“Ugh!” Twilight tossed her head and stamped her hoof in frustration. “This is getting nowhere. We need more information or we can’t do anything, but it’s too dark in here to see and I can’t use magic to light my horn.”
“Well if you needed light you should’ve just asked, silly,” Pinkie Pie chimed in. “More things than just magic give off light.” With that, there was a rustling, a clink, and Pinkie suddenly appeared in the warm glow of a small fire, with a rock in each hoof.
Twilight’s mouth worked soundlessly as she tried to come up with something to say, but after a while she gave up and didn’t question it. It was Pinkie Pie. Instead of speaking, Twilight took a look around. Around them were three bare stone walls to match an equally bare floor and ceiling. One of the walls had a crack in it from where a root had grown through and split the stone, but it was far too narrow for them to escape through it. The root explained where Pinkie had found firewood, and closer investigation of the walls found that the prison had been built sloppily, apparently using whatever rocks had been lying around. That explained where Pinkie had gotten flint. Twilight experimentally tried to loosen some of the rocks, but they had been magically fused into one piece. The remaining wall consisted of vertical iron bars, and she could see no guards in the darkness beyond it.
“W-why aren’t they guarding us?” Fluttershy wondered aloud. “Do they have something waiting for us if we try to escape?”
“Can you see well enough to be sure there are no guards, Fluttershy?” asked Twilight.
“Yes,” Fluttershy responded. “Some of the animals I take care of are sensitive to light. I have to be able to see them in darkness if I’m going to take care of them.”
“Whether they have something waiting for us or not, we’ll handle it together,” said Applejack.
“B-but how are we going to get out of this cell?” asked Fluttershy.
“Yeah, Twilight,” said Rainbow Dash. “We need a plan.”
“Hmm…” Twilight stroked her chin with a hoof. It didn’t actually help her thought process, but she liked how it tended to make her look smart. She looked at the bars, then to Applejack, then the fire. “That’s it! Applejack, could you break those bars if we weakened them some?”
“Well, if you weaken them enough I reckon I can,” responded Applejack. “How do you reckon to weaken them without your magic?”
“Fires give off a lot of heat,” answered Twilight. “With Rainbow Dash fanning the fire with her wings, and especially if I can find some combustible minerals among the debris from that wall, we should be able to heat the bar to near its melting point.”
“Okie dokie lokie!” said Pinkie Pie. “Let’s get started!” The others stared, openmouthed, as Pinkie picked up the fire by the bottom length of charred root, somehow not burning herself, and carried the entire fire to the base of one of the bars. “What? We can’t heat the bars with the fire all the way in the middle of the room.”
Twilight shook her head and went to the pile of rocks by where the root broke in to search for useful minerals. She found some bauxite, glittering with aluminum, and grinned; the bars were thoroughly rusted. With Applejack’s help she smashed the rocks and Rarity helped to separate the flakes of Aluminum. Taking that to the rusty old bar and the fire, Twilight mixed some thermite at the bases of three bars. That would be enough to let them slip through. When the bases of the bars were white hot, Twilight motioned Applejack to proceed. With three separate bangs Twilight was sure would notify any guards that may have been hiding out of sight, Applejack snapped the bars and bent them high enough for them to crawl under.
Rainbow Dash sprang into action in case any guards did decide to show up. With a mighty flap of her wings she propelled the thermite into the hallway. She followed immediately after looking ready for a fight. None came, and the slump to Rainbow’s shoulders showed her to be mildly disappointed. The others followed a bit more cautiously, and soon the entire group was outside the cell. “Now what?” said Rainbow Dash.
“Now we keep going until we find an exit,” said Twilight. “There’s bound to be an exit somewhere nearby; that root in the cell means we’re near the surface.”
“But what about light, darling?” asked Rarity. “We can’t go stumbling through tunnels that might be full of changelings in the dark.”
Applejack answered this by breaking off a piece of the root and lighting it on the thermite still burning in the hall. Rainbow Dash followed suit and gestured for them to move on. They moved along the hallway, passing several empty cells, before Fluttershy suddenly stopped. “I’ve been meaning to tell you, Twilight, but you sounded so sure, and you all agreed with her and-“
“What is it, Fluttershy?” said Twilight.
“Umm, well, I don’t think there’s going to be an exit nearby.”
