Solaria ~ Book 1: The Runaways

Somewhere, something was falling. Rarity could see it from here. A thin cloud of brown and grey rose up on the far end of the tower's walls. For a moment she had to wonder what had happened over there and if anypony was hurt. The lighting in the elevator was bright, the one of the undercity fairly dim. That and the distance to the happening made it hard for her to see any details. At least everypony else in the elevator was calm, even her own companion. Rarity had little to smile about right now, but she took the moment for what it was. Like before, she took the moment to wonder about the lives of somepony else. Lily's eyes remained looking forward, like small golden orbs, painted with but a black dot, standing in front of a white wall. In the few moments of sanity which Lily's presence did grant, Rarity found herself wondering, even if it was just for a few seconds, what it made her become so infatuated her so with this mare. But the question would go unanswered.

When they had left the offices, Rarity had not looked back and hadn't spent much of a thought on the whole matter, either. She was talking with a terrorist, wasn't she? She was going to join an illegal operation, wasn't she? Yet still, she found herself looking at the city before her with other thoughts on her mind. Even as they had stepped into the elevator her mind had remained mostly focused on the side of things that she herself deemed unimportant. Even now, she tried to find other things to think about, other things to look at and that was why she found herself staring at the sight below.

There was a city spreading from the roots of another. A long time ago the tunnels beneath the mountains had been housed by the tribes of diamond dogs. With the founding however, they decided to become part of something bigger and with the old Canterlot being rebuilt into what it was nowadays, their tunnel-system became obsolete. Nowadays, the undercity or Digahole, as it was called by its inhabitants, was a conglomerate of large halls, each with a town in its middle, all connected like the towers above with tunnels, through which railways ran, much like the one above ground. Construction-wise the houses were much cruder than the ones that were owned by ponies. Diamond dogs loved the rusty kind of built, Rarity had learned in school. The smaller living places looked like a bunch of huge metal plates put together in cubical houses, stacked upon another. There were larger buildings, too, which looked even less safe. There was something that did manage to create a certain sense of beauty. While Rarity was used to the shimmer of the candlelight, which had made working on clothing late at night so much harder and the lanterns by the side of the streets creating a faint source of light, what she saw here was truly enrapturing.

Diamond dogs had never had a thing for lanterns and lamps, preferring bugs to aid them in the darkness. From what Rarity knew, digging had been a central part of their culture and one needed free paws for that. Considering how fireflies and the like now lived under the insect protection act of the year 5 the dogs had long since found new methods of brightening their halls. The living bugs had been replaced with ones made of metal and they carried around small lights. On their own, they weren’t that great but there were swarms of them, buzzing through the city. The light was always on the move beneath the earth they said and in the first days of the Dictatorship it had often been likened to a meteor shower, Rarity knew and understood. A meteor shower it was, with a million lights swarming over the streets. It almost made her eagerly await the end of the ride.

Then, the elevator halted and without anything to be said, the two stepped out of it and into the life below. Rarity could do nothing but halt once more, gazing in awe at this rustic, yet somewhat homely town before her. The difference to the world above seemed like day and night, as the old saying went. She had never known a night, though. Maybe it was like this, though? Her eyes went up, where only the elevators were small lights against a giant darkness that couldn’t be pierced with eyes. At least not from down here. A million lights and a thousand inhabitants, here, below the world she’d known.

“Come on, my dear,” she heard Lily say, a small smile on her face as she looked at her friend. Rarity nodded and the two started walking. Of course, Lily took helm, braving the surroundings with such wonderful confidence. Still, Rarity managed to follow without much swooning, taken in by the wonders of the city.

Ponyville had been as small in scale as could be, with nothing exciting ever happening and the sun moving only in a small area on the sky, always refusing to get close to the ground. Digahole, however? This town was different entirely from what she was used, too.

