There were times when it was possible to measure Rainbow's patience in fractions, and the baseline number would have been provided by a Diamond Dog.

She had no issues with setting long-term goals: her lifelong drive to join the Wonderbolts proved that. It could be (successfully) argued that her entire career with the Weather Bureau was all part of the plan: Rainbow had seen it as having made the world give her a job which not only offered so many free hours for practicing techniques, but where the work itself was yet more practice. Long-term goals weren't a problem -- but waiting for something which would arrive one whole hour from now, or maybe forty minutes if Applejack (or somepony who just happened to be in the kitchen and could be helpful when nopony was looking) simply turned the heat in the oven up, more heat had to equal faster cooking and exactly what did 'simmer' mean, anyway? -- that was a problem. (The same could be said of the resulting smoke.) And the biggest issues tended to arise when she was waiting for something which she had no control over.

Fluttershy's calls (or rather, the most recent round) had stopped a while ago: the caretaker was allowing some time for results before trying again. It left Rainbow waiting to see if anything would happen. Just as bad: it left her doing so while somewhere above them, there were ponies who needed to go through electrical jolts, wind blasts, a good old-fashioned hoof pounding with added wing strikes -- whatever was available, really -- and they were getting away. Preparing to leave would eventually turn into 'packed,' quickly followed by 'moved with no forwarding address.' If they were going to have any chance of putting hurt on ponies who deserved it, they had to leave soon or even better, ten minutes ago. It might have already been too late, and there was no way to know.

Also, there was Trixie, or rather, if nothing ever happened and they got stuck there for the whole three days, there would be Trixie. Rainbow didn't like Trixie. It wasn't the boasting: it was the inability to back it up. That made other boasters look bad. Oh, and there had been the whole Amulet thing, but honestly, that was like taking an outlawed field booster drug before a competitive event: if you weren't capable of getting through on your own...

Trixie would be rescuing them and Rainbow, who had read exactly none of Twilight's correspondence with the performer, suspected the boasting on that would never end.

She didn't know how much time they had to stop everything: only that there couldn't be all that much of it. And here they were, in the cell. Waiting.

Hey...!

Cyan ears perked, with the sheer force of the idea sending them upright. They then rotated, with Rainbow once again listening for guards. She had no idea where the guards were (and Daring Do would have seen them arrive ages ago), but suspected they would show up eventually. It was another reason to hurry -- but still not hearing any meant she could speak freely.

"Fluttershy --"

"...give it another minute, Rainbow."

"-- maybe we don't have to wait! You can get us out of here, right now!"

The blindfolded head quizzically tilted to the right. "...how?"

Rainbow nodded to the nape of her cellmate's neck.

Silence.

"...I still can't see you, Rainbow."

Oh. "That thing you got, just before we left!" The next words were more careful, because not only had nopony brought it up in a really long time and a reminder might be necessary, it had been a really long night. "The only thing any of us got..."

The movement behind the slowly-drying cloth suggested a blink. "...and how would I use it?"

Wasn't it obvious? "You can make anything go away! You could get rid of my chains!"

"...and then what?"

Rainbow had to think about that. "It's really damp in here. It's enough to put a cloud together. So now we've got a weapon --"

With an odd calm, "-- what's the door made out of?"

Rainbow looked.

"Some kind of metal." It was dull, grey, and slightly wet. The last part would help.

"...which means you can't really blast it apart with lightning," Fluttershy said. "And if there was enough lightning to make it hot enough for melting, the heat would hurt us before it did anything to the door."

A fuming Rainbow spent a few seconds trying to decide if physics were stupid or annoying, then concluded it was both. "So make the door go away."

"...any one thing, Rainbow."

She gritted her teeth, with none of the anger meant for Fluttershy. Discord had given her friend this potentially awesome thing to use, and then he'd limited it... "A cell is one thing."

"...maybe," Fluttershy thoughtfully replied. "...but I think that might still leave us in the chains. Plus there would be a hole --"

"-- a castle is one thing!"

Fluttershy took a slow breath.

"...yes," she agreed. "...and if it went away, it would leave a lot of ponies standing where floors used to be. Just before they fell. I don't know how deep this place goes, Rainbow, but we both know how tall it is. If there's any servants on the upper floors, they might die. And if there's still a lot below us... the castle goes away, we're still bound, and we just... fall. Everypony falls..."

Rainbow made a quick estimate of her best possible speed catching total. Then her inner hearing provided Pinkie's final fast-fading scream, and the pegasus shivered.

"Yeah. Sorry. I got a little -- carried away there." And right back to the frustration. "One thing..."

"...yes. And... if I can think of the right thing, and there's no other way... I'll use it, Rainbow. But... I know you want to get out there. To stop him. I do too. So I'll use it if I have to, but... give it a little more time. Please. I just think..." The blindfolded head went down a little, twisted again. Not that the effort would have done any good in any case: nopony was really capable of looking at their own neck. "...that it might not be time yet."

Rainbow decided that she would have used it already. Then she realized she might have used it on the first day, possibly after getting fed up with the confinement of the squeezed-in trees.

"It's still there, right?"

"...the bubble? Yes. I can sort of -- feel it, if I think about it for a few seconds."

"Could a forest be 'one thing'?"

"...sorry?"

Disgruntled, "Never mind..."

Fluttershy brought her head back up. "...no, I understand. I think I do, anyway. A cell is one thing, but the chains may not be part of the cell. A castle is one thing, but that doesn't mean the ponies in it. A forest is a million things while still being one thing..." A soft sigh. "If I use this, Rainbow... and I've been thinking about that for days now, because I was wondering if -- he knew I would have to -- then I need to be very careful. The definition could be everyth --" and she stopped, as her ears twisted towards the outermost wall.

Rainbow listened and at first, she heard nothing.

Then she did.

