Chapter Eighteen:
Grand Theft Ponies
It was almost too easy; a large black van sat parked right at the end of a narrow ally, far removed from the rest of the bustling city. The Mane Six stared at it longingly, almost ravenously. They had been walking for the good part of three hours, with it now being full dark out, searching for any particular vehicle that would suit their needs. It was almost torture, walking through city streets packed with cars... and not being able to commandeer any of them. Even in a city as morally corrupt as Manehatten, a car-jacking in the public view of thousands of ponies wouldn't go unnoticed. They had to be out of public view for this. And on top of that, they couldn't just have any old four door vehicle; they needed something large enough to hold not only all of them, but the ridiculously large amount of bits they would be carrying with them.
And now, it finally appeared as though luck was on their side... and it was about damn time. A van that size was just perfect.
"So, um... what do we do now?" Butterfly asked shyly.
"We break into the damn thing and steal it," Hash replied, cocking her rifle.
"How'r we s'posed ta do that?" OJ asked, not bothering to hide the annoyance in her tone.
"We bash a window in with one of our rifles, unlock it from the inside, hot wire it, then blow on outta there," Hash answered promptly.
"How do you know these things, dear?" Commodity asked.
"Grand Theft Carriage had a car mod, I learned it from that."
Commodity just gave her an odd look. "I don't even know what that is."
"You wouldn't," Hash snarked. "I get all my knowledge from video games."
"Um, Hash? If you already know so much about cars, then why were you so amazed when you saw a car for the first time?" Butterfly asked meekly. "Um, if you don't mind me asking that is."
"Well, because when used the car mod for the first time, I thought cars were just a video game creation," Hash explained. "I had no idea those things existed in real life. I started hearing about 'em after a while possibly becoming a real mode of transportation in Equestria. And then miss Prissy over there," she gestured to Commodity, receiving an eye roll in return, "mentioned them when we were in the Everfree Forest, and that's when I knew this had to be for real. But seeing one up close and in person for the first time... it was pretty awesome. Definitely not the same as seeing one in the game."
"Oh, okay," Butterfly said softly. "I'm sorry; I wasn't trying to imply you were hiding anything for us. I was just curious."
"I know, I know," Hash gave Butterfly a friendly pat. "I've had so much on my mind lately that it never occurred to me to share what I know about cars. I'll try to change that now." She then turned to the lavender unicorn next to her. "So, ya ready to do this, Twi?"
The lavender mare gave Hash a nasty glare and turned away from her, turning her nose up and closing her eyes.
The pegasus stared at her friend with confusion. "Uh, Twi? What's your beef with me?"
... Silence from the unicorn.
"Twi? I'm talking to you!" Hash snapped.
"I don't know who this 'Twi' you're referring to is," Daylight said.
"What are you...? Oh, right," Hash blushed a bit and face-hoofed. "Sorry, Twi- I mean Daylight. Kinda easy to forget, ya know?"
"Well you'd do well to remember," Daylight chided. "We need to get into the habit of using these names if we're going to be successful. One slip-up inside that bank, and we're done for. You understand? This is very serious!"
"I do, Day, I do!" Hash threw up her hooves in defense. "Trust me, nopony is taking this more seriously than me! I'm sorry for the screw up. It won't happen again, I swear."
"See that it doesn't," Daylight snapped. "Now, does anypony here know how to hot wire?"
"Yeah, it's something to do with rubbing a couple of wires together, I think," Hash answered. "Shouldn't be too hard."
"Oh my, that sounds dangerous..." Butterfly squeaked, trembling a bit.
"Nah, it's nothing I can't handle," Hash said proudly, puffing out her chest. "We'll be breezin' through Manehatten in no time!"
"Um, girls?" Butterfly said shyly. "I don't mean to interrupt, but I think the van just moved."
"What?!" Daylight cried as she quickly snapped her attention to the van. It was still there, as motionless as ever. "You sure, Butterfly? It's still sitting right there."
"Well, um, I'm pretty sure I saw it jerk to the side a moment ago," Butterfly replied, hiding behind the curtain of her pink mane.
"Oh, it jerked to the side is what you meant?" Daylight said with a sigh of relief. "I thought it was taking off or something." She took another look back at the still stationary van, and, it did indeed make a slight jerk to the side.
