Castle, Dull Castle

Oh Celestia thank you! I'm out! I'm really out! was all Spike could happily think about while he was doing a silence dance.

His stomach growled.

Two days with no food... Don't know how I survived that!

Spike squinted his eyes in the semi darkness, wondering where he was. He saw a bed. A table. A chair.

He tiptoed towards the table, hoping whoever slept here had some food.

To his joy, he saw a bowl of fruit and devoured what was inside.

Food, check! Now the girls! thought Spike.

He remembered when he had heard Discord almost rape Fluttershy. It had been the most horrible thing ever... hearing her scream and beg for mercy.

They often come in this room, he realized. Maybe they sleep here?

Spike focused his attention on the sound. He heard a faint breathing. Too faint to be Discord's... then maybe that meant one of the girls slept here!

He silently crept towards the bed and peeked at the sheets.

In the moonlight, he saw pink hair and yellow skin... He knew too much those two colors to be mistaking.

"Fluttershy!" he whisper-shouted, full of joy. "Fluttershy it's me, Spike!"

"W... Wha?? Who is... Wait... Spike??!!"

"Yes it's..." started Spike before being jumped on by Fluttershy. She gave him a huge hug, almost chocking him and pressed her lips against his for a few seconds.

It was nice to be in the arms of the one you loved... except when you're about to be snuggled to death.

"F... F... Flutters! I... I'm...!"

"Oh! I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed, releasing her tight grip on him. "I just needed to kiss someone else than... Never mind. Where were you?!"

"Under your room! I escaped through the vent..." smiled Spike.

"Y... You heard then..." blushed Fluttershy, as embarrassed as ever.

"Yeah... But don't worry. I heard that you overpowered him and he didn't do anything else than traumatize you!"

"Um... Yeah" frowned Fluttershy.

She wondered why he hadn't heard them last night... Maybe Discord had silenced the room or something... Wait... Discord!

"Spike! Discord could be back any minute! I need to hide you!"

"But... But what about the girls?!" he protested. "If you're saying he's out, that could be our only chance to be able to see them!"

Fluttershy lowered her head. It was a risk they just had to take!

"Okay, let's go!"

They both ran out of the room.

"Twilight said they were sleeping in her room" said Fluttershy, turning left as Spike was following behind her, 'admiring' the new decor.

"So tell me what happened while I was imprisoned" asked Spike.

"Discord has turned the others into maids and tortures them horribly when they disobey him. He pretended that I loved him yesterday- or today, I have no idea what time it is- and the girls got mad at me... He also doesn't plan on letting us go..." sighted Fluttershy.

"He's just a bucking idiot!" mumbled Spike. "He locked me up and didn't feed me for two days..."

"How did you survive that?!" giggled the yellow mare, making another left.

"I was just wondering that too" smiled Spike.

They stopped in front of a big wooden door. Fluttershy knocked and heard whispers of fear behind it.

"Um... Girls?" she asked cautiously.

The whispers stopped and the door opened.

"Fluttershy!" exclaimed Twilight happily.

The others gathered round and gave her a big hug, smiling and laughing at being finally reunited.

Spike stepped forward and brought even more joy.

"Come on in!" chirped Pinkie.

They all sat down on the mattresses on the floor and Twilight explained what they had found out.

"So, we've discovered that Discord is feeding on chaos..."

Spike and Fluttershy gasped.

"Why do you think that?" asked Spike, interested.

"We've all been fighting a lot more than usual lately. And Discord seems to enjoy it. Even thought it's our only lead, we're hanging on to it."

"It could be used as an advantage..." thought Fluttershy out loud.

"Explain..." Twilight tilted her head in curiosity.

"Oh, I have no plan but I was thinking that maybe if he is weak, then all his defenses could disappear and we would be able to get out...?"

"That's a good plan Flutters but you forgot one thing, we're up in the air and we can't fly!" frowned Rainbow.

"Unless... Unless we glide down there!" exclaimed Twilight, her mind racing. "We simply have to float to the ground!"

