Outside, the Prison had changed dramatically. Where once the entire courtyard had been lit, now there were large patches of darkness from smashed lights. Bodies of both Guards and inmates were scattered across the ground, lying in pools of their own blood, some still with crossbow bolts or shanks stuck in their bodies. The rain had slowed, but not ceased, and the icy air chilled both stallions. The alarms had been silenced, leaving only an eerie, dead silence in their wake. Above them, the watchtowers stood silent sentinel; no doubt the snipers that had once occupied them were gone.

Phillip moved ahead, sticking to the shadows as much as possible. Shining followed him, both of them continually panning their heads back and forth, watching for any sign of movement or sound.

Suddenly, there came a feeble, shallow breathing sound from up ahead. Hurrying forward, Shining lit up his horn to reveal a wounded Guard lying on the ground, his helmet knocked off to reveal a long, damp light brown mane and full beard and dim blue eyes. Blood seeped from between the Guard's hooves, which were clutched tightly around his stomach.

Shining knelt beside the soldier and tilted his head up. It took a second for the other pony to recognize him. "Don't stop for me, Cap," he whispered, coughing. "It's too late for me."

"Don't try to speak," Shining said, moving to lift the dying pony up with his magic. "We're going to take you to safety."

The Guard shook his head. "No...they took...hostages...to the medical wing..." Weakly, he raised a hoof, pointing towards the hospital building in the distance. "They've got...the Deputy Warden...you have to..." He coughed once more, then took in a slow, rattling breath. The little light that was left in the pony's eyes faded away, leaving only the reflection of Shining's magic in them.

Slowly, Shining Armor lowered the body to the ground, gently closing his soldier's eyes with his magic. "I'm sorry," he whispered. He looked up at Phil, who was also staring down at the corpse, his expression hidden by the shadows. "Come on. You wanted to see what Zugzwang was doing. Let's go see."

The two continued on their way, heading towards the two-story whitewashed building in the distance. The lights around the hospital were still on, illuminating the bright red medical cross above the double doors, which beckoned them onwards from the shadows. The windows, all of which were raised off the ground to make them harder to access, were blocked off with iron shutters, making access through them impossible.

As they approached, the door abruptly opened. Dodging behind a dumpster, Shining and Phil looked ahead to see three convicts, all armed with shotguns, exiting the building. "Okay, boss says nopony gets in here!" said the apparent leader, a broad-shouldered earth pony with a matted brown mane. "Anything moves, you shoot first, ask questions never!"

"You got it!" replied one of the others, a blue pegasus with tattoos across his body. "Anypony coming this way is dead!" He flapped up into the air, shotgun at the ready. The other two stood by the doors.

Shining glared at them from around the dumpster. The lights made it impossible for them to get close without being seen, nor to get around to the back. "Looks like that's our way in, then," he whispered to Phillip. "I'll make a shield with my magic and—"

"No," Phillip replied. "That'll drain too much of your magic, and they'll just alert their friends on the inside." His eyes panned over the three gunponies, planning his strategy. "Can you disable the lights?"

Frowning in concentration, Shining lit up his horn and sent out a quick pulse of magic. The spotlights around the building flickered, then went out.

"Hey! What happened to the lights?" the broad-shouldered pony shouted. The convicts turned on stolen flashlights attached to their shoulders and began panning the area.

"I think I saw something over there!" the pegasus shouted, flying over to the dumpster from which he'd seen a faint purple light. Aiming the shotgun from his shoulder, he slowly panned the flashlight back and forth, looking for any trace. "Who's out there? Show yourselves!" No answer came from the darkness. Flapping down to the ground in front of the dumpster, the pegasus squinted into the shadows.

That's when he heard a quiet cough behind him. Turning, he caught a glimpse of a hoof flying out of the open dumpster before it struck him in the nose, forcing him to drop his weapon. Before he could cry out in pain, another blow to the throat knocked the wind out of him, then a final strike to his jaw knocked him out.

Climbing out of the dumpster, Shining and Phillip both silently sprinted across the grounds towards the other two convicts, who had split up and were facing away from one another. Neither heard them coming, and neither stood a chance: within a second of each other, both were brought down with a takedown, knocked out and relieved of their weapons.

"There'll be more inside," Phillip said as Shining cast immobilization spells over the unconscious ponies.

"My predecessor always said, 'Who Dares, Wins,'" Shining said. "We're not solving anything by standing out here, that's for sure."

Carefully, the two approached the front doors, which Shining opened slowly with his magic. The interior reception room was empty, dimly lit with a single lamp. Blood was splattered across the floor and walls, and overturned chairs and tables were scattered across the room. There was nopony in sight. Silent as palace mice, Shining and Phillip crept through the room and walked through a set of double doors, following a trail of blood droplets down the tiled hallway.

