Twilight rounded on Ebon, "What did you do?" she shouted. "Why are there soldiers here?"

Ebon slowly pulled himself to his hooves, his joints cracking and popping as he did. "After your escape last time the Duke was most... displeased. He refused to continue the trade unless we corrected our failures. We were going to ask you for help with food then arrest you on invented charges as you entered Caverndown, but then news of the collars got out, ponies rioted, the crystal heart failed, and I was forced to take control of the city using the diamond dogs. Then somehow you convinced the other thestrals to launch this attack."

"It really wasn't hard," Twilight sneered. Part of her really regretted not kicking the crap out of him more than she did.

"No, I guess not." He sighed heavily, like something was weighing him down. "It doesn't matter, it seems that all of us are out of time now." He walked between Twilight and Shadow and exited the chambers, stopping at the top of the steps. The thestrals and diamond dogs seemed to have put their animosity aside for now as they banded together in the face of this new threat.

"Where are they coming from?" Twilight asked. In the distance she could hear frightened shouting, and she could only imagine what was going on.

"The hidden cavern I suppose," Ebon answered in a tired voice. Even as what the soldiers were doing in the distance continued, five figures approached the chambers. One was a brown coated and black maned, broad shouldered stallion in a crisp military uniform, while the others were four mares in blood red armour, with sharp blades running up the backs of their legs.

The thestrals and diamond dogs bunched up to stop them but moved aside as Ebon asked them to, allowing the five ponies to ascend the steps. Ebon bowed his head and greeted the newcomers, "General Filigree."

Unlike the mad ravings that Twilight had expected after her short dealings with General Sabre, General Filigree spoke with a smooth and sophisticated tone. "Lorekeeper Ebon. I wish I could say this was a pleasure but I'm not going to lie to you, and I don't have time to bandy words with you either so I'll keep this brief. The Duke has had enough. Because of your failure to capture the alicorn the Duke has decided that Caverndown shall no longer receive its special privileges. As of now, Caverndown belongs to the Duchy of Mareitania."

"But I'm right here!" Twilight blurted. "You could capture me right now!"

The general sniffed dismissively at her, "And how would you intend that I do such a thing? You are currently beyond my means to capture so I won't be wasting the effort. Besides Miss Sparkle, you are no longer my objective. I'm am here to take Caverndown for the Duke and retire Ebon from service." Before any of them could react he turned and plunged a short dagger into Ebon's chest.

Three of the thestrals bared their fangs and threw themselves at the general, but were swiftly cut down in a whirl of blades by the general's body guards, while the general himself calmly pulled the dagger out and wiped it on a white handkerchief which he dropped on the floor. Twilight quickly held back everyone around her to stop them from attacking, not wanting to see them throwing themselves at the mercy of those mares. "Who are you?"

The General regarded her for a moment, the impression of cold calculation in his pale blue eyes, before bowing unexpectedly. "My apologies Miss Sparkle. I am General Filigree, one of the two remaining heads of the Grand Army, what with General Sabre's 'unfortunate' demise."

"And you came all this way just to kill Ebon yourself!?"

"But of course! I always felt these things deserve a more... personal touch. I must admit I'm slightly surprised to see you here, but judging by the nature of the injuries your comrades bear, and the rather pleasant stroll through the city, that you must be responsible for the current state of affairs here. Most impressive."

"I could kill you right now," Twilight growled.

"Indeed you could, but that isn't your style is it? If it were I suspect my coming here to retire Ebon would've been a complete waste of effort. I look forward to facing Celestia's prized pupil on the field of battle, but not today. Now, if you'll excuse me." Twilight grit her teeth, knowing full well that she couldn't kill him in cold blood, and frankly the numbers it would take to get past those bodyguards wasn't worth one stallion, deserving though he may be. Everyone stood in a stunned silence as the general and his guards sauntered off, the only sound being the gross burbling of Ebon's laboured breaths. Some of the thestrals moved to help him while Shadow turned to Twilight, her face filled with fear and the desperate hope that she might have a plan. "Twilight! What do we do?"

They couldn't fight this. There was no way that the Duke would send less than the thousands of soldiers that would be needed to hold this place. Part of her was still reeling from the fact that this was an elaborate trap gone wrong made specifically to capture her. Had this been what the Duke had been banking on? Capturing her? Did he hope the rebellion would fall apart without her? Or was he hoping to ransom her to Celestia in the hopes that she would halt the rebellion somehow? Or keep her prisoner as insurance against Celestia making further actions against him? At any rate it seemed Ivory was wrong, possibly intentionally, about what the Duke was planning, which only begged the question of why the General's orders were to capture Caverndown and not her.

"Twilight!" Twilight blinked a few times, trying to bring her attention back to solving this impossible problem. In all honesty there was only one solution to this.

"Evacuate the city," she said weakly. She looked around the various ponies and dogs around her, searching for the one in particular. "Fishbait!" she shouted once she saw him.

"Um... yes?" Fishbait said a little sheepishly. "I's sorry for all dis. I never wants to-"

"It doesn't matter!" Twilight cut him off. "I need as many of your guards as possible, and the thestrals, to hold off the invaders as long as you can while the city is evacuated. Can you do that?" Fishbait nodded and barked some orders to his kind. "Any too injured to fight will have to help with the evacuation. Can you also collapse all the entrances into this place except the one that leads out to the where the last rebellion is?"

