"But auntie, I don't wanna go to school today," Trixie murmured in Twilight's ear, "my nose's the wrong colour and my hooves are too big..."

Poor excuse for not going to school, Twilight thought bitterly. She had done her best to get some sleep, and had for the most part managed to sleep through Trixie's nocturnal embraces up until Trixie had started to talk in her sleep. That was too much.

She gently removed Trixie's limbs, a feat made much easier without an inhibitor making magic impossible, and climbed out of bed before stretching and tip-hoofing down the stairs where she found an anxious Shadow pacing back and forth in the living room.

"You should be in bed," Shadow said tersely, not even looking at Twilight to say it.

"If you ever have reason to share a bed with Trixie you'll find out exactly why I'm here. What about you though? Are you okay?" Shadow stopped pacing and finally looked at Twilight, her face creased with worry. "Please Shadow, tell me what's wrong."

"You and your friends should leave. This place, it isn't what you think it is. Heck, it isn't even what I thought it was..."

"What do you mean?"

Shadow sighed and sat on the sofa next to her saddle bags. "Yesterday, after we saw the council and you all decided they were hiding something and were suspicious of the food situation, I got to thinking, where does all this food come from? We've never been short, even during the winter when gathering would be near impossible, so I went and asked the gatherers."

Twilight sat down on the chair opposite to Shadow, "What did they say?"

"Well nothing much, but even they admitted that something didn't add up. One of them told me to go and look in the stores just to see what kind of food is in there because they’ve noticed that occasionally we have food that nobody seems to remember gathering."

"What happened then?"

"Well..."

Shadow slinked down the tunnels, sticking to her namesake as best she could as she headed towards the stores where the gatherers deposited what they had found. Normally there was no reason for her to worry about coming down here since her position as a sentry gave her full access to most parts of the caverns, but she had to admit to feeling nervous enough to not want to advertise her presence.

As she drew closer to the stores she heard hoof steps and the scratching sound that diamond dog claws made on bare rock, and hid the best she could behind a small outcrop of rocks, hoping that her grey colouration would blend in with both the stone and shadows.

"Gatherer ponies not find much last night," said a diamond dog. "Makes me wonder how this place not starving yet."

"Yeah," said another diamond dog, "if not for meat hunters dogs would have to eat pony food too! Then what ponies do?" Meat hunters? Shadow thought, Is that what the dogs really eat? Gross! Shadow had often wondered what the diamonds dogs lived on, but the diamond dog warrens beneath the city wasn't a place the pony population of the caverns were really tempted to go. Even the pony guards tended to avoid that place, meaning the workings of the diamond dogs were a mystery to most ponies, although there was no lack of rumours.

"Will you two be quiet," said a refined yet masculine voice that Shadow suspected belonged to a stallion of some description. "You know there's always plenty of food here so cease your whining." They were approaching her hiding spot now, causing her to push up against the rocks as hard as she could and squeeze her eyes shut since they were the most noticeable part of her in the dark.

She chanced a quick look as they passed, taking note that the stallion was a crystal pony, and that none of them wore the armour of the guards. If they weren't gatherers and they weren't guards, what were they doing there? Shadow also recognised one of the dogs, Jackspot, whom she had had a run in with previously when he had said something derogatory about her friend, causing Shadow to correct his attitude by bucking him in the balls as hard as she could.

It was also Jackspot that nearly blew her cover when he stopped and sniffed the air. "You smell dat?" he asked. "It smell like pony."

"So?" said the other dog with a grunt, "What that supposed to mean? Entire cavern smell like pony!"

"And?" the stallion said dangerously.

"And nothing. I just saying that smell of pony extremely common."

"I smell something," Jackspot murmured, ignoring the other two, "a presence I've not smelled since..." He suddenly covered his privates protectively. "Nevermind, it not important. Let's go," he said hurriedly, walking off quickly with the others following after him.

Shadow slowly released a breath she hadn't realised she had been holding and scolded herself, "Why am I so on edge about this? I'm a guard, I'm allowed to be down here!" She shook her head rapidly in an attempt to banish the sense of unease she was wallowing in but the feeling stuck with her.

Moving on it wasn't long until she arrived at the stores and started to walk among the large crystal bins where the different types of food were stored separately, hoping to find what it was that the pony that told her to come here had meant.

She kept walking around the bins, a small idea percolating in her head as she noticed that very few of the bins were full apart from ones containing sprouts and alfalfa, which looked like they hadn't been touched in a while, not like that was any surprise.

She sat down in the shadow of a tall grain bin and started on a laughable attempt at math. She could tell there wasn't much food here, and even less so with winter barely having ended meaning that all the food were things that would keep. There was versinly nothing fresh. Spread what there is around a few thousand ponies and you were... barely two, maybe three days away from starvation.

