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// Business Goes Up (Literally) 
// Story: A Rarity Such as I 
// by Touch the Sky 
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Rarity arrived back at her boutique ahead of the others. After her five friends and her sister had piled in through the door she slammed it (delicately) and then bolted it.

Applejack hit the lightswitch, but Twilight immediately flicked it off again.
"Hey!" said Applejack indignantly, and turned the lights back on. Twilight turned them off again. "Twilight, stop that!"
Applejack again flicked the lights on. Twilight turned them off. The lights flashed on and off faster and faster, until the lightswitch was abandoned and Twilight and Applejack began a heated discussion in the dark.

"Twilight, why'd ya keep turnin' the lights off?"
"Applejack, the soldiers will know we're in here if you put the lights on!"
"But we cain't jus' sit here in the dark!"
Twilight's protest was lost as Sweetie Belle peeked out of the window at the darkening street. "Too late, they already know we're here."

Rainbow Dash shoved the lacy curtains aside. The seven ponies could clearly see a group of the strange camouflaged soldiers standing around the front of the boutique. A glance out of the back window showed that they had completely encircled the building.

General Blackthorn stepped forwards. In a commanding tone, he declared, "My soldiers are positioned all around this residence. Any attempt to escape will be punished. We, the soldiers of the Shadowed Forest, demand that the older white unicorn female turn herself over to our forces before the night is done. If she does not comply, more drastic action will be taken."

All six other ponies turned to stare at Rarity, and she turned to look beseechingly at Twilight, who cleared her throat. Attentions were immediately diverted to her.

"Ahem," Twilight cleared her throat again, nervously. "Well, it's clear we have to compose escape plans-"

"Wait just one minute!" Rainbow swooped forward to hover in the middle of the room. "I, for one, want to know what the hay is going on!"
She jabbed a hoof sharply at Rarity, then Twilight. "And you two are gonna give me answers. 	You know something... I bet that's what you were talking about tellypac- telepathathicl- with your minds earlier!"

Rarity cringed as Sweetie Belle frowned. "Telepathically? But unicorns aren't-"
Twilight interrupted promptly. "We'll explain when we get out of here."
Rainbow looked as if she was about to argue, but Applejack was nodding. "There's a time an' place fer long explanations, Rainbow, and stuck in a boutique encircled by soldiers ain't it."

"But how will we get out?" whimpered Fluttershy.

"Well, duh." came Pinkie's voice. She was pointing at Twilight's horn. "We teleport."
Twilight looked annoyed with herself for not seeing this obvious solution, but then looked doubtful. "But my magic is still weakened from that spell they cast on us... I don't know that I can teleport all seven of us, maybe just three, max, including myself."

"Well, can't Rarity do a teleportation spell too?" said Pinkie. Rarity once more felt their eyes on her. 
"Well, I can perform a quite weak teleport spell... I could maybe take myself and one other..."

Applejack nodded. "So Rarity takes Sweetie Belle, and Twilight takes Pinkie an' Fluttershy."
Twilight frowned. "What about you and Rainbow?"
Applejack glanced at Rainbow Dash, still hovering above them. "Me an' Rainbow'll fight our way out. You with me, pardner?"

Rainbow pounded her front hooves together. "To the death!"

"Well, hopefully it won't come to that." said Twilight hastily. "Where are we to teleport to?"
It was Fluttershy who answered. "We could go to my cottage... they might not know about that, since it's out of town."
"We're sorted then." said Applejack. "You five teleport over ter Fluttershy's cottage, an' me an' Rainbow'll meet y'all there."
The six put their hooves together. Rarity nudged Sweetie Belle, and the filly's small white hoof joined the orange, blue, yellow, pink, purple and white hooves already placed together. The seven ponies nodded.

"Okay. We'll bust out and provide a distraction, then you five skedaddle out of here." said Applejack indicating herself and Rainbow Dash.
"Alright." said Twilight. "We'll see you at Fluttershy's."

Without a backwards glance, Applejack kicked the front door off its hinges, earning a gasp of outrage from Rarity and a musical jingle from the bell overhead. The orange farm pony charged out of the door, followed quickly by a flying streak of rainbow colours. The sound of soldiers shouting floated through the doorway.

