Chapter 154

“I didn’t read that, Midnight, sorry,” Knight Mare said, pressing a fingertip to her earpiece.

”I said... ... inkie Pi... ... ... ell of a mess... ... ere. She’s doing her jo... ... ... m.

The red-head sighed and shook her head, facing her blonde and rainbow-hawked teammates. “You guys get that?”

Alphajack shook her head while Black Prism rubber her chin thoughtfully.

“Actually, it kiiiiiinda sounded like Pink--er, Sugar Shadows is making a ‘hell of a mess,’ which is good, right?”

“I guess so,” Knight Mare said, looking down at her shoulder to adjust the point of her collar, making sure they hung symmetrically over her shoulders.

“Ugh…” Alphajack rolled her eyes. “Will ya quit messin with that? Ya look fine!”

“It’s just… thing thing’s never fit right,” the red-head grunted, rolling her arms around in their sockets to get the suit to sit naturally. “I keep telling Rare--I mean, the… you know who to fix it, but she keeps telling me it’s fine.”

Black Prism scratched her cheek. “OK, one question: if these guys all know who we are, why can’t we just say our real names?”

Knight Mare paused for a second, staring at the wall, and then turned to face the rainbow-haired girl. “Cuz… it’s just… it’s a good habit to get into.”

Black Prism folded her eyes and rolled her arms.

“That’s a good point, actually,” Alphajack said, pursing her lips. “Not everyone is gonna know who we are; might as well git used ta usin our superhero names.”

“Thank you,” Knight Mare said, bowing slightly to the blonde.

Each of them drew a breath and waited, watching the numbers above the door. The ‘24’ button had been illuminated for some time; Twilight was keeping the door shut remotely, and they were waiting until the time was right.

“Sunset Shimmer,” Black Prism blurted suddenly, prompting Knight Mare to huff angrily and turn to face her.

HEY! Shut-up, you asshole!” she shouted, making Prism cackle with laughter.

Even Alphajack couldn’t help herself. “Heh heh heh! Now that was funny!”

Sighing, Knight Mare folded her arms and faced the numbers again. “Come on, guys. This is serious.”

“Oh yeah, totally super cereal,” Black Prism mocked. “That’s why our friend is downstairs fucking things up while pretending to be Scarface.”

Aplhajack shook her head. “Dang. What I would’a given ta see that.”

PSHHH! I have... ... on film. I’ll... ... ow you later. It wa... ... ... cking crazy!”

“Sweet! Thanks, Midnight!” Black Prism said.

”... ... problem. OK... ... time to go. I’ll open the d... ... ou.

Alphajack shook her head and faced the red-head. “Dang, she wasn’t kiddin ‘bout the interference in here.”

Knight Mare nodded. “Yeah. Hopefully we don’t lose her when we’re in the middle of it.”

Ding!

All three girls readied their stance.

“OK, look alive, guys. This is it. The way should be clear; Midnight would have checked before opening the doors, but be ready just in case.”

They stood, frozen in place as the doors slid open, ready to charge forward into the proverbial Beaches of Normandy that potentially awaited them. The hallway, as it turned out, was deserted.

The trio relaxed, looking almost disappointed, but they had to remember: this was the whole reason for Pinkie’s role in the mission, of which she was clearly doing a job.

Knight Mare glanced at Alphajack and then Black Prism, nodding to each of them. “Let’s go,” she whispered.

With the red-head leading the way, the three of them filed out of the elevator one-by-one. They slipped quietly across the hall, huddling close to the wall as they slunk along; moving around like this would have been much more difficult if the cameras had been operational, but thanks to Twilight and Ingram’s app, the cameras were telling lies to whoever might have been watching.

Stopping at the corner to the next hall, Knight Mare glanced back at her teammates. “Prism, is there enough room in here for you to go into your speed mode?”

Black Prism glanced back the way they came, then leaned out a slightly to look forward before shaking her head. “I don’t think so. These hallways are too short.”

