"i don't need your help!"by evanim26ChaptersChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 1It was an average day in ponyville, ponies we’re going about their business, working stalls and shopping but one little filly couldn’t do either as she laid in an alleyway inside a cardboard box all by herself, this filly’s name was icy jewel, she was also a blank flank, she had a white coat and a silver mane with her tail the same color and she was stirred awake due to all the loud noise of ponies near her and she grumbled while getting up. “Why did it have to be today when everypony decides to be loud? Don’t they know I need sleep.” she said walking out of her alleyway and to a corner on the street. As she watched all the ponies pass by she eventually found a good target, an older stallion who looked to be carrying a good amount of bits, and she walked in the opposite direction of him and once she got close enough she swiped his wallet and ran as the stallion looked back and yelled something at her but she didn’t understand him Once she found a suitable place to hide she took out the wallet and dug through it “fifteen bits nice.” She said tossing the wallet away and walked out of her hiding spot and to a stall where a pony Was selling apples. “Three apples please.” she said and the mare working the stall nodded then brought out three apples “that’ll be three bits.” she said as icy put three bits on the stall and took the apples then left. While she was walking she spotted the stallion she stole from walking in her direction so thinking fast she quickly hid behind a large trash can and watched as he walked by then she came out and ran for her alleyway hoping not to get spotted. Once she finally made it to her alleyway she took out an apple and ate it then threw it away but put the rest in her box as she laid down on her makeshift bed, it only had a rugged blanket and a also messy pillow she found one day in a garbage can, it was all messy and had barely any softness to it but it was better than nothing. While laying down she felt a cool breeze come over her making her shiver but she just took it, ‘today is colder than usual, must mean fall is near’ she thought getting up and heading out ‘I need to find something to protect me from the cold, a blanket, another box, anything’ she thought while walking through the streets not paying attention to anything until she bumped into someone and fell back. “Watch where you’re going...” she trailed of looking up and realizing it was the same stallion that she robbed as he looked at her and immediately got angry “you’re the filly who stole my wallet, you got some explaining to do to the authorities.” With that he tried to grab her but she quickly got up and ran away from him hoping to make it to a safe place to hide, once she looked back she saw the stallion chasing her and he was catching up fast so she tried to run faster but it was no use she was eventually caught by the stallion as she kicked and struggled to get free but the stallion had a good hold and took her to a giant crystal castle. There the stallion entered and put the filly down in front of an alicorn as she came over “what’s the matter?” she asked and the stallion explained what icy did, as the alicorn came over icy turned away with her hooves crossed over her chest. “Is all this true?” she asked icy but she didn’t answer and kept her mouth shut and her head turned away from her “little filly if this is true then you must return his wallet at once.” She said which made icy whisper something to quiet to hear “What did you say?” She said and icy just grumbled and turned her head facing the princess “I threw it away, I don’t know where it is anymore so ha.” She said and the stallion got angrier and was about to approach her but the princess stopped him. “That wasn’t a very good thing to do you know, what would your parents say?” She said but icy didn’t even flinch but instead smiled “go ahead tell them if you can find them.” Icy said which made the princess confused. “What do you mean ‘if we can find them’.” She said and icy just shook her head “they could be anywhere and you can’t ask me since I haven’t seen them since I was four.” Icy said and the princess gasped in surprise. “If you don’t know where your parents are then who do you live with?” She asked and icy just shook her head “no, no way am I giving up my new home and you can’t make me.” Icy said and turned away again making the princess look at her with worry. “Can you at least give me the name of who you’re staying with?” She asked but icy didn’t reply and kept her back to her then the princess sighed and came closer to icy then put her horn on her head and it glowed making icy look up. Once icy figured out what she was doing she quickly moved away as the princess looked at her with sadness “you... you’re homeless, you were living in an alleyway since you were dumped by you parents at the age of four.” The princess said making icy angry “you looked at my memories!” She shouted at the princess. “I had to, you weren’t telling me anything.” She said as icy got up and started walking to the front doors but was picked up by the princess “and where do you think you’re going?” She asked as icy fought against the magical hold on her. “I’m going home.” She said still fighting against the magic as the princess shook her head “I can’t allow you to go back there, not only is it unsafe but it’s no home for a filly like you.” She said putting icy down but still made sure she couldn’t run by holding her legs in magic. “Then what are you going to do?” Icy asked not really wanting an answer but the princess gave her one anyway “I’m gonna help you.” She said but this made icy very angry and struggled even harder against her hold “I DON’T NEED YOUR HELP!!!” She shouted and surprisingly managed to break out of her hold which shocked the princess as icy ran out of the castle as fast as she could hoping she wasn’t being followed, then she made it back to her alleyway and grabbed her bag of apples and ran out. “I don’t need anyone’s help, I can take care of myself, I don’t need anyone ANYONE!!” She shouted as she ran out of town but took one last look back then turned and kept running hoping to get as far as she could from her. Chapter 2While running away from the town I accidentally ran into another pony and fell back once I looked up at who I ran into I saw it was another filly but she looked weird in a way, she had a red coat and a pink Mane with white stripes going through it and the same went with her tail. Once I got up I went over to her “are you alright?” I asked but she didn’t look at me instead she just looked up “I’m fine.” She said still not looking at me “hey why are you looking that way? I’m over here.” I said “Well sorry but I’m blind as you can probably see.” She said getting up and turning herself to where icy’s voice had come from, and icy felt bad for not recognizing earlier but another question popped into her head “why are you out here all alone?” “Because I want to be.” She said and I facehoofed “I mean since your blind won’t you need help?” I said and that seemed to anger her a bit “what just because I’m blind that means I can’t defend for myself?!” She said “Well yes.” I said then she tried to swing at me but missed “I don’t need anyone’s help,I’m fine on my own!” She yelled it was then I realized that she was like me a filly who didn’t want help no matter who offered it “you’re just like me.” I said “What do you mean?” She said then I came over and put a good on her shoulder “no matter what anyone says you want to prove that you don’t want or need their help.” I said and she was surprised “is that how you feel to?” She asked “Yes it is.” I said and she felt better she had someone who understood her “my name is cherry candy what’s yours?” She asked “icy jewel.” I said then she put her hoof on my shoulder after feeling for it “hey want to team up we can be our own independent group.” She said I put a hoof on my chin thinking about it for a bit “alright sure why not.” I said then I put her hoof up in the air as we hoof fived “it’s you and me against the world, we’ll show those other ponies that we have what it takes to survive on our own!” I said as cherry nodded then I guided her back to ponyville and to a backup alleyway I had just in case somepony discovers my first one ad we laid down and went to sleep. Chapter 3Icy and cherry were sleeping peacefully until Icy was suddenly awakened by some running hooves so she stood up and stretched then she made her way to the corner of her alleyway to see some ponies running around then two of them stopped in front of each other "Have you spotted the filly yet?" one stallion said and the other shook his head "She's got to be around here somewhere, Twilight wants her found before something horrible happens so we can send her somewhere much safer, so keep looking we can't afford to lose her." he said then he and the other stallion ran off in different directions and Icy gasped then quickly went to cherry Icy shook cherry "Cherry wake up, we need to leave." she said Cherry slowly opened her eyes and yawned "Why? what's wrong?" she asked "They're looking for us, well more specifically me but if they find me then they'll find you to so we need to leave." Icy said as Cherry stood up "Wait, hold on, who's looking for you?" Cherry asked Icy sighed "Look, I was caught by this stallion and he brought me to princess Twilight and when she offered to help me I ran off after denying her help and now it looks like she has all of ponyville looking for me so we need to go." she said as she walked back to the corner and looked around it "Where do we even go? it's not like we can just hop a ride on the train, we're flat broke." Cherry said "I have a plan, it's not a great plan I'll admit but it's better than most plans I come up with on the spot." Icy said as she looked around and made sure no ponies were nearby "What is the plan? if I may ask." Cherry said and Icy turned back to her "It's simple, we pack our stuff and hoof it out of ponyville." Icy said Cherry stood there for a moment then facehoofed "That's your plan?" she asked and Icy looked at her confused "that's not even a real plan, you have no plan of where to go, you're just going to run until you can't anymore?" she asked Icy nodded but realized she couldn't see it "Um, yeah." she said which made Cherry facehoof again "You've got to be kidding me." Cherry said then she sighed "I guess it is better than no plan at all, alright I'll follow your lead." she said Icy turned around and trotted to her bags then began to fill them "You just follow me by hanging onto my tail and we'll be out of here in no time." she said and once she was done filling her bags she tossed them over then walked in front of Cherry and waved it to her face allowing her to take some of it into her mouth "Now just follow my lead and don't let go." she said After Cherry nodded Icy started to slowly walk out of the alley while making sure to keep an eye out for other ponies and after making sure there were none she slowly walked through the streets and if she ever heard any hoofsteps she quickly ducked behind a house and pulled Cherry with her so they weren't spotted and after they left they continued to make their way out of ponyville and eventually they had finally made it out "Okay, we're out, now we just need to keep moving forward and they'll never find us." Icy said and Cherry nodded but before Icy continued walking she was suddenly picked up by another pony and when she looked up she saw a blue pegasus with a rainbow mane and tail "I found you, now to just bring you back to Twilight." she said Icy struggled to free herself "Let me go." she said "No can do, everypony has been looking for you all day, if I let you go now then we'll have to look for you all over again." she said then she started to fly into the air "Now once we get you to Twilight she can help you find a real home instead of living in some alleyway." she said as soon as Icy heard the word help she instantly became agitated "Like I've told that princess, I DON'T NEED HELP!" she yelled then she looked back down at Cherry to see her feeling around for something "Cherry stay right there, what you're about to feel might sting a bit." she said the rainbow-colored mare looked down at her "Wait, what are you doing? and who's Cherry?" she asked Icy took a deep breath in and out then she started to focus and after a few minutes something behind her mane began to glow brighter and brighter and when the rainbow-colored mare moved her mane out of the way she saw only half of a broken horn and gasped but then Icy and Cherry both teleported away and right out of her hooves "She's a unicorn?!" the mare said both Icy and Cherry landed in the middle of some woods and Icy fell down out of exhaustion and was breathing heavily and Cherry turned to her after hearing her breathing "Are you alright?" Cherry asked "I'll be fine, it's just difficult using my magic so soon." Icy said "Using your magic? you never said you're a unicorn." Cherry said Icy chuckled nervously "Well, you never really asked so I didn't bother to mention it, besides I'm not really much of a unicorn, my horn is broken." she said as she covered her horn back behind her mane Cherry gasped "Your horn is broken? how did it break?" she asked but Icy remained silent and Cherry nodded "I understand, you don't want to talk about it, by the way, where did you send us?" she asked Icy shrugged "I have no idea, I just wanted to get away from that pegasus so badly, at least we're safe, I think." she said then she tried to stand up but only fell back down "I'm way too exhausted to move so we should rest here, once I have my strength back then I'll go and check out where we are, hopefully, we'll be able to find something or somepony that can tell us where we are." she said and Cherry nodded then she laid down next to Icy "We'll need to stick together from here on out, while you rest I'll keep my ears out for danger, don't worry I'll wake you up if I hear something big or dangerous." Cherry said and Icy nodded then she laid down and let herself go to sleep while Cherry stayed up Chapter 4After a whole hour of sleeping Icy woke up and she also noticed that Cherry wasn't next to her anymore so she quickly looked around and saw her with her head in a bush and it sounded like she was eating something so Icy stood up and walked over "Cherry? what are you eating?" Icy asked which made Cherry look up and she said something but her mouth was so full that she couldn't understand her "Swallow first, cherry." she said Cherry swallowed the food in her mouth "I found some berries in this bush, while you were sleeping I was smelling something good so decided to follow my nose and found these berries, you can have some too but I don't know how much is left." she said then she went back to eating Icy walked to the bush and smelt the barriers then she took a bite of one and found it was actually good so she ate some more along with Cherry until all of them were gone "That was honestly delicious, I was also pretty hungry too." Icy said then she walked to the middle of the clearing they transported to "But now I think we should find a way out of this forest, there's no telling what might be in here." she said then she grabbed her bags and slung them onto her back then walked to Cherry "Here, just like last time hold onto my tail and I'll have us out of here in no time." she said and Cherry nodded then held some of her tail in her mouth and followed once Icy began walking Icy walked through the forest and made sure to keep her eyes out for my dangers but eventually, she stopped and looked around ad found out that she was lost but she decided to keep moving to both stay safe and to find something that pointed to the exit but after a bit more walking she soon found that it was getting dark so she stopped Icy turned to Cherry "The sun's going down, looks like we'll need to camp here tonight." she said then she took her bags off and set them aside "Okay, are we at least out of the woods yet?" Cherry asked and Icy laughed nervously "We're not out of the woods, are we?" she asked "Nope, but I'm sure the exit is around here somewhere, we'll just have to keep moving but for now let's get some rest." Icy said then she laid down but noticed that Cherry was looking off into the bushes "What's wrong?" she asked "There's something in the bushes." Cherry said which made Icy stand straight back up "What? can you tell what it is cause I don't hear anything." Icy said and she watched Cherry close her eyes Cherry focused on her hearing to try to tell what it is or how big it was depending on its steps but all she heard were soft hoofsteps as they walked around the bushes and they were clearly careful not to touch or shake the bush "Cherry, point me in the right direction and I'll take them down." Icy whispered to Cherry and she nodded and continued to listen closely as the pony stepped around the bush and when they stopped is when Cherry pointed with her hoof at the bush the pony was behind then Icy took off in a full sprint right at that bush then jumped right into it and tackled the pony "I got you!" she yelled "Hey, get off!" the pony said then she just pushed Icy right off of her without much effort and got up herself then Icy ran back at her and tackled her again "I won't let you go that easily." Icy said but even though she was putting her full weight on her the pony was still able to push her up "Cherry, I need some help! just follow my voice!" she yelled back then she saw Cherry walk through the bushes "Good, now just jump on top of me, hurry." she said and Cherry did and combined her weight with Icy's the pony continued to push them back "I said, GET. OFF." she said then she pushed the so hard that she made both of them tumble back into the clearing Once Icy had gotten back up she looked at the bushes and heard ruslting so she got ready for whatever comes through them and then what she saw was not was she was expecting, the pony's mane and tail were both a navy blue, her coat was gray and her ears had a lot more fur to them that usual but the most unexpected part about them was the fact this pony had bat wings instead of normal pegesus wings and that they were another filly that's when Icy put it together Icy gasped "You're a bat pony?!" she yelled the filly sighed "Of course I am, how many times can you say you've seen normal pony push two other ponies off of her with just brute strength?" she asked Icy nodded "Fair enough but why are you stalking us? were you going to steal from us?" she asked "No, I just saw a flash of light coming from another part of the forest so I decided to check it out and while walking I saw you two so I decided to stay and see if you two were dangerous or not." she said then she looked over at Cherry "After watching you two for a bit I figured out that she was blind with how blank her eyes are." she said Icy looked over at Cherry then back at the filly "Did you see anything else?" she asked and the filly shook her head and Icy nodded "Alright, I guess since you mean no harm then I might as well apologize for tackling you, sorry." she said the filly waved her hoof "Don't worry about it, you were just making sure I wasn't some sort of monster." she said then she thought for a moment "Wait, your plan was to tackle me? what if I was actually a monster who was planning to eat you?" she asked Icy laughed nervously "I have to admit, it's not my best plan, I'm just not that good at making plans on the spot so I just went straight for it." she said and the filly facehoofed Cherry finally walked over "Hey Icy, who is this pony?" she asked Icy turned to her "She's just a bat pony, there's nothing to worry about anymore." she said and Cherry nodded then she walked forward and held her hoof out "Hello there, my name Cherry candy, what's your's?" Cherry asked the filly shook her hoof "it's Midnight amber but you can just call my Middy, my friends do." Middy said Icy walked forward as well "My name is Icy jewel, it's nice to meet you Middy." she said and Middy nodded "Say, do you think you can help us get out of this forest, we're kinda lost." she said Middy nodded again "Of course, I'll fly up and point you in the right direction." she said then she spread her wings and that's when Icy saw that Middy's right wing wasn't a normal bat pony wing, it was mechanical but before Icy could ask about it Middy flew up and over the trees "The way out is this way, follow me." she said Icy allowed Cherry to grab onto her tail again as they followed Middy to the exit of the forest and during the walk they had to call out to Middy because the trees were blocking their view so Middy had to fly a bit lower but still pointed them in the right direction until they had finally made it out "We're finally out and I can spot a town, we'll be able to get something to eat there." Icy said then Middy flew back down and landed next to her "Well I'm happy to help you and Cherry get out of the forest, now I guess I might as well take my leave, see you." Middy said "Wait." Icy quickly said which stopped Middy in her tracks then she turned back around and faced Icy "Your wing, I couldn't help but notice that it's mechanical." she said Middy brought her mechanical wing out "Yeah, I lost my wing a long time ago, it's nothing to worry about though, this metal wing works just as good as a real one." she said then she brought her wing back in "I also couldn't help but notice that you didn't say you had to hurry home, are you by yourself?" Icy asked Middy nodded "yep, I've decided to be alone a while ago." she said "Can I ask why?" Icy said Middy sighed "It's because of my friends and family, they do nothing but baby me ever since I lost my wing but I kept telling them that I'm way tougher than that and I can still take care of myself when it comes down to it, but none of them ever listen to me and it got to the point where I just couldn't take it anymore, so I decided to run away and prove to them that I can be fine on my own." she said and Icy nodded Cherry let go of Icy's tail "You're just like us!" she said and Middy was confused for a bit "You see, Icy and I both believe that we can take care of ourselves without nopony's help and since we had the same thoughts we decided to form our own independent group where we only rely on ourselves and no other outside help." she explained Middy nodded "I see, that's so cool, can I join the group? you'll need a independent flyer like me if you want to get out of trouble fast." she said in a cocky tone Icy thought for a moment but nodded "Alright, you'll be our newest member of our independent group." she said and Middy cheered at being accepted into the group which made Icy and Cherry giggle "So, we have a unicorn with a broken horn." she said as she moved her mane out of the way and showed her horn which made Middy gasp then Icy moved her mane back "A blind earth pony and a bat pony with a metal wing, I saw this group is looking good." she said which made both Middy and Cherry nod then Icy turned to the small town "Now, let's get something to eat, we'll need lots of food for our journey ahead." she said then she had Cherry grab onto her tail as she walked to the town Middy flew over Icy "So, where are you and Cherry headed?" she asked Icy shrugged "No idea." she said which surprised Middy "So, you're both just traveling across equestria without a solid idea of where you're going?" Middy asked and both of them nodded "Alright, I'm okay with this." she said as she followed them into town Chapter 5After Icy, Cherry, and Middy had finally entered the town Icy decided to take a look at each alleyway to check if it was safe enough to sleep in and after she had found one she led Cherry and Middy to the middle "This one will do, you can let go now Cherry." Icy said and Cherry nodded then let go of her tail and sat down Middy looked around the alley "Are you sure this place is safe?" she asked Icy nodded "Of course it is, trust me, I had a lot of time to tell safe places from bad ones and this is a safe place." she said "Alright, I guess I'll trust you." Middy said Icy sat down "We should get to sleep, we have a big day ahead of us if we want to find something to eat." she said "I'll see you both in the morning." Cherry said as she laid her head down "But you can't see Cherry." Icy said with a smile "Hardy-har." Cherry said then she closed her eyes "Goodnight you two." she said then he drifted off to sleep Icy giggled a bit "Goodnight Cherry." she said then she looked over at Middy and wondered why she wasn't laying down but then it hit her "Oh right, you're a bat pony, what are you going to do since you can't sleep?" she asked Middy shrugged "I don't know, usually I would just explore the woods I was living in but since I'm here, I might as well explore the town." she said "Alright, try not to get in trouble, we need some kind of food so we have to stay for as long as we can." Icy said then she laid her head down and fell asleep "I won't." MIddy said ten she spread her wings and flew above the town Middy flew around the town and explored every inch to make sure she didn't miss anything in case it was important to her or the others and while flying she spotted a cave inside of a rocky mountain but the cave looked like it was well built with pillars holding up the ceiling so she took a step inside to take a look around but inside the cave were chains attached to the wall and some pickaxes lying beside multiple rocks on the floor and when Middy picked up the rock she