//------------------------------// // The Interrogation // Story: The Winds of Change // by AgentSnail //------------------------------// The Interrogation Jason came to, feeling basically like shit, and probably looked like shit. His head pounded painfully, and he could feel the cracks on his back and leg throbbing and moving slightly around. It was not a feeling he was fond of. His forelegs had a pressure on them towards his hooves. He opened his eyes, and found himself being stared at by the mane six AND Celestia, in a place that could easily be a part of the palace, judging by the tall stone walls and the stained glass. He chuckled and looked at his cracked hoof. It was tied with some rope to a metal ring, and had a line of dried blood where he assumed the crack was. From what he could see out the window, it was almost dawn. He looked back to Celestia. "I must be quite the VIP, all the elements and the Princess, all here to see me. I'm honored." His gaze hardened. "Shaddup you!!" Applejack yelled. She looked like she was going to start yelling again before a stern glance from the Princess silenced her. "Now," the Princess started, "We have brought you here, mercifully, to interrogate you for information. If you give me what I want, you will get a nice cozy jail cell instead of the normal penalty, death. How does that sound?" The Princess was much taller than the other ponies, but was surprisingly unimposing nonetheless. It was kind of an odd trade-off. "Fuck you." Jason spat out. The Princess was slightly taken aback. "Just tell us what we want to know." "I'm not telling you shit." Jason smiled at her. "We have ways of getting you to talk..." This was definitely not the kind, affectionate princess that Jason had expected. It kinda made sense though, a leader can't really be effective without an element of fear over the people. "You sure do make a good Machiavellian leader." He decided to buy time, and try to figure a way out of this mess. He could burn through the rope, and get down from where he was, but it was kind of doubtful that he could possibly fight all of the elements and the princess. Actually, where was Dash? Probably in the hospital room. He hoped she had ended up totally healed, or at least that her wings worked. "What do you mean, changeling?" "I mean you rule by fear, disguised in a layer of 'love' towards your suspects." He tried to make air quotes again. "Good thing none of them ever rebel, because where I came from a leader killed over twenty million of his people to keep order." There was a gasp, which was expected, and a few stares at Celestia. "I do not rule by fear, but by love alone." "I seem to remember that your personal student was afraid that she would be sent to the moon for turning in a late friendship report." "How do you even know that?" Twilight yelled. Celestia ignored her. "Shut your mouth, you are an enemy of the state and have no right to speak unless told to." She paused. "Now, what plan of Crysalis have we foiled by taking you here?" "No plan. I'm not affiliated with the hive." Twilight spoke up. "What do you mean, not part of the hive? Every changeling needs the hive mind to survive. Without it, they almost certainly die or turn into medical vegetables." "Well that's obviously incorrect, because I have never had any contact with the hive, and I never plan to, and last time I checked, I'm not dead, or a medical vegetable. Unless... *gasp* I am a medical vegetable, and this is all a crazy dream devised by my subconscious while I'm in a terminal coma!" "But my book says--" "Your book is fucking wrong!!!" He paused. "Next question." "Are you one of the healer changelings?" Back to Celestia. "Fuck. Obviously." "So how do we know that you aren't actually a part of the hive? You could easily be lying." "Didn't Crysalis' hive just attack here?" She nodded. "I was under the impression that she lost, badly, so why would she send an attack of one changeling? I wasn't even attempting to imitate royalty or anyone close to it, so I couldn't have staged an assassination attempt. Also, if I was an assassin, and part of the hive, wouldn't she just cut me from the hive mind and kill me if I failed, to keep me from ever releasing sensitive information?" He paused. "Could I see a map?" One floated over, showing Equestria with the griffin kingdom to the south, west, and northwest, and several other kingdoms to the north and east. "So, changeling lands are here," he pointed, "in the griffin kingdom to the west?" "That's what we think, yes," Jason started laughing. "You people are idiots militarily. Just totally and completely retarded." "What do you mean, changeling?" She growled. "Why would I tell you? That would be too easy. Just figure it out." "I swear, I will kill you right here if you don't speak." "I dunno, if you killed me, you would never get the information, now would you? It's not like I really have any reason to tell you anything." "Let me just remind you who's in charge here." "Oh, yeah, you have all the bargaining chips." "Why did you heal Rainbow Dash? When the doctors checked her over, they found her injuries had disappeared." "Who?" Celestia face hoofed. Never had she had to deal with such an annoying prisoner. Of course, most prisoners were