The rising sun peeked through the small opening that was the window to Twilight's cell. As it shifted across the floor it eventually reached the sleeping Alicorn. She had recently returned to normal. As the sun reached her face she stirred.

Her eyes opened and her vision slowly came into focus. She saw a red blur. After her vision focused in, she was able to make it out. It was Rage. He was leaning against the wall. His clothing was torn up and his face was covered in small scrapes. Then, on the ground next to him was Sonic, who was passed out covered in bruises and scrapes.

It took her a minute to process everything but she finally gasped as she realized how injured they looked. The sound made Rage look at her. His emerald eyes portrayed a look of weariness overshadowed by a cautionary feel. "You're awake…" the crimson hedgehog says in a rough sounding voice. "And none the worse for ware huh…"

"Rage…what…what happened?!" Twilight exclaims in shock.

"You don't remember?" Rage asks. "You got out…" he says grimly.

"What…?" Twilight asks in surprise. "I got out?"

"Hmph." Rage grunted and chuckled "I should have figured. You don't remember a thing…" he walked closer to her cell and looked at her. "Late last night you broke out. Attacked multiple guards and Princess Luna. Had she not sent word to me…well…who knows what you could have done."

Twilight's eyes shrank and tears swelled as she heard him. "I did that…?" She asks. "But the whole reason I am in here was to prevent that! How…how did I…" she stopped. She couldn't bring herself to finish the question.

"My guess is whatever barrier Celestia put up deteriorated enough you broke through it." Rage guessed. "It was old and overtime barriers like those weaken."

"And Sonic?" Twilight asks."What happened to him? Why is he here?"

"He was in Ponyville with me. Turns out Luna scaring me out of the blue and getting a spell slung at her tends to wake people up…" Rage chuckled. "So he tagged along…he's fine. Just napping. You put up quite a fight." There was a pause after this. A silence broken only by an echo of dripping water that was from the drainage system under the castle.

"I'm sorry…" she apologizes looking away. "This is my fault…"

"Don't go there Twilight." Sonic says sternly, looking up. "Rage told me what happened. You can't be beating yourself up…in fact you breaking out may have been a blessing in disguise…"

"Sonic…" Rage grumps. "Shush."

"What?" Twilight asks. "…did something happen?"

"No." Rage says sternly looking at Sonic with a frustrated glare.

"Rage…you can't keep denying it forever…" Sonic retorts. "You should tell her…"

"Tell me what? About his whole Mobian thing?" She asks, confused as to Sonic's wording.

Rage sighed and looked away as Sonic frowns. "If you don't I will." Sonic warns him. Rage then looks at him with an angered glare.

"Sonic, you have no right..." Rage growls at him. "It is a family matter. They don't need to know either!"

"Rage the longer you stay mad at him the longer you're going to be miserable!" Sonic shouts.

"I'm not miserable!" Rage barks back as the two butt heads. "You don't even know the whole story!"

"Oh yeah?!" Sonic yells at him as he looks angrily at Rage. "Then why don't you-"

"Enough!" Twilight shouts interrupting them. "The two of you are acting like a pair of fillies!"

"Pair of what?" Sonic asks, he wasn't aware of the term and it confused him to the point his attention completely shifted to her.

Rage looked at her and sighed. "It means we're acting like children..." he says to Sonic as he takes a deep breath and thinks about what had happened...

"This isn't good!" Sonic pants as Rage lands next to him, both were in bad shape. Rain poured from the skies washing blood from their small injuries away.

"Yeah..." Rage pants. "She's tougher than I thought..." he comments as he looks at Midnight Sparkle who was chuckling amused with the two. She was playing with them, and Rage knew it. "But we're treading a fine line here..."