"Yes! We's can do that!"

"Good! Shadow, I'm leaving you in charge of holding the enemy off for now. Retreat back towards the unblocked entrance as we evacuate the city. I'm going to go warn my friends then try and rescue as many of the ponies they might have already captured as possible."

"But what about Ebon?" The thestral in question coughed wetly, blood trailing out the corner of his mouth.

"Forget- Forget about me." He coughed again, leaving a small spray of blood on the ground. "I'm... done. Get everyone out. Get- Get them safe."

"He's right Shadow, we can't worry about him now." Twilight wasn't going to be so crass as to point out that not ten minutes earlier they were going to try and kill him. "Go hold off those soldiers." Shadow sucked her teeth but nodded, taking off to follow after the rest of the thestrals.

Twilight took off herself, flying up above the city to assess the situation. Most of the soldiers still seemed to be centered around their entry point from the direction of the hidden cavern, their dull grey armour only making them visible because of the contrast between them and the surrounding crystal. A couple hundred had spread out a bit further, but hopefully they would be drawn back to where the fighting was.

A stream of diamond dogs and thestrals headed to intercept them while a few others spread out, busting into homes to warn the inhabitants to leave. There were already a few crystal ponies running through streets towards the evacuation point, and hopefully they would stay ahead of those few soldiers already in the city.

She started going towards the archives to warn her friends but stopped when she noticed a commotion in the street below her. A single pony was holding off a group of soldiers, and judging by the dark colouration of her magic there was only one pony it could possibly be.

Twilight swooped down, a beam of magic lancing through one of the soldiers attacking Trixie. To Twilight's surprise several of the soldiers surrounding Trixie were already deceased, and with Twilight's distraction Trixie took down two more, impaling them on spears of dark crystal. Twilight grabbed one of the two remaining soldiers and slammed her bodily against a building while Trixie locked the other's hooves in crystal before shooting him in the chest with black lightning, the stallion screaming and writhing for a couple of seconds before expiring.

"Trixie! What are you doing out here!?"

Trixie turned to Twilight, her eyes wild, "I was coming to warn you!"

"If it's about the soldiers, yeah, I know."

"No, there's a device beneath the city that can destroy Caverndown. I was coming to warn you that Ebon might destroy the city when these soldiers attacked me."

"Ebon's no longer a problem," Twilight said hesitantly. "We're evacuating the city. Trixie, can you go back to the others and tell them we're evacuating everypony out through there." Twilight pointed to the large doorway in the side of the cavern that even now some ponies were leaving through, led by a heavily bandaged diamond dog. "Ask them to help with the evacuation while you go help the thestrals and diamond dogs slow the soldiers down. As much as I hate to admit it your magic could really help right now."

Trixie grinned menacingly, "I knew you'd see the light at some point, so to speak. What are you going to be doing?"

"Some of the crystal ponies are behind the enemy lines, either stuck or captured, I don't know. I'm going to try and get them out." Before Trixie could say anything further Twilight shot up into the air, hoping that Trixie would do as she asked. She wheeled around towards the battle, watching the thestrals diving and strafing the enemy soldiers, the occasional distortion of a screech slamming into the oncoming soldiers. Even so, it was clearly not an even battle, and the diamond dogs were suffering for it. If Twilight wanted to get those ponies out she had better do it fast.

As she passed over the battlefront she blocked some of the roads off with walls of purple crystal, hoping to funnel the enemy into the strongest areas of defense, but she knew she didn't have time to help too much although she did shoot down at the enemy as she went, even as they shot back up at her with their crossbows.

At the back of the Grand Army's staging area Twilight spotted a large group of crystal ponies being corralled by the soldiers, about two hundred in all by Twilight's estimation. None of them appeared to be shackled, but with the state the crystal heart's failure left them in none even seemed to bother resisting, allowing themselves to be directed as the soldiers wished.

Twilight didn't really know what to do. She couldn't hope to teleport that many ponies, or carry them. Leaving them wasn't an option either. Twilight flew around the group of captured ponies, her horn blazing as she created a ring of purple crystal around them. She landed amongst the crystal ponies and generated a sound proof bubble around them since she didn't really want the soldiers to hear her. "Listen to me! I'm going to clear a path through the soldiers. You're all going to have to run after me!"

"But we won't make it!" a mare cried.

"You'd rather be captured? Made into slaves? Like the pegasus?" The mare folded her ears and stepped back. "I can't promise you'll all make it, but none of you will if you don't try!"

"Listen to her!" Quartz stepped out of the crowd, her filly Lustrous hiding between her legs. "I for one refuse to become a slave to the Duke! If you're so cowardly then remain here, but I will be leaving with Twilight. Who's with me?" Although many of the crystal ponies still seemed fearful, the general consensus seemed to be in favour of leaving.

"We're with you Quartz!" a stallion shouted, backed up by several others. Amazingly, despite the situation, the colouration of many of the ponies changed, becoming brighter as hope and determination fueled them.

"I trust you have a plan Twilight?" Quartz asked, her own colours having brightened.

Twilight smiled weakly, "Actually, we're probably surrounded by soldiers now. I was hoping these ponies would just follow me without question."

"Well, any time you're ready." Quartz smiled at Twilight, although the hint of worry in her eyes was obvious.

