Crystal had been drumming her claws against the steel table for a good half hour now, for a so called criminal who knew the whereabouts of a close friend of a group of ponies called ‘the bearers of harmony’ or some such nonsense, they sure were taking their sweet time in getting someone to question her.
Back in that pony town, Appleloosa as Artair called it, everything had gone to Tartarus in a hand basket incredibly quickly when that changeling showed up; Crystal had seen a lot during her career as a Paragon but the spell that was cast on them, that was a new one.
Crystal couldn’t be too mad though, they had certainly put up a good fight. She had lasted a surprisingly long time against two powerful leaders, came pretty close to taking one down too, but when that same cloud that had taken away Dylan and Mia’s powers surrounded her it was all over. Luckily by that point Artair was long gone, hopefully to regroup and think up their next move; she wouldn’t hold it against them if they decided to leave them behind and get to the Vlemm enclave, Artair was an important asset so it would be natural that they’d want to get him home as soon as possible before plotting a rescue mission.
Crystal stared directly at the ‘mirror’ against one of the walls. She couldn’t see it but he knew that some creature was watching her from the other side, just waiting for her to do something but she wasn’t giving them the satisfaction.
The feral dragon lord and the changeling king had them all quickly restrained but it wouldn’t have made much of a difference considering they had been deprived of their auras. The ‘bearers of harmony’ arrived soon after looking pretty angry. A firm backhand, or rather backhoof, to her now bruised cheek by the blue one had only confirmed that these were the same ponies that they had seen back in the city. Thankfully the purple one had prevented the rest of the group from doing anymore damage to them, on the other hand she did use her authority as a princess to have them all arrested and shipped off to Canterlot for interrogation. Crystal had sat in a cell overnight only to be stripped of her clothes and her weapons before being brought into the room she was currently sitting in which brings us to the here and now.
The door next to the fake mirror opened up and the purple alicorn that had them detained sat down in the chair across from her with a stone faced expression.
‘Doesn’t want to look weak or she just doesn’t want me to see the cards just yet. I can work with this’ thought Crystal
Before she could get a single word out Crystal interrupted “so what is this? Are you going to torture me for information now? I’ve always found myself partial to racks but I’ll have whatever’s good. Or is this going to be one of these therapy sessions where we talk about how my father never loved me until you trick me into giving away vital info? Don’t bother, if you think even for a second that I’m going to betray my friends you are sorely mistaken.”
Twilight was taken aback by the bluntness of the statement but nevertheless maintained her composure.
“Actually I wanted to know more about the noble dragons.”
“Ah so the therapist route, alright I’ll bite. What do you wanna know?” said Crystal, putting her feet atop the table.
“Who are you? Be truthful.”
“I’m Crystal. Greatest archer amongst the noble dragons, you saw how good of a shot I was back in that city didn’t you?” replied the blue dragon
“That was you?!” said Twilight, her composure having gone completely out the window “what in the name of Celestia did you spray us with?”
“A specially designed tear gas, harmless to reptiles like me but incredibly potent against mammals like you. Now ask me something that matters, or do you wanna keep going on twenty questions?” replied Crystal.
Twilight glared at the dragon “okay smart alec, where are your friends taking Spike?”
“Spike who?” said Crystal, playing dumb.
“Spike the baby dragon you kidnapped!” shouted Twilight.
“Oh you mean Artair. And as for kidnapping? We didn’t kidnap anyone, little buddy came with us out of his own free will.” said Crystal.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No not really, you seem like a pretty stubborn pony who tends to focus too much on small details to see the big picture until it’s too late.” replied Crystal, tone taking a serious turn.
“I AM NOT A- no, you aren’t going to get the better of me.” said Twilight, calming herself down with Cadence’s breathing technique “still haven’t answered my question though, where are they taking him?”
“The Vlemm enclave, where all the noble dragons live.”
“And where is that?” asked Twilight
“Can’t answer that princess, it’s the biggest secret of my clan.” said Crystal “don’t even try to torture it out of me, I’ve got an iron will when it comes to that.”
Twilight searched Crystal’s face for any signs of fear or weakness, something that would imply that she isn’t so tough as she puts herself out as but there was nothing but pure confidence in her appearance mixed in with a bit of mockery. It was clear she couldn’t force it out of her at all.
“Fine, those weapons we saw in Baltimare, where did you get them?”
