Eclipse

Eclipse

Chapter 3

treachery

Walking down the staircase relying only on the light emitted from his horn for light, Eclipse made his way down to the main floor of the building. Walking down the stairs he could tell how old the building was, what was left of the wallpaper was peeling off and every step he took creaked like the whole building was about to collapse. Most of the doors leading off of the stairwell were boarded up from when the building was originally condemned in an effort to keep nosey teenagers out. Unfortunately, however, that didn't work, there was graffiti covering most of the walls, obviously their favourite place to hang out.

Once Eclipse felt he had gone far enough down he used his aura sensing to sweep the building for any signs of Cadence. Starting from the top an working his way down, he scanned floor after floor. Starting to feel a little worried that she didn't show up Eclipse started to panic, quickening his pace. Eventually he found he in one of the rooms on the main floor, just 5 levels below him.

Now filled with hope that his crazy Escape plan worked, he ran down the rest of the stairs, nearly tripping over old, stuck up nails, but he managed to catch himself before he fell. Finally he came to the main floor lobby, what was once an elegant chandelier now sat in the middle of the floor, rusted an broken. Doing one last scan for Cadence before he set off down on of the hallways. Galloping down the hallway until the very last room Eclipse called out, scared of what would answer.

“Cadence? Hello? It's me, Eclipse.”...No answer

“Cadence?” Eclipse called out, a little louder this time.

“Eclipse? Is that you? Please come here, I'm in apartment 1D.” Cadence called back. Eclipse couldn't shake the feeling that She sounded off, but he decided it was just his imagination and hurried in to where he had heard cadence call from.

“Cadence?” Eclipse called once he was in what used to be the living room, but was now run down, dark, and filthy.

“Mmmph!” A very slight sound called back, like a muffled cry.

“C-Cadence? Whats wrong? You're scaring.”

“Mm-Mmph!” the sound was louder this time, Eclipse swivelled his ears around looking for where the sound had come from. It had sounded like it came from the bedroom, just down the hall of the living room. Walking down the hall toward the sound. Eclipse was worried about this, first the sudden absence of Cadence, then this muffled crying, something was wrong.

CREAKE!!

Eclipse ran out of the hall and back to the living room at the sound he heard. Looking back to see if whatever had made that sound was chasing him, however, instead of the monster he expected to see, all he saw was a loose floor board.

“It's ok...it was just a loose floor board...it's ok...” Eclipse said to himself, trying to calm himself down after nearly running out of the entire building.

“Mmph?” the sound called back, sounding like it was trying to tell him something. Deciding to carry on down the hall way, this time stepping over the creaky floor board. The hall got darker and darker as he walked further down, the light from the window in the living room slowly fading out of sight. He could barely see his own hoof in front of his face by time he reached the door at the end of the hall. Slowly opening the door just enough for him to peer inside. Looking around the room he saw one ripped up bed and another door that looked like it led to a bathroom. There was a small window above the bed, bathing the room in a dim blue light from the moon. That's when he saw something out of the corner of his eye, in the corner of the room was a little pink....thing, and it was moving.

“CADENCE?!” Eclipse yelled, worried that something had happened to his only friend. Bursting through the door and to where he thought he had seen Cadence on the other side of the bed. Sure enough, there was Cadence, hogtied and gagged in the corner of the room, eyes filled to the brim with fear.

“Mm-mmph!” Cadence was trying to say something to him, but he couldn't under stand. Walking toward he he reached out with his magic and started to untie her and remove the gag. After if finally managed to get the knot on the gag undone he ran up and hugged her, hoping that she hadn't been hurt.

“Cadence are you alright? Who did this to you? Where are they?” Eclipse was worried, scared, and shocked that somepony would do this to a filly.

“Well, Cadence is alright, I did this to her, and I'm right behind you” Called a voice Eclipse was all to familiar with.

“Celestia, why did you do this? And more importantly, how did you know we would be here?” Eclipse asked through gritted teeth, furious that Celestia could have possibly hurt Cadence.

“She had help.” Somepony else said from behind Celestia, a voice he recognized but couldn't place. The unknown pony walked out from the shadows, a tall alicorn with a pink coat and a deep blue mane.

“MOM?!?” Cadence cried out, shocked that her mother had done this to her.

“I'm sorry Cadence, I really am, but this was the only way. I hope you can forgive me.” Cadences mother said, not sounding very happy about what happened to her daughter.