"This can't be right..." She tried another estimate of the food situation but arrived at the same conclusion. "But this is impossible! We can't be on the verge of running out of food without someone mentioning rationing!" Her breathing became heavy and she grasped her head in her hooves as her mind kept running laps around the same question; what the fuck is going on here?

There was a bang from the far side of the room making Shadow quickly duck down out of sight. She poked her head around the edge of a bin and was surprised to see the door recessed into the wall opening which was impressive considering the bar and chains sealing it shut, although now she was looking the bars and chains opened with the door, not hindering its movement in the slightest.

A female diamond dog stepped out and shuffled towards the passage back to the city, leaving a very confused Shadow behind her. She was almost one hundred percent sure that the area behind that door was restricted to everyone because the tunnels beyond it were unstable and dangerous. Now though, she wasn't so sure.

She waited a couple of minutes to see if anyone else was going to come through it before quickly flying over and examining the door. It didn't take long for her to realise that the solid oak door gave a good impression of being completely impassable despite previous evidence. She noticed a raised bump of rounded crystal in the door and peeked through it, although all she could see was a pinpoint of grey. Clearly the crystal was meant to be used from the other direction, probably so whoever came out could check the coast was clear and not reveal the door’s secret. Obviously they were a bit lax about it if they missed Shadow having a small existential crisis.

She pushed at the door until her hooves slid on the floor but the door didn't even creak at her attempts, let alone move. Admitting temporary defeat she took a step back and studied the door again for some clue towards getting it open. It didn't take long for her to notice that there were a lot of dints and scratches at the bottom of the door, all centred around a bolt set into the wood. Cautiously, she pushed at the bolt, which moved a little but did nothing more until she turned around and kicked back at it. There was a clunk as the bolt pushed in, and the door swung out, smacking her on the rear as it went.

She poked her head around the door and nervously looked at what was behind it, but the suspense was ruined when all she could see was a rough-hewn passage that went around a corner. She stepped through the door and saw a button on the wall with Open/close scratched over it. She pushed it and the door ponderously swung shut again, Shadow noticing that the whole thing was on a hydraulic ram, which seemed a bit excessive but would definitely stop anyone from accidentally pushing the door open.

Shadow nodded to herself, mostly as a gesture of comfort and certainly not because she suspected that what she was doing was crazy and bound to get her into ridiculous amounts of trouble, and set off down the passage towards whatever she might find.

"Well, what was it?" Twilight asked a little languidly. As interesting and worrying as the lack of food in the stores was, the story had an excess of detail about the door and getting through it. She wanted to move on.

"I was literally about to tell you when you interrupted me."

"Sorry, but you were going on about that door an awful lot and I really sort of wanted you to move on, with, for example, telling me what you found."

"I'm telling the story!" Shadow eyed up Twilight who easily returned it. She had been practicing on beings made of much sterner stuff than Shadow, although she had yet been unable to match Gummy's stare. That little toothless alligator was just too good.

"Hey! Are you paying attention!"

"Yes ma'am!"

"Right... Anyway, as I was about to say..."

It was another cavern, a big one. Not as big as the main cavern by a long stretch of the imagination, but still pretty darn big. There was also an awful lot of carts, which was odd considering that Caverndown had no use for such things. Shadow spread her wings and leapt into the air, deciding that aerial reconnaissance might be the best thing for her to do, especially considering that the cavern ceiling was certainly high enough for her to do so.

She quickly flew up and did her best to hide amongst the few stalactites lining the ceiling, hoping they, and the darkness, would keep her out of sight of those below. She scanned the cavern, her keen eyes piercing the gloom around her.

Spreading along one side of the cavern were several large bays containing what appeared to be piles of dirt and rocks, but even Shadow knew well enough that they were piles of different ores that the diamond dogs had dug up. As she watched a couple of diamond dogs dragged a cart over to one of the piles and start filling it.

This drew her attention to the other carts, several of which were also full of ore and had been dragged next to a low tunnel that led to somewhere Shadow didn't know. There were other carts that looked like they had just been dragged in, and were being unloaded by a couple of diamond dogs under the direction of a thestral. It was what they were unloading though that caused her the most concern; baskets of food ranging from potatoes, to carrots, parsnips, those vile little things called sprouts. and more besides.

"What is going on here?" Shadow said to herself. As she tried to think of an answer the last basket was removed and the cart was dragged over to one of the bays where it was filled up with more ore. It was obvious that this was an exchange of some kind but Shadow had no idea who with. Her suspicions kept leading to the Duke but there was no way they could have agreed to trade anything with that bastard. Or could they? Shadow needed proof of something, one way or the other.

As she was deciding how to obtain such proof a twinkling of lights caught her eye from the far end of the cavern. Flying in that direction she found that beyond the bays of different ores were smaller bays containing what looked like uncut gems, although this wasn't what had caught her eye since uncut gems didn't twinkle and looked like rocks. What had caught her eye was a crystal pony working under lamplight, trying to nail the lid down on a crate, cursing around the hammer in his mouth.

