"Rage-Mage."

"Uniscorn."

"Rage-Mage."

"Uniscorn."

"Sore-cerrerr?"

"I'm telling you, Rage-Mage."

"And I shall reiterate that my rebuttal is Uniscorn."

Had Starfire been fully like himself, he would likely have interjected the ongoing babbling, but he did not have to bear witness to it, at the very least, since the beating in his battered skull was much louder than they. Taking a moment to tell them to pipe down, even for a second, would interrupt his concentration and, this far into the tracking spell process, with this level of fatigue, it wasn't a chance he was willing to take. Not that he was in any healthy position to be making any chances at all. Letting himself get carried in his almost vegetative state towards the closer-growing goal was foal's bliss, however so irritating the current argument of the season may have been.

'Just maintain the spell for a little longer, Starfire,' he thought, battling against the cloudiness, 'That's it. You can feel it. We're so close. J-just... keep it together.'

"If we're not going for rage, then we're choosing mad-gician. No iffs or buts."

"Guh."

"See? Starfire's with me. He said he agrees."

"Utter stuff and nonsense, dearest Cananor. He groaned. He griped. He sighed in pained, unconscious indifference. He 'guh'ed, as it were."

"Yeah, he aguhreed with me."

The conversation, now quickly becoming rather heated, had come about by an offhoof comment of, "Tried, tested and true, like real scientists. At least now we know that this isn't just some one off occurrence, Mr Starfire; you really DO have some sort of strange, magical anger gift." That established, they were all agiddy at having such a peculiar friend, and even more excited to having been the ones to help him discover it. The problem, however, arose when Weatherstorm had followed his assessment with, "Abilities exemplified by heated emotion. I wonder if they have a term for such a specific mage?" A quick, "I dunno. A rage-mage, maybe? Starfire the Rage-Mage?" from Cananor was combated by Weatherstorm's own assertion of "Uniscorn" and Derky's unheard, linguistically-challenged but no less passionate suggestion of "Sore-cerer" and now all three scrambled to cement their own coined terms, for only one, it seemed, could make it to the history books, riding on the coattails of another.

"Could we please call him sore-cerr...er... sore-cerrer? I think ponies would like that name. Schoolfoals would learn about sore-cerrers, and have to write about sore-cerrers in their exams, and they'd have to learn that Derkington Bellray was the one who first made that name up. Yep, sore-cerre... oh, bother..." The Pegasus was adamant that his suggestion, explained away as 'Because he's, like, sore about stuff, you know, and he's also a sorcerer,' should be declared the decided winner, but whilst Weatherstorm and Cananor were at arms over their own efforts, they could both agree that they would pay no mind to a term that was having difficulty coming from the mouth of its creator.

"C'mon, Derks. If you're gonna try and create a word, it helps if you, yourself, can actually say it without stumbling all over it like a newborn foal on an ice rink. Bit hypocritical, don't you think? Like, bigging yourself up as a royal guard yet never really doing anything in times of crisis kind of thing."

"Or working as a lawyer yet possessing a tenuous-at-best grasp of matters pertaining to law."

"Hey, I understand law, alright? Sometimes I just choose to go with my heart. To help out the little guy. Do what's right."

"Suppose it's up to Starfire, really. He's the magic pony. Shouldn't we let him choose?" Derky shrugged. "I wouldn't feel right otherwise."

"What, let Starfire choose the name his own unique school of arcane ability? Himself? Not that he doesn't deserve the right to lay claim to his own talent, but I believe that he'll wind up settling upon a name most dull and, dare I say, overtly sensible in nature."

"No silly, let him choose which one of our terms wins."

"Ah, thank goodness for that."

Cananor dove under the two Pegasi and up to their bundled equine package, and gave Starfire a tender tap on the forehead, just to make sure the student teacher was fully aware of this most pressing business. "So, whaddia say? You've got some pretty decent choices, I think, but let's be honest: Rage-Mage just kinda rolls off of the tongue, doesn't it? It doesn't even take any thought, it's just expressing how you feel. You're not sore or in scorn, you're just angry for crying out loud! So why don't you, level headed as you are, pick a real word instead of those made up goobledegooks?"

"Oh, toff," Weatherstorm huffed, "CANANOR isn't even a real word. But if you wish to listen to the ramblings of a stallion with a blatant non-name then I'll do naught to stop you."

The blue unicorn blinked a few times. He looked a little pale. Starfire had little energy left, so very little. He felt not unlike a raisin or a prune, as though all the juice that once resided in him had been bled from his body. What a long five minutes and seventeen seconds it had been since he had subconsciously let loose his tracking spell without proper procedure. What a long four minutes and fifty-nine seconds it had been since he had subconsciously lost the trail, his short-term irritation subsiding. In a way, he was glad of his companions' seemingly continuous belt-fed ammunition for continuing arguments. Every time their voices rose on the matter of a name THEY'D assign his so called gift, unsure if even that was an apt term, he found it grated with him in some small way; not enough to make him angry, for he was far too tired even for that, but their back and forth banter gave him the slightest of sparks. And that was all it took to give him an inkling, an indication.

But this irritation was waning, giving way to something more complacent. Where he had felt a surge of energy not seven minutes ago, he felt just an overwhelming crash now. He would put this last sliver of stamina to good use before blacking out again.

Starfire signaled for his bearers to stop, and they obliged, before reaching out a meek hoof to Cananor, and mouthing for him to lean in close.

"He's gonna choose, guys," Cananor shushed the others, and whispered to their guide, "Please don't go with something boring. Resist the urge! So, what's the result?"

The magician coughed. "You guys... you're all very stupid." With that, he gave a definite point to their immediate right, and stuttered, firmly, "In there."

The other three stood silent for a moment, before Cananor said, "Guess Weatherstorm's right. That's scorn if ever I saw it."

Still carrying Starfire, and more than a little irked themselves by his seemingly genuine chastisement, they traveled in the direction that he had sent them in. It didn't take long for them to realize that he had not led them astray this time. In the space of seconds, a voice reached their ears.

It sounded muffled by the bushes and leaves at first, and Derky mistook it for a bird's chirruping, but he was reminded that most birds that chirrup in a pony-like manner are not nocturnal and that perhaps he ought to take a night class on matters pertaining to the night.

But no, it was no bird. Nightmare Moon, perhaps? They pushed through branches and the voice became coherent. Clearer, and clearer, and clearer. Louder. It spoke in Equestrian, and sounded deep and male. Cananor couldn't help but laugh.

"I knew that Nightmare Moon was willing to bring about some serious changes, but I wasn't expecting anything THIS drastic or progressive."

"It, uh... sounds like she let herself go."

"Yeah, sounds like she's been puffing more smoke than a dragon."

Then a second voice chimed in.

"Belove?"

Weatherstorm pressed his hoof to his ear, and stoked his peculiar skills. "No no, not Belove, it seems. Were it he, we'd hear his accented, charming little flair clear as day from here."

"And a lot more loud cussing, yeah."

The group, enticed, moved as stealthily as they could carrying a grown unicorn stallion between them through their surroundings. They came, at last, to a a hedge wall, and whilst this forest was no stranger to hedges in general, they all knew at once where they were. They'd all spent time falling through this particular shrubbery, chased by rabid trees. It was quite strange being on the other side.

Cananor scoffed. "Seems like we can't get away from this place, can we?" The others awaited some cringe-inducing joke or offbeat pun, but were thankful to receive no such misery.

"I'm ever so glad you stopped short of making another patented pun, friend."

"Don't you mean that you're glade?"

Weatherstorm and Derky lay Starfire down as carefully as they could, but careful was a thinly stretched adjective between the both of them.

"No, sorry, what I meant to say was that I'm going to flick your nose and bend your ear, like so." The playful journalist did. Another few words came from over the hedge, mumbled from the disembodied mouth, but they were unclear and hard to pin down. But it was certain now; the voices belonged to neither Nightmare Moon, nor Belove.

Derky crept forward, keeping low with squinted eyes along the ground like the world's least talented bloodhound, and peeled the leaves of the hedge apart with nervously shaking hooves, slowly, deliberately, like a surgeon or an antiquarian. Flashing the party his silly little disproportionate smile, a smile that somehow managed to appear both disinterested and highly jubilant at once, he pushed his head through the suspended gap in the greenery, gasped instantly, and recoiled, falling backwards and scrambling along the ground, kicking at leaves and litter.

"Dear goodness!" Weatherstorm rushed to his aid, trampling over the prone and unmoving Starfire, and slid his hooves under his fellow Pegasus' head. "Derky! My good friend! Are you alright?" The gentle stallion merely shifted in response.

