Twilight, You Have Visitors: A (not very) Helpful Guide

by Brinstar77

Page 3

Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. You’re strapped down by a buncha tentacles in some kind of surgical theater, there’s a half-mechanical, half-anatomical contraption suspended above you that makes most alien abduction movies seem tame, that contraption just amputated your legs, your wings, and your horn, and you need to get the buck outta dodge before it chops off anything else.

Too bad you’ll need legs, wings, and a horn for that, especially considering the fact that you couldn’t squirm your way free of the tentacles holding you in place even when you still had all your limbs. Fortunately, the contraption’s about to fix that for you.

Again, try to relax. Try not to focus on the gleaming, claw-tipped, semi-mechanical prosthetic legs that are being attached at your shoulders to replace the legs that were chopped off, or the wires and cords being painfully threaded through your flesh, or the black, slimy, nanotech gel that's being pumped into your bloodstream. Yeah, yeah, you're being turned into something straight outta a particularly horrific science fiction novel, but don't worry, you'll have an opportunity to escape in a second.

How, exactly? Well, for some reason, this space-faring hyper-advanced civilization still needs manual labor. And for some reason, they need to abduct sapient creatures and surgically alter them into half-alive, cybernetically enhanced mind-controlled slaves to sate that need. Hence why the mechanism above you is currently implanting a quartet of segmented biomechanical arms into the sockets your wings used to occupy.

Thing is, they’re leaving the chip they’ll affix to your brain stem to hijack your body’s nervous system and leave you in an “I have no mouth and yet I must scream”-esque predicament for last. And the magic-suppressing collar that’s still clamped around your neck? It doesn’t suppress the particular brand of magic that piece of metal they’re replacing your amputated horn with channels.

That's the opportunity I was talking about earlier; once that horn's firmly in place and the nanotech goop in your bloodstream wires it into your brain, a short window will open up where you have free reign to use magic, or at least a form of magic. All you need to do is power through the pain, figure out how to use your new horn to cast a quick, easy spell, and…

…okay then. An actual spell, or even a less dramatic display of telekinesis would’ve achieved the same effect while not being quite so strenuous, not consuming almost all of your mana, and not running the risk of compromising the integrity of the room and bringing the roof down on you, but it’s not like I could’ve stopped you from reducing that contraption to a messy, dripping, bronze-colored stain on the ceiling even if I'd wanted to. You do you, Twily.

Just make sure to keep your head about you. Your captors may not have heard the noisy crunch that device made when you squished it flat, but they’ll definitely notice that it’s stopped working at some point, and probably send something undesirable to check it out. You should probably gather up whatever magic you have left, get the tentacles wrapped around you off, and find somewhere to hide before that something shows up.

…what’s the holdup? What’s taking you so… oh.

Oh, Twily, don’t cry! Look on the bright side! Take a moment to appreciate your new lease on life! Sure, you’re now a twisted cyborg freak who makes King Sombra look like friggin' Celestia in comparison, but you’re a twisted cyborg freak who's now free to do whatever you want to do! …just so long as you do it within the confines of this unfathomably huge, inescapable alien torture-plex.