"I… I don't know…" Lightning said, fearful that Dan might redirect his rage at him. Watching anypony tear apart Vice Grip would've been hard for Lightning to watch but Dan? It truly scared him. Despite the fact Lightning himself triumphed over Discord and his own fight with Dan had ended in a draw(more or less), the human's anger was clearly a force to be reckoned with. He held out the remote with one hoof and leaned away from it, hopeful that Dan wouldn't take it and bash him with it.
But Dan wasn't like that. Whether his bark or his bite was worse was one thing but he only resorted to physical violence when it was necessary. It was true that actions spoke louder than words in most cases, just not Dan's. His words were louder than actions.
Dan grabbed the remote out of Lightning's hoof. His vision, though blurred was beginning to clear. "Okay… uh… ugh." He wasn't seeing three remotes any more but there were still too many buttons to figure out what any of them did.
"What's wrong, you guys?" Chrys asked, still helpless.
"We're working on getting the three of you out! Just hang on!" Dan looked at the remote again. The controls looked indecipherable; part radio-controlled car and part nuclear missile detonator. There even seemed to be a coin slot attached for no apparent reason. Was it something that the device had been made out of or did it actually function? "Ummm…"
Lightning motioned at the remote. "Maybe we should-"
"No."
Lightning frowned. "You didn't even know what I was going to say!"
"Yes, I did. And we're not doing it."
"But-"
"No."
"What are you guys talking about?" Twilight asked.
"Not to put a rush on this, but my wings are getting really cramped," Chrys added.
"Dan," Lightning poked him, "maybe we should-"
"No…" Dan whined. "I JUST KNOCKED HIM OUT! I am NOT going to wake him up just so we can ask him how to work a cheap RC controller!"
Shortly after saying that, Dan found himself on top of Vice Grip trying to wake him up so he could ask him how to work a cheap RC controller.
"Wake up, doc. Hello? Come on, science guy, wake up," Dan said, shaking and hesitantly touching Vice's face. He held the stallion up by his lab coat collar, smacking him to try to get him to wake up.
The scientist's eyes slowly opened, swimming in and out of unconsciousness for a moment. Hazily, he focused on Dan. "Da…"
"Yeah, hi. Listen, we need you to-"
"Dad?"
Dan dropped Vice, who landed on the back of his head and was returned to unconsciousness. Disgusted, Dan rose and tried to get his spine to stop shaking.
"What did he say?" Lightning asked.
"D-dad. Uh… I mean, I don't know. I don't WANT to know. He… thought he was, I mean, that I WAS or…" Dan jerked and flicked his arms, like trying to get something off of him. Something that wouldn't come off. "He called me DAD."
"What?" Phoenix's voice asked, amplified by the Flutterbird still hovering next to the sphere-prisons. It was kind of awkward having such a large attack craft just hovering so close to the encounter but Phoenix thought the moment was too important to interrupt.
"That's a new one," Lightning remarked.
"Okay… you try waking him up next," Dan said, still creeped out.
"Why me?" Lightning asked. "He was almost conscious when you dropped him."
"I'm not arguing with you," Dan said, walking over to pick up the pieces of his cell phone. "Do that electric-revivey thingy you did on Christmas."
Lightning looked confused. "What's a Christma-"
"Another word, and I stick your head up your own plot. Revive him, now," Dan ordered.
"Wut…"
Dan pinched his forehead. "Just, please. Revive him like you did before."
The electric pony shook his head. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"I'm afraid he's... telling the truth," Vice said.
Dan turned to see the now-concious Vice Grip stand up on his own. Like Dan, the stallion was battered, bruised and clutched his knee. Still, he managed to stand somehow.
"Two things: one, you're under arrest, two, let my friends go or I'm throwing you off the side."
Vice nodded. "Of course, your friends. The correct motivation… always… leads to the correct result," he said through winces of pain. "I'll admit I made some miscalculations but it's clear I was on the right track."
Dan walked over to the pony, standing while the stallion was still bent over. He fully intended to make Vice pay if he didn't stop screwing around, whether he could or not.
"I'll give you all the motivation in the world. You're going to let my friends go right now or you'll be holding a lot more than your knee in a few seconds."
A sinister smile spread over Vice's muzzle. "At least I have something to hold onto."
"And that is?"
"REVENGE!" Vice punched the platform and it shattered. In an instant, the surface of the floor was shards and there was nothing to hold Vice, Lightning Claw or Dan up.
Dan felt the rush of free fall before his body plummeted.
"GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-ooogh!" Something caught him in midair. It was Lightning.
"Nice save," Dan said to the pony, holding him up by his shoulders.
"This makes us even," Lightning said. Using his magic, he held up the remote control in a levitation spell grip.
The shards of glass fell all the way to the base of the Crystal Palace. They disintegrated on impact, being made of nothing more than super-dense water vapor in the first place. Dan looked up to see the trails of Vice Grip's jet boots flying away. He was heading north-east, his trajectory taking him to someplace far north of Equestria from the look of it.
"See?! SEE?!!" Dan yelled. "That's why you don't wake up the bad guy after you knock him out. Unless he's restrained. And what didn't we do?"
"Dan…"
"You didn't restrain him. So, we're going to remember this so that next time, when I pay him another beating, we can get him to disarm all his gadgets without potentially losing him as a prisoner."
"Yeah," Lightning said sarcastically. "I'm sure we'll remember to do that next time."