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Chapter 1: Bars3,211 words
Chapter 2: Escape (part 1)1,769 words

Chapter 2: Escape (part 1)

Spike stalked through the halls of the crystal castle’s dungeon. He had only seen the dungeon a handful of times and never realized it stretched over such a wide area. The dungeon was underground and as such had no windows; the only source of light was the natural glow of the crystals and the occasional magical flame. Despite the size of the dungeon, it was nearly empty; it had been a long time since any significantly sized collection of souls had occupied the luminous halls. Spike had, of course, heard the rumors of the dungeon’s prior use under King Sombra, but that seemed like, and was, the distant past. While being transported to his cell Thorax had taken the liberty of memorizing the dungeon’s layout to the best of his ability, although he had been asleep for around the first half of the way down.

Spike painted a mental image of the dungeon’s layout, attempting to make sense of the maze-like structures and noted how far back and out of the way their cells were. Spike wondered why they had been placed in such a bizarre area. The location of the cells was nowhere near the entrance, it was almost like- They were trying to hide us away. Spike thought to himself. The Empire would be thrown into a panic if they discovered Spike the “brave and glorious” fraternizing with a Changeling. And with Thorax managing to get so close to the baby, the whole Empire would be even more paranoid of Changelings.

“Curse Equus, curse this dungeon! K’et na’sk ach’til!” spoke an exasperated voice ahead of Spike. The young dragon looked up to see Thorax angrily kicking at the threshold leading to the chamber in front of them.

“What is it?” asked Spike.

“We went in another circle. It’s not possible, but I counted all the turns. There’s no logical way that we could have wound up back here. This dungeon must be cursed or something,” said Thorax.

“Well there must be some way to navigate this place,” said Spike, “If my comic books are to be believed, there’s always a gimmick with these sorts of places, maybe a pattern on the floor or a secret color code or something.”

“Comic books?” asked Thorax inquisitively.

“Like normal books, but mostly pictures,” explained Spike as he climbed atop a crystalline cabinet alongside the hall. “You know, Power ponies, Moon Destrier, Spider-pony?”

Thorax raised an eyebrow and squinted a bit.

“Super mare? Iron dragon? Professor bizarre?” Spike asked further.

Thorax looked contemplative for a second, seeming deep in thought. He finally opened his mouth to speak, “nah, that doesn’t ring a bell. You’ll have to show me sometime.”

“I will,” said Spike. He took a step forward atop the cabinet and slid across a slick portion of the crystal. He attempted to right himself but felt the cabinet begin to topple. He quickly looked for anything he could grab onto, settling for a sconce on the wall next to him. His hand briefly touched the cool magic flame as the cabinet collapsed out underneath him.

“Spike are you ok?” asked Thorax.

“Yeah, I'm fine,” said Spike, glancing down to the pile of shattered crystal below him, “The cabinet, not so much,” he added sheepishly at the end.

“Spike, Look,” said Thorax.

“Yeah, I know, I know, be more careful.” said Spike.

“No, not that, I mean, yes being careful is a good idea but I mean that” said Thorax, pointing with his hoof to the magical flame.

Spike watched as the flame swelled for a few seconds before releasing an ember that floated past them to another sconce.

“The gimmick,” said Spike as Thorax lowered him to the ground. “We need to follow that flame.”

The two followed the ember down the hallway, with each flame it touched it renewed its cool light. The halls were filled with keys, small tables and the occasional barred door guarding a restricted room. Eventually after a few minutes following the light they came to a large crystal door with ornate handles.

Thorax grabbed a hold of one of the handles with his magic before they began hearing the murmurs of approaching voices. Thorax quickly let go of the handle before turning to Spike. He quickly charged his horn, using a gravity reversal spell and sending the two to the ceiling; and not a moment too soon, as the door quickly opened and revealed the sources of the voices, Cadence, Twilight, Sunburst and Starlight.

“And you’re sure that the inhibitor ring works?” asked Cadence, her wings fanned out in an intimidating way.

“Yes, I measured the thaumaturgical potentials in The changeling’s horn. They were near zero, as expected,” replied Sunburst.

“How do you know he wasn’t deceiving you?” questioned Cadence.

“Princess, I know these sciences aren’t your study, but nopony can just change their thaumaturgical potential at will. Not a pony, not a dragon and not a changeling, Twilight and Starlight can vouch for that,” said Sunburst.

Starlight and Twilight nodded.

Sunburst walked over to a wall sconce and put his horn to the flame and spoke “Cell block 5 E” after a few seconds the ember appeared and began dancing its way to the next flame. “Odd,” said Sunburst, examining the flame further. “looks like the grid has lost some power, Cadence, did you send an earth pony or pegasi down here?” asked Sunburst.