Streaming through the streets were diamond dogs, several griffins, she spotted a gorgon over there and a group of centaurs bickering at a shop, while a satyr challenged a minotaur to an arm-wrestling match. Life was bristling all around and even though the houses seemed to be in quite a sorry state it still seemed so much more lively than the clean home she was used, too. She doubted that here the market was the center of action and that the deconstruction of a building was the highlight of the year. For a thousand years, if not longer, this part of Equestria might’ve just been stuck with being more lively than a thousand Ponyvilles. There was a harpy, talking with a pegasus about flight regulations, the metal of their collars shimmering against the light of the swirling fireflies.

“It’s quite wonderful, isn’t it?”, she heard Lily ask and looked at the earth pony who was walking by her side.

She tried to keep her mind from wandering into purple prose yet again. “I’ve been living in the country all my life. It is... quite a change. Still, there’s something about this town. The fashion sense of the diamond dogs is somewhat bad. I mean, It's not that I don't like diamond dogs. In fact, the only thing I 'dislike' about them is their fashion sense, I mean... Just look at their clothes,” she suddenly pointed out, trying to divert from the understatement that she had meant. For my own sake, she told herself.

“When I first came here those had been my thoughts exactly – Well, maybe not the fashion sense but just looking at the grandness of this place? I asked myself what could be more beautiful? There was a pony with me when I made the descend. Rarity, my dear, he asked me a question I would like to put forward to you. It’s an important question, or rather, one of the important questions.”

Rarity was bemused by that and intrigued as well. “Go on,” she said, already guessing where this might lead.

“Why is this beautiful, Rarity?”

The unicorn blinked, her eyes on the smiling earth pony. No purple prose, no thoughts about Lily, instead her eyes went over the city again and the dark sky, all those strange creatures and strangers around her. What made it so wonderful? Everything, she thought but didn’t say it, since it seemed too little of an answer.

“I guess,” she started but trailed off, not knowing where she wanted to go, unlike her friend. Lily lead them through the small streets. Yes, small, the the houses were huddled together, leaving only small room to walk between them. The streets were filled, nonetheless and Rarity started to doubt that her estimation with ‘thousands’ of inhabitants was entirely accurate. A thousand different kinds of people, all huddled together in the darkness.

“I grew up under a warm sun. The darkest it gets is when there is a thunderstorm, with black clouds looming above, lightning striking and rain falling to the earth. You can’t see the horizon anymore, then. Here? It’s like a horizon doesn’t even exist. The sun, the blue sky, these things are discarded for countless specks of light, all trailing across the streets.”

“It’s like the stars have fallen below the earth, right?” Lily japed.

Rarity did not laugh, though, because maybe it was just like that. It made her wonder what a night would look above. How did the world look in the dim light of countless light and the moon sitting there, in the sky, shining on the sleeping ponies. It seemed a romantic thought. Rarity liked romantic thoughts, dreams and such, but it reminded her of how she had dreamt of fashion and the ability to create something new. Somewhere, something was falling and it tasted like ashes in her mouth.

“But you know, it does beg another question. This world is beautiful, isn’t it, Rarity?”, the earth pony questioned, her eyes fixed on the white unicorn. For some reason, Rarity felt the weight of the collar even more than usual, then. She didn’t know what it meant, but she stopped and let her hoof stroke across it, making sure everything was alright before she continued on.

She finally answered: “Yes.”

“There’s opportunity a plenty and everypony has something they can do, no matter how big the task, or small. We all have our jobs cut out for us since our oldest ancestors.”

“Yes.”

“Then, would you say this is actually a perfect world?”

The wrong word, maybe. A stroke of misfortune and the bitter taste of defeat still lingered in her mouth but she knew that it was the wrong word to describe this world. However, everypony was happy to some extent. There was no poverty to speak of, nopony suffered more than another and everypony had their role. Outside of personal glory, maybe it was the right word. Still, she actually had no idea what kind of answer Lily was expecting. Well, Rarity thought, maybe the Applejack approach will work out.

“Yes, in some ways it is. Most ways even.” Just not for me. And maybe that was why she was wanting to fight?

“Well then. In the end, there’s only one question remaining, my dear Rarity: How do you fight a perfect world?”

She hadn’t expected that question. She heard the talking of creatures by their sides as they walked through the alleys and she saw Lily smiling the way she did. Rarity wasn’t able to find an answer, however. There were quite a few things she had answers for, questions she had expected, she had expected to be asked. But the big question? That’s what it was, she knew, the one important question. But then she knew, it was the same as with the question before, just the other way around.

