Lyra pressed her back against the wall and kept Bon Bon's mouth closed with her magic as she did the same, while the gaze of the pegasus on the roof above them just barely missed them. She was frowning deep in thought, breathing heavily but quietly. "I've got it," she said to Bon Bon, keeping her tone low but failing to rid it of her nervousness. "I've got it. Wait just a little longer."
Bon Bon was possibly even more nervous. Their approach to things in an attempt to get Lyra close enough to the portal was being borderline suicidal. She'd done similar things in her past, when she'd had a plan, but she'd never been on the receiving end of that sort of insanity. Moreover, she'd never wanted for someone she loved to be in that kind of situation. Not someone she knew outside of her work at least, not someone who hadn't signed a contract knowing they'd be in situations like that.
It all came down to whether she trusted Lyra and how much. And she did. She trusted her with her life. But she'd never thought that would actually be relevant. And trusting someone with your life didn't necessarily mean you'd let them prepare you a blowroot dish without being properly trained to separate the poison from the edible part first, she'd reasoned. On the other hoof though, Lyra had displayed a staggering streak of successes of the kind that couldn't possibly just be blind luck. Of the kind Bon Bon wasn't even sure she had an explanation for.
So when Lyra gave her a nod and darted forward around the corner, she followed her without question. When Lyra pointed her a direction to run in, she went that way. When the first couple of bolts from enemy soldiers missed both of them by centimetres, she chose to think they hadn't just been lucky, even if reason was screaming that was the only possible explanation.
And when she found a charged horn pointed at her face and saw more ponies ready to strike as Lyra, after somehow perfectly dodging a couple more shots, stopped in her tracks to charge her spell, her heart began to shatter as she thought it was all over.
Then there was a sound. Crystal clear, a note like a glass bell permeating the air. A light shining from the centre of town as a pillar rose towards the sky. Just a moment of distraction, a moment where ponies looked elsewhere or misaimed. Lyra's spell left her horn and she dodged another shot. Her horn lit again as she stopped a pony trying to stop her projectile before he'd even started moving.
Then there was an explosion. Everything went white, and piercingly loud. Bon Bon was knocked against the nearest wall by the force of the blast. In her dazed state however, she distantly felt herself being moved. Slowly the ringing in her ears stopped, the white brightness faded from her eyes. She wasn't where she'd been anymore. Lyra was carrying her, her own eyes still closed and just slightly opening. Her mane was messed up, and she had cuts on her coat, but nothing worse than surface wounds and deep scratches. They were walking down an alley. No soldier had followed them yet. Perhaps more importantly, they'd succeeded.