"What in tarnation?" OJ said, clearly baffled.
"I think that van might still be occupado!" Candy cried loudly.
"Candy, shush!" Daylight hissed at her. "If there are ponies in that van, we don't want them to hear us!"
"I... don't think they're gonna hear us, Day," Hash said slowly.
"And why do you think that, Hash?" Daylight asked with mild annoyance in her tone.
"Because the ponies in that van may be a little too preoccupied with each other to notice anything else... if ya know what I mean."
Daylight gave her friend a deeply confused look. "I'm pretty sure I don't know what you mean, Hash."
Hash face-hoofed and shook her head. "Really, Daylight? A van at the end of an alleyway, out of view of the public, rocking back and forth... and you have no idea what it could possibly mean?"
Though Daylight still looked a bit confused, the other girls seemed to know what Hash was implying.
"Ya mean ta tell me...?" Was all OJ could get out.
"Oh how horribly uncouth!" Commodity cried dramatically.
"Um, that's quite disgusting... if you don't mind me saying," Butterfly whimpered.
Candy, meanwhile, was too busy snickering at the idea of what was going on in that van to say anything. Sure, it was immature of her, but she really didn't care; everypony was entitled to be a little immature every once in a while.
"So, what now?" OJ asked angrily. "We wait fer 'em finish, 'r what?"
"We're not gonna wait for them to finish! Are you kidding me, OJ?" Hash shouted at her. "There's no way we're cruising around town in a van stained with jizz!"
"Oh, thank you for the wonderful mental image, Hash!" Commodity sniffed in annoyance. "Still, you make a valid point I suppose."
"You're absolutely right, Hash," Daylight stepped in. "We're not waiting for them to finish. They might take off before we can get to them. We're just going to have to interrupt their little ooh la la."
"Oh, that seems rather rude," Butterfly muttered shyly. "But, then again, doing something like that in a public area isn't very considerate either."
"It's not really a public area, Shy- I mean Fly," Hash said, gently pounding her hoof against her forehead to force herself to remember her friends nickname. "This alley's pretty far out of the way of anypony's view."
"Oh, so I guess they just assumed that nopony would ever come walking down here for any reason," Commodity said with a roll of her eyes.
"Okay, girls," Daylight stepped in. "We can argue the moral ramifications of public showing of affection later. Right now, we have to get a hold of that van before it leaves."
"Twi's right, let's get this over with," OJ said as she pumped her shotgun.
"Dammit, OJ!" Daylight hissed at the earth pony, who quickly caught her mistake before Daylight could point it out.
"Ah mean Daylight! Daylight!"
The lavender unicorn sighed in annoyance and brought a hoof to her forehead, rubbing it gently. She was absolutely terrified; all it would take was one slip-up, just one, and everything would be over for them. Her friends just couldn't afford to be that stupid. She did absolutely nothing to hide her disappointment at this, and it caused OJ to bite her lip and shuffle her hooves in embarrassment.
Without another word, Daylight hit the area with a sound proofing spell, pulled on her ski mask, her horn protruding through a small hole she poked through it, then levitated her AR15 and started down the alley, her friends following close behind, their masks on (Commodity's horn protruding through hers) and weapons drawn as well. When they were about halfway to the van, Daylight took a quick glance over her shoulder to see if they had somehow attracted unwanted attention. Thankfully, the citizens of Manehatten were as blissfully ignorant as ever; they slogged through the city streets and sidewalks like mindless drones, some of them seeming to stare directly at the ground as they walked.
Celestia bless this city. Daylight thought to herself with a smirk. It was time to put their intimidation tactics to the test.
When they were right up next to their target, Daylight motioned for the others to get down low and move slower. They looked like army commandos navigating a deadly combat zone, and Daylight had to do her best to keep from snickering, particularly at Commodity, who was starting to look more and more like a natural badass, her usual elegance slowly fading. Daylight quickly shrugged those giggles away and focused on the task at hoof. She was right beside the front drivers side door, her back pressed against it. Her friends copied her actions, staring at her intently, as though they were putting the entire weight of the mission on her back.
No pressure, huh?
Slowly, she peeked up into the window, adjusting her eyes to make out the scene within the darkness of the van. She could barely make out the forms of a rather heavy-set mare sitting atop and facing a much smaller stallion sitting in the drivers seat. Judging from their movements, it was pretty obvious that they were indeed doing what the six mares had feared they were doing. They didn't even notice the lavender face peaking in at them.