“Shit,” Knight Mare whispered, chewing her lip. “I guess we’ll have to stick to the original plan then.”

“You and AJ clear the way for me to use my magic to get to Adagio?”

Knight Mare nodded. “Yeah. Make sure you take out anyone covering her first; remove any danger to her first, then we’ll form a barrier around her while we get her out. Understood?”

Alphajack and Black Prism nodded.

“OK.” Knight Mare peered around the corner for a moment, then she turned back to face them. “There’s a coded door at the end of this hall. I think this is the last one; once I get us through, it’s pretty clear sailing from here. Security won’t be as tight with Father Tirek out of the building, but we should expect some coverage on Adagio, regardless.” She made eye contact with the rainbow-haired girl. “Prism, if you see a chance to go into your speed mode, do it.”

Black Prism saluted. “Done.”

Knight Mare nodded. “OK. Let’s move.”

Quietly, they shuffled around the corner, single file. The hall they found themselves in was more brightly lit, but was still devoid of any human presence. With Black Prism taking up the rear and watching their six, they made their way to the door at the end, its handle equipped with an electronic lock that required a coded card to unlock.

Drawing a breath, the red-head drew her phone from the pouch in the center of her belt and opened the app. “OK…” she sighed. “One more. Hopefully this works; this lock looks a little different than the others.”

“I’m sure ya can handle it,” Alphajack said, giving a firm slap to Knight Mare’s shoulder, almost knocking her down.

After regaining her balance, she turned back to face the blonde with what was probably a scowl hidden under that mask.

“Sorry,” the bigger girl said, withdrawing her hand.

After a moment, Knight Mare went back to what she was doing, saying nothing. She swiped through the app, looking for the lock decoder; then she held the phone close to the scanner and waited.

A tense moment passed slowly as she waited for the scanner to do its thing, and the other two girls glanced around, keeping a watchful eye.

“Hey, guys?” Black Prism said quietly.

“Yeah?--Come on, you fucking thing,” the red-head whispered at the phone, which seemed to be taking longer than usual to decode the lock.

“Um… Golds and I fucked yesterday.” Both Knight Mare and Alphajack’s heads snapped around to face her, their eyes wide with surprise. “I, uh… just thought you should know,” she continued.

After staring for a moment, Knight Mare closed her eyes and shook her head. “OK, first: why are you telling us this right now? And second: WHAT!?”

“Yeah, I thought ya weren’t interested in him?” Alphajack added.

Black Prism shrugged. “I dunno. I wasn’t, really. But he came to my apartment yesterday to give me shit for missing training, and… I’d kiiiinda been watching porn all night, so… I was in serious need of some dick…”

“Ugh…” Knight Mare rubbed her brow, cutting in. “Can we talk about this later?”

“…and then some dick literally knocked on my door, so I took it,” Prism finished,

Alphajack sneered. “Whaddaya mean, ‘literally?’ He knocked on the door with his pecker?”

“No!” Black Prism sneered back. “He used his fist --not on me, on the door-- and uh, so I let him in and we hung out for a bit, and uh… I was pretty horny, so I just said, ‘hey, you wanna fuck?’ and he said ‘sure,’ so I sucked him off and then rode the shit out of him.”

Alphajack looked skeptical. “Are ya sure it went just like that?”

“Pretty much,” Prism shrugged.

With a quiet snort the blonde turned back to face Knight Mare, shaking her head. “Dang it, man; that boy’s just fuckin everybody over here.”

“What else is new?” the red-head grumbled, just as the lock beeped and the LED turned from red to green. “There. We’re in--let’s get our heads in the game, K? You can brag about banging Golds later; right now we need to be on our toes.”

“What? I wasn’t bragging!” Prism protested. “I was just trying be, like, honest n’ shit, so I’m not keeping things from you guys.”

“No, you were totally bragging.” Knight Mare pulled the door open. “OK, let’s go,” she whispered.

