the hotter it burned. The dragon turned his attention to back to you and you swore that it was wearing a sadistic grin on its face as it breathed in, preparing to bathe you in an inferno.

You did the only thing that you could to escape becoming a charbroiled man-burger: you jumped backwards off of the cliff, twisting in midair as you fell. You felt an intense heat on your back, enough so that you could feel the blisters start to rise on your shoulders. Screaming in pain and exhilaration as you fell, you flailed yourself in an attempt to direct yourself towards the softest possible landing site: the top of a big, deciduous tree.

Of all the movies and cartoons that you had seen, it seemed to be the most plausible choice. I mean, you thought as you tried to convince yourself that this wasn't insane, it has to be deciduous trees for a reason, right? You crashed into the tree at the speed of freefall. It was not as soft as you hoped it was.

**************************************************************

"There is no FUCKING way I'm doing that again!" you yelled in agitation to the grey earth pony in front of you. "Does it look like I have a death wish?!"

"No need to get so...emotional over it. I am just offering, since you were the only one whose come back alive from stealing a dragon's hoard. There is a lot of money to be made, comrade..."

"I already said 'No', Fence. I like to keep my skin smooth, not crispy, thank you very much," you replied, your shoulders starting to ache where the blisters had been. Thank Christ for unicorn magic.

The earth pony rolled his eyes. "You know, you did not have to take me up on the job. I was mostly joking about it, anyway."

"Have I ever been one to refuse a job? C'mon man, you should know me better than that by now."

"I do know you well, my friend. Perhaps better than you know yourself." Motioning towards the unopened bag that lay sprawled upon the metal table, he asked, "Shall we?"

Holding your bandaged head with one hand and motioning towards the loot with the other, you said, "Be my guest."

Frowning, Fence said, "Technically, you're my guest. Unless, of course, you somehow managed to steal the entire Institution out from under me."

Chuckling, you explained, "It's a figure of speech where I come from, Fence, and I'm pretty sure it's one here too. For crying out loud, you spend more time in this city than I do."

Fence laughed as well. "Da, that may be true, but tell me this: who do you think is the one selling all of the...reciprocated goods that you and the others manage to procure?"

You snorted and said, "It's all you, brother."

Frowning again, the earth pony started to say, "But we are not bro-...oh, I see. Another figure of speech, da?"

"Da, comrade," you said in your best imitation of a Russian accent, one that was eerily similar to the Stalliongrad native's own accent. You had filed away the accent, along with several other strange similarities to Earth, to simply being extremely coincidental.

You and the earth pony made your way over to the table, with you carefully avoiding the bloodstains that dotted the floor. You and Fence had used the Institution as your headquarters for almost four months now, but you still haven't asked where the bloodstains came from. You weren't sure that you wanted to know.

"By Celestia's nipples, you were not joking when you said you could not fit anything else in your bag of loot," the grey pony said after pulling the string that kept the bag closed.

Snickering, then wincing when your ribs started to hurt, you questioned, "'By Celestia's nipples'? That's a new one. I didn't know you were that type of stallion, Fence."

You received a glare from the earth pony. "I must have translated wrong. It sounds much better in my own language." Turning his attention back to the sack of treasure, he asked, "Can you empty it on to the table for me? Seeing as how I do not have your strange appendages..."

"For the last time, they're called 'hands'!" you replied as you grabbed the back of the bag and pulled, shaking it as the contents started to spill out. It took longer than even you thought it would, showing just how much stuff you had managed to steal.

Fence whistled. "Quite a haul, if I must say. Hurry up and take your pick. Shift and Cloak should be here soon and the longer you stand there, the longer it takes for us to get paid."

You shivered, remembering the pegasus twins. There was something...off about them. Your feelings about people were generally spot on, and ponies were no exception. "Are you sure about them, Fence? I'd much rather we go with somebody we know better, like Seeker."

Fence raised an eyebrow and said, "I would rather do the same, but Shift and Cloak pay a lot better than Seeker does. Besides, you are not the one having to deal with them: I am."

