Into the Black

by somatic

7: The Jailbreak

“And I thought hooves on a chalkboard sounded bad.”

Claws screeched against stone as Spike sharpened his talons. Twilight tried to cover her ears; that awful noise could wake the dead, and she knew all about that sort of thing.

“Yeah, well, I haven’t exactly been keeping them in digging shape recently,” Spike replied. Twilight’s magic had reverted him to a child’s body, but his skills remained. He could move mountains when he was full-grown—he only needed to move a few walls now.

Finally, he stopped, satisfied by his claws’ razor edges. He was ready.

The magic restrictor had fallen off last night in a haze of Luna’s sorcery, leaving Twilight ready as well. She couldn’t teleport through enchanted dungeon walls, but at least she could cast a spell to keep the sound from reaching the guards. Unfortunately, it only made it louder for her.

“Let’s go, Spike.”

The dragon’s eyes blazed as he turned to the wall, little arms cycling like jackhammers against the rock. Crashes echoed off the sphere of the silencing spell as Spike pushed further. Millennia of practice let him move through stone like a fish in water—a very loud fish.

“Halfway there!” he shouted. Twilight couldn’t hear him. A few dozen more strikes, and the final barrier broke, leaving a hole barely big enough for a unicorn to squeeze past. Relieved, Twilight dropped her spell.

Her relief dissipated when she tried to fit through the hole. “Hnng! Hnrk!” Hooves and legs strained to push her belly to the other side.

“Oh, sorry. I, um, remember you being less fat.” Quietly this time, Spike removed a few more bricks to widen the breach.

Twilight gasped as she flopped out of the cell, dumping her into one of the dungeon’s outer corridors. “Less fat?”

Spike twiddled his thumbs. “I mean, since I was so big, and you were so small, it’s just… you know…”

The clip-clop of approaching guards stopped Spike’s ramblings. Mare and dragon ran for cover, but the guards turned a corner before they saw the hole in the wall. It seemed that Luna had changed their patrol routes as well.

Once the guards hoofsteps receded, Spike levered himself out of his trash-can hiding spot and muttered “You think she could have just let us out the front door.”

“Something tells me that wouldn’t go over well with the civilians.” Twilight pointed towards faded graffiti painted on the bricks. The guards had half-heartedly tried to clean it up, but it still clearly depicted the former Princess Twilight and the thorned Wilder tentacles she had summoned in an unsavoury position. Some other artist had scrawled “Serves her right” beside it, along with several profanities she hoped Spike didn’t know.

On second thought, she shouldn’t have drawn attention to it.

Slightly shaken, the duo crept along the stone floor, past crates and cages and snoring soldiers. Apparently, most of the dungeons had been repurposed as stockpiles for ammunition and armor. Spike felt the ghost of a sneeze in his sinuses, and silently prayed that he wouldn’t snort fire near the grenades.

A flash of magic lifted a spare soldier’s cloak onto Twilight, and another wrapped Spike in a scrap of camouflage canvas. It wasn’t much, but anything helped.

Slowly, slowly, with pricked ears and cautious hooves, the pair made their way out of the cell block. Small geodes glowed on the walls, flameless lights which Twilight dimly remembered inventing a few thousand years ago and which Spike dimly remembered were delicious.

The further they went, the louder it grew. Industrial hammers crashed in rhythm, shaking the foundations of the castle as they built whatever metal monsters the engineers could dream up. At least it made sneaking around easier.

“Hey, Twi?” Spike whispered, only to have to shout, “Hey! Twi!” A nudge on the flank got her attention. Over the din, he shouted “There’s a way out!”

Eager to escape the noise, Twilight rushed for the exit. It was only a small hole in the wall, blasted open by an explosives accident, but there was light and fresh air at the end of it.

Or at least, fresher air. As she slid through, the stink of molten steel assaulted her and she spilled out onto a vast factory floor. Only a hasty spell protected her ears from rupture as machines slammed against the ground. There was no sun, and no moon, just the flames of the melting torches and greasy clouds, gathering so black and thick they blotted out Canterlot.

At least the haze kept anypony from noticing the two new arrivals. Dodging railway cars of slag, Twilight and Spike maneuvered through the urban sprawl, inching closer to the cliff at the edge of Canterlot.

Old as she was, Twilight never could forget the times she looked out from these heights, seeing endless green fields and tall trees rippling in the wind, water sparkling as it fell.

Not anymore. The river was dirty and brackish and steaming-hot from reactor overflow, the fields a chessboard of withered farms, and the trees… they still rippled, but the wind had nothing to do with it. Sometimes, they walked a little closer.

“Uh, hey, Twilight?”

She shook herself from her reverie. “Yeah?”

“How are we going to get down?” Spike kicked a broken gear off the cliff, counting the seconds as it fell.

“I’ll fly you, of… course.” The holes where her wings once were twanged as she tried to use them.

Spike sighed and rubbed his own back. A runt once more.

Of course, he was a very daring runt. “Twi, you know how you always told me zip-lining was too dangerous, and that someday I’d bash my skull open on the rocks?”

The unicorn chuckled. “Not like you ever listened to me. That was before you were big enough to headbutt all the rocks you wanted. Why?”

“Well…” Spike slid a crossbolter out from his improvised cloak, a grappling hook already loaded.

“Spike, where did you get that?” Twilight ran a pastern over the nasty weapon, the bastard son of a crossbow and a harpoon gun. It was meant to be mounted on a turret and fired by hoof, but Spike’s claws let him shoot it on his own.

“They’re making them on that assembly line over there. Why, do you want one?” He twirled the thing a little too close to Twilight’s nose.

“Um, no, that’s… that’s very unsafe. You want to zip-line down from Canterlot with rope that’s scorched in a hundred places, with a weapon I know you’ve never fired before, without any safety equipment?”

“Hey, you only live twice. Unless you’ve got any better ideas…”

Twilight stomped a hoof. “Just let me think for a moment…”

“Hey, is that the guards I hear? Guess they must have finally caught on.” Spike eagerly cocked the crossbolter—by the time these were invented, he was already too huge to hold one, but he felt like he had a good general grasp of the concept. Point and shoot. Try not to die.

“F… fine.”

A unicorn’s scream pierced the air, and for a moment the guards wondered who could howl louder than the grinder machines.

Comments

[Kevin Lee]

Luna: "Next time, try to scream a little louder, dufus."

[Chaosreverent]

What happened to her friends?

[somatic]

7596688 In custody in the Castle. They'll show up soon...

[wlam]

Oh, glad to see this back. I looked at your account recently and you had been offline for so long, I thought you had abandoned the place. I hope you'll be updating the Rainbow Dash story as well.

[ferret]

The holes where her wings once were twanged

stumps, twinged

Great, Twi escaped now she can learn just how screwed they are!

[fanreader999999]

Alas.

[LH45]

Great story!