Once he had done that he picked up something and laid it down on the top of the box before picking up a paintbrush and painting over whatever it was. He removed the thing again and Shadow saw that something had been left written on the crate, P.E.C's, which was clearly an acronym for something. Once he was done a couple more diamond dogs shambled over, picked up the crate between them and carried it over to one of the carts which the crate was unceremoniously thrown into.

Shadow turned her attention back to where the stallion had been working, seeing heavy scratch marks on the floor that led back to a small entry. Clearly a lot of crates had been dragged along there over the years for it to mark the rock like that. Shadow glanced around to see if anybody was near, and seeing that nobody was she flew down and quickly, yet quietly entered the passage.

It led to a room that clearly wasn't natural judging by its squared off corners and flat sides. It was also full of benches and tools, making it obvious that this was some kind of workshop. Thankfully nobody was around giving Shadow plenty of time to poke around. One bench held a collection of cut and uncut gems, and clearly this was where the gems were cut if the jeweller’s tools were any indication. Shadow reached out to run a hoof over one of the cut gems and was very surprised when the gem sparked and gave her a small electric shock.

"What the hell!?" she said before sticking her hoof in her mouth and sucking on the small burn mark the gem gave her. As she did that she saw the padded gloves on the table and felt a bit of an idiot.

Moving on she found that somepony was making small metal rivets if she knew her stuff. On the bench opposite was a small box of locks that didn't appear to be used on anything she recognised, and further up the row of benches someone was making straps made of thick canvas.

Shadow kept going, her confusion growing with each different little thing she found being made here. At least, that was until she found the last few benches where all these items were assembled into one thing.

"Oh no..."

"What was it? What are they making?"

Shadow didn't answer but instead reached into her bag and pulled something out, throwing it onto the coffee table in front of her, allowing Twilight to take a good look at the offending item.

Twilight peered closer before reeling back in horror, "Is that... Is that a pegasus collar!?"

"Yep. They're making them and exchanging them and the ore for food." Shadow hunched up and hugged herself, not quite sure how to feel about it. "I also imagine it's why this place is kept so secret by the dukes."

Twilight felt sick. Just when she thought she had found the one decent place in Mareitania it turns out to be a huge lie. "We have to tell somepony."

"What! No! We can't tell anyone about this! It'd be chaos!"

"But we can't just let this keep happening."

"Yes, we can. Most people down here have no idea this happening, and we can't go and tear their lives down like that. Besides, even if news got out, what do you really think would really happen?"

"But it's wrong! We can't let all these ponies and dogs live in a lie like this!"

"Yes Twilight, we can." Shadow shook her head and sighed, "You and your friends need to get out of here."

"Why?" Twilight asked, sounding more than a little bitter.

"Because you're Equestrians plotting to overthrow the Duke. The same Duke that supplies this place with food. Do you realise how much of a threat to the status-quo you are? I'd be surprised if the council hasn't already informed the Duke of your intentions."

That set Twilight's head spinning, the last thing she expected when she came down here was to be sold out to the Duke. "Wh- What should we do? How do we get out of here!"

"Patiently. If you try to escape now it'd be obvious that you were running from something. You should wait and hope something crops up, allowing you to escape."

Twilight nodded forlornly, the idea of waiting for an opportunity to escape sounding risky. "Why would they remove our inhibitors if they intend to hoof us over to the Duke?"

"Hmm... I don't know... Maybe they're trying to create a false sense of security for you?"

"Yeah... maybe. Are you sure we shouldn't tell anypony?"

"Twilight, what do you think would happen if we did? Even if we stopped trading with the Duke it'd only be a matter of time before he marched an army in here, or, if he has any sense he'd wait until we were starving and then march an army in. Either way we'd all be slaves and the collars would be made anyway. At least the people are free down here." Twilight couldn't argue with that. "Besides if you overthrow the Duke and free the pegasi we won't have to make them anymore, and we can finally stop hiding underground.

"I suppose. I guess this all counts on whether we can get out of here now."

"Yeah, by the way, I have a gift for you."

"A gift? Is that really appropriate right now?”

"Depends how you look at it. I know we can't realistically stop the production of the collars so I did the next best thing." Shadow reached into her saddlebags again and pulled out a scroll of paper, "I stole some blueprints on how the collars work, and the tools needed to activate and deactivate them." She pulled out a couple of thin rods with gems attached to the ends, "Could be useful right?"

Twilight snatched the plans in her magic and unfurled them on the table, "Shadow! This is- This is really confusing... Hmm..."

"Yeah I know. I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't look at it here though. Fuck knows what would happen if Onyx or someone came in here and caught you going over those. Have a look at them once you're outta here. Anyway, I'm going to get back to guarding, and you should get some sleep."

"Okay," Twilight rolled the scroll up and picked it, the collar, and the keys up. She was about to go back upstairs when she paused, "Thank you for this Shadow, truly."