“Why’s that?” demanded Rainbow Dash.
“Well, for one thing, they wouldn’t put prisoners near an exit; I certainly don’t put my more stubborn patients anywhere they could get away from me. And for another, that tunnel up ahead goes down.”
This brought worried glances passed between the six, before Applejack let out a somewhat muffled sigh. “We forge ahead. That’s just all there is to it.”
“Yeah,” said Rainbow Dash around her torch, “we’ll be out of here in no time. They wouldn’t want to carry us a long way before putting us in our cells any more than they’d want it to be easy for us to escape.”
A foreboding silence fell on the group as they walked on. None of them wanted to mention it, but they all remembered how Chrysalis had made use of portals. They continued walking until Rainbow Dash and Applejack were forced to drop their torches, then stumbled on in the dark until they saw a light up ahead. “That must be the way out!” said Rainbow Dash as she surged ahead.
“Woah, there!” said Applejack. “We should stick together.”
“It might be guards,” squeaked Fluttershy.
“Applejack and Fluttershy are right,” said Twilight. “We need to be careful. Who knows what might be waiting for us.”
“W-waiting?” said Fluttershy. The others could hear her shaking.
“Don’t worry, darling,” said Rarity. “They can’t possibly know we’ve escaped.”
This seemed to calm Fluttershy somewhat, and Twilight reminded them of the task at hand. “We need to keep moving, but stay quiet and if anyone is up there, we can’t let them see us.” The group walked forward in solemn silence. Eventually, they came upon the source of the light and laid flat on the floor to watch, unseen.
It was a square room, well lit, with wooden chairs and tables. Ten changelings sat interspersed throughout the room, sometimes playing games in pairs. One of them had its horn lit, and Twilight could feel the force blocking her from using magic pulsing in time with that horn. That was the changeling maintaining the field; she was sure of it. Twilight motioned the others to back into the hallway and began backing up herself. When the group was out of earshot of the changelings, Twilight told them the plan. “We have to get through that room. There’s no other way to go on. The problem is, from what we’ve seen of changelings they appear to cooperate without needing words. That indicates some sort of telepathy. With that in mind, we have to knock them unconscious without any of them seeing. I could do it with magic if we could separate the one with its horn lit up from the others and take it out first. I think I can draw it out if it feels me trying to use my magic, but you’re all going to have to be ready to take it out before I’m seen.”
“We’ve got you covered, Twilight,” said Rainbow Dash. The others voiced their agreement, even Fluttershy looking determined.
“Here goes nothing, then,” said Twilight. “Get in your positions.” Once the others positioned themselves in shadows by the walls so that not even Twilight could see them, she closed her eyes and felt the magic inhibitor field. She needed to try enough to be noticed, but not enough for the guard to be sure. Slowly and carefully, Twilight increased the effort she put into overcoming the field. She felt the field reverberating in response, just enough for the caster to feel a slight tickle. She stopped quickly, hoping that it hadn’t been too much.
A quiet thud sounded from in the hallway and Twilight felt the field collapse. A grin spread across her face; her friends had done it. She powered her horn, prepared a knockout spell strong enough to disable the remaining changelings instantly, and stalked back to the lit doorway. She peeked inside and released the spell. The changelings all collapsed to the floor and none saw her. Twilight let out a sigh of relief and let her friends know they could enter. They opened a door on the side of the room and found a small barracks with changelings sleeping inside. Twilight cast a spell to keep them asleep for a few days, and did the same to the changelings who had been keeping guard. A paper found on the table detailed their orders, and revealed that no changelings would be coming to relieve this group for another week.
“It looks like we’re safe now,” said Twilight. “Nopony is going to find out we’ve escaped until these guards wake up, and they won’t wake for days yet.”
“You look tired, Twilight,” said Fluttershy. “Maybe we can rest here for a bit.”
They were all tired, Twilight realized. Their ears drooped, and their eyelids sagged. That period of unconsciousness from when they were captured must not have been very restful, and they had all had a hard week preparing for Cadence’s wedding. Twilight nodded her head wearily. “We’ll rest here. It looks like we have a long way to go if they were recycling guards so infrequently.” With that, they gathered closely together and laid down to sleep. The cave was stark and unfriendly, and just the feel of having somepony close enough to touch was a comfort.