Cheated Dreams
Chapter 21
Freedom
“What do you want?” Rainbow spat at the deep red unicorn walking down the stairs, her dark blue mane looking nearly black in the low light of the basement.
“Nothing from you,” Neon laughed, walking over to the pair of cages and tossing something onto the ground with her wing. A small glass sphere rolled along the ground, tinkling quietly as it rolled. It came to a stop resting against the edge of Twilight's cage. The reddish brown cloud swirled within the glass confines. “I need your unicorn marefriend over here too tell me how to destroy this.”
Twilight raised a single eyebrow. “You really think I'm going to tell you how to destroy the only piece of evidence we have against you?”
Neon smirked dangerously. “I do, as a matter of fact. You see, Miss Dash over here wants you to.”
“I do not!” Rainbow protested loudly.
“Oh you will. Shadow! Get your flank down here!” She called up the stairs, waiting for a moment as the grey stallion fumbled down the stairs, looking at her curiously.
“What do you need?” He asked, sounding more like a butler to her than a brother.
Neon ignored him as she turned back to the pegasus glaring at her from the confines of a cage. “I bet that nose is pretty sore, isn't it Dash?”
Rainbow didn't answer, keeping her glare leveled at the mare.
“I know it is. Shadow, make it hurt a bit more.”
Shadow Charm moved forward to comply, but stopped himself a few feat away from Rainbow's cage. “Uh, Neon? Are you sure? I mean... we could just make sure they don't get it back when we let them go...”
Neon grunted in annoyance. “We could, but if they have enough evidence for the guard to search the house, and they find the sphere, it would give them too much credibility, and remove a lot of ours. We need to destroy it, and the unicorn is the only one who knows how, since you're too inept to find out. So, you hurt the pegasus, the unicorn tells us how we can destroy the evidence, and we all live happily ever after.”
“You're insane!” Twilight cried suddenly, drawing all eyes to her. “It's just a stunt team! You would torture a pony to keep them off a stunt team!? You're completely nuts!”
Neon smiled, the kind of smile that showed all of her teeth, and stretched her face just a bit too wide. “You brought this on yourself. You could have just let Dash take the blame. You could have just let her lose her dream. You could have just let me get away with it. Nopony would have gotten hurt if you'd just left it all alone.”
“I couldn't just leave it alone! You cheated her out of her life's dream! You turned our own town against us! Our friends don't trust us anymore! How could I just let it go!?” Twilight raged from within her metal prison.
Neon shrugged. “Not my problem. Now, tell us how to destroy the sphere, or your marefriend will have more than a broken nose.”
“Don't tell 'em Twi. When we get out of here it's our only shot at proving anything,” Rainbow warned, her wings open as she crouched low the floor, instictually assuming the most threatening position she could, even if her cage prevented her wings from extending fully.
“Rainbow she's nuts! She'll hurt you if I don't!” Twilight protested.
Neon rolled her eyes. “Well that's a nice heartwarming scene, and a little pointlessly dramatic. Are you going to tell me or not?”
“No!” Rainbow yelled defiantly.
“Yes!” Twilight cried desperately.
Both trapped mares looked at each other outrageously.
“Enough!” Neon interjected, putting her face between the two cages, blocking her captives from looking at each other. “No more pointlessness. Shadow Charm, do it. Sparkle, tell me. We all get what we want that way.”
With a heavy sigh, Shadow Charm stepped towards Rainbow's cage and lit his horn.
“W-wait!” She called hesitantly, backing herself into the bars behind her. “Magic can’t pass through your enchantments! I'm perfectly safe in-ARG!” Rainbow as cut of as a searing pain shot through her broken nose, her muzzle glowing with a reddish brown aura.
Shadow Charm looked away, scrunching his eyes closed tightly. “The enchantment blocks magic, but since I placed the wards I can bypass them.”
“Let go you bastard!” Rainbow screamed, trying to shake her magic off her muzzle to no avail.
Twilight cringed away from the screams of her friend, instead turning to face the menacing pegasus in front of her own cage. “So, how do you smash this thing?” Neon asked sweetly, rolling the sphere along the ground with a hoof place on top of it.