It was a long trip, and Softtread had tried telling the dragon that it had to be. The passages on the upper levels wound their way through the interior of the thickest walls, which meant there were times when those using them had to nearly make a circle around the current perimeter before they could try to move up or down. Reaching the cells while keeping corridor use to an absolute minimum meant taking more than a minimum amount of time.

The dragon had been... dubious. He had no reason to trust Softtread, and also had no reservations about shakily expressing some of his doubts. And the servant had in fact entertained thoughts about trying to get into the main hallways for just long enough, catching somepony's attention -- but the dragon was also right about something: at this range, he couldn't miss. It was easier to show him the cells and then try to find some way of getting him within one.

And...

A frightened child.

He had some experience with that. More than he'd ever wanted to have. But the young Lord's parents had been...

Distant. Even a servant's natural resistance to thinking ill of his superiors was willing to let that through. They were distant. For the heir had not been what they had hoped for: physical weakness, health which had to be carefully managed. Even on that first day of listening to explanations from the physicians, they had been... distant.

And then it had gotten worse.

He had no love for the passages. Not only did they make it easier for certain members of staff to slip away, they were cramped. Dirty. Some of the lighting devices had failed. And with the dragon on his back, a being who was reluctant to allow a corona for more than the deactivation of traps, the trip often left them moving through darkness.

Dark passages seemed to lead into dark thoughts.

"Is Quiet..." He heard the dragon swallow. "...one of the doctor's?"

It was almost offensive. "Rather than inquiring about who attended Lord Presence's birth, you are asking," the old servant softly stated, "if he is a hybrid. Correct?"

"Yes."

"Then no," Softtread firmly replied. "Doctor Gentle delivered him. But there were no special difficulties encountered during the process."

More timidly, "He said he has a weakness in his blood..."

The old stallion sighed, and the sound had been forced out by a new level of pressure. Memory had so much weight... "His illness. It did not become apparent until a few days after his birth. He cried, as so many foals do. But it turned into wailing, for nopony heard it quickly enough. And then... coughing, spasms..."

It took too long to put those visions away, and the echoes of his own hooves pounding towards the heart of the settled zone stayed with him. He'd found help -- and help hadn't been enough. Not a simple illness, but something within the blood itself. Sickness for a lifetime, and not necessarily a long one.

"It has taken so much for him to reach adulthood," Softtread continued. "He has had to be so careful. Simply to still be trotting under Sun -- a demonstration of how well one can manage their life."

"He said," the dragon went on (and there was still a timidity there, now on the increase), "that there was work being done on a cure."

"You seem to recall much about what he has said," the servant noted, and kept the words passive.

"He put a restraint on Twilight's head," the dragon shot back. "It's made me think about him. Over and over."

Yes, under the current circumstances, that would do it.

Which was when Softtread realized something. The dragon isn't a Bearer. But he is... The old stallion just barely managed the thought. ...related. In that way, he may have influence...

"Lord Presence speaks highly of you," the old stallion softly said. "The way he wished for you to be introduced tonight -- those are not words offered to a sapient whom one does not respect. He did not care how much the words might upset some of those who were below." The smile was only internal. "Although he seldom does. But he truly desired for you to have a degree of public recognition. He likes you. And -- I would like to think, before tonight -- that you were at least somewhat fond of him."

The youth was intelligent enough not to answer, not in words -- but Softtread felt the rider's muscles tighten.

If he will listen...

Was it still possible for the House to be saved? It seemed, at the minimum, rather unlikely. But when one's life was the House, a final attempt had to be made.

The old servant thought about things for a few hoofsteps. What he could say, and what he should not.

"He cannot have children," he finally began as they moved into a better-lit section.

"He..." A little swallow. "He didn't say it. But I..."

"You understood," Softtread gently finished for him. "Yes. There is a weakness, and... he will not risk passing it to the next generation. And so he is the last of the House of Deluge." A few seconds of pain, plus one more for not thinking about a spouse who took most of her pleasure in shopping and none of her agonies from regret.

A long pause. The claws kept their grip on his horn.

"I'm sorry."

"A House," Softtread continued, hoping, "which will no longer exist after tonight. Lord Presence has often jested about dropping his title into the soil of the road, and..." It was not the time to weep. "...now it will happen. The castle sold to another, presuming any will have it. Some of the staff may remain, others will disperse. But the title and the bloodline... they end. I had feared he would be the last. Then I knew, after his --"

Stopped. Physically. Vocally. Stopped.

I nearly...

Too many memories, and all of them seemed to want their share of time in the now.

"After his what?" the dragon asked, because of course he was going to do that.

Not yet, if at all. Stay with the other aspect.

Although in so many ways, they were one and the same.

"There was a cure being worked on," Softtread said, starting forward again. "But that work was being done by Doctor Gentle."

That claw grip tightened.

A single choked "He..." was all that emerged. The dragon could say no more.

"That which was meant for the Doctor's daughter," Softtread risked, "fully understood and properly applied, will save Lord Presence." Which was simply a way of putting it, amplified by, "Will allow that next generation. And you have your reasons to hate him. Seeing one's -- sister -- attacked will do that. But do you hate him so much as to let his House fall? With a cure so close?"

No answer. In some ways, it was the best possible result: Softtread would have been reluctant to trust an immediate response. The silence seemed to indicate that the dragon was thinking it over, as did the lightly-trembling body perched upon his back.

A familiar section of wall was approaching.

"I will need to ignite my corona now," the servant said. "Otherwise we will not be able to proceed at all."

"...right," the dragon eventually said. "Right..."

Twilight still hated herself.

Rarity had presented her counterpoints, and Twilight recognized that they were legitimate. And if they could reach Pinkie...

...if she doesn't turn away from me...

...I deserve --

-- she did. She had more than earned that. But somehow, she had hope.

It didn't change the self-hatred. There were too many arguments for it. A flood of justifications. Things she had told herself to believe. Aspects she'd missed. Words she should have paid more attention to.

Events which had taken place as she'd done nothing more than watch.