"Okay. Okay, when you're through the diamond dogs lines keep going towards the far side of the cavern and out the exit there. I'll stay here to help them hold off the soldiers as long as we can until all the crystal ponies have gotten out."

"Alright."

Twilight braced herself for the next part of her very hastily assembled plan. As much as she hated the idea of doing it, she was going to use dark magic. Not because it was significantly more powerful than her normal alicorn magic, but because it possessed a certain... utility... that her normal magic didn't. It also had the added benefit of it tended to terrify anypony that it was used against. Good job she was already plenty angry as it made this a lot easier to do, even as she knew she would probably spend quite a bit of time regretting this.

She winced as she forced herself to tap into the darkness, her magic growing darker in colour until it started to bubble and hiss. Already she could feel it fueling her anger at the situation, but she fought the rage down to focus on her task. She pointed her horn at the wall of purple crystal and blasted it, disintegrating it into a wave of razor sharp sharps that cut any pony behind it to bloody ribbons.

"Run!" She led the way, flying low and slow instead of running due to her leg, creating walls of jagged dark crystal that pushed up out of the ground on either side of her, providing a safe passageway from the soldiers to their sides. It didn't stop the soldiers in front of her though. Even though she frantically pushed the soldiers aside, or even outright killed them, some of the soldiers got shots off and Twilight could hear screams behind her as some of the crystal ponies were hit.

Twilight screamed with rage and shot blast after blast at the enemy, the walls growing beside her cutting in half any soldier that was unfortunate enough to be standing where they grew. A crackle of dark magic ahead of her indicated that Trixie had joined the fight and Twilight flew towards it, her way becoming easier as the soldiers backed away from the manically grinning unicorn tearing into them. They never expected something almost as bad to come from behind.

The few diamond dogs before her dove out of the way as Twilight passed, and she fluttered to the ground, tears streaming out of her eyes as she tried to fight the desire to violently tear apart every soldier there. The worst part was that she wasn't totally unconvinced she could actually do it. An idea that the dark magic seemed to be doing its best to back up.

She jolted as a hoof touched her shoulder, her head whipping around to see what it was, or murder it as the darkness wanted her to. It was Quartz, and Twilight did her best to wipe her tears away. "Did you all make it?"

Quartz shook her head sadly, "We lost some, but most of us made it thanks to you. Thank you Twilight."

Disappointment bit at her briefly but Twilight ignored it as best she could, and tried to get up, only to fail as her body insisted on a bit more rest before anything else happened. "Okay, you need to lead your ponies out of here, now. We'll fall back block by block up the ramp then seal the exit so they can't follow us."

"Okay. I'll wait for you at the ramp." Quartz ran off, leaving Twilight to try and reorganise herself.

"And this is why I hate dark magic," she murmured to herself. She wanted to keep using it. She wanted to make every soldier here pay for this. She wanted to tear Filigree limb from limb, forcing him to keep living and feeling every single moment of it. And mostly, she wanted to cry because she hated feeling this way.

A dark shape landed next to her and forced her into a sitting position. "Snap out of it!" Shadow shouted right into her face. "We need to fall back!" Twilight looked about blearily. Even with Trixie's help the defensive line was starting to crumble.

"Okay, are the crystal ponies evacuated from around here yet?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Good." Twilight stood up and took a few calming breaths. "Trixie?"

"Yeah, what?" Trixie spat. Twilight was taken aback for a moment by the fury in Trixie's eyes. She hadn't seen this since their fight with Deal Good.

"Barricade this street with your magic. I'm going to go seal up some of the other streets." Trixie snarled in annoyance but complied, stamping her hooves and creating a thick wall of crystal that jutted up out of the street.

"Why don't we just do that everywhere?" Shadow asked.

"Because I'd burnout before I even covered half the streets right now, and Trixie can't do it fast enough. Even Sombra himself would struggle to do it fast enough to stop the soldiers. Besides, we might end up trapping survivors in with the soldiers. I'll block some of the streets and we'll form a new line around the council chambers.

"Okay." Shadow started shouting orders to the dogs and thestrals to fall back while Twilight convinced her wings to get her into the air. She flew to the right, to the other defensive lines, creating walls of purple crystal to block them off, but the going was hard. She also hadn't been entirely honest with Shadow about burning out. The truth was that she was having trouble not using dark magic. She had never used it with such fury and intensity before, and she was having a hard time not using it more. Although there were plenty of reasons she could justify using it for, none were good enough in her mind to do it since the benefit it would provide was minimal.

She flew back to the other side of the cavern, repeating the process, pleased to see that Trixie was trying something similar by blocking off side streets which would force most of the soldiers to funnel straight towards them at the council chambers. She was wondering how Trixie did it so easily as well as why Trixie didn't do it more often. Was it easier to form the crystals in a place already filled with crystals? Now Twilight thought about it, even her non-dark magic crystals weren't taxing her to create like they sometimes would.

She looped back over the Grand Army's territory, making one last check that there weren't any crystal ponies, thestrals, or diamond dogs trapped in there, injured or otherwise, but could see nothing save a trail of a couple dozen bodies leading from a ring of pink crystal, amongst the more numerous bodies that she had made of the soldiers trying to prevent their escape. She hadn't even realised she had killed that many in her magically induced rage. That wasn't even including the dozens and dozens of bodies of soldiers, diamond dogs, and thestrals that had fallen.

