“Ungh...” Rainbow grunted amidst the tight thump-thump-thumps of her shimmying sojourn through the air conditioning duct. “I'm soooooooooo not a fan of tight spaces...”
“Really? That surprises me.” Lancie's antler's occasionally clattered against the walls as he gripped to Rainbow's mane. “After all, you're so very frequently cocooning yourself inside your bedsheets.”
“Mrmmmf... that's different.”
“In what way?”
“Look, enough chatter,” Rainbow hissed. “We're in it deep enough as it is without the ponies in these apartments thinking that a giant blue tarantula has somehow bottled itself up in their ceilings. Where exactly do we go next, branch-head?”
“Hang a right at the next junction.”
“Okay. See? Now we're getting somewhere.”
“Hmmm... heheh... heheheheh...”
Rainbow frowned sweatily in mid-shuffle. “What's so funny?”
“These lovely uptown yokels are going to wake up, wondering why their houses smell of kiwi fruit and backsweat.”
“Seriously! What's with the kiwi fruit?!”
“Take a left, then keep going straight, Sparky.”
“Nnnngh... would it kill you to explain yourself for once, dude?”
“The way I see it, if you can't astound someone, at least try and confound them.”
“Is that so?”
“A solid philosophy to live by.”
“I wouldn't know about that,” Rainbow said as she crawled and crawled forward. “It's a very clear case of Clever Mane Syndrome. That's about it.”
“Ah, yes. But, you see, one can measure a pony's subscription to tropes by the sizeably large gap in her imagination.”
“What in the hay are you even talking a—” CRACK! A grate directly beneath Rainbow Dash gave way. “—BUTTS!”
Lancie blinked for one and a half seconds before plunging directly after her in a gray streak. THUNK! He landed antler-first in the floor, the rest of his stone body wobbling to a stop. “Ouchie-wa-wa... I bet even the cosmos felt that one.” He glanced to his left with upside-down eyes. “Sparky? You alive? Or do I have no choice but to make the world's most adorable fur coat?”
“Nnnngh...” Rainbow grunted, lying on her back across an apartment floor with her bent wings spread and her legs curled up. “Sorry to disappoint you, dude, but I'm still in one piece.” She winced, sitting up and shuddering. “Though I kind of wished I wasn't.”
“You don't strike me as a rubber pirate.”
Rainbow's eyes went crooked. Eventually, she rolled her eyes and smacked Lancie loose from the floor with her tail. “I give up on anything and everything.” Cracking her neck joints, she stood up and squinted across the dimly-lit interior. “Just where in the buck are we?”
“Hmmm...” Lancie glanced up at a light switch. “I believe I can illuminate the cavern of our despair.” He leapt high, hitting the switch with the tip of an antler.
“No, don't!” Rainbow stretched towards him, hissing. “Somepony might be—” Light flooded the spacious apartment, revealing a chaotic mosaic of swirling colors, random statues, and avante-garde works of art. “—home.” She blinked. “What the...?”
“From the looks of things, we may have stumbled into a Saddledor Dali exhibit.”
“Or Ripley's Believe It or Neigh...”
“HAH!” Lancie hugged himself and shook all over, grinning. “I like yours better, Sparky.”
“Seriously... what the heck?” Rainbow Dash trotted from one pedestal to another, each brightly-lit platform displaying a hoof-carved oddity more indescribably twisted and bizarre than the one previous. “Who builds an art museum on the thirty-fifth floor?”
“Hey, maybe art is like cats and want to be placed on pedestals.”
“You're high.”
“Precisely my point.”
Rainbow trotted further down the apartment. She squinted at a wall at the far end of one spacious hallway. A collage of photographs was haphazardly pasted to an enormous board with some sort of sweet-smelling adhesive. At first, there appeared to be no rhyme or reason to the arrangement of photos. Gadually, the longer Rainbow stared at it, she detected a noticeable pattern. Photographs of living ponies formed a circular cluster—with flaring patterns like flower petals. In the very center was a concentration of images of freshly foaled infants, some with their umbilical cords still attached.
“Well, at least it's an adorable kind of freaky.” Rainbow was about to trot onwards when she did a double-take, staring up at one photo that stood out among the rest of the collage. She saw a mare with yellow coat and pink hair clad in a sparkly white jumpsuit, looking bashful. “Uhhhhh...”
“Good news!” Lancie tugged on Rainbow's tail, startling her. He pointed across the apartment towards a wall perpendicular to a swath of windows glittering with city lights. “I know where it is!”
“For real?” Rainbow trudged across the apartment, frowning. “I absolutely refuse to believe that some purchaser of the black market considered a piece of you to be 'high art.'”
“Apparently, flattery got them somewhere.”
“Meh.” Rainbow stopped before a wall with several hanging paintings and portraits. “What am I even looking for?”
“Beats me. I certainly never had an oil canvas for a shinbone.”
“Lancie, there's a wall right in front of us.”
Lancie rubbed his stone goatee. “Or is there...?”
Rainbow stared at the paintings in silence. Her eyes fell to the wall behind the frames. She spotted a pair of seams located behind one canvas in particular. Gazing back up at the painting, she spotted the cubist portrait of three vaguely pony-shaped objects. Curious, she trotted forward, bringing her muzzle up close to the canvas. Upon closer examination, she spotted a hoof-shaped indentation on the largest of the three shapes. Pressing it, she heard and felt a click. Suddenly, the entire wall—including the painting—pivoted about, exposing a brightly lit compartment inside, its walls covered with shelves full of artifacts and art materials.
“A panic room?” Rainbow muttered.
“More like a sexy room!” Lancie strolled in, gawking at the random bric-a-brac on the shelves around them. “Look at all this awesome junk! I bet I have three cousins and an aunt on these shelves alone!”
“Brbrbrbrbrbrrr... don't even joke about that,” Rainbow muttered. “Okay, so what's the piece of you that we're looking for? What does it look like—?” She froze, noticing a pale ponyquin to her left. It wore a flashy, multicolored dress with a flaring skirt. What's more, the shelf positioned above and behind it was covered in matching violet shades. “...okaaaaaaay. The sooner we get out of this freaky place, the better.”
“That might prove to be somewhat migraine-inducing...”
“Huh?”
Lancie pointed a stone talon forward.
Rainbow looked.
An enormous iron-black safe occupied the center of a dead-thick wall before them. An elaborate mana-powered number pad combination lock dotted the front of it, and from a distance Rainbow could hear the constant buzzing of electrical security conduits.
“You've gotta be kidding me,” Rainbow gawked. She looked at Lancie, who had a stupid grin on his face. “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-ughhhhhhhh!” Rainbow face-hoofed so hard she nearly backflipped.