noticed it wasn't a rock at all, it was a gem, they were all broken gems "Why would somepony mine gems? as far as I know, gems are used for making dresses pretty and dragons use them as food, what other kinds of uses could they have?" Middy questioned but then she heard voices coming from behind her so she quickly hid behind a rock "How is our deposit looking?" one of the voices asked "It seems we're down by six percent, ever since those five other ponies escaped we haven't made as much." the other voice said the first voice groaned "No, this is unacceptable, every coin counts here and I will not a single bit slip through my hooves, go out and find more ponies, bring me fillies and colts if you have to I don't care, just get me back my lost bits!" he yelled and as he was talking Middy tried to get a good look at them but ended up kicking one of the gems which alerted both of them as they looked around "Somepony's here, find them and don't let them escape." he said "That's my cue to leave." Middy whispered then she heard hoofsteps coming closer and tried to back up but found that the wall was keeping her from doing that so she took a deep breath and as soon as the pony came from around the rock she screeched at him and stunned him and quickly took this chance to make a run for it Middy flew as fast as she could out of the cave but when she finally made it out she was suddenly wrapped up by a rope but the rope didn't cover her wings so she tried to fly out of it and when she looked back she saw a stallion who had a gray mane and tail who was also an earth pony and he had a good grip on the rope Middy struggled to get out of the rope "Hey, let me go!" she said "No way, this is my first time seeing a bat pony, with strength like yours, you'll be perfect for my mines." he said "Alright buddy, you asked for it." Middy said then she turned around and grabbed the rope then she pulled as hard as she could which ended up pulling the stallion with him then she swung him around and threw him back into the cave and once he was gone she took the rope off of herself "I gotta get back to Icy and Cherry, we've gotta get out of here and fast." she said then she flew off back to town and to the alleyway where Icy and Cherry were sleeping Middy quickly ran to Icy and shook her violently "Icy, wake up, we need to leave." she said Icy slowly opened her eyes and looked at Middy "Middy? what's going on? why do you look so scared?" she asked "No time to explain, we have to leave town, now!" Middy said then she ran over and woke up Cherry Icy stretched as she stood up "But we can't leave, we still have to get enough food for the next trek." she said "The food is gonna have to wait, we have to leave." Middy said as she picked up their bags and slung them over her back "Wait, what's going on?" Cherry asked Middy grabbed Cherry's hoof "No time to explain, we need to leave before they find us." she said "Before who finds us?" Icy asked "Us." a voice said behind Icy and once she turned around she saw multiple stallions standing in a group Icy backed up "And who are you?" she asked "Your future boss, as soon as I capture you and your friends then we'll have more bits than we'll be able to fit on our hooves even if they were put together." the stallion said "Boss? we can't work for you, we're only fillies." Icy said the stallion stepped forward "Now that's where you're wrong, filly or even colt, the way I see it, work is work and bits are bits, so get over here so we can put you and your friends to work." he said Middy trotted beside Icy with Cherry "Now would be a good time to use your magic to get us out of here." she whispered "It sure would." Icy whispered back "Why aren't you using it then?" Middy asked "Because in case you forgotten, my horn is broken which means my magic is very unstable right now, I can only cast one spell before fainting from exhaustion, and I already did that when Cherry and I came here now we have to wait until my magic is replenished enough so I can cast another spell." Icy said "Unicorns, typical, do you think you can cast one without it being fully replenished?" Middy asked "I tried once." Icy said but she shook her head "But it ended up having some bad side effects for me, I have no idea what it'll do to you two, it's too risky." she said Cherry put her hoof on Icy's shoulder after feeling around for a bit "It's a risk we have to take Icy, do it." she said "Hey, what are you three whispering about over there?" the stallion asked Icy looked at both Middy and Cherry then nodded "Alright, here's the plan, Middy lift us both up and take us back to the woods, once there I'll prepare the spell and since the woods are so confusing it'll take them a while before they can find us and by the time they do, we'll be long gone." she said Cherry had a surprised look on her face and so did Middy "Wow, this must be one of those moments where one of your ideas is actually a good one." Cherry said Icy narrowed her eyes at Cherry "I'll just ignore your comment and move on." she said The stallion stomped his hoof "If you're done talking we have work to do, or more on the lines of you have wor to do and I have bits to count, so let's get moving." he said "I don't think we'll be doing any work at all." Icy said which made the stallion look at her confused "MIDDY, NOW!" she yelled then Middy flew up, and both Icy and Cherry held their hoofs up which allowed Middy to grab them and fly both of them into the air "STOP THEM, BRING THEM DOWN!" the stallion yelled then the other ponies chased after them as they flew into the forest Middy flew through the forest and took multiple turns to make sure to confuse the ponies chasing them and after another turn, she finally stopped and slowly let Cherry and Icy down "We're safe, now let's get out of here." she said Icy nodded "Okay, I want both of you to stand still and be prepared for anything, I only did this once and that was two days after I teleported another time, it hasn't even been a day since my last teleportation so be warned, the risk we're taking is extremely high and I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, we might die." she said and she saw the worried looks on both Middy and Cherry "Are both of you sure you still want to go through with this?" she asked Cherry and Middy's faces both turned to a determined one and nodded to Icy and she nodded back then she focused on her magic and her broken horn started glowing again as did Middy and Cherry then right before thy teleported the stallions came through bush and the main stallion gasped then Icy, Middy, and Cherry poofed away "NOOOO, MY MONEY MAKERS!" the stallion shouted once all three of them reappeared they found themselves in the middle of a snowstorm in the middle of nowhere so Middy tired to look around for something but couldn't see past the snow "Icy, where did you send us? I can't see a single thing." Middy said but when she didn't get an answer she looked back only to find out that Icy was nowhere to be seen and neither was Cherry "ICY! CHERRY! WHERE ARE YOU?!" she yelled Cherry tried to listen for her fiends but found she couldn't hear over the snowstorm "ICY! MIDDY! WHERE ARE YOU?!" she yelled Icy was lying in the snow unconscious and wasn't moving at all Middy continued to look around "I need to find them, we can't stay out here for long, we'll all freeze." she said then she spread her wings and flew just above the ground and went off to search for her friends Cherry continued to try to listen for them but still couldn't hear over the snow then she shivered a bit "I can't stay here, I just need to pick a direction and stick to it, just like before." she said then she started trotting in a random direction hoping it would either lead her to a town or her friends A group of soldiers walked through the snow "This seems to be the place where the magic was felt, what do you want us to do captain shining?" he asked Shining armor walked forward and looked around "Spread out and look for what could cause the magic disturbance." he said and the soldiers saluted then they all walked around looking for something "Sir Shining, I think I found something." one of the soldiers said and Shining walked over to see a filly buried in the snow and when he checked her with his magic he found she was barely alive "Quick, we need to get this filly back to town as fast as possible." Shining said then he used his magic to levitate the filly and put her on his back "Let's get moving." he said then he ran as fast as he could back to the crystal empire Chapter 6Icy was sleeping soundly until she heard the faint sound of beeping and a few hooves trotting around so she slowly opened her eyes and looked around to find herself in a bed and hooked up to a heart monitor then she sat up and immediately felt a pretty big headache which made her groan and gained the attention of the stallion looking at his clipboard, he had a blue coat with an equally blue man and tail and he was wearing a doctors outfit. The stallion looked over at Icy "Whoa, slow down, you're not well enough to move yet." he said as he trotted over Icy looked around "W-where am I?" she asked "You're in the crystal empire hospital, you were found buried in the snow, what were you doing out there?" he asked Icy thought for a moment "I...can't remember." she said The stallion nodded "I think I know why." he said then he moved her mane out of the way and pointed to her broken horn as she reached up and touched it herself "Is this a horn?" Icy asked "It's not just a horn, it's your broken horn." he said then he picked up his clipboard "judging from the fact you aren't a crystal pony means you're from somewhere else, where you're from is something we don't know, you were found unconscious and buried in the snow and now you seem to have amnesia." he said then he set his clipboard aside "with all of this combined I have concluded that you must have used your magic to come here but the after-effects from using your broken horn and unstable magic must have affected you greatly." he explained Icy gave a confused look "Unstable magic?" she said The stallion nodded "Once a unicorn's horn is broken so is their attachment to their magic but not fully, it simply becomes weaker and a lot harder to control, of course given the right education they are able to control it to an extent, and seeing the evidence it seems you were never taught how." he said Icy shrugged "I don't know if I was even taught magic, I can't remember anything." she said "Hm, well at least you know of what happened and so you can focus on getting better." he said then he trotted to the door "If you need any help then just ring that bell." he said then he left After the stallion said the word 'help' Icy felt some strong anger fill her up but she didn't know why so she simply took a few deep breaths and calmed herself down "What was that about?" she questioned but she just shrugged it off "I guess I should lay down and sleep it off but why do I feel like I'm forgetting something else that's very important. Very, very important." she said as she laid down Cherry continued on her trot in hopes she would run into something that could help her get out of the snow but she could feel herself becoming numb to the snow and cold around her which was very bad "I need to keep moving and stay awake, I need to find something." she said as she continued her trot through the snow Middy continued her own flight through the snowstorm but noticed that her mechanical wing was starting to become harder to move "I can't keep going like this." Middy said then she landed and put her wings back "My wing will freeze, looks like I'm walking from here on out." she said then she ran through the snowstorm "CHERRY, ICY, WHERE ARE YOU?" she called out but when no pony called back she finally got another idea and inhaled deeply and used her bat screech as loud as she could Cherry was barely moving through the snow now until she faintly heard a screech coming from her right "That screech, I just hope it came from who I think it did." she said then she quickly made her way to the location of the screech Icy slept soundly until the door to her room was opened and she slowly opened her eyes to see the same stallion enter the room and smile at her "Little filly, you have visitors." he said then he moved out of the way to show Shining Armor and Princess Cadance Shining stepped forward "Hello there, do you know who we are?" he asked Icy shook her head "Nope, not a clue." she said Cadance stepped forward as well "I am Princess Cadance and this is my husband Shining Armor." she said and Shining nodded his head to her as she held an amazed face "Shining found you buried in the snow and brought you here, we were hoping you could tell us why you were in the middle of a snowstorm but the doctor told us you don't remember anything, is this true?" she said Icy nodded "I don't remember a single thing from before, I'm sorry." she said Shining waved his hoof "Don't worry about it, it's not like your memories are gone forever, they'll return after you recover from the after-effects from your unstable magic and we can find out what happened to you by using a memory spell." he said then he stepped closer to Icy but she moved her head back before he touched his horn to it and Shining looked at her confused "What's wrong?" he asked "I don't know, something just tells me not to let you look at my memories." Icy said "Don't worry, I'll only take a peek, I'm not gonna search your whole memory just find something to explain everything before you ended up here." Shining said and Icy nodded but still looked unsure as Shining placed his horn on her head and it began glowing and after a few minutes it took it off and looked surprised Cadance saw his surprised face and stepped forward "What is it?" she asked and when Shining didn't answer she placed a hoof on his shoulder "Shining?" she asked Shining turned to Cadance "We need to organize a search party immediately." he said "Why? what did you see in there?" Cadance asked Shining looked at Icy who had a confused look on her face then he looked back to Cadance and got close to her ear "Let's discuss this outside." he whispered and Cadance nodded then he turned back to Icy "Sorry to leave like this, we just need to go and make sure of something, we'll be right back." he said then he and Cadance left the room and went a little further from it so Icy couldn't hear them Cadance turned to Shining "You're acting strange Shining, what exactly did you see in there?" she asked "Let's just say, I saw a few things I didn't mean to but that's not my main focus right now, we need to organize a search party." Shining said "Why? is there something else out there?" Cadance asked Shining nodded "Yeah, our little filly didn't come here alone, there were two more, an earth filly and a bat filly, they're out there and we need to find them, I'll get the guards ready to head back out, you should get some ponies ready to get them to the hospital as quickly as possible." he said and Cadance nodded then both of them hurried out of the hospital Cherry continued to follow the screech until it sounded much closer than before "MIDDY! IS THAT YOU?" she called out Middy took a few steps forward until she saw a silhouette of a pony "Ch-cherry? is that you?" she said then the pony walked forward to reveal that it was cherry which made Middy immediately run and hug her "CHERRY! I FOUND YOU!" she said Cherry hugged Middy back "I'm glad you're safe too." she said then Middy let go and stepped back "Have you seen Icy?" she asked Middy shook her head "No, I've been searching for a while too and I haven't found a trace of her." she said then she shivered from the cold "Let's find someplace to get out of this snowstorm." she said "But, what about Icy? she's still out here somewhere." Cherry said "We can't find Icy if we're frozen solid, don't worry she's a tough filly, I'm sure she's fine, now just gab onto my tail and I'll lead us somewhere safe." Middy said and Cherry did as she was told then Middy began walking to find somewhere to get out of the snowstorm but after only a few minutes of walking some light started showing over the mountains and once the light touched Middy she felt her body began to sizzle which made her wince in pain "Oh no." she said "What? what's wrong?" Cherry asked "The sun is coming up." Middy said Cherry was confused "Isn't that a good thing? now you can look for a place we can stay better." she said Middy inhaled sharply as the burning was really hurting "Maybe for a normal pony like you but I'm a bat pony, remember? we don't come out during the day for a reason." she said Cherry's eyes widened at realization "Oh no, we need to find a place and fast." she said Middy nodded then began walking fast enough to look for a place but slow enough so Cherry didn't lose her grip and she kept walking until she had spotted a cave and quickly made her way towards it and once she made it inside she collapsed from both exhaustion and the pain "Middy? are you alright?" Cherry asked "Just give me a moment, I just need to recover my strength and heal my wounds then we'll go and look for Icy as soon as I'm better." Middy said Cherry nodded then went and sat down while leaning her back on the cave "I think I'll take a nap, I'm pretty tired and cold." she said but before she closed her eyes Middy shook her and kept her awake "NO!" Middy yelled making Cherry go wide-eyed then Middy stopped shaking her "You can't go to sleep, that's the last thing anypony should do in a situation like this, you'll go to sleep and never wake up." she said Cherry nodded "I understand, I'll make sure I stay awake." she said "Good, I'll help if push comes to shove and keep an eye out for Icy if she ever finds this cave." Middy said and Cherry nodded and made sure to try to keep her eyes open but that was slowly proving difficult It had been a few hours and the sun was shining high above the sky and the snowstorm had gotten much weaker but neither filly was well enough to move through it and while Middy was making sure to keep an eye out for Icy Cherry couldn't resist her exhaustion anymore and closed her eyes then fell asleep "Hey Cherry, do you think you can tell me if you hear anything outside?" Middy asked but when she didn't get an answer she turned to Cherry and found her asleep "CHERRY!" she yelled as she ran to her and shook her "Cherry, wake up, you can't fall asleep." she said but then she noticed something else, her body felt as cold as ice "Oh no, come on Cherry, wake up, please." she said with tears forming in her eyes but when Cherry didn't wake up Middy decided to make a very drastic decision, she stepped outside the cave and into the sunlight which caused her body to bur again but she did her best to ignore it as she inhaled deeply and let out her loudest screech she could muster, hoping either Icy or somepony else would hear it Shining lead the guard through the snowstorm looking for the two fillies but they weren't having much luck since they couldn't find any tracks due to the massive snowstorm covering them but they continued on their search undeterred except for one of them "Sir Shining, we may have to call off this search, we've been walking for a while and still haven't found any sign of the fillies." the guard said Shining shook his head "We need to keep looking, we can't afford to lose those fillies, no matter what." he said then a screech was heard by all of them but it was faint "Did you hear that?" he asked and the guards nodded "Follow that screech." he said then they all ran in the direction of the screech and continued to follow it as other screeching noises were heard and by the time they made it to the location they saw a bat filly who had smoke coming off of their body Middy forced her head up to look at the ponies "P-please, help us." she said then she fainted Shining looked into the cave to find the other filly unconscious "GET THESE FILLIES BACK TO THE CRYSTAL EMPIRE AS FAST AS YOU CAN, WE DON'T HAVE MUCH TIME, MOVE IT!" he ordered and the guards nodded then one of them picked up Middy while Shining went and picked up Cherry and followed the others as they all raced back to the crystal empire. Chapter 7Icy slept peacefully in her bed since it had been a while since Shining armor and the princess stepped out and she eventually got tired of waiting and decided to go to sleep but then her sleep was disturbed by the noise of hooves running through the hall and also shouting voices so she got out of her bed and made her way to the door where she cracked it open and saw multiple ponies run past her with two beds and she also saw that the beds each had a filly and one was a bat pony but before she was able to step out of her room one of the nurses saw her and quickly blocked her view "Sorry, little filly, but you'll have to return to your room, don't worry about what's happening here, just get some rest." she said and after Icy stepped back the nurse quickly closed the door and followed after the others 'Who were those two? and why do I feel like I should know this?' Icy thought as she trotted back to her bed and laid back down Elsewhere Shining went to check up on the two fillies and made his way to one of the doctors "How are they?" Shining asked the doctor turned to him "The earth filly is suffering from a bad case of hypothermia but as long as we keep her warm she should come through, the bat filly is a bit more confusing but from what our information tells us, once it becomes night her injuries will heal and she'll be good as new." he explained Shining nodded "Keep me informed on their condition, if anything happens I want you to inform me immediately." he said and the doctor nodded then Shining left the room and joined Cadance outside "Shining, how are they?" Cadance asked "We were able to rescue them and the doctors are doing everything they can to help, they'll be fine." Shining said Cadance let out a breath of relief "That's good, I don't want to think of what would have happened if we didn't rescue them in time." she said then she looked back at Shining "By the way, earlier when you used your memory spell on the filly from before, you said you saw something you didn't mean to, what was it?" she asked Shining looked around making sure no ponies were around and after confirming they were alone he got close to Candance's ear "I accidentally saw how her horn got broke and it wasn't pretty." he said Candance gasped "Really?" she asked and Shining nodded "How did it happen?" she asked Shining trotted past her "We need to talk to the filly about this to, it might help to restore her memories, even though this memory isn't a good one." he said then he and Cadance made their way to Icy's room Icy couldn't sleep, after she saw both of those other fillies that's all that's been on her mind ever since and she couldn't stop thinking about them, she felt she should know them but doesn't then Princess Cadance and Shining armor came into her room which made her instantly sit up "Hello, little filly, sorry for taking so long, we had to deal with something." Cadance said as she and shining trotted to her bed and stopped once both were standing right in front of it "It's alright, I was able to get some good rest while you were gone so now I'm full of energy." Icy said with a bright smile Shining looked at Cadance then back at Icy "Little filly, I just want to ask, are you sure you don't remember anything?" he asked Icy looked at him confused "I've tried to remember something from before but nothing seemed to come to me, why do you ask?" she asked "I was just wondering if you remembered something, like how your horn broke." Shining said and he could see Icy flinch at that "I don't know how my horn broke, but something tells me that how it did break was very painful." Icy said as she touched her horn "It was." Shining said and Icy looked back at him "From what I saw in your memories-." "You saw how my horn broke?! you weren't supposed to see that! you said you wouldn't go too deep in my memories!" Icy nearly yelled at him which made him shut his mouth then Icy gasped "W-why did I get so mad? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to yell, it just happened." she said Shining waved his hoof "It's fine, I should be sorry for looking at your other memories when I said I wouldn't, as I said from your memories I saw that this happened a few years ago, you were five years old, you were desperately seeking out help from anypony who would give it, two stallions came up to you and offered to help-." "They lied." Icy said and cut him off "They just wanted to get me somewhere alone and where no pony could hear me scream, they locked me in a room and cast a sound dampening spell on it and that's when it happened, one held me down while the other tore my horn off." she said as she gripped her sheets tighter and had a scowl "the result was bigger than they thought, a magic explosion happened and both of them died and I was left without a horn, from that day forward I wouldn't take any more help from anypony else and I would take care of myself, by myself, broken horn or not." she said then she suddenly put her hoof to her head in pain as all of her memories came rushing back into her head and after it was done she laid her head on her pillow while covering her eyes Cadance immediately went to her side "Are you okay?" she asked "Leave." Icy said and before either of them said anything else Icy gave Cadance and Shining a glare "Leave. now." she said then both of them left her room and left her to her own hatred and anger 'Damn it, Celestia damn it, we're supposed to be our own independent group, yet here we are getting help from a bunch of random ponies, this isn't how it was supposed to go, DAMN IT' she thought Cadance looked back at Icy's door "Do you think she'll be alright?" she asked Shining put his foreleg around Cadance's shoulder "She just needs time to cool down, we'll have to talk to her later though, we still have our own duties to attend to." he said and Cadance nodded "I still can't believe there are ponies out there who would harm a unicorn filly just to get her horn." Cadance said as she and Shining left the hospital After Icy had finally calmed down she got out of her bed and slightly opened her door to make sure no ponies were around and after confirming there weren't any she snuck out and made her way to Middy and Cherry's room where she saw both of them in their own beds then she made her way to Middy's bed and got in it with her "Middy?" Icy said as she slightly shook her "Middy, wake up." she said then she saw Middy slowly open her eyes Middy looked at Icy "Icy? is that you?" she asked "Yeah, it is, are you and Cherry alright?" Icy asked Middy sighed "Not really, the sun did a good job hurting me, I don't know how you ponies like it so much, it's way too bright for my tastes." she said with a small smile then she looked over at Cherry "Cherry was out there for way longer since she didn't have my type of fur she didn't have as much resistant to the cold as I did, she's in bad shape." she explained Icy shook her head "This won't do, I was hoping I could do my plan much earlier than this." she said Middy looked back at her confused "Wait, what? what plan are you talking about?" she asked "I was going to have us escape from here at night and hitch a ride on the train, once on the train we would get as far away from here as possible." Icy said "We wouldn't make it, Cherry is in too bad of shape to move and I still need to heal, you're the only one who could make it." Middy said Icy nodded "I know but I'm not leaving either of you to whatever these ponies have planned for you two." she said "You may have to, we won't make it." Middy said and before Icy could respond Cherry was heard coughing so both of them turned their heads to her and saw she was awake now Cherry turned her head to where she heard Icy and Middy "No, I can make it." she said Icy left Middy's bed and went to Cherry "Are you sure? as Middy said you're not healthy enough to move." she said then Cherry put her hoof on Icy's shoulder after feeling for a bit "Icy, I can make it, we can leave tonight, trust me." Cherry said Icy smiled and nodded "Alright, if you say so, we'll leave tonight under the cover of darkness, be ready." she said then she left the room and made her way back to her room where she got back into her own bed and went to sleep After a few hours had passed Icy opened her eyes and looked around only to find that where she was didn't look like her hospital room at all so she got out of her bed and trotted around only to find darkness then she heard hooves behind her so she turned and saw a pony made out of darkness "Who are you?" Icy asked The shadow pony laughed "Don't you remember? we're the ponies who're gone help you and all you have to do is sit still." he said Icy went wide-eyed and quickly backed away from him "No, not again, I won't let you have my horn this time." she said then she was pushed down and held down by another shadow pony from behind her "That's too bad filly, we're taking it anyway and there's nothing you can do to stop us." he said as the first shadow pony trotted closer to Icy who struggled to get the shadow ponies hoof off of her "No, no, no, no, no, stop." Icy begged then she felt his magic tug at her horn "STOP! PLEASE STOP! SOMEPONY HELP ME!" she yelled then a bright light appeared next to them "Away with you!" a voice said then both of the shadow ponies were blown away and once Icy looked up she saw the princess of the night, Princess Luna "Princess Luna? what are you doing here?" Icy asked Princess Luna trotted to Icy "It is my duty to ensure all of my subjects have a peaceful dream, no matter the pony." she said then she got a closer look at Icy "I know of you filly, you are the one Twilight told me about, the orphaned filly who denied her assistance to have a better life, Icy jewel." she said Icy glanced away then back "I don't need any help, I'm doing perfectly fine on my own." she said "You may say that filly but I know that you only deny help out of fear and anger." Luna said then Icy turned away from her "You fear that once you accept somepony else's help, they will then take advantage of it and hurt you as those two did." she said "I'm not afraid besides don't need help anyway, I'm able to take care of myself." Icy said "Then, was that not you screaming for help earlier as your nightmares came to haunt you?" Luna asked Icy glanced at Luna then turned her head away "No it wasn't, that wasn't me but the old me who believed she needed help from other ponies to survive, this is the new me who knows I don't need help to survive." she said Luna sat beside Icy "You may believe that now little filly but there will come a day where even you will ask for help, just as your friend did to save her friend." she said Icy looked up at Luna "What are you talking about?" she asked but Luna stayed silent "You're talking about Middy, aren't you?" she asked and when Luna didn't answer that was all the confirmation she needed "That traitor! she knows that we're an independent group who doesn't ask for help from the outside and she just went ahead and broke our number one rule!" she yelled "Please Icy, calm yourself, if she hadn't risked herself to get help then you would have lost the other filly Cherry candy." Luna said Icy sighed "You're right, if she didn't act then Cherry wouldn't be here but that doesn't mean I'm gonna forgive her for breaking our rules, I'm gonna have a talk with her once we're gone." she said Luna raised an eyebrow "What do you mean "once you're gone"?" she asked Icy stood up "I'm not telling you, if I do then you'll just alert the Princess." she said then she began trotting away "Wait, where are you going?" Luna asked Icy turned her head and looked at her "hopefully somewhere where you won't find us, goodbye Princess." she said then a door of light appeared and Icy stepped through it and woke up in the real world Icy quickly got out of her bed and checked outside the window to see night has fallen so she quickly and quietly made her way to Middy ad Cherry's room and once she entered she saw Middy stretching her legs and wings with her injuries barely visible Middy looked at Icy "Hey Icy, I'm healed up enough to move around now, and since it's night I'll carry Cherry." she said then she went and picked up Cherry then put her on her back and while doing so she made sure to be as gentle as possible "Do we have a destination by the way?" she asked Icy nodded "Yeah, the train station if we can make it there and sneak aboard then we'll be home free and far away from the crystal empire." she said then she went to the door and slightly opened it After making sure no ponies were near Icy made her way out and Middy made sure to follow closely to keep up and so Icy didn't have to slow down for her sake, once they had finally made it to an exit Icy made sure to check outside the door and found a guard standing next to it but he was asleep so Icy gestured for Middy to follow but to stay silent so both of them silently left the building and stayed as silent as possible then Cherry felt a sneeze come on so she inhaled multiple times and before either Middy or Icy could stop her she sneezed loudly which woke the guard and he saw all of them "Hey, you three, what do you think you're doing?" he said Icy chuckled nervously "Um, we can explain." she said but the guard started trotting to them so Icy inhaled deeply "RUN!" she yelled then she and Middy made a run for it and the guard chased them so once they passed an apple stand Icy was able to find an extra apple on the ground so she picked it up and threw it at the guard hitting him in the face and making him run into the stand then Icy ran into a nearby alleyway and stopped to catch her breath MIddy stepped next to Icy "Now what? no doubt that guard will tell others and we'll be caught." she said Icy waved her hoof "Don't worry, all we have to do is get to the train station then we're home free." she said then she stood back up and continued making her way through the city while Middy followed After only a few minutes of trotting, Icy and Middy stopped on a corner and watched as two guards trotted by then she saw one of them pull out a piece of paper which had her face on it and Icy understood that now they were being looked for which meant they had to be careful so now they made their way through the city as silently as possible "It's this way now, we're almost there." Icy said but once she stepped out she instantly stepped back in after seeing there were two groups of guards standing on each side "Looks like we need to find a way around." she said then she made her way to the other side but had to step back again after seeing another group of guards making their way to the alley they were in "Icy? what's wrong?" Middy asked "We may be trapped between two guards with no way to go." Icy said with a nervous smile "Oh no, what'll we do now?" Middy asked "I...Don't know, we're trapped." Icy said "Then why don't I give you a hoof?" a voice said and once both Middy and Icy looked at where it came from they saw a stallion who had a white coat and a green mane and tail and he had saddlebags on as well "Who are you?" Middy asked the stallion stepped forward "I'm the only one who can get you out of this mess but it's up to you if you follow me or not." he said Icy moved close to MIddy "I don't think we should trust him, he's up to something." she whispered Middy looked at Icy "We don't have much choice, we either go with him or go back to the hospital and face the prince and princess." she said Icy sighed then stepped forward "We'll follow you, how will you even get us out of here?" she asked the stallion reached in his bags and tossed some hoods at both Icy and Middy "Put those on and follow me, we'll be out of here in no time." he said and both of them did as told and followed the stallion out of the alleyway and past the guards until one stopped them "Hold on, what are you doing out this late?" the guard asked "Oh me and my fillies were out playing a little later than we planned, we're heading home right now." the stallion said bt the guard still wouldn't let them through "Sorry, but we need to take a look at your foals to make sure they aren't on the paper." the guard said "Oh, there's no reason for that." the stallion said then he reached in his bag and pulled out two big gems then gave them to the guard "Especially when you never saw us in the first place." he said as he winked at him and the guard looked at the gems "Hm, I don't know, my eyes are pretty bad right now but I think I still see a stallion and two hidden fillies." the guard said then the stallion gave him another gem and the guard nodded "Oh well, looks like I'm as blind as a bat, I can't seem to see anything tonight." he said and allowed the stallion and the fillies to walk right by and arrive at a carriage where the stallion removed the hoods from the fillies "Get on in and we'll be out of here in no time." he said and both of them did as told and got in the carriage then the stallion got on the front and began driving As soon as Icy entered she saw a unicorn mare who wasn't a crystal pony and had a purple coat and a red and black mane and tail sitting on the other side of the carriage as she and Middy sat on the opposite side and Middy set Cherry down beside her "Okay, I think it's time we got an explanation." Icy said The mare chuckled "I'll explain everything after we get on the train." she said As they made their way through the city none of the guards seemed to stop them and just watched as they passed right by until the had finally arrived at the train station and once all of them left the carriage the unicorn mare paid for the tickets and boarded the train along with the three fillies and entered a private train cart Icy climbed up in one of the beds "Alright, time for an explanation." she said the unicorn mare sat in her own bed across from Icy and Middy "Alright, what do you want to know?" she asked "First, your name." Icy said "My name is Crystal rose." Crystal said Icy nodded "second, how did you conveniently find us in an alleyway while we were being searched for by the guards?" she asked Crystal chuckled "Oh, I've been keeping tabs on you for a while now." she said then the train began moving "Wait, what? you've been watching me? why?" Icy asked "I was told to." Crystal said which surprised Icy "Don't look so surprised, you should have known that Jade night wouldn't let two new moneymakers go so easily." she said "Who's Jade night?" Icy asked Middy thought for a moment "I think she's talking about the stallion that chased us that night along with his friends." she said then she looked back up at the smirking Crystal "Oh no, she's taking us back to him, we need to leave." she said but before either of them stood up Crystal used her magic to grab Cherry and have her float next to her "Now, I'm not one to hurt a defenseless filly like your friend here." Crystal said then she focused some magic on Cherry's neck "But I will if both of you don't stay where you are." she said Middy glared at her "I won't let you hurt her." she said Crystal chuckled "And she won't be hurt as long as both of you sit still and enjoy the ride." she said then she clapped her hooves and multiple ponies came into the cart and Crystal gave them Cherry "And before either of you think of escaping if you try then you'll never see your friend again and that same goes for if you hurt me, so let's enjoy the ride, shall we?" she said then the ponies left the cart with Cherry and both of them couldn't do anything without risking their friends' life so they stayed in their seat during the rest of the train ride After a few hours, they had arrived at their stop and Crystal had the fillies follow her out of the train and also made sure to have an escort to make sure Icy and Middy didn't try anything and after a bit of trotting they had finally arrived at the town and saw the same stallion standing there with his own group of ponies Jade stepped forward "Hello there my little moneymakers, bet you didn't expect to see me again so soon." he said Icy looked around at the other ponies then back at him "How did you even know where we went? Equestria is a big place, we could have teleported anywhere." she said Crystal chuckled as she stepped forward "I simply used a special locator spell, by going off of your last magic trace I was able to pinpoint your exact location and headed there right away and kept tabs on you since." she said then she looked back at Jade "You can go ahead and thank me now." she said Jade rolled his eyes "yeah sure, good job, now I want the rest of you to cuff these fillies and take them to the others." he said then the unicorns all floated cuffs to both of them and cuffed their hooves "Oh, and make sure to put a magic dampening ring on the unicorn, we don't want her to go and teleport somewhere else again." he said and one of the unicorns secured a magic dampening ring on Icy's broken horn "Now come this way my moneymakers." he said "Wait." Middy said which made Jade stop in his tracks and turn around "It's our friend, she's sick and very ill, she won't be able to do any work for you, can you at least spare her?" she said Jade rolled his eyes "Ugh, fine, one less moneymaker won't make much of a difference, now come on, you need to see your new living quarters." he said He and the other began trotting and both of them followed until they arrived back at the cave where Middy escaped from last time then Jade brought them to a door that was very deep within the cave and opened and allowed the fillies to enter while Crystal levitated Cherry into the room and next to them then Jade closed the door and left "Well, just when we thought we were home free, we got caught all over again." Middy said as she caressed Cherry's mane Icy shook her head "We probably should have stayed at the hospital, at least until Cherry was in good shape to move so we wouldn't get caught like this." she said Middy looked at Icy "Are you saying this is Cherry's fault?" she asked "What? no, I'm just saying that if she was awake then we could've gotten away together." Icy said Middy sighed "Sorry for accusing you, and you're right, we should have waited until Cherry was better." she said as she looked down at Cherry and continued to rub her head Icy suddenly heard some hoofsteps from behind her and quickly turned around "Who's there?" she asked Icy saw a strange pony who seemed to be all black and his hooves seemed to have multiple holes in them and he also had sharp fangs and once he came closer to the only light that was coming out of the door Icy saw him fully and gasped "A changing colt?!" Icy said "Ah, another pony, seemed like I really am the last of my kind since I haven't seen any other changelings here since I got here." he said Icy looked him over "Hang on, you're not like those reformed changelings I heard about, you look like the old ones that used to exist." she said The changeling looked at her confused "Reformed changelings? what happened when I was kicked out of the hive?" he asked "Kicked out?" Icy said The changeling nodded "I broke some rules and queen Chrysalis removed me from the hive and banned me from returning, I left a long time ago and eventually got caught then wound up here, now what's this about reformed changelings?" he said Icy thought for a moment "I don't know much but from what I read the old queen was dethroned and the changelings learned to share love instead of taking it." she said The changeling was confused "Queen Chrysalis was dethroned? and the others learned to..."share love"? what does that even mean? how does a changeling share love? what in equestrian happened while I was gone?" he said Icy shrugged "A lot, I guess." she said the changeling sighed "I guess while we're here we might as well know who each other are, my name is Shifter, and you are?" he asked "I'm Icy jewel." Icy said then she pointed at Middy who wasn't paying attention to their conversation "That's Midnight amber but we call her Middy and the one who's asleep right now is Cherry candy." she said Shifter looked at Middy and Cherry "My, that sure is a lot of love, what I would give to have some of that." he said while smiling Icy moved into his view "I don't think so." she said "Relax, I couldn't take any of their love, not with this dampening ring on my horn." Shifter said as he showed the ring on his horn "at least they take it off so I can keep myself alive but the amount of love I can get from these other ponies doesn't compare to the amount I'm sensing from those two." he said pointing at Middy and Cherry Icy looked back at them "that's because we all care about each other." she said then she looked back at Shifter "And I'm not going to let you take our love, even if it's to keep yourself alive." she said then she got in his face "So back up before you get hurt." she said Shifter backed up and huffed "Fine, I won't touch your friends' love, but when push comes to shove, my hooves may be tied." he said then he trotted away Icy walked back to Middy "I should get some sleep, we have a big day tomorrow as mine workers, fun." she said then she laid down "Wake me up if Cherry comes to, okay?" she said and Middy nodded then Icy laid her head down and went to sleep Chapter 8Icy and Middy were awoken by somepony who was shaking them and when they opened their eyes they saw other ponies from many ages also trotting out of the room they were in then the pony who was shaking them made the stand up "Come on you two, time to get moving, you've got a lot of work to do considering you're new." the stallion said "Wait." Middy said making the stallion turn back to her "We can't just leave Cherry here alone, we need somepony to watch her just in case." she said the stallion sighed "I'll have somepony watch her, now get moving." he said and Icy and Middy continued trotting out of the room and followed the stallion through the many caves until they stopped at another cave wall "You will use the pickaxes and mine into the wall, any gems you find will be put into this basket." he said pointing at the nearby basket and by the basket were pickaxes "Now, get to work and don't think of escaping, we have guards posted all throughout this cave who will stop you immediately." he said then he trotted away leaving Icy and Middy Icy picked up one of the pickaxes "We should get this over with, the faster we're done the faster we can get back to Cherry." she said then she began mining the wall Middy picked up the other pickaxe "I hope that stallion actually did get somepony to watch over Cherry, she's too sick to be left alone." she said then she began to mine the wall along with Icy "We'll just have to believe he did, that's all we can do." Icy said and Middy nodded Both of them mined into the wall and put any gems they found into the basket and they kept this up until another stallion came and told them it was time for lunch so they stopped mining the wall and ate the apples they were given and once they were done eating they got right back to work and continued mining until the same stallion came back and told them it was time to head back to the room so the followed him and while following him Icy saw the changeling colt again and above him were unstable rocks that were just about to fall right on top of him "WATCH OUT!" Icy shouted as she ran at him and pushed him out of the way of the rocks "Are you alright?" she asked Shifter pushed her away "Get off of me." he said then he stood back up "aren't you gonna say thank you?" Icy asked Shifter huffed "I didn't need any help, I could have dodged that on my own." he said Icy snorted "Sure you could, next time maybe I'll just watch you and see if you can dodge the rock." she said and Shifter rolled his eyes and just trotted away "You're welcome by the way." she yelled at his back but he didn't respond then she continued following the stallion back to the room where there was another pony standing next to the doorway "Time to send them back, we can leave." the stallion said and the other pony nodded and watch as Icy and Middy walked back into the room and joined the other pony's Middy sat back down next to Cherry "She still hasn't woken up, I'm worried Icy." she said Icy sat down on the other side of Cherry "We just have to believe she'll get better, we won't be able to treat her here." she said "Can't you use your magic to heal her or something?" Middy asked Icy shook her head "The only useful spell I actually bothered to learn was teleportation since my horn was broken, I didn't think I would be able to use any other spells since my magic is so unstable, sorry." she said "It's fine, that just means we have to find some way out of here so we can help Cherry." Middy said then she began rubbing Cherry's mane "By the way, have you thought of a plan on how we're going to be getting out of here?" she asked Icy shook her head "I tried to pay attention to everything I saw while trotting around here but I didn't see anything that could help us escape." she said "What about that changeling?" Middy asked "I don't know how we're going to use him, he has a magic canceling ring on his horn so he won't be able to transform unless somepony removes it." Icy said Middy thought for a moment "Can we remove it?" she asked Icy shrugged "Magic canceling rings are tough to remove but if we're careful, I'm sure we can do it." she said and Middy nodded then Shifter had finally entered the room and sat on a spot by himself then Icy stood up and trotted over to him "Shifter." she said Shifter looked up at her "Icy jewel, what do you want this time?" he asked "I want each of us to help each other." Icy said "I'm not sure what somepony like you would want with a changeling like me." Shifter said "Your magic might help us escape this place, plus everypony knows how strong changelings are if they get enough love." Icy said and Shifter nodded "And how do you plan on getting this magic canceling ring off my horn? and where am I going to get enough love to make myself strong enough to help escape?" Shifter asked "Middy and I are going to help you get the ring off, as for the love, we can't just ask ponies to give up their love and I won't let you take it from Middy more Cherry." Icy said then she thought for a moment "Alright, I'll offer up my own love to help you stay powered up and alive." she said Shifter was shocked "You would willingly give me your love?" he asked Icy nodded "If it helps us get out of here then yes I will." she said Shifter shook his head "I will never understand you ponies, to willingly give others your love instead of keeping it to yourself, you really are strange." he said Icy pat him on the back "Maybe someday, you will but right now, we need to get that ring off so we'll wait until nightfall when Middy is much stronger." she said and Shifter nodded then Icy trotted back to Middy and sat by her side where she explained the plan so far and Middy nodded and waited until night along with Icy -Night- Once it was finally nighttime Middy and Icy moved to Shifter "So, how are we going