"I should have known he had restraints." It was one of the smallest offenses, and so seemed to serve as a fine lead-in to something more major.

"Oh?" Rarity inquired. The designer was shifting shoulders and hips again: it was either a futile attempt to find comfort within the chains or an effort to adjust the lie of the rumpled dress. Given who was doing it, the odds seemed to indicate something which could best be settled through a coin flip.

"Quiet," Twilight sighed. Talking about it was a means of hurting herself. It was also a way to keep thinking about him. To try fighting off any attack from that horrible, insidious talent. "At the hoofball practice, when the pegasi kids broke rules and got penalty ropes. He said he could 'wrap horns in worse'."

"Suggesting restraints were available," Rarity nodded. "Yes." A brief pause, accompanied by a chain-muffled attempt to shift her hindquarters. "But he never used one. Not even after I counted no less than --" and stopped, with the left side of her mouth twitching up into a lightly-embarrassed half-smile. "-- well, some things sink in through osmosis. I simply wasn't comfortable in speaking about that part of my life. Not while he was present. We did not know each other well enough yet."

"The unicorn fillies and colts were committing penalties?" Twilight asked. She mostly understood hoofball to exist as a sort of barely-confined riot with its own scoring rules, which Rarity had told her was actually a rather good description.

"Several," Rarity acknowledged. "Although in truth, it is rather difficult to have so much as a single play go off without one. My father receives a rulebook update prior to the start of every new season, and it has to arrive by cart. A cart which will have one book in it." She paused. "We had to ask the neighbors to help us get the most recent edition inside. After we moved some things out of the hallway. So... restraints within the castle, in what he claimed as the secondary armory."

If for nothing more than loss of access to historical pieces, Twilight couldn't seem to particularly care about having missed the cataloging opportunity. "Yes. And then there was..."

She tried to take a deep breath. It wasn't easy. All of the emotions seemed to have left very little room for her lungs.

"...Dawn Sky. Rarity -- he did it right in front of me. I felt the energy, but... I didn't know what it meant. I just thought it was part of using the Exception. I was in the birthing room when he changed her into a hybrid."

Softly, oh so very softly, "Would she have died?"

"He said... she had the umbilical cord wrapped around her throat," Twilight slowly replied. "The bruises..."

An equally slow nod. "Yes. I saw the discoloration beneath the fur. Oddly easy to do so, with a metallic. Twilight -- think about your own words. You believed it to be part of the Exception itself. You had no way to know."

Still overflowing with resentment towards a student who never should have passed a single course, "I could have --"

"-- figured it out on the spot, when we had no concept of what had been taking place? Stopped it?" Almost a whisper, "Twilight... she would have died..."

She felt a tremendous weight pushing at her from inside, and realized it was her own heart.

"He said that. That without him..."

"Yes," Rarity admitted. "It is a truth. A filly lived. And her mother... the happiest pony I have ever seen." More slowly, "There are thoughts which I will have to deal with eventually. To hate a stallion for what he has done, while being thankful for a portion of what it granted... I am not looking forward to my dreams, Twilight." She sighed. "Or the migraine which shall undoubtedly precede them."

Silence for a little while, and they both listened for approaching guards again. Nothing.

"What did it feel like?" Rarity finally asked. "When it happened."

Twilight focused. "His field felt sort of -- twisted the whole time. Picture a length of anchored rope, and somepony turns it at the free end. That's what it was like, when it was just the Exception. That plus the lack of sparkles -- and that's a sign: if his sparkles blink out, he's getting ready to use it. We can watch for that."

Rarity nodded. "Should we have the opportunity," she said, and not enough of the fear had been blocked.

"Rarity..."

"I saw that supposed Duke upon the stage, Twilight," the designer softly said. "I have multiple images to haunt my nightscape. I trust you to protect us, if the need arises. But the echoes of that scream... they will need more time to fade. So rather than continue to review that moment... the change. Did it have its own feel? You said the twist was just the Exception."

"It widened," Twilight carefully replied, measuring words against memory. "It turned into a channel. And then there was something moving down it, something I'd never felt before. A rush. That was probably the essence."

The next question was the natural one. "What was the resonance?"

She remembered, and wished she did not.

"Hope."

Her friend slowly nodded. (This was followed by a minor head shake, but that was just adjusting the capture-disrupted mane.)

"Hope," Rarity repeated. "I... can understand that, I think."

Water ran down the walls, fell from the ceiling, soaked into half-ruined dresses.

"When he was in front of me," Twilight finally said, head dipping as she found herself temporarily unwilling to meet Rarity's eyes, "when he told me that her mark coming was... beautiful... I looked right at him. And something happened. I couldn't see him any more. Not as a pony. All I saw from that moment on -- was a monster."

No answer, not just yet, and Twilight understood that Rarity was letting her talk.

"He was in love with his spouse," Twilight eventually went on. "I could hear that. I think everypony could. He loved her more than anything, he lost her, and..."

She didn't think the next three words constituted a lesson. She doubted they would ever see a scroll. And part of her acknowledged that they came from anger, bitterness, and those continuing surges of self-hatred: it meant she wouldn't incorporate them into herself. But still... at the moment they were spoken, there was something within which believed them.

"...love makes monsters."

Rarity's entire body jerked, the designer trying to lean forward as far as she could within the chains.

"Love is the most wonderful --"

"You saw --"

"-- it is worth striving for, fighting for, defending at all costs --"

"-- it ends! The ponies you love die! And when they die --"

What did he say? "I spoke of loss. You spoke of fearing loss. It's natural. But in the end... you have so little to fear..."

I have more to fear than --

Urgent. Concerned. Nearly terrified. "Twilight!"

Her head came up.