“No, not that I recall,” said Cadence.

“Why does it matter anyway?” asked Starlight.

“The Naviflame is powered by magic, but it looks like somepony drained some of the magic out of the network, normally an Alicorn or Unicorn would be able to charge the flame but any other pony or creature without normal external magic wouldn’t be able to use it, an earth pony would drain it's charge the most due to how internal their magic is,” explained sunburst, “It’s strange that it’s already down to this level even after I charged it this morning.”

“I suppose the guard I sent could have handed the prisoners-” Cadence stopped, biting her tongue, “err prisoner and Spike over to another guard.”

Sunburst just nodded before sending a magical pulse into the system, causing the flames to glow brighter then before.

“I still think it’s cruel to lock him up like that,” said Starlight as they continued to walk.

“I know, but it’s the only option, maybe by now that thing’s spell has wore off,” replied Cadence.

Their conversation trailed off, leaving Spike and Thorax undiscovered.

“That was a close one,” whispered Spike.

“I knew something was off about the flames,” whispered Thorax back as he checked the door, “I just wasn’t sure.”

“Well we should keep that in mind if we ever encounter more of those ‘Naviflames,’” said Spike.

“We actually had something similar at my hive for navigating, except they would actually teleport you where you wanted, and they weren’t fire either, more of a mist,” explained Thorax. “I’ll show you if you’re ever there,” he added in a sarcastic tone before flipping gravity again.

“Pshh, yeah right, Thorax, if We’re ever at Chrysalis’ hive, it’s probably not gonna be for sightseeing,” retorted Spike in a tone mirroring Thorax’s. “The only sight we’d probably see is the Dungeon,” he added as they landed softly on the ground.

“At Least Changeling dungeons are more comfortable than this place’s,” said Thorax, “sleeping on resin and having natural light does wonders for a prisoner, ya know.”

“Well let’s get out of here,” said Spike.

Thorax nodded and the two passed the threshold of the door. The room beyond the door was octagonal and had a large, compass shaped engraving on it, the door that Spike and thorax emerged from aligned with the large S on the compass, showing that they had come from the south door. Seven other doors were all inset onto the walls, with the ones not aligning with the cardinal directions being substantially smaller. In the center of the room, upon a spire of crystal, was a familiar sight to Spike, “The crystal heart.” he whispered.

“What’s the crystal heart doing here?” asked Thorax?

“Shining armor mentioned something about it being lowered beneath the Castle,” explained Spike. “Apparently the mechanism to do it was built after a dragon took the heart, but I've never actually been down here before.”

After making sure the coast was clear, Thorax looked around the room, searching for an exit. Above each of the room’s doors was an engraving that denoted what lay beyond the door, the door they came from was labeled Prisons, the doors at the Ordinal directions were all labeled identically as stairs; the west door was labeled laboratories, and the east door labeled Storages. He walked around the crystal heart’s stand so he could better see the north door, it was unmarked and locked with a thick metal bar

Thorax turned back to Spike, “We should get out of here.”

“Not so fast, shapechanger” said a familiar voice from the Northern door.

Spike and Thorax turned to see Shining armor standing alone in the doorway.

“Why do I get distracted so easily?” muttered Thorax.

Spike put himself between Shining and Thorax. “Shining, you have to stop this!” said Spike.

“Yes, I do,” said Shining, summoning a Magical shield and a spear. The shield bore resemblance to his cutie mark and the tip of his spear consisted of half of a starburst.

Spike looked around and noticed a crystalline lever on the floor. That must be the mechanism that controls the heart platform, Spike thought. “Quick, Thorax! The lever!” yelled Spike as Shining galloped towards them.

Thorax sprang into action, using his magic to pull on the lever. Not a moment before shining reached the platform it lurched up a few feet in a sudden motion, the mechanism releasing the platform from the floor, the abrupt shift in elevation of the platform almost knocked Spike to the ground. Shining jumped backwards to avoid the platform, which would have connected with his jaw.
The elevator moved the crystal platform into place, allowing the crystal heart to levitate and begin to spin.

Spike began to run in the direction of the empire’s train station, followed closely by Thorax. The duo passed by a large statue of Spike. Almost there, we can make it! Thought spike. His run was interrupted when he was stopped in his tracks by what appeared to be the air in front of him. Before him a wall of magic revealed itself, its color was familiar to him.
Spike turned around and saw the caster, muttering a single word, “Twilight.”

Author's Note:

Do changelings even have eyebrows?

this chapter is shorter then the first one but i haven't had much time to work on chapters as i am busy with work.

the next chapter will be an interlude.

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