"And what about Pinkie, Rarity and me? How are we supposed to get down there with no wings?" muttered Applejack.

"Oh yeah... We could uh... transport you on our backs?" suggested the purple princess.

"No way! The wind is unpredictable!" opposed Rainbow Dash, "I could take somebody because I'm an experienced flyer but you two couldn't!"

"Who could you take?" asked Rarity.

"You I guess because you're always going on diets".

"Right, so that's Rarity, Twilight, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. What about the others?" Spike put an arm around Fluttershy, happy to know that at least she would be safe.

"Wait! Y'all aren't seriously thinkin' about doing that are ya? It's madness!"

"It's our only chance Applejack... Who knows what that monster could be thinking?" said a gloomy Twilight.

A silence followed the end of her sentence before Rarity suddenly sat up excitedly.

"Ideaaaaaa!" she squealed Fluttershy-like. "I could levitate somebody with my horn while riding on Rainbow's back!"

"As I said, madness." repeated the cowgirl.

"Think about it Applejack! I always levitate lots of mannequins for my work in the boutique! It will be quite easy to do so with another girl!"

"Rarity! Our horns don't work remember?" sighted Twilight.

"Yes! But what if the spell that was cast on us goes down at the same time Discord and his defense do?"

"That's a... possibility..."

"If that works, then it means we'll be able to um... fly! And it would be easier right?" hesitated Fluttershy.

"Yay!" chirped Pinkie. "It's gonna be SOOOO cool!"

"That would mean I could levitate somebody too! Now we've got everybody out except Spike..."

"That's easy silly!! I can just modify the plan a little! Now, Rainbow Dash is gonna fly down with Rarity on her back and Rarity is going to be levitating Applejack. Then, Twilight is gonna be flying down too while levitating Spike! And finally, Fluttershy will glide silently to the ground!" finished Pinkie, smiling to her ears.

"And you?" asked Spike.

Pinkie smiled deviously and turned to Twilight. "You still have those balloons in your closet from the 'super duper crazy-licious party for no absolute reason' party?"

"Uh yeah. You gave me like 6 packs of 20 balloons!" smiled Twilight at the memory, but then she frowned in horror. "No way! It's so dangerous!"

"Uh... What is dangerous?" asked Rainbow, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm gonna float down with my balloons!"

"What?!" they all shouted in shock.

"Darling, you can't possibly..." started Rarity.

"It might work" interrupted Applejack with a shrug.

"You're kidding me!" muttered Spike.

"Hey! It's our only chance okay? And I don't like this idea anymore than you do but I also don't wanna leave someone behind! Besides, it's Pinkie girls. She's probably done this a thousand times!"

"You're right Applejack!" whispered Fluttershy. "I don't want to leave anybody behind in the hands of that... monster!"

"Then it's settled. We all have our escape routes. Now we just have to prepare!" Twilight stood up with a determined look. "Fluttershy, do you know where Discord sleeps?"

"Yes. But he isn't in the castle right now. I think he left for the night! That's how we got the opportunity to see you girls".

"Perfect! We're going to form teams. Pinkie, you, Applejack and Rarity go get the balloons. Spike, Fluttershy and the rest of us will go see every window and exit that we can find to see which is the best issue."

They all nodded and exited the room, taking separate directions.

"So Fluttershy, something has been bugging me about what happened today" said Twilight in a hesitant voice.

Fluttershy froze.

"We believe you! And we're sorry we overreacted at that" quickly added Rainbow, seeing her friend's discomfort.

"But... We just wanted to know why you were in his arms..." completed Twilight.

"In who's arms? What happened?" suddenly asked Spike. "Did you...?"

"No! No! I didn't cheat on you Spike! I would never do that with my free will!" opposed Fluttershy. "I'm glad to finally tell you what happened."

Why did she say that she would never cheat on me with her... free will?!