afraid of her, or at least afraid of death, unless this guy was just really good at bluffing. "Rainbow Dash. Blue pegasus, rainbow mane..." "Never heard of her." "You know perfectly well who I'm talking about, why did you heal her?" "The better question is, why didn't I heal this mystery pegasus?" He tried to make a confused look on his face. Celestia turned to look at Jason's cracked arm. "Hows the arm?" "Oh it's great, I---AAAAAAAAAGHHHHH!!!" Celestia had pulled the two sides of the crack slightly apart from each other with her magic. Jason smiled at her, attempting to piss her off even more. "Resorting to corporal punishment, I see. You'll still never get any fucking information." "Oh, I will, I assure you. I will." She cast a spell at Jason, who flinched backwards, but was hit with it anyway. The same pain feeling ripped through his arm. He yelled again, swearing some more. Celestia smiled. It was definitely kinda creepy. "See, no more physical punishment, your brain already knows what that feels like, I just have to tell it to remember that feeling. "Oh, I see--AAAGHH." The more Jason told himself that the pain wasn't real, the more he felt it hurt. It was like an unfightable nightmare monster, one that just got stronger the more you tried to kill it. He wasn't going to talk, though, even if he had to die, although he was unsure whether or not that was possible from imagined pain. Talking would result in the probable association of Dash into his 'crimes,' and even if there was less of a penalty than death, he wasn't going to ruin her life with possible jail time or worse. After all, it was mostly his fault she was in this mess, he didn't want to have healed her wings just for her to be stuck in jail. "So how's the tourist industry around here?" Another jolt of pain. "Dammit." He looked at his arm. Every single time she used that spell, he felt like the chitin on his arm was going to pop off. It felt a lot like someone getting their tooth pulled when there was nothing wrong with it, and having it at the brink of being pulled out. "Is that the best you got? I could do this all day." He sneered. Celestia turned to Twilight, who didn't seem particularly afflicted, although the rest of the mane six seemed pretty queasy, and it looked like Fluttershy had left. Shocker. "So am I just hanging around here until I actually talk or what?" "Have you changed your mind?" "Umm, well, about that, how do I put this, no." The pain again. It still hurt, but you could only get so far with repetition in torture. He didn't know what was supposed to pass for torture around here, but this was pathetic. Something hit him hard in the cheek. That was new. "Was that a rock? Where did you even get a rock?" he could feel some blood flowing down his cheek. "And that just healed too." he tried to throw up his arms. "Come on!" He chuckled. Celestia looked enraged. "So what crimes am I accused of, exactly, Celly?" She growled. "Manipulation of ponies, theft of love and replacement of loved ones and therefore abduction of ponies, and theft of government property." "Is that it?" She seemed taken aback yet again. Apparently he was saying all the things that no one expected him to say, not like it was all that hard. "The penalty for all of those are only fines or jail time, except for the abduction and murder of ponies, which are both death penalties when one is not a citizen of Equestria." "So are we done here?" "You still have sensitive information that I need, if I remember correctly." "Oh yeah, the stuff that I'm not telling you about. Funny, those things I know, that you don't know. Those are the best things, really." He was getting bored. This was going nowhere, and yet she still tried. Clearly, he shouldn't have mentioned that military stuff, that's when they decided that they actually needed information from him. Like it wasn't obvious. "Have you ever tried to torture someone before? Be honest." She didn't answer. "Big surprise, because this is some of the most uneventful torture, if you can even call it torture, that I've ever seen. And you expect me to talk." He jerked his arm as another bolt of pain ripped through it. 'God dammit it's getting worse, and I'm running out of ideas to buy time, and I still don't have a plan.' "Quiet, you." He looked around, still generally bored, trying not to think about the dull pain still present in his fore hoof, still attempting to come up with a usable plan, which at this point, looked like a pipe dream. He noticed a large dot outside the window. Or maybe it was on the window. The dot grew, so it must have been outside, or maybe some sort of incredibly fast growing bacterial colony. The dot took on a pony like shape, and continued to grow, until... CRASH!!! The room filled with broken glass from the window, causing the princess and the remaining mane six to try to turn their heads towards the source of the offending noise and falling objects. Some broken glass passed in front of Jason's face, giving him a nice view of the cuts on his face as it passed. The scar from before had broken open and grown to form a longer and more painful crack than before. Jason closed his eyes, and got ready to burn the ropes off in the distraction that the broken window had caused. BANG!!!!