She headed back towards the council chambers, finding that Fleur was waiting for her there, pacing impatiently on the spot. "Twilight!" she cried as soon as she spotted the incoming alicorn. Twilight flew down to her and sat down heavily next to her, sagging with exhaustion. "Twilight? Are you okay?"

Twilight nodded numbly, like her head was rocking back and forth on top of her neck, rather being part of it. "I had to use dark magic to bust some ponies out of where the Grand Army was holding them, and now I don't feel too good. I'm also probably never going to hear the end of it off Trixie." She looked at where Trixie was pacing back and forth as she waited for the next attack.

"You're not going to go all crazy on us are you?"

"No, but I might be tempted to have a stiff drink while I cry myself hoarse afterwards." She very pointedly glared at Fleur who huffed but said nothing. "How's the evacuation going?"

"We've cleared the houses and buildings, but these ponies don't move very fast. Another twenty minutes and we should have most of them out."

Twilight nodded again. "Alright, we can do that. Fishbait!" she shouted suddenly.

The diamond dog jumped as he heard his name, "Uh, yes?"

"Are the other exits collapsed?"

"Yes, we collapsed them. Collapsed tunnels to hidden cavern too so Dukeses soldiers trapped in here." It wasn't what Twilight had asked, but she had to admit it was a nice touch and a decent show of initiative."

"Right, thank you Fishbait. Fleur, go back and get those ponies out of here." Fleur nodded her assent and galloped off while Twilight owlishly watched the soldiers prepare their next attack. They appeared to be setting up a device of some sort, consisting of a nozzle and what looked like a pump attached to some tanks. They hefted it up onto some kind of wheeled trolley surrounded by plates of metal, forming an armoured shell for the thing. Then a pony attached a flaming torch in front of the nozzle giving Twilight a chilling realisation to what that thing might be.

Too bad it wasn't the threat that the soldiers using it thought it to be, although it was cunning of them to try and use the bottleneck against them by running an armoured flamethrower up it.

"Trixie?"

"Yes Twilight?" Twilight was relieved to see some of the madness had left Trixie's eyes since she had last looked.

"You see that thing they're setting up down there?"

"Yes, of course I do. Trixie isn't blind you know."

"It's a flamethrower."

"A what?"

"A flamethrower. You pump the handles on it and it spits fire out."

"Trixie is going to make a wild assumption and say that's bad."

"Actually, when I saw the designs for something similar in the Canterlot archives, the warning written on the plan was to not use it against creatures capable of magic, flight, or both. Or dragons for that matter."

"Oh. Well in that case we're fine." Trixie nodded happily before saying out the corner of her mouth, "We are fine, aren't we?" Twilight suddenly jumped into flight and picked Trixie up in her magic as she passed. "What are you doing!?" she screamed. "Put me down!"

"In a moment. I need you to pierce the tanks on that thing so I can blow it up." Hoping to use her speed for defense rather than shields, Twilight flew over the weapon before swinging around and coming back, "Now Trixie!" Screaming with fear all the while Trixie shot crystal after crystal at the flamethrower, hitting the shell, one of the ponies assembling it, and grazing one of the tanks.

"I can't aim when you're going this fast!" Trixie shouted, as Twilight turned back around for another try. "Why can't you do this on your own?"

"Because my head feels like it's full of cotton wool. Now form several of those crystals and shoot them all at once!" Trixie did so, preparing them while Twilight got into position for another try. The soldiers had wised up to what they were doing and a hail of crossbow bolts whistled up through the air towards them. Twilight dropped below them, "Now!" she shouted. As Twilight suggested, Trixie shot all her crystals at once, and whooped as a few of them pierced the tank.

Twilight lazily dropped a magical ember as they finished their pass, and the fuel pouring out of the tanks ignited in a wave of flame. The soldiers fled from it and a moment later it exploded in a glowing ball of orange flame that singed the hairs on Twilight's and Trixie's tails as they retreated back towards the chambers.

"Nice work Trixie," Twilight said as she placed Trixie back on the ground.

"Naturally, although I still think you could have done that on your own." Trixie suddenly looked concerned, "You're not getting burnout are you?"

"Not yet, but I might if I keep using magic at the rate I have so far."

"Then use dark magic. That stuff's almost limitless," Trixie purred.

"No Trixie, I'm not using dark magic."

"But you did earlier! Trixie saw it. She was also rather impressed."

"Well don't be. I hate using it, and now I feel awful because dark magic burns through your natural magic as well, which tempts you to use more dark magic instead."

"Trixie doesn't seem to have that problem."

"Then count yourself lucky Trixie." Twilight returned to watching the soldiers. If they bothered, the soldiers could easily find alternate routes here, either by passing through buildings, climbing over their walls, or by demolishing the crystals somehow. For some reason they seemed determined to come down the middle.

"Soldiers coming down the right!" one of the thestrals keeping watch shouted in warning. Or not. Twilight cursed herself for even thinking the soldiers wouldn't try to flank them and shook herself off as the diamond dogs formed a rudimentary arrowhead to meet the newcomers. Twilight joined the thestrals in the air, sorely wishing she had just a hoof-full of Adepts for defensive purposes, as the dogs were horribly exposed to crossbow fire.

