//------------------------------//
// Chapter 84: Imprisioned 
// Story: Pandemic: Starting Over 
// by Halira 
//------------------------------//

Tonya's temple, I was ending up here a lot as of late.

There were some distinct differences this time around. Namely, both Tonya and Yinyu were both in their pony forms. Yinyu was cradling Qīng Yǔ in her wings, whispering things to the young filly. Tonya was sitting a short distance away, giving me a sad look. Immediately in front of me was a third Dreamwarden in their pony form, Ghadab. 

He snorted at me. "I am not sure how long you will be unconscious. I need you to permit me to tell the police and FBI everything you remember about the place you went to right before you lost consciousness."

That seemed foggy, but him asking me for that permission could only mean one thing. I had been kidnapped. "How did I lose consciousness? I can't remember. I'm not sure if I can recall anything. I was chasing Fain—" I looked over at Qīng Yǔ and Yinyu. "Is she okay?"

Yinyu gave me a flat look. "My granddaughter is not able to permit her details."

Stupid rules. It hit me that Yinyu was bending a rule. If Qīng Yǔ was in the dream realm at this second, that at least confirmed she was alive if unconscious. That was a slight relief. 

"Hurry up! I need that permission, or I can't help you," Ghadab pressed. 

"Give our brother the permission, Sunset," Tonya firmly ordered. "He wants to help, but he can't break a rule to do it. Don't worry about trying to remember things right now. He can dig through your memories better than you can. The longer you delay, the more chance you have to wake up. Delaying also risks losing details in what was already a fractured memory."

"You… have permission," I told the Warden of Anger. He nodded and then walked away. 

I barely thought to ask what he found before Tonya came up to me and slapped me across the face with a wing. "What were you thinking?!"

"She was thinking she was going to save my granddaughter," Yinyu growled. "Lay off her! I am trying to forgive your wife for taking her eyes off of her and allowing this to happen at all, and the one thing I have no complaint with is her charging after the foalnapper."

Tonya started to pace. "Let's keep our arguing out of sight, shall we?"

"Agreed," Yinyu said with a nod and refocused her attention on her granddaughter. 

Phobia suddenly appeared and raced over to me, embracing me before I even had a chance to react to her presence. Was she crying? It was rare to see my daughter so emotional. 

"Arbiter and I are going to do everything we can to get you out," Phobia said as she let me go and gathered herself. "We are gathering allies to help in the hunt for you."

Tonya glared at Phobia as she spoke to me. "Yes, I was already working before this to try to gather help to try to find the Blessingists, but it took you getting captured for Phobia to decide to assist."

"You just suggested we agree to keep our arguments out of sight, little sister," Yinyu reminded quietly. "Let's not fight about this in front of your wife."

Tonya stormed away. I was more than a little hurt by her behavior. If there was one thing that I had been sure of with her, it was that she still loved me.

"Forgive Arbiter," Phobia said gently. "We are all under a great deal of stress and responding to that in different ways. She's not wrong in her accusations. Maybe I should have been more involved with finding the Blessingists. Maybe if I were, this wouldn't have happened to you. She is angry because her worst fears have come to fruition, and she doesn't feel like the rest of us… aside from Ghadab, have done enough to help so far. She's terrified for you and angry at the rest of us. Now is not the time to discuss internal Dreamwarden politics. What matters is that Arbiter is going to get her way now, at least in this."

"You need to make sure you are observing everything you can when awake," Yinyu said. "It is improbable they will leave you sitting in a dark cell all the time, given who you are. We are still bound by the rules, no matter how they may inconvenience us, and can only transmit the data someone on the inside allows us to do. We are counting on you to be alert and do everything you can to find clues to where you are. And yes, we are scouring for every loophole we can so we can help more, but it is not an easy thing. Ghadab's entire ability to alert and aid authorities was already based on a loophole, and this is looking for loopholes within loopholes now."

Tonya suddenly reappeared in front of me and grabbed me into a hug. "Don't go doing anything else stupid and heroic. That can only inevitably end up with you hurt or dead; it already got you needlessly captured trying to do something you weren't capable of. Look at Jess, look at Wild, look at me. Stupid heroics often don't end well for the hero. You are very observant and can pick up on things others might not. Just get us that information; that's how you can be a hero."

I didn't get a chance to respond because everything was suddenly fading to black.

"She's waking up. Stand back, Fain. I have this covered."

My head ached; everything ached. I opened my eyes and immediately squinted at the light being shined right into my eyes. I was in a darkened room, and they had the equivalent of a spotlight shining on my face.

"I apologize for the light. Keeping you in the dark is an inconvenience for all of us, but we need to keep you from seeing too much. I know how Ghadab works, and we've been doing our best to minimize his interference. Believe me, it’s tricky, but Dreamwardens can be gotten around if you are careful with how you do things and as long as you work within their rules. As such, no mind magic will be used, and it goes without saying that your dreams are off-limits to us. Pity that, but I don't know how to cut you off from the dream realm if the Dreamwardens intend to talk to you there. We could try to force you to stay awake, but that only works for so long before you become useless to us, and it is just unpleasant."

"Rossman?" I asked weakly as I squinted to see who was speaking. I just saw a few vague shadows. 

"Ah! You do remember me! I'm very pleased that I made enough of an impression, as bad of one as it no doubt was," Rossman replied happily. "I'm not the one in charge, unfortunately, but our goals here are very dependent on my team's work."

I continued to squint as I tried to make out the other shadows. "Who's in charge then? Where's Qīng Yǔ? You better not have hurt her."