“The world isn’t perfect for everypony,” she said.

Lily smiled. “Did you notice something about this town, Rarity?”

The pony shook her head. “Nothing particular, a different style to everything.”

“The clothes.”

She looked at a group of diamond dogs, wearing vests that looked old and ragged. A harpyie in a poncho with holes on it’s edges. In a sense, their fashion choices were horrendous, but beyond that?

“The houses.”

     Put together with scraps of metal, they looked rustic and as if they were about to break down. They didn’t look safe or comfortable, well, not in the common way those words were used. In a way, they had there own charm, Rarity knew, not quite getting what Lily was getting at.

   “Look and think about home, think about how much food you had on your plate, think about the looks on everypony’s faces as they carried themselves through the day and think how the sun remained in the sky your entire life. No winter, no fall, no spring. An eternal summer holding the world in its perfect grip. Think about that and then look around you again. These are no brightly colored houses beneath a sunny sky. These creatures aren’t wearing clothing that’s been in style since the founding of the Dictatorship. They’re wearing clothing that has actually been handed down in and of itself. Think and look. Look at where we are Rarity.”

     She looked but could find hardly anything wrong with it, even though something was indeed there, nagging at the back of her head. The words all rang true but her mind just refused to accept it for what it was, telling her how everything was fine, how everything was perfect.

     “We’re in the slums,” Rarity said, her eyes flickering. She didn’t understand the words that came out of her mouth. The world was perfect, there was no problem at all. The world was perfect and everything was fine.

     Yet it wasn’t. Something was wrong and it needed to be fixed. She just didn’t know why.

     “The thoughts of a rebel, Rarity. They’re hard thoughts to have and harder words to say,” Lily said, pointing at the collar, “and the sun is shining above, an eternal summer keeping its iron grip on us all.”

     Rarity blinked but couldn’t answer, since Lily had stopped. “We’re here,” she said and pointed to a door. Their destination. A warehouse in the middle of the undercity, looking as normal as could be.

     Lily knocked on the door, waiting five seconds. Then another voice bellowed from behind the gate: “Password!”

     “Sweet Apple Acres,” she said and the door opened, a gruff stallion pointing them hurriedly in. Rarity decided to take it as it was and walked inside, hoping to leave her doubts behind if she did it quick enough.

     She knew there were cracks, that something was wrong and that there was something hindering her brain from accepting that, something Lily had showed her. It was hard to keep focus on that somehow, much like it was hard to focus on anything that wasn’t deemed worth the attention by the state. Back in school Rarity always had an easy time listening to the teachers prattling on about history and how the Dictatorship was the best of countries but found herself grow bored as the talk went to the realms beyond the borders, like they hadn’t been of interest to her. Aside from the things she had been expected to keep track of the only thing that had ever come easily to her had been finding something rich and making it even richer. Finding a diamond and putting it on a beautiful dress, for example. A talent the world had quickly tried to disable.

     With her past and the bitter taste of defeat still in her mouth she entered the hall, where the rebels gathered and it was like nothing she had imagined. Not that she had imagined anything.

Ponies who don’t dream, don’t imagine, she thought at that point, a small smile forming on her face.

     There were boxes all around, the walls were plastered with anti-government propaganda and in the middle of it stood a table with more stallions and mares around it, talking about some sort of plan, probably involving rebelling. That’s what rebels did, wasn’t it?

     It was nothing like she had imagined and yet everything she had expected. There was even a guardspony sitting on a box, polishing his gun and eyeing her suspiciously. It felt strangely like a movie, this scene and for a moment she wondered if she should just turn around and walk away. After all, she still had the choice. Applejack had said that.

     Or... had she already played that card?

     Lily walked up to the group. “Heya, guys. I brought us a new comrade.”

     They were ponies of all colors and kinds but strangely enough, the one who caught her attention was the brown pony with the darker mane and the bow-tie. He had been at the train, too, hadn’t he? Was he a part of the rebellion, she wondered.

