Fleur remembered why she hated living rough. It's because it sucks. After only four days she was tired, hungry, stinky, and grumpy. Even the irrepressibly cheerful filly was feeling the strain, but that may have had more to do with her wanting to leave the city before the soldiers made pony kebabs out of them rather than the lifestyle.

The problem was that Fleur was starting to agree with her. The soldiers were increasing their patrols, and didn't seem like the semi benevolent jailors of Prance they had previously been. Fleur was starting to suspect that their presence in the city was no longer a secret, and that meant that they might have to move up their escape.

They hadn't heard anything off Mash either, but when they had passed his bar it had been open, so they could only assume that he'd got the message and was going along like he'd never done anything wrong in the first place. This also hopefully meant that Sweetheart, Flip, and Nightlight were also somewhere safe, Sapphire and Velvet were keeping quiet, and that Bric and Brac were safely out of the city again.

Fleur tensed, ducking down out of sight as another patrol clattered by, the second in half an hour. They had holed up in the basement of an run down building in the lower city, the small windows providing a street level view of all that went past. The filly had suggested they hide where a lot of the other vagrants dwelled, but Fleur refused on the double basis of not wanting to draw attention to the homeless if the soldiers struck, and because the last time she was around there it hadn't gone too well for her.

"How much longer do you think we can stay here Fleur? The soldiers are everywhere now! It's only a matter of time until they catch us!"

"Indoor voice filly," Fleur muttered noncommittally. Their time was running out, she had to admit, and she could only hope the others were in fact safe so they could escape sooner rather than later. Much sooner, as in tonight. "You're right though, we can't stay here. When it gets dark we'll head into the upper city and get out through there tonight. I seriously wish there was another way out though."

"Provided we could get onto the wall without getting caught, we could always jump the wall."

"High probability of being caught, with a distinct possibility of broken legs followed by a slightly less distinct possibility of being used as target practice by any soldier on the wall with a crossbow? Yeah... no."

The filly crossed her legs and huffed, "I never said it was a good idea. By the way, I'd like to thank you for the lovely vacation to sunny Prance."

Fleur turned on the filly, "Hey! You wanted to come here too!"

"Indoor voice Fleur."

"Go... suck a... di-doorknob!" Fleur falteringly yelled at the gently smiling filly. Fleur sighed but grinned, happy that the filly was at least being her usual cheeky self through all this.

"You was going to say dick then, wasn't you?" the filly said smugly. "Such a thing to say to a small, young, helpless pony such as myself." She dramatically held a hoof up to her forehead and sighed heavily, "My innocence has been forever shattered by the coarse language of a ruffian like you."

"Innocence?" Fleur laughed, "Do you even know what that word means?"

"I've heard of it. Besides, I have quite a bit of my innocence intact thank you very much. Just because you lost yours at such a young, tender age doesn't mean..." The filly cringed as Fleur's face fell, "I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that!"

"Yeah, I know," Fleur said quietly, when honestly she didn't. How else could the filly have meant it. She sighed to herself, while in her head she was bucking the filly across the room.

"Have you ever thought about tracking down the ponies that did that to you? Maybe dispensing a bit of well deserved rough justice?"

"Of course I have, but I'm not going to murder them for it. Besides, they kind of outnumber me, which could only end badly, I assure you. I wouldn't even know where to start looking for them anyway." Fleur sat down and shivered as memories rose up in her mind, unbidden. "Talk about something else."

"Okay then. Uh... Oh! I wouldn't mind learning more about zebras! Are they really all the same colour with black and white stripes?"

"Yeah, but some of them are white with black stripes, while others are black with white stripes."

"Really? Is that's how you can tell them apart?"

"You're going to sound racist before this is over, aren't you?"

The filly held up her hooves and feigned innocence, "Maybe? I don't know!"

"Eh, probably. I was joking anyway. They all have the same colour, but the stripes are different for each zebra."

"So that's how you tell them apart?"

"Well, that, and eye colour, mane styles, their cutie mark things-"

"They have cutie marks too?"

Fleur levelled a hoof, "Eh... sort of, but I don't know if they're called cutie marks, or if they hold the same significance as cutie marks do for ponies, and they look far less obvious than pony marks because they're in black and white as well, and have a different sort of style to them."

"And do those Gri- Griff-"

"Griffons?"

"Yeah, those. Do they have cutie marks too?"

