And I thought we were normal. How wrong I was.

   I sit alone in the back cab of the train as it makes its way towards Cannonrim. With each passing moment I grow farther from the green fields and forests of Ponyville as the land gradually changes from lush green lands to an arid, desolate desert.

   The town of Cannonrim started as a small homestead about fifty years back. The town took shape with the farmer dug a well near her home and unearthed deposits of multiple precious metals. Drawn in many the discovery many miners came seeking to find their own wealth on the dirt. For thirty~four years after the town prospered greatly with cart loads of gold and silver coming out daily. However with such wealth there also came a great deal of crime. Thus leading to the erection of the prison, a rather simple structure surrounded by large stone walls and many of the single high security cells being down in the earth, hidden in natural worthless chasms with the only way to each elevator being through an elevator specified to it. However, all things must come to an end. After almost thirty~five years of prosperity, the earth finally dried up and all of the mines closed, leaving most of the town empty as the foreponies of the mines and their workers moved on to different towns. The only things keeping the town afloat now being its location along the rails, it's few remaining saloons/inns and the prison, now used to hold the very few criminals in the town and a couple of death-row prisoners hidden down in the earth to discourage escape since the only way out of town is by the rails. I think as I remember the details of the town.

   Thankfully Berry already took the liberty of having one of her inside contacts alter the ledgers to say he was moved a few days ago so the portion of the underground he's in should be unattended now. As long as I can make my way to the elevator specified to lead down to his cell without being seen and as long as we can get out of there in without being seen, the plan is that we will leave on the morning train as if nothing happened. If we are seen then the plan is that we split as a soon as possible by hoping onto a cargo train set to stop in town and we jump off a few miles from Ponyville and walk to town from there.

   That's the rough detail of it; Berry left the details to my own discretion. She did however inform me of an air shaft leading almost all the way to elevator that I should be able to squeeze through easily enough. If not, I'll have to find my own way past the guards, but sadly that will most likely end in confrontation due to the simplistic structure of the place, this meaning that there is only one path to the elevator from the main holding cells. I guess that means it's either take the shaft and the morning train, or the hallways and take the night train. I'd prefer the prior option.

   The only thing I really need to worry about though is making my way to the inner building from the walls. The walls aren't equipped with outside spotlights so I should be able to make my way to and up them easily enough as long as I make sure to begin the climb near the gaps in the light near one of the covered towers at one if the corners of the square. The problem is the spotlights that move on the inside of the facility and the sentries that wait and watch for any unauthorized movement.

   This wouldn't be a problem if I had black coloured magic because then I could just go over the lights to the roof. However, since my magic isn't black I'm going to have to move quickly across a few small boxes while the light isn't on my path so their eyes aren't drawn to the small lights of my magic. I just need to cross the gap quickly.

   Deciding not to worry too much about that which I can't control, I wait out the next few hours of the trip uneventfully.

"I guess this is my stop." I say to myself as I stand up and grab my bag from under the seat.

   Walking out of the train and onto the platform, I don a simple pair of sunglasses with black lenses to block out the intense light of the sun. Not wasting anytime to talk to any of the other few passengers that got off with me in this somewhat forsaken town.

   Most of the buildings have either collapsed or they've been condemned, this leaving only the buildings along the center road still inhabited for the most part. I receive a few odd looks as I walk down the old dirt road through town past the brown and dirt covered structure from the small amount of local ponies, most of the being simple earth ponies except for the stray pegasus now and again.

   After about five minutes of walking I find a building with a simple sign in front indicating its status as an inn, and I walk inside casually without casting a look at the few ponies out front as they eye me strangely. I can already tell I'm an outcast in this western styled town.

   The inn is a rather simple one story building with a large wood burning stove in the center with a few tables strewn about, a couple of doors on the far wall from me and a bar. A couple of ponies sit around the stove talking, but they soon quiet as they notice my entry and I act as if I didn't notice and I all over to the bartender to ask about a room.

"Excuse me, but can I rent a room for the next couple of days?" I ask the rusted red coloured stallion, who wears a simple brown suit, behind the bar.

"I guess you could, but it'll be two hundred bits." He says with a rough voice and I can smell cigarette smoke heavy in his breathe with that of whiskey.  Pleasant.

"Two hundred bits for two days?" I ask in a somewhat offended manner.