"Yeah, well... I'd rather wish I had nothing to tell you because there was nothing to tell."

Twilight's mind was chasing itself in circles and it was pretty clear that sleep wasn't going to be much of a factor in her life right now. Luckily Trixie had rolled away from her and seemed content to suck her hoof and murmur in her sleep, so at least Twilight had the time to herself.

She was also feeling a tiny bit guilty that she hadn't asked Shadow if she was okay as the poor mare was bound to be feeling torn over her discoveries. Maybe she should go check if Shadow was alright rather than lie where she was thinking about it.

Or maybe she should be looking over those blueprints, trying to work out how the collars operated to try and see if she could find a way to disable them en masse.

Or maybe she should try and get some sleep... Nah. Maybe a letter to Sunset? She hadn't replied to the one Sunset sent the other day although Sunset had implied that she would write the next one. Maybe not then. I wish I had a book to read.

In the end Twilight just lay there, unmoving, but unfortunately not unthinking. Her mind turned towards the filly and those marks on her back. They couldn't possibly be scars could they? If so how did she get them? Just as the temptation to sneak into the filly's and Fleur's room was building a muffled thumping came from downstairs followed by the sound of a door opening, "Morning Shadow."

"Ugh, hey Onyx. Does this mean I can go to bed now?"

"Not yet, the council wants to see our guests."

"What? Why?"

"Something about providing them with passage out of Caverndown." Twilight's ears folded back. Hopefully that meant what he said.

"Well... alright then..." Shadow sounded a bit suspicious herself. "I'll go wake them up." There was the sound of hoofs tapping up the crystalline stairs followed by a knock on the door to their room, which seemed unnecessary seeing as how Shadow walked straight in anyway. "Onyx is here," she hissed. "He's going to take you to the council!"

"I know, I heard."

"Then you heard about the passage out of Caverndown thing?"

"Yeah, and I hope that it's what it sounds like."

"What're you two talking about?" Trixie mumbled. "It better be worth waking Trixie from her beauty sleep."

"The council wants to see us," Twilight told her, even if Trixie already knew that part, "so we need to get up."

"Trixie remembers when she could stay in bed as long as she wanted... Trixie misses those days." Trixie rolled out of bed and promptly fell over as her hooves failed to grip on the crystal floor. "Whoever decided that crystal was a good building material was a moron," she groaned from her landing spot.

Shadow snorted to hide her amusement, "Yeah, we get that a lot around here. Apparently crystal pony hooves are better at gripping this stuff than others. Anyway, I'll go wake the others."

"Wait!" Twilight said hurriedly, "You wake Octavia and Summer and I'll wake the others."

"Yeah, sure. Whatever." Twilight followed Shadow out of the room and along the landing to where the others rooms were located. She knocked timidly and entered, which she felt silly for after seeing as how she was going in there to wake them up. Apparently she didn't need to try anyway seeing as how Fleur was already awake. The filly though, was still sleeping.

"Good morning Twilight," said Fleur, who was immediately shushed by Twilight. "Huh?"

"I want a look at those marks on her back while she's still sleeping," Twilight whispered. "I doubt she'd let us do it while she's awake."

"That's probably because it's a secret or something," Fleur whispered back, although she couldn't deny her own curiosity. "Fine, but let's be quick about this." She pulled the covers off herself and the filly, exposing the fact that the filly had apparently slept with her cloak on. "She always does that," Fleur explained.

Twilight bit her lip and gently lifted the filly up off the bed in her magic, taking care to not move the filly around too much in case she woke up. Once she was high enough Twilight unwrapped the cloak enough to expose the filly's back.

Fleur gasped when she saw the collection of scars the filly had on her back, but none were as large as the two large parallel scars just back from her withers, exactly where a pegasi's wings would be. "She couldn't be... But... what?" Fleur murmured, her mind rebelling over this discovery.

"But she is," Twilight confirmed, her stomach churning. Suddenly the filly started thrashing and screaming like she had been set on fire. "Get off me! Get the fuck off me!" Surprised, Twilight dropped the filly who bounced off the bed and onto the floor where she backed away slowly, tears filling her eyes as anger and betrayal vied for supremacy on her face.

"It's okay, we aren't going to do anything- Wait!" Fleur shouted but it was too late, the filly had bolted and was thundering down the stairs. Thinking quickly, Twilight teleported downstairs and erected a barrier over the door just before the filly got to it, the filly running full pelt into it and bouncing off.

"Sorry! Sorry! I didn't mean to do that!"

"Let me out Twilight! Let me out!"

"Why? What's wrong?" Twilight asked as Fleur and the others came down stairs. Onyx was sat on the sofa with a half-eaten bagel in his mouth and looking very confused.

"Waff voeing on?" he asked before swallowing and trying again, "What's going on?" Shadow poked her head out of the kitchen, slice of toast in mouth, to listen in.