"Not that I've ever seen, but that's not to say it's impossible I suppose, unless it's only equine kind that get them. You know what? I don't really know."

"Well I'm going to find out. Once this is all over I'm going to leave this crap-ass country and travel the world, and learn everything I can about everyone!"

"Sounds good, but you might want to watch out in the dragon lands, or a lot of places really."

"Dude! Dragons are real?"

"Oh brother..."

The air seemed to have developed a wintery chill to it, which was unusual seeing as how they were on the cusp of summer, and their breath misted in the air as they stealthily made their way to the upper city, sticking to the shadows and only moving when the coast was clear. The streets were still thick with soldiers, and Fleur was starting to wish they'd done this during the day so they could blend in with the crowd. Being the only two ponies in the street did tend to make you stick out slightly.

They stopped, the faint clatter of armour approaching them, so they ducked into an alleyway and watched from the darkness as the soldiers trotted by. The lead one was carrying a lantern on a pole attached to his armour, which was probably Fleur's and the filly's biggest advantage as it meant that the soldiers' night vision would be nearly non-existent. Fleur had expected soldiers to be a bit smarter than that, but luckily it would seem not.

That wasn't to say she was feeling totally confident about the situation. Apart from the obvious danger they faced, she couldn't help but feel like they were being watched. Even the filly had admitted to feeling that way, and her eyesight was better than Fleur's so if there was something to see watching them the filly was the most likely to catch it.

"Come on," Fleur whispered, and together she and the filly darted across the street, sticking close to the buildings as the made their way to the entrance to the upper city. They stopped at the edge of the buildings and Fleur poked her head around to see if it was clear. It was, and that raised her suspicions, because it was usually guarded even without martial law.

Not about to look a gift horse in the mouth, she tugged on the filly with her magic and ran around the corner, the filly just behind her. The upper city seemed to have a smaller military presence in it than the rest of the city, not that Fleur needed an explanation why, and their progress flitting from shadow to shadow to the entrance of the drain was swift.

She lifted the grate as quietly as she could and ushered the filly in before entering herself and gently placing the grate back so as to not make a sound. Only then did she dare to breathe a sigh of relief, "Made it."

"I don't think I've seen this many soldiers before." The filly scrunched her face up as she thought, "Wait a minute, yes I have, in Caverndown. But still, way too many soldiers."

"I know what you mean. If they weren't being so sloppy they might have caught us. I guess sitting around in Prance has made them complacent." Fleur led the way down the drain, sliding on all four hooves down the first slope. As they came nearer to the hole into the basement they found the wall opposite lit with a soft yellow light, and the sound of low talking coming from within.

"I thought you told them to get out of there?" The filly looked up at her quizzically. "Didn't you?"

"Yeah, I did. I have no idea why they're still here." They trotted towards the hole, their hooves echoing slightly on the stone, and walked in through the hole to find a guilty tableau consisting of four ponies sitting around a table, playing cards in one hoof, bottles in the other, and cigarettes in mouths. They were also wearing armour and had weapons next to them, strongly suggesting that these were in fact soldiers.

Both groups froze, watching each other, silently daring the other group to make the first move. Fleur decided to break the ice by donning a literally award winning smile that showed off her pearly whites before very brightly saying "Hi!" She then turned and ran back towards the grate to the upper city while the filly ran the opposite direction.

"Fleur! This way!"

"It's probably blocked filly! Come on!" The filly wrestled with indecision for a second before chasing after Fleur, passing by the hole in the wall just before the soldiers organised themselves enough to chase after them. She bounded up the slope, overtaking Fleur who was struggling on the slick surface.

"Come on Fleur! Make yourself lighter with your magic or something!" Fleur focused her magic, about to follow the filly's suggestion when an arrow bounced off the ground between her hooves. She yelped and lost hold of her magic, suddenly finding herself sliding backwards.

"No-no-no!" She tried again, lessening her weight and half climbed, half scrambled madly to the top, making it over the lip as another arrow pinged off the floor behind her. She took the lead again and ran towards the grate as the soldiers ascended up the slope, a lot faster than she had which she attributed to earth pony sure-hoofedness.

They sprinted for the grate back out into the upper city and just made it out when the lead soldier started up the steps after them. Fleur slammed the grate down on him as hard as she could, but not before he could jab his spear at her, scoring a cut on her back left leg that left her crying out in pain and surprise.