"Now I don't get much business here as you can imagine; so my prices have to be high. That also covers dinner for today, three meals tomorrow, and breakfast when you leave. Although those meals may just be bread and water usually." He continues with a heavy cough.

"I guess my options are limited. Here's your money." I say with a sigh and give him the requested amount.

"Thank you. Your room is the one on the left." He says as he pockets the coins.

"Quick question for ya; why is everypony giving me weird looks?" I ask with a small gesture to the group behind me.

"I wouldn't pay much attention to it. Most folk here haven't seen a unicorn come through in a few years and even more of them don't take to kindly to magic. The town was founded on hard work so most of us don't like the way unicorns work around manual labor with magic. You'll get a few nasty looks and a slur or two about you, but keep your head down and don't use any magic and you'll be fine." He manages to say through coughing fits and I take me leave. A bit more racism in this world than I expected.

   Rather than spending more time outside with the locals I decide to retire to my room for the rest of the day.

/W\M/W\M/W\M/W\M/W\M/W\M/W\M/W\M/W\M/W\M/W\M/W\M/

   I open my briefcase on the bed in my rented room to reveal my two blades in their sheathes with appropriate matching colours to the blades. After moving the weapons out of the way, I pull out my body-length black coat with four buttons at the waste point to connect it, a purchase I made on my own dime at the boutique, after setting it aside for the time being I retrieve my black long sleeve shirt and my dark black cowl with its dark gray face cover.

   I take off my shirt and vest and proceed of put on my new set of clothes. Before putting on my coat I put on my belt and I put the two blades into the straps on the belt for them. I pull on my coat, leave the collar as it is and I button the square formation of buttons near my waste to conceal the weapons tastefully. I'd rather not have anypony see them now, but I don't think it would matter much anyways; most of the ponies I saw yesterday were making no attempts at all to hide their guns.

   I stroll out of the inn after a light lunch of bread and water and, making sure to not get too close to my of the late-afternoon locals, I find the road leading to the prison.

   After slowly walking along the road for an hour or so I can see the illuminated prison walls in the distance. By this time the sun has already gone behind the clouded horizon and I look down at my hand to see that it's already merged seamlessly into the darkness of the night.

   Taking one more look behind me, I sigh and take deep breathe and the heavy beating of my heart almost hurts in my throat. I guess this is it then. It's either I turn back now and leave Uefi or I go onwards and break him out. I guess I know my own answer to this. Onwards into the beast. I think as I pullover my cowl and I pull up the face cover so that it sits on my nose, covering my face save for my eyes.

   I make my way towards the lit up walls quickly and I travel up to tower on the right side from the roads perspective. I find a small gap in the lights illumination and I slip through it and put my back as close as I can against the 15m tall structure. I form a couple of magical blocks above me and I pull myself up with my arms and I create supports for my hooves before forming another set of grips and repeating the process. After about 30 minutes of climbing, with a few cautious breaks, I finish making my way to the topic the structures masonry.

   I peak my head over the edge to ensure that no guards are moving towards me. All of the guards seem to be moving away from my position, judging from the rays of their flashlights, so I make a couple of more grips and foot holds and I cross the 3m gap between the masonry top of the way and the wooden cone shaped roof each of the towers have.

   I sit down for a few minutes to access the situation as I look onto the inner yard. The main complex is only about three quarters of the height of the walls themselves and about 100m in any directness from the wall.  I can count about 7 guards along each wall that slowly go back and forth along each wall with a few of them just staying in place with lanterns next to them. The lights move back and forth about every 15 seconds.

   I wait about five minutes until all of the moving guards are facing away and as soon as the light passes by, I jump from the roof towards the complex. The moment I being to lose altitude I form two small blocks under my feet angled downwards at the building and I push off of them in another jump. Shit, Shit, Shit, Shit, Shit. Ect. I think e entire time I continue to jump through the air. At this point the least of my worries is being seen, but rather it's falling. Why did I do this?

   I slowly allow myself to descend and thankfully after about 12 seconds of jumping I'm close enough to the building in bother elevation and forward distance that I can push forwards and commit a role onto the roof. I can't believe that actually happened. Maybe I should trust Berry's judgement more often.

   After vomiting from the excitement and praising whatever gods there are in this world, I stand up and look around to make sure I didn't arouse any suspicion. Thankfully it doesn't seem anypony saw me and I make my way over to the center of the roof where the entrance to the air ducts should be.