“You can't. You need a unicorn stronger than I am to break the wards,” Twilight explained hurriedly. “Now stop him!”
“Shadow!” Neon barked. Rainbow's screaming stopped, replaced by huffing and the occasional groan. “Well then, I guess we need to find a powerful unicorn.”
Neon turned back tot he stairs, beginning to trot up them. She paused half way up, turning back to her brother. “See if you can get anymore out of her. I'll look for somepony we can pay off to smash the damn thing.”
“Yes, Neon,” Shadow Charm said solemnly, turning back to Rainbow and lighting his horn. “Miss Sparkle, if there's anything else, you need to tell me now.”
“There nothing else!” Twilight cried fearfully. “Stop hurting her! I promise there's nothing else!”
The stallion sighed, giving Rainbow's nose a painful twist and drawing a pained yelp. “I want to stop, really I do, but Neon would kill me.” He let the glow fade from his horn. “Nothing else?”
“No!”
He lit his horn again.
“YOU WILL NOT HURT HER AGAIN!” Twilight screamed suddenly, horn glowing with a bright white light. “YOU WILL NEVER EVEN TOUCH HER!” Her head snapped up to reveal white-hot eyes, glowing just as fiercely as her horn. In a flash of magic and rage the lavender unicorn's coat bust into a white hot flame covering every inch of her body, her mane igniting a furious red and licking at the bars above her.
Shadow fell back on his haunches, scooting himself along the floor until his back hit the wall. The heat coming off the enraged mare felt as though it would be enough to melt the cage holding her were it not enchanted.
Twilight's horn flashed, surrounding herself in a magic bubble along with the entirety of Rainbow's cage. She then began feeding as much power as she could into the wards covering her cage, bloating the enchantment with her magic.
“Y-you’ll kill me!” Shadow shouted, clambering to his hooves and running out of the basement as soon as he realized what she was doing.
“Twi?” Rainbow asked cautiously, examining the bubble surrounding her. She recognized the spell, but didn't know what it was for.
“YOU BROUGHT THIS ON YOURSELF!” Twilight screamed as Shadow disappeared out the door. In a final flash of light the wards covering the bars couldn't contain any more magic, and they shattered. A deafening explosion filled the room as the wards were overwhelmed, the blast taking the cage with them. When the light from the explosion died down, all the remained was a flaming Twilight Sparkle surrounded by her protective bubble of magic. Below her was a deep black scorch mark and a few smoking bits of blackened metal were all the remained of her cage. The flames that made up her coat and mane were nearly too bright for Rainbow to look at, yet she couldn't bring herself to turn her eyes away.
The protective bubbles dispersed, as did the flames covering the unicorn's body, and Twilight wobbled on her hooves as a sudden headache washed over her mind. She pressed a hoof to her temple as she steadied herself against the side of Rainbow's cage.
“Whoa...” Was all Rainbow could say as she stared wide-eyed up at a panting Twilight Sparkle.
“Just... give me... a second...” Twilight said, breathing heavily. “I'll... get you... out....”
Rainbow nodded in understanding as the unicorn caught her breath. “How did you do that?”
Twilight smiled weakly, looking down at the pony in the cage. She pushed herself off and started hobbling around the room, both from exhaustion and her most likely sprained ankle. “Magical... never mind. Strong emotions mean strong magic in the case of powerful unicorns,” Twilight summarized, more for the sake of her pounding head than the high possibility that anything technical would confuse her pegasus friend.
“Huh...” Rainbow said as Twilight continued hobbling around the room “So... how are you gonna get me out now?”
“A key would be nice,” Twilight muttered, scanning over a desk pressed against one of the walls. The darkness of the basement made her search more difficult than it needed to be. “If I can't find that...” she trailed off, her eyes falling onto the sphere of magic aura, resting against the wall after it was blown away by the explosion.
“Well?” Rainbow asked, motioning with a hoof for Twilight to continue.
“Uh... I'll find the key,” Twilight responded hurriedly, avoiding the question as she continued searching.
“Twi?” Rainbow asked, tilting her head. “What if you can't find the key?”