     “How many are there?” the stallion asked.

   “Well, not many more. This is Lily Valley, she’s-”, started a colt with a moustache beside him.

     “A most beautiful lady,” the brown stallion finished. “Name’s Time Turner, I’m an associate of a common friend,” his smile was one of stiff courtesy and he had little charm to him, Rarity had to confess. That and he completely ignored her. Well, everypony was ignoring her, their eyes fixed on Lily. It seemed almost unnatural.

     “I’m Rarity,” she still said but didn’t get more than a nod in her general direction. These ponies were pretty bad about their business, Rarity noticed. No wonder the Nightguard was something of a small problem for the state.

     “What have you come here for, Time Turner?”, Lily then suddenly asked, her own visage had turned a shade darker when he’d introduced himself.

     The stallion stopped smiling. “I was beneath the badlands, where the last dragons are.”

     Lily seemed intrigued. “Why would that be?”

     “Ever since the Founding and the vanishing of the old magic, Dragons have been fading from the world. No newborns, you see. They just grow old and older, till they die. There’s only a dozen of ‘em left. Our mutual friend, let’s call ‘em that, thought it worth investigating the matter.”

’em, was all Rarity thought at first, but immediately wondered what he was on to. First day in Canterlot and she had already gotten involved in a conspiracy. Disappointingly casual as all of this was, somewhere the little filly in her was giddy.

     “I went down, there. Took the train to Appleloosa and then just walked. Ponies didn’t care, nobody cared. Somebody even thought I was one of those state-issued ambassadors, even though the last ambassador Equestria had lived like what? Six hundred, eight hundred years ago? Anyway, I took my way down into the badlands, with plenty of water and some food, till I reached the Old Peak, the first mountain that had grown out of the world. The last dragons reside there, sleeping their lives away. Only, one thing. And I barely survived the encounter for it, too.”

     There was a pause, another of those grim smiles slowly forming on his face.

     Lily grew impatient quickly. “What? What thing?”

     “I found an egg.”

   “What?”,  Rarity blurted out, all eyes were suddenly on her and she took a step back, but steadied herself immediately. No way she could turn around now, or would, for that matter. “I mean, the dragons are dying out. That’s how it goes. They need magic to survive, the old magic.”

     “Aye, little filly,” Time Turner said with the smile never leaving his face, “and the old magic is gone. Yet I found an egg and guess what that means?”

     He didn’t give her time to answer. “It means, that something is stirring, somewhere. Magic is returning.”

     She didn’t know what to say, then, at that moment. Her eyes were fixed on him just as his were fixed on her. A dragon’s egg had been found.

     “Where is it?”, Lily asked.

     “I brought to another good, trustworthy friend of mine. The dragons wouldn’t have cared for it, the ones there were too old, too tired to do anything with it. And while getting the information I found something else. I already talked about it with the others-”

     A moment passed with Rarity wondering what she had stumbled across here, a singular moment and a silence that was immediately broken as suddenly the walls of the hall shattered and a loud noise was heard, the noise of anti-gravity drives accompanied by the soft humming of motors as well as the slow building up of energy in a weapon.

     She saw and heard how the boxes tumbled over, she saw the pony with the gun staring in shock at what was going on behind her and for a moment Rarity didn’t want to turn around. She didn’t want to acknowledge what was happening, but then she heard the roar of the speakers, the sound of female voice.

     “This is the Mechanized Assault and Government-Issued Company! Surrender peacefully for the sake of peace!”

     The looks on their faces told everything, it was like they had expected something like this to happen and at the same time didn’t, their eyes looking up. Fear marked them all. Wind blew through the hall scraps of metal flew about and Rarity decided to turn her head, slowly, carefully.

     She had heard of what MAGIC was, both a military unit and something of a special squad for cracking down crime-circles. There was only one member of the unit present, however and if magic had still existed they might’ve taken her on. Or not, she found doubting even that as the wind blew strands of hair over her eyes, which she kept locked on the intruder.