One by one, the trio slipped through the door and made their way down the next hallway, keeping close to the wall. They were getting close, and tension in their bosoms all rose in unison as they made their way closer to an opening on the right which led to a large doorway, framed in stainless steel. The feeling the Adagio was near rang inside their heads, like an intrinsic radar; their apprehension not only stemmed from the moment of revealing themselves being nigh, but none of them were quite prepared to face one of their long-time greatest foes.

This thought resonated particularly with Knight Mare, who was instrumental in bringing down the singing trio, dooming them to a life of mortal misery--their days numbered, their power gone.

The red-head stopped suddenly and raised a fist above her shoulder, prompting the other two to freeze. After slowly peering around the corner, she turned back to face them, those turquoise eyes sharp and focused, whispering: “OK, this is it,” she said, reaching up to fiddle with her hair. “There’s one guy around the corner, I‘m gonna take him out first…”

As the red-head spoke, she pulled a thin lock of red hair free from its tie and began to separate the strands. “While I do that, Alphajack: you’re gonna move ahead and make sure the path is clear, then Prism: you use your magic to head straight for Adagio; take out anyone who is close enough to hurt her, then get her outta there. Make sure you stay ahead of her. Alphajack and I will cover your backs on the way out; we gotta keep her covered so she doesn’t get shot or something.”

Black Prism and Alphajack stared at their comrade as she spoke, watching incredulously as she looked up at her hair, pulling more strands free.

“Did you guys get that?” Knight Mare asked, her eyes crossing slightly as she focused on the few remaining hairs that remained pinched between her fingers.

“Uh… yeah, we did,” Alphajack replied slowly, mouth hanging open. “We’re just kinda waitin fer ya ta quit playin with yer hair.”

Knight Mare’s eyes shifted onto the other two, pausing. “Just be ready. I got this,” she said dismissively, before turning away to head around the corner.

Black Prism and Alphajack looked at one another for a moment. Then they shrugged and followed the red-head around the corner.

Knight Mare strode directly for her opponent with a confident stride, still holding a single thread of hair between her thumb and forefinger. Taken by surprise, the man stared at the approaching woman in black for a second or two, before blinking and quickly pulling a switchblade knife from his pocket.

“Hey!” he shouted, flipping the blade open as he stepped forward. “You bitches don’t know when to quit, do you?” Undaunted, she continued forward, so he raised the knife and lunged, thrusting it directly at her Adam’s apple.

Knight Mare side-stepped the attack and whirled her hand around his wrist, wrapping it in the strand of hair she’d so carefully picked out, yanking firmly to cinch it tight. The unbreakable strand sliced through his arm like soft butter, causing him to scream and step back as his hand, still holding the knife, fell to the floor.

Knight Mare was quick, however; she swung her arm down to catch the hand and then spun around to slam it into his temple, blade first, tacking it to his head like a morbid Christmas ornament. He stood there in wide-eyed shock, his fist stuck to the side of his head, his knife buried deep in his brain as the red-head spun around on one heel to deliver a boot across his jaw, knocking him against the wall, from which he slid to the floor, silenced for good.

Alphajack lumbered by while this happened, followed closely by Black Prism. They charged into the next room through that massive steel frame, pausing briefly to scope out the scene. The room was large, its walls lined with pillars and large photos of old churches; the rear wall was covered end-to-end by a curtain, before which sat a large, wooden desk.

Sat in a chair just before that desk was the siren herself, her orange mass of hair frazzled, the right side of her shirt tail and lavender pants soaked in blood, all the way down to her knee. Next to her stood a bodyguard, who looked equally as shocked as the several other men present.

Knight Mare joined her teammates only a second later, taking in the bizarrely decorated space just as Adagio turned around to face them, her eyes landing directly on the turquoise eyes that shone starkly from under that black mask.

The two nemeses paused when their eyes locked, everything around them going dark and quiet. Adagio knew exactly who she was exchanging glares with, despite the other girl’s disguise; she looked puzzled, nevertheless, no doubt contemplating the red-head’s presence there. Why was she here? To finish her off along with the gang? To kill two birds with one stone?