"They screwin' or what?" Hash's voice came from behind her.
"Aw, they're at it like there ain't no tamorrow," OJ said from the other side of the van. She was peeking in through the passenger window.
"Not for long, they're not," Daylight said coolly.
In one swift move, she brought her rifle up and, with every ounce of strength her magic could muster, smashed it against the window with a loud, glass shattering noise. Following that loud noise was an ear-splitting scream, accompanied by a masculine "WHAT THE FUCK!?"
On the other side of the van, OJ followed Daylights example and smashed the butt of her shottie against the passenger window. And just like with Daylight, the window shattered instantly, sending little glistening marbles of glass flying everywhere. Both mares aimed their weapons at the frightened lovers, who were both were both physically shaking and staring wide-eyed at their attackers. Hash and Commodity moved up behind Daylight, their weapons aimed at the couple as well, while Candy and Butterfly moved in behind OJ. Daylight could hear Hash doing her best to stifle some chuckles, most likely due to the rather comical position they had found their victims in.
"Good evening, lovebirds!" Daylight greeted in mock cheerfulness. "Nice night for a romantic interlude, eh?"
"Wh-what do you want with us?" The stallion asked shakily. He was rather young; probably not much older than the punks they encountered on their first night. His marefriend seemed significantly older than him, and was not, putting it nicely, particularly attractive. She was rather grizzled and rough around the edges, like a victim of several years of sucking on cancer sticks.
"What we want," Hash began, hovering past Daylight, sticking her rifle into the van and holding it right under the young stallions chin, "is for you and your marefriend here to get the FUCK OUT OF THE VAN AND GET ON THE FUCKING GROUND!"
The grizzled old mare let out a gravelly whine and squeezed her lover tightly. "Oh, please don't hurt us!" She cried in a raspy voice, similar to what Hash would probably sound like when she got older.
"Only ones who get hurt are smartass ponies who don't do what we say!" Hash hissed threateningly at them. "Now get out of the fucking van and get on the ground!"
Shakily, the young stallion reached over and pushed the door open. He and his lover then struggled greatly to get themselves out of the van. The heavy set mare seemed unable to properly pull herself off the stallion. It was a rather difficult position for them to get out of, but they received no sympathy from the six mares. Their patience was being severely tested right then and there; though the area was soundproofed, it wouldn't do anything to prevent any passerby from checking in on the scene. Has lousy a city Manehatten was, there had to be some good Samaritans out there, and they couldn't couldn't afford to wait around for one to show up.
Nearly three minutes had passed, and two were still entangled with each other and no closer to getting out of the van. Daylight, an enraged glare on her face, brought her rifle right up against the side of the mares face. "You have ten seconds to get out of there or I'm gonna splatter your face with your marefriends brains!" She spat.
The mare was full on crying now, and she pretty much pushed herself off the stallion with full force and tumbled out of the car. The stallion squirmed out shortly after, landing on top of her.
"Now both of you go sit down against the wall and don't move a muscle!" Daylight snapped.
The two ponies did as instructed. The older mare was sniffling and sobbing freely, while the young buck looked to be a bit more along the lines of nervous, rather than terrified. He was definitely holding himself together better than the mare.
Meanwhile, Daylight climbed into the driver seat and attempted to familiarize herself with what lay in front of her; a series of dials and gauges that she couldn't even begin to comprehend the meanings of, especially through the obscurity of the ski mask. From behind her, she head another door open. She turned to see Candy, Commodity and Butterfly climbing in through the back.
"Wow, there's plenty of space in here!" Candy said happily. "We really lucked out with this thing, huh girls?"
"Sure did, sugarcube," OJ said as she climbed into the passenger side. "Now we just gotta figure out how this gal darn thing works." She turned to Daylight. "How ya doin' there, Day?"
The lavender unicorn didn't answer right away, as she was still baffled by the dashboard in front of her. "Um... I don't think I know how this stuff works..." she muttered.
"What, you never read a book on this kind of thing?" Hash remarked, still focusing on the two freaked out ponies in front of her, her rifle trained on them.
"Hash, up until a few days ago I didn't even know these things existed," Daylight said, frustrated.
