//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: My Mind In Equestria // by Dyon //------------------------------// Groggily, I began to come back to the world of the living, though my head was aching terribly. My head wasn’t the only thing that hurt however; my arms and legs were also aching with every pulse that my heart sent through them. I wished that I could just go back to sleep, and deal with my weariness when the sun was up. I lay there trying to push myself back into the bliss that sleep offered, but the constant ache in my arms stopped me. I didn’t feel tired enough to think that simply lying still would eventually lead to me passing out so I decided to bring myself all the way to consciousness. Ascending from the sweet depths of oblivion I noticed that I couldn’t feel my hands. It was odd to say the least to both feel an incredible numbness, where I assumed my wiggling fingers were, and an aching pain racing through my arm. I shifted my focus to my legs and found that my toes had also gone numb. While I concentrated on my legs I also noticed that something was off, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was wrong. I opened my eyes so that I could truly wake up, and maybe find out why my body felt so strange, but everything in front of me was perfect black. The incredible awkwardness of the situation crashed down on me as my mind finally started to run at a hundred percent. Something was on my face stopping me from being able to see. I panicked and tried to bring my hand to my face to see what was there, but as much as I tried, my arm wouldn’t move from where it was. It felt like something was holding onto my elbow and restraining my movement, but with how much pain my arm was in I couldn’t be sure. I tried to roll back off my side in an effort to free myself of whatever was holding onto me, but found that my other arm was similarly bound. Now I was really starting to freak out. I kicked my legs in an attempt to gain some sort of purchase, or at least I tried. Whatever was holding down my arms was also snugly fastened around my legs. I tried repeatedly to pull myself free of whatever restraints had been placed on me during my sleep, but nothing I did worked. No amount of force would even cause my arms or legs to budge, and eventually I was too tired to continue. I found that my neck was also securely fastened to whatever soft mattress that I was lying on, and as I lay there panting, something caught my attention. It was faint, but I was able to make out voices coming from what sounded like another room. I strained my ears harder than I thought humanly possible in hopes of picking up some of the conversation going on in the other room. “Do you think that she will wake up,” someone who sounded like a pre-teen boy asked. “There isn’t anything actually wrong with her so I would say that it is likely. I am just worried about what sort of state she will be in if she does wake up. I wish we didn’t have to tie her up,” the second voice responded. I was really not liking where this was going. “Ah don’t think we should take any chances here. You saw what happened in town,” a third distinctly southern voice added. “I know, you’re right. We can’t take any chances here since we don’t really know what is going on,” the second voice admitted. “How is Rainbow doing?” “Ah shucks. That girl’s been through much worse than a spill into a wagon. She will be fine.” “Thank Celestia. Do you think it was okay to send her flying off to round everypony up though?” the second voice asked hesitantly. “Ah reckon she knows her limits better than us. If she needs to take a break she will.” As exciting as the conversation was, I had regained enough strength to continue to struggle against my restraints in vain. I had no idea who was holding me captive, but they had tied me down for some reason, and I wasn’t very keen on finding out what exactly that reason was. I was lying on my right side so I eventually just put all of my effort into freeing my left arm. From there I would probably be able to get the rest of my bindings off, and get the hell out of there. I felt my shoulder start to burn as I pulled against whatever was wrapped tightly around my arm. I felt it start to cut into the flesh of my arm, but I couldn’t care about that at the moment, and continued to pull. After several strained seconds I heard a soft snapping sound, and my arm came free. I had to catch myself from uttering a scream of joy. My lips stayed sealed, and I moved my arm around to try and free my other limbs. It was then that I realized that I still couldn’t feel any of my fingers, and therefore wouldn’t really be able to do anything unless I could actually see what I was doing. I lifted my numb stump of a hand to my face, and tried to wipe away whatever I felt wrapped over my eyes. In my blind stumbling I managed to punch myself write in the eye, and unfortunately for me, let out an involuntary curse. “Fuck!” “huh?” I heard the boy ask from not too far away. He gasped, and I heard the sound of him running off to some other room, most likely to tell the others that I wasn’t asleep, and was trying to escape. My panic