And I'm damn lucky that I don't, you thought. I don't need to talk to them to know that they're creepy bastards. Sighing, you kept your thoughts to yourself. "Fair enough," you replied as you started to scan over the stolen treasure trove.

Your eyes were drawn to a goblet made of gold, but encrusted with so many diamonds that it looked like it was left outside on a particularly cold morning. You made to grab the goblet, but stopped when you saw the same strange statue out of the corner of your eye. The intricate, glowing carvings entranced you, enough so that you picked the sculpture up instead of the diamond goblet. You stared at the statue for several seconds, marvelling in its beauty.

"Why?"

The question startled you out of your stupor. "Pardon? Why what?"

"Why do you do this? If you were in it for the money, you would not have requested that we sell this to Seeker, nor would you have picked that statue over the diamond chalice," explained Fence.

You stared at the statue, wondering how well it would go with all the other items that you had kept from the aftermath of your heists. "I steal because it makes me happy, Fence. I thieve because it brings a smile to my face. I loot because it gives me a rush that nothing else in the world does."

You turned to your employer with a grin on your face. "I'm a kleptomaniac, Fence. Stealing is my addiction, and if I happen to bring in some money while I feed my addiction, then that just makes it all the sweeter."

The slate grey earth pony smiled in return. "Are all humans as strange as you, friend?"

"No. Most are even more so."

Fence opened his mouth to respond, but he stopped when a jangle of bells was heard. He looked at you seriously and said, "They are here. Go and rest. This should not take long."

"Thank Silver for me next time you see her, 'kay? By the time I wake up, she's always gone," you said as you walked towards the cell that you called home. "If anything, I should be the one leaving her alone in bed."

Fence rolled his eyes. "Very funny. I will tell Silver that next time I see her. Now get going! You are the one that wants your identity to remain a secret. What was the reason? Something about...xenophobia?"

You shuddered involuntarily. "Yeah...let's just say that I was lucky to meet you first, Fence. Talk to ya later."

The earth pony nodded, his attention switching to where the buyers would come from. You made your way towards your cell, your mind pondering how well the statue would fit with the rest of your collection. You opened up the lock on the cell door with the key that you kept hidden on your person. You locked the door behind you and proceeded to flop onto your bed, the statue clenched tightly in your hand.

Never again. Stealing from ponies is easy. Thieving from Diamond Dogs is more difficult, but still doable. Dragons? Fuck. That. Shit. I'm a thief, not a miracle worker. I quit three years ago...but fuck, I could use a cigarette right about now.

Forcing yourself upright, you pulled out the duffel bag out from under your cot, wincing as your shoulders twinged from the effort. You opened up the bag and took a moment to revel in the feeling of pleasure you received from just looking at the fruits of your labour. Whole diamonds the size of a baseball, necklaces that wouldn't look out of place on the God-King Xerxes, and a crown inlaid with rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and just about every other conceivable gem were just a few of the things that you had kept.

My precious... you thought happily. You wrapped the statue in a cloth and placed it amongst the other valuables, smiling as you did so. Your eyes were drawn to the leather bag of bits that took up the majority of space in your bag. You knew exactly how much was in there, as you had counted it before you hiked over to that god-forsaken mountain. Four hundred and sixty-five thousand, nine hundred and five. Enough money to sustain you for the rest of your days in Equestria.

You felt a brief pang of loss upon remembering that you could never go back to where you once belonged. A museum heist gone wrong, a flash of light, an intense, indescribable pain...you shuddered as you remembered how you came to be in this strange, pony-filled land and the mental breakdown you had soon after.

At least, you thought, trying to console yourself, my addiction is easy to feed here. I still can't believe how easy it is to break in to peopl-...pony's homes. It's like they never expect a biped to steal from them...

Sighing and putting your thoughts aside for now, you zipped your duffel bag back up and slid it under your bed. You laid down on the soft mattress, and tried to fall asleep. The same feeling of unease that you felt when Fence mentioned Cloak and Shift kept coming back, against all of your attempts to dispel the feeling. Something's wrong. I can feel it...

