Prevention or Cure

To Scythe: 'Excellent, if you could deal with those pesky guards, I would very much a appreciate it.' Sophie broadcasts back, adding 'I will, of course, reward you for your services.'

To Honed Edge: 'Those terms should be agreeable, as I would also prefer the safety of neutral parties. My goals are to recover Sin Ester, and my name is Sophie Witherweird. In exchange for your services, I will attempt to do my best to provide for you in any way I can. Have we an accord?'

To Quad: 'I find your terms on contact perfectly acceptable. If you will assist me in recovering Sin Ester, I will reward you greatly. As far as information goes, I have access to the thoughts and memories of dead both recent and distant passed. I would be greatly interested in any information that could not be gleaned from these exalted beings, and I look forward with eagerness to future interactions.'

Sophie sighs, having a headache begin to build after managing four vastly different minds at once. Perhaps she would brew up some herbal remedies after this. Of course, the key word would be ‘after’.
Sophie steps through the portals letting Zen them behind her. "Such a gent." She appears on the roof, using her spirits to get a full view of the area.
'Zen, will this explosive of yours damage the dimension lock on the Courthouse? T'would make this whole affair much easier.' She looks down at the pony causing all this mess, Diamond. 'Oh, dig thy grave deeper fool. I have such plans for you that your screams shall keep me warm on the coldest nights.' She begins preparing a battery of spells. After all, just because the courthouse was dimension locked didn't mean she couldn't take some potshots once the Rune went off.

Edge gave a slow nod, and realized the nod may not have been transferred, so she spoke aloud.  "I believe we do, but first, I need to know what is happening, as my eyes were taken from me.  The sounds of panic have been made quieter, is there a way out from the shield?"  The sound of crackling intensified, and Edge flattened her ears, as despite her lacking runic knowledge, crackling was a near-universal sign of magical power.  "And, Sophie, I have no intention of being rude, but the more rapidly I can escape here, the less damaged I will be on this quest, and I am already in need of a splint."

As Cynthia stepped into the Court, she would be immediately confronted with the sight of Princess Celestia herself, talking to the unicorn who had earlier stuck his head out the door. Standing behind her, in very neat rows, were several ranks of Royal Guards. Four ponies - or at least they were probably ponies, given that they were garbed completely from head to hoof in white hooded cloaks, an image of the sun emblazoned on both sides and the chest, that obscured their entire bodies - flanked Celestia.

"I will go out there." Celestia said firmly to the unicorn.

"I must protest, Princess." The unicorn answered. "It's far too dangerous. We need to assess the situation and ascertain that the-"

"My ponies are in danger." She said curtly.

"But you aren't. Not yet." He insisted. "For all you know, this could be an assassination attempt for you, Princess. You cannot go out there." At that point, he noticed Cynthia's presence, and turned to her. "What's happening out there?"

Cynthia trotted up to the small group, brushing her mane to one side, it having been disturbed by her rather excessive entrance. She ignored the unicorn's question entirely, sliding past him and moving to Princess Celestia's side with a self-assured grace. She bowed to Celestia quickly, before standing up and smiling. "Your Majesty, may I say that you are particularly graceful today," she murred, her eyes sliding over her plot, up her graceful back and neck, and to her eyes. "I bear rather... interesting news. Firstly, someone has made a rather large rune-bomb in the sky, and some idiot vigilante is trying to defuse it. Further, this vigilante has teleported all ponies outside the blast range, and I really don't like him. Besides my personal distaste however, his actions may accelerate the bomb. Perhaps you could come outside and deal with it?"

She leaned up, her muzzle against Celestia's ear. "Also, who are the doofuses in robes?" She whispered, her breath tickling Celestia's ear.

Midnight didn't like her orders from Cythia, to take her guards and ditch, but what choice did she really have? Refusing a direct order Could lead to possible consequences, and she nodded at Cythia's orders, before marching to her troops and calling them over.

"You heard the lady, head into the portal and hope it leads you to the park. You have under full authority of the guard, along with the blessing of Princess Celestia to arrest them. You have the authority to use force if needed, now get moving! I don't have time to babysit you all!" She ordered, and her troops moved into, and teleported out of the area, leaving Midnight alone.