Cananor turned pale. "Holy crab-apples, man! What did ya see?"

"Yes, quick, Derkington, you must tell us at once! What unspeakable horror did you witness? Have we been made, poor soul?"

Calming down, the lashing white-shirted pony took his hooves away from his face, and pressed his lips together. Squinting, he leaned up, and said, "Uh... it's fine. I just poked myself in the eye with a twig. Guess I'm the silly goose." Wiping away the tears from under the eye in question, which he kept shut tightly, he zipped back over to the hedge, pried the leaves apart, stuck his head through, and fell back for a second time, clutching his other eye. "Ow! The same twig!" He cried.

"Derky," Weatherstorm cooed sympathetically, brushing him aside and taking matters into his own hooves, "Your misfortune never ceases to amaze and dishearten." He gently brushed Derky away and decided to himself peep through the hole in the hedge. "My my," he grumbled. The voice from beyond said something, as though answering him, and he held his tongue in bated breath, but the second voice answered, and he released his anxiety. Weatherstorm squinted, hard, and turned to his friends. "I think I can make some shapes out. White, and orange, and... oh, red. And there he is. Well, on the upside, we appear to have found our missing comrade."

Cananor scratched at his head. "There's no way you can ever say something like that without adding a 'but,'" he slapped his flank, "So hurry up and tell us how hard we're going to get kicked in ours."

Weatherstorm was silent for several seconds. "It's not exactly gumdrops and sparkles and big, happy reunions, as I'm sure you deduced."

Wiping away the last of his mistake from under his eyes, Derky asked, "How many baddies are there? I sure hope there aren't too many. I think three baddies is my limit." He rubbed at his eyelids. "Even if, it could be worse 'cos there's six of you and I have three hooves."

"And that," The journalist rubbed his ginger mane like a pet, "Is what getting poked in the eye twice will do in regards to your vision. Cananor, you might not believe me if I tell you what lies beyond that leafy shroud, so I suggest you ought to look through for yourself."

The stallion shot an anxious simper, for if Weatherstorm found himself lacking in words, then his beautiful visage of gumdrops and sparkles and big, happy reunions were likely to be dashed, whether he wanted them to or not. Shrugging, he said, "You can't see very well without your glasses, can you? If it's just Belove's big dumb head staring back at me I'm going to have a stroke," and put his eye up to the natural gap in the hedge.

The clearing yonder was illuminated well enough, but Cananor expected nothing less from their favoured gladiatorial battle arena. The shafts of light seemed to evade the two occupants beyond, and they danced in shadow. His eyes widened, but he failed to find himself particularly surprised. Two white pegasus ponies stood around a campfire, by far and large the most prominent feature of the scene, the orange deflecting off the startling gold of the ponies' armour. Cananor knew not which two of the Elites he was looking upon; the two factions weren't exactly on first name terms quite yet, and even if he had names to attribute to the bodyguards other than Icarus, he wouldn't know how to distribute them correctly. The absent captain and the other one, the unicorn, (was it Pam? Prim? Pronk? Something along those lines) would hardly pass as twins, but the other Pegasi cronies who latched onto and bulked out their unit certainly could, and more besides. The same monotone white fur and pool blue eyes and featured muzzles, with half-cocky demeanors and identical muscles that seemed to bulge in all the right places. Cananor blushed and wiped at his forehead. It was as though they'd all fallen off of a production line. A well toned, shamefully hunky production line. He was glad that the soldiers were not yet privy to himself and his fellow onlookers, watching from their secret place, otherwise they'd surely be lying in a drooling heaped mess, not unlike their scholar friend was right now.

They talked between one another, these stallions from Canterlot, and lo, the mystery voices belonged to them after all. But it beggered the question: where were the other three members of their squad? There was a distinct reduction of pentagonal white-toned excellence and it was nothing short of jarring to their usual image.

"Two bad dudes," Cananor passed the news to Derkington, "So you're in luck. We're on jerk shy of your cut-off limit."

Weatherstorm placed a hoof on his back. "Not to imply that my lawyer is incapable of presenting truths, but I think that you might be one jerk short. Look, there, to your immediate left." Cananor did so.

To the left sat a large cage, a pen of sorts, fashioned crudely from some light coloured wood, sloping the ground at an angle. The bamboo bars lined all four sides, and let in a little light, which illuminated the occupant within; it was Belove. Oh, their free-spirited friend, confined in a lackluster jail cell. The thought made Weatherstorm bite his lip.

The stallion lay unmoving on the ground, curled, legs and tail tucked away, and were it not for the barely noticeable rising and falling of his back one would have been forgiven in thinking that his confinement had killed him. Shifting shadow sticks, strewn across his body by the fire, stretched and withdrew and painted his fur with inmate constriction.

"Oh, lookie there, our compagno. Tucked away in a box like a Hearth's Warming present that nopony wanted."

"They've got Belove, as sure as chips," Weatherstorm assured him, "Stuck him in a hutch, like a rabbid rabbit. I do wonder how many times he's told them by now that they can't lock him up because he's an officer of the law?"

"You can't just lock me up like this, fellas," Belove chirped up, on cue, to his captors, "Stick me in a hutch and all, like some kind of... rabbid rabbit, like. You can't lock me up, right? Because I, you pair of goons, am an officer of the law."

Cananor whistled silently, and applauded Weatherstorm. "There we go, right on the nose."

"What can I say? When you know a chap, you know a chap."

"Shut up, prisoner," one of the guards snapped violently at Belove, "You're like a broken record. Just lie there and be quiet or we'll beat you again."

Belove spat through the bars of his confinement. "Can I get that on camera, lads? Come on, name and badge number." A rock bounced off of his forehead, and he threw it right back. "You wimps couldn't take me in a fair fight, I know that much. No, you melters had to clobber me over the back of the scalp, and then pelt me with rocks. Bleedin' pussy-cats."

The guards tried to ignore him, and reverted to speaking amongst themselves. Cananor could hear one whisper as he stoked at the campfire, clear as day, "Don't give him any attention. He'll be out of our manes in a half-hour, anyway. Just wait until the captain returns."

This didn't deter the captive, who continued his rant with, "But remember this, ugly stepsisters: you're darned lucky that I'm locked away in this here cage or else I'd be making you," he pointed to the nearest aggressor, "Pull yer bap out from lover boy's tush."

Cananor giggled, and fanned at his face. "Whew, Belove, what a paramour."

The observers heard no retaliation from the guards, and deduced that they had employed their plan to feed the stallion little sought-after attention. Instead, both soldiers, talking amongst themselves, eased themselves into their makeshift seats by the fire, and the guard nearest to the hidden foursome in the bushes reached down, past the tree log, and materialized a saddlebag. "We've time to kill yet," he spoke, "Might as well have another good laugh."

Despite his blurred vision, Weatherstorm recognised the bag, and his smile turned into a thing of brief confusion, then realization, and finally horror. "Is that... Gracious!" he choked, and a clasped hoof to the mouth from Derkington had to remind him to keep his voice down, lest their cover be blown. "Please tell me that my eyesight is as bad as I believe! That they don't have my bag! My bag! I think they've got my ruddy bag!"

"What's a ruddybag?"

"My saddlebags, Derkington, my saddlebags! The ones that went walkabout, mysteriously vanished into thin air back at the cave! Those fiends, they... they must have snuck in and stole them in the dead of night..."

"It's always night..."

"...that joke died long ago, Cananor, but yes, alas! The elite soldiers are to blame! Vile villains! They stole my bags, and all that I brought besides!"

Cananor peered through the hedge, and squinted at the guard, and his sack. "You sure, Double-U? That could be any old common-or-garden bag."

"Tell me if the bag appears to be accented by a strip of fine aegean crêpe de chine and embroidered with a noir ouroboros."

Silence, and then, "It's blue and silky and has some sorta snake thing on it."

"Well, that's my bag, chaps."

As if to confirm, the guard, unaware of the fuming owner's presence, slid a ruled page out from the open bag, and, almost crumpling the thing with his hooves, held it aloft. "I'm telling you," he explained to his squadmate, "Whichever one of those little ponies wrote these love letters is a real freak."

The other guard smiled. "You have to be making these up."

"I swear on our supreme ruler's name, I'm not making a single word up. It's all here, in black and white."

"Go on, then, read another one."

