Twilight Sparkle squinted through her pilfered stormpony helmet at the large black cylinder they had presently arrived at. Studing it as it stretched through both the ceiling and floor, she knew this machine before her was a key part in arriving at where she was going. If only she knew where the…

"Hey Twilight?" asked Rainbow Dash beside her, breaking her train of thought. "You do know how to use an elevator, right?"

"Wha-of course I do; I've read a great deal on the subject!" Twilight snapped, "I just need to find the call button."

"You mean this button?" Rainbow replied coolly while easily cantering up to a panel on the side of the tube, placing her hoof against it until a downward pointing triangle appeared.

Twilight gaped at the now obvious control. "Why would they design it like that?"

"Probably to keep rural farmfillies from getting too deep into the station," Rainbow smirked as she returned back to beside her "prisoners".

Twilight fumed beneath her helmet as she waited. Even though it was just as obscured as her own, she could feel the smug grin adorning the face of the cocky pegasus. Trying to vent some frustration as she boarded the elevator, she attempted to adjust her helmet…again. The stormpony she had stolen the armor from wasn't a unicorn like she was, so her horn pushed the helmet up and away from her face. As if that wasn't bad enough, she thought to herself, it seemed as if one of the tinted eye lenses was slightly higher than the other; like she was expected to look in two directions at once while wearing it. She finally got it resting on her horn so she could at least see clearly out of one side as the elevator door slid open and they stepped out.

Seconds past after the group had stepped into the detention block, and the four ponies were uncomfortably aware that the longer they stood there, the more they looked out of place; one of the guards were bound to come over and start asking questions. Twilight frantically searched for a course of action.

"This isn't working," Rainbow whispered to her.

"Really? I hadn't noticed," Twilight sarcastically whispered back, "I don't hear you coming up with a plan."

"I usually just wing it; it seems easier that way."

"But, how can you even-? Ugh, nevermind." Twilight stopped to notice a unicorn in an officer's uniform was now standing right in front of them; she briefly wondered why she couldn't have taken his uniform before he began to speak.

"What are you doing here with, ah, them?" he inquired.

"Uhh, hi!" Twilight said, hoping she didn't sound too nervous, "We're stormponies, and we're transferring these prisoners here from another detention block." She gestured to the two larger ponies behind her.

"Of course," the officer replied, his face betraying his skepticism as he looked over the four new arrivals, "However, I can't just allow you to trot around uninvited until we are absolutely sure that you are supposed to be here. Wait here and we'll take care of you." He turned around and began walking to a small console nearby, as the other three guard ponies started to approach.

Rainbow Dash hurriedly scanned her surroundings, her gaze travelling from alarms, to energy projectors, to security cameras, to the guards who were coming ever closer. Satisfied with her survey, she nodded to Celly while slowly un-holstering her blaster. The disguised alicorn understood immediately and, with a subtle flash of magic, unfastened both her own and Big Mac's bridles.

The first thing Twilight Sparkle noticed was her weapon being roughly removed from where she had stowed it, before being gently but firmly shoved into a corner, away from the rest. Somewhere, she heard Dash shouting something about their prisoners getting loose, before the entire room erupted in the sounds of laser-fire. Twilight lay down and covered her head; she didn't dare move for fear of drawing attention to her as she listened to the streams of energy crisscrossing around everypony. She felt what must have been molten metal spray over her armored back as she heard the loud band of a stray bolt hitting the wall just above her. Coughing as acrid smoke began filling up the small room, Twilight kept her eyes closed and silently wished for whatever was happening around her to end.

After what seemed like an eternity, the sounds of battle did stop. Twilight slowly opened her eyes, only to find that her helmet was blocking her sight again. Removing the offending piece of armor, she looked around the once pristine detention block. Smoke still filled the room, but not so much that she couldn't see through to where energy bolts had pockmarked the other side. Somehow, all of her friends had escaped injury; the guards, and most of the equipment see noticed, weren't so lucky. The purple unicorn turned to find Rainbow Dash and Celly at the one console in the room that didn't look like the surface of a dead moon.

"What the hay was that?" she angrily inquired.

The pegasus flashed Twilight a grin. "Winging it!" She chuckled as she turned back to the console. "We gotta find out which cell this princess is in…got it! It's cell 1-22. Go get her; we'll hold them off here. She watched as the unicorn took off at a gallop down the hallway, as Celly turned to a flashing red light on the console where she stood.

---

A grey stallion in one of the myriad of dispatcher's offices on the Great Sphere waited anxiously for a reply from the detention block. Baritone had heard that Nightmare Moon was patrolling around the area, and he didn't want to be perceived as slacking off.

He pressed the call button again, "Dispatch BB to detention block, please respond."

A female voice finally answered. "Yes? This is Detention Block BB-27, everything's under control here, situation normal," it said in a remarkably calming manner.

"Are you sure? All of the cameras in that block just cut out; what happened?" Baritone snapped back into his professional mode as he heard the hoofsteps of a large pony stalking towards him.