"You want me to help ya out?" Hash asked. "I think I might know a thing or two about what's what in there."
"That's be nice, Hash," Daylight said, throwing her hooves up in frustration as she gave up on trying to understand the dashboard. "But we still need somepony to watch the two lovebirds over there." She nodded her head to the frightened couple.
"I will do it," Commodity offered as she exited out the back of the van. Truth be told, she was happy to get out of the rather dank and musty vehicle. It was by no means the kind of vehicle she would prefer to travel in should she ever come to own one. However, for the purposes of their robbery, she admitted it would suffice. As she prepared to switch places with Hash, the shaky voice of the stallion grabbed their attention.
"She's... not my marefriend."
Hash turned to look at him again. "What?" She snapped.
"I, uh... just thought you should know she's not my marefriend," the young buck said sheepishly, unable to make eye contact.
Hash gave him a hardened glare and pointed her rifle right under his chin. "You gonna be a smartass now!?" She spat viciously at him.
"NO! No no no no no!" The stallion cried. Now he looked scared. "I just thought you should know... that she's not my lover."
Hash gave a quick glance at the grizzled old mare next to him. It became quite clear to her now just who this mare was and what she did for a living. Hash would've chuckled if she wasn't playing a tough mare at that moment, so she quickly turned back to the young buck. "I don't give a damn if she's your sister! You say one more word and I'm putting a bullet in all four of your legs, got it?" She hissed.
The stallion nodded fearfully, and Hash, just to show that she wasn't fucking around, fired a shot right between his hind legs, causing him to jump and the mare to scream. Hash gave them a nasty smirk and turned to help Daylight as Commodity stepped up to take her place.
"Alrighty, lemme get a good look at this baby," Hash said as she leaned in to examine the dashboard. She point a hoof at one of the strange looking meters. "Well, I'm guessing this one here has something to do with the speed of this thing." She looked to another, smaller meter. "And I think this one here is, like, some kind of temperature gauge for the engine or something."
"A temperature gauge?" Daylight queried.
"Yeah, I'm guessing if the engine gets to hot or something it craps out on us," Hash explained.
Daylight frowned a bit at that. Hash just shrugged and turned back to the dashboard. "Now, this one here," she pointed at another gauge. "This... might be some kind of fuel measuring thingy, I'm guessing."
"Fuel?" Daylight raised an eyebrow in confusion. "These run on a fuel of some kind?"
"I guess so," Hash replied. "Look, I'm not a hundred percent sure on any of this stuff; I'm just going by what I've heard about these things. I could be wrong."
While Daylight was normally eager to learn about new things, she had to admit these motorized vehicle things didn't sound like a very appealing invention. She wasn't particularly fond of them when she first laid eyes on one, what with all the fumes and exhaust emanating from them. And now she was finding out that they had to be fueled in order to work, and ran the risk of overheating with use.
And these are supposed to completely replace chariots some time in the near future? She thought to herself. So many inconveniences...
"But one thing I'm one hundred and twenty percent sure of," Hash continued, "is that this do-hicky here is for steering." She tapped the black leather steering wheel in front of her. "And that little key right there," she gestured to a small silver key sticking out of a slot next to the wheel, "is what starts this baby. I guess we won't have to worry about hot wiring, huh?" She sounded a little disappointed at that; she had really wanted to show off her skills at car theft.
Daylight placed the flat of her hoof against the end of the key, prodding it and pushing it, trying to figure out how it worked. Hash just watched intently, she, herself not entirely sure what was supposed to be done at that point.
Meanwhile, Commodity kept a close eye on the two unlucky ponies, her rifle hovering right next to her. She gave a particularly nasty glare at the gross old mare, not even caring that the probably couldn't see it through the mask, though she was glaring coolly back up at her. She was definitely still scared, but this ivory unicorn wasn't nearly as intimidating as the rainbow-maned pegasus.
"Quite a lifestyle choice you've made, my dear," Commodity said coldly. "Selling your body for sexual gratification; you must be oh so very proud."
The mare scoffed. "You girls ain't doin' too bad yourselves," she muttered sarcastically.
"Mind your tongue, dearie," Commodity threatened. "You seem to forget who's holding the gun here."
