The moon was out, high over the city. The only sounds that could be heard were distant guard whistles, clock tower bells tolling 10PM, and the pitter-patter of hooves as ponies headed home after a late night at work.

Sky’s hoofsteps were far quieter, making almost no noise on the cobblestones, her hoof mufflers silencing any of the racket that her hooves would have made. It was an advantage of being light on her hooves. She idly spread her wings, taking a little more of her weight off of her hooves, and fell completely silent.
It was difficult for a bright red and white pony like her to be sneaky, but Sky managed well enough, her grey cloak and hood hiding most of her features as she trotted along in the shadows of a thousand imposing buildings. The air was cool and breezy, the streets were near-silent, and there was enough light being cast between the moon, the streetlamps and the palace to guide her way home. Best of all, she was on her own turf now, a part of the city that she knew well enough.
You know, today’s ended up going pretty damn well for me...I hope that Shadow got back safe… Sky thought to herself. She smiled, slapping her head with a hoof. Of course Shadow got back safe. She always did.
The little white pony darted across a deserted street, illuminated for a moment in the light of the all-too-distant palace before she was lost in darkness again, heading home. Sky sighed with relief. Just because this was her part of town didn’t mean that there weren’t guards stationed all over the place that’d happily bring her in if they got their hooves on her.
She found herself looking at the sky a little bit more than usual, her hood falling back as she gazed up at the moon and the stars. A few pegasi rocketed overhead, the roar of their wings so distant and faded from down here. Giving her own a quick flap, Sky made her way onto the roof of a terraced house with a few bounds, and sat herself down. Her eyes darted from the pegasi, briefly silhouetted in the moonlight, to the Wonderbolts Race Track, and even out over the rooftops, where she could just make out Cloudsdale in the distance. She wrapped her tail around her forehooves and sighed.
“It’s been a while.” she whispered, holding out her bad wing. She could see the familiar puncture wounds, eight of them, the light from the palace behind her filtering through both them and the bandages. It had been a while indeed. Five years she’d gone without the power of flight, just a glorified earth pony with a few tricks up her sleeve. She’d gotten on fine without it, of course, but still, she’d be lying if she said that she didn’t miss the feeling of soaring in the clouds.
“After tomorrow, everything’s gonna be different…” she whispers to the world at large. No more having to worry about tall buildings or falling off of things. No more worrying about earth pony guards...and Shadow wouldn’t be able to do that really irritating thing where she’d steal her magazines or nice knickers and put them on a cloud that was too high for her to reach. Everything was going to be very different indeed.

Sky was jerked back into reality by a distant noise. Her ears perked, and she looked around at one of the larger buildings in the district. The Canterlot Museum. Red lights were flashing from inside of it, and an alarm was ringing. A burglar alarm.
The hell is going on? Somepony’s fucking around in my territory… Sky thought to herself, growling softly, spreading both of her wings and leaping from rooftop to rooftop, galloping towards the museum to inspect the trouble.

Her hooves clattered on the tiles as she galloped as fast as she could. It was fair to assume that anypony who was robbing that museum right now was probably trying to scarper. Time always started running out for a burglar as soon as the alarms went off. Sky knew well enough that she’d be buggering off at this point, that’s for sure.
And yet here I am, running towards the alarms for once...what the hell have I gotten myself into this time?
She slid down the tiled roof, leaping across the street and looking down into the courtyard in front of the museum. There was a pony, obscured by darkness and a cloak of their own, galloping for their life.
“OI!” she bellowed, leaping down after him. She spread her wings, using them to slow down so that she landed comfortably on the cobblestone ground, and then her legs were moving again, rapidly picking up speed. This was the closest her wings had come to making that familiar whining noise, when she was on the ground galloping as fast as she could. Her hooves hit the stone with a dull thudding noise as she followed the pony, who spread wings of their own. A stallion, by the looks of him. The broad shoulders were a dead giveaway. He was fast too, but Sky was faster, and beginning to gain on him.