"Oh, that. Well, one of the guards clumsily dropped their electromagnetic grenade and it fried all of the electronics in the room. But we're all fine here now, thank you. How are you?"

The stallion paused before replying, "Really? We're sending a squad up."

"Okay, that's fine," the voice easily replied, "May I get your name and operating number?"

Baritone was taken aback. "What? Why?"

"Well, there's a general intruder alert, isn't there? That means that any troops you send up here would likely be of better use guarding the hangar bays," the voice explained.

"Okay, but-"

"So, when the intruders inevitably make their great escape, there will be ponies questioning 'who was the featherbrain who sent the stormponies we needed in the hangars, where they can prevent escape, to investigate a minor accident in the detention area?' So, when they ask me, I want to make to point them straight to you."

Baritone pondered his situation. The mare on the other end had a point: any intruders would have to escape through one of the hangers.

"Alright, the squad won't be necessary. Have a nice day," he said as he closed the channel. He breathed a sigh of relief.

"Why didn't you send a squad of troopers to the incident?" came a haunting voice. Spinning around in his chair, Baritone came face to face with the one pony he hoped wouldn't be speaking to him.

"Uh, th-there was an e-electromagnetic surge in th-the d-d-detention area," he stammered looking everywhere except for Nightmare Moon's cyan eyes staring down at him, "but they s-said they had it, uh, under control, and-"

"Yes, somepony working there said that, I heard," Nightmare interrupted, "Have you considered that the electromagnetic surge would have also destroyed all of the communications equipment in the room?"

Baritone sank as far back into his chair as he could go, trying to put as much distance between the wrathful force before him as he considered the implications of what had Nightmare Moon had just said. "Ponyfeathers…"

---

Twilight Sparkle galloped down the long hallway, checking the numbers above each cell door; she was about to give up when she finally found cell 1-22 near the end of the corridor. For a long moment she examined the imposing metal wall, trying to find a way to open it. The unicorn briefly considered forcing it open with her magic before remembering where the call button on the elevator was hidden. Maybe it was in the same place? She tentatively placed a hoof on a panel just to the side of the door, causing it to slide up.

"…and NOPONY cares about little old Rarity. Why doesn't anypony care about mMMEEEEEEEeeeeee?"

Twilight was suddenly struck to the floor by the most annoying sound she'd ever heard in her life; nothing she'd ever heard before, from broken landspeeder engines to that screeching desert rodent she found nesting by a vaporator, could compare to the sheer…irritation of what she'd just heard. The disoriented mare decided that her brain was so damaged by the sound that it was having trouble coming up with suitable adjectives to describe it.

Ears still ringing, she dimly became aware that the sole occupant of the cell she had fallen into was trying to help her back to her hooves.

"I'm dreadfully sorry about that; sometimes I just get carried away," the white unicorn before her was saying.

"I'll be fine in a moment," Twilight grumbled before regaining her composure. "Are you Princess Rarity?"

"That I am. And, you are?"

"I'm Twilight Sparkle; I'm here to rescue you," she replied, "I came with Celestia, and two of your other friends."

Rarity's eyes lit up at the mention of the alicorn's name. "Well, a lady does not keep her rescuers waiting," she said as she stepped with Twilight into the hallway, "Oh Celestia, Rarity's coming!" They were both almost immediately flattened as a blue pegasus crashed into them.

"Can't go back that way!" Rainbow Dash told them, her face flushed with excitement and worry as Big Mac and Celly raced up the hallway to join them.

Rarity's eyes narrowed at the newcomer, "And why not?" As if to answer her question, narrow lances of destructive energy started shooting up the corridor past them, scraping off the walls and filling the narrow space with again smoke. Rarity yelped and jumped behind Big Mac as the stallion turned and returned fire in the general direction of the stormponies.

"There has to be another way out," Twilight levitated a small comlink out of one of her uniform's pockets. "Fluttershy…Fluttershy!"

A soft voice replied, "Umm…yes?"

"We've been cut off in the detention block; are there any other ways out?"

Static crackled over the speaker as Rainbow Dash, Big Mac, and Celly kept the stormponies bottled up at the other end of the walkway. Twilight held the device closer to her ear: "What was that? Speak up, I didn't copy."

Back in the gantry office Angel Bunny gesticulated wildly, pointing at the map on the screen as Fluttershy adjusted the controls on her comlink. "Oh, I said all systems have been alerted to where you are. The main entrance seems to be the only way in or out." She watched as Angel changed the view on their readout steadily. "I'm sorry, any other information is restricted."

Someone began banging on the other side of the locked door to the office-becoming more insistent when there was no answer.

"Oh…my…"

---

Author's Notes:

All characters from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic are all owned by Hasbro, Inc.

Original story Star Wars: A New Hope by George Lucas

Sorry for the over 6 month hiatus. I just wasn't able to concentrate on the story for very long until recently after watching videos from Bronycon (even though I didn't get to go). Which means that, albeit indirectly and unknowingly, Tara Strong helped get this chapter out (she is, in fact, that awesome). Hopefully, I can get the rest of this finished before I get horribly distracted agai