The mare exhaled sharply, but said nothing more. She instead turned to glare at the young stallion sitting next to her, as if she was blaming him for getting her into this situation. He didn't notice her glare, though; he just couldn't take his eyes off the rifle aimed right at their heads, fearing that at any second the unicorn could just decide to be rid of them and magically squeeze the trigger. They'd be gone before they even knew what happened.
The sudden roar of an engine struggling then coming to life snapped their attention back to the van.
"Alright! We're in business!" Hash cheered.
From the back of the van, Candy whooped and hollered joyfully, while OJ and Butterfly simply smiled.
"Are... are you guys taking my parents van?" The young buck asked.
"Eeyup," Hash answered, giving her best Big Macintosh impression, drawing an angry glare from OJ.
"Aw, their gonna kill me when they find out!" He moaned.
"Ah, don't worry; they won't have to..." Hash said as she cocked her rifle and aimed it at him. The stallion's lip began to tremble, and incomprehensible whimpers escaped his throat. Hash let this go on for a few seconds before bursting out laughing and pointing her rifle away from him. "Nah, I'm just messin' with ya, man. But... we are gonna have to make sure you don't do anything stupid, like follow us or call the cops."
The pegasus lowered herself down to him, savoring the fear in his eyes. He turned to look at his choice of tail for the night, and she just gave him a look that said "Just go with it."
"Wh-hy is this happening to me!?" He burst out crying. It was a rather pathetic sight.
"Just do what we do," Hash said as she leaned in closer to him. "Blame our parents."
WHACK! She struck him across the face with the butt of her rifle, sending him to the ground unconscious in an instant. The mare next to him shuddered a bit, but didn't scream, which Hash was very grateful. Of course she would have to be dealt with too, but seeing as she wasn't being as annoying as the buck, she earned the right to stay conscious for a little while longer.
"Hash, did you really have to scare him like that?" Daylight asked from the front seat of the car.
"Yep, he was annoying," Hash replied briskly. "Complaining that his parents were gonna be mad at him for losing the car? This guy's gotta be in his twenties and he's still living with his parents? Loooooooooosssssseeeerrrrrrr !" She then noticed the small saddle bag next to his flank, and smiled. "Sorry, buddy, I'm taking your allowance." She dug through his bag and managed to pull a couple hundred bits worth from it. Not much, but it felt good to take a step in the right direction, however small it was.
"Clever thinking on your part, Hash," Commodity commended her friend as she watched her dig through the saddle bag. "I don't think it would've occurred to me to check their bags for money."
"You wanna check her?" Hash asked, nodding to the mare on her right.
"I suppose," Commodity replied.
The unicorn set herself down next to the disgusting old mare and pulled away her saddle bag. Amazingly, the mare did nothing to stop her. In fact, she looked more along the lines of tired and defeated rather than scared. As Commodity dug through her saddle bag and pulled out a rather decent sum of a couple thousand bits, the grizzled mare finally spoke up.
"Look miss, can I say somethin' real quick?"
"I don't know, can you?" Commodity flatly replied as she counted the bits in her hooves.
"May I say somethin' real quick?" The mare asked in a tone of annoyance.
"It had better be quick," Commodity answered in a slightly threatening tone.
"Look, um," the mare began, stumbling over her words. "This ain't the first time I've been threatened like this. This kind of job tends to lead to that kind of thing. I ain't proud of what I do, okay? But it's all I know; it's all I can do just to scrape by."
"I see that as no excuse," Commodity said, turning her attention to the mare now that her bits were all placed in her own saddle bag. "Life is hard for everypony; only those of strong will and backbone can overcome those hardships and succeed in life without lowering themselves to such vulgar practices. Sadly, that doesn't seem to be the case with you."
The older mare seemed a bit hurt by Commodity's words, and honestly, the unicorn felt a slight pang of guilt, not to mention a bit of hypocrisy. After all, was she not lowering herself to a vulgar practice in order to get by?
No, this is different. Commodity thought to herself confidently. I am not making a living of this. I am just trying to get by for a little while... and I'm doing it for my sister.
"Well, I... I just..." the older mare stumbled over her words. "I ain't asking you to pity me or anything, but could you maybe just let me keep a twenty or something? Just a twenty? I have a kid I need to feed and take care of."
"So do I," Commodity said as she stood back up and prepared to slam the butt of her rifle against her.