     The thing was made of blackened metal, most of it hidden behind layers of aquamarine dyed armor plating, pressed on the slender form of the battlesuit. The construct stood 13’ tall, it’s shape resembling that of a minotaur, from the digigrade legs to the antennas on it’s head that somewhat resembled horns. It even had hands even though they were worked into the guns, she had been told that ancient spells had been woven into them so they could blast a pony apart even from a hundred meters distance.

     Wait, when had she been told that?

     Even though it would’ve already towered over them if it had been standing, the suit hovered above ground, putting its drives to good use. The sight was as intimidating as it could’ve been.

     “How did they find us?” she heard one pony ask and then immediately after that:“Time’s running!”

     She saw the head move, small lights flickering up, before it lifted up one of its arm and a split-second later a burst of blue-white energy headed over her with only a small hissing noise coming from the weapon. Rarity blinked and then a loud explosion roared up behind her, flashing brightly and kicking everypony else to the ground. Rarity herself didn’t wonder, didn’t ask, at that point her instincts took over,with the explosion she started galloping. Not away from the battlesuit, but towards it, looking at its head with the lights still flickering. There was a small chance, a chance she hoped. Behind the robot was a hole and if the pilot wasn’t paying attention to her – Celestia prayed to every non existent god that ever existed that that was true – then she could run out of there.

     It shouldn’t be and she saw the other hand, the other weapon pointing at her almost immediately after she had started running. However, before anything could happen the pony with the gun fired a shot, she heard,a projectile whizzed by faster than the eye could see and took one of the antennae.

     Rarity looked in shock at the pony, who wore no clothing like a country pony. He had a pale brown coat, accompanied with a dark brown mane and had a five-pointed star for a cutie mark. He nodded to her, his mouth twitching beneath that black moustache of his, as he took up his rifle once more, an ancient carabine like they had been used by the griffons, a long, long time ago.

     She saw the others scattering and Lily still staring, fears in her wonderful eyes, which even with tears in them seemed only like deep ponds with fishes swimming in them, fishes of untold beauty.

Compose yourself, Rarity, she told herself.

     “Lily!”, she then shouted. “Run!”

     There was no time and she wanted to save at least one friend.

     The machine didn’t move, maybe the antenna hit had been important. Rarity didn’t know, didn’t care. She instead hurried as Lily wouldn’t move.

     The moustache pony looked at them both, standing there and then back at the machine, as it didn’t move. He seemed to resolve himself, “Come with me, quickly,” he told them and started hurrying off to the back of the warehouse. Rarity stared at him and then looked at Lily, who didn’t seem to quite understand what was going on.

And obviously: Neither am I.

     “Come on,” she said however, “we need to go.”

     Lily looked at her, “I’m sorry. I-I didn’t think.” That was enough for Rarity and she grabbed the other filly by the hoof leading her away from the police.

     “Something’s wrong, something’s very wrong but if we can escape, maybe we can find out what. There’s something going on here,” was all Rarity could say. There were so many questions on her mind, so many things that needed to be answered and yet she knew that she would probably have to wait for those. Right now, all she could do was run.

     She looked once more over the shoulder, the machine still not moving. She didn’t get it.

     “I used to be on the team,” she heard the moustache say as she and Lily entered the room at the end of the warehouse, a room that, from it’s decor could have been an office once. There stood a comfortable looking chair, a table and a variety of filing cabinets standing in the corner but they were all old, probably unused for a few years. However, she quickly turned her head from all that to a specific cabinet and the moustached pony trying to something in one of the drawers. “And there’s a variety of design flaws the suits of MAGIC have, for one, the wiring is weird, you hit one of the antennae in the right spot, there goes motion control over the suit. You need a good, however and there are few who can hit that spot.”

     Rarity looked at him, obviously astounded by this. “And you’re one of those?”

     The stallion hit something and on the other end of the room a hidden trapdoor opened.

     “The name’s Silverstar, I used to be one of the big names down on the frontier. Anyway, we should go. That’s the safest our safest way out while that pilot is both blind and deaf. She’ll think we’ve went past her. Now, ladies first. Rarity, Lily,” he nodded to each of them and beckoned them to the ladder down.