started to whirl up again as I tried desperately to free myself. I pushed my limp hand against the binding on my other arm as hard as I could, but I was unable to slip it the same way that I had the other. The sound of footsteps ascending stairs reached my ears, and I picked up the pace. Unfortunately, all of my effort was for not when I heard several pairs of feet enter the room, and then felt someone leap on me, restraining my only free leg. “Get mah rope, Twi. We gotta get her tied back down.” I tried to kick out at the woman that was wrestling me back down, but my one free arm was woefully outmatched. “Applejack, I don’t think that is the answer here. You are scaring her,” The second voice from earlier replied. “Get off” I screamed, still struggling. Hearing my voice seemed to stun my opponent, and she momentarily froze, allowing me to pull free my arm long enough to punch her as hard as I could. I think I hit her square in the jaw. She fell off of me for a second, and I think I heard the other woman rush over to her. I put my arm back to the task of freeing myself, and felt the restraint on my right arm start to come loose. I smiled as the binding continued to loosen, but was stopped once again as someone grabbed my left arm, and pulled it away. “Y’all are gonna pay for that one.” she didn’t sound like she appreciated my little love tap too much. We continued to struggle against each other for a while before the other woman finally had enough, and decided to get involved. “Enough!” she yelled, startling the other woman once again, and allowing me to get another hit in. I smiled as I felt my fist connect with her face again. If I was going to be tied up in some unknown place against my will, then inflicting a small amount of pain on my captors was enough to bring me a small amount of joy. It’s the little things in life. “Stop that,” the second voice continued, “Applejack, get off her.” The woman that was on me didn’t feel like complying, and we continued to struggle against each other. Suddenly I felt her lift off of me, though I continued to hear her struggle. “Consarnit, Twi put me down,” she said to the second voice. “Applejack, I don’t think that wrestling with her is a very productive thing to do here.” I figured that they were going to continue their bickering, so I went back to freeing my other arm. I was extremely unhappy when I felt something pull my arm away. “And you need to calm down.” I assume that she was addressing me, but that didn’t stop me from trying to wriggle my other arm away from my restraint. The same thing that was holding my left arm in the air clamped down on my right, completely immobilizing it. I continued to struggle futilely; at that point I think I was just doing it so that I didn’t break down completely. “Stop struggling and calm down. You aren’t going to go anywhere until you have calmed down.” “Screw you! I am not going to wait around here in your rape dungeon!” I screamed back at her as I tried to pull against whatever was holding me in place. “My what?” she balked. I think I also heard the kid from earlier snickering at the entrance to the room. “Nothing bad is going to happen to you if you just stop struggling for a second.” I knew that she was lying. She had to be lying right? If nothing bad was going to happen to me then why was I tied up and blindfolded in the first place? None of this made any sense so I ignored her and kept tugging again my restraints. “Fine! We’ll do this your way.” Something struck me in the head, but it was unlike anything I had felt before. It wasn’t so much as something actual hit me in the head, but more as if something hit my brain itself. I would have said that I started to see the lights fade, but since I was blindfolded I couldn’t tell one darkness from another. I did however, begin to feel very tired, and I couldn’t bring myself to struggle as hard as I had before. Eventually I couldn’t bring myself to move at all. I began to feel the sleep that I had so desperately wanted earlier start to take a hold of me. I tried to fight against it, and stay conscious, but it was no use. Slowly but surely, my mind started to shut down, and give itself over. The last thing that I heard before I passed out was the southern woman asking the other something about overdoing it. ____________________________________________________________________________ Twilight slammed the door behind her as she left the room. Spike hurriedly moved out of her way as she stormed to the stairs and began to descend. Applejack and Spike shared a worried glance before following the flustered unicorn down into the main library. Halfway down the stairs Twilight heard the sound of the front door opening. She was about to tell whoever had come that the library was closed for today, but sighed in relief when she saw that it was her friends. Rainbow Dash ushered the other three mares into the room before closing the entrance to the library behind her. “Oh girls, I am so glad that you came,” Twilight said as she made her way over to her friends. She heard Spike and Applejack reach the bottom of the stairs behind her. “Of course we came, darling. Rainbow