Weatherstorm nearly threw himself through the hedge then and there, were it not for the hooves of Derky and Cananor holding him back. "My poems!" he wailed, voice nearly cracking under his whisper, "Do you hear this? These hooligans, awful rotten scoundrels have been reading my very private work! For miss Rarity's eyes only! And laughing, apparently? For shame!"

"Dude, calm down," Cananor pleaded, "They obviously mistook it for a satirical piece and consider you some sorta comedic genius or something. Heck, I'd take that and run with it." He screwed up his face as he watched the soldier rest a pair of familiar spectacles upon his muzzle. "Oh, whoa. He's really getting prepared."

"What? What's happening?"

"He's, uh... he's going to read your poetry, wearing your glasses."

"M-my glasses? That swine! Those spectacles are prescription only! PRESCRIPTION!"

They heard words lull over to their hidey-hole, and Weatherstorm lashed out and attempted to cover the ears of both of his friends, to little success. "Strung upon a moonlight's mist," the bespectacled soldier began, reading from the page, "A silky snow, a velvet kiss, and never she a miss unmissed, alas, by any other name, a Rarity."

The journalist felt tears welling in his eyes as the other guard's laughter shook the leaves. He tugged at his own ears. "Don't you dare listen to them, Cananor, Derkington," his voice cracked, and so too did his facade, albeit briefly, "C-c'mon, please guys, don't listen to this. It's not right. These are private. Private. I feel violated."

"If Rarity read these, I'm sure she would feel violated too." Cananor and Derkington couldn't help but actually feel bad for him. They forced frowns in-between their stifled laughter.

The bespectacled guard finished the first stanza, and had to take a breath to compose himself. His toothy grin was caught like a photo flash in the glow of the fire. "Whew, this is hard to read through." He laughed. "What an absolute loser."

The other guard concurred. "Yeah, he shouldn't quit his day job."

"Unless he's a professional comedian, that is."

Cananor gave Weatherstorm his 'bada-boom' face. "Take it and run with it," he reminded him. It did nothing to lighten the latter's spirits.

The other guard wiped his nose with the back of his hoof. "I bet I could do better. I thought that poems were meant to rhyme."

"It's half rhyme," the blue Pegasus grumbled, out of earshot, "Golly, these brutes are uneducated. I'm surprised they're even literate, that there's even room for brain midst the rolls of muscle."

"Go on," the armored stallion by the campfire said. He rustled around with something behind him, and produced a banana. "Keep reading. I want to see if we can get to the end of one of these poems without totally losing it." He began to peel the fruit, and then offered it to his friend. "You want one? This bag over here is full of them."

"Is that the bag that had all those weird books in it?"

"Yeah."

"Heh, if that's the case, no way. I'm surprised you haven't pricked yourself yet, pawing through that thing. There's a bunch of needles just laying around near the bottom of that bag. Probably leaked into those bananas, too."

The second guard stared at the fruit in his hoof for several seconds, before chomping down on it. "Eh," he mumbled between mouthfuls, "More for me, then. Besides, it's not like that other bag with all the salt in it. Pretty sure those syringe things are just those... what do you call them... injectors? You know, for diabetes. Little insulin in your bananas never hurt nopony."

"Whoa," Derky shook the unconcious Starfire, "Looks like they've been poking around your saddlebags as well, Starry. Mine, too."

Cananor cracked his neck. "I swear, if they've been putting their dirty banana cloppers anywhere near my mint condition comic books I'm going to sue them so hard that their entire platoon will be in debt."

"No, no," Weatherstorm huffed. "I should think them mint and crisp as ever. They seem to be getting so much more pleasure from my written work. Look, that fellow can't keep his borrowed eyes from it, or his plagiaristic tongue from repeating it."

Sure enough, there was a certain allure that exuded from Weatherstorm's rather dull written ramblings that couldn't keep the soldier away from them, like a moth and a flame. He continued on with his spectated deliverance, with a clearing of his throat and disregard towards his pal's sudden taking to yellow tropical fruits. "For she the Belle tolls, dissonance, along my heartstrings gallop, prance, and dance through meadows, thou chance a glance, a carousel of..." The soldier paused. "Rarity, Rarity, Rarity. Hmm. Hey, that name seems kinda familiar."

Banana bodyguard nodded. "Isn't that one of the mares that we..."

"Whoa, whoa," guard number one coughed. "Probably shouldn't go saying too much in front of the prisoner. Remember what the captain said: he's on a need to know basis."

Bananaguard shrugged and swallowed the last of his food, before carelessly tossing the spotted peel some distance from himself and no sooner had he wiped his mouth than he was peeling another. "Does it matter? He's not going to be a problem for too much longer, anyway. Once the captain ties up our loose ends, us wardens will be making ol' red there's confinement a little bit more... longer."

To the surprise of nopony, the imprisoned earth pony, who had until now been stewing in his cage and mumbling an assortment of curses towards his captives, spoke up loudly enough that his comrades hidden in the bushes could hear. "Jays, you're daft. You could've said permanent or something like that. Yous'uns haven't two wee brain cells between the both of youse. Less now, probably, since you've been reading Weatherstorm's poetry so religiously. And that's another thing. If you so much as dare read another word of his private work, or if you," he pointed angrily to the other soldier, "So much as breathe on one more of Starfire's bananas or lay a hoof on his medication, I'll stretch both of you out so long and flat that you'll tarmac a path from here to Canterlot."

The first guard sneered. "Big stallion, huh? Big hero? Don't like us touching your friends' stuff? Loyal to the end? Should have shown-"

"...some of that loyalty back when we were still together," the caged Earth Pony finished the guard's mock, drably. "Don't try to sound like your boss, it makes you too predictable." Belove pulled himself close to the bars that housed him. "And let's get one thing clear; I'm not willing to break and beat you both so hard that you'll become the next big drum and bass single, simply because I'm an upstanding lawman. I'm a doer. I follow my gut. Occasionally I'm wrong. And that sometimes puts me at odds with others, even friends, family. But everything I do, whenever I can, I do for them. I do what I think will be the best for them, even if they don't like it. You see," he smiled, "Heck, you'll love this... I'm not peeved at you for poking at that which doesn't belong to you, touching my friends' stuff... I'm peeved because that's my job, okay? I was going to nosy my way through all that poetry myself, and I was going to tell Weatherstorm, stallion to stallion, that they were rubbish, and know what else? Want to know why? Because I'd want Weatherstorm to get angry, hate me if he must, and then he'd go back to the drawing board and write something that Rarity one couldn't refuse, something that would blow her away, because he has the ability and by Celestia I'm going to drag it outta him. That's what a friend does. Oh," he added, "And I was going to eat those bananas, too boot."

The hidden party of onlookers smiled, and Weatherstorm doubly so. How brave he was, in the face of hostility, How honest, and true. The pegasus' cheeks felt warm. There was a big heart in the large red lug. A well meaning, selfless, totally misplaced heart.

Banana guard took the bait. "You still consider them your friends? Even after they left you?"

"I didn't want to have them drag me down, and I didn't want to drag them down myself. By my side or no, they're truer than true."

The guard was curious. "Why were you going to eat these, then?" he said, shaking a yellow peel, "What good would THAT have done anypony?"

Belove shrugged. "Not anypony a bit of good, but myself. Didn't like that Starfire fella when I met him. Wanted to teach that student a lesson he don't get in school. Guess my intuition was out of whack. Can't be right all the time. But," he scowled, "As I sit here and watch your gormless lips slather all over that which don't belong to you, my gut is screaming at me that you're no lawmen. You're nothing but petty criminals, pulling the wool over all those eyes, even your own. And my gut is never wrong twice in a row. Never."

The first guard seemed to chew on Belove's words. Almost nodding, wavering, he gave a sly shrug of his shoulders and wrinkled the inky piece of paper in his hoof. "Never really got this sort of stuff. Poems and stories and that. But I know one thing: in stories like these, like ours, everything is... what's that word? It's on the tip of my tongue... ah well." He threw the white page on the fire and it went up at once, burning orange ripping through the written words like a stutter. Weatherstorm's face became as steel, and fury, and wiped at his forehead, but knew better than to reveal his position now. The second guard spluttered with laughter, and spat his foodstuff onto the crackling embers and fading snow of the poetry. "See," concluded guard number one, "You can call us what you want. But this story is written by the ponies who win. And we can write anything we want."

"Shouldn't have done that," Belove said, calmly. He watched the final few glowing words settle and die on the fire. "Should not have done that. Burned up that page. Shouldn't have done it."

"And you shouldn't have defied us. You've been trouble, red pony. When the new day starts, you'll trouble us no more."