"He loved his spouse," Rarity's desperate voice surged. "A love I would give so much to have within my own life, even knowing it would one day end. A strength of love I hope for you to experience and in doing so, to realize that the price of an ending is worth paying, for the story which came before it provided the coin. That in time, if we let it, the pain fades, and we remember the love. But you heard what Pinkie said: wisdom from within her own pain. He loved his spouse. But I do not know if he ever truly loved his daughter. That part is the monster. Something which will not accept. Something which demands that one adapt in order to be considered worthy. Something which says it would be there if only you were different -- none of that is love, Twilight. That is pain. That poor mare was in agony long before her mark came. The body merely experiences what the soul did all along, and so the torment is dual and doubled. Love did not create a monster. I will accept that loss played a part. But in the end, hatred turned what would have otherwise been a merely bigoted pony into something very much like a monster. And yet, in that..."

The blue eyes closed.

"...there is hope," she softly finished. "Hope for life..."

The first tear fell.

And Twilight couldn't move. Couldn't go to her (and could never take back that she hadn't done so for Pinkie). Couldn't do anything but talk.

"...Rarity?"

"The Nightmare," the designer quietly replied, "was... not Luna. I have believed that for some time now. One comes to know her, compares it to what that thing did, and recognizes it was no part of her." (And Twilight remembered a dream.) "Sombra... he willfully abandoned his former state, and I suspect he took glee in doing so. Discord -- whatever he is, he may remain so, or he might change. But Doctor Gentle... it is the monstrosity which ponies are capable of. I could perceive him as a monster, Twilight -- and yet he is a pony. A monster wearing a pony's skin. The sort of monster which trots by in the street, undetected. A monster born from hatred, loss, refusal to accept, and... hope. Something which should nearly have its own virtue, twisted more than his field, and yet... remaining some form of hope. A monster anypony could be, and... a monster so many might become."

It was possible to feel the pain radiating from her fur.

"It makes me feel," Rarity forced herself to continue, "as if I might have a monster within --"

"-- NO!"

"-- simply waiting for its chance --"

"YOU'RE NOT HIM! YOU COULD NEVER BE --"

"-- and what was Star Swirl?"

The simple inquiry stopped Twilight cold.

"He," Rarity reminded her, "was a Bearer. Their... friend, I would imagine. But then... something twisted. Jealousy, given that he attempted to take their form and power. He was their friend, and then... he was a monster. And if anypony among us has their jealous side, it would be me --"

"You'll never be like him."

The words had been surprisingly solid. They needed to be, in order to hold up the sheer weight of conviction.

"And how," Rarity softly asked, "can you be so sure?"

"You admitted to it," Twilight replied. "He never did."

The blue eyes opened.

"You can't know that."

"I know you won't be like him."

More insistent, "You can't know that he never spoke of his feelings. We barely know anything real of them --"

"He didn't!"

"How can you know?"

"I just --"

And then they both heard the scratching. The scritching of claws moving across stone.

"Spike!" Twilight gasped -- then stopped, her heart sinking again. "No... too light."

"And too many," Rarity sighed. "That is --" frowned, and her ears rotated towards the doorway "-- a rather large number of things moving, isn't it? And getting closer. It sounds as if it's just about right up to the -- rats! There are rats down here! There are rats and they are flooding into the cell and I cannot move...!"

She pulled back as far as she could within the chains, which turned out to be the same amount that she'd been able to lean forward: not at all. Instead, her body did a sort of jerking dance as she futilely attempted to escape from the group (a mischief of rats, Twilight remembered, because nopony could go out to the cottage without also learning by osmosis) which was swarming through the gaps in the bars, several dozen of the things and --

-- a number of voles.

You also couldn't go to the cottage and not eventually learn the difference, along with the fact that they would never swarm together. In fact, the only reason they were peacefully occupying the same patch of Ponyville ground was --

"-- Fluttershy," Twilight breathed.

Rarity's frantic movements stopped.

The swarm stopped. Looked up at them, with dozens of bright eyes glittering in the cell's dim light.

"We're underground," Twilight said. "In a big building, an old one. Rats in the lower levels, voles in the soil outside. There must be holes somewhere, and Fluttershy called to them..."

They were still looking.

"What -- what exactly are they doing?" Rarity forced herself to ask.

Twilight took her best guess. "Scouting -- I think," she replied. "Fluttershy probably sent them out to see where everypony was and how we're confined --" which was when the swarm began to turn, heading towards the gaps again "-- and now they'll tell her what they saw."

The mischief (plus accompanying voles: she couldn't recall if there was a special name for that species when grouped) left, as quickly as they had come.

"I think Fluttershy has a plan," Twilight declared. "Let's see what it is."

And they waited.

"This," the dragon said, "is taking too long --"

"-- this," Softtread interrupted with the practiced ease of a servant who knew how to get a word in, "is the final transition. The next passage goes directly to the destination. It has just taken some time to reach."

"Sure it bucking does..." the youth muttered -- then sighed.

"Language," the servant chided.

"It doesn't matter," his rider said. "It's not as much fun to curse when you're the only pony who hears it."

Softtread almost smiled. "A familiar motivation for language studies," said the pony who'd had four siblings. "Across the hallway..."

"Not yet," the dragon said, and clamped a hand over the unicorn's mouth. "I hear hoofsteps."

They waited in silence until the corridor was clear. It took a while: those trotting through were in no special hurry, and it gave Softtread time to think of what might happen next. There was one more thing he could still tell the dragon, in the name of trying to win him to the cause. But it was something he hadn't said for a very long time, words he never should have spoken at all. A secret, and one given to a being who wasn't even a pony. Who might not understand...

Perhaps...

He'd said them once. And it could be argued that doing so had led directly to this.

Finally, they crossed. The no-longer-secret entrance opened, closed. Softtread slowly moved forward.

"The first trap is three body lengths ahead," he alerted the dragon, and the claws progressively loosened their grip as they drew closer. "Let me see -- this one requires --"

His horn ignited, and the partial corona projected forward.

Then it winked out.

"-- nothing," the servant said.

