Sunset's eyes darted around the facility nervously as she cantered away from the cellblock. Hopefully nopony would question her for giving a blanket to the prisoner. Nopony had been watching while she was in there, and she had scarcely been two minutes. Nopony would possibly-
"SHIMMER!" Sunset swallowed. Tempest's voice shook the hallways as she stormed over to her. Sunset froze in place, trying to stop herself from looking guilty. "Off so soon?" She asked, scanning her cold eyes over Sunset's rigid form.
"Y-yeah. I have orders from the boss to go train some new recruits back in Fillydelphia." Sunset felt her legs start to shake as Tempest's cold green eyes eroded away at her.
She seemed to be very aware of the effect she was having on Sunset. "I notice you're coming from the direction of Sparkle's cellblock. Fraternizing with the prisoners, are we?"
Crap. Sunset stammered to get her alibi out. "I was just giving her a blanket. It's cold out there."
"How considerate of you." Tempest chuckled, the acidity in her words dripping from her tongue as she spoke. Sunset struggled to maintain eye contact as Tempest's orbs narrowed down to slits.
"Well then, get a move on. We wouldn't want to upset the boss, would we?" Tempest laughed as Sunset galloped away, smacking her flank as she ran. Embarrassment and terror filled Sunset Shimmer as she fled from the new Admin, not slowing her pace until Tempest was well out of earshot.
"I'm going to laugh when Twilight's friends burn this place to the ground." Sunset murmured once she was alone. She had already begun planning a way to blame the escape on Tempest. Capturing them had been Tempest's plan and she hadn't given Sunset and the others enough time to lay a trap that would be reliably able to grab all of Twilight's friends. Plus it had been Tempest's idea to bring them to her base of operations instead of somewhere secret, like HQ. If everything went well, Twilight Sparkle and her friends would walk free and Tempest would be humiliated in front of the boss. As long as nopony had to deal with that monster Tempest had, there wouldn't be anything to worry about. Sunset went to the base's garage and found the truck that would serve as her ride back to Fillydelphia. With any luck, I'll be long gone before things start getting crazy in here. She sat back and waited for the driver to get moving, showing a slight grin as the truck pulled onto the road and the base slowly shrank into the horizon.
With their missing friends tracked to Sendoff Spring, it was now a matter of planning out their attack. A headlong assault was ruled out immediately. They could not be sure of how strong of a presence Team Umbra had, and nopony felt like running in blind to find out. However, Rarity seemed to have a solution in mind. "Perhaps we disguise myself, Trixie, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie as Team Umbra members and sneak our way inside?"
"A solid plan," Chrysalis agreed, "But what of myself and Cadence? Both of us are too famous and too big to fool anypony with a disguise."
"Simple. You'll be our prisoners." Rarity grinned. Cadence and Chrysalis looked at each other uneasily, before finally submitting with a sigh. With a plan worked out, Rarity took off to find the supplies she would need; black shirts, purple fabric to make the Team Umbra eclipse, a few black beanies and balaclavas, and lastly some rope to tie up their prisoners. While Rarity was working on their wardrobe, Fluttershy and Chrysalis went to scout the Team Umbra lair. The two took to the sky again in order to scope out the facility, using the high-powered camera on Chrysalis' monster of a pokédex to snap images of the building. Finally, Pinkie Pie, Cadence and Trixie were left alone to work out a plan of attack from the limited information they had available. They decided that once they were inside, they would split up in order to search the facility for the missing mares.
As an afterthought, Chrysalis gave out earpieces to keep everypony in touch with one another. She had brought them with her from the lab, thinking they might prove useful. Chrysalis downed another coffee as everypony else was getting ready to play their part. Night was starting to fall once everypony was dressed and ready. Hopefully the cover of night would prove helpful in their rescue mission.