"Shadow, you and your ponies focus your attacks on the soldiers with crossbows! Let the diamond dogs deal with the rest!" Twilight practiced as she preached, taking hold of a pony that was feverishly trying to reload his weapon, and throwing him sideways into his neighbours.

The thestrals spread out along the enemy, attacking those soldiers with ranged weaponry, either killing them or destroying their weapons, or in some cases stealing the weapons and firing them back at the enemy before breaking and discarding them. Twilight tried to do the same, but found that she had difficulty bringing herself to fire them back at the soldiers, even though the end difference between using her magic and a crossbow was relatively minor. It just seemed so impersonal compared to magic. Instead she passed them to the thestrals, or Spitfire and Soarin.

"Twilight!" Twilight jerked at the sound of Trixie screaming her name. She turned back to the soldiers' other avenue of attack, finding that the soldiers had started an offensive there too. Many of the thestrals turned their attention to the newly incoming attack, repeating their tactic of disabling the ranged attackers while the diamond dogs readied themselves for the melee attackers.

Twilight hastily assessed the situation, her conclusion being that there was no way they were going to hold the soldiers off for another ten minutes. "Spitfire!" Spitfire darted closer to Twilight, "Go tell them to hurry that evacuation up. We're going to fall back in a minute so they better have the way out cleared." Spitfire nodded her confirmation and dashed off to carry out her orders.

Twilight dropped out of the air and landed heavily next to Trixie, "Trixie, block the street." Trixie did as she was asked, spurs of sharp crystal pushing up out of the street to form a wall. Some soldiers were left trapped on the wrong side of it but were quickly mopped up by the diamond dogs. To give credit where it was due, the diamond dogs were almost as ferocious in battle as the thestrals were, but their numbers were dwindling after two attacks upon them by both the thestrals and soldiers. The thestrals fared slightly better, but their numbers weren't all that big to begin with.

"Fall back! Fall back to the ramp! Thestrals! Cover the dogs retreat!" The diamond dogs set into motion, sprinting on all fours towards the designated exit, Trixie along with them, while the thestrals dived into the soldiers, pushing them back long enough to create a gap between the dogs and the soldiers, and continued to harry them, picking them off with ease in the confused chase, until the call went out for the soldiers to fall back themselves.

Twilight kept above the retreating diamond dogs as they ran for the exit. The ramp was packed with crystal ponies, and a great many more still lingered at the bottom of the ramp, waiting to get out. Someone, or somepony, as Twilight suspected it was Quartz, had seen fit to create a wall of green crystal that ringed around the fleeing ponies, leaving a gap for the diamond dogs to get through. There were still too many crystal ponies waiting there though, so the diamond dogs had no choice but to form a new line around the wall.

Twilight landed next to Fleur, Octavia, and the filly. "What's taking so long? Why are all these ponies still here?"

"The tunnels aren't big enough to fit that many ponies through at once," Fleur explained, "and those tunnels are pitch black to anypony that can't see in the dark, so the going is pretty slow."

"Get them moving Fleur! We can't hold much longer against that many soldiers."

"I'll try. Filly?" The filly perked up, cantering over from where she had been watching the crystal ponies ascend up the ramp.

"Yeah?"

"I need you to head out to the front of the ponies going through the tunnels to see if you can't get them moving any faster."

"Alright." The filly pushed into the crowd of ponies waiting to go up the ramp, pushing and winding around their legs.

"Soldiers incoming!" one of the thestrals circling overhead shouted. Some of the crystal ponies started shouting in fear, pushing up the ramp. There was a cry from further up the ramp as a mare was knocked over the edge in the crush, saved only by the timely intervention of a thestral.

"Of course this'd be easier if the crystal ponies weren't so fucking useless right now," Trixie muttered in a low growl as she stalked towards them. "This crystal heart business is stupid if this is what they're like without it."

"Trixie, go help the diamond dogs hold the soldiers off," Twilight said wearily. She wanted to tell Trixie that she was wrong, but the cost of saving these ponies was already high enough, and would only get higher still. "I'll be with you in a moment." Trixie snorted and headed back out through the gap in the wall. "Fleur, Octavia, if we can't hold them out there I'm going to surrender myself in the hopes they'll let you all go."

"We only need a few minutes Twilight. don't be so dramatic," Fleur chided. "Besides, would you trust any promise they could possibly make?"

Twilight closed her eyes as she sighed and shook her head slowly. "No, I guess not. Sorry, I guess I'm just tired."

Octavia opened her mouth like she was going to say something, but her eyes widened and she gasped, "No..." A split second later screams rang out across the area as crossbow bolts landed on the ponies walking up the ramp. Several bodies fell over the edge, landing on the crystal paving with meaty thuds.

Even before they landed the thestrals had orientated themselves towards where the attack had come from, diving down at those soldiers who would dare attack civilians, the shouts of the soldiers as the thestrals carried out their grim duty almost as loud as the screams of the crystal ponies.

The clash of weapons against weapon echoed off the cavern walls as the diamond dogs held the line against a fresh wave of attackers, and the eerie flash of dark magic heralded Trixie's inclusion in the battle from her position atop the wall. Twilight leapt on top on the barricade next to Trixie with a few tired flaps of her wings, shooting down at the soldiers with near impunity as the thestrals continued their goal of taking out those ponies with crossbows, utilising a new tactic of carrying a pony up high then dropping him on his fellows below.

