//------------------------------// // Just Desserts // Story: Regicide Squares // by Shakespearicles //------------------------------// Princess Luna stood in the hole she'd smashed into the boutique. She stared at the two ponies inside she'd been chasing for the last two days and nights. They would not escape her grasp again. In an instant, she cast a disabling shot at Rainbow Dash. But Twilight was there in a flash, placing herself between Rainbow Dash and the incoming spell attack. "Twilight!" Dash cried out. Twilight's arcane shield was up immediately. The spell crashed into the magical membrane, sending iridescent ripples across its surface, showering the room in sparks. Twilight countered with a stun spell of her own. Just because she was accused of regicide, didn't mean she wanted it to be true. She needed to stall the Princess, not kill her, so they could escape. The spell glanced off of Luna's enchanted armor. It was a stalemate. Then Luna saw her window of opportunity. Before Twilight could react, Luna seized Rarity with her magical grasp and took her hostage. "Stand down! Or the white one gets it!" Luna bellowed. "What what what!" Rarity panicked and squirmed. She was the queen of her craft when it came to fine, dexterous magic. But a combat mage, she was not. "Rarity!" Twilight called out. "Is Tom here?" Rarity's embarrassed blush and nervous glance told Twilight everything she needed to know. Twilight reached out with her magic. "Look out," Rarity knew what was coming next and made herself as small as possible. Luna certainly had more raw magical power than Twilight, as well as millennia more experience using it. But Twilight found that really experienced mages often had a one track mind when it came to combat. They only think in magic. "HERE COMES TOM!" Twilight shouted. The hefty boulder came careening through the wall, slamming into a very surprised Luna, missing Rarity with the precision of a surgeon. Magical armor was for magical attacks. It might as well have been tinfoil against a physical hit like that. Tom and Luna were propelled together through the adjacent wall. The magical grasp on Rarity vanished as she dropped to the floor. The boutique around her was staring to look like Swiss cheese. The structure creaked and groaned. The three of them ran outside as the building collapsed behind them on top of Luna. A cursory scan of her life signs told Twilight two things: One, the princess was still alive. And two, she was pissed. "Rarity! Run!" Twilight shouted as she and Rainbow Dash took off into the sky. "But, but where!?" Twilight's horn glowed and Rarity vanished in a flash. She teleported the fashionista to the last place Luna would ever think to look. Twilight and Dash flew away as fast as they could. It was faster than Twilight had ever flown before, but it was coming easier to her now. By the time Luna crawled from the rubble, they were nowhere to be seen. -------------------- Rarity sat up in bed, startled. It had all just been a dream. A terrible dream. Princess Luna wasn't really trying to kill her. Her boutique hadn't actually been destroyed. She was in her bed the whole time. "Howdy sugar cube." Applejack said in bed beside her. "I think it's mighty forward of you to just show up in my bed at this hour, but I won't object." She said, wrapping her orange hoof around her, pulling her close to her back under the covers. "Twilight!" Rarity cursed. "Naw, it's me, Applejack. But you can call me whatever you like tonight!" _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ "Twilight, I think we're going the wrong way!" Rainbow Dash said. "No, we're not." "But we're headed back toward Canterlot!" "We have to get Spike! He's the only one who can help save us now!" Twilight said. "What? We just barely escaped from Canterlot! And now you want to go back? Into the lion's den!?" Dash yelled. Twilight heard her perfectly well. But she just stared straight ahead. Canterlot Castle glittered in the distance. They had to get inside somehow. Spike would have the letter they needed to clear their name. She had thought it through so many times. She could think of no other way. It had to be this. She looked at Dash, flying beside her. "Yes." She said, barely over the sound of the wind rushing past them. "Dash, I'll understand if you don't want any part of this. You can go and hide somewhere else If you want. I'll do this on my own if-" "No way Twi!" Dash said immediately. "I'm going wherever you are. I'm not leaving your side." Twilight couldn't tell if it was just the cold on her cheeks, but she could have sworn she saw Dash blushing. "Thank you Rainbow." ___________________ Under the cover of darkness, Twilight and Rainbow Dash slipped into the alleys of Canterlot streets. It was as close as they could get to the castle without risking unnecessary detection. Twilight lifted the cover to the sewer. "Gah!" Dash backed away. The smell was terrible. She was silently grateful that she hadn't eaten