Kneecaps was taking a break, and Night had a chance to breathe and rest for the first time in hours. Or was it days? He couldn’t really tell.
He slept for as long as he could, keeping his eyes closed and trying to regain some energy. He slept fitfully, and this was also because of Gleaming’s efforts. Everything she did was set up to kept Night exhausted, and she did an excellent job at it. The “bed” he lay on had iron bars that ran across its width at uncomfortable intervals along his back. It took him hours of shifting and shuffling to find a comfortable enough position to sleep in, but finally, he could finally sleep.
“Prisoner,” a voice called, and Night opened his eyes with tired slowness.
Before the tortured pony stood a young unicorn. His blue coat and blue curls of his mane made Night immediately suspicious, though it was how young he really gave away his identity. “You must be Moon Light,” he said.
“You recognize me?” Moon asked.
“I’ve never seen you before,” Night said, “but it’s kind of hard not to figure out that you’re the record holder for ‘youngest crime boss in Equestria.’”
Moon nodded. “That makes sense, I suppose. Are...I need to talk with you.”
Night sighed. “Look, I’m not going anywhere, and I don’t have anything better to do, but if Gleaming is going to keep trying to convince me to join her, then she’s going to have a better chance than you—”
“I’m not here on her behalf,” Moon interrupted. “I need to talk with you. Nopony else.”
Night forced his open a little wider, despite the fatigue. If Moon represented a factor that he could exploit, he’d need to know what it was. “What?” he asked.
“I…” he began. “I’m being forced to join against my will,” he hissed in a whisper.
“Well, that’s obvious,” Night said. “You were a pony that just wanted to steal things. You weren’t out to do something like this.”
“Exactly!” Moon said. “I don’t want to hurt ponies! I just want to make some money and get some fame.”
“Yeah, and you got it,” Night said, not realizing that he was speaking aloud through his exhaustion. “At the cost of the security of hundreds of ponies, you became well known enough that a serious criminal decided to hire you for serious crimes. Don’t tell me you were surprised.”
Moon pursed his lips. “I am aware that I may not have made the best call,” he said. “I’m dealing with that, and it’ll certainly color my options in the future. Now, if you’re done insulting me, I need your help.”
Night glanced over at him, still fighting sleep. “I don’t know if you’re aware,” he said, “but I’m currently tied to a table. I’m not going to be able to do much.”
“You can get out of this!” Moon hissed. “You’ve escaped from worse.”
“No, I haven’t,” Night said with a smirk. “If you’re talking about the time where your ponies ‘caught’ me and had me tied up in a lead box, they caught an Image that I gave just enough solidity so they could tie it up because then I basically had free reign across the entire pawn shop. Gleaming has me, the real me, and she’s not giving me any chances.”
“But-but you’ve got to get out. You’re the Eternal Rival, the greatest thorn in my side I’ve ever had! If anypony can get out of this, it has to be you.”
Night sighed. “Well, thanks for the vote of confidence,” he went silent for a moment or two before he spoke up again. “What do you need?”
“My father,” Moon whispered. “Gleaming has my father and is holding him hostage. Once he’s free, I will leave. I have nothing else to hold me to the mare. If you can save my father, I will never come back, and I will pull my pack out, and I will even give up stealing! I won’t ever try anything like it again, not even basic tax fraud!”
Night nodded. “Tell you what, Moon. If I get out, I will save your father, but considering right now that I have two broken legs and barely enough magic to hold up a quill, I don’t know if I can do anything at all.”
“But, surely you can escape!”
Night glanced over at him. “How, Moon? How am I supposed to get out of this?”
“Well, I’m sure you’ll think of something. You have to! If my Eternal Rival could so easily be defeated, then that says more about me than anything.”
Night sighed. “Look, Moon, if I had a way to get out of here, then I can promise you I would have done it by now.”
“Then what can I do to help?” Moon asked.
Night smirked before he disguised the look as a pained expression. “I don’t know, Moon, what can you do?”
The young unicorn bit his lip and glanced about nervously. “I...I don’t know, but I’ll think of something,” he said. “I need to go, the healer’s coming back, but I’ll think of something!”
Night nodded and sighed as Moon left. The madpony would be coming back, wouldn’t he? Couldn’t get away with an actual nap. No, he had to be interrupted by a crazy pony that suddenly grew a conscience.
But at least, at the very least, he knew that Moon Light didn’t want to be here, and that was something he could exploit. He wasn’t sure how yet, he’d admit, but he knew he could, and that was all that mattered.
“And how’s my favorite patient!” Kneecaps said more than asked, walking into the room and dispelling any hope of sleep. Not long after that, the pain began again.
---$---
Rainbow Dash beat her wings as she and the Wonderbolts flew over the Whitetail woods. While Twilight might have wanted to bring the rest of her friends in on the search, but Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie would have been limited to the ground, and the fewer ponies they had searching through the trees, the fewer tracks they’d leave behind.