The six set out from Rainbow Falls at 7:00 pm, as the sun was dipping behind the mountains off to the west. Trixie, Fluttershy, Rarity and Pinkie Pie were all dressed up in their fake Team Umbra uniforms, with the latter two also wearing ski masks to keep their faces covered. Cadence's wings were tied down, but with a special knot that could be undone and removed quickly should she to move freely. Chrysalis split off from the group, with the plan being for somepony to open a window when Team Umbra wasn't looking to let her sneak in. The whole party remained silent on their way out to Sendoff Spring. Everypony felt nervous, worried both about what might happen to their captured friends, or what might happen if things went wrong.
"Alright… here goes nothing," Trixie whispered as they approached the entrance. She rapped on the metal door before stepping back to wait for a response.
A slat slid open in the door, revealing a pair of blue eyes on the other side. "What's your business?" The mare demanded.
"We caught this one snooping around the building." Trixie answered, deepening her voice to make sure she did not sound like her usual self.
The doormare's eyes bulged like dinner plates. "Is that Professor Cadence? What the hay is she doing here?"
"I don't know. Maybe we should bring her to the commander and find out." Trixie suggested.
The mare hesitated. "I don't know… I feel like I should get her down here to see what's going on…"
Rarity shuddered. Her disguises might be able to fool the common grunt, she doubted that an Admin would be fooled so easily. A run-in with the facility's commanding officer so quickly could spell doom for their rescue attempt.
"Now hold on just a minute," Fluttershy snarled. She stomped her way up to the door, locking her gaze directly on the doormare. "We've been running around out here for six hours to track down this snooping professor, and this is the thanks we get? All of these mares at least deserve a few minutes inside to rest after all the time they spent out here today, don't you think?"
The Stare. Fluttershy's secret weapon had been deployed. As hoped, it melted the will of the guard like butter left in a microwave. Trembling, she opened the door to allow the five in. Fluttershy stayed back until Pinkie Pie, who was bringing up the rear, had made it inside. Once the door was closed, Pinkie let Steve out of his pokéball to douse the Grunt with a sleep powder.
The next few minutes were spent in mechanical order. The mares would proceed in a line down a hallway, asking occasionally for directions to where the prisoners were held. As they interviewed more and more grunts, Rarity began to notice something strange from all of their stories. They've been giving us different directions. What's going on here? It wasn't simple error either. One guard had told her that they were in the basement, while another directed her to the east side of the third story, and yet another told them to go to the back end of the first floor. If what they were telling her was true, that meant there was a possibility that each of her friends was being held in a different corner of the building. Rarity swallowed. Their job just became a lot harder.
They finally found a suitable spot to let Chrysalis in on the northern end of the second floor. Rarity and Trixie were both growing uneasy as they clumsily navigated the halls. They would surely look suspicious wandering around without direction with a prisoner in tow. Rarity slid open a window and activated her headpiece. "Chrysalis, this is Rarity. You are clear to come in when ready."
"Roger that," She responded. A minute later, Chrysalis pushed through the window, moving quite gracefully for someone of her size.
"Do you guys want to try and split up?" Trixie suggested, "Trixie feels that we will be able to cover more ground and attract less attention if we travel in smaller groups."
"Are you sure that will be safe?" Fluttershy asked nervously, "What is something happens to somepony and the rest of us can't help?"
"Fluttershy, I hate to break it to you, but if anypony gets caught, we're in a hole," Chrysalis warned, "We're heavily outnumbered in here, so if something does go wrong, we're in trouble if there's one or six of us."
Pinkie Pie tried to redirect the conversation away from such pessimistic thoughts. "I'll go with Cadence and Fluttershy up to the third floor. Rarity, you and Trixie should go look around on the first floor and see if you can find out where everypony is. Chrysalis, you're in charge of the basement. Capiche?"
Everypony agreed to Pinkie's plan. If there were any objections, they were kept silent in the interest of keeping spirits high. The three groups went off their separate ways to cover the rest of the building as quickly as possible. The less time they had to be inside Team Umbra's base, the better.
Without Cadence to attract attention, Trixie and Rarity found that they could move much faster and remain unnoticed by the Team Umbra agents milling around the hallways. Trixie had taken an opportunity to study a fire map of the structure to get a better idea as to where they wanted to be. If nothing else, knowing the locations of staircases and dead end hallways made them look less suspicious as they made their way back to the ground floor.
