"I will check on you every week," Princess Celestia says on the other side of the bars.

"Please don't," Shade replies as she sits on her haunches and closes her eyes.

"Food is served automatically on the pedestal in the left corner. Since you have volunteered to stay here, you have better accommodations than the rest of those here," Princess Celestia explains.

"Thank you," Shade says with her eyes still shut.

Princess Celestia takes that as her cue to leave.

Shade waits an hour to test the waters. She tests the door and finds it unlocked. Once she opens the door, Princess Celestia pops in front of her. A speech later, and Shade learns that Celestia can sense when the door opens and when magic hits the bars. She also learns that since she is there voluntarily, Celestia leaves the door unlock so that Shade can go at any time.

Shade begins to search her room for objects to use for an escape. She finds a small mirror in a drawer by the bed the answer to her problem. She slides the mirror under the cell door. Looking at the mirror between the bars, Shade can not help but grin. In a blink, she finds herself outside the cell. She picks up the mirror with her magic and pulls it along with her.

Phase One complete. Now, to locate Tirek. Shade walks down the hallway and after ten minutes discovers that the hallway ends and opens up to a vast area of craggy spires and black stairs. Standing around will not bring her any closer to Tirek. She continues down the stairs to head to the next tower.

When she steps off the last step of the stairs, a strange scent assaults her nose and makes her gag. The smell is a mix of feces, mud, sweat, and canine. Before she can cast a masking spell, a quake destabilizes her and makes her fall flat on her belly. Growling makes her look up. A three-headed, massive, vicious, black canine stands in front of her with gnashing teeth and slobbering maws.

Shade scowls at the hulking dog and stands to her feet. "What are you looking at, mutt?" she snarks.

Cerberus roars at Shade and charges at her.

"Sit!" Shade orders.

Cerberus stops in his tracks for a second, shakes his heads, and lunges at Shade. Shade jumps up and punches the middle head between its eyes. Cerberus recoils back. The two heads whimper as the middle head dangles unconscious.

"Sit," Shade repeats between her teeth.

Cerberus obediently sits down on its haunches in a submissive posture.

"Where is Tirek?"

The dog raises its right paw to point at the right-most tower of spires.

"Stay," Shade tells the dog and starts to walk to the stairs that lead up to Tirek.

Ten minutes later, Shade is walking down a dimly lit hallway. The glow of her magic illuminates the way for her. At a bend in the hallway, Shade can see Tirek's small cage twenty feet away. Shade quietly makes her way to the centaur. The hallway ends at an open atrium where Tirek sat in his cage as he meditates.

"Tirek," Shade calls out to the centaur. Black eyes with white glowing pupils open and focus on her.

"That is 'Lord Tirek' to you, pony," he corrects the ivory mare before him with a hoarse voice. He jumps to his hooves and examines the pony closer. A unicorn with three horns? "I can feel your power. Did Celestia finally bring me a snack?"

"You are going to tell me the magic absorption spell," Shade states calmly.

"Bwahahaha!" Tirek chortles. "I will do no such thing." Scraping across the floor catches his attention. He sees the mirror the pony was holding in her magic on the floor in front of him. He looks up and notices the pony suddenly in front of him. Flames flicker in her eyes.

"I never said you would tell me willingly," Shade grins devilishly.

"You made a terrible mistake of entering my cell, pony!" Tirek roars.

He opens his maw to absorb the pony's magic, but a punch shut his mouth. He growls and swings his fist at the pony who ducks under the punch. Tirek kicks at her with his foreleg, but she grabs his hoof and drives her horns into his chest. He gasps as the longest horn penetrates his sternum and barely misses his heart. He is petrified when the mare lifts him up and slams him on the ground.

"Wait!" he pleads. The mare puts down her hoof and glares at him with her eyes of hot iron. He clutches the gaping wound and says, "I will teach you the spell. Just spare me!"

"I think not," the pale pony replies as she steps closer to him.

Tirek smirks and trips the mare with his right foreleg. He then punches her jaw with his left foreleg and sends her reeling. Shade spins around on her forelegs and has enough time to buck Tirek in the barrel which makes him fall back down. Tirek groans and pants slowly. The centuries of no magic and blood loss left him fighting this battle with a handicap. He is going to make the mare fight for her prize.

Shade rubs her jaw and grins at the centaur while his blood drips down her face. "Too bad I only get to fight you in your sorry state," she gibes.

Tirek throws dust into Shade's face temporarily blinding the pony. He capitalizes on her disorientation and opens his mouth again to drain her magic.

Shade feels her skin begin to crawl. Her horn flares and she shouts, "Fine! Taste my magic!" She blasts at the last known location of the centaur. A roar notifies her that she hit her mark. She jumps at the noise and tackles Tirek to the ground. She wraps her forehooves around his barrel and raises him up on her hind legs to suplex him to the stone floor.

Tirek groans as the stars flash in his eyes. He howls in pain when he feels his legs snap in half by magic. He looks up in horror at the panting pony before him, standing on her hind legs.

"If you would have died nice and quickly you wouldn't have pissed me," the pony snarls and crashes down on his ribs, "OFF!"

His broken ribs puncture his lungs.

Shade uses this time to conjure up a knife and begins removing the crown of Tirek's skull to expose his brain. Tirek twitches on the ground, fully aware of the pony's plans. While his heart still beats, Tirek is conscious as the pony cuts apart his brain a slice at a time.

Cerberus covers his ears as a yell splits the silence. The heinous sound sends shivers down his spine and his collars jingle as he quivers in fear.

Shade licks the last remnants of gray matter from her hoof. She licks her chops in satisfaction. She looks at the centaurs dead body and protruding tongue and grunts in dark humor. She slides the mirror out of the cell and teleports to the mirror. She crushes the glass and plastic under a hoof before returning to Cerberus.

Cerberus quakes under the gaze of the pale pony. It swallows loudly and tries to keep his lunch down when the smell of death reaches his nostrils.

"You are much more well behaved than that centaur," Shade comments. She peeks around the black mutt and sees a pair of gold gates a short distance away. She returns her attention to the dog, "Is there another way outta here?"

The two heads nod quickly.

"Lead the way."

Cerberus leads Shade down a corridor to the left and finally stops at relatively large, empty room. There were three mirrors, each taking up residence in the middle of a wall. Shade looks up at Cerberus questioningly. The collars of the awake heads light up, and the left and right mirrors begin to glow green and blue, respectively, while the middle mirror did nothing.

Shade looks at the mirrors then back at the dog. "So which one takes me home?"

Cerberus points at the three mirrors.

"Which one is closest to Ponyville?"

Cerberus points at the three mirrors again.

"Great," Shade replies dryly.

Now that she knows of a way out, Shade travels back to the main hub of stairs. She exhales all the breath in her lungs and starts to suck in all the magic from the residents of Tartarus. Power begins to fill her. She starts to levitate off the ground as her eyes glow white. After about ten minutes of absorbing magic, she floats higher into the air as her body glows. The magic makes her grow to the size of Princess Cadence and her longest horn is now twenty inches and her smaller horns skyrocket from three inches to ten inches.Shade floats to the ground and breathes deeply.

Shade conjures a mirror to see herself.

"Wow. . . I hope my friends will not notice," Shade says out loud. She does not complain about her new body and banishes the mirror away.

She returns to the portal room and with a huff decides to enter the mirror closest to her the one on the right.

Too bad Shade can not understand animals. She may have heard Cerberus tell her that right mirror sends her forward in time while the center mirror would have sent her back to present time. Oh well.