Stone and metal. That's all I saw when I woke up.

Typical dungeon building materials... my brain said first. Then, it realized what was going on. Crap.

I struggled to sit up, my entire body aching. Looking around, I confirmed that I was, in fact, trapped in a dungeon. Or a jail cell. Or whatever. Something like that. Wherever it was, it was almost completely empty. There wasn't much aside from me and two large wooden planks to be used as beds.

Looking at the bed I wasn't using, I saw Applejack, unconscious and looking as beat up as I felt. Her hat was missing, revealing her filthy mane; her orange coat had been dyed red and brown by blood and dirt; and I literally saw a sharp stone shard stuck in one of her legs.

Seeing her like that made me realize just how helpless we were. She and I were easily the best ones in the group who could hold themselves in a fight, minus Rainbow Dash, who was injured on top of her being missing with half the group. Pinkie, Rarity, and Fluttershy were who knows where and had little to no fighting experience, Twilight had her horn broken off, and Spike wasn't dangerous in the least unless a horde of a couple hundred griffons could be taken out by a couple first-degree burns.

We're screwed.

I sat there for...how long? I didn't bother looking at my watch when I woke up, so looking at it later didn't help. Surprisingly, it was still working. It was also the middle of the night.

...we don't even have any hope left, do we? I growled to myself. I try to help my friends. I try to save the world. It looks so easy in games and movies. Just go with the group, pull a few levers, and kill the final boss. Bam, saved, go home. But no. It just doesn't work that way in real life.

I thought for a moment. At this point, there are three possibilities as to what's happened. Possibility one: Pinkie, Rarity, Rainbow, and Fluttershy are somehow safe and the Resistance is still fighting. Possibility two: Everypony is dead, we're captured, the Resistance is gone, and we're all gonna die. Possibility three: The Resistance has already won and will be here any second to break us out. I paused my thoughts. At this point, it's probably number two, but number one still has a slim chance.

I looked over at Applejack. With both of us beat up like this, there's no way we're getting out of here...not both of us. I stood up and limped over to her bed, kneeling beside her unconscious form. After plucking out the small stone embedded in her leg, I put my hand on her back and focused, eyes closed.

In a matter of seconds, I felt the wave of pain wash over me, as my entire body doubled – if not more – in the amount of bruises, cuts, and aches it was holding for me. I bit back a scream and kept myself on my feet enough to lumber back to my own bed.

"Ya didn't have to do that, ya know."

I turn my head to Applejack, who was awake, albeit barely. One eye was open, but it was clear it wanted to close.

"I know I didn't have to. I still did it." I shrugged, even though it hurt to do so. "Problem?"

She hesitated a bit. "No..."

"Didn't think so." I sighed and looked over at the bars, as though they held answers to our predicament. "Now, what do we do next?"

"Ah...don't know, Rylan. Ah don't know."

I paused. "...neither do I." I paused again. "Wait."

"Rylan?"

"Applejack, think about it." I turned to her, as much as it hurt. "You're fully healed, if a bit tired. Sooner or later, someone will come check on us. That someone will likely open the cell door, expecting us to be too tired and injured to move."

Her eyes widened, and her frown became a smirk. "How long did it take ya to think of this?"

I raised an eyebrow. "It's a basic escape plan, AJ. Take out the magic healing, and really, this has been done millions of times."

Her face reddened. "Er...Ah guess."

"Now we wait." I sat down and sighed. Suddenly, I realized something. "Hold on a moment..."

Applejack looked at me curiously as I got up, barely able to walk, and started examining the bars and door. Something about it seemed off, but I didn't know why.

"Huh..." I knocked on the bars that made up the door and received a tinging noise. I knocked on the bars that made up the wall and received the same noise. "I don't get it..."

"What?" Applejack asked.

"Something...I don't know..." I scratched my chin. "The metal...something about it seems...weird."

"Weird? How so?" She stood up and walked over to me and the bars, tapping them with her hoof.

"I don't know. Just something about them feels...I don't know. Familiar." I thought for a bit. "And...evil."

"Evil?"

"Kind of like the creatures I've cured," I explained. "This may just be me wildly guessing here, but I think...sometime recently...True Force – or one of his corrupted minions – came into contact with these bars." A realization hit me, and a smirk crossed my face. "And I think I know how."

Originally, we planned to just wait for someone to come by, but after an hour, we got bored. So I got a better idea.

"Finally, it worked!" I yelled as loudly as I could. "Go get help, Applejack! Don't let them catch you!"