The dragon tensed. "If this is a trick --"

"-- no," Softtread broke in, with some of the stun now suffusing his words. "It's already been deactivated. And it wasn't done by one of my staff, because I don't recognize the signature. I suppose the guards might have finally arrived, but --"

The grip tightened.

"Faster," the terrified child told him. "Now."

Rarity's single hard swallow nearly drowned out the sound of the rodents reentering the cell.

"Easy..." Twilight whispered.

"It... it is just that... it's..." More saliva went down. "...they're rats..."

"Fluttershy has rats at the cottage," Twilight reminded her. "You've seen them."

"Pet rats. Groomed rats. Clean rats. These are..."

"Allies," Twilight firmly said. "They're allies."

Rarity attempted to rally. "What are the more -- roundish ones? Voles, correct?"

Twilight nodded.

"They are -- actually somewhat cute."

Again.

"In a ratty sort of way -- they are looking at me. Why are they looking at me, Twilight?" A little more frantically, "Tell them to stop looking at me."

"I can't," Twilight rather reasonably pointed out. "I'm not Fluttershy."

"Then tell Fluttershy to tell them to stop -- they are scurrying up to my hooves! They are --"

"-- me too, Rarity." The swarm had effectively split in half, with an equal number going to each pony.

The next words emerged in the hiss of a pony who'd gone too far for mere screaming to still mean anything. "-- they are on my hooves! They are climbing up my forelegs!" Chains jerked and created the non-musical sound of no rat-removing results whatsoever. "They are on my dress and if not for the dress, they would be in my fur and Sun and Moon, it's in my fur now because it's on my neck --"

And now they were climbing Twilight, claws easily finding purchase in the fabric of the iridescent dress.

She wanted to pull away. It was like having a fly land on her hips: pure instinct would direct her tail into a clearing sweep. But there was nowhere to go, and all she could do was watch as they swarmed over Rarity, heading for --

"-- I can't, I can't, I can't --"

"Rarity! Stop!"

The rising song of hysteria, one where the pitch was rapidly heading towards the crash of a faint or worse, "-- I can't --"

"They're trying to get your restraint off!"

Rarity froze.

"They're... what?"

"It's just heavy fabric on your straps! They can chew through that! They must have told Fluttershy what they saw on us, and now they're going to get rid of it! We're getting our fields back, Rarity!" And once Twilight's horn was free --

-- the sudden squeal of pain wasn't made directly into her ear, but the tiny distance didn't diminish any of the outrage.

"...I," Rarity shakily said, "may be granted mine, Twilight. But your straps are reinforced with metal. They may have been able to tell Fluttershy enough about what they saw to give her a tactic, but they were unable to identify material. For they are but rats and voles, and so lack our intellect. Shape, but not substance. My horn can be freed -- but I do not have the strength to remove these chains, and there is nothing which will grant that power. And once the guards come, see that this much has happened... they will ensure it will not occur again. Fluttershy will be bound in both vision and speech, or worse..."

"The lock," Twilight desperately tried, even as she felt her own hope dying, the emotion bleeding freely as the rats scurried away from her neck: they eventually wound up staring at her in open insult from the floor. "You can try to use your field on the lock for my restraint. If it isn't enchanted and you hit the right tumblers, maybe you can get it open. We have to try."

"I'm willing," Rarity quietly replied. "I can make an attempt. But if it is enchanted, I will be unable to break it. We would need the key or access to somepony who could automatically get past the workings. But that is generally those members of law enforcement sent to correct what children see as exceptionally cruel pranks, and in this supposed settlement..." She shuddered -- and almost immediately muted it, so as not to dislodge the rats. "Are they making progress?"

"It's slow," Twilight admitted. "It may take a few minutes. I know it's hard..."

"Rather." A shallow breath. "Rats."

"They're what was available." Who? "They're just trying to help."

"Rats," Rarity firmly repeated, and said nothing more. Her ears twitched, her tail lashed and every so often, her eyelids threatened to lose their false lashes. But that was all.

They waited. It was a slower process than Twilight would have hoped.

One field free. But she doesn't know any workings which would help us, and she doesn't have the raw power to just break this off. If she can't deal with the lock...

There was something Rarity could do to get them out of the cell. Twilight just wished she had some idea of what it was.

Silence (but for the soft, slightly unsettling sounds of chewing), and it let them both hear the hoofsteps.

They froze. Sought each other's eyes, with both mares finding the other equally frantic.

The guards. They're finally coming in. They're going to see...

Rarity tried to shake herself enough to dislodge the rodents, perhaps in the hopes that a merely-chewed strap would be overlooked. But the chains held her, and the animals stayed right where they were.

Maybe they'll flee when the guards get closer. Maybe they'll...

...we tried...

The words had, perhaps, not been meant to reach them. But there were strange acoustics within stone, enough that they could now identify three sets of hoofsteps: a trio on the approach. And shortly after that, there were three voices: two stallions, one mare. The words told those within the cell exactly what was coming, and gave some indication as to why.

"The Princess first," said the larger-sounding of the stallions.

The mare was surprised. "He told us to go into that cell last. He bucking repeated it like, six times. This is what you have to do in order to beat the traps, this is how you open the last door, and you take care of the Princess last."

"I'm giving him what he wants," said a tight, smaller voice. "I'm guessing you two are doing the same. I don't care why. I'm sick of him. I bet that was him. He can talk all he wants about being an intermediary, but if you're doing this for the same reason, you'll remember the letters. He can say he's passing along orders, but that horse apple talks the same way he writes. If I didn't know he had the files ready to mail, I'd be doing this to him."

A brief pause.

"Maybe I will anyway," the tight voice said. "Someday."

The larger one snickered. "Maybe I'll help."

They couldn't move. They were bound, by chains and ropes and restraints. They were completely helpless.

"But he said the Princess last," the mare reminded them.

"So?" the larger one snickered. "He's not down here. Just tell him we did her and the unicorn last."

"He wanted," the mare insisted, "the earth ponies to die first."