She knew that she needed to move with them, her orders said so, but even then...She had a feeling this was all for Sin Ester, and her fleeing the scene with her troops wasn't going to help her or her mission. After all, her orders were to protect the hall and ensure Sin Ester wasn't freed. Midnight looked around, flaring her wings out and flying into a small ledge on the building, taking cover and observing. She was officially disobeying direct orders, but hoped that in the end of the day, it would be worth it.

Observing the courtyard, she attempted her best to remain hidden from anyone, which was a small group now, seemingly standing around and chatting. Midnight couldn't hear their conversation, and was fearing that they might spot her positioning, but didn't move. She needed to hope they didn't spot her, or else she would be in a lot of trouble, given what has happened before. But she did have a window behind her, so if she felt in danger, she'd just leap backwards.

Diamond was taken aback at the rune's reaction. He didn't expect it to be so unstable. Diamond took another second to write two more greater protection runes on himself, making it eight total. He then focused on the rune. Using Zen's signature he began to identify what the rune in the sky actually was, and fine tuned his magic, searching for any and all instances of Zen's magic in the area. This process took a matter of seconds.

---

 Before the knight could escape, a portal opened under him, causing him to fall into a pocket dimension. He saw a spear fly towards the open portal, but it closed, trapping both him and the spear in the pocket dimension. "Oh what the fuck!?" He floated there, in what seemed to be an infinite space. "Hey who the fuck are you? Why did you put me here? Hello?" His coat was white and his mane was blue, most likely an enchantment from the armor. His cutie mark depicted a black snake consuming it's own tail.

Azrael, having been a bit delayed by circumstances completely beyond his control, trotted into the courtroom with a guard on either side, weapons drawn at him. He didn't seem overly concerned by that fact, though he did have his hood on as he entered the room, and kept it quite discreetly over his face. The Sun Princess, although unlikely to be too disgusted by his appearance given her long, long history and the various instances of rather nasty things that had come about, there was no need to disturb her by making her look at him if she didn't want or need to. He didn't waste much time speaking up once he'd managed to overhear the topic of today's conversation. And like any good gentlestallion, he simply had to interject.
"Sorry to interrupt this lovely moment, but I'd give you about ten minutes before the big distraction in the sky goes off. Someone poked it in the wrong spot and destabilized an already unstable rune, which I'm sure you know at least a bit about by now. Nobody out there knows how to stop it and it's big enough to endanger everyone who's still here if it actually is a bomb. Oh, and that includes everyone in this building, of course, Your Highness. Considering how absolutely showy our little villáin is being, either they want to see what you'll do, or they want to have a little jailbreak party before the jailing bit. But it doesn't matter much there, because ultimately there is still what is most likely a very actual bomb up above us and it's going to go off very, very soon. So could someone please tell me that someone here has the magical expertise to make it not go off in our faces? Preferably while still keeping Sin Ester under a decent guard? Please?"

Zen didn't waste much time in the pocket dimension before he opened a small portal to peek through in the space he'd hollowed out under the courthouse before. There the considerably smaller explosive rune he'd placed earlier was just about ready to explode, going off in the next few seconds. In the time, he opened another portal with a quick stab of his scythe quite a ways away from the courthouse.

Almost as soon as the explosion went off, Zen widened the portal and dove through it swinging his scythe about to cut the rest of the way through the weakened flooring before, closing the portal just before he passed into the dimensional lock zone. Now in the basement, Zen wasted little time in flying over to the door and for the moment hiding around the edge and near the roof, ready to fly out the moment the door was opened when someone hopefully went to inspect the noise from the smaller explosion. While there he cringed as he felt the aura of the dimension lock, and the way it suppressed his ability, but it was short lived as his head started to bob to the music he could now hear. A grin breaking out across his face.

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WHILE that was going on, Diamond went to poke the rune again with the disguised magic, though as he would very quickly find out, this rune wasn't designated to be accepting of even Zen's magical signature. As such, the minute Diamond poked it, the lines once more doubled in brightness and volatile appearance, their crackling now fully audible even to those who were likely in the courthouse.

Quickly a bright glow began joining the lines as the rune began to detonate, and this glow continued until the a portion of the sky was filled with blinding light. Then suddenly the light disappeared and was replaced with a rapidly expanding ring of little flares of light in a multitude of colors that darkened the sky as they expanded outward. This created an almost black disk backdrop in the sky. The noiseless explosion was soon joined by others and soon the sky was being almost relentlessly filled with a multitude of soundless fireworks like explosions. Their crazy patterns and dazzling designs creating a beautiful display that brought amazing color against the black magically created backdrop in the sky.