But as she gazed down at the sorry sight, feelings of sympathy began to flow through her. The grizzled old mare didn't look remotely frightened anymore, just broken down and defeated; on the verge of tears. She stared blankly at the ground, just waiting for the blow to come. Commodity could easily believe that this mare had been threatened and brutalized many times before. by this point, it probably wasn't so scary to her anymore... just disheartening. She did truly believe that there was no excuse for what his mare or any mare like her did for a living. But, even the mare didn't want to be pitied, Commodity couldn't help but feel just that; pity.
As the old mares eyes began to burn with tears, she heard a small clinking noise and saw couple of small gold bits roll directly up to her. Both were fifties, enough to get her by for a little while longer, until she could start making a profit again. She lifted her head to see the ivory unicorn walking away from her, preparing to climb into the back of the van.
Commodity didn't take one look back; she just wanted to get out of there and get on with the mission. She and her friends were nowhere near the amount they needed to fix their problems with the few bits they managed to scrape together the past couple days, and she had just placed them a small step back by giving away a hundred bits to what she considered a pathetic excuse for a mare. A pathetic excuse for a mare... with a foal... who didn't deserve to pay for his/her mothers mistakes.
No matter how much she had changed over the past few days, her generous nature would always be a part of her.
"Alright, I think I've got this thing figured out!" Daylight announced proudly to everypony in the van.
She then proceeded to explain to them what everything did and how they worked. OJ, who was sitting next to her in the passenger seat, had gotten a hold of an owners manual in the glovebox. Twilight gave it a quick skim and found out just about everything she needed to know. Hash had been surprisingly accurate with a lot of what she had said earlier. Maybe those video games did have an educational quality to them in some ways. Maybe when all this was over, Daylight would consider buying Spike that X-Buck he always pestered her for.
So," Daylight began, pulling off her mask "now we just-"
"I wanna drive! I wanna drive!" Candy cried out as she made her way from the back of the van towards Daylight.
"Um, Candy?"
"C'mon! C'mon! C'mon! It'll be fun!" Candy grabbed Daylight and just about physically yanked her from the seat.
"AUUGH! Candy, wait!" Daylight cried. "You don't have the same feel for it as I do! And you don't how certain things work!"
"I'll learn as I go," Candy stated quickly as she settled herself into the drivers seat and pulled off her mask.
"Uh, sugarcube, Ah really think ya oughta let Daylight handle this," OJ interjected. "Ah don't mean ta insult ya 'r nuthin', it's jus' that Daylight seems better qualified fer drivin' this thing."
"Oh, phooey on you!" Candy spat. "I'm not a baby! I can handle this thing!"
"Candy, dear, we are not trying to insinuate that you're a baby," Commodity said soothingly. "It's just that Daylight seems to understand this better than the rest of us."
"Phooey on you too! I know I can do this!" Candy began messing with everything in front of her, causing the van vibrate and make strange noises.
"Um, Candy, I don't mean to sound rude, but it feels what your doing is going to cause the van to explode," Butterfly murmured.
"Phooey on all of you!" Candy shouted dramatically. At that moment, she pushed her hoof down on a black lever next to her seat. Everypony could feel a strange shift in van, as if something had released.
"Well, she managed to release the emergency brake," Daylight said with slight relief. Maybe she would let her crazy friend have a go at driving. She might do just fine.
Candy then noticed another similar lever to the side of the emergency brake. Letters like P, R, N, and D lined the side of it. Without even thinking of what she was doing, she began pushing it up and down vigorously.
"Candy? Candy, we need to back up; put it in reverse," Daylight explained. "Set it so it's next to the R."
Candy did just that, and slowly the van started rolling backwards.
"Wow, maybe she's got this after all," Hash remarked. She and the others had pulled their masks off as well.
"Ya see, you all should know better than to doubt Pinkie Pie- I mean Candy by now!" Candy boasted.
"Yes, you're doing fine so far," Daylight said calmly. "Now, let's try speeding up a little. You see that the little pedal on the floor next to your hoof?" She pointed to the gas pedal. "Just slowly and gently push down on-"
Candy floored it, and the van shot backwards out of the alley and into the busy streets of Manehatten. The grizzled old mare, who was still sitting by the wall, watched wide-eyed as the van sped off.
"Fuckin' nutjobs," she muttered.