   By this time my eyes have already adjusted enough to make out some things and I find the shaft without too much trouble. A simple steel cover lies on the roof over the metal duct which, praise Celestia, has about 10 cm of clearance for each of my shoulders.

   I pull out a screw driver and unscrew the cover. Moving the shroud out of the way, I slip into the shaft which is angled downwards at about a 40 degree angle. I allow myself to slide slowly down the shaft until it flattens out. Remembering what Berry told me I crawl forward about 5 meters before turning and the shaft opens up into a slightly larger maintenance shaft that I'm able to stand up in but only my head hits the top of it and there's only about 6cm of space for me to stand on before the ladder comes through.

   According to Berry they use these shafts as points to operate on the air ducts and electricity here. I'm not too sure myself, but I won't question it if it helps me.

   I climb down the ladder until I reach the bottom of it and I slip back into the smaller ducts. After going through the maze of metal and stopping a few times to wait for guards to pass by, I finally make it to my destination.

   After making sure no guards are outside as well as I can, I open the grate and slip out into the hallway, only a few meters from the elevator I need to take. I look around I dash into the old elevator and pull a key out of my pocket that Berry gave me to use.

   Since each of the elevators is for a single cell, the elevators also need a key to be operated; so Berry got the spare from her inside guy and gave it to me. I still find it hard to believe I got the easiest job out of all of us. I think as I take a deep breathe to try and calm down my heart. At this point I'm in a light daze at how this is going.

   I slip the key into the slot and twist it causing the elevator to shake a little and soon after it begins to lower me down into the chasm and into the darkness. After about five minutes the rickety device stops and the metal doors open up to the empty, lit hallway to his cell.

"It's about time one of you came down here. I haven't been fed in four days now." I hear an angry voice call from down the hall and I sigh in heavy relief.

   I walk down the hall and turn left to face the black bars of his cells. I see Uefi with his hands against the bars wearing a now ragged luminescent orange jumpsuit and with his green face heavily covered in dirt and his aqua mane and tail in a mess, but his aqua coloured eyes lack no ferocity at all despite this.

"Uhh,.. Who're you?" He asks humbly as his look of fury changes to one of fear as his eyes travel down my form and linger for a moment on the now exposed hilts of my blades.

Remembering my cowl, I pull down the face cover under my chin and smile, "Don't you recognize me buddy?" I joke a little as my heart's beating dies down a little.

"You're shitting me. Quentin?" He says after a light gasp.

"Who else Uefi?"

"But how did you get in here and what's with the get up and those weapons? What happened to you?" He begins to rattle off as I pull out the extra key to his cell.

"Not right now Uefi. I'll explain all of this later. Just know that I've gone through some intense stuff to get here and we're both involved with an 'odd' organization now." I inform him lightly as I open his cage door and he rushes out and gives me a hug.

"Thanks man, thanks. They were going to kill me." He says solemnly before releasing me.

"If it's any consultation I had the tips of their spears at my throat when I made my break for it." I say and we brofist.

"I can't believe this. First we cross dimensions and now we're on death row. This doesn't make any sense." He says with a hand wiping his face.

"Wrong; you're on death row. Well not anymore. The organization we're with now has taken care of it. The problem is now we're in debt to them; big time." I say as I pull out a pack containing a white short-sleeve shirt and a pair of jeans.

"Whatever it is, it's got to be better than death." He states and I hand him the clear plastic pack.

"Yeah. Put those on and we'll start making our way out. We're not out of the wood yet." I say and I walk back over to the elevator while he goes back to his cell.

   After about six minutes he comes back out with the other set of clothes on and joins me on the elevator.

"So you've got to tell me; what's this 'organization' like?" He asks as I turn the key and the machine starts back up again.

"It's a group of thieves, intel gatherers, drug farmers and assassins. Well actually 1 gatherer, one farmer, four thieves counting us, and two assassins. Now that you're on board we number to six. The top two do both theft and assassinations." I explain simply as we rise from the chasm.

"Woah, woah, woah. You're serious?"

"Sadly yes. They're actually mostly nice ponies when you get to know them." I say in defense as his jaw just hangs open.

"Well fuck; Dear god Quentin, what have you gotten us into?"