to do this?" Shifter asked "I could try to force it off but it may not be pleasant." MIddy said "I think that might be the easiest way." Icy said "It's fast and we could be done a lot faster so we can get out of here sooner than we want." she said Shifter nodded "Alright, just make it quick." he said and Middy nodded then she trotted forward and grabbed onto the ring then she used as much strength as she could to force the ring off of Shifter's horn and he groaned once it was finally off and wobbled a bit Icy stepped closer "Are you okay?" she asked Shifter shook his head "Yeah, I'll be fine in a moment." he said then he shook his head one more time and nodded "Okay, I'm good, now it's time for feeding, right?" he said and Icy nodded then she sat down and held her hooves wide open "Hurry up, we need you stronger." Icy said then Shifter began sucking some pink smoke from Icy and once he was done she felt a bit weak but shook it off "How was that? was it enough?" she asked Shifter shook his head "Not really, I'm gonna need a lot more than this." he said then Middy stepped forward "How about you combine it with the love you get when the ponies want to keep you alive?" Middy asked "That will make it go faster but would really make it go faster is if I get some from you and Cherry candy." Shifter said "Not happening." Icy said Shifter shrugged "Then, we'll be in it for the long run, I hope you have enough love for tomorrow night." he said but before he turned and laid back down Middy placed the ring back on his horn "Hey, I thought we were going to leave this off." he said Icy raised an eyebrow "Why would you think that? if the guards find out somepony removed your ring then they would want to make sure it's never removed again so each night we'll have to put it back on, sorry." she said Shifter sighed "I got it, can't have the guards finding out, welp I'm going to sleep now, you should too if you want to be able to work tomorrow." he said then he turned and laid down while Middy and Icy both returned to Cherry's side and went to sleep themselves -The next day- Icy and Middy were mining into the wall and they were also working with Shifter after the stallions made all of them work together to gain more gems Icy turned to Shifter "Hey, I'm curious about something." she said making Shifter turn to her "You said before you were kicked out of your hive, what did you do?" she asked Shifter looked away "I made a mistake, well two mistakes." he said "What exactly did you do?" Icy asked "I don't want to talk about it, let's just focus on getting out of here." Shifter said and Icy was gonna ask again but decided against it and focused on mining until another guard came and had Icy and Middy return to the room while Shifter was taken somewhere else Middy looked at Icy "They must be taking him to get some love from other ponies." she whispered and Icy nodded then they entered the room and were locked in "We just have to wait till he's back then we can continue our plan." Icy said as she and Middy returned by Cherry's side who still had yet to awaken then Shifter had finally returned o the room and joined Icy and Middy Shifter rubbed his ring "I really need more love than how much I get from you and the other ponies." he said "You're gonna have to accept what you can get until we can escape." Icy said and Shifter sighed "Just wait until night, as usual." she said and Shifter nodded then Icy laid down and went to sleep while Shifter moved to his own spot and went to sleep there and Middy watched over Cherry -Night- Once it had finally become night Middy and Icy had already gotten to work at removing his horn and supplying him with love and after he had his fill Middy put the ring back on "Middy, you can go to Cherry, I want to talk to Shifter." Icy said and Middy looked at her confused "Don't worry, I'll be fine, I just want to talk." she said and Middy nodded then she trotted back to Cherry's side Shifter looked at Icy "What is it now?" he asked "I still want to know what happened that got you kicked out of your hive." Icy said "I said I didn't want to talk about." Shifter said "It'll just be between us, you don't have to tell anypony else." Icy said but Shifter still looked unsure "I just want to know, please tell me." she pleaded Shifter sighed "Alright, this will stay between us." he said and Icy nodded "The reason I was kicked out of the hive was because I saved a pony." he said Icy raised an eyebrow "Something that small was because you were kicked out?" she asked "You don't understand, to our queen ponies are nothing but our love supply, to save one instead of using it to feed is one of our highest offenses, she saw it as I caring more about the ponies then the hive so I was kicked out." Shifter said and Icy nodded "After I was kicked out I roamed Equestria and fed on love whenever I could just to stay alive, once a time I tried to ask for help from the ponies but they only saw me as a changeling coming for their love and chased me away, then I ended up here." he said Icy nodded "I can understand." she said "How can you understand that? you've never been kicked out of your own race by your princess." Shifter said "True, but I know what it's like being tossed aside by somepony you look up to and being alone." Icy said then she put a hoof on his shoulder "I understand your pain and I'm sorry for what happened to you." she said Shifter smirked "Thanks Icy jewel." he said Icy chuckled "You can just call me Icy, it's shorter." she said Shifter nodded "Alright, thanks Icy." he said "You're welcome, see you can say thanks when you try." Icy said making Shifter roll his eyes then she began trotting to Middy and Cherry "See you tomorrow night." she said waving at him and he waved back as she continued trotting to Middy and Cherry Shifter put a hoof to his chest 'What is this feeling? it's so weird, but nice in a way, I wonder what it is and how to feel more, I will ask about it later, right now I need sleep.' he thought then he laid down and went to sleep -12 Days later- The days have passed and the plan progressed with Icy continuing to supply Shifter with love and him getting it from other ponies when it was time and during the twelve days Shifter had felt the feeling within him grow every time he talked with Icy yet he had no idea what it meant nor where it was coming from so he merely put it aside and decided to worry about it later then it was time for him to feed again so he was taken somewhere else as usual. A guard entered the room "Icy jewel, Jade night has requested you." he said and Icy stood up Middy grabbed Icy's hoof "Be careful, there's no telling what he would want." she said Icy nodded "I'll be fine but just in case, keep an eye on Cherry." she said and Middy nodded then Icy followed the guard to a whole other room where Jade night and two other guards were along with Shifter and he looked surprised to see her "She's here, now hurry up and feed so we can have you ready to work." Jade said Shifter looked at Jade "I can't get love from her." he said Jade raised an eyebrow "And why not? she's a pony with love inside of her, right?" he said and Shifter nodded slightly "then do what you changelings do and feed." he said "But...she's...I." Shifter tried to say but Jade just kept his eyebrow raised so Shifter turned back to Icy Icy nodded "I'll be fine." she whispered but Shifter could tell from her eyes that he had been taking love from her too much and she was exhausted "Go ahead, and don't worry about me, just keep yourself alive." she whispered Shifter was about to take Icy's love again but the more he looked at her the more he felt that feeling and the more he saw the pony from his past back when she was in trouble and he risked himself to save her from a manticore, how he put her above his mission to capture her for the hive and now he decided to do it again "No." Shifter said making everypony in the room look at him confused "I won't take her love, not anymore." he said "What do you mean "not anymore"?" Jade asked Shifter turned to Jade "She removed this ring so I could take her love to keep myself strong and alive so we could escape one day, but I'm not gonna take her love anymore, I've already taken too much." he said and Icy was surprised "You were planning an escape?" Jade said and Shifter sighed but nodded "I'm mostly surprised that somepony around here would be willing to help a bug horse like you, considering what you are and what you do, a changeling kicked out of his hive for helping a pony and now you were gonna help another pony, don't you ever learn? helping others will get you nowhere." he said and Shifter lowered his head Shifter looked back up at Jade "I helped that pony back then because it was the right thing to do, everypony deserves to be helped." he said "But not you." Jade said then he got up and stepped in front of Shifter "You're a changeling, a bug horse, a love hunter, there isn't a single pony alive who would ever want to help you, this filly was just using you so she could escape herself, not to help you, no pony will ever help you and you do well to remember that." he said Icy stepped forward "You're wrong." she said making Jade look at her "I was also helping him when I allowed him to take my love, just as Shifter said everypony deserves to be helped, no matter what race they are." she said then she trotted next to him "When we escape I was planning on taking him with us because I felt sad for how he was treated, thrown away by others he looked up to, I know how that feels, that's why I decided to help him myself." she said then she nuzzled his side which surprised him "And it may also because I've grown a bit attached to him so no matter what you say, you're wrong, because this filly right here is going to be the one to help him." she said Jade snorted "Well, good for you two but I'm not going to just let you both go so now I think I'm gonna have to separate you two, forever." he said Icy smirked "Sorry, but you won't have a choice in the matter." she said then she easily removed her ring "Thankfully, I asked Middy to break my ring but I hid the crack behind my mane so you never knew." she said which surprised Jade then Icy began charging up her horn making herself and Shifter glow "Somepony get another ring, QUICK!" Jade said but then Icy and Shifter teleported away "FIND THEM, FIND THEM NOW!" he yelled Icy and Shifter had reappeared in the room where Middy and Cherry were and Icy quickly ran to Middy "Middy, it's time." she said and Middy nodded "Oh and don't worry, Shifter doesn't have his ring right now so you won't have to remove it yourself." she said Middy nodded "Then, should we move onto the door?" she asked "I can take care of it, you take care of the others." Icy said but before she could move to the door she was grabbed by Middy "Are you sure? you did just teleport here." Middy said Icy nodded "Trust me, it's a lot less painful when I just teleport short distances, I still have enough energy to take care of the door, now hurry up, we don't know how long we have." she said and Middy nodded then she ran to another unicorn in the room Middy grabbed her ring "Sorry, but this might hurt a bit." she said then she worked the ring off freeing her magic then she moved to the next one Icy trotted to the door and Shifter joined her side “so...you’ve grown attached to me?” He said Icy blushed “it’s just that, your past and mine are so similar and I was also saddened by your story of no pony giving you a chance and helping you, I couldn’t help feeling this way.” She said then she looked at him “do...do you feel the same?” She asked Shifter put a hoof to his chest “I don’t know, this is my first time feeling this way so I’m not sure what this feeling is.” He said “Describe it.” Icy said “Well, every time I talk to you or I’m near you then I get this weird feeling in my chest, I don’t know what it is or what I’m supposed to do with it, do you know?” Shifter asked Icy nodded “I do know.” She said making Shifter turn to him then she kissed his cheek making him blush “what you’re feeling is love, and you should let it out and experience the full feeling of it.” She said Shifter looked at her confused “how do I do that?” He asked “Just go with the way you feel, don’t suppress it anymore, let it out.” Icy said then Shifter took a deep breath and let it out as he began glowing and floated in the air then he transformed into a small pin pod which quickly opened itself back up to reveal Shifter with an orange coat and green wings as he floated back to the ground “see, I knew you could do it.” Icy said Shifter looked all over himself “so this must have been what my changeling brothers and sisters felt when they were reformed, gotta say, I feel a lot better in this form than my other form.” He said Icy nuzzled his head “and you look better this way to.” She said then she faced the door again “ready to make our escape?” She asked and Shifter nodded then Icy focused her magic and blasted the door off its hinges but the result made her drop to her knees Shifter put a hoof on her shoulder “are you alright?” He asked Icy nodded “I’ll be fine, just give me a moment.” She said and Shifter nodded then Middy came back over “I freed every unicorn, both filly and mare.” Middy said “Good work Middy.” Icy said then she forced herself to stand and Shifter made sure to support her “thanks Shifter.” She said then she turned around to the other ponies “listen everypony, we don’t have much time, this will be our only chance to escape and what I want you to do is blast the support beams with your magic while we run through the caves.” Icy said making a lot of them gasp One mare stepped forward “but, won’t that make the cave collapse on top of us?” She asked “Not if we’re fast enough, we’ll run straight to the exit while the cave is falling and while it is the other guards won’t be able to follow us.” Icy said but some of them still looked unsure “I know this plan is risky but it’s the only plan we have that can get everypony out of here, we can do it.” She said then all of them nodded “Alright, let’s go!” Icy said then she ran out of the room followed by all the other ponies and Middy carried Cherry on her back as she flew through the cave As all of them ran through the cave the unicorn mares made sure to blast the support beams just enough so it won’t instantly but it would after a few minutes giving anypony under them enough time to get out of the way before it collapsed and they kept this up all throughout the cave making it difficult for the guards to catch them since as soon as they tried to chase after them they had to stop due to the cave collapsing and while running Icy had suddenly been caught by a rope "AH, Middy, Shifter, help!" Icy yelled making both Middy and Shifter turn to her to see Jade behind her with the rope in his mouth Shifter turned back to Middy "Get out of here, I'll save Icy." he said and Middy nodded and continued running then he ran back to Icy and pulled her back towards him while trying to get the rope off "You two brats." Jade said pulling the other way "I was making plenty of money then you two just had to muck it all up, I won't let either of you get away, I'll make both of you pay for ruining my perfect money-making business." he said pulling harder on the rope Shifter had finally gotten the rope off of Icy making Jade fall back "Come on Icy, we have to run before the cave falls." he said "Hang on, if we don't stop Jade night her and now then he'll just come back after us." Icy said turning back to face Jade "What are you gonna do?" Shifter asked Icy charged her horn "I'm gonna protect my friends and you." she said then before Jade got back on his hooves she blasted the nearby pillar causing most of the rocks to fall Icy fell to her knees so Shifter picked her up and put her on his back then he continued running through the cave as Jade night screams echoed throughout the cave then Shifter had just barely made it out of the cave just as it had blocked the exit and after Shifter had finally sat down to rest Icy picked herself up and looked at the entrance of the cave "We're free, finally." Icy said then she laid her head back down "You know, for a changeling, your back is very comfortable." she said as she rubbed her head into his back "Glad you like it but, can you get off? you're very heavy." Shifter said Icy shook her head "Can't, that last magic blast was all I had left, it's gonna take me a bit before I have enough strength to move myself." she said and Shifter huffed "Don't lie though, you like having me this close to you." she said and Shifter rolled his eyes but smiled Middy trotted over to them "I can't believe we're all alright, looks like your plan was a success Icy." she said "I'm just glad it went as well as it did, so many things could have gone wrong but didn't." Icy said then she heard some moaning and looked at Cherry to see her finally open her eyes "Cherry, you're awake!" she said "Hey Icy, Middy, what happened while I was out?" Cherry asked Middy giggled "A lot, I'll explain what I can later but just know that we have a changeling with us and he's Icy's special somepony." she said Cherry giggled "Good for you Icy." she said Icy rolled her eyes "You didn't have to tell her that last part Middy." she said "Hey, you have to include the details in these types of things and I did." Middy said and Icy just shook her head the mare from before trotted to their group "You saved us from working for that stallion, thank you, if there's anything we can do to repay you just name it." she said Icy thought for a moment "Can you give us a wagon with a hood over it also some of the jewels?" she asked "Alright, we'll get a nearby wagon and a basket of jewels." the mare said then she and others trotted off Middy looked back at Icy "What are you planning now?" she asked "Well, since ponyville is probably still looking for us and also the crystal empire, I was thinking we go to the next best place, Manehattan." Icy said Cherry gasped "But Manehattan is pretty far away, we'll be trotting for hours maybe days." she said "That's why I also requested for some of the jewels, we'll use some of those jewels to pay for a train ticket that will take us straight to Manehattan, saving us the trouble of trotting." Icy said and Cherry nodded Shifter looked at her confused "Then, what's the wagon for?" he asked Icy nuzzled his neck "That's for me and you since you're not strong enough to carry me, I'll rest in the wagon and your back can rest." she said and Shifter nuzzled her back "Thank you, I need the rest myself." Shifter said the mare and the other ponies had finally returned with a wagon and a basket of jewels that were left behind in the town after most of the other ponies left then Shifter put Icy in the back and joined her while Middy also put Cherry in the back with them along with the basket of jewels then she strapped herself onto the wagon and pulled them to the station while waving back at the ponies they helped escape and once they had finally gotten to the station Icy was well enough to move on her own while Middy continued carrying Cherry and they were lucky enough to get there just as the train had pulled into the station so they used the jewels and gems to pay for their tickets and boarded the train, Icy joined Shifter on his own seat while Cherry and Icy sat on theirs Icy smiled at each of them "Next stop, Manehattan." she said then the train began moving
Chapter 1It was an average day in ponyville, ponies we’re going about their business, working stalls and shopping but one little filly couldn’t do either as she laid in an alleyway inside a cardboard box all by herself, this filly’s name was icy jewel, she was also a blank flank, she had a white coat and a silver mane with her tail the same color and she was stirred awake due to all the loud noise of ponies near her and she grumbled while getting up. “Why did it have to be today when everypony decides to be loud? Don’t they know I need sleep.” she said walking out of her alleyway and to a corner on the street. As she watched all the ponies pass by she eventually found a good target, an older stallion who looked to be carrying a good amount of bits, and she walked in the opposite direction of him and once she got close enough she swiped his wallet and ran as the stallion looked back and yelled something at her but she didn’t understand him Once she found a suitable place to hide she took out the wallet and dug through it “fifteen bits nice.” She said tossing the wallet away and walked out of her hiding spot and to a stall where a pony Was selling apples. “Three apples please.” she said and the mare working the stall nodded then brought out three apples “that’ll be three bits.” she said as icy put three bits on the stall and took the apples then left. While she was walking she spotted the stallion she stole from walking in her direction so thinking fast she quickly hid behind a large trash can and watched as he walked by then she came out and ran for her alleyway hoping not to get spotted. Once she finally made it to her alleyway she took out an apple and ate it then threw it away but put the rest in her box as she laid down on her makeshift bed, it only had a rugged blanket and a also messy pillow she found one day in a garbage can, it was all messy and had barely any softness to it but it was better than nothing. While laying down she felt a cool breeze come over her making her shiver but she just took it, ‘today is colder than usual, must mean fall is near’ she thought getting up and heading out ‘I need to find something to protect me from the cold, a blanket, another box, anything’ she thought while walking through the streets not paying attention to anything until she bumped into someone and fell back. “Watch where you’re going...” she trailed of looking up and realizing it was the same stallion that she robbed as he looked at her and immediately got angry “you’re the filly who stole my wallet, you got some explaining to do to the authorities.” With that he tried to grab her but she quickly got up and ran away from him hoping to make it to a safe place to hide, once she looked back she saw the stallion chasing her and he was catching up fast so she tried to run faster but it was no use she was eventually caught by the stallion as she kicked and struggled to get free but the stallion had a good hold and took her to a giant crystal castle. There the stallion entered and put the filly down in front of an alicorn as she came over “what’s the matter?” she asked and the stallion explained what icy did, as the alicorn came over icy turned away with her hooves crossed over her chest. “Is all this true?” she asked icy but she didn’t answer and kept her mouth shut and her head turned away from her “little filly if this is true then you must return his wallet at once.” She said which made icy whisper something to quiet to hear “What did you say?” She said and icy just grumbled and turned her head facing the princess “I threw it away, I don’t know where it is anymore so ha.” She said and the stallion got angrier and was about to approach her but the princess stopped him. “That wasn’t a very good thing to do you know, what would your parents say?” She said but icy didn’t even flinch but instead smiled “go ahead tell them if you can find them.” Icy said which made the princess confused. “What do you mean ‘if we can find them’.” She said and icy just shook her head “they could be anywhere and you can’t ask me since I haven’t seen them since I was four.” Icy said and the princess gasped in surprise. “If you don’t know where your parents are then who do you live with?” She asked and icy just shook her head “no, no way am I giving up my new home and you can’t make me.” Icy said and turned away again making the princess look at her with worry. “Can you at least give me the name of who you’re staying with?” She asked but icy didn’t reply and kept her back to her then the princess sighed and came closer to icy then put her horn on her head and it glowed making icy look up. Once icy figured out what she was doing she quickly moved away as the princess looked at her with sadness “you... you’re homeless, you were living in an alleyway since you were dumped by you parents at the age of four.” The princess said making icy angry “you looked at my memories!” She shouted at the princess. “I had to, you weren’t telling me anything.” She said as icy got up and started walking to the front doors but was picked up by the princess “and where do you think you’re going?” She asked as icy fought against the magical hold on her. “I’m going home.” She said still fighting against the magic as the princess shook her head “I can’t allow you to go back there, not only is it unsafe but it’s no home for a filly like you.” She said putting icy down but still made sure she couldn’t run by holding her legs in magic. “Then what are you going to do?” Icy asked not really wanting an answer but the princess gave her one anyway “I’m gonna help you.” She said but this made icy very angry and struggled even harder against her hold “I DON’T NEED YOUR HELP!!!” She shouted and surprisingly managed to break out of her hold which shocked the princess as icy ran out of the castle as fast as she could hoping she wasn’t being followed, then she made it back to her alleyway and grabbed her bag of apples and ran out. “I don’t need anyone’s help, I can take care of myself, I don’t need anyone ANYONE!!” She shouted as she ran out of town but took one last look back then turned and kept running hoping to get as far as she could from her.