“Why? You want some of them? Sorry, but if you have to ask you can’t afford to ask.” replied crystal “but seriously though, we didn’t get them anywhere. Our local gearhead Griffith made them, along with a million other pieces that make our lives so much easier. Guy’s a real brainiac”
Twilight’s bookish side slowly began to overshadow her mother-bear instincts the moment Crystal talked about ‘new technologies’, to know that there was such an advanced society out there in the world; Twilight couldn’t help but get a little bit curious
“Like what?” said the princess of friendship, the force in her tone lessening.
Crystal smiled ‘misdirection, works every time.’ she thought to herself.
“Well let’s start off with the father cubes, small clawheld devices that can do tons of stuff for us….”
*********************************
Just a few rooms over Dylan was being questioned by Applejack and Rainbow dash in a ‘good-cop, bad-cop’ role respectively, which mostly comprised of Applejack holding Dash down everytime she tried to take a shot at the dragon.
“I’m gonna ask you again, where is Spike?!” shouted Dash, shoving her muzzle right up against Dylan’s
“And I’m telling you again, you aren’t getting anything out of me period. I would rather die being loyal to my friends than live as a traitor.” replied Dylan.
Rainbow Dash’s only response was to grab ahold of Dylan’s head with both of her hooves and slam it down onto the metal table as hard as she possibly could
Dylan sat dazed for a few moments before shaking off the blow “oh come on, you never start with the head, it makes the victim all woozy. They won’t be able to feel the next-”
He stopped right as the wonderbolt slammed one of her forehooves down on one of his hands. Only for the yellow dragon to shrug at her effort.
“See? Didn’t even notice that one. Even if I did, doesn’t matter; You can beat me as much as you bloody want, but you’ll never be able to break me. Artair will remain unfound and there is nothing you can do about it, you selfish morons.” said Dylan.
“Selfish?! Yer callin us selfish?” said Applejack, barely managing to get Dash to calm back down again.
“Yes I am. I see a group of ponies who are refusing to let go of the past because they are afraid of change in their world, I see ponies who are preventing a dragon from achieving his true potential because they want to keep him enslaved, I see ponies who have not for even a single moment considered their so called friend’s feelings in this whole affair. Worse still, you don’t even have the guts to fight us like true warriors; instead you hide behind a changeling king and a dragon lord while they do the dirty work for you. So not only are you selfish, but cowardly as well.” Dylan spat.
“OH YOU ARE GONNA GET IT!” shouted Rainbow Dash, only to be held back by her farmer friend.
“Dash cut it out! You’re only givin him what he wants, just go outside, get some fresh air, and calm down. Ah’ll handle this.
Seeing that Applejack wasn’t gonna let her deliver a much deserved beatdown, Rainbow Dash let out a huff and flew out of the room.
“Hmm. darn shame there.” said Dylan
“What do you mean?” asked Applejack
“The circumstances I mean. If they were different I may have been great friends with that pegasus, lot of admirable qualities in her: tough, headstrong, doesn’t take flak from anyone, and above all else loyal to those she cares about, almost to a fault; though her aggression and ego are two glaring weaknesses.”
“Yeah, tell me about it.” said Applejack. “Anywho, back to business.”
“How many times do I have to say that my lips are sealed?!” said Dylan
“That ain’t what ah’m after mister….”
“Dylan, my name’s Dylan.”
“Right Dylan, what ah wanna know is why ya’ll even want Spike in the first place?”
“Well it’s more his parents who want him, but regardless of that…..” Dylan swallowed some of his spit “he is the destined savor of our people, the soul of all noble dragons, he will help us rise again and take back all that is rightfully ours from those who have stolen it.” said Dylan
“Spike?”
“No, his name is Artair and that’s only what the prophecy says; honestly I don’t believe in all that fate and destiny garbage, the path you walk in life is forged by you and you alone, not any other worldly forces. But hey, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see where Artair paves out his road.” said dylan. “Oh and don’t ask me about the prophecy, that is on a need to know basis.”
“Okay but why take him by force, ya could have jus asked us.” said the farmer pony
“In case you haven’t noticed, we noble dragons aren’t exactly the most social creatures; at least when it comes to the other kingdoms. We like to keep our affairs very discreet, hidden from the world, nobody knows we exist and we’d prefer it stay that way. If we came up front and told you about the noble dragons and how Artair factored in, it would make a domino effect through the world and we’d never have a moment’s peace ever again. Besides, given how you’ve all acted so far I’m not particularly inclined to believe that you would have all just handed him over to us.” replied Dylan.
“Really? Even though you’ve been the ones attacking us?” said Applejack
Dylan threw his head back and let out a loud cackle, one that was half-sincere and half-sarcastic but all insulting.