They were exactly the way Coordinator would most wish them to be, with the short-term exception of their breathing.

"Look," the large one suddenly shot back, "if I have to kill a bucking Princess to get that smear off my tail, I just want to get it out of the way, all right? He wants them dead. He says he's got this great plan for making sure nopony finds out what happened and since he's had a great one for just about bucking bankrupting me over the last few years, maybe this one works too. But the order doesn't matter. I don't know what you two did that you're doing this. I just know what I did. I was this close to finding him and doing --"

Momentarily stopped, in both approach and speech.

"I'm almost out of bits," he resumed. "Bits are more important than life. Than their lives."

"But they may not even have the dragon yet," the mare reminded them. "We can't come back down here --"

"-- we can't wait!" the tight voice nearly yelled. "Too much longer and the guards will be here, you know that! We do the killing, we get out, we wait for the bodies to be found and if the dragon wasn't in a cell, we use that distraction to find him!"

The mare's voice was now thoughtful.

"That's fair," she decided, and it was followed by words which should never have been said. "You know -- this is going to be my first dragon..."

"But not your first pony," the tight voice decided, and not without a dark amusement.

"Let's just say," the mare told him, "that if you decide to go for that speckled neck and you can get rid of his pictures, I'll be right there with you."

"Princesses can die," the larger one mused, seemingly to himself. "It's a Tartarus of a thought, isn't it? They can really die. We're going to be the first ponies ever to prove it..."

They trotted, as two friends silently looked at each other. And there were no words. In some ways, there could be none. But still, they had known each other for some time. Each was familiar with the expressions of the other, in a way which could so easily lead to guessing at the thoughts behind them. And so in that singular moment on the edge of death, there was a way in which each almost felt that they heard the other, all the same.

It's my fault.

It is not.

I'm sorry. You never should have met me. Nopony ever should have --

I don't regret having known you. The lost years to come... you were worth it. And the others will say the same.

Spike...

Will live. Know that.

You're my big sister, aren't you? The one I never had...

Outstanding that you finally noticed.

I love you.

And I love you. Until we meet in the shadowlands, my dear one...

There was a tiny ping! as a field contacted the back of the outer cylinder. The door opened.

"He told me," the larger one said, with the words now meant to be heard, "to say this on his behalf, Princess. That much, I'll do. So -- to the Incarnate of a very short Future -- he initially thought you should have taken his offer. But then he thought it over. And now he's glad you didn't. This is from him. It's all from him. And it won't be quick."

A large black unicorn stepped forward enough to let them see the blades mounted on his hooves: weapons which Twilight had cataloged. It also let him see them: two mares, chained to walls and ceiling, facing each other. His initial sight line went through the space between them.

"You're going to die --"

-- and then he saw the rats.

"What the buck?"

Along with a healthy percentage of voles.

"Get in here!" he screamed as he charged forward. "They're trying something --"

Not that he could probably distinguish the species from each other, not even when they were racing away from the floor around Twilight's bound hooves, probably not even with their coming directly at him, racing up his legs and across his body, nipping, clawing, biting...

He screamed, veered off to the side, nearly crashed into a wall. And his horn had ignited, but now there were rodents scrambling across that: the impacts weren't anywhere sharp enough to induce backlash, but it had to be hurting his concentration. Or what little was left of it after the brown vole went directly into his right ear.

The other two charged in, following the screams. Two unicorns. (Of course unicorns, Twilight found herself thinking, and decided she didn't need that degree of final confirmation.)

They had weapons. Their horns were lit. And the first thing they looked at was the pony who had fallen to the floor, was trying to roll around and crush the scrambling rats, but couldn't get them off his face or out of his ears...

It froze them, if only for a second. Just long enough for Rarity's group to jump off her back and go for the mare.

The green intruder tried. Her field went forward, scattered a few, but there were too many targets: a number reached her, and then there was a new scream. But that left one pony and his puce field began to lance out, aiming to pick rodents off the others. He wasn't going for Twilight and Rarity, not just yet. But there weren't enough animals left over to go for him, and the one pony who could have told the swarm to redivide itself might as well have been a thousand gallops away.

It was a distraction. Even if some of those bites managed to hit eyes, ultimately, that was all it could be. And...

...it didn't matter.

The inner cylinder.

The outer had seen the bottom of its hollow touched by a field. But not so the one within the cell itself. The timer had started running at the moment the first contact had been made. Whatever spells resided within the cell, workings which might have been intended to dispose of prisoners -- there was less than a minute before they would inflict themselves on everypony within.

"HIT THE SENSOR!" It was a scream: it had to be, and the decibels of her desperation briefly drowned out all other sound. "YOU HAVE TO HIT --"

The mare was tossing her body, going up and down. Legs desperately shifted. It seemed to create pounding hoofsteps, ones where despite having it right in front of her, Twilight's ears couldn't seem to identify the source of sound.

"Why the buck would we let you out of the chains?" the smaller one sneered as he forced more rats away.

And then Twilight understood.

That's why we were supposed to die last.

He only told them what the outer one did. They come in here, they start killing us, and then -- the workings go off.

They get found with our bodies and take all the blame, because the evidence is right there.

Self-disposing murderers.

It was, in a sick way, rather elegant.

"It's a trick," the smaller one smugly said. "The rats are a trick, a trick without magic, and it's not enough --"

"-- GET AWAY FROM MY SISTER!""

And the roar carried the flames into the shorter male's mane.

He screamed. He threw himself at the floor, rolling, trying to find any way of putting the fire out before it spread, but the puce hair had caught and the dampness of the floor wasn't enough to extinguish it, the little dragon was racing into the cell --

-- Twilight had just enough time to see Softtread standing in the doorway. The fear in old eyes. The panic, spreading at the speed of instinct until all thought was gone.

The servant spun, raced down the corridor, hooves pounding as fast as his heart.