From inside the van, five of the six mares screamed loudly and held each other as they were thrown all around the interior, with OJ gripping the sides of the passenger seat for dear life. Candy, however, was smiling gleefully as she spun the steering wheel and straightened the van out onto the street, sending other cars screeching out of it's way, their horns blaring. The van continued to travel backwards at full speed, and Candy could barely make out what was behind her with the side mirrors.
"CANDY STOP!" Daylight cried out in fear. "HIT THE BREAK! HIT THE BREAK!"
"WHAT BREAK?" Candy shouted back to her.
"TO THE LEFT OF THE GAS PEDAL! THE LEFT!"
Candy looked down and noticed the much wider pedal next to the one she was pressing down on. She shifted her hoof to it and pressed down hard. Daylight, Commodity, Butterfly, and Hash all went smashing into the rear door of the van and landed in a heap. The van screeched for several feet before coming to a complete halt. Everypony aside from Candy and OJ (who was still clutching her seat tightly with her eyes shut tight) moaned and groaned as they climbed to their hooves.
"Candy..." Daylight panted, trying to remain calm. "Get... out... of the drivers seat..."
Candy said nothing at first. She was completely still, almost as if she was frozen in place. Then... "That... was... absolutely unbelievably positively AMAZING!"
Daylight flinched at Candy's sudden shriek. But before she could say anything further, Candy reached over and flipped the gear shift so it was on D.
"D for 'Do it', right?" She asked, and without even waiting for an answer, she floored it again, and the van went zipping through the streets of Manehatten.
The screaming of the five mares inside was almost louder than they engine.
"We're gonna die! We're gonna die! We're gonna die!" OJ repeated over and over again, her hooves covering her face.
For the past five minutes, Candy had taken her friends on the thrill ride of their lives. Or, at least that's what she believed. What the four mares in the back of the van had been through was more like the battering of their lives. They had been slammed against the sides of the van numerous times, bashed into each other, and basically given and example of what it's like being in a dryer.
And all the while, Candy remained blissfully unaware of this. For such a big, bulky van, the thing sure was agile. She was weaving in between cars, making sharp turns, and racing along the side walks when the traffic became too thick. She discovered how the horn worked a while ago, and was putting it to good use with getting pedestrians to dive out of the way before she could flatten them into the pavement.
OJ lowered her hooves and decided to chance a quick glance out the window. She instantly regretted it; the world outside was nothing but a blur of swirling lights and darkness, and it immediately twisted her stomach up in knots. How candy was able to tell what was going on out there, she would never know. She just covered her eyes again and prayed for it all to be over soon.
"Woo! Look out, Manehatten, Candy's on the loose!" Candy cried out as she took another ridiculously sharp turn, this one nearly tipping the van over. Quick thinking by Hash diving over to the other side of it was what ultimately prevented it from flipping.
"PINKIE, PLEASE STOP!" Daylight cried, deciding to momentarily drop the code name in hopes that her friend would realize how serious she was being. "YOU'RE GONNA KILL US ALL!"
"No I won't, silly!" Candy replied, not taking her eyes off the road. "And you goofed up with my name! Shame on you!"
"PINKIE, CANDY, WHATEVER! JUST STOP! EVEN IF YOU DON'T END UP KILLING US, YOU'LL BRING POLICE DOWN ON US!"
"If I do, I'll get away from them!" Candy turned for a moment to look at Hash, deeply disturbing Daylight by taking her eyes off the road. "Hashie, how did you get away from the police on Grand Theft Carriage?"
"Uh, I don't think hiding behind a dumpster until the wanted stars go away works in real life, Candy!" Hash replied, trying to keep her balance as the van swerved all about.
"Hmm..." Candy pondered that fact. "Well, I'm sure I could outrun them if I had to, but maybe I could-"
"CANDY, WATCH THE FUCKING ROAD!" Daylight screamed as she noticed they were about to blaze through a crowded intersection.
"Whoopsie!" Candy quickly turned to face forward. "Hang on tight, girls!"
The van hit full speed, clearly indicating that Candy had no intention of stopping. Now, the four mares in the back were covering their heads in a similar manner to OJ. "Tell me when it's over!" Commodity cried.