     Rarity didn’t know how to feel about it at first, but her eyes then went and fixed themselves on Silverstar. He didn’t smile, he still looked worried. The effects of the shot might not last much longer and there was still time for questions when they were outside, so she took grip on the ladder and began her descent, Lily following her, thanking the marksstallion for saving them. Rarity didn’t know whether the others had survived. She had spotted a giant hole where the shot of the suit had hit and wouldn’t have doubted that it had ended poor Time Turner’s life. She wondered how they might’ve found them. It only started to dawn to her as she reached the ground.

     That she might have lead the authorities to the hideout. How else would it all make sense?

     As she picked up the pieces and put them together in a picture that suited her confused state the most, she also found herself in the tunnel hidden beneath the town, a small thing, where one pony had barely enough space to stand straight up or walk and the lights down here had to be more ancient than the the interior of the hall above, since they were flickering, sometimes staying off for a few prolonged seconds.. She was glad for her somewhat more slender built at this one time. For all that lack in strength and stamina she had, this seemed much better.

     Not that she cherished that thought of crawling in the dirt after nearly being killed but she worked with the tools she was given.

     Lily and Silverstar followed her down.

     “Why was there a battlesuit here?”, Lily asked and Rarity knew why.

     Really, it was obvious. MAGIC utilized these battlesuits during a crisis or war and officially they hadn’t been utilized at all in the last one hundred and twenty five years. Then there was a the size and sound the things produced. A thirteen foot machine with roaring motors was hardly something that could sneak up on anypony. So how had it done that. And of course, hidden in that question was another. How did they find us?

     “Is it possible-”, she started but was immediately interrupted by Silverstar.

     “Well, chances are they somehow got word about Time Turner coming here with a dragon egg and they wanted to crack things down before they got out of control. No new dragons have hatched ever since the end of the Discordian Age. New dragons could mean that magic is finally returning to this world. Chances are that our beloved leader doesn’t want that. With magic, so tell the legends, come the princesses to govern us all as benevolent rulers. Close to now, basically, only slightly better and with lesser dependence on technology, which is a good thing. Still, I doubt anyone at the top would give up their place quickly.”

     He was right, Rarity knew, but still, the other part of the question remained. “Could they track us? Listened in with the aid of the collars?” That question got her looks but both Silverstar and Lily thought. Rarity only now noticed how wonderful Lily’s hair looked when out of shape, much like a forest, ready to be explored. A jungle with treasures hidden... The thoughts of week-old chips in Lily’s mane put an immediate stop to that train of thought.

     “No,” Silverstar finally said, motioning her to go on, with him and Lily following. “They’re meant to aid us, they keep our bodies active and-”

     “But that’s what I mean, can’t they manipulate us over them? I mean, is there some way to control them. Lily said before that the undercity were basically slums and I know about slums. I read about the ones in the griffon cities, where citizens died on the street with nopony caring for them. If it’s the same then why don’t we, or I at least see that.”

     He seemed baffled by that explanation, as if that had not occurred to him before. Maybe it hadn’t. It was the same thing really.

     Lily giggled. “You’re smart, no wonder AJ spoke highly of you. Smarter than the system.”

     Rarity couldn’t help but smile at that bit of praise. The thoughts of a rebel actually came easy to her and speaking about them was easy enough. Well, at least as long as she managed to concentrate on them. She had made herself aware now, that the collar had something to do with it, probably hiding things from their vision, too. It seemed only logical, yet it didn’t seem to open any new doors. Unless...

     “Are there any in the nightguard who know how to disable the collars?”

     This time Lily was the one answering, “Sadly, not without dying.”

     “If there’s a trick, we haven’t found it out as of yet and I doubt our leaders will give us any secret of theirs. I mean, at least that’s what we know. The Nightguard isn’t a centralized group. More like, a whole lot of smaller groups all struggling for the same goal. We’ve got extremists who’d rather blow buildings up and ponies who try to play at politics to achieve their goals. Really, there’s a lot of ways to reach the goal and maybe some other group has better information than we do. Time Turner might’ve had. I didn’t see what happened to him in the blast, though,” Silverstar said, his face turning down.