NO! "SPIKE! GET OUT! YOU HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE! SPIKE, PLEASE, PLEASE LISTEN TO ME!"

"YOU'RE DONE!" the little dragon shouted: claws waved the rats away from the mare's tail, and so only hair was ignited. "I'LL BURN YOU! HURTING TWILIGHT, HURTING RARITY, YOU'RE DONE, YOU CAN BE ASH FOR ALL I CARE, I'M GOING TO MAKE YOU INTO --"

"IT'S THE SECURITAS ENCHANTMENT! THERE'S TWENTY SECONDS! SPIKE, PLEASE, GET TO THE OTHERS --" and that was where screams ran out.

"Let us go." Rarity's oddly calm voice had a way of cutting through cries of pain. "Save them. Live. Please, dearest one, live --"

Green eyes blinked at them.

"The Securitas," Spike said. "That enchantment from sixth year? Really? That's all?"

And then he calmly stepped past one writhing body, casually dodged a kick from a flailing second, and stuck his right arm into the hole.

There was a tiny ping!

When it came to a crisis situation, fire had a certain way of assuming control. It also had a tendency to rearrange previously existing plans. Most of the rats and voles had fled: without Fluttershy to calm them, there was no way to make them stay near flame, and the remaining ones were more than a little nervous about remaining close to something which produced it: the scant number was all working on Rarity's restraint. Spike was trying to control three ponies just about all by himself.

Well... two.

"He needs medical attention," the mare with the lost tail said, staring at the half-conscious stallion. "The back of his head -- he's burned..."

"He," Spike softly said, "was trying to kill Twilight." His nostrils flared as he took a half-step forward. "Were you going to send down medical attention after that?"

"Spike..." Rarity, of course. "You have every reason to be upset. But they have been beaten."

"They're beaten as long as I'm looking at them," Spike stated. "Remember, I see one flare of corona and I breathe. You move and I breathe. Stay in that corner. Twilight, is the strap almost cut?"

Twilight looked. "Yes. They've just got another strand or two to go." A closer inspection. "Actually, Rarity, if you shook your head really hard, it might just come off."

"And dislodge our assistants," she replied, repressing most of the shudder. "Not unless I must. But there is still the question of where we go from here. Even with a freed horn, I can do very little to allow the rest of us escape. And with Softtread having run... he will tell somepony about what has happened, after the fear has faded. Hopefully one who does not wish us dead. That will trigger reinforcements."

"We can get reinforcements," Twilight realized. "They have a way to get into all three cells, and only this one had the Securitas. That means keys."

"For doors," sneered the wounded larger stallion, who was still bleeding heavily from one ear. "Not chains. Why would he ever give us something to let you free?"

It was true, and it meant they had but half a solution, possibly not even for very long -- but that still felt better than nothing. "Push them across the floor towards Spike with your left forehoof. No kicking."

"Why should I?"

Spike inhaled.

"...right," the larger stallion decided. "All yours." Metal skittered. "For all the good it does you, freak."

Twilight couldn't decide if that had been directed at Spike or herself, but rather quickly decided she didn't care. "More than it did you. Spike, do you have anything that could get my restraint off?"

He shook his head. "Some gems. Scrolls and quills. I can't burn it off, Twilight: it's flush against your fur and even if I could pull it away a little..." and she heard the fear "...heat conducts. It'll move through the air and down the metal. Hot enough to melt that..." he was trembling now "...you would..."

"It's okay," she softly told him. "I understand."

And he can't melt the chains. I don't think he's ever gone that hot. Even if he could, it's the same problem: either I'm burned or with the heat radiating, we're all cooked.

Maybe... maybe all he did was save us from being killed. Maybe we can't get out.

She smiled.

It's enough.

"I'm proud of you, Spike." Even if those reinforcements arrived within the next second, that would still be true. "I don't think I've ever been more proud."

"The same," Rarity gently told him. "Thank you, Protector."

Spike didn't glance back at them: he couldn't, nor did he have to. But he did tear off his right sleeve, wipe it across the damp floor, and put it against the burnt stallion's neck.

"A proper use," Rarity stated. "Even for the strictly undeserving. I hardly mind -- oh!" For she'd just felt the last strand let go. "All right, if our visitors will just give me some space -- and there they go -- down the tail was not my ideal..." She shook her head, hard: metal clanged off the wall. "Lovely! Now, for however many seconds of relief I have to work with..." Her horn ignited: soft blue touched the lock of Twilight's restraint, delved into the hole --

-- instantly producing a shower of red sparks.

The designer winced. "Enchanted. And strongly. I'm certain I can't --"

-- which was when they heard the next set of hoofsteps.

There was barely time to react before the sound of trotting was joined by a snort of pure shock. "What?" somepony asked the air. "What in Moon's orbit is that door doing open --

It was a male voice. It was also another unicorn, and they found that out when the orange field lanced into the cell, grabbed Spike, spun him around, and shoved him face-first into the wall.

Scales absorbed impact, and almost didn't take enough of it: the little dragon slid down the stone, gems and quills scattering across the floor. He was pinned: the field was keeping him against the wall, and letting him drop to floor level just meant that much less weight to hold. Conscious, struggling, but he didn't have the strength to break free, he couldn't even turn his head...

"NOPONY MOVE!" the stallion shouted (in what felt to Twilight like a very familiar way) as the robed body galloped into the room, the corona around the exposed horn showing the heavy spiking of pure rage. "What happened here? Who are these ponies? Tell me what's been going on, right now --"

-- and the point of the first quill went into his right hip.

It was easier for Twilight to hear the cry than see the impact. At the exact moment the quill had started to move, it had become hard to see much of anything.

"WHAT?" the stallion yelled. "WHO JUST --"

-- and his attention was caught by the light.

Not even those who had so recently planned murder could look away. Not from this, for the base sight would have been rare enough on its own. Unicorns seldom publicly went to the double corona in any case, not when the risks were so great. A partial or a single: those were the sights of the everyday world.