The grate bent as it slammed down on the soldier, the aging metal not being particularly robust, but its weight was more than enough to knock him back into his fellows and buy Fleur and the filly the time to run, or hobble, as fast as they could out of the upper city.

"Why didn't we try to get out?" the filly whispered harshly once they found a place of safe respite.

"Because if that tunnel was blocked at the other end we would have been trapped in there! Those soldiers were probably meant to be guarding it."

"Why guard it if it's blocked?"

"To stop us reopening it probably. I don't know!"

"And how is being trapped in the city any better?" the filly asked. Fleur growled in the back of her throat, and was about to tell the filly to shut up when the sound of hooves and armour echoed up the street. She pressed the filly and herself deeper into the shadows and waited for the patrol to pass. She watched them head up the street, only looking away when the filly poked her in the side, "You're bleeding."

Fleur had almost forgotten about that and looked back at her leg to see a nasty cut, about halfway up her cannon that was dribbling blood down her leg. Now she was thinking about it though, she was also surprised by how much it hurt, and she quickly lessened the weight she put on it. "Forget about it. I don't have any bandages so I can't do anything about it."

"Wait here and think about what we're going to do." The filly trotted around the corner and out of sight despite Fleur's whispered attempts to make her stop. Rather than chase after her, Fleur decided to at least give the filly a chance, so she thought about what they could do in this situation. The long and short of it was that the only thing they could really do was find somewhere to hide, but that was a short term solution to a long term problem. They were being hunted in a city they couldn't escape, so the best they could do was hide and hope the soldiers give up looking, and wait for the rescue from Twilight, in whatever form that rescue might take.

The filly returned a minute later, a blue and white striped pillowcase draped over her back. "Here, use this." Fleur tore a strip out of it and wrapped it around the cut, the blood quickly soaking into it, but at least it wasn't running down her leg like before, and would hopefully keep the cut mostly clean.

"Thanks."

"So what's our plan?"

"Hide for the next two to three weeks and hope Twilight comes up with a rescue."

The filly raised an eyebrow at Fleur, "Seriously? Won't they just be walking into the same trap we're in?"

"Hopefully when they see the massive army parked outside the front gates they'll spend a bit more time thinking about it than we did."

The filly looked down at the floor, then back up at Fleur, her expression dour. "We're well and truly fucked aren't we?"

Yes, thought Fleur. Out loud she said "Not yet we're not," as cheerfully as she could, trying to reassure the filly. "We both know this city, so if we can-" A blob of light from a lantern caught her eye, "Shit. Come on." They moved along the street, staying well ahead of the soldiers behind them, but not rushing so as to blunder into more. Fleur had never wished so much for a darker coat and hair colour.

They came up to an alleyway on the right and moved down it after checking quickly to see if was clear. They stopped and ducked behind a pile of refuse and waited for the patrol to pass before daring to talk again. "Where are we going Fleur?"

"Don't know. We should probably get back to where we've been hiding the last few days. At least for now. We should change places every few days to keep them guessing." She trotted to the other end of the alley, ignoring the throbbing coming from her leg, and looked out into the street beyond. They needed to head right to get back to where they were, but a quartet of soldiers were stood in the street in that direction, whereas the left was clear.

Figuring they could try again in the next street over they went left to find themselves at a crossways. Straight over was empty, as was left again, but to the right was another patrol that was heading away from them, meaning they could've come from the street to the left, so more patrols could be coming that way.

The filly tapped her on the shoulder and pointed back down the street. Another patrol was quickly approaching them from behind, leaving them very little time to think. Instead Fleur played it safe and led them straight across, thinking to lead them right at the next junction. It wasn't to be though, as the exact same thing happened again, and with the patrol behind them they had little time to plan their movements out.

She had thought to duck into a building for shelter, but the repairs made to the area had been very thorough indeed, and Fleur wasn't about to give themselves away by breaking into somewhere. Instead they kept going, being forced further from their destination, and towards the less inhabited parts of the city occupied by industrial complexes, which would've been a haven to hide in if there wasn't usually somepony there twenty-four hours a day.

At the next junction they were forced right, just to add some variety, and Fleur galloped in her desperation until her leg reminded her to not do such silly things. She slowed down before skidding to a complete halt as a patrol trotted out of the junction right in front of her and the filly. She froze up, as there was no way the soldiers hadn't seen or heard her, but they kept moving across in front of her with not even an ear twitching in her direction.