The trail led around a corner; lowered voices could be heard from up ahead. The ponies paused, pressing their backs up against the wall. Phillip tapped Shining on the shoulder and handed him a small mirror. Taking it in his magic, Shining used it to carefully peek around the corner.

In the reflection, he could see the main treatment room, a large area with several beds lined up against the walls. The privacy curtains between the beds had been taken down, as had most of the machinery. Sitting in the center of the room were several nurses and doctors in white coats, as well as Closed File, who was shivering as he sat curled up in a ball in the middle of the bunch. A group of four Guards, two of them apparently badly wounded and unable to sit up, were amongst the hostages. Three convicts surrounded them, all of them armed with makeshift clubs and blades.

"They'll see us if we charge head-on," Shining whispered. "We have to make them look the other way."

"You're the one with the magic," Phillip pointed out.

Tilting the mirror to examine the room, Shining saw that there were some chairs stacked against the back wall. Leaning out past the doorway, he lit up his horn and reached out with his magic. The chairs lifted up into the air, then fell to the floor with a loud crashing. Every head turned at the sudden noise.

"Now!" Shining whisper-shouted, moving around the corner and sprinting up the hallway, Phillip right on his tail. The inmates turned too late: Shining's spell disarmed one of them while Phil's boomerang stunned two others, giving them time to race up and bring them all down.

"Are you all all right?" Phillip asked, bending over the hostages.

"Oh, thank Celestia you're here!" Closed File exclaimed, grasping his hoof with both of his own and shaking it. "These thugs brought me right here from the cellblock! I thought they were going to kill me!"

"You're all safe now," Shining said. "We can get you over to the bunker in the administrative building."

"But what about the others?" one of the nurses asked in a quivering voice.

"What others?" Phillip asked urgently.

"They took Doctors Patella and Healspark away," the nurse replied. "We don't know why. They could be dead by now!"

Shining and Phillip shared a glance. "All right, stay here," Shining announced. "We're going to go look for them."

"Are you sure?" the nurse asked.

"It's our job," Phillip replied, following Shining out the door. "Keep quiet. We'll be back." And without another word, he exited the room, closing the door behind him and entering the hallway to the specialized treatment rooms. The thin hallway was dark, with many of the lights broken or hanging off their hinges, casting eerie shadows across the wall. Most of the doors were locked tight, and the usually clean floor was now covered in garbage and stained with blood. The stallions' hoofsteps echoed endlessly, providing a haunting soundtrack, the only sound aside from the occasional squeak of a slowly swinging lamp.

The two reached a T-junction when Phillip abruptly flung out a hoof. He froze, his body stiffening and eyes widening as he sniffed the air. "Do you smell smoke?"

"It's coming from down here," Shining said, trotting down the right hallway, which led towards the doctor's offices. As they turned the corner, Shining saw another dead Guard, sitting against the wall in a coagulating pool of his own blood. He paused, bending down over the corpse.

"They'll pay," he growled beneath his breath, his hoof trembling as he gently closed the younger stallion's eyes. "Every one of them will pay."

"They will, Captain. But you need to stay focused," Phil said as he walked past. Getting to his hooves, Shining followed Phil towards the one office that had an open door. The sign on the frosted glass said "Dr. Healspark."

Inside the cramped room was an oak desk, papers spread across the top. Shelves of books lined the walls. The only decoration in the entire office was a photograph in a golden frame on the desk. Picking it up, Phillip saw that the picture was of a young unicorn mare, a little younger than Twilight, with a golden coat, a wavy pink mane and big green eyes, smiling happily at the camera. She was standing next to a small cottage that sat upon a patch of green grass, happily holding up a "SOLD" sign in a pale green aura. Her cutie mark was a trio of tulips, pink, green and white.

Examining the picture frame, Phillip noticed that the right edge of the gold was faded and there were streaks over the glass. Healspark frequently holds this, he thought, turning the picture over to examine the back. Sure enough, there was writing on the back: "All settled in, Dad! Love you!"

Putting down the photo of Healspark's daughter, Phillip's nose directed his attention to the garbage bin. Lying in the bottom was a pile of burned papers, still wafting faint smoke. The writing on them was too burned to be discernible. "Hmm," Phil muttered, looking around the rest of the room. On one shelf behind him, some books had been replaced out of order—odd, considering that every other book was positioned with a regularity and order that suggested minor OCD to Phillip. Moving the books aside, he found that there was a safe in the wall behind the shelf. Finding that the door hadn't been shut properly, he opened it up to find that it was empty.

"Why would he burn his notes?" he muttered to himself.

"We need to keep looking," Shining said from the door. "Come on." He guided Phil back down the hallway towards the left. The lights down this hallway had been broken, leaving only intermittent patches of light and darkness. Up ahead, the two saw a pair of flashlight beams dancing on the wall.