As she was about to snatch at his tail, he started flapping his wings, launching himself up into the air. For a moment, he was silhouetted against the moonlight, before he started to climb higher and higher.
There’ll be none of that, mate… Sky growled, giving her own wings as big a flap as she could manage. She rebounded off of a wall, climbing up the side of the building before launching herself off of it, thudding into the pegasus and tackling him out of the air. He dropped like a stone with her extra weight, crashing headlong into a stack of garbage bags.
“Who the hell are you?” Sky growled, trying to pull his hood off so that she could get a good look at his face. He wouldn’t let his hood budge, kicking out at her and catching her in the stomach. Sky doubled over, gasping for breath as the wind was knocked out of her.
“Leave me the fuck alone…” he growled, trying to get going again. There were little glints of light from under his saddlebag flaps.
What the hell did he take?
Sky wasn’t about to let him get away that easily, clamping her teeth down around his tail and pulling him back, the stallion’s hooves slipping on the cobblestone before he fell back down to the ground. There was a crack as his head hit the street. It sure as hell wasn’t the stones.
She rolled him onto his back, trying to pin him down and maybe get a dart in before he fought back, but this guy was a good brawler. The second he could use his legs, he bucked out at her with both of his hind legs, launching her off of him again. She opened her wings to slow herself down as she flew back, skidding on the ground as she landed, crossbow snapping out. “Hold...hold the fuck up!” she wheezed, loading up a sleep dart and training the weapon on him.
The stallion groggily got to his hooves, glaring at her from behind his burglar’s mask. His features were concealed, backing into the shadow of a tall apartment building before she could get a good look at him. All she could see was a pair of wings and a big shit-eating grin.
Fuck, he’s got backup…
Sky whirled around just in time to catch a hoof to the face, launched back onto the ground by a second pegasus stallion, similarly clothed. She grunted and felt a warmth around her mouth as her nose started to bleed, her vision blurry. Out of the corner of her eye, she could spot her loaded dart rolling away, knocked out of her crossbow.
Why do the biggest assholes always have backup?
She shuddered, getting up and shaking her head. As her eyesight came back to her, she saw the two stallions standing together, both of them fixated on the dart rolling down the street.
Sky looked at the dart, then back up at them.
They returned her gaze, then looked at the dart.
“You’d better bloody not…” she growled, starting to run towards the escaping dart, light dancing on the bright green formula in the capsule. It didn’t occur to her to just load another one. She was concussed, panicking, and in that moment, she made one big mistake.
She ran towards it.
The two stallions chased after it too.
Sky was faster than the two of them, but she needed to get up to speed first, and she still couldn’t quite see properly. To her advantage, neither could the stallion she’d already knocked down, and the two of them were stumbling like idiots as they tried to find their hooves again. Sky flicked at him with his tail, trying to wrap it around his legs to completely unbalance him, perhaps even taking him out of the fight if he landed hard enough. Her tail-flick completely missed him, not that he needed the help to trip over his own clumsy hooves. He hit the deck, groaning, his wings splaying out at his sides. One down.
“Come on, you pillock…” she growled, trying to catch the second pony. He was right in front of her now, and she was picking up speed. This was going to be all too easy…
You know, unless he suddenly skidded to a halt.
That complicated matters a little.
Sky caught a faceful of his plot, going too fast to be able to stop in time. The little mare, about two-thirds his size, crumpled up against his flanks before flopping down onto the ground, rubbing her nose and spitting out tail hairs.
“Bloody...hell...watch where I’m going, buddy!” she gasped, getting up and coughing a little. The stallion, not being too much of a gentlecolt himself, bucked her right in the face with both of his hind legs.
Sky dropped onto her back, and a moment later she was being picked up from behind, no doubt by the bigger stallion’s partner. He held her around her midsection while the other picked up the dart, turning and regarding her with the same grin that his partner had given her earlier.
“You’d better fucking not…” she flapped her wings uselessly, struggling and twisting in the pony’s grip and keeping her eyes on the dart.
He just kept grinning, coming closer. For all of her struggling, Sky couldn’t get away. She simply wasn’t strong enough.
She was all out of tricks.
The stallion sank the dart into the side of her neck, kissing her with the same motion. Her ears folded back against her head and she screamed into the kiss, beating her wings harder than ever. She couldn’t do anything but watch as the formula in the glass dart capsule emptied into her body.
“Mmmph!” she cried out, kicking out with her back hooves, her tough boots hitting soft tissue down between his own hind legs. His eyes crossed and he broke the kiss, falling down to the ground to put his hooves on his crotch. Sky knew that she was already beaten, but was ready to make life hell for those two stallions until the formula overtook her body. She only had a few seconds left.
“Fu...fuck y...yo...apricots…” she murmured, already starting to feel woozy. Those sleep darts were potent. She kept twisting in the second stallion’s grip, bucking her head backwards to smack him in the muzzle. Her tail wrapped around his leg and gave a tug, unbalancing him and sending him crashing down onto the ground with her. Sky kicked out until she got free, squirming out of his grip and trying to crawl away.

It was too late. It had been too late ever since that hypodermic needle had found its way into her body. She was already somewhat concussed, and as she tried to stagger away, the formula took hold. Her limbs grew numb, starting with her desperately flapping wings. A moment later, her legs locked up, and as she began to keel over, she said what more or less anypony would say in her position.
“Oh bugger.”
And with that, she closed her eyes, asleep and snoring before she hit the ground.

Sky stirred, not wanting to open her eyes just yet. In the same vein as a schoolfilly who didn’t want to get up for their first day back, Sky didn’t want to get up because she just knew that somepony was going to be standing over her holding a weapon. It was inevitable. If she fell asleep on the sidewalk, she would always always wake up having pissed off somepony or other. It was one of the rules of the universe.
There was a mumbling sound, followed by the *clop clop clop* of big clompy armoured hooves. She knew that sound all too well. Guards.
Maybe they haven’t seen me…
They were coming closer.
Oh please don’t have seen me…
The hoofsteps stopped right next to her. She could feel somepony’s hot breath on her neck as they gave her an experimental nuzzle.
Maybe he doesn’t know who I am. I can still get out of this…
There was silence for a while. The pony sure as hell hadn’t moved, but he wasn’t doing anything. Maybe someone had shot him? The curiosity was starting to overcome her, and she was growing more and more desperate to open her eyes and see what was going on.
He’s gonna be right in front of you…
What if he wasn’t, though? He could have gone. Maybe he was going to leave her alone. She had to know…
He’ll be right there. Just wait and see…
Sky cracked an eye open, overcome by her own nosiness.
Yep, he was still there, and looking right at her.
You stupid bitch…
He was checking her face against a wanted poster. It must be one of the few in the city that she hadn’t personally defaced.
“Sky Runner…” growled the guard, leaning down so his muzzle was inches for hers. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say…”
“Bollocks.” she muttered, as he went on and on, and eventually clapped her forehooves in irons. This was going to be one of those nights.