She was about to breathe a sigh of relief when one of the soldiers glanced back in Fleur's direction out of the corner of her eye before looking forward again without stopping or doing anything. The soldier had clearly seen her, and yet had done nothing to warn her comrades, so was she a rebel sympathiser, or just lazy? Or was it something else?

The way to the right was clear so they went that way, having no other choice but to follow the dictates of where the soldiers happened to be, as it had been for the last hour. Had those soldiers done nothing for the very simple reason that they had been ordered to do nothing to either her or the filly? Had they not expected her to be there that soon, because they were in fact setting up their patrols to herd the filly and herself to a specific destination?

Fleur swore under her breath, kicking herself for not having seen it sooner. The consistent yet sloppy patrols, the clear streets being their only options, the lanterns on the soldiers making it so the patrols were easy to spot, and the nicely repaired buildings giving them nowhere to duck out of sight. And they were going to have to go along with it, because it was that or give themselves up.

Light-headedness struck Fleur and she quickly braced herself while her head spun and her stomach flip-flopped. She looked under herself at her leg and was shocked to see the makeshift bandage was completely saturated with blood, and was dripping the excess down her leg. Fleur almost wanted to laugh; capture, surrender, or whatever option, including death, that came after significant blood loss. Probably capture since she'd pass out before she died.

"Fleur? Are you alright? You're making a weird noise." Fleur snapped out of it to realise she'd been whining in the back of her throat for some reason. Then she remembered that she hadn't told the filly what she had realised about the situation, and didn't know if she could. The filly had faith in her, but all she had done was walk them deeper into this trap.

"I think my cut's a lot worse than I thought," she said. A second later the filly swore as she looked at Fleur's leg.

"W-what do we do!? You can't keep walking around like that! You'll die!"

"I don't think it'll matter," Fleur said, her voice low. "They've been forcing us into a trap the whole time filly. They'll catch us long before I bleed out."

"What? How do you know that?" Fleur explained it as best she could, watching as the filly's hopes of escape evaporated. "So that's it then? We either walk into a trap, or give up? Fuck that!"

"I don't think I'd put up much of a fight if it comes to it filly. Never thought I'd say this, but I wish Trixie were here to tear those soldiers a new one." Fleur glanced back to see where the soldiers behind them were, seeing them coming up behind them. She knew for a fact that they could see them, and made no attempt to hide. "Come on."

They trudged on, the soldiers keeping pace behind them, and made no deviations to their path until it was either go left or attempt to walk through solid walls. After another few minutes of walking they were well and truly in the heart of industrial Prance, and Fleur happened to look back, slightly undecided over whether to blow the soldiers behind her a kiss, only to find they had gone. She turned on the spot, studying the street for anything clue of what might happen next, or for anything that might help, but found nothing. Was this the trap? Because it didn't seem like much of one. There was another patrol heading towards them to consider though.

"Fleur! Over here!" Fleur turned to where the filly was, seeing her holding a door to a workshop open. "It's not locked, so we could hide in here!" the filly explained once Fleur was looking at her. Fleur walked over to her and pushed the door in, entering the pitch black room beyond. She lit up her horn, the light wavering and her head spinning with the effort, just as the door shut behind them with a thunk. The workshop was empty. The drag marks on the floor were a good clue as to it being made so quite recently.

"I think this was the wrong way," Fleur said a little listlessly, rather than say 'Oh! This is where the trap ends!' The room was empty, save for two ponies and dust, and there were no other ways out. Fleur backed toward the door before turning to open it, only to find the latch on the inside had been removed, and the door had a spring screwed to it, designed to push the door shut.

Fleur lay down, the filly next to her, both of them sitting in the tiny sphere of light emitted from Fleur's horn, and both of them committed to the idea that it was well and truly over for them. But it didn't have to be, and shouldn't be, not for one of them at least.

Fleur stood slowly and started walking around the edge of the room. The walls were wooden and fairly solid looking, but maybe there was a window they could break and at least get the filly through, or something. The filly watched her as she went, her curiosity growing to the point that she had to ask Fleur what she was doing.

"I'm getting you out of here. It's my fault you're here, and I'll be damned if I let those bastards lay a hoof on you if I can help it."

"What? No! I'm not leaving you! Whatever happens we do it together!"