The observers in the hedge did not like the way the guardstallion smiled when he said that. Not a lot had been cemented in the verbal exchange between the three soldiers, but the lawyer, the journalist, the slacker and, had he been awake, the student scholar, all knew that Belove was not being kept caged of his own volition in the best of care nor company.

"What an enlightening and timely natter they had," Weatherstorm whispered as the conversation beyond abruptly stopped, and Belove went back to his silent prone position in his cage. "It's left me lumped with a feeling firmly between awe, audaciousness and untethered rage."

Cananor pulled close the hole they had opened in the bush to peek through, and sighed. "From they way they're talking, if we don't get in there and free Belove before Captain Sickarus comes back, they're gonna end up doing something even more unpredictable than the chronology of Equestria's seasons."

"Indeed they will. For instance, reduce more of my poetry to ashes, or worse yet, read another stanza aloud."

"Or take a peek through my bag, and get their fruit-slick mitts on my comics."

"Or, uh... eat all of my salt."

Weatherstorm shook his head. "Those monsters. "

"Yeah, all that potassium and they choose to be salty." Cananor struggled. "I felt a salt-related joke coming on, but it came and went." He thought for a moment. "Must be because I'm sodium tired."

Weatherstorm gave it a so-so. "Ehhh."

Cananor straightened his tie. "You could have followed with, 'It was chloright.' But as much as it pains me to say it, we gotta stop talking about salt and start showing some pepper. Get out there and make an impact. This is a high-stakes operation, guys. Our amateur poetry, collectible comic books, baggies of salt and bannana supplies are at risk."

"And they might lock Belove up in prison for a really long time."

"Oh yeah. Belove needs our help, too. Right"

"Dare I ask what the plan is?"

Cananor held his nose. "Well, that's where Starfire comes in."

Starfire did not come in. He could not have been, in that moment, more out. The poor stallion was still recovering from his continuous magical fatigue, and he was colourless and pasty like a stale dusted pastry. His head rolled and stirred and he made no noise.

"Oh yeah." Cananor snapped his hoof and waved it over the Starfire's face. "Starfire, get your mind in order, dude. We need our big blue clued in. Our smarty ready to party. Our mane man needs to make a plan." He waved at him again. "Shoot, he doesn't look like he's in any well state to go formulating a breakout. I think he really is broken this time around."

"Up to us, then, I suppose." Weatherstorm said. "To make a plan."

"Plan, plan, plan," Cananor fiddled with his tie once again, loosening the knot, then readjusting. "Can, coming up with a plan. Plaaaaannnnnnn. Plaaaaaaannnnnnnn-ty. Oh, wait, plan-ty! Plenty! Plant! There's plenty of plants around here!"

Derky stepped back. "Yeah. You're...that's some truth, right there. All around. I feel like a rat in a..."

"Cage?"

"...no, uh, cabbage patch."

"We're surrounded by shrubbery, nettles and suspicious mushrooms, Derky, not cabbages."

"Oh. Because I ate a lot of green-looking stuff when you and Cananor were talking and my mouth is kinda tingly, so that explains a lot. That isn't bad? Right? We're, eh, horses, so that's good for us, isn't it?"

Weatherstorm rightfully chose to ignore Derky, brushing his tongue. Perhaps if Derkington showed some restraint in the relationship between new and interesting substances, and his mouth, then he wouldn't have to rake like it was the middle of autumn. "In that case, go wild. Make sure to save me some pond algae, won't you? Now, Cananor, you have me hooked. What of your planty plan?"

"Okay, what I was thinking is this." The lawyer scuttled up some leaves as quietly as he could and attempted to stick them to his body. They did not. "We just grab handfuls of leaves, okay, and we... just stick them all over our bodies, you know, like camouflage."

The journalist bit his lip. "I see. Blending in. 'Going commando.'"

"No, that's a common mistake, 'Stormy. If we were going commando, we'd be naked."

"Cananor, we are naked. Right now. And have been for most of our lives."

"Maybe you are, Weatherstorm, but I'm gonna still have my tie on. Anyway, we're going to just coat our entire bodies, not my hair, of course," he gave a flick, "With soil and flowers and more weeds than one of Derky's bucket hats. They won't see us coming. It's a little manoveour I like to call, 'Au naturel.'"

"Ah, I see. THAT has no nude connotations at all. So, we're camouflaged aptly. What then?"

"...And then, uh..." The unicorn scoured the floor, before wrapping his hooves around a length of vine and snapped it straight for effect. "We sneak in and use this."

"Cananor," Weatherstorm inquired, "I do hope that you're not insinuating that we garrote those guards."

Cananor bent his brows. "What? No! What is wrong with you? I was GOING to suggest that we slip our way past the soldiers, all green and earthy like a trio of..."

"Topiaries?"

"I was going to say 'CartBucks coffees' but whatever..."

"And there goes your chance at a brand deal."

"...so, then we get up close to Belove..."

"Quite," Weatherstorm again interrupted, "So, we strangle Belove silly instead? Is that what you are suggesting?"

"...and tie this vine around the door of his cage, see?" Cananor gave it a tug. "We'll pull that door right off! Hey presto! How's that for a bitta bada-boosh?"

A silent clap and a hearty smile. "Impressive, Cananor. I am actually rather surprised. Your plan is almost flawless." Without another word, Weatherstorm bent down picked up a single leaf, and gingerly dropped it onto his own back. "Like so, yes?" With a nod of affirmation, he picked up another leaf, inspected it, folded it, and wedged it behind his ear. "Yes sir. Almost flawless."

"I actually just improvised a lot from a Daring Do / Phoenix Flight crossover comic. Pretty lousy edition, honestly, but I guess these kinds of situations are a little more believable than I first thought. And to think that my dad said that reading comic books was messing with my mind." He tapped his skull. "But I learned everything I know from comic books and I'm sitting pretty with a law degree, so what does he... wait... 'ALMOST flawless?'"

Weatherstorm picked up another leaf, dusted it free of dirt with his wing, and then set it back down again and chose another. "Well, by that, I meant that your plan was in no way perfect but still a rather admirable effort."

"And what is wrong with my plan? It worked perfectly in the comic."

"I'm far from one to question the validity of comic book logic, but I feel like you're leaving out some crucial elements. Sneaking our way past the guards should prove easy enough; Celestia knows those goons are far too busy burying their snouts in my poetry. But how do you propose we open Belove's cell?"

"I told you, with the vines."

"Yes, certainly, but using what exactly?"

"The vines."

"Attached to what?"

"The cell."

"We tie the cell door up with vines, yes?"

"Yes."

"Which, in turn, are tied to...?"

"US. This isn't a complex plan, Weatherstorm. The beauty is in the simplicity. Derky understands, don't you, Derky?"

Derky, who had been cautiously peering through the hedge, this time making sure to keep his eyeballs clear of sharp branches, mumbled, "Er... I'm not really getting the bit where we have to dress up as trees... and the bit where we choke the guards."

"We're not choking anypony! That was Weatherstorm's idea!"

"No, it was my idea that it was your idea. But I digress. Tell me, in this comic, a jungle vine was used to pull open a door of sorts?"

"Yeah," Cananor sighed, "They wrapped jungle vines around their waists, tied the other ends to the bamboo bars and pulled in different directions. It was at an ancient Azteca temple brimming with treasure that was also being used as a spiritual courtroom. Phoenix was representing a ghost. It was a long and confusing story arc."

"Might I inquire as to whom was doing the pulling?"

"There was Daring Do and Phoenix Flight, naturally, and also a Diamond Dog named Bowie. He was a one off character. Didn't catch on with the fanbase."

"So, in this, I stress, comic book, it took the combined might of an agile treasure hunter, a larger-than-life half-lion and a literal hulking mass of muscle to tear apart bamboo supports. In case you haven't noticed, Cananor, we do not consist of such burly archetypes. At the risk of sounding akin to your father, we are not stallion material. Not yet. We are but mere ponies, gents, white collar workers with about as much unified strength as a narcoplectic slug. I haven't so much as pulled a plough before. Have you?"

"Shucks. You're right. We're weaker than Applejack's cider. The only one physically strong enough to even make a dent is the red-headed meat-cube trapped inside the thing we're trying to break him out of."

"Me?"

"No, Derky, not you."

"And," continued Weatherstorm, "Even if we three did make some manner of progress, there's no doubt that we would generate sufficient noise to make Icarus' soldiers aware of our presence. A fight would ensue, I am sure of it. And again, the only pony bulky enough to bruise is the pony we are daring to rescue to begin with."