“Oh don’t try to play the victim here” said Dylan, venom lacing his tone. “In almost every case we’ve told you to back off, to just leave us be, and everytime you try to fight us anyways; are we just supposed to let you beat us up? We’ve got to defend ourselves, sure we’ve gone a bit overboard a couple times but who hasn’t? All this anger, it’s a bit uncalled for; I mean have we actually done anything to hurt Artair so far? I know he can send you letters, we didn’t know about that before, so couldn’t he have just let you know he was in trouble?”
Applejack tried to think up a response, a way to justify their behavior so far, to tell herself she was doing the right thing; but Dylan did raise a pretty good point, if Spike was in trouble, couldn’t he have just sent a note? Were they really in the wrong here?
No, no they weren’t
“that doesn’t change what happened in Baltimare, all those ponies ya’ll hurt!”
Dylan frowned, then sighed “would it help if I said I was sorry?”
Applejack froze, that was not the response she was expecting; she thought he would have defended his friend’s actions, not apologize for them
“I mean we really didn’t want it to come to that, the plan was just to scoop our friends up and head on. But then you pinned them down and Crystal decided to take action, sure she could have handled it better in at least a dozen ways but she didn’t really have time to think, her friends were in danger after all” Dylan looked up at Applejack “you can say whatever the Tartarus you want about us noble dragons, but if nothing else we are loyal to our allies until the very end, I would gladly fight and die for my friends and they would return the favor in a heartbeat. Which is why I’m not going to let my guard down and give away where they are, just because you’re being nice to me. I refuse to be a traitor.”
“Ya caught onto that?” said the orange earth pony
“Uh, hello? Getting in close to the victim, putting them at ease, before popping the magic question that screws them over is a classic interrogation technique. That is like first year Garda stuff.” said Dylan, “anyway since you’ve failed miserably to get anything out of me, who’s next?”
Applejack didn’t say a word, instead she simply opted to calmly walk out of the room before she did something she would seriously regret.
***************************
In the third and final room was Mia and Pinkie Pie (who had moved from anger to bargaining), the two were stuck in an endless feedback loop.
“Tell me where Spike is!” said Pinkie
“I don’t wanna.” replied Mia
“Where’s Spike?”
“I dunno”
“Do you know where Spike is?”
“Maaaayyybe yes, maaaayyybe no.”
“Then tell me where Spike is!” said the pink party pony
This had been going on for a good-half hour now, supervised by Rarity who believed that Pinkie Pie could merely annoy a confession out the dragon like she did with everyone else; what she failed to account for was a dragon that was as upbeat and bubbly as the party pony, making her immune to Pinkie’s ‘techniques’.
Rarity was about to try and close the loop her friend was caught in, but Pinkie beat her to it.
“Enough! This is getting us nowhere, how about this; if you tell us where Spike is I’ll make you my super duper, ultra secret, mind blowing cupcakes!” said Pinkie.
“Hmmmm” said Mia in mock consideration “no thanks, I’m more of a cookie kind of gal, cake is just plain gross”
And there it goes…..
Mia just said what one should never ever say to Pinkie Pie’s face, lest you face her wrath.
“W-what?” stuttered Pinkie Pie.
“I said I don’t like cake, never have and never will.”
Pinkie Pie pulled out a dictionary from her mane and began to flip through it
“Those words! Is it possible to use them together in a sentence like that!”
“I hate cake! I hate cake! I hate cake!” repeated Mia
“YOU HATE CAKE?! No wonder you all act so mean all the time” Pinkie then materialized out a chocolate cupcake out of thin air and shoved it into the dragon’s face “here! Try it!”
Mia slapped the cupcake out of Pinkie’s hoof, the sweet treat landing on the with an audible splat, “get that out of my face! I said no!”
Pulling out another cupcake, this time vanilla “try it and you’ll love it!”
“I’ve had cake before! Hated every minute of it!”
“But you haven’t had a Pinkie Pie cake! Come on just one little-” Pinkie stopped when a white hoof fell onto her shoulder.
“Pinkie, darling. I think there are more important matters at hand than whether or not a dragon likes cupcakes, remember?” said Rarity
“Oh yeah! Tell me where Spike-” Pinkie was cut off once again by the same hoof of her fashionista friend.
“Let’s try another approach, shall we?” said Rarity, gently pushing the pink earth pony away and daintily situating herself on the chair across from Mia
“Aw. But I was having so much fun with her!” protested Mia
“You’re not here to have fun. You’re here to tell us where my little Spikey-Wikey is.”