Honestly, that was three steps ahead of what Rainbow was thinking, so she already figured whatever Twilight was doing was way more complicated than she wanted to think about. Rainbow looked over to Spitfire, who merely nodded to give the signal to spread out.
Rainbow banked away to the left and quickly began to search the ground for “signs of populated life.”
The guard pony she’d received instructions from, who she thought was named Azure, had given her and the rest of the Wonderbolts the vaguest directions she’d heard before Spike suddenly stepped in.
“This needs to stay quiet, ponies,” Spike explained. “You’re flying high, you’re using the clouds for cover, and you’re not making a noise. This is a hostage situation, and we need to check our math to make sure we have the right location.”
“What are we looking for?” Soarin asked.
“Buildings and caves,” Spike answered. “Specifically, buildings that might look like they were abandoned, but suddenly have some new occupants. To make your jobs easier, we’re equipping you with some cameras with life-detecting lenses. When you snap a picture of the target and someone nearby, we should see any sentient life light up in red. To narrow your search, we’re starting with the buildings. You have the map, Azure?”
Azure nodded and unrolled a large section of canvas, revealing the map carefully painted on the inside. “We have thirteen buildings for you to check, but these three along the river are your priority,” the captain of the guard told them. “These are the most strategic locations that the ponies we’re tracking could use, and as a result, they’re the ones we want to either look at or rule out first. If there’s no one in the buildings, meet back here, and we’ll discuss the caves.”
Considering that Rainbow easily clocked in as one of the faster flyers, Spitfire delegated one of the river buildings to her just because she could reach it within the hour. She had the warehouse that sat the most eastward along the river, while the rest of the Wonderbolts worked from North to South.
Flying as fast as her wings could carry her, Rainbow briefly wondered what caused all of this. Did all of this somehow connect to the Triad that Twilight warned them about during the Council of Friendship? Were they actually so much of a threat that they were now just kidnapping ponies out of their homes?
Maybe they should have brought the hammer down on them faster.
Streaking over the canopy, Rainbow began to climb, heading for the cloud layer to start hiding from anypony that might catch sight of her from below. She hit the clouds and began to weave between them, jumping between cover and cover as she approached her target.
She hit a low-flying cumulus cloud and dived into the fluffy water vapor before she began to line up the camera for her shot. She took a second to breathe before she focused the camera on the warehouse. The viewfinder revealed nothing to her, no red glow as far as she could see. Though, now that she thought about it, she wasn’t sure if the viewfinder would show her anything or if she’d have to wait for the pictures to develop.
She softly pushed the trigger on the camera, which snapped softly in her grasp. She waited for a second, staring down at the building before she wondered if her job was done or not. It really didn’t feel like she was done with her job. It had to be more complicated than that.
She took another picture, just to be sure, and was about to turn and leave before she saw something.
A flash of red in the corner of the viewfinder caught her attention.
She recentered, trying to pin down the flash of red, but it was already moving to the north. She followed along, keeping track, before she found her pony, walking straight north.
Rainbow watched him move for a long second before she found more red flashes. Thirty, forty, fifty red beams of light, all hidden below the ground. They have to be underground. There must be a cave that they’re hiding in nearby but are using the warehouse for storage or something similar.
She took another two pictures and tried to trace the life-forms’ path beneath the ground to the cave mouth.
It took her a minute or two, but she found it and took another quick picture of the low, nearly-hidden cave mouth.
Rainbow smiled and checked the area with the viewfinder one more time to see if anypony was watching her before she shot off into the sky, toward the forward basecamp. She found them, and she was going to make sure that Twilight knew about it.
---$---
The forward base camp sat on the north end of the forest a few miles west of Ponyville and even further northwest from the ransom exchange’s meeting point. Twilight didn’t want Gleaming running, or worse, the second she caught wind of a trap.
Twilight stared down at the map that her advisors had brought to her and watched as they worked to mark places for possible cave systems.
“The soil is too deep there,” Spike said simply as Raven hovered a pin over a new square in the grid that they laid over the map.
“How do you know that?” Raven asked.
“I’m a dragon. I have a sense for these things,” he replied.
Raven blinked before moving onto the next grid square.
A rushing wind sounded, and the tent flap burst open to reveal Rainbow Dash. “Twilight!”
All eyes turned to her. “You’re back before the rendezvous time,” Azure noted, while the Wonderbolt ignored her to hand her the camera. “I’ve got the pictures,” she said with a smile.
“Where?” Twilight asked, leading Rainbow to the map.
“It’s by the warehouse that your Captain mentioned,” she replied, pointing to the building marked by the river. “There’s a cave right next to it, that’s where they’re hiding. There’s like fifty of them down there!”
The three advisors glanced at each other, smiles growing. “They must be using the cave to hide in and limit their exposure to the outside,” Raven began.