Fleur shook her head, "Don't be an idiot filly. What good does both of us being dead or captured do anypony? You're getting out of here, and you're getting back to Puddingarde to tell Twilight what happened." She kept looking along the walls, but found nothing. Either the windows had been boarded up, or there were none to begin with.

At the back of the room in the corner furthest from the door there was a wet patch in the wood that slowly dripped water into a puddle. Fleur poked it with her hoof, finding that the wood was barely stronger than tissue paper, so she started hitting it until she broke through. On the other side was a small gulley between this building and the one next to it, filled with water, and wide enough for the filly to hide in. Her ear twitched as it caught the sound of voices from outside, and she started tearing away at the wood with her horn and hooves, making a hole big enough for the filly to fit through.

"Get in filly," she ordered once it was big enough.

"No! I'm said I'm not going anywhere without you."

"And I said that's stupid, so get in!" She grabbed the filly with her magic and shoved her in through the hole even as the filly tried to fight back. The wood scratched at the filly, but she fit, falling into the water with a small shriek. Thankfully it only came up as high as the bottom of her chest.

"Please Fleur... please don't do this. I can't do this without you. I need you!" Tears ran down her snout and Fleur couldn't help but smirk sardonically at her.

"And here I am being closer to the dead pony walking than I ever was before."

"I didn't mean it!" the filly wailed. "I was being stupid!"

"I know you were." Fleur reached her head in through the hole and nuzzled the filly, her own tears falling unhindered. "To think I said we could last three weeks in here. We couldn't even make it past the first night. I'm sorry filly. When the soldiers are gone, get out of here and get back to Puddingarde. Tell Twilight... Tell Twilight I'm sorry, and that she'll have to liberate Mareitania without me."

"Fleur..." The filly's voice was barely more than a whisper, too overcome with emotion to be any louder.

Fleur kissed her on the forehead, her own voice faltering. "Bye filly."

"Please... I love you Fleur."

"I love you too filly, even when you're being sappy." The door crashed open and Fleur extinguished her horn as she moved away from the hole. Several soldiers bearing lanterns entered followed by two ponies in the heavy black armour of the unicorn hunters, one male, one female.

"Hello Fleur," the mare said in a friendly manner.

"Where's the little one gone?" asked the stallion.

Fleur widened her stance and lowered her horn towards the hunters. "We split up, and she's got away where you'll never find her," she said through gritted teeth. The mare's eyes flitted over to the hole in the corner, and Fleur cursed herself for not sweeping the mess she had made into the hole, not that it would've made the hole any less obvious.

"Oh well, that's too bad," the mare said in a way that suggested that she really didn't care. "She was only a child anyway so I guess you'll have to do. Breaker?"

Breaker flexed his hooves as he stood and adopted a fighting stance similar to Fleur's. "I really wish you were that purple bitch, but you'll hafta do."

The filly cringed as the wood of the wall bulged above her as Fleur slammed into it, squeezing her eyes shut and trying not to cry out Fleur's name as a shower of dust and splinters rained down on her.

"Well that were disappointing," said Breaker. "Guess she didn't juice herself up on that wacky magic the other unicorn got from that bastard witch doctor."

"Which suits me just fine," the mare said quietly. Louder she said, "Put an inhibitor on her and take her to the castle to get her leg checked out. We don't want her bleeding out on us, not now. As soon as she's fit to travel, prepare her for transport to High Rock." The filly perked up. They were taking Fleur alive! That meant they could still save her!

"Aww... does Pearly want to get her new plaything home?" Breaker mocked.

"She has information we need, Breaker, so yes, I want to get her back to High Rock." The filly folded her ears back, her heart sinking. She doubted the hunters had a nice way of asking questions.

"Still no signs of the-uh, purple winged unicorn, or her other companions," said a voice that the filly suspected belonged to one of the soldiers. Bravely, or foolishly, she dared to peek out through the hole. "Do you want us to keep searching for the filly?" The filly started, wondering how they knew her name, but quickly realised she was mistaking the description the soldier used as her name.

"That won't be necessary," said Pearl, "she's only a child and of no consequence to anypony." Pearl looked at the hole and the filly froze as the hunter made eye contact with her. Then Pearl winked, and the filly could feel her grinning through the helmet. "Start gathering up the anti-teleportation stones and report back to the captain who'll fill you in on your new orders."