Chapter 2While running away from the town I accidentally ran into another pony and fell back once I looked up at who I ran into I saw it was another filly but she looked weird in a way, she had a red coat and a pink Mane with white stripes going through it and the same went with her tail. Once I got up I went over to her “are you alright?” I asked but she didn’t look at me instead she just looked up “I’m fine.” She said still not looking at me “hey why are you looking that way? I’m over here.” I said “Well sorry but I’m blind as you can probably see.” She said getting up and turning herself to where icy’s voice had come from, and icy felt bad for not recognizing earlier but another question popped into her head “why are you out here all alone?” “Because I want to be.” She said and I facehoofed “I mean since your blind won’t you need help?” I said and that seemed to anger her a bit “what just because I’m blind that means I can’t defend for myself?!” She said “Well yes.” I said then she tried to swing at me but missed “I don’t need anyone’s help,I’m fine on my own!” She yelled it was then I realized that she was like me a filly who didn’t want help no matter who offered it “you’re just like me.” I said “What do you mean?” She said then I came over and put a good on her shoulder “no matter what anyone says you want to prove that you don’t want or need their help.” I said and she was surprised “is that how you feel to?” She asked “Yes it is.” I said and she felt better she had someone who understood her “my name is cherry candy what’s yours?” She asked “icy jewel.” I said then she put her hoof on my shoulder after feeling for it “hey want to team up we can be our own independent group.” She said I put a hoof on my chin thinking about it for a bit “alright sure why not.” I said then I put her hoof up in the air as we hoof fived “it’s you and me against the world, we’ll show those other ponies that we have what it takes to survive on our own!” I said as cherry nodded then I guided her back to ponyville and to a backup alleyway I had just in case somepony discovers my first one ad we laid down and went to sleep.
Chapter 3Icy and cherry were sleeping peacefully until Icy was suddenly awakened by some running hooves so she stood up and stretched then she made her way to the corner of her alleyway to see some ponies running around then two of them stopped in front of each other "Have you spotted the filly yet?" one stallion said and the other shook his head "She's got to be around here somewhere, Twilight wants her found before something horrible happens so we can send her somewhere much safer, so keep looking we can't afford to lose her." he said then he and the other stallion ran off in different directions and Icy gasped then quickly went to cherry Icy shook cherry "Cherry wake up, we need to leave." she said Cherry slowly opened her eyes and yawned "Why? what's wrong?" she asked "They're looking for us, well more specifically me but if they find me then they'll find you to so we need to leave." Icy said as Cherry stood up "Wait, hold on, who's looking for you?" Cherry asked Icy sighed "Look, I was caught by this stallion and he brought me to princess Twilight and when she offered to help me I ran off after denying her help and now it looks like she has all of ponyville looking for me so we need to go." she said as she walked back to the corner and looked around it "Where do we even go? it's not like we can just hop a ride on the train, we're flat broke." Cherry said "I have a plan, it's not a great plan I'll admit but it's better than most plans I come up with on the spot." Icy said as she looked around and made sure no ponies were nearby "What is the plan? if I may ask." Cherry said and Icy turned back to her "It's simple, we pack our stuff and hoof it out of ponyville." Icy said Cherry stood there for a moment then facehoofed "That's your plan?" she asked and Icy looked at her confused "that's not even a real plan, you have no plan of where to go, you're just going to run until you can't anymore?" she asked Icy nodded but realized she couldn't see it "Um, yeah." she said which made Cherry facehoof again "You've got to be kidding me." Cherry said then she sighed "I guess it is better than no plan at all, alright I'll follow your lead." she said Icy turned around and trotted to her bags then began to fill them "You just follow me by hanging onto my tail and we'll be out of here in no time." she said and once she was done filling her bags she tossed them over then walked in front of Cherry and waved it to her face allowing her to take some of it into her mouth "Now just follow my lead and don't let go." she said After Cherry nodded Icy started to slowly walk out of the alley while making sure to keep an eye out for other ponies and after making sure there were none she slowly walked through the streets and if she ever heard any hoofsteps she quickly ducked behind a house and pulled Cherry with her so they weren't spotted and after they left they continued to make their way out of ponyville and eventually they had finally made it out "Okay, we're out, now we just need to keep moving forward and they'll never find us." Icy said and Cherry nodded but before Icy continued walking she was suddenly picked up by another pony and when she looked up she saw a blue pegasus with a rainbow mane and tail "I found you, now to just bring you back to Twilight." she said Icy struggled to free herself "Let me go." she said "No can do, everypony has been looking for you all day, if I let you go now then we'll have to look for you all over again." she said then she started to fly into the air "Now once we get you to Twilight she can help you find a real home instead of living in some alleyway." she said as soon as Icy heard the word help she instantly became agitated "Like I've told that princess, I DON'T NEED HELP!" she yelled then she looked back down at Cherry to see her feeling around for something "Cherry stay right there, what you're about to feel might sting a bit." she said the rainbow-colored mare looked down at her "Wait, what are you doing? and who's Cherry?" she asked Icy took a deep breath in and out then she started to focus and after a few minutes something behind her mane began to glow brighter and brighter and when the rainbow-colored mare moved her mane out of the way she saw only half of a broken horn and gasped but then Icy and Cherry both teleported away and right out of her hooves "She's a unicorn?!" the mare said both Icy and Cherry landed in the middle of some woods and Icy fell down out of exhaustion and was breathing heavily and Cherry turned to her after hearing her breathing "Are you alright?" Cherry asked "I'll be fine, it's just difficult using my magic so soon." Icy said "Using your magic? you never said you're a unicorn." Cherry said Icy chuckled nervously "Well, you never really asked so I didn't bother to mention it, besides I'm not really much of a unicorn, my horn is broken." she said as she covered her horn back behind her mane Cherry gasped "Your horn is broken? how did it break?" she asked but Icy remained silent and Cherry nodded "I understand, you don't want to talk about it, by the way, where did you send us?" she asked Icy shrugged "I have no idea, I just wanted to get away from that pegasus so badly, at least we're safe, I think." she said then she tried to stand up but only fell back down "I'm way too exhausted to move so we should rest here, once I have my strength back then I'll go and check out where we are, hopefully, we'll be able to find something or somepony that can tell us where we are." she said and Cherry nodded then she laid down next to Icy "We'll need to stick together from here on out, while you rest I'll keep my ears out for danger, don't worry I'll wake you up if I hear something big or dangerous." Cherry said and Icy nodded then she laid down and let herself go to sleep while Cherry stayed up
Chapter 4After a whole hour of sleeping Icy woke up and she also noticed that Cherry wasn't next to her anymore so she quickly looked around and saw her with her head in a bush and it sounded like she was eating something so Icy stood up and walked over "Cherry? what are you eating?" Icy asked which made Cherry look up and she said something but her mouth was so full that she couldn't understand her "Swallow first, cherry." she said Cherry swallowed the food in her mouth "I found some berries in this bush, while you were sleeping I was smelling something good so decided to follow my nose and found these berries, you can have some too but I don't know how much is left." she said then she went back to eating Icy walked to the bush and smelt the barriers then she took a bite of one and found it was actually good so she ate some more along with Cherry until all of them were gone "That was honestly delicious, I was also pretty hungry too." Icy said then she walked to the middle of the clearing they transported to "But now I think we should find a way out of this forest, there's no telling what might be in here." she said then she grabbed her bags and slung them onto her back then walked to Cherry "Here, just like last time hold onto my tail and I'll have us out of here in no time." she said and Cherry nodded then held some of her tail in her mouth and followed once Icy began walking Icy walked through the forest and made sure to keep her eyes out for my dangers but eventually, she stopped and looked around ad found out that she was lost but she decided to keep moving to both stay safe and to find something that pointed to the exit but after a bit more walking she soon found that it was getting dark so she stopped Icy turned to Cherry "The sun's going down, looks like we'll need to camp here tonight." she said then she took her bags off and set them aside "Okay, are we at least out of the woods yet?" Cherry asked and Icy laughed nervously "We're not out of the woods, are we?" she asked "Nope, but I'm sure the exit is around here somewhere, we'll just have to keep moving but for now let's get some rest." Icy said then she laid down but noticed that Cherry was looking off into the bushes "What's wrong?" she asked "There's something in the bushes." Cherry said which made Icy stand straight back up "What? can you tell what it is cause I don't hear anything." Icy said and she watched Cherry close her eyes Cherry focused on her hearing to try to tell what it is or how big it was depending on its steps but all she heard were soft hoofsteps as they walked around the bushes and they were clearly careful not to touch or shake the bush "Cherry, point me in the right direction and I'll take them down." Icy whispered to Cherry and she nodded and continued to listen closely as the pony stepped around the bush and when they stopped is when Cherry pointed with her hoof at the bush the pony was behind then Icy took off in a full sprint right at that bush then jumped right into it and tackled the pony "I got you!" she yelled "Hey, get off!" the pony said then she just pushed Icy right off of her without much effort and got up herself then Icy ran back at her and tackled her again "I won't let you go that easily." Icy said but even though she was putting her full weight on her the pony was still able to push her up "Cherry, I need some help! just follow my voice!" she yelled back then she saw Cherry walk through the bushes "Good, now just jump on top of me, hurry." she said and Cherry did and combined her weight with Icy's the pony continued to push them back "I said, GET. OFF." she said then she pushed the so hard that she made both of them tumble back into the clearing Once Icy had gotten back up she looked at the bushes and heard ruslting so she got ready for whatever comes through them and then what she saw was not was she was expecting, the pony's mane and tail were both a navy blue, her coat was gray and her ears had a lot more fur to them that usual but the most unexpected part about them was the fact this pony had bat wings instead of normal pegesus wings and that they were another filly that's when Icy put it together Icy gasped "You're a bat pony?!" she yelled the filly sighed "Of course I am, how many times can you say you've seen normal pony push two other ponies off of her with just brute strength?" she asked Icy nodded "Fair enough but why are you stalking us? were you going to steal from us?" she asked "No, I just saw a flash of light coming from another part of the forest so I decided to check it out and while walking I saw you two so I decided to stay and see if you two were dangerous or not." she said then she looked over at Cherry "After watching you two for a bit I figured out that she was blind with how blank her eyes are." she said Icy looked over at Cherry then back at the filly "Did you see anything else?" she asked and the filly shook her head and Icy nodded "Alright, I guess since you mean no harm then I might as well apologize for tackling you, sorry." she said the filly waved her hoof "Don't worry about it, you were just making sure I wasn't some sort of monster." she said then she thought for a moment "Wait, your plan was to tackle me? what if I was actually a monster who was planning to eat you?" she asked Icy laughed nervously "I have to admit, it's not my best plan, I'm just not that good at making plans on the spot so I just went straight for it." she said and the filly facehoofed Cherry finally walked over "Hey Icy, who is this pony?" she asked Icy turned to her "She's just a bat pony, there's nothing to worry about anymore." she said and Cherry nodded then she walked forward and held her hoof out "Hello there, my name Cherry candy, what's your's?" Cherry asked the filly shook her hoof "it's Midnight amber but you can just call my Middy, my friends do." Middy said Icy walked forward as well "My name is Icy jewel, it's nice to meet you Middy." she said and Middy nodded "Say, do you think you can help us get out of this forest, we're kinda lost." she said Middy nodded again "Of course, I'll fly up and point you in the right direction." she said then she spread her wings and that's when Icy saw that Middy's right wing wasn't a normal bat pony wing, it was mechanical but before Icy could ask about it Middy flew up and over the trees "The way out is this way, follow me." she said Icy allowed Cherry to grab onto her tail again as they followed Middy to the exit of the forest and during the walk they had to call out to Middy because the trees were blocking their view so Middy had to fly a bit lower but still pointed them in the right direction until they had finally made it out "We're finally out and I can spot a town, we'll be able to get something to eat there." Icy said then Middy flew back down and landed next to her "Well I'm happy to help you and Cherry get out of the forest, now I guess I might as well take my leave, see you." Middy said "Wait." Icy quickly said which stopped Middy in her tracks then she turned back around and faced Icy "Your wing, I couldn't help but notice that it's mechanical." she said Middy brought her mechanical wing out "Yeah, I lost my wing a long time ago, it's nothing to worry about though, this metal wing works just as good as a real one." she said then she brought her wing back in "I also couldn't help but notice that you didn't say you had to hurry home, are you by yourself?" Icy asked Middy nodded "yep, I've decided to be alone a while ago." she said "Can I ask why?" Icy said Middy sighed "It's because of my friends and family, they do nothing but baby me ever since I lost my wing but I kept telling them that I'm way tougher than that and I can still take care of myself when it comes down to it, but none of them ever listen to me and it got to the point where I just couldn't take it anymore, so I decided to run away and prove to them that I can be fine on my own." she said and Icy nodded Cherry let go of Icy's tail "You're just like us!" she said and Middy was confused for a bit "You see, Icy and I both believe that we can take care of ourselves without nopony's help and since we had the same thoughts we decided to form our own independent group where we only rely on ourselves and no other outside help." she explained Middy nodded "I see, that's so cool, can I join the group? you'll need a independent flyer like me if you want to get out of trouble fast." she said in a cocky tone Icy thought for a moment but nodded "Alright, you'll be our newest member of our independent group." she said and Middy cheered at being accepted into the group which made Icy and Cherry giggle "So, we have a unicorn with a broken horn." she said as she moved her mane out of the way and showed her horn which made Middy gasp then Icy moved her mane back "A blind earth pony and a bat pony with a metal wing, I saw this group is looking good." she said which made both Middy and Cherry nod then Icy turned to the small town "Now, let's get something to eat, we'll need lots of food for our journey ahead." she said then she had Cherry grab onto her tail as she walked to the town Middy flew over Icy "So, where are you and Cherry headed?" she asked Icy shrugged "No idea." she said which surprised Middy "So, you're both just traveling across equestria without a solid idea of where you're going?" Middy asked and both of them nodded "Alright, I'm okay with this." she said as she followed them into town