“Alright, let’s do this!” Alphajack shouted, snapping Knight Mare out of her stupor as she stepped closer to a man on her right, who’d just raised an automatic weapon at the three of them.

He was able to get three rounds off, which bounced pitifully off of the big blonde girl’s palm, before she reached out to grab the barrel of the gun, bending it upward to kink it shut, causing it to backfire. She then yanked gun upward and towards herself, pulling him onto her shoulders; she tossed him over her back and then brought her foot up, driving it into his back on his way down to the floor and send him across the room to the wall.

Two more men approached, one from each side. One threw a measly jab, which the blonde caught; with one arm, she dragged him closer to the other man and wrapped his arm around the back of his neck to tie them together. She then placed a hand in the small of his back and picked both men up at once, turned and launched them toward the opposite wall like a shot-put ball, smashing pictures and the drywall behind them.

The sound of gunfire heard from the right captured the attention of Black Prism, prompting her to look into the immediate corner of the room. There, stood a single door --steel, like the one they’d just entered through, with a similar frame, only smaller-- beyond which stretched a hallway that was occupied by three men, the closest of them firing at them with a rapid fire weapon.

“Oh on you don’t!” Prism smirked, blasting off from her position with a ribbon of colour in her wake. She zipped through the door and zig-zagged down the hall, delivering a fast hook of the each of them men in rapid succession, knocking them out of commission before they even knew what’d hit them.

Taking notice of this, Knight Mare’s eyes widened in panic and frustration, and she reached out with one hand, shouting after the speedster. “NO! DASH! YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO GO AFTER ADAGIO!”

Only half realising her divergence from the plan, Black Prism turned back to face Knight Mare with a smug smirk, giving a thumbs up before winding up to dart back into the main room.

Before she could do that, however, the green light above the steel frame switched to red, and the door slammed shut on its own with a loud CLANG, locking the rainbow-haired vigilante outside.

Knight Mare gasped and reached up to pull her hair. “NO!”

“Dang it, Rainb--fuckin…FUCK!” Alphajack hollered, stepping forward to slam on the door with both fists, hoping to break through. It’s didn’t budge, though, so the blonde planted her feet, wound up and threw a mighty fist at the door; the entire building shook under the impact, but the door didn’t budge, in fact, it barely even dented.

*KSSSSH!* “Applejack! That door... ... ... part of the structure ... ... never break!”

Alphajack placed her fingers to her earpiece and spun around to face Knight Mare. “What was that?”

Knight Mare shook her head. “That door frame is literally part of the building’s frame; you’ll never break through it. This room is like a bomb shelter,” she said, turning to see where Adagio was.

The guard had dragged the siren from her seat and was dragging her around to the far side of desk, where he reached under the edge to push a hidden button.

“COME ON! WE HAVE TO GET HER OURSELVES!” the red-head yelled as she sprinted toward the desk, Alphajack following suit.

The guard turned and quickly tore the curtains on the rear wall aside, revealing another steel door that promptly slid open. Inside was what appeared to be an elevator car; he stepped inside backwards, dragging the hollering siren by her arm as she fired shots at the charging vigilantes to slow them down. When his weapon emptied, he reached out and used the barrel to push the button, closing the door.

“NOOO!” Knight Mare hollered as she leapt over the reverend’s desk and slammed into the elevator door just as it clanged shut. Alphajack’s body hammered against the steel slap a split second later, rumbling the walls and the floor beneath their feet.

The blonde backed up a step and brought her foot up to drive it into the door, but even with her strength it was no use. It didn’t stop her from trying again, even though the best she could accomplish was turning the building into a makeshift earthquake simulator.

Shaking her head, Knight Mare raised a hand to stop the bigger girl. “Forget it. It’s no use.”

Midnight Sparkle’s voice, broken by poor reception, sounded in their earpieces again. ”... ... happened?”

“They got away,” Knight Mare sighed. “Prism got locked out, and he took her into an elevator before we could get to them.”