Mia had to physically snuff out a giggle fit “Spikey-Wikey? That’s what you call him? Oh I am so gonna use that next time I see him, that is like the cutest nickname ever! Still doesn’t change the fact that I don’t know where he is and if I did, I wouldn’t tell you”
“Well perhaps there’s something that could jog your memory?” said Rarity, fluttering her eyelashes
“What do you mean?”
“Well we have plenty of valuable things to offer in exchange for Spike, perhaps we can come to an agreement of sorts; bring the rest of your dragon friends in on the deal too, hmmm?”
Mia started at Rarity, her face gradually twisting into an expression of disgust.
“That is so gross!” said Mia “sure I like to party, but not like that!
“What?” Replied Rarity in confusion
“And cutting my friends in? You little deviant, how dare you!” Said Mia, anger slowly increasing in her voice
“What are you talking about?”
“Look lady, while I’m flattered that you’re offering yourself up like that I’m afraid I just don’t play for that team.” Explained Mia
Rarity though over the dragon’s exclamation, trying to figure out what she had said to offend her in such a way. When it finally hit her, the fashionista’s eyes nearly sunk into the back of her head.
“NO NO,OH SWEET CELESTIA NO! THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT AT ALL, I MEANT WE COULD PAY YOU WITH GEMS OR ANYTHING ELSE YOU MIGHT WANT FOR SPIKE! NOT THAT!” Rarity sputtered out.
The fire in Mia’s eyes quickly returned at that statement “oh so now you think I’m some cheap feral who would sell out her friends for some shiny rocks?”
“Well I-“
“You what? You assumed that just because I’m a dragon that makes me a greedy backstabbing jerk who only cares about themselves? Well let me tell you, we noble dragons aren’t anything like that, we actually care about each other and would do anything to project our own. The fact that you think I would be willing to betray them at the drop of a hat just makes me sick. Get out, we’re done here.” said Mia.
“But-” protested Pinkie
“I SAID GET OUT!” screamed Mia.
The two ponies quickly jumped up and ran out of the room, leaving mia alone.
The red dragon plopped back down in her chair, a look of disgust remaining on her face.
“Friggin ponies, magic and friendship my butt. That was totally out of line there.” muttered Mia “the others had better bust us out of here sometime soon.”
************************************
A dead silence hung in the war room of the Violet Dawn; the fact that the airship even had it’s own war room had greatly surprised Spike.
They were all sitting next to each other around the large circular table with all but three of the chairs being occupied by a dragon and everyone there knew who should have been sitting there.
Once they had gotten the ship a safe distance away from the scene as not to be spotted, Saphria called an emergency meeting of the Paragons to consider their next move; of course she failed to account for the difficulty on her teammates part in addressing the elephant in the room, so they had just sat there without saying so much as a word, quietly mulling over any ideas they could throw onto the table.
“Alright I’ll say it: what do you think our next move should be?” said Griffith.
“Well let’s consider the situation: three of our friends have been captured by princess Celestia’s allies and have been taking to an undisclosed location for interrogations or torture, both of which would be pointless as we all know that Crystal, Dylan, and Mia wouldn’t betray us under any circumstance, correct?”
Everyone nodded except for Spike
“Well actually, I think I know where they’ve been taken.” said the baby dragon
“You do?” replied Saphria
“Yeah, apart from Tartarus there’s only one other place in equestria I know that ponies take dangerous creatures like them for interrogations: Canterlot Castle.” replied Spike
“THE Canterlot Castle, residence of Princess Celestia and Luna? Possibly one of the most heavily guarded areas on the planet?”
“Oh...that isn’t good is it?” said the baby dragon
Yam sighed “well it’s far from ideal, I can safely assume that the purple alicorn will be there along with the dragon lord and changeling king you told us about which makes for a total of five powerful beings we’d have to contend with, on their home turf nonetheless. Furthermore there are likely numerous royal guard squads on constant patrol, they’ll be on the lookout for us. To top it off, even if our friends are being held there we have no prior knowledge of the castle’s layout, if we were to rescue them we’d be running in there blind.”
“So what are you proposing Yam?” said Saphria.
“Our mission was to retrieve Artair at any and all costs and return him to the Vlemm enclave, as much as I hate to say it: Dylan, Mia, and Crystal fall under a cost. We’ll have to leave them for the time being until we can muster enough force and intel to mount a rescue mission.” said Yam
Silence engulfed the room again, Yam wasn’t wrong by any means: there was too much risk in charging into canterlot to rescue their friends, they would likely all be captured by the opposing force and their mission would meet a complete and utter failure; but on the other hand, they were noble dragons, could they really just abandon their friends like this when they needed them?