"Let me go Twilight!" the filly shouted again before bucking ineffectually at the barrier over the door.

"Not until you tell me why you're trying to run away."

"Because you're going to hate me now!" the filly wailed, her tears coming faster.

"Hate you?" said Fleur. "Why on earth would we hate you?"

"Because everypony does!" The filly collapsed to the floor, finally giving in to her tears and distress.

"Um, sorry to be a bother," said Octavia, "but I rather feel that an explanation would be useful to those of us who have no idea what's going on."

"Yeah," agreed Trixie. "What she said but with less fancy."

Twilight looked to the filly to see if she was going to offer an explanation, but the filly didn't move, except to cover her eyes with her legs. "Um... I'm not sure how to put this, but the filly's a... well, she's a pegasus."

"Pfft," Trixie snorted, "is that all? I thought something bad had happened."

"Are you kidding me?" the filly screeched. "Are you fucking kidding me!?" The filly pulled off her cloak and threw it at Twilight, showing her scars to all the ponies around her. "Go on then! Get a good look at how much of a fucking pegasus I am and get on with hating me!" A mixture of expressions passed across the faces of the ponies assembled there while Summer launched into a choking fit.

"Why do you think we're going to hate you?" Fleur asked imploringly as Octavia smacked Summer on the back.

"Because everypony always does. Every time I get found out about being a pegasus everypony turns on me even though I don't have any fucking wings!"

"But that's stupid, why does it matter if you're a pegasus?" Trixie asked before suddenly realising her own answer, "Right, Mareitania. Sorry."

"Trixie's not wrong though," said Fleur. "You being a pegasus doesn't make the slightest bit of difference to us."

"And what could you say to make me believe you?" The filly was panting now, looking more like she wanted to attack instead of flee. Fleur said nothing though, instead pointing at Summer who flinched slightly from the attention.

"We don't hate Summer do we."

"Yeah," Twilight agreed, "and we all know ponies back in Equestria who are pegasi. Two of my best friends are pegasi!"

"And Twilight has wings so it's not like she can judge," said Trixie.

"Trixie!" Twilight, Fleur and Octavia yelled, making Trixie crouch down wearing a grin that could have gone 'baa' at any moment.

"Heh... Sorry?"

Seeing as how the game had been given away Twilight focused and dispelled the illusion hiding her wings, spreading them for all to see. "There's no way I could hate you for having wings."

"You got to be fucking joking! A unicorn gets to have wings! I get mine cut off and you get to have some? A fucking unicorn!?"

"Actually I'm an alicorn..." Twilight mumbled, feeling bad for having shown her wings to the wingless pegasus.

"I don't care what you are! This is so unfair! And you lied to me! You've lied to me all this time about having wings!"

"She's also a princess," Trixie offered helpfully. Twilight pointed her horn at Trixie and cast a spell, a door appearing from thin air and slamming itself shut in Trixie's face, "Ow."

"Stop saying stuff Trixie!" Twilight yelled, her voice cracking slightly. Her ears folded back when a hoof tapped her on the flank.

"An alicorn and a princess?" Onyx said accusingly. "Anything else you wish to tell us your highness?"

"Yeah," Fleur said loudly. "Trixie likes to hug ponies in her sleep!"

Trixie gasped, "No Trixie does not!" she said from her hiding spot behind the door. "She denies all these spurious accusations made against her about nocturnal snuggles!"

Onyx rolled his eyes, "Yeah, I don't care. This is serious stuff Twilight. I'm going to have to inform the council."

"No! You can't!" Twilight begged. "This has to stay a secret, please!" She recast the spell to hide her wings as emphasis.

"No, the council needs to hear about this."

"Aww c'mon spoilsport," said Shadow, batting her eyelashes at him, "let them have their secret. It's not like the council really needs to know is it?" Around him the other ponies simultaneously gave him either puppy eyes or fluttered their own lashes at him. Except for the filly who was throwing a measure of confusion into her mix of emotions, and Summer who had the expression of a dog learning a new trick.

"Fine..." Onyx said grudgingly. "I don't know why it's a problem if the council finds out though."

"Let's just say some secrets are best kept secret," said Shadow, giving a knowing look to Twilight.

"Have I gone completely mad?" asked the filly. "One moment I'm having my privacy extremely intruded on and my secrets laid bare for all to see, and the next Twilight's an alicorn princess, whatever an alicorn is."

"I'll tell you what an alicorn is later," Fleur said to the filly. "For now I only want to assure you that we think no worse of you for being pegasus, and I hope you can forgive us for-"

"Sticking your muzzle in where it's not wanted?"

"That's what she said!" Shadow exclaimed, holding a hoof up. "Come on! Somepony? Anypony? Don't leave me hanging! Onyx? No? Fine..." Shadow pouted and kicked at the floor.

"Uh... yeah... Anyway, we're sorry."