The soldier left, leaving the two hunters alone. The filly watched as they removed her helmets, almost surprised at how normal they looked. They placed their helmets on the ground and shook out their manes. "It's about time this scheme had some results," said Breaker. "It were driving me up tha frickin' wall!"

"It was only a matter of time until one of them came here."

"Aye, but too bad it were only one o' them. Guess that means we're going to plan b then?"

"It seems it does."

Breaker suddenly grinned, "Good. Plan a were boring as fuck. Plan b has much more promise." They leaned in and kissed heavily, almost making out on the spot.

They broke apart and Pearl's eyes twitched to the filly for a moment. "Come on, we have work to do." Then donned their helmets and left, leaving their lantern behind, which the filly expected she was meant to feel thankful for, but didn't as it only made her feel sick with worry over why the hunter had just left her where she was.

Even with the knowledge that they didn't want her, the filly stayed where she was, in the cold wet darkness of the space between two buildings. What she really wanted to do was lie down and cry, but the water guaranteed that wouldn't be a pleasant experience. Instead she stood there for what seemed like hours, but in reality was far less, crying to herself and begging for Fleur to come back while at the same time cursing her for deciding to be a big hero.

Eventually her tears ran dry, and while Fleur might have been an idiot to give herself up like that, she was right that there was no purpose to both of them being captured. There was certainly no purpose to hiding in the dark, so she climbed out, shook the wet off her legs, and pitied herself for another ten minutes in the dry.

She knew she needed to get back to Twilight and tell her what happened, and that they needed to rescue Fleur. The issue that she was going to be held in the most secure location in Mareitania was but a minor thing in the filly's view. The only important thing was getting Fleur back.

She pulled herself together and wiped her tears away, although the occasional sniffle did still escape her. Somepony had left a small piece of wood in the doorway leaving her a big enough gap to get a hoof in and pull the door open. Concerns over why the hunters had not bothered to capture, but also sought to facilitate her freedom gnawed at her, but she was in no mood to pay heed to them.

Outside was empty, with not even a sign to show of what had happened here, and she slipped out before stopping as she didn't have a single idea of where she was supposed to go. Mash and the other members of the so called 'resistance' were about as much use to her as a chocolate teapot, and the two obvious methods of leaving the city were not really options, so she didn't know what to do.

But maybe there was one other individual in this city that might.

The filly trotted along the middle of the street, noteven bothering to hide as the patrols had seemed to have evaporated into thin air. This might have bothered the filly more, but she wasn't in any position to question it as it quickly allowed her to reach her destination.

She knocked on the door before her and waited impatiently for an answer. A few minutes later the door creaked open, revealing the sight of a figure in dark black robes, the sinister nature of which was ruined when they reached a hoof up to rub their eyes.

"But who is this? Who has roused me from my sleeping bliss?" Seeker blinked, and smiled slightly as she saw the filly before her. "Ah, filly, it is you, though I do believe an apology for the lateness is due." She frowned as she saw the filly's expression. "Such sorrow upon you I see, and alone you have come to me. Something is wrong, of that I can tell, you look to have been dragged through hell."

"They caught Fleur," the filly said, her chest constricting as she tried to say it without choking or crying. "You were right, this was a trap for us."

Seeker shook her head, "While joy I should feel to be right, no elation I feel this night. I suspect that to me you have come for aid, and I suspect I have a choice to be made."

"Please," the filly begged tearfully, "I have to get out of here. I have to get back to Puddingarde to tell the others so we can save her!"

"Such devotion you have to Fleur, I wonder if she knows how much you love her?" The filly said nothing, instead she slumped down and lay on the stairs to Seeker's door. The zebra sat beside her and stroked her mane in comfort, "A broken heart I hate to see, so you will have aid from me. I will go with you to Puddingarde, though I worry the first step there shall be hard."

The filly looked up at Seeker, seeing the zebra's kind eyes looking back. "You'll help me? For real?" Seeker nodded at her, and the filly hugged her leg, "Thank you! Thank you so much!"

"Quickly and quietly we must go, if the soldiers are not to know, but things to bring with me I do, if I am to travel with you." The filly realised that she was pretty much asking Seeker to tear up her life for a reason that had nothing to do with her, and readily consented to waiting while Seeker packed some belongings.