“While still using the warehouse’s storage,” Spike finished.
Azure nodded. “This changes the strategy,” he said. “We’ll be unable to surround them, and they may have a secondary way out of the cave. If they do not, the fighting will be fierce once we get inside. They’ll be cornered with a greater knowledge of the tunnels, we’d have the disadvantage going in.”
“No chance to smoke them out with Night, either,” Spike pointed out.
Twilight nodded. “We...we might need to sneak in,” she said.
“The guard has not begun to properly train for that, Your Highness,” Azure said. “We could do so if you wish, but I doubt that you would receive the results you desired.”
Twilight shook her head. “We need to get someone in there,” she said. “Going in blind is going to result in too many casualties.”
“I could do it,” Rainbow said, volunteering. “I know how to sneak through temples. Caves can’t be that different.”
Twilight shook her head. “Thank you, but no,” she said. “If you get in there, there’s not much you can do. Ideally, we’d need a way to get in there, find Night, and get him out. Wonderbolts aren’t really trained for hoof-to-hoof combat, and you don’t even know what Night looks like.”
“I don’t even know who Night is,” Rainbow replied.
“Exactly, no, we need somepony that can get Night and then get him out, maybe with some teleportation magic.”
All eyes turned to her, but she knew what she was implying. She was the only one nearby that could teleport anyone and, honestly, the best chance at getting in. “I guess that means I have to get in there,” she said.
“Are you sure, Princess?” Azure said. “I highly suggest you do not take this course of action, as it can be incredibly dangerous to your health if they find you.”
“I’ll be fine, Azure,” she said. “They have been known to use Thronestone at times, but if I use the changeling amulet, I’ll have something that I can use to my advantage.”
“Are you sure, Princess?” Azure asked.
“Yes, I am.”
Azure nodded and went silent.
“What happens if you get caught?” Spike asked.
“They caught me once, but I’ve had some time to think about it. The amulet will work in the range of the Thronestone, so I can still use some magic, just not what I’m used to. It just means I need to be more creative with the tools I have. Besides, I’m not trying to maintain a persona. The gloves are off.”
“Wait, they caught you once?” Rainbow asked. “Didn’t I say that you could get caught? Did you listen to—”
“Rainbow,” Twilight said, in her softest Princess voice she has ever managed. “I promise you that we will have a long talk during the next council meeting about what I learned when I went out. However, if it makes you feel better, I have not gone out to sneak around with anypony since we’ve had that talk, alright?”
Rainbow blinked and nodded. “Okay…”
“More importantly,” Twilight said. “We need a way of disguising somepony else as me. Gleaming is undoubtedly expecting to see me when we trade the money over, and I doubt she’s going to bring Night with her. She’ll deliver him somewhere else, I’m sure.”
“Then I think we’re in luck,” Spike said. “Raven received a request about three weeks ago from Celestia, asking for another amulet, didn’t you?”
Raven glanced at him. “How do you know about that?” she asked.
“I’m used to being the mail guy in the house,” Spike replied. “I read it to sort it with the rest of the mail.”
“That’s a breach of privacy if I’ve ever heard of one,” Raven said indignantly.
“We’ll talk about it,” Spike replied. “More importantly, how far along is the amulet?”
Raven nodded. “I see where you’re going with this,” she said. “I think it’s been finished and packaged, but I’m not sure if it’s been sent yet.”
Twilight nodded. “So one of you can pretend to be me while I sneak in, right?” she asked.
“That could work,” Raven said. “We’d need to get the amulet, though.”
“Where is it?” Twilight asked.
“I think it’s in the mailroom?” Raven began before Twilight suddenly popped out of existence. A second later, she appeared again, with a package in her telekinetic grip.
“Is this the one?” Twilight asked.
Raven blinked. “It looks like it, yes. Is it addressed to Lady Celestia?”
“It is,” Twilight said before she tore the package apart, using a destroy matter spell, revealing the amulet beneath. “Perfect,” she said before she slipped it onto Raven’s neck. “Spike, make sure she looks the part. I need to begin to make my way down to the cave. I have until sunset when the Gleaming’s pony should come to collect the money. We have the bags, right, Azure?”
Azure nodded. “Three duffle bags with about one thousand bits each, a false bottom, and enough rocks to make up the difference in weight.”
Twilight nodded. “Good,” she said. “Let’s not waste any more time. We have a pony to save and a Triad to break.”
Raven nodded before transforming into a copy of the Princess. “Yes, Your Highness.”
Spike sighed. “Your shoulders are too wide.”
Raven, now appearing as Twilight glanced down at him. “What do you mean, they look fine?”
Spike shook his head. “You’re also the wrong shade of purple.”
“What? No, I’m not.”
Rainbow watched as they argued for a moment more, with Twilight joining in to berate them for arguing in the first place before she sighed. At least her part in this was done. Now she could go and take a nap.