Chapter 5After Icy, Cherry, and Middy had finally entered the town Icy decided to take a look at each alleyway to check if it was safe enough to sleep in and after she had found one she led Cherry and Middy to the middle "This one will do, you can let go now Cherry." Icy said and Cherry nodded then let go of her tail and sat down Middy looked around the alley "Are you sure this place is safe?" she asked Icy nodded "Of course it is, trust me, I had a lot of time to tell safe places from bad ones and this is a safe place." she said "Alright, I guess I'll trust you." Middy said Icy sat down "We should get to sleep, we have a big day ahead of us if we want to find something to eat." she said "I'll see you both in the morning." Cherry said as she laid her head down "But you can't see Cherry." Icy said with a smile "Hardy-har." Cherry said then she closed her eyes "Goodnight you two." she said then he drifted off to sleep Icy giggled a bit "Goodnight Cherry." she said then she looked over at Middy and wondered why she wasn't laying down but then it hit her "Oh right, you're a bat pony, what are you going to do since you can't sleep?" she asked Middy shrugged "I don't know, usually I would just explore the woods I was living in but since I'm here, I might as well explore the town." she said "Alright, try not to get in trouble, we need some kind of food so we have to stay for as long as we can." Icy said then she laid her head down and fell asleep "I won't." MIddy said ten she spread her wings and flew above the town Middy flew around the town and explored every inch to make sure she didn't miss anything in case it was important to her or the others and while flying she spotted a cave inside of a rocky mountain but the cave looked like it was well built with pillars holding up the ceiling so she took a step inside to take a look around but inside the cave were chains attached to the wall and some pickaxes lying beside multiple rocks on the floor and when Middy picked up the rock she noticed it wasn't a rock at all, it was a gem, they were all broken gems "Why would somepony mine gems? as far as I know, gems are used for making dresses pretty and dragons use them as food, what other kinds of uses could they have?" Middy questioned but then she heard voices coming from behind her so she quickly hid behind a rock "How is our deposit looking?" one of the voices asked "It seems we're down by six percent, ever since those five other ponies escaped we haven't made as much." the other voice said the first voice groaned "No, this is unacceptable, every coin counts here and I will not a single bit slip through my hooves, go out and find more ponies, bring me fillies and colts if you have to I don't care, just get me back my lost bits!" he yelled and as he was talking Middy tried to get a good look at them but ended up kicking one of the gems which alerted both of them as they looked around "Somepony's here, find them and don't let them escape." he said "That's my cue to leave." Middy whispered then she heard hoofsteps coming closer and tried to back up but found that the wall was keeping her from doing that so she took a deep breath and as soon as the pony came from around the rock she screeched at him and stunned him and quickly took this chance to make a run for it Middy flew as fast as she could out of the cave but when she finally made it out she was suddenly wrapped up by a rope but the rope didn't cover her wings so she tried to fly out of it and when she looked back she saw a stallion who had a gray mane and tail who was also an earth pony and he had a good grip on the rope Middy struggled to get out of the rope "Hey, let me go!" she said "No way, this is my first time seeing a bat pony, with strength like yours, you'll be perfect for my mines." he said "Alright buddy, you asked for it." Middy said then she turned around and grabbed the rope then she pulled as hard as she could which ended up pulling the stallion with him then she swung him around and threw him back into the cave and once he was gone she took the rope off of herself "I gotta get back to Icy and Cherry, we've gotta get out of here and fast." she said then she flew off back to town and to the alleyway where Icy and Cherry were sleeping Middy quickly ran to Icy and shook her violently "Icy, wake up, we need to leave." she said Icy slowly opened her eyes and looked at Middy "Middy? what's going on? why do you look so scared?" she asked "No time to explain, we have to leave town, now!" Middy said then she ran over and woke up Cherry Icy stretched as she stood up "But we can't leave, we still have to get enough food for the next trek." she said "The food is gonna have to wait, we have to leave." Middy said as she picked up their bags and slung them over her back "Wait, what's going on?" Cherry asked Middy grabbed Cherry's hoof "No time to explain, we need to leave before they find us." she said "Before who finds us?" Icy asked "Us." a voice said behind Icy and once she turned around she saw multiple stallions standing in a group Icy backed up "And who are you?" she asked "Your future boss, as soon as I capture you and your friends then we'll have more bits than we'll be able to fit on our hooves even if they were put together." the stallion said "Boss? we can't work for you, we're only fillies." Icy said the stallion stepped forward "Now that's where you're wrong, filly or even colt, the way I see it, work is work and bits are bits, so get over here so we can put you and your friends to work." he said Middy trotted beside Icy with Cherry "Now would be a good time to use your magic to get us out of here." she whispered "It sure would." Icy whispered back "Why aren't you using it then?" Middy asked "Because in case you forgotten, my horn is broken which means my magic is very unstable right now, I can only cast one spell before fainting from exhaustion, and I already did that when Cherry and I came here now we have to wait until my magic is replenished enough so I can cast another spell." Icy said "Unicorns, typical, do you think you can cast one without it being fully replenished?" Middy asked "I tried once." Icy said but she shook her head "But it ended up having some bad side effects for me, I have no idea what it'll do to you two, it's too risky." she said Cherry put her hoof on Icy's shoulder after feeling around for a bit "It's a risk we have to take Icy, do it." she said "Hey, what are you three whispering about over there?" the stallion asked Icy looked at both Middy and Cherry then nodded "Alright, here's the plan, Middy lift us both up and take us back to the woods, once there I'll prepare the spell and since the woods are so confusing it'll take them a while before they can find us and by the time they do, we'll be long gone." she said Cherry had a surprised look on her face and so did Middy "Wow, this must be one of those moments where one of your ideas is actually a good one." Cherry said Icy narrowed her eyes at Cherry "I'll just ignore your comment and move on." she said The stallion stomped his hoof "If you're done talking we have work to do, or more on the lines of you have wor to do and I have bits to count, so let's get moving." he said "I don't think we'll be doing any work at all." Icy said which made the stallion look at her confused "MIDDY, NOW!" she yelled then Middy flew up, and both Icy and Cherry held their hoofs up which allowed Middy to grab them and fly both of them into the air "STOP THEM, BRING THEM DOWN!" the stallion yelled then the other ponies chased after them as they flew into the forest Middy flew through the forest and took multiple turns to make sure to confuse the ponies chasing them and after another turn, she finally stopped and slowly let Cherry and Icy down "We're safe, now let's get out of here." she said Icy nodded "Okay, I want both of you to stand still and be prepared for anything, I only did this once and that was two days after I teleported another time, it hasn't even been a day since my last teleportation so be warned, the risk we're taking is extremely high and I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, we might die." she said and she saw the worried looks on both Middy and Cherry "Are both of you sure you still want to go through with this?" she asked Cherry and Middy's faces both turned to a determined one and nodded to Icy and she nodded back then she focused on her magic and her broken horn started glowing again as did Middy and Cherry then right before thy teleported the stallions came through bush and the main stallion gasped then Icy, Middy, and Cherry poofed away "NOOOO, MY MONEY MAKERS!" the stallion shouted once all three of them reappeared they found themselves in the middle of a snowstorm in the middle of nowhere so Middy tired to look around for something but couldn't see past the snow "Icy, where did you send us? I can't see a single thing." Middy said but when she didn't get an answer she looked back only to find out that Icy was nowhere to be seen and neither was Cherry "ICY! CHERRY! WHERE ARE YOU?!" she yelled Cherry tried to listen for her fiends but found she couldn't hear over the snowstorm "ICY! MIDDY! WHERE ARE YOU?!" she yelled Icy was lying in the snow unconscious and wasn't moving at all Middy continued to look around "I need to find them, we can't stay out here for long, we'll all freeze." she said then she spread her wings and flew just above the ground and went off to search for her friends Cherry continued to try to listen for them but still couldn't hear over the snow then she shivered a bit "I can't stay here, I just need to pick a direction and stick to it, just like before." she said then she started trotting in a random direction hoping it would either lead her to a town or her friends A group of soldiers walked through the snow "This seems to be the place where the magic was felt, what do you want us to do captain shining?" he asked Shining armor walked forward and looked around "Spread out and look for what could cause the magic disturbance." he said and the soldiers saluted then they all walked around looking for something "Sir Shining, I think I found something." one of the soldiers said and Shining walked over to see a filly buried in the snow and when he checked her with his magic he found she was barely alive "Quick, we need to get this filly back to town as fast as possible." Shining said then he used his magic to levitate the filly and put her on his back "Let's get moving." he said then he ran as fast as he could back to the crystal empire
Chapter 6Icy was sleeping soundly until she heard the faint sound of beeping and a few hooves trotting around so she slowly opened her eyes and looked around to find herself in a bed and hooked up to a heart monitor then she sat up and immediately felt a pretty big headache which made her groan and gained the attention of the stallion looking at his clipboard, he had a blue coat with an equally blue man and tail and he was wearing a doctors outfit. The stallion looked over at Icy "Whoa, slow down, you're not well enough to move yet." he said as he trotted over Icy looked around "W-where am I?" she asked "You're in the crystal empire hospital, you were found buried in the snow, what were you doing out there?" he asked Icy thought for a moment "I...can't remember." she said The stallion nodded "I think I know why." he said then he moved her mane out of the way and pointed to her broken horn as she reached up and touched it herself "Is this a horn?" Icy asked "It's not just a horn, it's your broken horn." he said then he picked up his clipboard "judging from the fact you aren't a crystal pony means you're from somewhere else, where you're from is something we don't know, you were found unconscious and buried in the snow and now you seem to have amnesia." he said then he set his clipboard aside "with all of this combined I have concluded that you must have used your magic to come here but the after-effects from using your broken horn and unstable magic must have affected you greatly." he explained Icy gave a confused look "Unstable magic?" she said The stallion nodded "Once a unicorn's horn is broken so is their attachment to their magic but not fully, it simply becomes weaker and a lot harder to control, of course given the right education they are able to control it to an extent, and seeing the evidence it seems you were never taught how." he said Icy shrugged "I don't know if I was even taught magic, I can't remember anything." she said "Hm, well at least you know of what happened and so you can focus on getting better." he said then he trotted to the door "If you need any help then just ring that bell." he said then he left After the stallion said the word 'help' Icy felt some strong anger fill her up but she didn't know why so she simply took a few deep breaths and calmed herself down "What was that about?" she questioned but she just shrugged it off "I guess I should lay down and sleep it off but why do I feel like I'm forgetting something else that's very important. Very, very important." she said as she laid down Cherry continued on her trot in hopes she would run into something that could help her get out of the snow but she could feel herself becoming numb to the snow and cold around her which was very bad "I need to keep moving and stay awake, I need to find something." she said as she continued her trot through the snow Middy continued her own flight through the snowstorm but noticed that her mechanical wing was starting to become harder to move "I can't keep going like this." Middy said then she landed and put her wings back "My wing will freeze, looks like I'm walking from here on out." she said then she ran through the snowstorm "CHERRY, ICY, WHERE ARE YOU?" she called out but when no pony called back she finally got another idea and inhaled deeply and used her bat screech as loud as she could Cherry was barely moving through the snow now until she faintly heard a screech coming from her right "That screech, I just hope it came from who I think it did." she said then she quickly made her way to the location of the screech Icy slept soundly until the door to her room was opened and she slowly opened her eyes to see the same stallion enter the room and smile at her "Little filly, you have visitors." he said then he moved out of the way to show Shining Armor and Princess Cadance Shining stepped forward "Hello there, do you know who we are?" he asked Icy shook her head "Nope, not a clue." she said Cadance stepped forward as well "I am Princess Cadance and this is my husband Shining Armor." she said and Shining nodded his head to her as she held an amazed face "Shining found you buried in the snow and brought you here, we were hoping you could tell us why you were in the middle of a snowstorm but the doctor told us you don't remember anything, is this true?" she said Icy nodded "I don't remember a single thing from before, I'm sorry." she said Shining waved his hoof "Don't worry about it, it's not like your memories are gone forever, they'll return after you recover from the after-effects from your unstable magic and we can find out what happened to you by using a memory spell." he said then he stepped closer to Icy but she moved her head back before he touched his horn to it and Shining looked at her confused "What's wrong?" he asked "I don't know, something just tells me not to let you look at my memories." Icy said "Don't worry, I'll only take a peek, I'm not gonna search your whole memory just find something to explain everything before you ended up here." Shining said and Icy nodded but still looked unsure as Shining placed his horn on her head and it began glowing and after a few minutes it took it off and looked surprised Cadance saw his surprised face and stepped forward "What is it?" she asked and when Shining didn't answer she placed a hoof on his shoulder "Shining?" she asked Shining turned to Cadance "We need to organize a search party immediately." he said "Why? what did you see in there?" Cadance asked Shining looked at Icy who had a confused look on her face then he looked back to Cadance and got close to her ear "Let's discuss this outside." he whispered and Cadance nodded then he turned back to Icy "Sorry to leave like this, we just need to go and make sure of something, we'll be right back." he said then he and Cadance left the room and went a little further from it so Icy couldn't hear them Cadance turned to Shining "You're acting strange Shining, what exactly did you see in there?" she asked "Let's just say, I saw a few things I didn't mean to but that's not my main focus right now, we need to organize a search party." Shining said "Why? is there something else out there?" Cadance asked Shining nodded "Yeah, our little filly didn't come here alone, there were two more, an earth filly and a bat filly, they're out there and we need to find them, I'll get the guards ready to head back out, you should get some ponies ready to get them to the hospital as quickly as possible." he said and Cadance nodded then both of them hurried out of the hospital Cherry continued to follow the screech until it sounded much closer than before "MIDDY! IS THAT YOU?" she called out Middy took a few steps forward until she saw a silhouette of a pony "Ch-cherry? is that you?" she said then the pony walked forward to reveal that it was cherry which made Middy immediately run and hug her "CHERRY! I FOUND YOU!" she said Cherry hugged Middy back "I'm glad you're safe too." she said then Middy let go and stepped back "Have you seen Icy?" she asked Middy shook her head "No, I've been searching for a while too and I haven't found a trace of her." she said then she shivered from the cold "Let's find someplace to get out of this snowstorm." she said "But, what about Icy? she's still out here somewhere." Cherry said "We can't find Icy if we're frozen solid, don't worry she's a tough filly, I'm sure she's fine, now just gab onto my tail and I'll lead us somewhere safe." Middy said and Cherry did as she was told then Middy began walking to find somewhere to get out of the snowstorm but after only a few minutes of walking some light started showing over the mountains and once the light touched Middy she felt her body began to sizzle which made her wince in pain "Oh no." she said "What? what's wrong?" Cherry asked "The sun is coming up." Middy said Cherry was confused "Isn't that a good thing? now you can look for a place we can stay better." she said Middy inhaled sharply as the burning was really hurting "Maybe for a normal pony like you but I'm a bat pony, remember? we don't come out during the day for a reason." she said Cherry's eyes widened at realization "Oh no, we need to find a place and fast." she said Middy nodded then began walking fast enough to look for a place but slow enough so Cherry didn't lose her grip and she kept walking until she had spotted a cave and quickly made her way towards it and once she made it inside she collapsed from both exhaustion and the pain "Middy? are you alright?" Cherry asked "Just give me a moment, I just need to recover my strength and heal my wounds then we'll go and look for Icy as soon as I'm better." Middy said Cherry nodded then went and sat down while leaning her back on the cave "I think I'll take a nap, I'm pretty tired and cold." she said but before she closed her eyes Middy shook her and kept her awake "NO!" Middy yelled making Cherry go wide-eyed then Middy stopped shaking her "You can't go to sleep, that's the last thing anypony should do in a situation like this, you'll go to sleep and never wake up." she said Cherry nodded "I understand, I'll make sure I stay awake." she said "Good, I'll help if push comes to shove and keep an eye out for Icy if she ever finds this cave." Middy said and Cherry nodded and made sure to try to keep her eyes open but that was slowly proving difficult It had been a few hours and the sun was shining high above the sky and the snowstorm had gotten much weaker but neither filly was well enough to move through it and while Middy was making sure to keep an eye out for Icy Cherry couldn't resist her exhaustion anymore and closed her eyes then fell asleep "Hey Cherry, do you think you can tell me if you hear anything outside?" Middy asked but when she didn't get an answer she turned to Cherry and found her asleep "CHERRY!" she yelled as she ran to her and shook her "Cherry, wake up, you can't fall asleep." she said but then she noticed something else, her body felt as cold as ice "Oh no, come on Cherry, wake up, please." she said with tears forming in her eyes but when Cherry didn't wake up Middy decided to make a very drastic decision, she stepped outside the cave and into the sunlight which caused her body to bur again but she did her best to ignore it as she inhaled deeply and let out her loudest screech she could muster, hoping either Icy or somepony else would hear it Shining lead the guard through the snowstorm looking for the two fillies but they weren't having much luck since they couldn't find any tracks due to the massive snowstorm covering them but they continued on their search undeterred except for one of them "Sir Shining, we may have to call off this search, we've been walking for a while and still haven't found any sign of the fillies." the guard said Shining shook his head "We need to keep looking, we can't afford to lose those fillies, no matter what." he said then a screech was heard by all of them but it was faint "Did you hear that?" he asked and the guards nodded "Follow that screech." he said then they all ran in the direction of the screech and continued to follow it as other screeching noises were heard and by the time they made it to the location they saw a bat filly who had smoke coming off of their body Middy forced her head up to look at the ponies "P-please, help us." she said then she fainted Shining looked into the cave to find the other filly unconscious "GET THESE FILLIES BACK TO THE CRYSTAL EMPIRE AS FAST AS YOU CAN, WE DON'T HAVE MUCH TIME, MOVE IT!" he ordered and the guards nodded then one of them picked up Middy while Shining went and picked up Cherry and followed the others as they all raced back to the crystal empire.