Sighing, Twilight stopped her search and turned to back to the trapped pegasus. “If I can't find they key I can... use Shadow Charm's aura to bypass his wards and deactivate them.”
“Great! Do it!” Rainbow cheered excitedly. When the unicorn didn't move, Rainbow tilted her head quizzically, before frowning. “What's the catch?”
“It'll use up the aura,” Twilight explained sadly. “Which is the only real piece of physical evidence we have against them.”
“Oh... don't care. I'm sure we can make a case, especially after they literally pony-napped us and held us against our will. Now get me out of here so I can give the unicorn prick a piece of my mind. Messing with my nose like that,” Rainbow started fuming, making Twilight laugh lightly. With a nod the unicorn walked over and grabbed the glass sphere in her magic, only to wince painfully and drop the orb.
“You alright Twi?” Rainbow asked as Twilight held a hoof to her horn.
“Yeah... just a little sore after doing all that magic at once,” she explained, picking up the sphere with her teeth and bringing it over to Rainbow's cage, setting it down gently.
“You gonna be able to get me out without hurting yourself?” Rainbow asked concernedly, making Twilight laugh lightly.
“Without getting hurt? Maybe. Get you out? Definitely. Hold on...” she trailed off as her horn lit. She cringed against the pain that filled her head, but pushed through it as the orb began glowing, surrounded by her magenta magic. A second later, the lock keeping the cage shut began to glow as well, connected to the orb by a small strand of purple magic. Slowly, the red aura from within the orb began to filter our, flowing along the thread of magic into the lock. A second later, when the orb was completely empty of the reddish cloud, the lock flashed.
Twilight smiled, tapping a hoof against the metal contraption, grinning when she didn't feel the warding magic. “Excellent, now I just need to get the lock off...”
Taking the now-empty glass orb from the ground in her hooves, Twilight raised it above her head before slamming it down on the top of the lock. When nothing happened, Twilight repeated the action. With a third and final smash, the unprotected lock popped open. Rainbow didn't even wait as she rammed the cage door open, opening her wings as soon as she was clear and giving them a few flaps.
“Oh thank Celestia I'm out of there,” she groaned, lifting herself into the air. “Now, where did that unicorn go?”
“Probably to go find his sister,” Twilight shrugged. “If we go find a royal guard and bring them back here, this should be enough to have arrest warrants for both of them. Although... I'm afraid we don't have any proof for the Wonderbolts...”
“We'll deal with that later, for now, those two need to be dealt with. Let's go!” Rainbow called, already halfway up the stairs.
Twilight rolled her eyes at the predictable enthusiasm, clambering her way up the stairs. Rainbow was waiting patiently at the top, but upon seeing the difficulty Twilight was having walking, she quickly rushed the the unicorn's side. “Twi?” She asked, “What happened to you hoof?”
“I think I sprained it while I was chasing you and Neon a while ago. I'd heal it with my magic but... I don't quite have the energy for a healing spell of that magnitude,” she explained as they reached the landing. The front door of the house had been repaired, probably magically, and all blinds had been drawn.
“C'mon, once we get the guard over here we can get you looked at by a doctor,” Rainbow assured, taking Twilight's injured hoof and putting it around her back, effectively forcing the unicorn to lean on her for support.
“I'm not totally incapable of walking,” Twilight noted sarcastically, but accepted the help as they walked through the house towards the front door. However, just as they were passing through the sitting room, something caught Twilight's eye, and she stopped.
“What is it?” Rainbow asked when she felt her friend stop. She looked over to see what Twilight was looking at. On the coffee table sitting in front of the couch as a silver lightning bolt on a chain.
“Seams like it always finds its way back to us, huh?” Rainbow asked with a chuckle as she helped Twilight over to it.
“Indeed it does... I wonder...” Twilight trailed off, reaching out with a hoof and touching it to the necklace. She smiled. “The enchantment's still active... they might have cleared the memory, but they didn't remove the recording enchantment.”
Twilight lit her horn, gently touching her magic to the necklace. A dull static filled the room, before voices emerged. They were muffled, as though they were being heard from through a wall. Or maybe from a basement.
“Hello Miss Dash, Miss Sparkle.”