“I don't believe this!” Cadence said, looking like she was about to cry. “How could you do this to me! Your own daughter!”

“Yes, yes, all very sad, mother betraying daughter, blah blah blah.” Celestia said, stopping the argument before it got any farther. “Now, the police should be noticing that you've escaped any second now, and we don't want to be here when they do. They will be receiving an anonymous tip about this place, and find both of you, then you will go back to jail and be hung like a good little brother.”

“And how to you propose you keep use here? We both have magic.” Eclipse challenged, not going down without a fight.

“The answer to that is in a question of it's own.” Celestia said in a mocking voice, “Why do you think she didn't use her own magic to escape?”

“well...I...I don't know.” Eclipse admitted. He had never really thought about, his mind was on other topics a the time other then why didn't she escape.

“I'll give you a hint, you had one not to long ago.”

“You mean....The collar?” Eclipse said, looking down back at Cadence, just now noticing the anti-magic brace around her neck.

“You catch on quick, now I have a little gift for you too.” Before Eclipse really knew what was going on Celestia had tackled him to the ground and was securing the anti-magic brace around his neck.

“You won't win this time Celestia, I'm tired of being pushed around by you!” Eclipse yelled, all to tired of Celestia treating him like an ugly patch of dirt.

“And how do you propose you get out of this?” Celestia asked as she was tying him up much like Cadence, minus the gag.

“Haven't you noticed that I've already gotten out of one of these collars? What's to stop me from doing it again?”

“That's easy, these are stronger, and you can't use our hooves to help you, I'm not entirely sure how you did it the first time, but I'm pretty sure you can't do it all tied up.” Eclipse knew she was right, he just couldn't except it. Before he had much time to think about it he heard sirens from the prison, they had found his empty cell.

“Ah, they noticed your absence, now then, crystal, come along, we must be far away from here when the police show up, we don't want to be suspects now do we?” Celestia said, turning to Cadence's mother who's name was apparently Crystal. As the two turned to leave Celestia shot one final evil grin in Eclipses direction before disappearing down the dark hallway.

“Eclipse! I'm so sorry, I didn't mean for this to happen, they must have followed me from my house, non of this would have happened if it weren't for me, now you're definitely going to be hung, and it's all my fault!” Cadence said, tears slowly forming in the corners of her eyes.

“No, I will not be hung, we will get out of this, we can't lose hope, we come to far to give up now.” Eclipse said, his voice full of conviction, for the first time ever he was confident in himself.

“But I just do- Oh my gosh, Eclipse! What happened to your ear!?” Cadence asked, making it sound like his ear had been completely torn off and replaced by a weasel or something.

“What's wrong with it? It feels fine.” Eclipse replied, not understanding why Cadence was so worried about it.

“An entire chunk is missing of the tip! Just look in the mirror!” Cadence said, motioning towards a piece of a mirror that was once on a bedside table, but was now shattered all over the floor.

Eclipse managing to slowly worm his way over to the mirror he inspected his ear in. It was a little blurred from how dirty the mirror was, but  he could make out a rather large chunk missing out of his left ear.

“oh, that, when I pulled the collar off it got caught on my ear, and it just kind of burned through it.” Eclipse said as if it were no big deal.

“Did it hurt? Are you all right? Does it still hurt?” Cadence asked, worried that he might be in pain.

“No, I didn't really feel it at all actually, it was sore for a little while after, but not to bad.” Eclipse assured her, trying to calm her down.

“We aren't going to get out of this, are we?” Cadence asked with a heavy sigh, disappointment thick in her voice. “And we were so close too.”

“Don't think like that, we will make it out.” Eclipse said, though just as he was trying to convince Cadence of it he was also trying to convince himself.

“No, there is no way out.” Cadence said, her voice hollow and defeated.

“I promise you Cadence, we will make it out, I promise.” Eclipse meant every word that he said, building up his magic, he had to escape, but first, he had to break the collars off.

“Eclipse, what are yo-” She was cut off before she could finish by the most blood curdling scream she had ever heard, and it was coming from Eclipse. Eclipse had focused all the magic he could gather, and all at once forced i tnot out into a spell, but directly into the collar. Before he new what was going on he felt a sharp pain in his neck, slowly growing until it was covering his body, like 1000 needles poking at him all at the same time. Then, all of the sudden, it all went black.