The filly glared at the floor and ground her front right hoof a bit, "Fine, but this doesn't mean I forgive you. Pull another stunt like this and you won't be seeing me ever again." She picked her cloak up and threw it over her back and was halfway back upstairs when Trixie stopped her.

"Wait, since you're secretly a pegasus does this mean you also secretly have a name?" The filly stared coldly at her for a few seconds before finally answering.

"Yeah, Swift Wings. Seriously though, never call me that. Ever." The filly continued upstairs and out of sight.

"Ooh, ouch," muttered Trixie.

"For once in your life, be quiet," Octavia said, giving Trixie a light cuff around the back of the head.

The journey back to the council chamber was rather quiet and sullen, apart from the quiet murmuring of Fleur and the filly, who were behind the rest of them as Fleur explained what alicorns are and why it was so important that Twilight being one remained a secret. The entire time that went on Twilight swore she could feel the filly glaring at the back of her head.

Soon enough they were led into the council chambers where the councillors were already assembled. "There you are," the Lore keeper said. "We were expecting you sooner than this."

"Apologies Lore keeper," Onyx glanced at the filly, "but we had some unexpected occurrences this morning."

"No matter," Councillor Quartz said smoothly. "Did you find what you were looking for in the archives?"

"Not exactly..." Twilight admitted awkwardly. "The archives aren't the most... complete source of information I've come across..."

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Lore keeper Ebon asked, looking down his nose at Twilight.

"It means we're wondering how you came upon a title like Lore keeper," the filly said sarcastically. She was quickly shushed by the others but it was clear from Quartz's and Fishbait's amusement that the comment wasn't totally unwelcome.

"You're a precocious little thing, aren't you," Ebon said darkly. "I'm so very sorry our little archive is so very far below your lofty Equestrian standards. Perhaps it would be best if you left the caverns and found a library in Mareitania somewhere."

"Sorry about that your honour," said Fleur. "It's been a trying morning for us."

"Indeed? It may come as a surprise but we intend to remove you anyway. It is not our custom to have guests in Caverndown and it is high time you left."

"So, what?" Trixie protested, "You're just kicking us out?"

"A detachment of sentries will escort you out," Quartz explained.

"Yeah, and if Bruto get too physical again just kick him inna nuts," Fishbait added. Six diamond dogs wearing sentry armour walked into the chambers behind them, the filly tucking her tail between her legs at the sight of Bruto.

"It's time for you to leave," Ebon said, "and if you should attempt to return you may not find us so welcoming. Good day." The six ponies turned and filed out of the chambers with Shadow bringing up the rear as Onyx led them, the diamond dogs walking on either side of them. Now more than ever they felt like prisoners as they were being escorted outside.

"Does this feel wrong to you?" Octavia whispered as they were led through the city.

"Yeah," Trixie agreed. "Yesterday they were all like 'welcome to Caverndown, we hope you enjoy your time here.' But today they're all like 'get the fuck out.' Weird."

"I think you remember that wrong," said Fleur. "They were more like, 'you know stuff? Maybe we won't toss you in the giant underground lake.'"

"Meh, details. Whatever it was it was less intimidating than this."

"I'm sure it's nothing guys," Shadow whispered, joining in the conversation. "It's not like they're refusing to let you leave or something silly like that."

"She has a point," Twilight added. "I'm sure if they had bad intentions they wouldn't let us walk out the front door." Twilight suspected that if they did have bad intentions they would be leaving through the back door. In chains.

The guards led them out of the city, graciously giving the ponies a final chance to take a look at the underground city. The effect was ruined for Twilight since she now knew the cost of keeping this place alive.

Once the ponies were done looking they were led back into the tunnels, weaving their way through them by the light of the torches the dogs had for what seemed like hours until they got back to the semi-welcome sight of the last rebellion, Twilight's eyes lingering on the pristine suit of armour as they passed it.

"It’s time to say goodbye Shadow," Onyx said, stopping at the last tunnel to the outside world.

"Aww," Shadow pouted, "fine... Well, it's been a blast guys. Good luck with the whole stopping the evil regime thing you got going on. I would say that if you're desperate you could always come back, but apparently you're not welcome here anymore so... probably not the best idea..."

"Bye Shadow." Twilight gave the thestral a hug, "Thanks for everything. I don't suppose I could ask your full name?"

"I never told you it? Huh... It's Shadow Seeker." She nodded at Onyx, "His is just Onyx for some reason." The others said their farewells, with Octavia taking a moment to help Summer put her cloak back on, before slowly starting up the tunnel, the six diamond dogs falling into line behind them.

Twilight's horn lit up as the tunnel seemed to suffocate the torches now being held behind them and it didn't take them long to find the first hint that something was wrong, she could see light in the tunnel ahead but she remembered the tunnel being longer than this so there was no way they could be seeing daylight yet. She looked behind them to see if Shadow and Onyx were still there, but they seemed to have gone so she looked forward again and swallowed nervously, heading towards the light in fear of what it could be. She was not to be disappointed.