Music began to flood into the city on cue as the vibrant display started. While not excessively loud in any particular area, it seemed to almost magically flood the area as a couple of ponies well away from everything that was going on, but able to see it thanks to some very helpful binoculars. While the thestral Sonata played her violin, Resonance worked his special magic to practically flood the city with the song so that it was audible to everyone in the city and for a decent area around it.

Celestia stood there, staring at Cynthia in silence, her eyebrows raised, though the frown on her face did lessen slightly. Once Cynthia reached the part about the bomb, Celestia's jaw dropped. She turned to one of the cloaked ponies beside her and said, "I'll take care of the rune. I'm trusting you to bring in the vigilante. Unharmed."

"And what of the Guard, Princess?" The unicorn beside her enquired, not showing any signs of displeasure despite being summarily ignored by Cynthia.

"Stay in here. For now, obey his orders. And protect Sin Ester." She pointed at one of the other cloaked ponies. "For all intents and purposes, he is now your superior."

For a brief moment, a look of irritation flashed across Ician's face. But it passed quickly, and he saluted. "Yes, Princess."

"Good." She moved to take off, until Azrael entered and gave his own opinion. Celestia sighed. "I'll take care of it."

"What about you, Princess? Will you be safe?" Ician asked.

"I'll take care of it, I said. I am strong enough to forgo an escort." With that, Celestia spread her wings and took off, speeding through the double doors of the Court. Two of the cloaked ponies followed closely behind, similarly galloping off through the doors, while the other two remained by Ician's side.

Ician looked at Cynthia and Azrael with an apologetic gaze. "I'm sorry it's come to this. Quite frankly, I didn't believe that magic of this magnitude is impossible for anypony save a Tirek-level entity. We simply didn't anticipate it - and for that reason I must apologise." He gestured to a back door. "The prison is the safest place to be, at this point. It's built like a bunker." He gestured to the Guards, who saluted and began to move off to the back door themselves. "Come, let's go. I don't want you two to be harmed... any more than you may already have been."

It was at that point that the small explosion sounded from somewhere around the back door, and Ician raised his eyebrows. "On the other hoof, we might have something going on there too."

---

Anypony outside the Court at this point in time would see a streak of white in the sky as Celestia emerged from the doors, flying towards the rune in the sky just a moment before the explosion of fireworks appeared in the sky. Celestia stared at it, dumbfounded, before a look of dawning comprehension appeared on her face and she turned away.

In the meantime, two fully cloaked ponies, with a Solar insignia emblazoned on their sides, appeared out of the doors. Both disappeared in a flash and reappeared beside Diamond, drawing out two rod-like structures, almost like the hilt of a sword, and directed it at Diamond, whereupon two thin strings with ends weighted with spikes emerged from the tips like an arrow fired from a bow, speeding towards Diamond.

---

The moment Zen emerged into the basement, he would notice - first and foremost - that he had entered a prison, with jail cells lining the walls on either side. The next thing he would notice is that he was surrounded by about thirty Royal Guards, all pointing their spears in his direction. It seemed unlikely that he'd be able to move anywhere except back down, unless he managed to knock the guards back somehow.

Diamond quickly put away his quiver keeping only Arondight in its sheath, then summoning his blades, Logos and Pathos. Logos was a straightsword, like that of an Equestrian Royal Guard sword, but the blade had a silvery sheen, and had strange lettering running down the blade. Meanwhile, Pathos was a curved blade, black in coloration, with a changeling aesthetic, a few dips in the cutting edge. He put away his bow in the pocket dimension, then was about to jump to deactivate the rune when he saw Celestia fly by, and then the rune went off, doing absolutely nothing but fireworks.

The blades hovered around Diamond as he was dumbstruck by the distraction. He moved and put his rune book away. Crap, I need to tell the guards in the court house. No, they probably have this. I guess it's time to he- He was interrupted by the sudden appearance of two ponies, both wearing cloaks with the Solar insignia. "Well hello there, here to escort me to the trial to testify against Sin Ester?" Hearing no response, he saw them draw rods, and then fire at him. Logos and Pathos moved to deflect the shots while Arondight's enchantment allowed Diamond to flash-step away. "That was rude. At least introduce yourselves. I'm assuming you're all based off of one of my former 'partners', Ician?"