"I know, but the good thing is that if we make them enough money doing this, they'll let us off the hook."

"At least we have that." He determines.

"I have a question though Uefi. Why did you say what you said before?" I ask remembering our last conversation.

"I don't know. I didn't want to say it but some kind of force over took my body. I'm really not sure about it."

"That was probably that princess. She tried to have me executed only a day or two later.  We should be off the hook with her now though. The others are in the process of wiping their memories of you right now."

"Dear god."

"Hey, we're alright now aren't we? We just have to work as thieves for a while. It's not too much different from what you used to do and trust me it's a good bit more fun than I expected." I say with a laugh as I hand him his wristwatch that I got back from Thunderback and his wallet that I refilled with his old amount of bits.

"I can't believe you kept these things." He says as he slips the wallet into his pocket and puts the watch on.

"I can't believe they let you keep that bracelet." I counter, noticing the object on his wrist.

"They didn't think it'd be a problem so they left me with it. What about you though, carrying around blades in that getup?" He says and I pull out the blades with their respective hands.

"Tools of the trade for me, the white one is from a priest of the sun and the black one is from a monk of the moon. Berry stole them for me to use and the getup is something she bought me." I explain before sheathing the blades.

"Berry?" He raises an eyebrow.

"The drunk I met on our first night. Turns out she's one of the top two in the group. She took over your room and moved in. Knowing her though she'll have had another bedroom made for herself." I tell him as the door opens back up the hallway I exited the air duct into.

"Now what?" He asks as we exit the elevator and I take the key and put it back in my pocket.

"We're taking the air ducts out of here." I tell him as I reopen the cover I came out of.

"Really?"

"It works and it keeps us from being seen. Our problem is when we get outside. Follow me." I command him and then crawl up into the shaft.

   Soon after he comes into the vent as well and we begin to make our way back to the roof. After another 15 minutes of crawling through the ducts, climb out onto the roof and stretch with a yawn.

"I'll admit you're a bit better at this than I thought you'd be. What's next?" I hear Uefi say from behind me and it seems that even under these circumstances we both fell back into our usual mannerisms.

"I need you to fly up and go over that wall, but make sure to go at least 10m over it. Go past it another 50m before landing. I'm going to get out of here my own way me and we'll communicate to find each other from there." I tell him as I point in the direction of Cannonrim and he nods as I pull my cowl and face cover back on.

"See ya later then." He says with light apprehension.

"Don't worry; I got into prison and I'll get back out the same way." I joke and he flies upwards with a few beats of his wings. Now to make my way back to that tower.

   After waiting another 10 minutes or so until the positions of the guards and of the lights are in the correct positions. I begin to jump upwards and towards the town as quickly as I can and I try not to think about the fear of falling to the ground. Just as the light begins to move back, I make my last jump onto the cone shaped roof of the tower and I grip as tightly as I can to it to keep from falling.

   After a two minute breather, I begin the climb back down the tower. Five minutes later I touch the sweet ground again and I dash off towards the direction Uefi flew in.

   Twenty minutes of communicating back and forth later and we found each other and made our way back to Cannonrim.

   We enter the in after 11p.m. and the barkeep greets us. After I a detail lacking introduction and renting a room for Uefi we retire to an empty corner of the bar. I spent the next hour telling him in detail about everything I went through.

"Wow."

"So how do you feel about this?" I ask him with slight fear due to my knowledge of how he deals with this stuff.

"I'm scared, I won't lie. However, I was a drug dealer before so I'm used to being on the wrong side of the law you know." He says with a laugh and I join him in it.

"Yeah; well we have a train to catch in the morning so it's time we sleep." I say and we retire to our rooms. However, I get no sleep this night for I keep fearing that somepony will find out what I've done.

/W\M/W\M/W\M/W\M/W\M/W\M/W\M/W\M/W\M/W\M/W\M/W\M/

   After another breakfast of bread, Uefi and I catch the train back to ponyville and, as the trip goes by and the desert turns into the green lands I've come to know, I sigh in relief. The prison break went off without a hitch and Uefi and I are now both free men again, save for our debt.

   But such thoughts are far from me now. My best friend is now going to keep living and if I can pull off a prison break then I can survive as a thief. And who knows; maybe one day I'll be free to find a nice mare have a family and make a life for myself in this world I'm stuck in now. After all, it's my life still and I need to make the best of it.