"I was wondering if I couldn't escape through the main doors but I had forgotten that we were floating. Then Discord came up behind me and took my waist. He was angry at the fact that I kept asking for him to let us go so he held me up and let me dangle from the castle into thin air. I was so scared that my only reflex was to hang on to him. I wasn't hugging him."

"That's good to know!" smirked Rainbow. "We'll tell the others later."

Fluttershy nodded and Spike made a mental note to himself to question her later on what she had said.

"Rainbow, you check out all the high windows. I'll guide Spike and Fluttershy to the back garden" ordered Twilight.

The cyan girl nodded and went the opposite direction while they continued towards the garden where the girls had been teleported.

"You're thinking about escaping through here??" asked Spike, putting his hand on the invisible force field.

"Why not? And there is a giant flower bush there. You could hide in here".

"Why?"

"We need to weaken Discord" thought Twilight out loud, "It means that the only way to do that would be to... use violence against him".

"That seems like a good idea" smiled Spike, cracking his knuckles. "A little revenge will be appreciated."

"When we give you the signal, you're going to jump out and punch him" mumbled Twilight, the plan coming into view. "I am ordering you to do this. Punch him as hard as you can and don't forget to make him weak. Then, if we're lucky, we'll be able to get out and be safe. Fluttershy, I want you to find a pretext to get him over here tomorrow. Tell him we will be there too. Understood you two?"

"Yep"

"Yes..."

"I'm going to meet the others back in my room. I think it's preferable that Spike goes back in his dungeon for the night."

"Right. See you tomorrow!" nodded Spike, turning around followed by Fluttershy.

Twilight watched them leave. What has that monster done to you Flutters?

Fluttershy seemed ever so slightly different than before.

She wasn't looking around her with fear in the gloomy black and red castle like she should of done- considering she was Fluttershy.

Instead, she was walking strait towards the room, her head high and with a determined face.

"Fluttershy?" asked Spike, stopping. "Earlier you said that you would never cheat on me with your free will. I was wondering what that meant."

"Oh... Spike about that... It's... hard... I... I... I... Oh dear..." were the only words she could manage to say before falling to the floor.

Spike rushed towards her and kneeled in front. He saw a tear fall to the crystal ground.

"What is it Fluttershy? I'm sorry if I said anything that..."

"You didn't do anything!" she sobbed loudly, anger in her voice. "It's me! I'm so weak... Discord... Discord r... raped... me.

And I couldn't do anything about that! When I look at you all... I see that I'm no use here... You dug a way through a wall to help me. The girls survived torture to help me. You almost starved to death because of me! It's me! It's always me! I'm the reason we're all in this mess to begin with! I'm the responsable one here and what have I been doing about it? Nothing! Absolutely nothing!"

Spike just... stared at her. Never had he seen Fluttershy so angry, frustrated and confused at herself.

She had screamed the last part of her dialogue and was hitting the floor with her fists, crying as hard as ever.

Spike took her in his arms.

"Babe, you are the best girl around to me and yours friends. I think that's enough. Stop trying to blame everything onto yourself okay? Remember that we all love you and the one thing you could ever do to let us down, is to let yourself down. Do you understand me?"

"Y... Yes"

"I don't exactly want to know what that monster did to you, I know that you would never cheat on me.

And your trust in enough. Besides, we have a great plan to escape. It's all going to work out."

Fluttershy smiled through her tears as she returned the hug.

"Thank you" she whispered, closing her eyes.

"So you're just gonna jump out there with those balloons ?? How are you going to inflate them in time?" frowned Rainbow Dash to Pinkie Pie after Twilight had explained the plan to all of them.

"I'll be fine Dashie! Don't ya worry your little um... your little rainbows! Or whatever it is that we say!" chirped Pinkie.

"This better work gals. If it doesn't, we're gonna be in for a big punishment!" moaned Applejack, worried about the sake of her friends.

"Yes Applejack is right... Who knows what he will do to us if the plan fails?" murmured Rarity, looking down.

The others shared a look of concern.

Their plan better work or they may as well say goodbye to the living.