She was still waiting ten minutes later when Seeker came back downstairs bearing saddlebags, and exited with the zebra who stopped to lock the door behind her. "So like a surgeon with a knife, I remove this part of my life. Adventures new I have to see, and I cannot bring this part with me," she said, almost like a ritual.

The filly said nothing as Seeker did whatever she did, but was slightly surprised when she left the key in the door. "You're just leaving that there for whoever finds it?"

Seeker nodded, "A new path lies before me, so on the old path I lock this door and leave this key. Now with haste we must leave this city, to be caught now would be a pity."

"Okay, but I don't know how. The tunnel was guarded when we tried it earlier, and it might still be now."

"Try it we shall, and we shall see, if a way out it can still be." Seeker led them down the steps and was about to lead them towards the upper city when the filly called out to stop her.

"We shouldn't go that way. They took Fleur to the castle so the upper city might have more soldiers there. There's another way in through a house in the lower city, but that might still be guarded too." Seeker didn't argue with her so she led them down into the lower city. Contrary to the filly's earlier belief, there were still soldiers patrolling the city, but much of their activity seemed to concentrate on the direct path between the castle and the front gate. Pearl had said something about new orders, and the filly wasn't about to waste time speculating about what those might be as long as they didn't involve getting in her way.

Instead they took the long way, looping all around the back of the city and completely avoiding the thickest areas of soldier activity. They made it to the house relatively quickly with how quiet it was everywhere else, and Seeker led the way inside, her body taut and ready to fight. There was nothing to find though as the house was empty. "It would seem the soldiers are gone, but it does not appear for long." She pointed to a fire that was still smouldering in the fireplace.

"They were in the basement when we were here before," the filly told her. She pulled the trapdoor to the basement up and looked down through it. The only sign of the soldiers being there was the collection of beer bottles scattered across the floor. She descended the stairs and entered the tunnel, only to find that clear too, so she led Seeker down to where the exit out of the city was.

As Fleur had suspected, the exit was blocked, but probably not as well as she had thought. The soldiers had dragged the crates out of the basement and stacked them in front of the hole, which would have been enough to stop them getting away if they were being chased, but now it was the work it was the work of a few minutes to move them, seeing as how they had been emptied of their contents. Behind them, they found that a grid of metal bars had been bolted over the hole.

"Mother fuckers!" the filly swore. Clearly the idea here had been to have them waste time moving the crates, just to find themselves still trapped by the bars. Twilight and Trixie could've got through them with little difficulty, but the rest of them would've been screwed, especially since those hunters would've been on their way down here in the time they spent moving the crates. "Any ideas?" she asked.

"Hmm... I feel we have but one hope, which is to descend over the wall using a rope."

"So you have a rope, right?" Seeker pulled one out of her bags, "Awesome. But the walls are guarded, so we might have to think of something else."

"There are more to Night Maidens than meets they eye, we do more than sneak and spy," Seeker said cryptically. The filly wasn't very interested in cryptic nonsense at that moment though.

"Does that mean you can fight?" Seeker opened her mouth to answer, but stopped and nodded instead. "Good. You coulda just said so. We're going to have to if we're going to get past one of the stairs up the wall."

"Such a direct route we should not heed, a clear space and a grapple is all we need." Seeker pulled a grappling hook out of her bag for emphasis. "But in sight we'll be in front of all, and time we'll need to rappel the wall."

Seeker's rhyming was really beginning to lose its charm, and the filly had to stop herself from snapping at the one individual that was helping her to get out of the city. "Right, so let's do that, shall we?"

They made their way back up out of the tunnel and left the house before making their way to the outer wall. As suspected the wall was guarded but not so much as there wasn't many gaps in the patrols. Seeker tied the rope to the grapple and reared up onto her hind legs, twirling the grapple around before throwing it up onto the wall.

There was a quiet chink and Seeker pulled it experimentally, checking if its hold was solid. Then took hold of the rope in one hoof and braced her back legs on the wall and reached up to grab the rope on her other free hoof. She repeated the process, right, left, right, left, and ascended the rope quite quickly. The filly tied it around her chest and pulled it a couple of times to let Seeker know to pull her up.

While Seeker repositioned the grapple, the filly looked back over the city, and more specifically, at the castle. Fleur was in there somewhere, going through goodness knows what, and here the filly was trying to escape the city with the help of a zebra of all things, whom she didn't know and had no reason to trust. She hadn't even known zebras existed until recently. The point was that things turned out very different to how they hoped they would.