With every second that passed, Daylight waited for what she thought would be an inevitable crash. But it never came. Like threading a needle, Candy expertly maneuvered the van through the crowded intersection, swerving between perpendicularly moving cars effortlessly. A brief loud scraping sound suggested that they may have grazed the front or rear of one of the crossing cars. As relieved as Daylight was to still be alive, she couldn't help but wonder just how much destruction the pink pony was causing throughout the city... and if there were any casualties as a result.
Another five minutes of insanity passed before Daylight managed to get a look out one of the windows. To her great shock and mild relief, she saw that they were speeding right alongside the river. And if that was the case, then-
"Look girls! There's the warehouse! I knew I'd get us there!" Candy bragged.
Sure enough, their base of operations was rapidly approaching them from the side. Through some great miracle, the crazed pink pony had managed to get them to their temporary home without getting them killed or alerting any authorities. Daylight guessed that they had either lucked out by not running into any police, or that the Manehatten Police Force was extremely inept. She hoped for the latter; it would make tomorrows robbery much easier. For the briefest of moments, everypony in the van managed to smile hopefully. Even OJ found the courage to peek out between her hooves.
"Okay, you did good, Candy!" Daylight said, know she was lying a bit about the whole "you did good" part. "Now, just slow it down a bit and take us nice and easily around the corner of the build-" she was cut off there as the van took another sharp turn onto the dock. They were now heading at full speed straight for the edge, the bumpy surface of the dock causing the van to vibrate wildly. "CANDYYYYYYYYYYY!" Daylight screamed as she covered her head again.
"WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" Hash cried, bracing herself for whatever would come.
"I LOVE YOU ALL!" Butterfly screamed as she and Commodity held each other.
"AH'M COMMIN', PAPPY!" OJ shouted, turning her gaze skyward.
Candy rolled her eyes at her friends whining; she knew what she was doing, she just had to time it perfectly...
"3" Candy announced loudly, bracing herself for her next manuever.
"2" she wrapped her hooves around the steering wheel tightly.
"1" she lifted her hoof off the gas pedal.
"NOW!" She slammed her hoof on the break and spun the wheel to the left simultaneously.
The wheels screeched loudly, sending smoke and marbles of rubber flying everywhere. The ponies were all flung to the side of the van as it did a ninty degree spin. It was now sliding sideways towards the edge of the dock. It had slowed tremendously by that point, but would it be enough? By the time it was right on the edge, it was tilting on the drivers side. All it would take was for one of them to lean a little more to that side, and the van would tumble into the dirty, dark, freezing water below.
Nopony moved even an inch. They were all sweating and shaking profusely, the only noise being Hash silently muttering "pleasepleasepleasepleaseplea se..."
The van remained in that position for the longest ten seconds of their lives before the passenger side lowered back down to the ground with a resounding crash. Wordlessly, Candy set the gear shift to reverse, and without pressing on the gas, let the van slowly back up to a small section of dock along the far side of the warehouse, an area perfect for keeping the van hidden from public view.
Once the van was where she wanted it, Candy gently applied the brake, set the gear shift to park, and killed the engine.
A profound silence followed for what felt like an eternity. In reality, it was only about thirty seconds when Candy quickly spun around to face her friends. "So, how'd I do?" She asked with a wide smile.
She received no answer from them. Only deeply horrified and shaken expressions met her gaze. Commodity and Butterfly were still clinging to each other for dear life, While Hash was sitting in the fetal position in the far corner. As for Daylight, she looked like a pony who had just had her head shoved up Discord's ass and left there for a year before finally being pulled back out. Translation: She looked like Tartarus.
Candy's smile faltered a bit. And it was the sudden retching noise next to her that drew her attention next. OJ had just blown chunks all over the wind shield.
That reaction said it all: Candy was never driving again... EVER.
Ah, that was kind of a fun chapter to write. It's also pretty much the last semi-humorous one. The dark stuff definitely gets upped in the coming chapters. Honestly, I didn't expect to be as comedic with this story as I ended up being. I really wanted it to be pretty grim when I started out. But then again, the idea of the Mane Six robbing a bank definitely lends itself to some mildly comic situations when you really think about it. I just hope I'm making it all work. Once again, thanks for reading and reviewing, especially to those who have reviewed every chapter so far. That is what I call dedication! More soon! Oh, and if you happen to be reading this chapter on the day I posted it, happy Nightmare Night to ya!