************************************************************

You were woken up from your uneasy sleep by a loud, male voice that practically screamed, "By the Order of the Lunar Princess, you are charged with possession of stolen property, illegal distribution of stolen property, three counts of murder, and-"

Murder?! you thought anxiously as you scrambled out of bed and started putting on your black robbery gear with practiced movements. Fence, what have you gotten yourself into...

You had a contingency plan for almost anything, bar being chased by a fire-breathing dragon. It was the main reason you had never been caught on Earth. You intended to continue your streak of evasiveness in Equestria by any means necessary. If that happened to be sneaking away while your only true friend in the country was caught by the Royal Guard, so be it. God damnit! And everything was going so well...

You pulled out your duffel bag full of goodies and slung it around your shoulder, grunting as the weight settled. You wished that you had weight-reduction spell cast on your duffel bag as well. You did a quick once-over of the cell that you called home, making sure you didn't forget anything important. With nothing but the clothes on your back and the treasure in your bag, you brushed aside the black sheets that you had put up to give yourself some privacy and opened up the cell door, glad that you had recently oiled it. You peeked your balaclava-covered head out, making sure that no ponies were looking towards you.

Silently, you crept your way out of the cell, your eyes scanning for any ponies that would bar your way. As lady luck would have it, all of the Guards were converged around the table that held the loot that you had collected previously. These Royal Guards were a lot different looking from the ones you had been forced to sneak around on previous missions. For starters, they had a dark gray coat instead of the pure white of the standard guards, black tails, tufts of hair on the tips of their ears, bat-like wings, and cat-like pupils. Their armour was purple, the designs more intricate than any you had encountered previously.

What the fuck type of guards are these? They look like...cat-bat-Pegasi. You stuck to the shadows, hoping that their cat eyes were just for intimidation purposes and that they didn't actually give them night vision. Where's Fence? you wondered as you scanned the area, making sure to not jingle your bag.

Your question was answered when you spotted him laying on the ground by the wide open doors that were knocked off their hinges. He was tied up with purple cords that glowed with inner luminescence. You were about to ignore him and concentrate on your escape, but you were having second thoughts.

I...I...

Steeling yourself, you made a decision. I have to try. Thief's honour.

You continued your stealthy approach, your eyes acting like two magic eight balls: always moving, never stopping. "Fence!" you whispered when you were close enough that he could hear you.

The earth pony cracked an eye open and looked up at where your voice came from. "Leave, comrade. You can escape. I cannot," he whispered back.

After looking behind you and seeing that the Guards were still occupied with the treasure, you said, "Damnit, Fence! I can carry you-"

"Don't be a fool. I made stupid mistakes; ones that I am prepared to pay for. Leave now, while you still can."

Fuck! "I won't forget about you, Fence. I don't forget about my friends. I'll get you out, I prom-"

The currently immobile earth pony growled softly, causing you to stop whispering. "Forget about me. Because I will forget about you." He closed his eye in dismissal. "Go."

With tears about to surface, you sprinted out of the Institution and into the night, the only sources of light outside coming from a few streetlights several hundred feet down the road in the city proper. A wave of salty mist hit the exposed portions of your face as you ran down the cobblestone street, you only goal being to get as far away as possible from the abandoned prison.

You ran. You ran until your lungs burned. You ran until you couldn't bear the thought of running another hundred feet. Panting and aching, you leaned against the side of a building to catch your breath and make a game plan.

Fence is gone. That means that Silver, Flash, and Carve are probably all compromised too. This realization caused you to have another. I can't stay here. I've gotta go find a safe house, lay low for a while. Aha!

You were glad that you remembered that Fence had given you, along with everyone else in your little group, a list of safe houses around Equestria. You pulled it out of your duffel bag with shaking hands, the adrenaline still not fully dissipated. You read the list and breathed a sigh of relief. The nearest safe house was fairly close, only a couple of towns over. Smiling, you folded the list and stuffed it in one of the many pockets in your clothes.

Should only take a couple of days for me to get there...plenty of time to fabricate a past for myself. I hope that town isn't as xenophobic as Manehattan.

After checking the map that you always carried, you took a deep breath and started jogging in the direction of Ponyville.

Author's Note: The original idea belongs to Wisher. I was given permission to write a short story based on a small prompt that he gave me.