Chapter 7Icy slept peacefully in her bed since it had been a while since Shining armor and the princess stepped out and she eventually got tired of waiting and decided to go to sleep but then her sleep was disturbed by the noise of hooves running through the hall and also shouting voices so she got out of her bed and made her way to the door where she cracked it open and saw multiple ponies run past her with two beds and she also saw that the beds each had a filly and one was a bat pony but before she was able to step out of her room one of the nurses saw her and quickly blocked her view "Sorry, little filly, but you'll have to return to your room, don't worry about what's happening here, just get some rest." she said and after Icy stepped back the nurse quickly closed the door and followed after the others 'Who were those two? and why do I feel like I should know this?' Icy thought as she trotted back to her bed and laid back down Elsewhere Shining went to check up on the two fillies and made his way to one of the doctors "How are they?" Shining asked the doctor turned to him "The earth filly is suffering from a bad case of hypothermia but as long as we keep her warm she should come through, the bat filly is a bit more confusing but from what our information tells us, once it becomes night her injuries will heal and she'll be good as new." he explained Shining nodded "Keep me informed on their condition, if anything happens I want you to inform me immediately." he said and the doctor nodded then Shining left the room and joined Cadance outside "Shining, how are they?" Cadance asked "We were able to rescue them and the doctors are doing everything they can to help, they'll be fine." Shining said Cadance let out a breath of relief "That's good, I don't want to think of what would have happened if we didn't rescue them in time." she said then she looked back at Shining "By the way, earlier when you used your memory spell on the filly from before, you said you saw something you didn't mean to, what was it?" she asked Shining looked around making sure no ponies were around and after confirming they were alone he got close to Candance's ear "I accidentally saw how her horn got broke and it wasn't pretty." he said Candance gasped "Really?" she asked and Shining nodded "How did it happen?" she asked Shining trotted past her "We need to talk to the filly about this to, it might help to restore her memories, even though this memory isn't a good one." he said then he and Cadance made their way to Icy's room Icy couldn't sleep, after she saw both of those other fillies that's all that's been on her mind ever since and she couldn't stop thinking about them, she felt she should know them but doesn't then Princess Cadance and Shining armor came into her room which made her instantly sit up "Hello, little filly, sorry for taking so long, we had to deal with something." Cadance said as she and shining trotted to her bed and stopped once both were standing right in front of it "It's alright, I was able to get some good rest while you were gone so now I'm full of energy." Icy said with a bright smile Shining looked at Cadance then back at Icy "Little filly, I just want to ask, are you sure you don't remember anything?" he asked Icy looked at him confused "I've tried to remember something from before but nothing seemed to come to me, why do you ask?" she asked "I was just wondering if you remembered something, like how your horn broke." Shining said and he could see Icy flinch at that "I don't know how my horn broke, but something tells me that how it did break was very painful." Icy said as she touched her horn "It was." Shining said and Icy looked back at him "From what I saw in your memories-." "You saw how my horn broke?! you weren't supposed to see that! you said you wouldn't go too deep in my memories!" Icy nearly yelled at him which made him shut his mouth then Icy gasped "W-why did I get so mad? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to yell, it just happened." she said Shining waved his hoof "It's fine, I should be sorry for looking at your other memories when I said I wouldn't, as I said from your memories I saw that this happened a few years ago, you were five years old, you were desperately seeking out help from anypony who would give it, two stallions came up to you and offered to help-." "They lied." Icy said and cut him off "They just wanted to get me somewhere alone and where no pony could hear me scream, they locked me in a room and cast a sound dampening spell on it and that's when it happened, one held me down while the other tore my horn off." she said as she gripped her sheets tighter and had a scowl "the result was bigger than they thought, a magic explosion happened and both of them died and I was left without a horn, from that day forward I wouldn't take any more help from anypony else and I would take care of myself, by myself, broken horn or not." she said then she suddenly put her hoof to her head in pain as all of her memories came rushing back into her head and after it was done she laid her head on her pillow while covering her eyes Cadance immediately went to her side "Are you okay?" she asked "Leave." Icy said and before either of them said anything else Icy gave Cadance and Shining a glare "Leave. now." she said then both of them left her room and left her to her own hatred and anger 'Damn it, Celestia damn it, we're supposed to be our own independent group, yet here we are getting help from a bunch of random ponies, this isn't how it was supposed to go, DAMN IT' she thought Cadance looked back at Icy's door "Do you think she'll be alright?" she asked Shining put his foreleg around Cadance's shoulder "She just needs time to cool down, we'll have to talk to her later though, we still have our own duties to attend to." he said and Cadance nodded "I still can't believe there are ponies out there who would harm a unicorn filly just to get her horn." Cadance said as she and Shining left the hospital After Icy had finally calmed down she got out of her bed and slightly opened her door to make sure no ponies were around and after confirming there weren't any she snuck out and made her way to Middy and Cherry's room where she saw both of them in their own beds then she made her way to Middy's bed and got in it with her "Middy?" Icy said as she slightly shook her "Middy, wake up." she said then she saw Middy slowly open her eyes Middy looked at Icy "Icy? is that you?" she asked "Yeah, it is, are you and Cherry alright?" Icy asked Middy sighed "Not really, the sun did a good job hurting me, I don't know how you ponies like it so much, it's way too bright for my tastes." she said with a small smile then she looked over at Cherry "Cherry was out there for way longer since she didn't have my type of fur she didn't have as much resistant to the cold as I did, she's in bad shape." she explained Icy shook her head "This won't do, I was hoping I could do my plan much earlier than this." she said Middy looked back at her confused "Wait, what? what plan are you talking about?" she asked "I was going to have us escape from here at night and hitch a ride on the train, once on the train we would get as far away from here as possible." Icy said "We wouldn't make it, Cherry is in too bad of shape to move and I still need to heal, you're the only one who could make it." Middy said Icy nodded "I know but I'm not leaving either of you to whatever these ponies have planned for you two." she said "You may have to, we won't make it." Middy said and before Icy could respond Cherry was heard coughing so both of them turned their heads to her and saw she was awake now Cherry turned her head to where she heard Icy and Middy "No, I can make it." she said Icy left Middy's bed and went to Cherry "Are you sure? as Middy said you're not healthy enough to move." she said then Cherry put her hoof on Icy's shoulder after feeling for a bit "Icy, I can make it, we can leave tonight, trust me." Cherry said Icy smiled and nodded "Alright, if you say so, we'll leave tonight under the cover of darkness, be ready." she said then she left the room and made her way back to her room where she got back into her own bed and went to sleep After a few hours had passed Icy opened her eyes and looked around only to find that where she was didn't look like her hospital room at all so she got out of her bed and trotted around only to find darkness then she heard hooves behind her so she turned and saw a pony made out of darkness "Who are you?" Icy asked The shadow pony laughed "Don't you remember? we're the ponies who're gone help you and all you have to do is sit still." he said Icy went wide-eyed and quickly backed away from him "No, not again, I won't let you have my horn this time." she said then she was pushed down and held down by another shadow pony from behind her "That's too bad filly, we're taking it anyway and there's nothing you can do to stop us." he said as the first shadow pony trotted closer to Icy who struggled to get the shadow ponies hoof off of her "No, no, no, no, no, stop." Icy begged then she felt his magic tug at her horn "STOP! PLEASE STOP! SOMEPONY HELP ME!" she yelled then a bright light appeared next to them "Away with you!" a voice said then both of the shadow ponies were blown away and once Icy looked up she saw the princess of the night, Princess Luna "Princess Luna? what are you doing here?" Icy asked Princess Luna trotted to Icy "It is my duty to ensure all of my subjects have a peaceful dream, no matter the pony." she said then she got a closer look at Icy "I know of you filly, you are the one Twilight told me about, the orphaned filly who denied her assistance to have a better life, Icy jewel." she said Icy glanced away then back "I don't need any help, I'm doing perfectly fine on my own." she said "You may say that filly but I know that you only deny help out of fear and anger." Luna said then Icy turned away from her "You fear that once you accept somepony else's help, they will then take advantage of it and hurt you as those two did." she said "I'm not afraid besides don't need help anyway, I'm able to take care of myself." Icy said "Then, was that not you screaming for help earlier as your nightmares came to haunt you?" Luna asked Icy glanced at Luna then turned her head away "No it wasn't, that wasn't me but the old me who believed she needed help from other ponies to survive, this is the new me who knows I don't need help to survive." she said Luna sat beside Icy "You may believe that now little filly but there will come a day where even you will ask for help, just as your friend did to save her friend." she said Icy looked up at Luna "What are you talking about?" she asked but Luna stayed silent "You're talking about Middy, aren't you?" she asked and when Luna didn't answer that was all the confirmation she needed "That traitor! she knows that we're an independent group who doesn't ask for help from the outside and she just went ahead and broke our number one rule!" she yelled "Please Icy, calm yourself, if she hadn't risked herself to get help then you would have lost the other filly Cherry candy." Luna said Icy sighed "You're right, if she didn't act then Cherry wouldn't be here but that doesn't mean I'm gonna forgive her for breaking our rules, I'm gonna have a talk with her once we're gone." she said Luna raised an eyebrow "What do you mean "once you're gone"?" she asked Icy stood up "I'm not telling you, if I do then you'll just alert the Princess." she said then she began trotting away "Wait, where are you going?" Luna asked Icy turned her head and looked at her "hopefully somewhere where you won't find us, goodbye Princess." she said then a door of light appeared and Icy stepped through it and woke up in the real world Icy quickly got out of her bed and checked outside the window to see night has fallen so she quickly and quietly made her way to Middy ad Cherry's room and once she entered she saw Middy stretching her legs and wings with her injuries barely visible Middy looked at Icy "Hey Icy, I'm healed up enough to move around now, and since it's night I'll carry Cherry." she said then she went and picked up Cherry then put her on her back and while doing so she made sure to be as gentle as possible "Do we have a destination by the way?" she asked Icy nodded "Yeah, the train station if we can make it there and sneak aboard then we'll be home free and far away from the crystal empire." she said then she went to the door and slightly opened it After making sure no ponies were near Icy made her way out and Middy made sure to follow closely to keep up and so Icy didn't have to slow down for her sake, once they had finally made it to an exit Icy made sure to check outside the door and found a guard standing next to it but he was asleep so Icy gestured for Middy to follow but to stay silent so both of them silently left the building and stayed as silent as possible then Cherry felt a sneeze come on so she inhaled multiple times and before either Middy or Icy could stop her she sneezed loudly which woke the guard and he saw all of them "Hey, you three, what do you think you're doing?" he said Icy chuckled nervously "Um, we can explain." she said but the guard started trotting to them so Icy inhaled deeply "RUN!" she yelled then she and Middy made a run for it and the guard chased them so once they passed an apple stand Icy was able to find an extra apple on the ground so she picked it up and threw it at the guard hitting him in the face and making him run into the stand then Icy ran into a nearby alleyway and stopped to catch her breath MIddy stepped next to Icy "Now what? no doubt that guard will tell others and we'll be caught." she said Icy waved her hoof "Don't worry, all we have to do is get to the train station then we're home free." she said then she stood back up and continued making her way through the city while Middy followed After only a few minutes of trotting, Icy and Middy stopped on a corner and watched as two guards trotted by then she saw one of them pull out a piece of paper which had her face on it and Icy understood that now they were being looked for which meant they had to be careful so now they made their way through the city as silently as possible "It's this way now, we're almost there." Icy said but once she stepped out she instantly stepped back in after seeing there were two groups of guards standing on each side "Looks like we need to find a way around." she said then she made her way to the other side but had to step back again after seeing another group of guards making their way to the alley they were in "Icy? what's wrong?" Middy asked "We may be trapped between two guards with no way to go." Icy said with a nervous smile "Oh no, what'll we do now?" Middy asked "I...Don't know, we're trapped." Icy said "Then why don't I give you a hoof?" a voice said and once both Middy and Icy looked at where it came from they saw a stallion who had a white coat and a green mane and tail and he had saddlebags on as well "Who are you?" Middy asked the stallion stepped forward "I'm the only one who can get you out of this mess but it's up to you if you follow me or not." he said Icy moved close to MIddy "I don't think we should trust him, he's up to something." she whispered Middy looked at Icy "We don't have much choice, we either go with him or go back to the hospital and face the prince and princess." she said Icy sighed then stepped forward "We'll follow you, how will you even get us out of here?" she asked the stallion reached in his bags and tossed some hoods at both Icy and Middy "Put those on and follow me, we'll be out of here in no time." he said and both of them did as told and followed the stallion out of the alleyway and past the guards until one stopped them "Hold on, what are you doing out this late?" the guard asked "Oh me and my fillies were out playing a little later than we planned, we're heading home right now." the stallion said bt the guard still wouldn't let them through "Sorry, but we need to take a look at your foals to make sure they aren't on the paper." the guard said "Oh, there's no reason for that." the stallion said then he reached in his bag and pulled out two big gems then gave them to the guard "Especially when you never saw us in the first place." he said as he winked at him and the guard looked at the gems "Hm, I don't know, my eyes are pretty bad right now but I think I still see a stallion and two hidden fillies." the guard said then the stallion gave him another gem and the guard nodded "Oh well, looks like I'm as blind as a bat, I can't seem to see anything tonight." he said and allowed the stallion and the fillies to walk right by and arrive at a carriage where the stallion removed the hoods from the fillies "Get on in and we'll be out of here in no time." he said and both of them did as told and got in the carriage then the stallion got on the front and began driving As soon as Icy entered she saw a unicorn mare who wasn't a crystal pony and had a purple coat and a red and black mane and tail sitting on the other side of the carriage as she and Middy sat on the opposite side and Middy set Cherry down beside her "Okay, I think it's time we got an explanation." Icy said The mare chuckled "I'll explain everything after we get on the train." she said As they made their way through the city none of the guards seemed to stop them and just watched as they passed right by until the had finally arrived at the train station and once all of them left the carriage the unicorn mare paid for the tickets and boarded the train along with the three fillies and entered a private train cart Icy climbed up in one of the beds "Alright, time for an explanation." she said the unicorn mare sat in her own bed across from Icy and Middy "Alright, what do you want to know?" she asked "First, your name." Icy said "My name is Crystal rose." Crystal said Icy nodded "second, how did you conveniently find us in an alleyway while we were being searched for by the guards?" she asked Crystal chuckled "Oh, I've been keeping tabs on you for a while now." she said then the train began moving "Wait, what? you've been watching me? why?" Icy asked "I was told to." Crystal said which surprised Icy "Don't look so surprised, you should have known that Jade night wouldn't let two new moneymakers go so easily." she said "Who's Jade night?" Icy asked Middy thought for a moment "I think she's talking about the stallion that chased us that night along with his friends." she said then she looked back up at the smirking Crystal "Oh no, she's taking us back to him, we need to leave." she said but before either of them stood up Crystal used her magic to grab Cherry and have her float next to her "Now, I'm not one to hurt a defenseless filly like your friend here." Crystal said then she focused some magic on Cherry's neck "But I will if both of you don't stay where you are." she said Middy glared at her "I won't let you hurt her." she said Crystal chuckled "And she won't be hurt as long as both of you sit still and enjoy the ride." she said then she clapped her hooves and multiple ponies came into the cart and Crystal gave them Cherry "And before either of you think of escaping if you try then you'll never see your friend again and that same goes for if you hurt me, so let's enjoy the ride, shall we?" she said then the ponies left the cart with Cherry and both of them couldn't do anything without risking their friends' life so they stayed in their seat during the rest of the train ride After a few hours, they had arrived at their stop and Crystal had the fillies follow her out of the train and also made sure to have an escort to make sure Icy and Middy didn't try anything and after a bit of trotting they had finally arrived at the town and saw the same stallion standing there with his own group of ponies Jade stepped forward "Hello there my little moneymakers, bet you didn't expect to see me again so soon." he said Icy looked around at the other ponies then back at him "How did you even know where we went? Equestria is a big place, we could have teleported anywhere." she said Crystal chuckled as she stepped forward "I simply used a special locator spell, by going off of your last magic trace I was able to pinpoint your exact location and headed there right away and kept tabs on you since." she said then she looked back at Jade "You can go ahead and thank me now." she said Jade rolled his eyes "yeah sure, good job, now I want the rest of you to cuff these fillies and take them to the others." he said then the unicorns all floated cuffs to both of them and cuffed their hooves "Oh, and make sure to put a magic dampening ring on the unicorn, we don't want her to go and teleport somewhere else again." he said and one of the unicorns secured a magic dampening ring on Icy's broken horn "Now come this way my moneymakers." he said "Wait." Middy said which made Jade stop in his tracks and turn around "It's our friend, she's sick and very ill, she won't be able to do any work for you, can you at least spare her?" she said Jade rolled his eyes "Ugh, fine, one less moneymaker won't make much of a difference, now come on, you need to see your new living quarters." he said He and the other began trotting and both of them followed until they arrived back at the cave where Middy escaped from last time then Jade brought them to a door that was very deep within the cave and opened and allowed the fillies to enter while Crystal levitated Cherry into the room and next to them then Jade closed the door and left "Well, just when we thought we were home free, we got caught all over again." Middy said as she caressed Cherry's mane Icy shook her head "We probably should have stayed at the hospital, at least until Cherry was in good shape to move so we wouldn't get caught like this." she said Middy looked at Icy "Are you saying this is Cherry's fault?" she asked "What? no, I'm just saying that if she was awake then we could've gotten away together." Icy said Middy sighed "Sorry for accusing you, and you're right, we should have waited until Cherry was better." she said as she looked down at Cherry and continued to rub her head Icy suddenly heard some hoofsteps from behind her and quickly turned around "Who's there?" she asked Icy saw a strange pony who seemed to be all black and his hooves seemed to have multiple holes in them and he also had sharp fangs and once he came closer to the only light that was coming out of the door Icy saw him fully and gasped "A changing colt?!" Icy said "Ah, another pony, seemed like I really am the last of my kind since I haven't seen any other changelings here since I got here." he said Icy looked him over "Hang on, you're not like those reformed changelings I heard about, you look like the old ones that used to exist." she said The changeling looked at her confused "Reformed changelings? what happened when I was kicked out of the hive?" he asked "Kicked out?" Icy said The changeling nodded "I broke some rules and queen Chrysalis removed me from the hive and banned me from returning, I left a long time ago and eventually got caught then wound up here, now what's this about reformed changelings?" he said Icy thought for a moment "I don't know much but from what I read the old queen was dethroned and the changelings learned to share love instead of taking it." she said The changeling was confused "Queen Chrysalis was dethroned? and the others learned to..."share love"? what does that even mean? how does a changeling share love? what in equestrian happened while I was gone?" he said Icy shrugged "A lot, I guess." she said the changeling sighed "I guess while we're here we might as well know who each other are, my name is Shifter, and you are?" he asked "I'm Icy jewel." Icy said then she pointed at Middy who wasn't paying attention to their conversation "That's Midnight amber but we call her Middy and the one who's asleep right now is Cherry candy." she said Shifter looked at Middy and Cherry "My, that sure is a lot of love, what I would give to have some of that." he said while smiling Icy moved into his view "I don't think so." she said "Relax, I couldn't take any of their love, not with this dampening ring on my horn." Shifter said as he showed the ring on his horn "at least they take it off so I can keep myself alive but the amount of love I can get from these other ponies doesn't compare to the amount I'm sensing from those two." he said pointing at Middy and Cherry Icy looked back at them "that's because we all care about each other." she said then she looked back at Shifter "And I'm not going to let you take our love, even if it's to keep yourself alive." she said then she got in his face "So back up before you get hurt." she said Shifter backed up and huffed "Fine, I won't touch your friends' love, but when push comes to shove, my hooves may be tied." he said then he trotted away Icy walked back to Middy "I should get some sleep, we have a big day tomorrow as mine workers, fun." she said then she laid down "Wake me up if Cherry comes to, okay?" she said and Middy nodded then Icy laid her head down and went to sleep