”Wha--levator!? There wa... ... ny elevator in the blueprints; where was it?”

“On the far wall,” the red-head replied. “Behind the curtain. AJ tried to break through it, but it wouldn’t budge. It sounded pretty much the same as the other door--probably integrated into the frame too.”

”...ost likely. How did they activate them?”

“Uh… they reached under here,” Knight Mare glanced down at the desk, and then she dropped to one knee to look underneath it. Next to the bank of drawers, there were a half dozen buttons, two of them glowing red. “Ah. Right here; there’s a bunch of buttons under the desk, ” she said, reaching out to push the illuminated buttons to see what would happen.

Nothing.

“Dammit,” she huffed, shaking her head as she placed a hand on her knee. “They must be locked out,” she explained, chewing her lip thoughtfully. “There must be an override or something.”

Alphajack, having knelt down beside her for a look, pointed at the rest of the buttons. “What about those? Ya think we should we try ‘em?”

Knight Mare glanced up at the main entrance, which was the only one left open. “We probably shouldn’t. I don’t know what these other buttons do, and I don’t really wanna end up trapped in here.”

”Agreed. Prob... ... a very good idea to g... ... ssing with them.”

The pair stood, sighing, hands on hips.

“Well? What now?” Alphajack said, looking over at the red-head.

“I dunno. This whole thing’s fucked now,” Knight Mare groaned, rubbing her brow. She paused for a moment, staring at the floor. Then she glanced up at her partner again. “Which way do you think that elevator went? Up or down?”

The blonde shrugged. “No idea.”

”It appears th... ... ... vator could go either way; there’s certainly room in th... ueprints to accommodate it.”

Knight Mare pursed her lips, considering this. “Can you see which way they went?”

”No. But... n’t forget, th... ... a helipad on the roof.”

The two girls locked eyes.

“Ya think they’d be callin fer a lift?” Alhpajack asked.

“It’s a good bet,” Knight Mare replied, heading around the desk to make her way back to the entrance. “Let’s go.”

“What if they went down, though?” the blonde asked, following along.

“Then we’re fucked,” the red-head replied, placing a finger to her earpiece. “Midnight? Are you in contact with Prism?”

“No. B... reception. Why?”

“Keep trying,” Knight Mare instructed as she stepped over the bodies to exit the room. “If you get a hold of her, tell her to head down to look for Sugar Shadows; when she finds her, they might as well get out. Their jobs are done.”

”Got it.”

*****

Out at Fluttershy’s house, Sonata was sitting, slouched down, on the shy girl’s couch with Link curled up at her side. We stood over her, having just been updated on the situation.

“So… they couldn’t rescue Dagi?” Sonata asked, looking up at us.

“Doesn’t look like it,” I said, handing her a couple of painkillers with one hand and a glass of water with the other. “They snuck out through a secret elevator that wasn’t in the floor plans; took the girls by surprise by the sound of it.”

The siren gulped the pills down, followed by a swig of water. She set the glass on her lap and stared into space, looking quite worried over the situation. Then she looked up at me. “So what now?”

I drew a breath. “Um… not sure. But don’t worry, it’s not over yet; we’ll get her out one way or another.”

Sonata sighed, staring down at her lap. “I hope so.”

“It’s gonna be fine,” I assured her. “But in the meantime, it’s gonna be Rare’s turn to make her move at the church. That shouldn’t take too long. Then we can concentrate on finding your sister again. I don’t think they’ll kill her just yet; if she was still alive when they stormed the room, then they must still think Aria intends to burn the shelter down, otherwise they wouldn’t till need her for leverage. Let’s just let Rare do her thing first, and then we’ll see what happens.”

The siren looked unsatisfied by this, so I reached down to give her shoulder a gentle squeeze, drawing her eyes up to meet mine.

“Do you think she can do it?” she asked.

I drew a breath, paused, and then nodded. “Absolutely, I do. She’s one of the best fighters I’ve ever seen.”