So they looked at her, and could look nowhere else. Nowhere except at the brilliant double corona which was ablaze around Twilight's restrained horn.

The new arrival didn't look at her face. Not off to the sides, where Spike was now starting to push against a decreasing force. Nowhere except that pinkish light.

"...no," he whispered, with the bleeding hip momentarily forgotten in the face of the utterly impossible. "No, you can't..."

The next quill went into his hindquarters. It got enough of his screaming attention to make him very briefly glance back and spot the matching hue.

He screamed, and did so directly into Twilight's face. Not that he'd noticed, with his attention once again so fixated.

"YOU CAN'T! You... you're a pony!" his irrational terror bellowed. "You're just another kind of pony! Even if you can work through it, even if you can cast..."

It could be argued that there was only one thing to do, and that was why he did it. There was a hostile pony (and just in that moment, forever unknown to Twilight, he was thinking of her as a unicorn) who was attacking with their field. A pony who was working at a double corona, something which was presumably necessary just to get past the restraint. Somepony who was fully vulnerable.

So he didn't think. He resorted to his training, something which had originally been drummed into him until it operated on the thought-free level just above that of instinct. There was a hostile pony with a double corona, and that gave him a single option.

A portion of his field went forward, hit the lock, wrenched it open as the enchantment recognized a pony who was permitted to do so, reared up at the moment orange power yanked the metal up and off, allowing him to bring his hooves crashing sharply into a purple cone of something which was not quite bone.

He held that position for a moment, almost balanced against her skull. Waiting for bruises and bleeding and the sound of bones breaking themselves.

Twilight smiled at him.

"Sorry," she said. "Wrong horn."

Her corona ignited.

The chains tore themselves out of the wall, whipped around his hind legs, pulled sharply backwards and sent him crashing to the floor just before Rarity's restraint was slammed onto his horn, held in place by the same sheer force which kept his jaw pressed against stone. The next bubble went up around those who had wished to kill, began to solidify into a shield spell. A third effort countered what very little effect remained on Spike, turned him to face them and began brushing off the tuxedo's intact portions.

And only then did she let herself look directly at Rarity, whose fur had now added the visible dampness of fresh sweat. At a corona which was slowly shifting back towards a soft blue.

"You said..." Rarity breathed, her rib cage heaving from recent effort, "...to think about what Trixie might use it for. And he sounded exactly like a law enforcement officer, and I thought... misdirection..."

Twilight's field pushed at the cuffs, sundered hinges -- then gently lowered Rarity to the floor. And when they were both truly standing again, the librarian reared up just enough to drape her forelegs across the designer's shoulders, pressed her face into the purple mane. Spike walked up, hugged every leg he could reach.

They gave themselves five seconds for that, because there had to be five seconds available.

And then, with proper attention paid to the Securitas spell, they trotted into the corridor.

"Killer or guard?" Twilight asked the newest arrival.

"Guard!" the furious (and still pinned) stallion declared. "I was supposed to watch you! And I'm not the only one! There's ponies coming in for the assignment, I'm just the first --"

"Perhaps," Rarity mercilessly cut him off, "as the others were supposed to kill us, you might have started your shift somewhat earlier."

"I didn't know!" he barked. "I was told to keep you safe --"

"By Softtread?"

He blinked.

"So no," Twilight translated. "He didn't talk to you, neither of you passed the other... he went somewhere else."

Rarity nodded. "And I think we can guess at his first destination. Twilight, a moment, please..." Soft blue was permitted to pass, and she lifted the hood. "Ah. Thank you for your features, and rather more for your idiocy. And now..."

Twilight nodded, and made the next shield's dome so low as to have the top just about pinning the restraint all by itself.

"I got a pretty good sense of your strength there," she told him. "Just before you dropped. I don't think you can get out of that and untie the chains. And if you do, even getting through the Securitas, or if somepony arrives to rescue you..."

Her field slammed the door closed (and made sure the outer cylinder was taken care of), then squeezed.

"...yes," Rarity finally said, after the squeals of tortured metal had faded and it was possible to hear again. "Jammed and distorted in shape. Rather difficult for him to open now."

"I thought so."

Spike took his hands away from his ears. "And loud."

"Well, we're pretty far down right now," Twilight allowed. "So it didn't reach the base level. Besides, there's going to be more ponies on the way anyway."

"Very true," Rarity nodded. "And therefore..."

She looked down, to where a slightly stunned-looking vole was starting to make its way along the corridor.

Fluttershy, accustomed to translating animal perceptions, had some idea of what had happened during the first attack: her allies couldn't understand pony words, but the described actions had been obvious enough. The final results left her sobbing through that part of the rescue, and Twilight had the extreme pleasure of taking the blindfold off so that those tears of joy could have free passage.

Rainbow declared that she'd been this close to a plan which would have gotten them out without help. Also that she was incredibly happy to see them anyway.

Applejack simply smiled as they released her, rubbed her sore legs against each other in turn before turning to Pinkie and simply saying "Told you."

And as for the last...

The final cuff came free, and the baker was lowered to the ground. Set to stand in front of the small mare who could barely look at her. The one who had approached while dragging the weight of the world with her tail. A pony without a single word to offer, for even in the dubious light of desperate hope, it still seemed as if words could do no good.

A trembling purple left foreleg silently came up, and the hoof firmly touched Pinkie's shoulder.

"'Hybrid' is a weird word," the contacted mare said, standing still against that touch. "Did you ever think about that? Probably not much, because none of us had any reason to ever think about it before tonight, and then I think we all thought about it too much. But now that I've thought about it? It's weird."

She shivered a little, as purple eyes slowly sought her face.

"I'm scared too, Twilight," Pinkie gently admitted. "Can we... can we still be scared together?"

It was the briefest ponypile they'd ever had: just about five seconds. There didn't seem to be time for more than that. But when it came to that first chance at healing... five seconds was enough.