Chapter 8Icy and Middy were awoken by somepony who was shaking them and when they opened their eyes they saw other ponies from many ages also trotting out of the room they were in then the pony who was shaking them made the stand up "Come on you two, time to get moving, you've got a lot of work to do considering you're new." the stallion said "Wait." Middy said making the stallion turn back to her "We can't just leave Cherry here alone, we need somepony to watch her just in case." she said the stallion sighed "I'll have somepony watch her, now get moving." he said and Icy and Middy continued trotting out of the room and followed the stallion through the many caves until they stopped at another cave wall "You will use the pickaxes and mine into the wall, any gems you find will be put into this basket." he said pointing at the nearby basket and by the basket were pickaxes "Now, get to work and don't think of escaping, we have guards posted all throughout this cave who will stop you immediately." he said then he trotted away leaving Icy and Middy Icy picked up one of the pickaxes "We should get this over with, the faster we're done the faster we can get back to Cherry." she said then she began mining the wall Middy picked up the other pickaxe "I hope that stallion actually did get somepony to watch over Cherry, she's too sick to be left alone." she said then she began to mine the wall along with Icy "We'll just have to believe he did, that's all we can do." Icy said and Middy nodded Both of them mined into the wall and put any gems they found into the basket and they kept this up until another stallion came and told them it was time for lunch so they stopped mining the wall and ate the apples they were given and once they were done eating they got right back to work and continued mining until the same stallion came back and told them it was time to head back to the room so the followed him and while following him Icy saw the changeling colt again and above him were unstable rocks that were just about to fall right on top of him "WATCH OUT!" Icy shouted as she ran at him and pushed him out of the way of the rocks "Are you alright?" she asked Shifter pushed her away "Get off of me." he said then he stood back up "aren't you gonna say thank you?" Icy asked Shifter huffed "I didn't need any help, I could have dodged that on my own." he said Icy snorted "Sure you could, next time maybe I'll just watch you and see if you can dodge the rock." she said and Shifter rolled his eyes and just trotted away "You're welcome by the way." she yelled at his back but he didn't respond then she continued following the stallion back to the room where there was another pony standing next to the doorway "Time to send them back, we can leave." the stallion said and the other pony nodded and watch as Icy and Middy walked back into the room and joined the other pony's Middy sat back down next to Cherry "She still hasn't woken up, I'm worried Icy." she said Icy sat down on the other side of Cherry "We just have to believe she'll get better, we won't be able to treat her here." she said "Can't you use your magic to heal her or something?" Middy asked Icy shook her head "The only useful spell I actually bothered to learn was teleportation since my horn was broken, I didn't think I would be able to use any other spells since my magic is so unstable, sorry." she said "It's fine, that just means we have to find some way out of here so we can help Cherry." Middy said then she began rubbing Cherry's mane "By the way, have you thought of a plan on how we're going to be getting out of here?" she asked Icy shook her head "I tried to pay attention to everything I saw while trotting around here but I didn't see anything that could help us escape." she said "What about that changeling?" Middy asked "I don't know how we're going to use him, he has a magic canceling ring on his horn so he won't be able to transform unless somepony removes it." Icy said Middy thought for a moment "Can we remove it?" she asked Icy shrugged "Magic canceling rings are tough to remove but if we're careful, I'm sure we can do it." she said and Middy nodded then Shifter had finally entered the room and sat on a spot by himself then Icy stood up and trotted over to him "Shifter." she said Shifter looked up at her "Icy jewel, what do you want this time?" he asked "I want each of us to help each other." Icy said "I'm not sure what somepony like you would want with a changeling like me." Shifter said "Your magic might help us escape this place, plus everypony knows how strong changelings are if they get enough love." Icy said and Shifter nodded "And how do you plan on getting this magic canceling ring off my horn? and where am I going to get enough love to make myself strong enough to help escape?" Shifter asked "Middy and I are going to help you get the ring off, as for the love, we can't just ask ponies to give up their love and I won't let you take it from Middy more Cherry." Icy said then she thought for a moment "Alright, I'll offer up my own love to help you stay powered up and alive." she said Shifter was shocked "You would willingly give me your love?" he asked Icy nodded "If it helps us get out of here then yes I will." she said Shifter shook his head "I will never understand you ponies, to willingly give others your love instead of keeping it to yourself, you really are strange." he said Icy pat him on the back "Maybe someday, you will but right now, we need to get that ring off so we'll wait until nightfall when Middy is much stronger." she said and Shifter nodded then Icy trotted back to Middy and sat by her side where she explained the plan so far and Middy nodded and waited until night along with Icy -Night- Once it was finally nighttime Middy and Icy moved to Shifter "So, how are we going to do this?" Shifter asked "I could try to force it off but it may not be pleasant." MIddy said "I think that might be the easiest way." Icy said "It's fast and we could be done a lot faster so we can get out of here sooner than we want." she said Shifter nodded "Alright, just make it quick." he said and Middy nodded then she trotted forward and grabbed onto the ring then she used as much strength as she could to force the ring off of Shifter's horn and he groaned once it was finally off and wobbled a bit Icy stepped closer "Are you okay?" she asked Shifter shook his head "Yeah, I'll be fine in a moment." he said then he shook his head one more time and nodded "Okay, I'm good, now it's time for feeding, right?" he said and Icy nodded then she sat down and held her hooves wide open "Hurry up, we need you stronger." Icy said then Shifter began sucking some pink smoke from Icy and once he was done she felt a bit weak but shook it off "How was that? was it enough?" she asked Shifter shook his head "Not really, I'm gonna need a lot more than this." he said then Middy stepped forward "How about you combine it with the love you get when the ponies want to keep you alive?" Middy asked "That will make it go faster but would really make it go faster is if I get some from you and Cherry candy." Shifter said "Not happening." Icy said Shifter shrugged "Then, we'll be in it for the long run, I hope you have enough love for tomorrow night." he said but before he turned and laid back down Middy placed the ring back on his horn "Hey, I thought we were going to leave this off." he said Icy raised an eyebrow "Why would you think that? if the guards find out somepony removed your ring then they would want to make sure it's never removed again so each night we'll have to put it back on, sorry." she said Shifter sighed "I got it, can't have the guards finding out, welp I'm going to sleep now, you should too if you want to be able to work tomorrow." he said then he turned and laid down while Middy and Icy both returned to Cherry's side and went to sleep themselves -The next day- Icy and Middy were mining into the wall and they were also working with Shifter after the stallions made all of them work together to gain more gems Icy turned to Shifter "Hey, I'm curious about something." she said making Shifter turn to her "You said before you were kicked out of your hive, what did you do?" she asked Shifter looked away "I made a mistake, well two mistakes." he said "What exactly did you do?" Icy asked "I don't want to talk about it, let's just focus on getting out of here." Shifter said and Icy was gonna ask again but decided against it and focused on mining until another guard came and had Icy and Middy return to the room while Shifter was taken somewhere else Middy looked at Icy "They must be taking him to get some love from other ponies." she whispered and Icy nodded then they entered the room and were locked in "We just have to wait till he's back then we can continue our plan." Icy said as she and Middy returned by Cherry's side who still had yet to awaken then Shifter had finally returned o the room and joined Icy and Middy Shifter rubbed his ring "I really need more love than how much I get from you and the other ponies." he said "You're gonna have to accept what you can get until we can escape." Icy said and Shifter sighed "Just wait until night, as usual." she said and Shifter nodded then Icy laid down and went to sleep while Shifter moved to his own spot and went to sleep there and Middy watched over Cherry -Night- Once it had finally become night Middy and Icy had already gotten to work at removing his horn and supplying him with love and after he had his fill Middy put the ring back on "Middy, you can go to Cherry, I want to talk to Shifter." Icy said and Middy looked at her confused "Don't worry, I'll be fine, I just want to talk." she said and Middy nodded then she trotted back to Cherry's side Shifter looked at Icy "What is it now?" he asked "I still want to know what happened that got you kicked out of your hive." Icy said "I said I didn't want to talk about." Shifter said "It'll just be between us, you don't have to tell anypony else." Icy said but Shifter still looked unsure "I just want to know, please tell me." she pleaded Shifter sighed "Alright, this will stay between us." he said and Icy nodded "The reason I was kicked out of the hive was because I saved a pony." he said Icy raised an eyebrow "Something that small was because you were kicked out?" she asked "You don't understand, to our queen ponies are nothing but our love supply, to save one instead of using it to feed is one of our highest offenses, she saw it as I caring more about the ponies then the hive so I was kicked out." Shifter said and Icy nodded "After I was kicked out I roamed Equestria and fed on love whenever I could just to stay alive, once a time I tried to ask for help from the ponies but they only saw me as a changeling coming for their love and chased me away, then I ended up here." he said Icy nodded "I can understand." she said "How can you understand that? you've never been kicked out of your own race by your princess." Shifter said "True, but I know what it's like being tossed aside by somepony you look up to and being alone." Icy said then she put a hoof on his shoulder "I understand your pain and I'm sorry for what happened to you." she said Shifter smirked "Thanks Icy jewel." he said Icy chuckled "You can just call me Icy, it's shorter." she said Shifter nodded "Alright, thanks Icy." he said "You're welcome, see you can say thanks when you try." Icy said making Shifter roll his eyes then she began trotting to Middy and Cherry "See you tomorrow night." she said waving at him and he waved back as she continued trotting to Middy and Cherry Shifter put a hoof to his chest 'What is this feeling? it's so weird, but nice in a way, I wonder what it is and how to feel more, I will ask about it later, right now I need sleep.' he thought then he laid down and went to sleep -12 Days later- The days have passed and the plan progressed with Icy continuing to supply Shifter with love and him getting it from other ponies when it was time and during the twelve days Shifter had felt the feeling within him grow every time he talked with Icy yet he had no idea what it meant nor where it was coming from so he merely put it aside and decided to worry about it later then it was time for him to feed again so he was taken somewhere else as usual. A guard entered the room "Icy jewel, Jade night has requested you." he said and Icy stood up Middy grabbed Icy's hoof "Be careful, there's no telling what he would want." she said Icy nodded "I'll be fine but just in case, keep an eye on Cherry." she said and Middy nodded then Icy followed the guard to a whole other room where Jade night and two other guards were along with Shifter and he looked surprised to see her "She's here, now hurry up and feed so we can have you ready to work." Jade said Shifter looked at Jade "I can't get love from her." he said Jade raised an eyebrow "And why not? she's a pony with love inside of her, right?" he said and Shifter nodded slightly "then do what you changelings do and feed." he said "But...she's...I." Shifter tried to say but Jade just kept his eyebrow raised so Shifter turned back to Icy Icy nodded "I'll be fine." she whispered but Shifter could tell from her eyes that he had been taking love from her too much and she was exhausted "Go ahead, and don't worry about me, just keep yourself alive." she whispered Shifter was about to take Icy's love again but the more he looked at her the more he felt that feeling and the more he saw the pony from his past back when she was in trouble and he risked himself to save her from a manticore, how he put her above his mission to capture her for the hive and now he decided to do it again "No." Shifter said making everypony in the room look at him confused "I won't take her love, not anymore." he said "What do you mean "not anymore"?" Jade asked Shifter turned to Jade "She removed this ring so I could take her love to keep myself strong and alive so we could escape one day, but I'm not gonna take her love anymore, I've already taken too much." he said and Icy was surprised "You were planning an escape?" Jade said and Shifter sighed but nodded "I'm mostly surprised that somepony around here would be willing to help a bug horse like you, considering what you are and what you do, a changeling kicked out of his hive for helping a pony and now you were gonna help another pony, don't you ever learn? helping others will get you nowhere." he said and Shifter lowered his head Shifter looked back up at Jade "I helped that pony back then because it was the right thing to do, everypony deserves to be helped." he said "But not you." Jade said then he got up and stepped in front of Shifter "You're a changeling, a bug horse, a love hunter, there isn't a single pony alive who would ever want to help you, this filly was just using you so she could escape herself, not to help you, no pony will ever help you and you do well to remember that." he said Icy stepped forward "You're wrong." she said making Jade look at her "I was also helping him when I allowed him to take my love, just as Shifter said everypony deserves to be helped, no matter what race they are." she said then she trotted next to him "When we escape I was planning on taking him with us because I felt sad for how he was treated, thrown away by others he looked up to, I know how that feels, that's why I decided to help him myself." she said then she nuzzled his side which surprised him "And it may also because I've grown a bit attached to him so no matter what you say, you're wrong, because this filly right here is going to be the one to help him." she said Jade snorted "Well, good for you two but I'm not going to just let you both go so now I think I'm gonna have to separate you two, forever." he said Icy smirked "Sorry, but you won't have a choice in the matter." she said then she easily removed her ring "Thankfully, I asked Middy to break my ring but I hid the crack behind my mane so you never knew." she said which surprised Jade then Icy began charging up her horn making herself and Shifter glow "Somepony get another ring, QUICK!" Jade said but then Icy and Shifter teleported away "FIND THEM, FIND THEM NOW!" he yelled Icy and Shifter had reappeared in the room where Middy and Cherry were and Icy quickly ran to Middy "Middy, it's time." she said and Middy nodded "Oh and don't worry, Shifter doesn't have his ring right now so you won't have to remove it yourself." she said Middy nodded "Then, should we move onto the door?" she asked "I can take care of it, you take care of the others." Icy said but before she could move to the door she was grabbed by Middy "Are you sure? you did just teleport here." Middy said Icy nodded "Trust me, it's a lot less painful when I just teleport short distances, I still have enough energy to take care of the door, now hurry up, we don't know how long we have." she said and Middy nodded then she ran to another unicorn in the room Middy grabbed her ring "Sorry, but this might hurt a bit." she said then she worked the ring off freeing her magic then she moved to the next one Icy trotted to the door and Shifter joined her side “so...you’ve grown attached to me?” He said Icy blushed “it’s just that, your past and mine are so similar and I was also saddened by your story of no pony giving you a chance and helping you, I couldn’t help feeling this way.” She said then she looked at him “do...do you feel the same?” She asked Shifter put a hoof to his chest “I don’t know, this is my first time feeling this way so I’m not sure what this feeling is.” He said “Describe it.” Icy said “Well, every time I talk to you or I’m near you then I get this weird feeling in my chest, I don’t know what it is or what I’m supposed to do with it, do you know?” Shifter asked Icy nodded “I do know.” She said making Shifter turn to him then she kissed his cheek making him blush “what you’re feeling is love, and you should let it out and experience the full feeling of it.” She said Shifter looked at her confused “how do I do that?” He asked “Just go with the way you feel, don’t suppress it anymore, let it out.” Icy said then Shifter took a deep breath and let it out as he began glowing and floated in the air then he transformed into a small pin pod which quickly opened itself back up to reveal Shifter with an orange coat and green wings as he floated back to the ground “see, I knew you could do it.” Icy said Shifter looked all over himself “so this must have been what my changeling brothers and sisters felt when they were reformed, gotta say, I feel a lot better in this form than my other form.” He said Icy nuzzled his head “and you look better this way to.” She said then she faced the door again “ready to make our escape?” She asked and Shifter nodded then Icy focused her magic and blasted the door off its hinges but the result made her drop to her knees Shifter put a hoof on her shoulder “are you alright?” He asked Icy nodded “I’ll be fine, just give me a moment.” She said and Shifter nodded then Middy came back over “I freed every unicorn, both filly and mare.” Middy said “Good work Middy.” Icy said then she forced herself to stand and Shifter made sure to support her “thanks Shifter.” She said then she turned around to the other ponies “listen everypony, we don’t have much time, this will be our only chance to escape and what I want you to do is blast the support beams with your magic while we run through the caves.” Icy said making a lot of them gasp One mare stepped forward “but, won’t that make the cave collapse on top of us?” She asked “Not if we’re fast enough, we’ll run straight to the exit while the cave is falling and while it is the other guards won’t be able to follow us.” Icy said but some of them still looked unsure “I know this plan is risky but it’s the only plan we have that can get everypony out of here, we can do it.” She said then all of them nodded “Alright, let’s go!” Icy said then she ran out of the room followed by all the other ponies and Middy carried Cherry on her back as she flew through the cave As all of them ran through the cave the unicorn mares made sure to blast the support beams just enough so it won’t instantly but it would after a few minutes giving anypony under them enough time to get out of the way before it collapsed and they kept this up all throughout the cave making it difficult for the guards to catch them since as soon as they tried to chase after them they had to stop due to the cave collapsing and while running Icy had suddenly been caught by a rope "AH, Middy, Shifter, help!" Icy yelled making both Middy and Shifter turn to her to see Jade behind her with the rope in his mouth Shifter turned back to Middy "Get out of here, I'll save Icy." he said and Middy nodded and continued running then he ran back to Icy and pulled her back towards him while trying to get the rope off "You two brats." Jade said pulling the other way "I was making plenty of money then you two just had to muck it all up, I won't let either of you get away, I'll make both of you pay for ruining my perfect money-making business." he said pulling harder on the rope Shifter had finally gotten the rope off of Icy making Jade fall back "Come on Icy, we have to run before the cave falls." he said "Hang on, if we don't stop Jade night her and now then he'll just come back after us." Icy said turning back to face Jade "What are you gonna do?" Shifter asked Icy charged her horn "I'm gonna protect my friends and you." she said then before Jade got back on his hooves she blasted the nearby pillar causing most of the rocks to fall Icy fell to her knees so Shifter picked her up and put her on his back then he continued running through the cave as Jade night screams echoed throughout the cave then Shifter had just barely made it out of the cave just as it had blocked the exit and after Shifter had finally sat down to rest Icy picked herself up and looked at the entrance of the cave "We're free, finally." Icy said then she laid her head back down "You know, for a changeling, your back is very comfortable." she said as she rubbed her head into his back "Glad you like it but, can you get off? you're very heavy." Shifter said Icy shook her head "Can't, that last magic blast was all I had left, it's gonna take me a bit before I have enough strength to move myself." she said and Shifter huffed "Don't lie though, you like having me this close to you." she said and Shifter rolled his eyes but smiled Middy trotted over to them "I can't believe we're all alright, looks like your plan was a success Icy." she said "I'm just glad it went as well as it did, so many things could have gone wrong but didn't." Icy said then she heard some moaning and looked at Cherry to see her finally open her eyes "Cherry, you're awake!" she said "Hey Icy, Middy, what happened while I was out?" Cherry asked Middy giggled "A lot, I'll explain what I can later but just know that we have a changeling with us and he's Icy's special somepony." she said Cherry giggled "Good for you Icy." she said Icy rolled her eyes "You didn't have to tell her that last part Middy." she said "Hey, you have to include the details in these types of things and I did." Middy said and Icy just shook her head the mare from before trotted to their group "You saved us from working for that stallion, thank you, if there's anything we can do to repay you just name it." she said Icy thought for a moment "Can you give us a wagon with a hood over it also some of the jewels?" she asked "Alright, we'll get a nearby wagon and a basket of jewels." the mare said then she and others trotted off Middy looked back at Icy "What are you planning now?" she asked "Well, since ponyville is probably still looking for us and also the crystal empire, I was thinking we go to the next best place, Manehattan." Icy said Cherry gasped "But Manehattan is pretty far away, we'll be trotting for hours maybe days." she said "That's why I also requested for some of the jewels, we'll use some of those jewels to pay for a train ticket that will take us straight to Manehattan, saving us the trouble of trotting." Icy said and Cherry nodded Shifter looked at her confused "Then, what's the wagon for?" he asked Icy nuzzled his neck "That's for me and you since you're not strong enough to carry me, I'll rest in the wagon and your back can rest." she said and Shifter nuzzled her back "Thank you, I need the rest myself." Shifter said the mare and the other ponies had finally returned with a wagon and a basket of jewels that were left behind in the town after most of the other ponies left then Shifter put Icy in the back and joined her while Middy also put Cherry in the back with them along with the basket of jewels then she strapped herself onto the wagon and pulled them to the station while waving back at the ponies they helped escape and once they had finally gotten to the station Icy was well enough to move on her own while Middy continued carrying Cherry and they were lucky enough to get there just as the train had pulled into the station so they used the jewels and gems to pay for their tickets and boarded the train, Icy joined Shifter on his own seat while Cherry and Icy sat on theirs Icy smiled at each of them "Next stop, Manehattan." she said then the train began moving