"Starry's proven himself to be nifty with a bolt blast when he needs to. He could try to keep private-poetry and fruit-loop busy from here while we bust Belove out."

"Indeed he could," he pointed to the drooling, palsied Starfire, "had he not rendered himself a blue vegetable by over-excerting himself with his spellcasting."

"Would you mind not picking holes in my plan?"

"I will, should you make a truly un-holy plan. But other than the glaring and dangerous oversights, it's leaps and bounds above anything I was going to suggest. Now, can you please help me get these tossing leaves to stick? They keep falling off and I'd rather avoid using dirt or spit to keep them in place. And for goodness sakes, Derky, stop sticking your entire head through the hedge. Those hooligans shall spot you and shear it clean off."

Derky did not move. His green eyes darted back and forth between the two guards, and their stolen saddlebags. Back and forth, back and forth, and an idea crept its way into his mind. A very silly idea, but no more so than sticking dirt and leaves to three fully grown horses and sneaking past two likely armed soldiers. No, this idea was silly, so very silly, that it just might work. "It's so silly that it just might work," he said.

"C'mon, Derky, your head isn't silly! I've seen it work plenty of times, no sillyness involved!"

"Not my head, Cananor. The plan."

"I'd like to hope so. I do wish I hadn't pointed out so many flaws in it for I can feel my confidence draining by the second."

"Not Cananor's plan, Weatherstorm. It's, uh... it's my plan."

"..."

Both Cananor and Weatherstorm gave a knowing nod to each other, rubbed their hooves, and leaned in to a close huddle. "Oh-ho, this should be good."

"So, like, for first thing's first," Derky peeled one of the leaves off of Weatherstorm's back, and it stuck to his hoof. "We don't need to get all brown."

Cananor seemed shocked. "But you love rolling in dirt! That's one of your favourite things to do, before and after meals!"

"Yeah," he smiled, "I do love rolling in dirt."

"Food makes you grassy, huh?"

"Anyway, uh... I like your plan, Cananor. I'm just maybe changing some stuff. We can still hide, but where they can see us." Derky stoked his chin. "You get me?"

"No," was the unanimous reply.

"I'm, uh... I'm not good at explaining these things. But I can show you as we go." He held out a hoof and smiled. "You'll have to trust me, guys."

And again, "No," was the unanimous reply.

"C'mooooon."

After much hmm-ing and hah-ing, the pegasus and the unicorn finally gave in. "Fine, Derky, we'll put our trust and wellbeing in your hooves, and not in a comic book. It's not like we have great choices. May Celestia have mercy."

Derky looked happy, like a foal, and he hugged them both. "We need to work together to do this. Cananor," he asked, "You can still throw your voice, right? Make it sound like you're somewhere where you aren't, like you do with puppets and stuff?"

The lawyer looked pleased. "Heck yeah! I bet even a fancy pants wannabe wizard like Starfire can't cast a ventriloquism spell as good as I can."

"I have to ask, Cananor. Why, tell me, do you know a ventriloquism spell, of all things?"

"I'm a born performer, Weatherstorm, and when you REALLY want to win a school talent show with your puppet act, sometimes you put in a little extra work. My ventriloquism act was too convincing. One thing led to another, and would you believe it, it ended up bringing about The Great Marionette Purge of Ponyville. My parents banned me from reading my grandpa's old stage-magic books any more. I was just, you know, going through an experimental stage."

"I feel as though Belove would have made a joke of that."

"I still practice with socks, you know." He added his own rimshot.

"You can still throw your voice." Derky tapped his hoof. "That's great. Do you think you could do that spell on another pony? Could you send their voice somewhere else, instead?"

"Probably. I've never tried." The beige unicorn rubbed his horn. "What ARE you planning, Derky?"

"You'll see, I guess. Weatherstorm, you can, um, pretend to be other ponies, can't you? Like, ah... do their voices?"

"And who told you I am even capable of doing such a thing?"

"Remember when I helped you move into your new house, and we had some... some cider, like a party? And then you had too much and got sick?"

"No, I do not remember that. But I WAS wondering why I woke up with all my possessions upside down and fractured, and that can be indicative of your hoofwork alone."

Derky paused. "Are you sure you don't remember that night? You got really silly and did a really good Rarity voice, and started kissing the mirror, and..."

"Whoa-ho!" Weatherstorm coughed, a little louder than he ought to have. The noise remained unnoticed by the guards. "All right, Derky. Settle down. That's enough of that. Yes, I can perform a few passable impressions. It really depends on the pony you'd like me to mimic."

"Okay. Just one last question. Cananor," asked Derky, "How far can you use your magic to... do the, what is it called... lifty-thing?"

"That's a good question, Derks. I'll get back to you when I understand it."

"I think he might be asking what your telekenisis range is. I think."

"Yeah yeah. Telekekneesocks."

Cananor twirled his hair. "Not great, admittedly. Short. More like telekeanklesocks."

Derky let out a heartfelt sigh. "Oh dear. That's not good. Starfire is too tired to help. And we need magic. Or," his eyes drifted to the loose vine they had discarded, and he picked it up and twisted it, "Maybe we could, uh... use this thingie to, erm..." he made a whipping motion and held it above his head. "I guess."

"Derky, I've made it clear that we're not strangling anypony."

The white-shirted Pegasus struggled to find the words, so instead he began looping one end of the vine, and motioned for the others to help him. "I don't like violence, you guys. If we all do good, nopony will get hurt." He gave them his puppy stare. "And those guards will let Belove go without a fight. You have to trust me. This'll be the bestest break-out ever seened."

And his confidence was infectious, for Weatherstorm and Cananor found themselves smiling too, their clear lack of clarity regarding the plan outweighed by their sheer will to free their imprisoned friend.

"Yes, Derky," replied both, "We trust you. This will be the best rescue attempt the world has ever seen."

This was far from the best rescue attempt Belove had ever seen.

The earth pony hadn't so much as raised an eyebrow at the spectacle, and what a spectacle it was. There he lay, with one eye peeled towards the hedges, watching his just-out-of-sight friends and wannabe rescuers flounder around and bungle through the motions.

Thrice now had a mysterious ropey woodland vine, tied and tightened around one end to fashion a makeshift lassoo, slipped through the undergrowth, and immediatly hit the clearing floor below with a wet slap. Then the rope would be pulled backwards, back into the invisibility of what lay behind the dark hedges, and all would be still but the rustling of the leaves.

Slap. Four times now.

He was surprised that his captors had not yet heard the plipping and plopping of his friends' intentions. Or, for that matter, his friends' voices. Weatherstorm had a bit of hush to him, true, and Derky was a naturally quiet soul, but he could hear Cananor as clear as day from where he lay, even if he couldn't see the trio, or the seemingly silent Starfire.

Could it have been the crackle of the fire that prevented Icarus' men from taking notice of the sounds around them? Belove gave them a glance, hootering and hollering at Weatherstorm's little written laments. Somehow, he doubted it. For soldiers, they were far from observant. He counted himself lucky to be held under lock and key by the least elite bodyguards he had ever met, and that they had their backs to him.

He watched the vine fly through the hedge for a fifth time, and this attempt made it further to their goal than the last. It was an admirable plan, Belove had to admit, even if it was going slightly left of field, and he respected the resourcefulness of his comrades. As Cananor had rather loudly, too loudly if Belove himself had heard his whispers, reiterated Derky's revised plan, they were to fashion a lasso with the materials they had on hoof. Using that lasso, they would be able to reach through into the clearing, hook their saddlebags, and reel them in, back into their refuge. Doing so right under the noses of his own sentries.

A decent first stage of the plan, all in all. Whatever they actually needed the bags themselves for in such a situation was lost on the prisoner, however, because Cananor had decided to tone his voice down halfway into their rundown of stage two. He could only imagine that the bags were pivotal to the overall success of the plan as a whole, and since he'd heard the words "rescue Belove" peppered around, he'd rather like them to succeed.

Of course, like all plans, it needed improvement. Belove scanned their hoofmade instrument with unchanging eyes as it was slowly reeled back into the bushes. He could tell that the lasso had been hobbled together by a bunch of amateurs who had never tied a sturdy knot in their lives. Trying to hit anything with that loose a loop would be like trying to wrangle a raging bull's nose ring with a shoelace. He was put in mind of the claw of a skill crane down in Ponyville arcade. Maybe by the thousandth or so attempt they may just win themselves their prize. He hoped they brought enough tokens with them because they were playing for his life.