The floor plan had given them a general idea as to where the cellblock would be. The mares kept their eyes to the floor, taking great caution not to make eye contact with anypony. Finally, they rounded a corner and found themselves staring at a heavy door with a yellow sign reading 'Restricted'.
This must be it. Rarity pushed the door open a crack to glance inside. The corridor was dark, but it was empty. "Hello?" She whispered. No response came. "Hello!" Her voice was louder this time. She motioned for Trixie to keep watch while she went into the door.
There were a couple cells off to Rarity's right. She scanned over the first, and finding it empty moved on to the next. She gasped. Twilight lay asleep in the cell, wrapped in a blanket in the corner. "Twilight!" She gasped.
"Huh?" Twilight rolled over, blinking her eyes at Rarity. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and sat up in shock, "Rarity?"
"Thank Celestia you're unharmed," Rarity sobbed, "We've all been worried sick. Don't worry, we will get you out of here."
"There's a key in the garbage can," Twilight said, pointing her hoof toward the trash can. "Sunset Shimmer left it in there."
Rarity took off her balaclava, raising an eyebrow at her. "Apologies, I thought you said that Sunset Shimmer left a key for you."
"That's right," Twilight affirmed, pointing her hoof toward the garbage can. "There should be a pokéball in there too. Sunset left it and a letter for Princess Cadence."
Rarity fished her hoof around in the otherwise empty trash can, and came out with both the key and the ball. She was bewildered to find that it was actually there. "What's the meaning of this?"
Twilight knew, but a part of her hesitated to tell Rarity the whole story. She felt a strange sense of obligation to keep the information in Sunset's letter a secret. She had already looked at it herself, but even for that she felt somewhat guilty. She resolved to keep the contents of the letter a secret, at least until it had been delivered to Cadence.
Rarity stuck the key into the lock and threw open the door. Twilight cantered out, and was immediately wrapped in a passionate embrace by her friend. Tears were running down Rarity's cheek as she reunited with her friend. "I'm so glad you're safe, we were so worried."
Twilight returned the hug to give Rarity some comfort. "Don't worry, I'm safe. How are the others?"
"We haven't found them yet. We divided into teams to search the facility. Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie and Cadence went upstairs, and Professor Chrysalis took the basement."
"Wait, Cadence and Chrysalis are here?" Twilight smiled awkwardly, unable to believe what she was hearing.
"And the Great and Powerful Trixie as well!" Trixie declared, closing the door behind her, "It's good to see you again Twilight Sparkle. Trixie, nor anypony else, was going to sit by and leave you to Team Umbra."
"Thank you so much..." Now Twilight was the one tearing up. She wiped her eyes quickly and smiled. "I really do have the most amazing friends, don't I?"
Rarity pressed a hoof onto the radio receiver to activate it. "This is Rarity. We have Twilight. How is everypony else?"
The first to answer was Chrysalis. "So far nothing in the basement. I haven't seen a soul, Team Umbra or otherwise."
"Pinkie Pie, how about you?" No answer. Rarity pressed down on the button again, harder this time. "Pinkie Pie. Fluttershy. Are you there?"
"Is something the matter?" Twilight asked.
Rarity bit her lip nervously as she began to pace back and forth at an ever-quickening speed. "I'm not sure. However, I'm afraid to find out. Let's get you out of here Twilight. Trixie and I can handle things from here."
"No, I'm not leaving." Twilight locked eyes with Rarity. There was no dissuading her resolve. "I'm not going to let everypony else risk themselves on my behalf and not let me help."
"You don’t have any of your pokémon with you." Rarity argued. As the words left her lips, Rarity realized that wasn't technically true. She was holding onto one of Twilight's pokéballs herself. Granted, it was Gible, but any pokémon was better than none. Probably.
"I know where they are. Sunset Shimmer told me where everypony's stuff is being kept. Please, you risked so much to save me. Let me return the favor."