anything since Twilight's mom's house. "What are we doing?" "My brother and I used to go exploring through the old sewers and utility network under the city. And if I can remember correctly, we should be able to get inside the castle perimeter this way." She said before dropping down into hole. "Come on!" She yelled from below. "Into the sewer drain, Fly-girl!" "Ugh. I've got a bad feeling about this." Dash said, as she climbed down and pulled the cover back over herself. Down in the sewer they were both up to their hocks in unspeakable. "HRGH" Dash gagged. Twilight called a light spell to her horn. Seeing what they were wading through just made it worse. "You and your brother used to do this? For FUN!?" Even Twilight was cringing. "Well, it wasn't so bad where we were, and closer to the castle. We're a bit downhill from there, so it only stands to reason that-" "That we get going to higher ground as soon as possible!" Dash huffed. The pair wasted no time, heading east through the waste system. Dash wanted so badly to fly above the horrible stew. But her wings were already covered in filth. The thought of flapping them in such close quarters terrified her. And there really was no room. Dash waded past a suspiciously cylindrical latex bag, giving it a wide berth. Just as Twilight promised, the levels of sewage lowered as they headed uphill. "Okay! Here! Just up ahead!" Twilight said, excited. "I know where we are now." Dash followed closely behind her, happy to have her hooves on dry footing once again. They were at a major junction. Several smaller service pipes ran overhead. Twilight opened the valve to one of them. Clean water poured out, Twilight stepped underneath and washed her fur off. Dash watched as Twilight cleaned the filth from her mane. Finally clean, her wet mane and tail was slick against her head, neck and flank. It was a good look for her. Dash felt specks hit the back of her neck as her wings pomfed open. "Dash, are you coming?" Twilight asked. Dash was shocked at first as she misunderstood the phrasing. "Come on, rinse off." She invited. Dash cleared the thought from her mind, and stepped in under the water with her. The cold water help her wings to relax. That is until Twilight started to clean her rainbow tail. Dash looked back to see Twilight scrubbing with her magic. She looked up at Rainbow looking at her. "Sorry, just trying to help speed things along." She blushed, realizing the intimacy of her intrusion. "Um, no. It's okay. It feels nice." Dash admitted. "Um, I mean, you're doing a nice job." She focused on cleaning her mane and wings as Twilight worked out the last bits of mess from her colorful tail, giving it gentle tugs in just the right way... Twilight turned off the water. Far too soon, Dash felt. She was really doing a great job of making her feel good. Er, getting her clean, she meant. "Okay, we should be somewhere under the Canterlot dungeon." Twilight said. "Whoa! Canterlot castle has a dungeon?" Dash asked. "It has a dungeon. A torture chamber. Gallows. None have been in use for centuries. But with Celestia gone and Luna in charge now... well, she is a bit more... traditional. And what you and I don't know about Canterlot, I could just about squeeze into Ghastly Gorge." Twilight said. Dash gulped. "I think we're here. Spike should be in one of the cells above us. And since they probably didn't search him, he should have the letter in his pocket." "Wait, Spike has pockets?" "Shh!" Twilight hushed. "I think I hear someone!" Above them, a small sad voice sang into the darkness. Nopony knows the trouble I've seen Nobody knows but Twilight Nobody knows the trouble I've seen Glory, Celestia... "Spike!" Twilight called from under the tiny drain in the floor. "Oh great, now I'm hearing voices." Spike groaned. "Spike! Down here!" Twilight said. Spike ran over to the drain, looking down through the tiny slits. "Twilight? Is that really you?" "No, it's the ninja turtles!" Dash said. "Who?" Spike asked. "You're too young to remember." Twilight said. "Stand back, I'm gonna teleport us up there." In a flash, Twilight and Rainbow Dash appeared outside of Spike's cell. After a bit of magical manipulation, Twilight turned the tumbles of the lock, opening the door to his cell. "Spike, do you still have the letter that Princess Celestia sent me two days ago?" "What? Oh yeah! I completely forgot that I had it!" He took the letter from his pocket and handed it to Twilight. She re-read it quickly. "HA! This is perfect! This will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that we're innocent!" Twilight said. "Come on, let's get you out of here and get this evidence to the authorities." Twilight walked to the dungeon's exit to push the door open. "Twilight wait!" Spike yelled. But it was too late. The magical ward on the door discharged, sending the hapless unicorn reeling across the room. It badly burned her hoof, and worse still, the letter that was in it. Rainbow Dash stood in terror over Twilight's unconscious body as the alarm rang out. She was still breathing, which was good. But a sizable contingent of royal guards came running down the stairs, which was bad. Rainbow Dash took a fighter's stance between Twilight and the coming guards. She wouldn't dare let them get to her. Even if she had to fight off all of Canterlot. Which, by the sound of it, was surely on its way... "You won't touch her." She growled. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Nopony knows the trouble I've seen. Nopony knows but- "Twilight!" Twilight opened her eyes slowly. She was on the floor. It was stone cold. Which made sense, since it was stone. As her vision came into focus, she could see she was back inside of a dungeon cell. Her hoof was badly burned, the fur singed black. Across the hall was Spike, back inside of his. This was easily remedied. She stood up and pried the bars open with her magic. "OW!" Twilight yelled. Trying to use magic hurt something fierce. "Twilight! Don't try to use magic! They put a ring on your horn." Spike said. Twilight's eyes crossed as she looked up at her own horn, suddenly becoming very aware of her own head. Indeed they had put a magic-restricting ring on her horn while she was unconscious. Further, it was attached to the equivalent of a strapped muzzle for her horn, ensuring she couldn't shake, or work it off with her hooves. They didn't take any chances with unicorn prisoners it seemed. Pegasi on the other hoof... "Oh my gosh! Rainbow!" Twilight cried, looking through the bars at the cell adjacent to hers. Rainbow Dash laid in a heap in the corner of her cell. She looked dead if not for the gentle rise and fall of her chest. Her fur was stained brown with blotches of dried blood and one of her wings was bent in a very unnatural way. Her two front hooves were bumpy and likely very bruised beneath her fur. One of her eyes was swollen shut. Twilight openly sobbed as she reached through the bars, trying to touch her. But she was just barely out of reach. "Dashie! Please wake up!" She cried out. "She put up a hell of a fight." Spike said, sitting across the hallway. "She took out at least a half dozen of 'em. But eventually they just overpowered her." He motioned to the blood spatters in the hallway. "You should see the other guy." Dash coughed, spitting fresh red. "Rainbow Dash!" Twilight called out, elated. "You're okay!" "That might be a bit over-doing it there Twi." Dash groaned as she crawled across the floor on her elbows, leaning against the bars she shared with Twilight. Twilight reached through the bars, wrapping her hooves around Rainbow Dash, hugging her tight as she wept into her Rainbow mane. "Easy Twi. I think one of 'em broke a couple of my ribs." Dash moaned. Twi tried not to squeeze so hard. Dash looked down at one of the hooves holding her. It was badly scorched. She took it in her own bruised hooves and kissed the boo boo, like she remembered her mother doing. "Are you okay Twilight? I saw you get zapped. It looked like it hurt." "Speak for yourself." Twilight laughed briefly between sobs. "Nah, I'll just walk it off." Dash chuckled, immediately regretting doing so, feeling the sharp pain of her ribs. "Hey Rainbow, I found one of your teeth." Spike said, tossing the small bicuspid to the Pegasus. Dash picked it up and put it in her mouth, trying to work it back into place before spitting it back out. "Meh, not mine." She sighed. "Rainbow, do you think you can get this thing off my horn?" Twilight asked. Dash turned around and looked at the harness on Twilight's head. The straps looked simple enough. "Sure thing Twi. Give it here." She said. Twilight put her head against the bars, sticking her horn through. Dash had used her teeth numerous times to get the caps off of cider bottles. This would be easy. She took her horn into her mouth and grabbed hold of the ring, giving it a good pull. But the straps held firm.Twilight squirmed underneath her. Dash reached deeper, trying to chew through the straps themselves. Twilight began to sweat. Dash didn't understand. How could she? She wasn't a unicorn. But for unicorns, the horn was a very sensitive place. The degree the Rainbow Dash was stimulating hers was bordering on obscene. She couldn't see, but she hoped Spike wasn't watching. She shuddered as she felt Rainbow try to re-position the harness with her tongue. "Ngh!" Twilight groaned. Dash suddenly felt her lips and tongue go numb. It felt like she had just licked a nine volt battery. Twilight collapsed as her knees gave out. "Laow, leelee?" Dash tried to say with limited motor control of her mouth, realizing what it was she had just done. "I dunno Lielight, ith leelee stong. Ith lie Nythril uh sunthin." Twilight could barely hear her though her euphoria. As she calmed down she returned to rational thought. Dash slowly regained feeling in her face. "Dash, I uh... That's never happened to me before. But, could you try again? I doubt it's actually Mythril. If