Sophie sighs. They were fireworks. Just. Fireworks. That idiot had warped her up here for nothing more than fireworks! 'Zen......" she growls out mentally.

One of her spirits informs her the silk caped bastard, Diamond as one of the local haunts informs her, is outside a dimension lock zone and currently being attacked. "'Excellent. Go, Thundeirlavyn. Kill that bastard.'"

The spirit nearby dives under the floor, and comes up right under Diamond's feet. It's attack wouldn't truly injure him, just scramble his senses for long enough to allow those strange Solar Inquisitor looking folks to get him. 'It may be time to change teams.' Sophie thinks to herself outside of the telepathic network.

---

((OOC: Not an auto-hit, but still very hard to dodge.))

"Well... don't think you all will buy the whole 'wrong turn at Albuquerque' joke, would ya?" Zen asked as he looked down to the startling number of spears pointed at him. Without letting time for the guards to respond, Zen planted his scythe in the roof before he threw his hooves into his coat. They quickly withdrew a slip of paper from the depths of the red fabric that was held beneath him before the glowing line work sprung to life as the rune activated. An almost invisible barrier sprung into existance as the barrier was created, an invisible wall that was now being stood upon by Zen, and being supported by the guard's spears.

Then in the next instant, Zen stood up the rest of the way, placing one hoof on the rune to make sure it was still being active, as he threw his hooves back into his coat to draw out two more slips of paper. Holding them out to his sides, Zen activated both of these runes as well, creating two more vertical barriers to create supports for the first horizontal wall to make sure the guards didn't squish Zen against the roof, or tip the barrier to try and get around it. Zen then hesitated for a moment, to make sure it was stable before cautiously moving forward to investigate the room. "Well, with this many guards, I think I'll assume Sin's somewhere down here. Don't mind if I take a look around do we?" Zen asked the guards pinned beneath the wall rune Zen was standing on. "Good," and with that, Zen began to quickly move about the area, searching for the elusive pony he was searching for.

Cynthia growled and slipped out of the room, returning with a knife in her mouth. "I am going to have someone's head for this." She mumbled into the dagger. Without waiting, she bucked the prison door open. Storming down the stairs, she would glance behind her to see if Ician was following her before continuing into the prison proper. There was only so much a mare could take before she snapped, and Cynthia had reached hers. 

Rounding a corner, she stared at the guards trapped, and then at Zen. Spitting the dagger into her hoof, she growled quietly and spun it slowly. "So... You made the explosion in here? Are you responsible for the one out there as well?" She asked quietly.

Midnight hadn't moved from her perch, hiding on the outside of the building watching. Specifically, the sky. She waited for the explosion to come, for fire to reign from the fall, for the whole area to explode. Somepony was going through extraordinary lengths to get this done, and they'd do anything in order to achieve their goals. What she couldn't believe, was the fireworks she was watching. Was that it? Fireworks?

For a second, Midnight felt a flush of relief that the danger had passed, before horror gripped her. This was all a distraction. They didn't plan to burn down the building to get Sin, they were using stealth. And she'd let them make a fool out of her. Fool me once, Shame on me. Fool me twice, and i'm a complete idiot!

She opened the window behind her, and using her wings, controlled her decent inside the building. She knew where she was headed, the prison door. And thankfully, the door had been opened..Wait, the door was already open?! That meant, they were one step ahead of her once again. She hated this, always being on the backfoot, 1 step too slow. Landing at the door, Midnight galloped down, she wouldn't let herself be fooled again, not this time. This time she'd catch whoever was running rings around her. Her job told her to protect, but this time she felt it was personal, whoever did this had made a mockery of her, and she wasn't happy.

Eventually, she turned a corner, and let out a small sigh of relief as she spotted a familiar pony, Cynthia, was down here. That was, until she noticed another pony and guards that were trapped. She reached onto her belt, pulling her own weapon, a long blade, from it.

"I hope I'm not too late" She said, catching a small glance as Cynthia as if to say I know you told me to leave, but i'm here now so bite me if you don't like it before returning her gaze onto Zen. What was his plan, and why was he doing it?