The effect that method of attack was having on the soldiers was obvious, no matter how disgusting it was, with many now spending their efforts on avoiding a similar fate instead of fighting. And it was definitely buying them the time they needed to evacuate those last ponies.

Once the last of the crystal ponies were on their way up the ramp, Twilight, Trixie, and the thestrals gave one last push, forcing the soldiers back long enough for the diamond dogs to squeeze through the gap or scramble over the wall before Trixie filled the gap with a block of crystal.

Some of the dogs piled up the ramp while others climbed up the sheer face of the cavern wall. Twilight and Trixie attacked the soldiers for a little longer, but having realised their quarry had escaped the soldiers backed off. If they had realised that all the other exits had been sealed they might have kept trying, but Twilight wasn't about to complain.

"Trixie, it's time to go!" Trixie jumped down from the wall and scampered up the ramp. Even she looked tired at this point, and didn't seem to want to hang around. Twilight was about to order the thestrals to leave the caverns as well, but saw that they were already leaving through their own exit, apart from Shadow, Spitfire, and Soarin, who were flying back towards her.

Twilight joined them in the air, flying to the top of the ramp where Fleur, Octavia, Quartz, Fishbait, and Script were waiting for them. "Time to leave?" asked Octavia.

"Yeah. Once Trixie is through she can seal the exit. Hopefully we'll have plenty of time to get everypony away before the soldiers dig their way out."

Trixie joined them, gasping for breath after her sprint up the ramp. "Trixie- Trixie- Ugh, whew...haah... Trixie has an idea."

"If that idea is leaving, it's a capital one," Fleur snarked.

"No. Well yes, but we should destroy the city! That'd be a major blow to the Duke!"

"Trixie! We can't just destroy the city! This is their home!" Twilight said, gesturing to the four natives. "Once we stop the Duke they can have it back."

"I'm up for destroying the city," said Shadow. "It's not like I want to come back after this anyway."

"What? You can't be serious!?" Twilight gawped at her like she had gone mad. Hoping for back-up she turned to Quartz. "Quartz, this is your home! Surely you can't agree?"

"The Duke brought his soldiers here hoping to take us prisoner. We got away, and that's all that matters. I don't even know what you're talking about. How you could destroy the city anyway?" There was a small flash and Quartz's colours dimmed again, a clear indication that she wasn't happy about it.

"The Duke destroys what he cannot have," Script added. "We might return one day but the city would likely be in ruins. You have my blessing if you wish to continue."

"But-but-but Fishbait! What about your homes?"

The chieftain shrugged lazily, "Dogs no live in shiny city. Dogs be sorry to see it and ponies go, but it good send off for fallen brothers and sisters."

Twilight couldn't believe it; they would give up their home so easily? Not to mention that they couldn't just destroy a city anyway. Or could they? "I know you said about something that could destroy the city, but seriously, how can you destroy the city?" Twilight found herself asking out of curiosity while Trixie trotted back down the ramp to block it off from the soldiers that were starting to make their way up it.

"Beneath the council chambers is a device," Script informed them. "I'm not sure how it works any more, or if it even works at all seeing as it was built centuries ago and hasn't exactly been maintained. If it does work though it could collapse the entire city into the deeps.

Twilight's eyes grew wide. "That's horrible! Why would you even need to build something like that!?"

"We had our reasons... We bu-"

"We don't have time for this!" Fleur interrupted. "Are you going to do it or not!?"

"What!? I-I can't... I can't just kill all these soldiers like that! That's... That's murder! I- I- No! Just no!"

"These bastards killed hundreds of us!" Shadow cried, "If you won't do it, I will!" Shadow tensed and took off, flying towards the council chambers as fast as she could.

"Wait!" Shadow didn't stop though. "Damn it! Script, how do I get to the device?"

"There's a ring of green tiles in the centre of the chambers. The entrance is under the one that's missing a big chip off its corner!" Twilight ran off the edge, using the momentum the fall gave her to gain speed. She still had to push herself to catch up to Shadow.

"Shadow! Wait!"

"You better not have come here just to stop me! These bastards killed hundred of us! Hundreds! I'm going to make them pay ten times over for every one they killed!"

"No, I... I'm going to help you," Twilight said through gritted teeth. The truth of the matter was that she was doing it to stop Shadow getting killed. There were plenty of other reasons why she should do it, like the serious strategic victory it could be, or to stop Filigree from trying to hunt them down once he escaped the caverns. But mostly she was doing it to help Shadow, which was a pretty weak reason to commit murder on such a scale she had to admit in her darker moments.

"You are? Awesome! Come on!" They finished flying to the council chambers, finding them to be thankfully quiet due to the majority of soldiers still being where the evacuation had taken place. They landed on the steps by the doors in, the steps missing one of the bodies that should have been there. A trail of smeared blood went in through the doors, leading all the way to the three podiums of the council members, at the middle of which Ebon was slumped, somehow still clinging to life.

"Ebon!" Shadow gasped before running over to him. "How the hell are you still alive?" The elder thestral was trembling, either with cold or shock, and could barely hold up his hoof to her. Nestled in the crook of his other leg was the crystal heart.

"D-did... they... get... out?" he wheezed wetly. Twilight was surprised to see tears forming in Shadow's eyes. He might have made some serious mistakes, but his concern for everyone else getting out spoke a lot for his character. Twilight couldn't find it in herself to hate him for trying to protect the ponies down here, even if he tried to capture her to do it.