Rarity turned to Twilight to see her grip Fluttershy and Pinkie and vanish in a flash of magenta magic. Sweetie Belle grabbed at Rarity's foreleg as Rarity cast her own spell, an image of Fluttershy's tree home locked in her mind. There was a flash of pale blue aura, and a sensation of rushing along at great speed before Rarity was blinking in the cool air outside Fluttershy's cottage.

Twilight and the others had arrived safely, and Fluttershy was engaged in deep conversation with a pair of birds sitting on a low branch, while Pinkie and Twilight sat waiting, Pinkie twitching and fidgeting like it was hard for her to sit still. Rarity fleetingly remembered Pinkie saying she'd eaten all the sweets while locked in Sugarcube Corner and sighed.  Pinkie Pie on a sugar high was something she didn't need right now.

Sweetie Belle detached herself from Rarity's leg. "You have got to teach me how to do that sometime! It would be awesome to be able to teleport wherever I wanted to go!"
Rarity smiled and nodded distractedly, looking back towards Ponyville and wondering how Applejack and Rainbow were coping.

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General Blackthorn sent a small group of his soldiers to hunt down the orange earth pony and colourful pegasus. Some looked distinctly unhappy about their task, especially one of the pegasi soldiers, who had been battered by the rainbow pegasus before. Blackthorn dismissed the thought; his soldiers were more than capable of securing two female ponies, however good fighters they were.

Now he turned his attentions back to the building. There should be five ponies still in there, including their target and the juvenile. But as he watched, one of his soldiers, who had been searching the building, emerged from the doorway shaking his head.

At first, Blackthorn was confused. But then he growled. Unicorns. They had obviously teleported out of the building. He kicked himself for being so foolish as to overlook the fact that three of their captives were unicorns. Now they were... who knew? Maybe those two escapees knew, but for now he had to try something else to draw his target in. She had a business, did she say? One look told him she was a dressmaker, and he withdrew with a smirk.

A business, she said. Not for much longer.

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Rarity frowned, going to sit at the window of Fluttershy's cottage and watching for Applejack and Rainbow Dash by the orange light of the sunset. The other five were laughing and joking behind her, but something was nagging at her. As she watched, that something occurred to her. It was hours too late for the sun to still be up, so what was causing the orange glow? She glared at it, squinting, and then saw-
Fire! Just a flicker, a leaping tongue of orange flame, but unmistakably fire. But what could be burning to cause such a big fire? And almost right in the centre of town, right where... where...

Before she knew what she was doing, Rarity was out of the door and running towards town.

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Blackthorn was pleased. The boutique burned beautifully, an orange beacon against the night sky. If the white unicorn was anywhere within a few miles, she'd see it. And if she worked out what it was, she'd come running back. In fact, if he focused hard he could almost hear her hooves pounding over the crackle of the flames, hear her cry of misery as her business supposedly burned.
Suddenly his ears flicked up. That wasn't in his imagination; he could really hear her desperate call.

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Rarity's eyes filled up with tears as she stood helplessly, watching all of her dreams come to ruin. All of her belongings were in that building, every dress she'd ever made, her most expensive materials. And her memories, all the photos of her family, friends, sister. She sat down before her burning boutique and wailed in misery and grief.

What she did not know was that Blackthorn, simply not cruel enough to destroy things he knew must be precious to her, had had the boutique emptied of fabrics, dresses and furniture before setting it alight. All of her possessions were piled in an empty house nearby, so that it was only the building and a few permanent fixtures which now went up in flames.

But Rarity was not to know that. She wailed and sobbed, as her friends ran up to surround her before staring in awestruck horror as the Carousel Boutique burned. Sweetie Belle, when she arrived, joined her sister in her tears as her home, too, was burning.

When the soldiers arrived, Rarity, her mind glazed and uncaring, did not resist as she was dragged away. Her friends and sister were tied up and brought along, too, as they were 'escapees' and so must be punished. The five of them were dragged to the edge of the forest, where they were reunited with a captured Applejack. Rainbow, it seemed, was still giving the soldiers the fly-around.

The prisoners were ordered to 'get some sleep' and were untied, with the exception of Fluttershy's wings. Surrounded by guards with spears, even Applejack knew not to attack. Eventually, even in the face of the night's events, fatigue overtook the captured ponies one by one and they fell asleep. Eventually only Rarity was still awake, her eyes slowly closing as a plume of smoke obscured her view of the sunrise.