Waiting in the tunnel in the light of several torches were a dozen members of the grand army, fully armed and amoured. The lead pony sneered at them before talking to Bruto, "Are these all of them?"

"Yer, dese dem," the dog said back dumbly.

"Excellent. Come quietly ladies and nopony gets hurt." Several of the soldiers stepped forward and lowered their weapons so they pointed straight at the six ponies while a couple of soldiers came from behind the rest, bearing several sets of chains.

Twilight backed away, her rump bumping up against Fleur behind her as the diamond dogs pushed them up against the others, forcing them towards the soldiers. "Twilight! Do something!" Trixie hissed.

Twilight looked around wildly, her mind trying to form a solution as panic set in. She saw her chance when she noticed that the tunnel beyond the soldiers was clear. She focused her magic and, taking care to not leave anypony behind, teleported the group to the other side of the soldiers before sending a telekinetic blast back up the tunnel, sending the soldiers' rear guard flying into the others.

"Run!" Twilight shouted before sprinting down the tunnel as fast as she could while making sure the others didn't fall behind. She saw the filly was struggling to keep up so she used her magic to pick the filly up and place her on her back.

"How did they know?" Octavia shouted as they ran, the clatter of armour and hooves and the baying of the diamond dogs not far enough away for any of their liking.

"They sold us out!" Fleur shouted in reply, "They fucking sold us out!"

"But why? They have nothing to do with the Duke! Do they?"

"It's complicated!" Twilight shouted. "I'll happily tell you about it later, but right now we need to get out of here!"

"How do you know about it?" Trixie shouted accusingly.

"Shadow told me this morning! Seriously, I'll tell you later!" There was a snarl behind them and they looked around to see that Bruto alone had caught up to them, running on all fours like an ape. He leapt and reached out, managing to grab one of Octavia's rear legs, stopping her instantly as he landed on his front.

She kicked back with her other leg but he caught that too, "Help!" Octavia shouted as she struggled to free herself. Nopony was prepared for the scream of pure rage that came from Summer as she sprinted towards the diamond dog, spun, and bucked him in the head as hard as she could, his helmet flying away with a clang.

Bruto yelped and released Octavia and was trying to cover his head but didn't have the time as Summer reared up and dropped her forehooves onto his head, again and again until her hooves and chest were splattered with Bruto's blood. Octavia tried to pull her away but the pegasus seemed almost feral as she stamped again and again until finally, there was a sickening crunch as Bruto's head caved in.

Even the soldiers that had caught up were shocked into stillness as they saw this small blue pony beat a diamond dog more than twice her size into a bloody pulp. "Come on!" Octavia shouted at Summer, pulling on her tail until the pegasus got the message.

They continued sprinting down the tunnel, heading towards the distant glow of daylight. The light blinded them as they ran out, and they slowed down to compensate for their blindness which was a good thing because it allowed them to spot the semicircle of soldiers pointing spears at them before they ran into them.

They stepped back, and Twilight, wary of the soldiers still behind them, formed a shield all around them, strong enough to resist the blows that the soldiers laid upon it. The soldiers from behind them filtered out of the cave and joined the semicircle allowing the ponies to get a glimpse of the baleful yellow eyes of the remaining diamond dogs glaring at them out of the darkness.

"What do we do now?" Fleur said out of the corner of her mouth. "Can't you teleport us away from here?"

"You could 'ave a go," said a voice from behind the row of soldiers facing them, "but you'd only hurt yourself with this thing 'ere." The soldiers parted, allowing two earth ponies clad in dark iron armour to walk towards the edge of the shield, one a stallion and the other a mare.

"What thing?" Twilight asked.

The mare rolled her eyes, the expression visible through the narrow slot the armour provided for vision. "He means an anti-teleportation field generator. The way he said it implies you can see it, which I know you can't."

"I mean that black glowin' rock over there," the stallion said helpfully. "Now then, we've got orders to capture at least one o' ya unicorns alive and we ain't too picky about which one."

"However, if you surrender you all get to live."

"Fer now anyway. So what'll it be?"

"I'd like to see you get us from under here!" the filly shouted, full of confidence.

"They always want a demonstration..." the stallion muttered. "Okay then, you asked fer it."

The stallion stepped up to the shield and placed a hoof on it, a blue rune that shifted like a glowing ember flaring to life on the armour covering his hoof. Twilight grunted, a half-scream escaping her as the rune burned like cold fire on her magic, but for the sake of her friends she held on.

"Hmm, I'm impressed," the mare said. "Not only a unicorn that can make a shield, but a strong one too."

"We'll show you strong!" Trixie yelled, shooting a blast of pink magic that admittedly wouldn't have done much in the best of circumstances, but did even less to the mare in the black armour. The blast struck her and a series of blue runes flared to life across her armour, dissolving the blast into nothingness.