His friends, he had noticed, also threw like girls with pansy arms. Or maybe pansies with girl arms. They had yet to throw the ramshackle lasso relatively close to their target, no more than having cleared the hedge they nestled themselves behind before it lolled to the forest floor like a noodle slipping through the cracks of a fork.

Crssh THWRUPT.

Belove's eyes opened wide. Everything had happened so fast. He was unsure as to whom had been operating the lasso beforehoof, but he was almost certain now that Derky had been handed the reigns. Out of the undergrowth the vine had flown, both ends, soaring squirmishly through the night sky. What an unfortunate overshoot. Past the stationary saddlebags it flew, and hit one of Icarus' guards on the back of the neck with a sharp snap. The page he had been holding in his hooves fell forward, into the fire, the stolen glasses on his nose nearly joined it, and some somewhere behind him, there was an exclaimation of, "Ah, whoopsie."

The Pegasus soldier's reaction was instant. Simultaneously clenching his jaw, hooves and wings, his head swivelled around like that of an owl, his eyes narrow and ominous. Belove's heart skipped a beat. What a rescue this turned out to be. His friends would be discovered now, surely, and the sleeping Manticore would soon be eating not just an equine breakfast, but a full five-horse meal.

Feeling around at the back of his head, the royal bodyguard rose up from his seat, his eyes not once breaking contact with Belove. "What is this?" He demanded, seething, holding the thrown object aloft like a murder weapon. "Why?"

Belove sighed, at mopped at his brow. That armour-clad chump thought that he himself had thrown it as an act of defiance. His friends hadn't been caught red, or rather, green, handed as he had thought. He decided to reinforce the lie. "Ach, sure... I did it for the vine. Thought you and the banana guzzler might want to, you know..." He whipped at the air with his hoof and made a tsh noise. "Court martial each other. I don't know what you high-and-mighty Canterlot 'soldiers' do in your spare time, when you're not off grooming yourselves."

The high and mighty Canterlot soldiers were both offended. With a ruffle of his wings and a cry of, "You... you pony trash!" the poetry guard flew to his hooves and, in his bout of anger, kicked the nearest saddlebag, that being Weatherstorm's, over onto its side. The flap flopped open and out sprawled all that had been contained within, all of the journalist's travelling possessions, all rolling out onto the spongy forest floor, about one and a half meters from the surrounding shrubbery. Neither of the accused bodyguards noticed.

The first guard came to a sudden stop at Belove's makeshift prison and grabbed the occupant gruffly by his chest fur, slamming his face against the bars that stood between them. He didn't look like he took the joke well, and Belove pondered if he had accidently struck a very real cord. "Don't you understand? Don't you get it yet? You're nothing but a farm to us!"

Squirming against the vice of his aggressor, Belove's eyes moved past him, and his accomplice, to the bushes. He could see the faintest silvery tingle illuminate off of the dark green leaves, and heard the slightest jingle of unicorn magic. One by one, the strewn items, cast from the haven of Weatherstorm's bag, began to move, and the lick of icey aura was so faint that they may very well have been moving of their own accord. First, he saw the circular dish of white talc that Weatherstorm used to keep his hooves soft and womanly roll off, guided by that invisible horn, into the blankness of the bushes. Not a second later, the ice blue mist snaked out and around a tub of mane gel, and then a few stray hair clips, and one of Cananor's combs, and pulled them all back in through the greenery. One banana peel. Then another. And another. Four banana peels slid silently along the ground and joined the rest of the reclaimed objects. Belove smiled.

The first guard kept his hooves wrapped around Belove's fur, but his brow softened into a look of mystery. "Are you listening to me?"

"Aye, aye, something about me growing up on a farm. Original."

There was a rustling now, louder than ever, coming from behind the bushes, and then a grunt, and what could have been a whisper. The second guard, vine in hand, caught on to the sound at once. "Hey," he said, still chewing banana with his mouth full, "Didcha hear that? Rustling." He turned and, head lowered, began to approach the bushes. They fell silent, and still. Too silent. Too still.

Belove laughed, and the other guard's grip on him tightened. "Leaves rustle. You're learning."

He paid the mouthy earth pony no mind. The Royal Bodyguard could swear that the closer he got, he could hear mumbling... He put both hooves to the leaves, and began to open a peephole, slowly, deliberately...

"EW! AH, OW, EW, EW, EW!"

The guard was torn away from the hedge by the sound of frantic activity behind him. His comrade was flailing around the clearing, his hooves groping at his left eye, which was shut and twitching. He made a most awful commotion, and it sounded unlike him. The prisoner lay on his back on the floor of his cell, and he was laughing even harder, holding a hoof to his own cheek and rubbing it in circular motions. "Janey Mac! I got you as good as you got me, eh?"

The first guard tried to prise apart his eyelids. "You... you're disgusting! You SPAT IN MY EYE!"

"Well, I wasn't aiming for your eye, but I've got to say, I'm not complaining with the outcome, so I'm not."

The soldier growled, and stumbled around the camp, coming perilously close to the fire. "I could have sworn that there were eyedrops in one of those bags. Oh, where are they?" He pawed at the ground, tumbling through the strewn, assorted healthcare products and tattered sheets that he, himself, had scattered. He waved off at his comrade. "Deal with him."

"Well, what do you want me to do to him?"

"Whip him! Beat him! In fact, to heck with the Captain's plan, feed him to the beast now for all I care!"

And then came a mistake. "Beast?" Followed by, "Whoops."

Neither of the three soldiers had spoken those two words. The two Canterlot guards shared glances, then both looked to Belove. The latter cleared his throat, and blushed. "U-uh... I mean... Beast? That's what I said. Me. I said it."

They didn't buy it. The second guard, still holding the vine like a whip, called to the bushes, "Now I know somepony is hiding back there. Come out!"

Beloved facehoofed when a response came from the shrubbery. "...Uh, just a minute." This was followed by hushed whispering.

At the very least, the sheer brazenness of whomsoever lay behind the hedge, just out of sight, took the guards by such surprise that they could speak nary a word between them. They stood, dumbfounded both, unmoving for several seconds, trying to piece together exactly what was happening tonight.

And then Derky walked out from behind the hedge and right into the clearing, directly into plain view. Belove almost died on the spot.

The Pegasus was wearing the most bizarre getup Belove had ever seen. It certainly was deserving of a double take. The once soft, caramel brown Derky Bells' fur was now as white as sunbleached bones, an unnatural, offputting white. Belove couldn't tell if he still wore his usual shirt or not, for it may well have just receeded back into his overbearing whiteness and became one with his fur.

His mane, too, was altered almost beyond recognition. Anasuming he may be, but one of Derky's most noticeable traits was his fluorescent ginger hair, something that he no longer seemed to possess. From his scalp, hung long strands of yellow. A fair, off-blonde. Everything about the image was so off, and more pressingly, so out of place.

He looked as far from the Derkington that Belove knew as could be possible. But he was not mistaken. That silly little muzzle that slanted awkwardly to one side. The green, effortless eyes. The breezy brow that had not a line of worry upon it.

'Derky?' Belove thought, his mind still unable to come to terms with what he was looking at, 'What'n the heck is he doing out here? What is going on with his fur? His mane? Why is he smiling at my captors?'

Derky blinked, and the gap-mouthed soldiers blinked back. He bent his static, expressionless face into a forced, heroic smile, and spoke loudly and deliberately. "Gentlecolts! It is I, your captain, Icarus!"

The soldier harassing Belove released him at once, and both the captors looked to each other, and then their newly emerged 'captain.' Belove fell to the floor as the iron grip was freed of him, but the shock of what he was seeing was quickly being superseded by what he was hearing.

"Captain?" Guard number one asked, "Is that you?"

"Quite," replied the disguised Derky, "That is indeed who I am. Icarus, your superior. I have returned."

The soldiers looked him up and down. The guard with the vine-whip that the rescuers had fashioned bit his lip and tightened the grip on his weapon. His comrade clicked his tongue, loudly, and made an advance towards the imposter.

'Ah jays,' Belove squirmed in his cage, and he saw the innocently smiling Derky do likewise as the trained and armored guardspony walked closer to his so-called-superior. 'What were they thinking, sending Derky in here like that? Looking like that? Just daft, that is!'

The first guard pressed right up against the disguised Derky, and stared right into his soft, green eyes. Derky remained oddly calm in his typical blasé manner, opened his mouth, and, "Soldier, you are infringing on my personal space, stand down," came out.

'No way,' Belove thought. 'There's no way that they'll trick even these eejits into thinking that Derky is Captain Icarus. Not a chance.' A small part of him hoped to every deity under the sun, and the deity of the sun herself, that he was very, very wrong.