Ten seconds later, one of the griffon guards burst into the dungeon and ran over to my cell. I was crouched, looking underneath one of the so-called beds, as if there was an escape tunnel underneath. The guard opened the cell door and ran over to me, shoved me out of the way, and peered underneath.

Instead of an escape tunnel, he saw Applejack's smirk. "Hey there," she greeted before she punched him in the face, knocking him out.

She crawled out from under the bed while I dumped the guard on one of the beds and took his keys. We traded a high-five (well, more of a high-hoof for her, but you know what I mean) and headed out. I locked the cell behind us so the guard couldn't escape.

"Ya sure ya can walk alright?" Applejack asked, concerned. I could see why; even an hour of rest hadn't done much to quell the pain.

"No," I answered honestly. "But I don't have a choice."

She sighed. "Once we get outta here, yer takin' a rest."

"Yes, ma'am."

We ran through the corridors (well, she ran; I limped quickly) as we looked for a way out. We couldn't find anything, nor could we tell where we were. I suggested breaking out by punching through the stone walls, but she said that wouldn't be a good idea, even if it was plausible. I think the blood loss was catching up to me and making it harder to think.

"You know, any moment now, the guard will wake up and yell for help, and we'll have every griffon in this building after us," I realized. "We gotta move fast."

"Ah'm trying!" she shot back. "Not mah fault Ah don't know where the exit is!"

I suddenly stopped. After realizing I wasn't moving, Applejack screeched to a halt and walked over to me. "What is it?" she asked.

"We don't need the exit," I said with a smirk. "We just need the kitchen."

Applejack raised an eyebrow. "Uh...am Ah missing something here?"

"No, but I am. My knives, specifically. That leaves us without much defense, fisticuffs aside. If we can find the kitchen, I can get two new knives, and we'll be better equipped."

"How does that help us find a way out?"

"Hostage situations. Never work for the villain, always work for the hero. I watch a lot of movies." With that, we bolted off again, this time looking for a kitchen of sorts.

An hour of running later, we found it. Well, not the kitchen exactly, but rather a little room with only the required utensils to make anything remotely edible. Likely where they prepared the prison food.

There were two griffons in the room, unfortunately. Knowing we couldn't sneak past them, we decided to fight. Applejack charged into the room and bucked one in the stomach, winding him and causing the other to try and fight back. This was all the diversion I needed to run in, punch the other griffon in the jaw, and gaze around the room quickly.

I didn't see any knives at first, so I just went for a giant pot lid that I smashed over the head of one of the griffons. He fell over, unconscious, but the other grabbed me by the throat with one claw. Applejack was held in the other.

"How did you two escape?" he growled.

"One of your guards is a traitor," I lied. "In fact, isn't that him?" I pointed at the empty doorway. The griffon turned to look, and I used the momentary distraction to reach for something, anything, within arm's reach. I grabbed a spatula, mentally shrugged, and knocked him on the back of the head with the handle. He dropped the two of us, and I hit him again, knocking him out.

"Quick thinking," Applejack remarked.

"Could've done better if I had another few seconds," I replied, opening drawers. Finally, I found two knives, exactly the same size as my own that I lost. Slipping one into my shoe and keeping the other in my hand, I went out the door, Applejack following.

Now armed, I felt more confident, and we were ready when the griffons came for us. We didn't kill any – not on purpose, at least – but we knocked them out and tried to figure out where they came from, hoping that would lead us to the exit.

Finally, we got outside, through what seemed to be a side door locked from the inside. It was just turning morning, and we had ponies to find. Using our limited memory of the city, we headed for the hospital to see if there was anything left over. There wasn't.

"Now what?" I asked, though I knew Applejack wouldn't have an answer. Sure enough, she just shrugged. "We don't know where the Griffon Resistance hideout is, we don't know where our friends are, and for crying out loud we don't even know where we are!"

"We're in front of the hospital-"

"I know that!" I grabbed my head in annoyance and growled. "What I mean is that we don't know where to go! And if we stay out here too long, we'll get caught!"

Applejack sighed. "Ah don't know what to do, Rylan. We need to find our friends, but we also need to find a way back to the hideout...Ah don't know where either of those are."

I felt a tap on my shoulder. Panicking, I turned and swung my fist, punching a familiar griffon in the face. I blinked as I watched him grumble a few choice words under his breath before turning to face me, a grin on his face.

"If you didn't want my help, you could've just said so," Stalwart chuckled. He motioned with his head. "Hideout's this way, if you're willing to follow."