He hardly walked up the stairs with his hurt stomach, with a piece of cloth against his belly soaked in water and blood.
The ground floor was empty, and he didn't expect to find nopony in the first floor. He entered in the godfather's office and found a note in the table next to a pair of binoculars.

Mane took a second reading, then he took the binoculars and looked through the window. In the said trees, he saw a pink character, Pinkamena, in her underwear, tied with a long chain around the legs, torso and arms. Behind her, pointing a pistol at her head, was the infamous dark yellow pegasus, Don Topaz with a fierce look, screaming something at Pinkamena which was struggling against her captor.

It was a stalemate...
Anything he would do would result in a lose. Taking a deep breath, he walked out the house, and he felt his body weakening even more from the previous mega power he used against Beryl.
Mane tried to speed up is pace but his legs were burning from inside, with all It's muscles sore just like the rest of his body. He walked behind the safe house close to the garden's walls while observing the landscape with a sad expression both in face and mind.

He kept walking and started to see Pinkamena and Topaz more clearly in the distance, and started raising his hands in the air.
Mane walked closer and stopped 10 meters away from them.

"So you really survived." Don Topaz commented, looking at Mane's belly covered red and his left forearm with a nasty looking bruise. "But not without a fight."

"I guess the fight was necessary..." Mane answered in a tired voice. "Topaz... don't hurt her more... we can talk something out."

"Talk? You want to TALK?!" Topaz pressed the barrel of the pistol against Pinkamena's head even more, making her moan in pain. "After all the shit you did to me and my empire, you wanna TALK?!"

"MANE!" She called, even if Topaz kept telling her to shut up. "Where are the others?"

"It's only me..." Mane sighed sadly.

"Wha... what?" She asked baffled without knowing what to think.

"I got banned... It's a long story..." The grey unicorn sounded defeated giving all the circumstances.

"You came all this way alone... and fought alone... to rescue me?" Pinkamena shed a tear of amazement.

"You're my only true friend in this world." Mane stated with a smile.

"How cute..." Don Topaz took his free hand to inside his suit, pulled a second pistol and pointed at Mane, keeping his first pistol still pointed at Pinkamena. "NOW you will get to die together!"

"I should have known." Mane knelled down in defeat and frustration. "Pinka..."

"Yes?" The pink mare looked at him in the eyes.

"I just want to let you know... I loved these months I spent living with you."

"Me too, Mane..." She sobbed, awaiting the triggers to be pulled.

Mane and Pinkamena closed their eyes, awaiting for the big final of their lives. Topaz let out an evil laugh and aligned the second flintlock pistol with Mane's head, and started to close his fingers.

An explosion far away was hear, and they opened their eyes. Confusion took over those three, with Topaz still pointing the pistols at them but looking around for the source of the sound.
Suddenly, Topaz's head exploded in gore. Blood and brain bits stained Pinkamena's face while Mane got up with difficulties trying to figure out what happened.
The godfather's body fell on the grass without life. His face was beyond recognition, completely destroyed by something.

"The fuck?!" Pinkamena yelled in pure confusion.

They stared at the faceless corpse in the ground, some seconds later they snapped and Pinkamena called Mane to look for the keys in Topaz's pockets, which he obeyed and opened the lock from Pinkamena's chains.
The moment her arms were completely free, she hugged Mane like she never did before, but he didn't hug back for some reason.

"Mane..!" She cried in happiness, with her head against his fluffy chest. "Thank you, thank you,thank you!"

"Don't sweat It... you would have done the same." He petted her back and felt something on his fingers. He looked and It was blood. "Did they hurt you?"

"Y-yeah... whipping and... that was all. They didn't "touch" me." She drawn the quotation marks with her hands.

Mane's horn glowed red and levitated Topaz's corpse in the air, casting a fireball on making the corpse now a bonfire. And with all his strength in his magic, he hurled the body two hundred meters away into the distance towards the chasm between the mountains, where the burning body without a face fell in the almost bottomless abyss.

The grey unicorn excused himself for the sudden aggressive behavior towards a dead body, but Pinkamena understood what went through his head. Slowly, Mane's body started to go numb with every breath he was taking, and his eyes starting look drowsy.

"Mane? Are you alright?" Pinkamenas asked, taking a hand to his forehead and feeling the heat coming from inside.

"Ju-just... give a mo-moment... Ponk..." Mane's body fell to the side without any life, even though It was clearly seen he was still breathing.

"Shaker, wake up! It's starting to freeze here!" Pinka called again, starting to shiver with the end of the day coming for an end and the sun almost completely set.

For a moment, she started to wonder who killed Don Topaz and saved them. She kept trying to wake up Mane, but nothing was making the stallion move. Only his chest going up and down with his slow sleeping breath.
Steps were heard close by, and Pinkamena grabbed grabbed one of Topaz's pistols laying on the floor, turned around and pointed at who could be.

A cyan mare with dark orange hair, wearing clothes made for winter with a cloak over them, and holding a musket with a scope which seemed heavy. The mare smiled at Pinkamena pointing the pistol at her.

"Hello again, Pinka..." Dark Sigil giggled.

"Sigil... where are the others?" Pinkamena asked, lowering the weapon.

"They are cleaning the area around the house. Don't worry... you are safe now. Copper and Quill came along, sorry we took a bit longer but Quill's age doesn't forgive his bones much less cold places like the mountains."

"But... Mane said he got expelled! What is going on?!" The pink mare demanded answers, confused with every statement.

"First of, cover yourself." Sigil took out her cloak and threw It at Pinkamena, which was standing there in her underwear. "Second, stay here with him, I'll come back with some of Copper's soldiers to carry him inside the house. We are going to stay here for some days, and I have a lot to tell you..."