"Yeah, we got as many out as we could." Shadow's voice cracked while in the back of her mind Twilight could hear Trixie say 'no thanks to you.' "We're going to collapse the city, take as many of those bastards with it as possible."

Ebon frowned in confusion, then wheezed a laugh. "I had... I had forgotten about... about that."

"You don't mind?" Twilight asked.

He laughed again, "I couldn't think... of a finer... send-off." He tried to push the crystal heart towards Twilight, but his strength failed. She gently lifted it out from his hold. "I never... wanted any of this. I hope it... helps..."

Twilight tried to say thank you, but her voice cracked as well. "Thank you," she said, trying again. She nudged Shadow with her nose, "Come on Shadow, we need to go."

Shadow nodded and tried to wipe her eyes free of tears. "Bye Ebon, may Luna watch over you in the ever after." Ebon smiled at her before laying his head down, his laboured breaths the only sound while they searched for the chipped tile.

"This one Twilight." Shadow pointed at the chipped tile, which was more of a slab really, and Twilight gently pried it out of its place, revealing a tunnel that wound down into darkness. Shadow led the way in and Twilight lit her horn up and followed her, placing the tile back into its place in the hope that the soldiers wouldn't know where they went.

The passage wound down and down, the temperature dropping with every passing moment. After a couple of minutes they came upon a side room, and set in the floor was a large metal winch like would be used to raise a anchor on a ship, while the passage continued downward. "This must be it!" Shadow said as she ran over to it. "It's rusty as fuck though."

"Yeah, Script said it mightn't be in the best of conditions." Shadow tried to push it using one of the metal spokes that jutted out from the centre, but it didn't move in the slightest. Twilight joined in, pushing with her shoulder, and even used her magic. The winch slowly ground around for a few steps then stopped with a squeal.

"Damn it! How are we supposed to trigger this if its like this?" Shadow looked to Twilight imploringly, clearly considering her to be the ideas mare.

Not wanting to disappoint her Twilight looked around the room then back at the winch. Whatever it was supposed to set in motion was beneath where the winch was set in the rock. "The passage keeps going down. Maybe we can make whatever this thing turns work from down there."

She led the way down, the journey much shorter this time, but the ending much more abrupt as the passage ended at nothing, just a drop down into inky blackness. "That's freaky," Shadow commented. "It's that dark even I can't see."

Thankfully light spells were fairly easy to maintain so Twilight made hers as bright as possible before dropping over the edge. Below her was still pitch black but with her light spells' extended reach she could see quite a bit around her, enabling her to find the bottom of the winch. Three thick cables hung uselessly from it but seven more stretched out into the distance.

She picked one and followed it to wherever it went. A massive pillar loomed out of the darkness, angling diagonally from the rock wall of the hole to the bottom of Caverndown. The cable went right through it, leading to what seemed to be a massive stone hammer propped up against the side, held in place at the bottom by a bracket. A mechanism held the hammer in place, and had long rusted into a solid lump. Even so, it was obvious that the hammer was made to fall when the winch pulled it, falling onto the pillar below and breaking it.

Despite the grim nature of the device, Twilight couldn't help but marvel at what had been built. The walls didn't look natural, bearing marks of having been cut by tools, and the pillar itself was part of the rock. This entire area had been mined out just to build all this.

"Twilight?"

"Hmm?"

"We're here to do something, remember?"

"Right, sorry." She studied the mechanism, determining that she could just cut through it, then use her magic to set the hammer falling. That didn't mean she should. "Are you sure about this?"

"Well, yeah, of course I am. Why wouldn't I be?"

Twilight gestured around her, "Because this is your home? Because we're about to kill thousands of ponies just because we can?"

Shadow's faces scrunched up as she growled, "Those ponies killed hundreds of us and wanted to enslave us! They deserve to die!"

"Most of those ponies are ponies doing their job! They want to go home to their wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, children, and friends just as much as we do!"

"Then they picked the wrong job didn't they! They stand just as much a chance of dying in battle! There's no guarantee they can go home!"

"At least they have a chance to! This? This is just murder."

"Twilight, if these ponies don't die here they're just going to end up coming after you and your rebellion. They're going to kill your soldiers, and maybe even beat you. Do you have any idea what the Duke would be like if he won?" Twilight didn't, but her imagination could field a few possibilities, none of them involved the idea of forgive and forget. "We have to do this."

Twilight argued internally about it, the reasons for and against being represented by Luna and Celestia for some reason. Celestia argued that it was wrong to kill so many ponies in so cold a manner, while Luna agreed with Shadow, espousing the many benefits of doing it and reminding her that they were at war. Both sides gave good arguments, but Celestia made a mistake. She offered forgiveness if Twilight sided with Luna.

"I really need help," Twilight muttered to herself.

"What was that?"

"I-uh, I said I wish we had help. This is big job for the two of us."

"Yeah, I know. I'm also kinda worried that we're underneath the city we're trying to collapse."

"I don't think the ponies that triggered this device were meant to survive." Twilight held the crystal heart up to Shadow, "Could you hold this please?" Shadow took it in her legs, allowing Twilight to focus on the problem. If she cut through the mechanism, she could probably pull the hammer down in her magic.