Finally, Rarity relented. She was not going to change Twilight's mind and every instant spent arguing with her was one not spent figuring out what had become of Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie. "Fine. At least take these." Rarity gave her an extra one of her homemade Team Umbra uniforms and the ski mask she had been wearing. "You'll need that more than I did." Twilight quickly dressed herself, taking great pains to pull the shirt down over her Cutie Mark. Her tail would remain a dead giveaway, but if they moved quickly there was at least a chance the Team Umbra grunts might not make the connection, and by that time they would be long gone. Hesitantly, Rarity dug Twilight's pokéball out of her bag. "Team Umbra left this at the cave. I know you aren't fond of Gible, but it would be better to have him with you."
Twilight took Gible's pokéball and tucked it into the uniform's pocket. "Thank you Rarity. You go help Rainbow and Applejack. I'll go find our stuff."
Chrysalis felt comfortable in the basement. It was cold, dark and damp, just like the Changeling hive she had grown up in. Although building her laboratory had meant getting rid of the darkness and dampness in favor of industrial lights and climate control systems, Chrysalis' eyes were still incredibly keen in the dark cellar she found herself in.
Chrysalis had encountered no resistance after she had gotten inside the building. While on the upper levels she had been cautious of alerting Team Umbra of her presence, down here she was free to move around at her leisure. The entire basement seemed to be empty of ponies, apart from herself and hopefully the prisoner she had been sent to free. At present, it seemed that the challenge would more come from finding where Rainbow Dash was being kept than fighting her way there.
I wish I had my GCU with me…Having her Genesect module would have made this entire exercise so much easier. Genesect was probably strong enough to take down every Team Umbra goon in the facility, but even ignoring that, Genesect's ability to see heat signatures would have made finding the missing ponies much easier. For today she would have to make do with the bevy of other powerful Bug-types she had at her disposal. She had spent nearly the entire flight debating which pokémon to equip with a Mega Stone today. She had settled with Pinsir, only because she was apprehensive about deploying Mega Scizor when there was a remote possibility of fire attacks.
Beyond that though, there were her two… special projects. The ones that she had neglected to mention to Cadence during their chats earlier. These pokémon, if one could even call them that, were just the surprise factor she would need in order to gain the upper hoof against an opponent. After all, how can somepony hope to strategize against something they weren't even aware existed?
Just as Chrysalis reached the last corner of the basement, she found a locked metal door. Unable to force it herself, Chrysalis sent out her Pinsir to tear it apart with its horns. Pinsir impaled the door with its massive horns, tearing it into shreds of steel that fell to the floor like scraps of paper. Beyond the doorway were a pair of cells. Chrysalis immediately locked eyes with the occupant of the second one, who had been roused to the bars when the door had been torn off. It was Rainbow Dash.
"Professor Chrysalis?" She asked in disbelief. "What the hay are you doing here?"
"Your friends asked me for help to rescue you from Team Umbra." Chrysalis answered. "Do you know where Applejack is being held?"
Rainbow Dash shrugged. "Not a clue. They had a sack over my head when they brought me down here. Guess they didn't want us knowing where each other were being kept. I guess that means Twilight is safe?"
Chrysalis nodded. "That's correct. Rarity and Trixie have already freed her."
"Trixie? Jeez, this day just keeps getting weirder…" Rainbow muttered.
Chrysalis turned on her transceiver as she spoke into the small device. "This is Chrysalis. I have found Rainbow Dash. What is your status?"
Fluttershy's panicked voice came back through the sounds of intense commotion in the background. "This is Fluttershy! We're on the second floor, but they've found us! Please, send help!"
The feed went dead. Chrysalis and Rainbow Dash looked at each other uneasily. "Can you fight?" Chrysalis asked.
"They took my pokéballs," Rainbow admitted shamefully, "I don't know where they have them."
"Nevermind. We need to get up to them now." Chrysalis broke into a gallop out the door, with Rainbow Dash following in tow. Even without her pokémon, Rainbow was still willing to clobber a few of these goons herself if it meant getting her friends out of danger. Hang on Applejack, we're coming.