He was very, very wrong. To his surprise, the soldier bowed his head at once, and placed a hoof to his chest. The other bodyguard did likewise. "Sorry, sir," the first soldier said, "I thought that you might have been one of this pony's friends."

'Icarus' laughed. "Have you forgotten what they look like already, soldier? Or what I, your leader, look like?"

Belove remained quiet, and listened to Derky talk. There was something off about his speech. He'd known the stallion for the better part of his childhood and throughout his adolescence. Derky was a slack-jawed creature. He mumbled out his words with often incoherent effortlessness. And whilst he, standing there in his disguise, looked vaguely like Icarus, if in nothing else but for the wings on his back, he sounded a little bit TOO convincing. The voice coming from Derky's mouth, whilst not quite perfect, was pretty darned close to the voice of the real Icarus himself. The pegasus was certainly replicating the same tone and pitch as the absent captain, and following the same speech patterns, even down to the faux Canterlot accent. Not a bad imitation, all in all, and if Belove had have closed his eyes, he might have even believed that Derky's Icarus voice belonged to the real deal.

Very odd, indeed.

Because Derky wasn't exactly good at pretending.

The second guard loosened his stance, and spoke up. "All of them look the same to me, captain." He coughed, as though he wasn't sure as to how to phrase his next statement. "But, uh... you need to fix up your image a little bit. You don't look right. Captain."

"Ah, yes. I lost my armor. To a... pool of quicksand, would you believe it."

"I don't mean your armor, captain. But I know that that image is hard to keep up. Just make sure to reapply it before we head back to the city. Could be hard to explain for all of us if you don't."

Derky looked almost puzzled for a moment, and he perched his lips together into a duckface. And yet he somehow still spoke, clearly and coherently, in his rendition of Icarus' voice, "I appreciate the exhortation, soldier." He seemed to bite his lip at that, and then opened his mouth in an exaggerated, silent speech, at least a second before he continued to speak in that same, passable impression.

His lip movements did not at all match the words coming from his mouth, for he looked like a guppy gulping water with wild tongue waggling and obscure, forced and exaggerated, but he spoke confidently and smoothly as though he were simply poorly miming or lip-synching along to a movie he had yet to watch.

Belove was not perceptive enough to pick up on this, but Derky's choice wording kept the alarm bells ringing. Not once, for as long as he'd known him, had he heard Derky use the word, 'Exhortation.' Belove himself barely knew the meaning, or at least, he thought he did, and he wouldn't dare attempt to pronounce it.

Sure, it was very in-character of Derky to keep the multiple syllable words flowing as the pony he was pretending to be, but very out of character for him as the pony that he was underneath. Derky was not a walking dictionary, after all. Such forced vocabulary was a hallmark of those who dearly wished to pretend, and he knew only two who would ever pepper their dialogue with that kind of fru-fru, flowery nonsense. Only two ponies. One of whom who had imprisoned him, and the other who was trying to break him out, likely right behind that hedge...

"Weatherstorm?" Belove mumbled the name under his breath.

It couldn't be Weatherstorm speaking. Not a chance. Of course, the journalist could probably attempt a decent impersonation of the captain if he wanted to, and only he would be able to pick up on all of Icarus' little speech habits, but the figure that stood before him, completely fooling the two guards, was clearly Derky. It just didn't add up. Wasn't Weatherstorm just speaking from the bushes, either. The voice was coming from Derky's mouth, at least, that's how it looked.

Not that Belove was going to sweat himself with the small stuff. All he needed to know was that Derky was somehow passing himself off as Captain Icarus, and that his two captors were apparently stupid enough to fall for it.

"So, Captain," the first guard asked, slowly sauntering over to the back of the clearing, towards a dark object that lay encased in shadow, "Does this mean that the plan went ahead without a hitch?" He sounded optimistic.

"Yes, yes," Derky replied. Belove could only imagine that he was telling them whatever they wanted to hear. Likely biding his time. Frankly, he was still in awe of the moving-company-employee's apparent knack for voice acting. "Flawlessly. All according to plan."

"The others?"

Derky said nothing for a moment, and Belove believed that only now had he notcied that there were two hostile soldiers in the clearing, not four. He came back with a quick, "Uh... oh, of course. They're finishing up. The plan, that is. They'll be joining us shortly." Once again, his mouth barely moved.

"Heh. Nice." The second guard smiled. "Can't wait until we head back to Canterlot and finish up for good, sir. I've been looking forward to slipping back into something more comfortable." He scratched at his mane as he turned, and joined his friend by the dark edge of the clearing. "Hey, captain? Is there any chance we could pick up some bananas on the way back? I ate a few while you were gone, and they're actually kind of tasty."

"Shouldn't be eating those things if you ask me," the first guard said, pushing Weatherstorm's glasses from the bridge of his nose, up past his forehead. "I know they're different to what we usually have, but who knows what effect they'll have on you? Now, these glasses," he pointed, "I'm thinking of keeping them for myself. Think I'd look good with glasses."

"Like heck you will," replied Derky, sternly, so suddenly that even he looked surprised. His impression wavered into something else altogether, but he quickly regained control of his voice. "I, uh... I mean, those glasses are prescription, surely. You'll ruin your perfect 20/20 vision, and what use will you be to your country then? I suggest you give them to me, so that I may dispose of them."

"Yes, sir," the guard said reluctantly. He made no attempt to give his commanding officer the glasses in question. "But first, don't you think it's about time we got rid of him?" He pointed to Belove. "We've kept tight lips in your absense, but he's got a wild look in his eyes. I think he might have us figured. Especially now that he's seen you like this, sir. The sooner he is out of the picture for good, the better."

"Indeed, chaps," Derky stood right up to Belove's cage, and tapped it once. His wide, heavy-eyed smile never left him. "Time to haul this prisoner back to Canterlot and lock him up in the big house, where he belongs. But we can't carry a CAGE with us, you know. Quickly, now, pass me the key to his cell, double time!"

"Oh?" The second guard looked puzzled for a moment, and then his eyes widened, and a look of bemusement came about him. He and his comrade shared a knowing glance. "Well sure, if you say so."

The two guards stood by the dark shape in the corner, and turned their backs for the briefest of moments. Belove could hear them mumbling quietly. Derky seized the moment of privacy by leaning in close to Belove, and whispering to him, in his usual monotone voice, "Hey, Belove. Don't be afraid. I'm not really Icarus."

"I know, Derky." Belove whispered back.

"It's me, your friend."

"I know, Derky."

"Yeah, Derky Bells. That's me. Surprise! Don't tell anypony, but I'm in disguise." He winked.

"Derky, great to see you and all, but how in the heck is your fur white? And clumpy? You look like somepony has dumped a big bag of flour on your head."

"Well," Derky hushly replied, "Chalk, I think. Or, you know... that white, powder stuff that Weatherstorm puts on his hooves to, uh, keep them soft, or something. He had a little dish of the stuff in his bag, so we stole it. Well, re-stole it from the ponies who, um, stole it first."

"Talc powder? You're telling me that they covered you head to hoof in the stuff they put on baby's butts? No wonder you smell like a delicate wee foal."

"D'aww, thanks! It makes me feel smooth. Like a marshmallow." He brushed a hoof along his magically blonde mane. "Oh, these are banana peels. We just stripped them really fine and tied them in, like braids. Weatherstorm said I had to be real careful not to move my head all around, or they'd fall out. And, uh... that would look pretty sick"

Belove bit his tongue. There were a million things he wanted to say, but he settled on, "You have the others with you, aye? Don't suppose that they'll all race out here in 'disguises' too, will they?"

"No, no. They need to be secret and hidden and stuff so that we can help you escape. I have this whole plan."

"So you are helping me escape. Thank me lucky days for that. Thought you lads were just here to mock me for leaving you all back in that cave."

Derky winked. "Trust me, you'll like this plan. It's sneaky. Like ninjas."

"Captain," the first guard interrupted their whispered exchange. "Could you come over here for a moment? We need your help."

Shooting Belove a final, sidewards wink, the disguised Derky bounced over to his newfound, oblivious squadmates, with all the energy that stolen valour provided. His voice naturally slank back into that of Icarus, even if his silly little features found it considerably more difficult to do so. Either Derky had became infused with the spirit of Icarus himself, or perhaps Weatherstorm and his mastery of the accented tongue had possessed the poor pegasus, but this voice was not his own.