She did so, the rusted metal hissing and sputtering as her magic sliced through it. Then she went to push the hammer over, finding it wasn't very hard as the hammer was only lightly leaning back against the wall. The sound the hammer made as it fell on the pillar was deafening in the silence of the pit. The pillar cracked in half and fell away, the hammer going with it. A moment later the cable drew taut and another crack echoed around them before the cable snapped.

Dust and pebbles rained down around them for a few seconds. "What the hell was that!?" Shadow blurted fearfully.

"You sound like you're having regrets coming down here," Twilight said sarcastically. "Are you?"

Shadow's eyes darted about wildly for a few seconds before she stiffened up. "Of course not! I just... I just never thought it'd be a one way trip..."

"It isn't going to be. Come on." They flew back to the middle of the room, finding that the entire winch had been ripped out and was wedged in the hole it had made by its spokes. Fortunately it gave Twilight an idea.

"Shadow, I think you should go. There's no point both of us being at risk. Go wait outside with the others, and take care of the crystal heart. If you're fast enough moving the tile I don't think the soldiers'll be able to catch you. If for some reason you insist on waiting for me outside, find something to hold onto that isn't part of the city, because if this collapses all at once it'll suck you down with it."

"Um... okay... What are you going to be doing?"

"This thing you all insist I have to do, now go on! Don't worry about me and get out of here." Rather than stick around and listen to Shadow argue with her, partly because Twilight was slightly impartial to whether she lived or died at this moment, Twilight followed another cable to its pillar. She cut through the mechanism there before following the side around to the next pillar and repeating the process.

It was amazing to her to think that nopony had maintained this thing over the years. What if the mechanisms holding the hammers back had rusted through and broke and the hammers fallen? It was madness enough to build this in the first place, but to risk leaving it untended was possibly worse.

This and other mysteries wandered their way through her mind, mostly to take her mind off what she was about to do. And possibly that she was about to kill thousands and possibly die herself. If she was reasonably lucky the three pillars without cables would hold the city up long enough for her to get out. If she wasn't reasonably lucky... then at least she wouldn't have to live with the guilt.

Now there was just the problem of triggering all the hammers to fall at once. She made her way back up to the room the winch was supposed to be in, jumping on it experimentally to see if it would move. It didn't, which in hindsight was probably a good thing, but she still had to do something. Preferably something simple because her horn was really starting to ache.

She cut through one of the spokes, the others creaking dangerously as they took the extra weight. "Hmm..." She started cutting through the one opposite, but stopped halfway through. She then did the same on the other spokes, stopping when the first one snapped suddenly. The others tried to take the weight but even as she watched she could see them bending, a process that was only going to speed up as it progressed.

She turned and flew up the passage as fast as she could, the sounds of the hammers falling and the pillars collapsing echoing up the passage as the walls rumbled around her before suddenly lurching. There was a scream from up ahead, and as Twilight neared the exit she found a frightened Shadow sat clutching the crystal heart.

"Move!" Twilight slammed the tile out of its hole as hard as she could, guiltily realising that Shadow probably hadn't been able move it on her own, and shot out of the hole with Shadow close on her tail. As Twilight had predicted the council chambers were full of soldiers, but they seemed far too occupied with the fact that the entire city was shaking. Twilight wanted to tell them to run.

She flew low and out through the door into the open air, slowing to take the crystal heart off Shadow as she seemed to be struggling with its weight. The noise of the city as it began its journey into the deeps was almost deafening as the two ponies made for the gatherers entrance. One section of the city sagged, slowly breaking off in massive chunks, and cracks spread all through the crystalline city like a spider web, tearing buildings apart as they grew.

Suddenly, without warning the center of the city fell, the hole growing rapidly as the city collapsed and Twilight could feel herself being sucked down after it. Wind whistled past her as it rushed in through the gatherers tunnel, as the other sealed exits stopped the air flow from all but the place they were trying to get to.

The wind buffeted them, trying to draw them down into the darkness that the city now rushed to occupy. With a cry Twilight teleported them to the ledge and held them there to either side of the tunnel until the wind subsided, her eyes screwed shut and her horn stinging in protest at its treatment.

The cavern boomed and echoed around them, the sound growing more distant as the city fell. Twilight cracked an eye open, finding that the light emitting crystals on the cavern walls had survived the collapse. But even they failed to pierce the darkness of the hole that had swallowed the city.

The cavern gradually grew silent until all Twilight could hear was the sound of their breaths and the thumping of her heart. Shadow stared wide eyed at the dark pit, shocked at how the city was just... gone.

"I hope you're happy now," Twilight said bitterly.

Author's Notes:

My first extended action piece and I'm not sure if I've fallen into the trap of too much information, or too little. I'm also afraid I've made this all a little too ridiculous.

In other news though, this story in now one year old, hence the double whammy of chapters in celebration. An entire year spent tapping out horse words for my horse story. I kinda thought I'd be finished by now, or at least closer to finishing, but that was probably just me being overly optimistic. Anyway, a big thanks to all of you following this thing what I did make. Much appreciation.

Might be a little while 'til the next chapter 'cause I ain't even started it. I had to push myself to get the second chapter done for today. I'm also coming down with something and my desire to write always dies when I'm ill.

22/01/16 Added a little bit to the meeting between Filigree and Twilight