we can get this off, we could make a run for it!" Dash turned back around, slumping with her back against the bars again. "I dunno Twi." She groaned, looking at her likely-broken hooves. "I don't think I'm gonna be doing much running anytime soon." She tried to close her broken wing without success. "Or flying." "I could teleport us out of here." Twilight hoped in vain. "No. I think-" Dash yawned. "I think I'm just gonna close my eyes for a minute. But you go ahead and *yaaawn* teleportal er whatev." She closed her eyes. "I'm not going anywhere without you." Twilight said, holding Dash through the bars again. "Okay. Wake me up when we're not in Canterlot anymore." Dash whispered. Twilight held her close. She started to cry. She felt Rainbow Dash stopped breathing in her hooves. _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ "RAINBOW!" Twilight screamed. Rainbow Dash coughed and gasped. "GAH! What the hell!" Dash yelled back. "Right in my ear! Again!" "Oh my gosh!" Twilight cried. "You're alive!" "No kidding!" Dash said, rubbing her ear. "But now I have a wicked headache!" "You stopped breathing!" Twilight said, tears still running down her cheeks. "What?" "You stopped breathing! I thought you died!" Twilight cried. "What? No, I have sleep apnea. So, it happens sometimes." Dash explained. Twilight hugged her harder. "OW! Again, ribs!" Twilight didn't listen. It was already quite late. Spike was snoring in the cell across the hall. Twilight sat there, and felt Dash's mane through the bars against her face. She felt a little better. She looked at the tick marks scratched on the wall of her cell. It was a reminder that they would have plenty of time to figure something out later. They both relaxed, Dash drifting off to sleep again in her hooves. Twilight dozed off shortly after. _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ The morning light streamed through the small, barred window. Dash awoke to the feeling of being strangled. A guard pony was putting a heavy collar on her, attached to a chain. Twilight was already being led out of the cell block by her own collar. "Get away from her!" Dash growled, glaring at him with her one good eye. Another guard leveled a spear at her throat. "Dash, don't fight! Please?" Twilight begged. The point was moot. Dash was in no condition to fight, let alone walk properly. "It's gonna be okay." Twilight lied, as they were led out of the dungeon. They walked together up and out into the palace courtyard, where the guillotines had been erected. "You were saying?" Dash said sarcasticly. ____________________________ The guards bound the hooves of the condemned, placing each of them in the guillotines. They were to be publicly executed simultaneously. Princess Luna made her entrance onto the gallows platform and walked before them, eyeing each of them with furious contempt. She began to address the assembled crowd. "Fillies and gentlecolts, we are gathered today to bear witness to the execution of Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash, for the crime of regicide, for the murder of Princess Celestia, my sister!" She hissed. Twilight looked out in the crowd. Their friends from Ponyville were there. Rarity was wearing Applejack's hat for some reason. Her family was there. Luna kept talking as Twilight looked over at Rainbow Dash in the block next to her. She smiled. "Why are you smiling?" Dash asked her, perplexed. "I'm happy." Twilight said. "Happy!? How can you be happy? We're about to be executed! Aren't you upset!? Aren't you angry!?" Dash said. "I just realized how lucky I am to have met all of you, my friends. Especially you Dashie. I'm grateful for the time I had with you. For the way you've made me feel. And that even though we have to die, we'll be together. And because-" Twilight cried. "Anger is not the last thing I want to feel." Rainbow began to cry with her, but smiled as well. Twilight's tail swished over to Rainbow's, as they wrapped around each other's. Luna finished her self-righteous speech, looking toward the hooded executioner. The executioner walked up to the platform. He was huge beneath the black shroud covering his entire body, hiding his identity. He positively towered over both of them, as they laid prone in their blocks. The blades shimmered above them. He looked down at them. "Any last words." He said in a gravelly voice, clearly trying to disguise it. Twilight looked at Rainbow Dash. Dash looked back into her beautiful purple eyes. "I love you." She said. "I love you too." Dash whimpered. The executioner pulled the rope. The blades fell. Twilight's world slowed to a halt. Out in the crowd, a unicorn's horn glowed beneath the stetson. The blades were halted in their fall, their blocks each opened, and Twilight's and Dash's bindings were removed. Including the ring on her horn. Twilight heard Rarity's voice in her head. "Run!" Before Rainbow Dash even had time to react, Twilight dove on her and they both vanished in a flash.