Dash said there was something extremely important going on so we dropped everything and rushed right over,” Rarity replied. “Yea! Dashie said that you had a new special friend in the library, and of course I wanted to meet them right away,” Pinkie Pie added as she bounced in front of Twilight. “Well I don’t know about that. She isn’t awake right now.” Twilight looked back to Applejack for some form of support, but the farm mare didn’t have anything to add. “Oh well why don’t we just wake her up then?” Pinkie Pie asked innocently. “She was just awake, but she started freaking out so I had to put her to sleep with a spell,” Twilight admitted. “You used magic on her?” Rarity exclaimed, causing Twilight to flinch. “There was really no other option. She kept hitting Applejack, and refused to calm down, even when I asked her too repeatedly,” Twilight defended. “…oh my,” Fluttershy said from where she was sitting against the wall. “Woah she beat you up, AJ?” Rainbow Dash flew over to inspect her orange friend. “Wow, it looks like you are going to have a nice shiner.” “Psh, she didn’t beat me up. All she did was get a good hit off or two. Girl has an awful powerful left hook,” AJ admitted, as she pulled her hat over her damaged eye. “Well I hope you got a good shot in for me,” Rainbow replied as she landed. “Naw, I didn’t hit her none. She was just scrambling around and tryin to get outta the ropes so I jumped in to stop her. That’s when she whacked me in the face… twice” “Ropes?” Rarity inquired. “Oh dear, are you keeping some poor pony tied up, Twilight?” “I don’t even know what she is. One minute she is this creature that is wrecking Ponyville and everything she sees and the next she is a normal looking unicorn. I really just don’t know what to do about this situation.” Twilight sank to the floor and rubbed her temple. “So are you saying that this mystery mare is the one that caused all of the destruction downtown?” Rarity walked over and took a seat beside Twilight. “Yes. When I finally managed to stop her she suddenly turned into a pony. Ugh, just thinking about it makes my head hurt.” “Maybe we should tell the princess about this,” Fluttershy added. “I thought about that, but at the moment I think that we have things under control here. I don’t want to worry her until I know that she needs to know.” “Well then lets go say hello to our new friend.” Pinkie Pie seemed to never lose the bounce in her step. “Like I said earlier, she will be out for a while.” As if to prove Twilight wrong a somepony started yelling upstairs. “Somebody help me I have been kidnapped by crazy people!” “Oh my, it seems that she is awake then,” Without waiting for anypony else’s input, Rarity walked to the stairs and began to climb to the second story. Not wasting anytime, Pinkie Pie bounced right after her friend. “Wait for me, Rarity,” The party pony said as she also made her way up the stairs. “Now just y’all wait a second.” Applejack raced off after her two eager friends. Sighing, Twilight looked back at Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash before she also left to join her friends upstairs. The two pegasi followed quickly behind the librarian, uncertain about what to expect when they reached the top of the stairs. The mysterious mare was being held in one of the many backrooms that the library had on the second level. The door that led into the room was locked, and Rarity stood patiently as she waited for Twilight to open it. Twilight however, was refusing to even contemplate letting all of her friends inside with the obviously unstable mare. “Come on, Twilight,” Pinkie whined. “You can't just keep a new friend all to yourself. I want to meet her too.” “I just don’t think that it is a good idea,” Twilight replied, she was getting pretty tired of explaining herself at this point. “But how can I plan a welcome party for somepony if I’ve never seen them before. I wouldn’t know when they arrived and the surprise would be ruined.” Pinkie Pie’s logic was as always, infallible. “She is not in a state to be meeting a lot of ponies. When she calms down some then I will be glad to let everypony meet her, but until then I just don’t think that it’s a good idea.” “Honestly Twilight, I thought you would have a better view of the situation than that,” Rarity said. “What do you mean?” Twilight asked as she turned to her friend. “How would you expect anypony to remain calm if they are tied to a bed and blindfolded against their will. If you won't let anypony see her until then, then we will be waiting forever before you let us inside.” Twilight had to admit that she had a point. In the same situation as the mare that lied just on the other side of the door, Twilight believed that she would be doing anything possible to escape. Maybe she needed to make the first move for the situation to progress peacefully. “Fine,” Twilight finally conceded with a heavy sigh, “but if anything happens then I’m getting everypony out of there immediately.” She looked at each of her friends in turn and they all gave an understanding nod. “Okay then,” Twilight’s magic encompassed the door knob and it began to turn, “here we go.”