"Sir, captain..." the first guard blushed under his specs. "I am sorry. I was clumsy. And there may now be a problem on our hooves."

"Spit it out, soldier."

The second guard spoke up. "Eh, see, 'Pede here was rustling around for the key to HIS cage... and accidently dropped the thing in ITS cage."

"Whose cage?" Derky drew closer to the couple. They huddled around a dark shape. Their shadows, somehow so large and shifting, kept the thing faint and obscured.

"Oh, ya'know... THIS cage." Both guards moved aside and beckoned their captain lookalike to join them. Standing between the two, Derky caught his first glimpse of the second prisoner.

The manticore remained caged, in its larger-than-life slumber, but there was a restlessness about it. It lay close to the bars than confined it and pawed at the ground with its wicked claws, as though its biological clock was already beginning to naturally wake the thing as the new sunless day dawned.

"Whoa," Derk-arus said, his accent dropping. "That's a manticore." From somewhere off in the far bushes, Belove could make out a very faint, muffled, "A manticore?"

The voice, and Derky's slip, remained unnoticed. "Again, I'm sorry, captain. Can you see the key in there, at all? You might have to reach in close to the beast's mouth. I think I see it glinting."

Derky remained puzzled, but his voice quickly recovered. He asked, from a mouth that barely moved at all, as plain as the day that would not come, "You are asking me to reach in, through the bars of a... manticore's cage, to rectify your mistake?"

"Please, captain. We're too scared to put our own hooves anywhere near that thing. But you? A manticore is like a household fly to you, sir."

"Yeah, you're braver than us," affirmed the second guard, "Captain, you've never been afraid of a little old manticore for as long as we've served under you. Certainly not this manticore that you beat with your own two hooves."

Derky shuffled, then looked behind him, and gave a shrug to the bushes. "Very well," he said, perfectly, his lips unmoving, "I'll show you sorry excuses for 'elite' soldiers how it is done, and when we find ourselves back in Canterlot, I'll have you stripped of your ranks and shining my horseshoes. Clear?"

"Yes, captain. Thank you, captain. Do you see the key in the darkness? There. By the monster's mouth."

The pegasus didn't seem at all hesitant to stick his hoof in the cage, and the onlookers seemed a little surprised by Derky's apparent enthusiasm, given the circumstances. He bent down to his haunches and slid his right foreleg through the bars, his hoof coming rather close to the mouth of the sleeping beast. "Whoa, nice," cooed the stallion in his usual voice. "You look really sweet up close. When you're asleep, and not trying to eat me and stuff."

"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure of that." A flash of white, and suddenly, Derky's hoof was pinned to the ground. The two soldiers held him in place, pushing his face against the dirt. "After all, we have been keeping track of the time since YOU left, 'captain.' It's probably time to get this furball some breakfast. Should we wake it up, sir?"

The mutany was so sudden. Belove tried to shout, but couldn't. A panicked gasp erupted from the bushes, but was cut short. Derky himself tried to pull his hoof back from their grasp, but finding it constricted still, merely said, "Oh no."

The second guard laughed. "You think you could fool us?"

"Uh, I don't know. Kinda," Derky said, but he managed to overlap himself with a slightly breathy, nevertheless well pronounced, "What is this madness, soldiers? Insubordination?"

"Cut the act. You honestly think we wouldn't recognize an imposter when we saw one?" The first guard tightened his grip on Derky's foreleg. "You haven't been paying much attention. To the way he walks, the way he talks, the way he carries himself in private. You would also know, sir, that I had no key to misplace. That you, captain, took the key with you."

"How dumb do you think we are? You lost your armor? The others are finishing the final plan? You really have no idea about this entire situation, do you, stranger?"

Derky tried to struggle free again, but they kept him in their iron grip. He retained his mimicked voice, but it sounded desperate. "I swear, you stallions had better release me at once, or else you'll be lucky to find yourselves in front of a military court."

The first guard laughed. "Impressive, to keep that impersonation going for as long as you have. Even now." He leaned in close, and twisted his captive's arm. "Can you even tell us our names, sir?"

Silence. And then came two very different answers.

"Soldier stallion and guard guy?" guessed Derky with a sideways smile. But he also managed to simultaneously say, in his Icarus voice, "Court-Martialed and Dishonorably-Discharged. That's certainly what they'll call you when I'm finished with you."

They twisted Derky's arm sharply and Belove protested, rattling against the steadfast wooden bars of his cell. "How did you do that?" The first guard inquired, growing angrier by the second. "You spoke with two different voices."

"Yeah, at the same time." The second guard seemed puzzled. "How'd he do that?" He turned to Belove. "Was it you?"

"'Course not," the first guard said. "That one is too stupid to impersonate voices. His accent is too thick."

"You're too thick, you eejit."

"I'm not a e-jet, Belove."

"I wasn't talking to you, Derky. I was talking to those manhandling bozos restraining you."

The first guard pressed his knee deeper into Derky's back, and held the pegasus' arm in place. "Oh. So, your name is Derky, is it?"

"Yes."

"No."

"Well, look at that," the second guard clapped his hooves. "He did it again! Two voices at once! From the same mouth! Like a magic trick!"

"I don't know how, but..." The guard with the glasses shot his head around the surrounding area in something close to panic, and then whispered, so hot and heavy in Derky's ear. "There's somepony else here, isn't there? Putting words in your mouth. Hiding? Where, in the trees? In the bushes? Where are they? Tell us."

"Er... no thanks. Sorry."

"Did that sound like a request?" The guard stamped on Derky's hoof for effect, and he winced. "We know that this sad sack pretending to be our captain isn't working alone!" He called out to the dark forest, beyond the reaches of the campfire. "That means, we know you're out there, somewhere! Hiding in the undergrowth with your voices and... words! So, here's what is going to happen!"

He nudged his comrade, and signalled to his whip, and then to the manticore. The message was conveyed aptly. "I'm going to take this imposter's hoof and start moving it closer and closer to this manticore's snout. My partner here, meanwhile, will begin lashing at the beast with that whip. Now, I can't see our sleeping pet here waking up in too good of a mood, and he'll take a lunge at the first thing he sees. Probably gonna be this," he pointed to the squirming Derky, "pony's right foreleg. That is, unless, you give yourself up, stranger. Do that, and we might go easy on you. Both. Let the manticore eat you whole instead of lots of little bites. You have 10 seconds to make up your mind." He began to force Derky's hoof towards the sleeping manticore's mouth, inch by inch, as his fellow soldier readied his whip.

Sweat began to form on Derky's brow, but Belove wasn't sure whether it was a result of the thought of his imminent, impending doom, the pain from the blockheaded bullies twisting his hoof into positions that hooves should not be twisted into, or a buzz of excitement of getting to touch a real life sleeping manticore up close. Derky was a hard pony to read.

As it turned out, Derky was sweating as a result of all three. "Hey, guys..." he said in his usual drawl, "I really like the idea of getting to pet a manticore when it isn't trying to eat me, which is nice. But you're leaning real heavy on my hoof and it's going kinda numb. Also, I don't want you to wake the manticore up and make it bite my hoof off. That wouldn't be great. Could you not do that?"

"Eight seconds now."

"I counted seven." The second guard said. "Wish I had a stopwatch on me."

"Oh. Okay. Well, now it's down to six. Believe me, whoever you are, wherever you are, my colleague and I have no problems with letting this thing tear your friend's hoof apart reeeaaaal slow, so-"

"Four seconds."

"No way," Derky spoke up, "It's gotta be about three seconds by now. Uh, I think, anyway. Maybe I counted wrong."

Belove gnashed at his cage. "Derky, don't help them count, of all things!"

"Sorry."

The guard with the whip readied himself, poised over the stirring Manticore with a manic grin. Whipping a hapless creature? Watching it eat a pony's leg whole in one big bite? He couldn't deny that he loved his job. "Three, two, o-"

"Wait!" The voice was Icarus', but it no longer came from Derky's talc-y mouth. It came from behind the hedge. A cough, and then another, "Wait. Don't hurt him. We're coming." This time the voice was unmistakingly Weatherstorm's.

Slowly, timidly, four ears poked through the foliage, followed by two snouts and eight legs. Weatherstorm and Cananor, both splattered with dashes of talc powder and decorated with the occasional leaf, stood before their challengers. And neither of them looked at all happy about it.

"Bother," Weatherstorm mused. "Looks as though the gig really is up. We've been made, and make no mistake."

"Sure does. Looks like we're gonna have to make a fight of it, huh?"

Belove bit his lip.

As far as rescues went... well, he'd seen better.