He’s probably turned to dust by that weapon. I would’ve had the same fate if not for you, Rarity thought, thinking that maybe she should say it but considering how they were on the run now, maybe it wasn’t the best time.

     The rest of the way was quiet enough, the only sounds coming from lights that seemed to only barely work anymore. It made Rarity wonder when this house had been built. Was it as old as the rest of the city and wouldn’t that mean that the state actually knew about this? She hardly knew what to think about any of this, either. Rarity, from fashionista to outlaw in a day. She didn’t regret it. She had started smelling something foul with the state now. Something was very, very wrong and this unicorn would need to get to the bottom of it, no matter the cost. Also, the business with the dragon egg. Magic, returning?

     Rarity felt her own horn, a decorative bone that could only be used with the right technological aidings. Magic worked differently than it had before, manipulating reality with wires and electricity. There were few unicorns who would get those. Magic wasn’t even needed for most of the tasks, well, unicorn magic anyway. Earth pony and pegasus pony magic needed technical aide as well. Pegasi could walk on clouds if they wore the right horseshoes, Earth Ponies could make the earth fertile with the right instruments. Weather was mostly controlled with suits much like the battlesuits of MAGIC. As far as Rarity knew all those methods were still simpler than getting a unicorn’s horn to work. Earth ponies and pegasi had it ‘in their blood’, so to speak, they could manipulate things without putting thought into it, unicorns not so much. Their magic had worked through the power of the mind. That was why back in the old days they had suffered the worst losses against Discord. The vile spirit had known that concentration had been needed for spells and when they first tried to perform a seal on him he turned everypony mad. For some reason that thought alone made her angry.

     She felt herself stepping on the ground, it was made of metal, built like the rest of the tunnel, no, the rest of Digahole. Metal scraps built together, holding things as well together as they could. Still, all the scraps placed so well together gave her hope. There were questions, she needed answers and surely she would find them. Still, the path went on and for what seemed like an eternity they walked on. The air wasn’t getting any better with the passing of time, either and after the first quarter through the tunnel Rarity already wished it to end. Halfway through the lights fell out completely, much to Lily’s chagrin as she immediately stumbled over a loose plate and fell on her face, struggling to stand up again while Silverstar walked straight into her. Apologizing ensued. After the third quarter Lily asked Silverstar about the others.

     The earth pony took his time answering but finally said, “with that thing disabled and whatever path they took they might’ve been taken by police forces, if there were any outside or they might have escaped through the other secret tunnels. I hope for the latter, of course.”

     Rarity hoped so, too, although she hadn’t even seen all of them. They might be comrades in the future, though and Rarity really wanted to think it would start to get better from here.

     With her mind set straight she walked right into the ladder herself, but didn’t spend too much time whining in pain and instead climbed right up. This one led right into an alley, small and completely dark. The other three followed and Rarity noticed how their hooves were completely black. She hadn’t even noticed any kind of liquid. Maybe because of the air. Once she opened the hidden door and let the air in, she couldn’t help but inhale loudly. At least the slums had fresh air, unlike those the griffons had had in their old kingdom.

     Yet, they were still on the run, weren’t they. “So what do we do now?” Rarity couldn’t help but ask.

     “Well,” Silverstar stated, “you’re new, right?”

     “Yes.”

     “And Applejack trusts you, the one from Ponyville?”

Is she that big a name even amongst terrorists?, she thought but answered: “Yes, I am a good friend to her.”

     “That’s enough for me. Lily, I think I should tell you about another plan we had.”

   “Another plan?” Her curiosity was reflected in those eyes. Eyes that Rarity would most certainly write poems in her diary about.

     “Yeah. Time Turner told us about something interesting and if they’re on to us, chances are it might be hot.”

     “What are you talking about?” Lily asked.

   “I want to get into the Echo-Facility.”

     As Lily’s eyes widened in shock, Rarity couldn’t help but feel a sense of foreboding. Whatever the Echo-Facility was, it couldn’t be good but sadly she would find out soon anyway, because she just had to get roped in by the underground and the hope of dreams and sleep.  Because ponies, who dream, imagine and somewhere in her future, she wanted to make dresses that would wow just about everypony.