Her heart ached at the thought of leaving Fleur in the hooves of the hunters and the Duke, but what was she to do about it? She jumped when a hoof tapped her on the shoulder, only to relax again when she saw it was Seeker wanting her to go over the wall. She half climbed off the edge and hung her rear over the edge to let Seeker take her weight before letting go completely. She was half way down when a shout of "Hey you!" echoed around.

She was lowered a lot quicker after that, and she hit the ground quite hard. Hard enough to hurt, but not hard enough to do damage. She untied herself as quick as she could while the sound of fighting came from above her, and a moment later Seeker jumped over the wall after wrapping the rope around her leg. She groaned as the rope burned her as she quickly dropped, and jumped the last couple of meters to the ground as the soldiers tried to cut the rope.

"Run!" Seeker shouted, not bothering to formulate a rhyme. The thud of arrows hitting the ground around were the only accompaniment to the sound of them running, and that soon faded as they stole into the dark and away from Prance.

Twilight closed the book in front of her after having penned a quick letter to Sunset. She had also updated Celestia and Luna on what had gone on recently, as well as done some research into how the anti-teleportation stones worked since her study on alicorn regeneration was still hitting the same brick wall as before.

The crystal heart was still there, sat on its cushion, completely inert, and Twilight hadn't bothered with it since the work it would take to convert it to run off magical energy would take weeks to complete. Weeks she couldn't afford to give up on such a thing.

The pegasi had settled in well, the former breeders among them overjoyed at being able to finally keep their young. Rush had managed to convince a couple of hundred other pegasi to fight for the cause, who were being trained by the Wonderbolts.

It felt strange for Twilight to think this, but in a strange, far off country, where she was leading a group of freedom fighters against a tyrannical Duke and his government, she was bored. Until they got some news from Fleur she had little to do at Puddingarde.

Sure there were many of the smaller towns and villages around Mareitania that they could go pay a personal visit to, but judging by the news they had received from these places, their attempt to force the Grand Army to divide its attention through enforcing martial law in many places was only proving semi successful, with many of the smaller places like Hoovendale being totally ignored.

Bitmark was proving their biggest success as many of the residents there remembered the last occupation by the Grand Army, and weren't too happy to see them again. The only problem there was that they blamed the rebels just as much for it, so Twilight thought it mightn't hurt to pay them a personal visit to try and convince them of the best path.

But all that would have to wait until Fleur and the filly got back, because Twilight was reluctant to go and divert her resources somewhere else just to be told that Prance was in desperate need, or if they didn't come back and they had to mount a rescue. So instead she stayed in Puddingarde, being totally bored.

Twilight had promised another week to Fleur before coming in for a rescue, so until then she would have to find something to do. Maybe I could work on a teleport that works around the disruptions of those stones. She pulled out her research notes and skimmed through them as a reminder. The stones worked by throwing waves of energy on a range of certain wavelengths that conflicted with the magical effects of teleportation by preventing a unicorn's, or alicorn's, horn from forming magic at the frequency that teleportation worked at while doing nothing to other forms of magic.

It was basically a very fancy and subtle method of flicking a pony's horn as they were trying to teleport. Twilight wasn't sure why they hadn't made stones that disrupted more than just teleportation, but that might have been due to the nature of the stones. If they tried to create a stone that tried to stop all magic it might end up working against itself, and Twilight's speculations led to some interesting, if probably inaccurate, theories of what might happen in that case. In most of them you didn't want to be a unicorn when it happened. In some it didn't matter what kind of pony you were.

She started the preliminary outline of a form of teleportation spell that worked outside of that particular range of frequencies, which was tricky since that was the frequency that magic moved matter at. Twilight's idea was to overpower the spell and push through the disruption. The danger was that the stone could disrupt the spell between point a and point b, meaning that you pretty much disappeared with a flash and never came back because you dissolved mid way. Maybe I ought to try something else...

The door to the command room flew open with a bang! "Yaah!" Twilight cried, throwing her quill into the corner of the room as Octavia ran in as fast as she could.

"Twilight!"

"What!?"

"You need to get upstairs right now! We've got a huge problem..."

Author's Notes:

Totally remembered to push the publish button this time! Get in!

Not sure how well this chapter works, like, at all, but whatever... Never realised how hard it could be to formulate something like that, that not only seems possible but plausible. Oh well, I'll leave it to you guys to judge.