"We could use the Chaos Emeralds..." Sonic suggests. "If anything it can buy us some more time to figure out a way to-"

"Incoming!" Rage shouts as Midnight Sparkle throws a beam of magic at the two. They both leapt to the sides to evade it. Midnight teleported to Sonic who looked in shock as she kicked him upwards. Rage landed and slid in the mud looking up towards the two. "Sonic!" He shouts as Midnight Sparkle appears over the blue hedgehog and strikes him with a beam of magic.

Sonic was sent flying down to the ground with force. He landed and a pit of mud was formed, small chunks went flying as Rage ran over and picked him up. The blue hedgehog let a soft chuckle out. "That hurt..." he says.

"I was expecting more." Midnight Sparkle taunts as she lands once more. "Where's your little trap this time redhead?" she laughs. "Oh that's right! If you can't keep me in between those silly little spikes you can't trap me!"

"Dammit..." Rage cursed he was getting low on reserve energy and he knew using the Chaos Emeralds here was a risky move, one attack that was slightly overcharged could seriously hurt Twilight.

"Time to end this!" She laughs as her horn glows. Another blast of magic, Rage knew he didn't have the time to dodge, he covered Sonic with his own body to take the brunt of the attack. However, right before it hit them a strange wall of a dark red substance defended them.

"Hm?" Midnight looked in surprise.

"Who..." Sonic asks weakly looking at the hedgehog that had protected them. His body was covered in the same, strange dark red material the shield was made of.

"Are you okay?" The hedgehog asks, his voice had a cold, almost demonic echo to it.

"What are you doing here?" Rage asks weakly. He felt his blood boiling seeing Maxim there in front of him. Not only that, but using the power of their Blood Curse at that.

"Doing what any good father should do...what I should have done." Maxim responds...

"It was my father..." Rage sighs crossing his arms and looking away.

"Your...father?" Twilight asks

"Yeah..." Rage says in a resentful tone. "He's the reason things didn't end any worse..."

"I don't get it..." Twilight says "You don't seem happy..."

"They're...not exactly on good terms right now." Sonic sighs as he manages to stand up. "Leaving him and his brothers and running off here or something like that..."

"Excuse me?" Twilight asks and Rage looks at Sonic with a frown.

"That was too much." Rage says sternly but he relented, as much as he wanted to hit him but he knew the cat was out of the bag. "It's a long story...something we can talk about another time...when I feel like I am ready to tell it..."

"Fine...but I fail to see what this whole blessing thing is..." Twilight says.

"We got the last thing we needed." Sonic says with a thumbs up. Twilight's face lit up hearing that and she smiled. Her heart lifted up from the pit it felt like it had been in since she woke up. Finally, this nightmare would be over.

"I just hope it works..." Rage sighs.

"What do you mean hope?" Twilight asks.

"The...well the potion calls for Demon Blood." Rage answers. "...truth is I'm not sure if it means it literally or as in blood tainted with Darkness...since it was common for the terms to be used interchangeably around the time the potion was made..and considering whoever wrote the thing isn't around to tell me...it's a 50/50 shot that using Maxim's will work."

"Maxim?" Twilight asks.

"His father." Sonic says quickly.

"Why...would his...you know what, never mind." Twilight stutters before she just decided she didn't want to know.

"We can talk about that later too." Rage says coldly as he turns and begins walking towards the stairs out of the dungeon. "I'm going to let Celestia know you're okay and then go see Zecora." he says as he begins to ascend the stairs.

Twilight looked at Sonic, hoping he'd be able to tell her some more. The blue hedgehog just shook his head. "Sorry Twilight...I promised Rage not to talk about that one...that's something he can tell you when he's ready." he says

"Right." Twilight sighs. "Why don't you head out too...I want to be alone right now."

"You sure Twilight? "Sonic asks, looking at the purple Alicorn who nodded and turned towards the back wall of her cell. Sonic felt bad, even if he wasn't the closest friend to her it hurt him just because he knew how much his own friend was hurting over this and by extent the rest of her friends. "Alright...see you later." Sonic says before he too left, leaving Twilight alone.