It seemed that the exact moment Scootaloo chose to stop and think was the same moment at which the two of them could hear hoofsteps outside the door, faint at first but growing closer.

"Quick!" Scootaloo hissed, dashing back to the far end of the room. "Lift him up on your back, and I'll take care of the door."

Even Later frantically got to work with her front hooves, attempting to take hold of Clove Hitch's limp form and push him up; however, his body was proving much too unwieldy for her to lift with her hooves alone, as there was no real way to hold on when his limbs kept moving around. "I'm not so sure I can do this..." Later exhaled with frustration, Clove's foreleg half-dangled over her back.

Scootaloo took one look at the mare and then facehoofed. "Are you or are you not a unicorn, dang it?!"

"Oh!" Later exclaimed, face lighting up in shock. "Right, right!" She immediately let Clove's body drop back onto the floor, stepping back with her face wrought in concentration. A green spark leapt from her horn, blossoming out into a green aura which surrounded Clove Hitch before slowly lifting him a metre in the air and then over to Later's back, upon which she carefully dropped him. His hooves hung down on either side of her and his head lolled off to the right, but he was about as secured in place as he was ever going to be.

"Nnngh... okay..." Later mumbled under her breath. She looked up to see Scootaloo still crouched at the far wall of the room, eyeing the the thick metal door with an odd expression. "I thought... I thought you were going to take care of the door?"

"Don't think I'll have to," Scootaloo grumbled. She gestured with her head and said nothing more; this, of course, was to draw attention to the sound of the hoofsteps. Or, as it were, the lack thereof. In its place there was the gentle rattling of keys and then the sound of one being inserted in the lock, which then make mechanical sounds as it turned.

And then the door swung open.

In the door frame stood a beige unicorn mare with a drab black vest, a flat expression on her face. She didn't look surprised to see additional ponies besides Clove Hitch; on the contrary, she looked very much like she had expected them. "Evening, ponies," she said slowly. "My name is Ms. Haze. I see that you neglected to think of that we might have video surveillance around our building."

"H-hi there," Later croaked. Scootaloo turned to glare at her.

"Don't talk to her," the filly hissed.

The beige mare's expression morphed into a wry smile. "Come, now, Scootaloo, it would be a lot easier if you would co-operate."

"I don't know who you think I am, but I didn't come here to 'co-operate'," Scootaloo sneered, remaining crouched in the far corner of the room. "Please, just leave us alone."

"You know we can't do that, kid," Haze replied, her tone condescending. "We're really quite interested in what you have to say, and where you're from. I don't know why you're getting all mixed up with these"—she turned to give an ugly look in Later's direction—"rebel riffraff, but I can assure you that all we want is to talk."

"These are my friends," Scootaloo shot back emphatically, "and they didn't decide to throw me in prison the first time they saw me."

"Not yet they haven't," Haze replied, still smirking. "And yet they're sending you from place to place, which I'm sure will lead them to taking you off to their rebel base in Prince-knows-where, fighting for a cause you don't even understand. There's really no reason for you to do that, Scootaloo."

For a moment, Scootaloo looked as if she were going to falter. Yet at the sound of her name, she snarled. "Don't say my name, jerk!" It was then that she made the first motion from her odd crouched position, revealing exactly why she had been crouched like that. It wasn't to buck down the door at all; no, it was for her to gallop forward, picking up speed until she was not a metre away from the beige mare and she jumped up, sailing forward with her hooves outstretched.

Thwak! She smashed into the unsuspecting form of Ms. Haze, who had only just started to step back before plummeting beneath Scootaloo to the ground. The filly hopped off and quickly bucked backwards, sending Haze flying in a skid down the hallway. Then, Scootaloo turned back to Later.

"C'mon, and hurry!" Scootaloo urged her, looking frantically from the weighed-down mare to the hallway ahead of them. "I don't know how long until the other guards start coming!"

"I thought the point was to make as little of a kerfuffle as possible," Later huffed as she jogged forward, unable to go faster because of the stallion draped over her back.

"Um, that kind of ended the moment that mare started walking to the room," Scootaloo shot back. "Let's just try and get out of here without getting killed, or captured, or whatever."

"Alright, alright," Later agreed. She looked forward, where the hallway extended for a few dozen metres before turning into stairs. "Uhh... thataway?"

"Probably!" Scootaloo exclaimed, already dashing in that direction. "Guess there's only one way to find out!"