The mare snorted, "Strong? Really? If your purple friend there had done that it might have tickled me, but that? That was pathetic." The mare reared up and placed both forehooves on the shield, the stallion adding his free hoof.

Twilight screamed and collapsed to her knees, unable to stand as the runes cold fire burned at her mind. She maintained the shield but she knew it would only be a matter of seconds until they broke through. "Trixie," she hissed through gritted teeth, "make some illusions."

"Illusions? Of what?"

"Of us, as many as you can. Have them run away from here as fast as you can when I say so." Trixie nodded and got to work fulfilling Twilight's requirements while Twilight set about working out a spell of her own, despite the pain she was in.

Twilight collapsed the shield with a cry and her two assailants fell back onto all fours, "Definitely a unicorn t' look out for this un," the stallion said approvingly. "No' bad at all."

Twilight suddenly stood, her horn blazing with a new spell as she teleported the very earth from beneath the two black armoured ponies, who fell into the hole with a shout. "Now Trixie!" Trixie unleashed her own spell, dozens of illusions of them charging away from their position and into, and often through the soldiers who tried to attack the illusions coming towards them with no effect.

There was a thud as the giant clump of earth Twilight teleported fell to the ground just outside the ring of soldiers, distracting them enough to make them break rank. Twilight pushed them aside, glad to see her magic still worked on them, and made a hole in the semicircle of panicking soldiers. "Go go go!" she shouted, leading the way as she knocked back any soldiers that came near to them, Trixie and Fleur doing the same, though with lesser effect.

"After them!" the mare screeched from her place in the hole as her quarry ran as fast as they could. Whatever soldiers were left after the brief but confusing melee where almost all the wounds were caused by them hitting each other instead of the illusions, chased after the six ponies.

"Twilight! Can you teleport us out of here?" Octavia asked as they ran, taking care to watch her footing on the rough ground.

"Need... to get... further... away!" Twilight gasped. She was very close to hitting her limit and the run from their attackers was only depleting whatever energy she had left that should have been used on a more long term form of escape.

"How much... further?" Trixie asked, out of breath herself after producing so many illusions.

"They're catching up!" Fleur shouted, delicately prancing over a fallen tree. She even makes fleeing for her life look elegant, Twilight thought in her semi delusional state of magical exhaustion. She turned her attention away from Fleur and back to getting away, trying to think of a place to teleport to that wasn't too far away but the only place she could think of was in Caverndown or the clearing they had briefly occupied after leaving the riverboat.

"Twilight!" Octavia shouted. Twilight knew that she was just going to have to go for it. She pictured the clearing in her mind and focused on moving her and her friends there. Her horn burned with exhaustion and through fighting off the lingering effects of the anti-teleportation field, and it took her several attempts to get the spell right in her overtaxed mind. Finally she had the spell in her mind and unleashed it, teleporting them away. Not that she was sure where to. All Twilight could remember after casting it was a flash, hitting the ground too hard and somepony shouting her name as blackness claimed her.

-0-0-0-

"Ya look ridiculous," the stallion said as he watched his female counterpart scrape mud off her amour.

"Shut up Breaker! I'm not in the mood for your shit right now!"

"Aww, did lil Pearly get embawwassed in fwont of the soldiers? After all your boastin' and confidence too."

Pearly pulled off her helm, revealing a beige coloured pony with a brown mane and sparkling blue eyes. "And what about your own showboating you idiot! Did you forget that too?"

The stallion pulled off his own helmet and shook his long tan coloured mane out. The stallion had light grey fur and green eyes which were perched not far above a lazy grin. "Oh aye, but ya have ta think about it; when's the last time we went up against a unicorn that's actually a challenge? Let's face it, she bested us fair and square."

Pearl snorted and turned to address the nervous looking soldier trotting up to them, "Well? Did you capture them?"

"Uh... no, they got out of range of the teleportation field and teleported away. We don't know where to."

"Idiot!" Pearl grabbed her helmet in her hoof and smashed it around the face of the soldier, knocking him over. "I want soldiers in every town and city looking for these fugitives! I want them found!"

The soldier whimpered his confirmation to the order and ran off, Breaker smirking at him as he went. "I can't even remember the last time we actually needed the anti-jump stone. Kudos to that unicorn, she really knows her stuff. That blue unicorn weren't too shabby either."

"I know, and it concerns me that this unicorn, this 'Twilight Sparkle' knows such things. I hate to think what they're teaching these unicorns in Equestria."

"Aww c'mon honey," Breaker kissed Pearl on the cheek, "You really didn't expect to catch somepony like that first time did ya? C'mon, it's my turn to cook dinner tonight and the kids asked for that fancy ravioli they're so fond of. You know folding those stupid lil things takes me ages with these big, fat hooves." He kissed his wife on the lips this time and she gave a halfhearted kiss in return. She wasn't interested, as for her, the chase was on.

Author's Notes:

Chapter thing with wordses! Woo!