“I can see you are a bit reluctant to go along with this so how about we put this to a vote? I put mine in for heading straight home.”
“Seconded” said Connor “I love those guys like family but if we get caught there’s nothing we can do to help em’, as long as we come back later I’d be fine with leaving them for now.”
“No.” said Saphria “we go after them, we’re noble dragons; we always watch out for our own, through thick and thin, come Tartarus or high water. I swore an oath to protect my clan when I joined the Paragons and I am not about to break it.”
“I’m with Saphi, no dragon left behind; sure it’s a tough spot but we’ve gotten out of worse before right? We’re the friggin Paragons! We’ll find a way in, one way or another. Plus we have no idea what those ponies are doing to them, Mia, Crystal, and Dylan might be being tortured as we speak!” added Griffith.
“That’s two for rescue and two for retreat. So I suppose the decision comes to you Artair” said Yam, turning towards the prince “should we stay or go?”
Spike looked between the two sides, both starting at him with anticipation without a hint of malice or intimidation; this made Spike ease up, knowing that no matter what he picked the rest of the group would respect his decision regardless.
Taking a breath in, Spike readied his explanation.
“Guys I’ve lived amongst ponies my whole life and during that time I’ve learned alot of things, laughed and cried, loved and lost, traveled to where and back again, but after it all the one thing that has stuck with me has been friendship. I learned that true friendship can move mountains, force dark forces back from whence they came, and give you a second chance at life; as long as it’s pure in your hearts. I’ve only been with you guys for a few weeks but I can see that you guys are really close, maybe even more so than twilight and her friends and I know that if it was them in this situation they wouldn’t hesitate to rescue each other; so I say that we get our friends back, I know we can do it!” said Spike, ending with gusto.
“Yeah!”
“Very well, how do you want to approach this?” said Yam, trying to mask the fear in her voice.
“Well what are our options?” asked the baby dragon
Saphria rubbed her chin “hmmm. I’ve seen this sort of mission before and find that one of two approaches tend to be the most effective: smart and quiet or loud and dumb.”
The ninja dragon grabbed a stylus and began to write on the digital screen that took up one of the walls.
“In the quiet approach we’d learn the guard patrols and the layout of the castle, carving out an attack plan based upon that; once complete, we’d carefully and precisely move into the castle, free Dylan, Mia, and Crystal and then move back out without any creature seeing us.” explained Saphria
“But if just one guard or ponies decides to defer from the plan, the whole thing gets derailed.” remarked Griffith.
“Exactly, it’s quick and clean but leaves no room for error, which brings me to loud and dumb: we study the castle to find any exploitable weak points such as where guards are in low quantity or the walls are thinner, once we find them we load up on weapons and charge straight at it, bowling over anyone in our way, yes it’s crude and carries a big risk but we can afford to make a lot more mistakes and if the blitz play works, they might not be able to catch us before we make our escape.”
“Actually” said Spike raising his claw into the air “I think I’ve got a better idea, I saw it in a movie once.”
“Oh this should be good” said Connor.
“Griffith, do you have any invisibility devices or something like that?”
“Five of them.”
“And anything that can counter magic?”
“What do I look like? An amature? Of course I do!”
“Good, you’ll need both. Along with anything else you might need to defend yourself, now Yam” the baby dragon turned towards the scholar “you’ll be with him on the diversion team.”
“Wait diversion team? What the heck are you planning Artair?” said Saphria.
“You see, I know we can’t face Celestia head on with either plan, so we’ll split up into two teams….”
It took Spike about a hour and a half with multiple diagrams to explain just how they were going to get Mia, Dylan, and Crystal out of Canterlot Castle, primarily because spike also had to tell them the whole castle layout and guard rotations (something he had inadvertently picked up during his Momlestia visits to Canterlot). But once it was all said and done there were mischievous smiles all around.
“This is so clever and devious, I’m honestly surprised a baby face like you can come up with something like this.” said Saphria.
“What can I say, you guys must be rubbing off on me.” replied Spike with a shrug.
“That just means you’re another step closer to becoming one of us Artair, now we’d better get started on the preparations for tomorrow. It’s gonna be a wild ride, I just hope it works.” said Griffith.
The group stood up and walked out the war room, all heading towards their various rooms to start their prep time for the next morning. With good reason too, after all:
It’s not everyday you try to pull off the prison break of the century in Canterlot.