"Remind me why the boss wants the doctors alive?" a voice asked from around a corner. Peeking around, Phil and Shining saw two inmates, both equipped with flashlights and batons, standing in front of a pair of double doors labelled "Surgery."

"We operate on a strictly need-to-know basis," another voice replied impatiently. "And all we need to know is that if we do what we're told, we get paid and we get to keep breathing."

"I want out of here," the first pony grumbled. "I've been on this island for five stinking years. I want to look at something besides concrete walls for once."

"You'll get your chance, we all will," his partner answered. "Now just shut up and keep a lookout."

Shining turned to Phil, lighting up his horn just enough so they could see each other. "What do you think?"

"I have an idea," Phil said and whistled softly, just loud enough for the enemies up ahead to hear him.

"Did you hear that?" one of the inmates said. "Let's check it out." The two walked around the corner, only to have Phil leap up, seize them both by the head and slam them together like a pair of cymbals, hard enough to knock them both out.

"A little more communication would have been appropriate," Shining glared at Phil, who coolly walked around the corner and set himself up at the door. Shining slowly opened the door a crack and the two of them peeked through it.

The door led into the surgery room. The bed and equipment had all been shoved to the side, but the center lamps were on, illuminating two doctors sitting tied up and gagged in the center of the room. Doctor Patella was a tall, thin, white-coated earth pony with blue eyes and mane and the cutie mark of a pair of crossed bones. Her companion, Doctor Healspark, was a brown unicorn with green eyes and a black mane and a cutie mark of a red six-pointed star.

Shining and Phil glanced at each other. There might as well have been a sign that "It's A Trap," but what choice did they have? Opening the door, Shining and Phil trotted towards the hostages, whose eyes widened as they approached. Shining removed their gags.

"Your Highness, it's a trap!" Doctor Patella shouted as soon as her mouth was free.

"Obviously," Shining replied calmly, turning around.

The lights suddenly snapped on, revealing several inmates emerging from various hiding places in the theater and circling their two prey. One of the ponies stepped forward, leering over Shining. This pony was twice as big as most stallions and seemed to be made of solid muscle. His coat and mane were the same gray-brown color, his body was adorned with scars and tattoos, and his cutie mark was of a large sledgehammer. He might have been slightly intimidating if his mean little black eyes weren't set a little too close together. They made him look like a cross between a pony and a gorilla, but less intelligent.

"Boss wants 'em alive," he growled, showing his misaligned, yellowing teeth. "Get 'em, boys!"

The thugs charged as one, only to be thrown backwards by a shield of purple energy. Phillip and Shining leapt into the fray, their batons a blur of motion, striking weak targets and deflecting attacks. Bones snapped, objects smashed and one by one, the thugs dropped like flies.

Phil smashed one attacker in the face with his own club and knocked his legs out from beneath him with a sweep of his baton, finishing him with a kick to the jaw. Hearing thudding hoofsteps behind him, he turned to see the musclebound stallion charging at him like a train. Waiting until the last second, Phillip dodged to the side and snapped his leg out in a roundhouse kick to his target's thigh. Most ponies would have been dropped right away with a kick that strong, but the behemoth just laughed.

"Hit so I can feel it, flathoof!" he taunted, swinging his boulder-like hooves at Phillip's head. He ducked and weaved around him, waiting for an opportunity to counterattack. Slipping a straight punch, Phillip snapped his baton out at a floating rib. The only effect was making the gorilla-like pony strike him across the face, knocking him down. With a laugh, his attacker pounced on his chest, wrapping his humongous hooves around his neck and squeezing.

"Not so tough now!" he taunted, banging Phillip's head against the floor repeatedly. His vision blurring around the edges, Phillip tried to break the grip around his neck, but it was tighter than an iron vise.

"Finder!" Shining called to him from across the room, and Phillip saw something flying through the air towards him, carried in a sparkling purple aura. Reaching out, he seized the mace container and immediately sprayed a large dose into his attacker's eyes. Instantly, he reared back, clutching his face in pain. Flipping back to his hooves, Phil unleashed a flurry of strikes, knocking him back towards Shining Armor, who finished him with a powerful stunning spell right to the head.

Panting, Phil looked at the mace container, then pocketed it. "I should start carrying this," he muttered to himself.

Shining untied the two doctors and helped them stand. "I'm sorry, Your Highness," Doctor Healspark said in a soft voice. "We tried to tell you, but we couldn't speak."

"It's all right, we can handle these low-life thugs," Shining assured them. "We're going to get you to the administrative building. You'll be safe there."

"Thank you," Healspark said, following his companion out the door with Shining. Phillip brought up the rear. His eyes never left Healspark for a moment.

Author's Notes:

Things are moving along at a trotting pace, but things are not as they seem...

More soon.