"Fain, please give the Apostate a love tap," a new male voice instructed. 

I didn't get to try to identify who the new speaker was before Fain quite literally tapped me in the back from somewhere behind me. It may have been just a tap, but it still caused searing pain. 

"The point of that wasn't to torture you, Apostate," the speaker said with grim humor. "We need to make sure you don't try any magic tricks. You may be weak, but I won't make the mistake of underestimating your skill or resourcefulness. You being in pain is just a pleasant bonus."

"Hmm, fascinating. She is stronger than what reports say she should be," Rossman said in a tone like he was examining an interesting experiment. "Not strong, by any means, mind you. I would say the low end of average strength. Still, though, it is astounding. Heightened emotional state has been known to increase magical power for short bursts; perhaps that is the cause."

"All the more reason to keep her from using any magic," the unknown speaker growled. 

An annoyed sigh from Rossman followed. "You do know, as a crystal pony, I could have done it just as well. Fain wasn't necessary," Rossman complained. 

"Yeah, but Fain's method is so much more satisfying to watch, at least with the Apostate," the other speaker chuckled. 

"Can you please refrain from doing that?" Rossman asked firmly. "It's hard enough for me and my team to stomach, but we don't know what repeated exposure to your pet's torture will do to her, and more importantly, what it’ll mean for our goals."

"Did you just call me a pet??" I heard Fain fume. "I ain't no one's pet. Watch yourself, Harmonist, or I might pet you!"

"Fain, heel!" the still unknown speaker ordered. 

That seemed like the most ill-advised thing he could have said after the last few sentences. I got a brief respite from the light in my eyes as a human form passed quickly in front of it, and I heard her strike the unknown speaker. He briefly hissed, and I heard him collapse to the floor. 

"Control your temper, lady!" another male voice spoke up. "We can't be fighting among ourselves. It's what the Apostate and her fucking abomination Dreamwarden want."

"Well, it seems with him out for the count, I'm nominally in charge for the time being," Rossman said in a pleasant tone. "Miss Fain, I apologize greatly for how I referred to you. It was uncalled for. However, would you mind standing back beside the door so you can ease everypony's nerves? It would be greatly appreciated."

Fain mumbled something incoherent, but I heard her walk away. I counted her steps—twelve. That didn't give me the full room dimensions, but it at least told me how far I was from the door. It may or may not be critical information, but I was going to try to get every scrap of information I could. 

"Now, I believe someone had a hood for Miss Blessing?" Rossman continued. "Her magic won't be working right for a while. How about we cover her head so we can turn on the lights? All this darkness is depressing."

Human hands roughly gripped me from behind as someone started fitting a hood on over my head. I had to assume that it wasn't Fain doing it since the hands seemed too big, and I wasn't in agonizing pain. This was a man, and even though he wasn't being gentle, I was at least glad it wasn't Fain. It was more information too. Fain wasn't the only human working with this group.

The hood completely covered my eyes, but left my muzzle thankfully exposed. It was tight and didn't let any light through. Which at the moment was a relief from that blasted spotlight. The man pulled on it a bit to make sure it was firmly in place, then gave me an unneeded smack on the back of my head before he walked off. I heard him mutter something about traitor filth as he went—another Shimmerist then. 

"There we go, so much better being able to see all your faces, well, except for you, Miss Blessing," Rossman chimed. "Is the hood too tight? Is your breathing constricted? Please know that I’m not here to hurt you."

I thought about lying, but it would be too easy to be caught in one here. Telling the truth was always the best policy whenever possible; it made the lies more believable when you needed to turn to them. "It's fine."

"I'm glad to hear it. There is going to be enough unpleasantness without adding extra," Rossman said with a hint of joviality. "Now, on to business. Being the intelligent pony you are, I am assuming you must know what we are interested in."

"Transformation magic. Since when is it anything else with you," I growled. 

"I explore many fields," Rossman said defensively. "However, you are correct. We can forego a lot of trouble if you cooperate with telling us all you know. If we get that, we can let the poor dear filly go free to her mother. Oh! She is unharmed, by the way, just sedated. You did ask about her condition earlier. I'm sorry about the delay in answering."

"No such luck, Rossman," I snapped. "My compulsion is still in place. I couldn't tell you if I wanted to, and believe me, I don't want to."

"Oh dear," Rossman said in a sad tone. "I had really hoped you wouldn’t say that. What that means is that we will have to convince the Dreamwardens to remove your compulsion, and that method is not at all pleasant for anypony. It makes me sick even having to think about it; it is downright barbarous, everything we want to move away from about the old ways, but it is very difficult to pressure a Dreamwarden to do anything, even if it is something like this that doesn't break their sacred rules. Drastic measures must be employed, I’m afraid."

"If you touch one hair on her fur—!" I shouted.

"She is merely a last resort, I assure you," Rossman interrupted quickly. "We have all these Blessingists to go through first. I don't care for it, but my Shimmerist allies seem insistent on conducting a bit of a medieval inquisition against them. They were only waiting for your capture. I wouldn't be able to stop them, no matter how I pleaded."

My heart sank at all the people that were in line to get hurt because of me. "If you think that will do anything to sway the Dreamwardens—"

"We have good reason to believe it might," Rossman interrupted again. "These are all former Shimmerists that your wife, no doubt at your behest, expounded the joys of Blessingism to in their dreams. Really, Dreamwardens are supposed to remain neutral in such affairs, but your wife, and to a lesser extent, Yinyu Wu Yan, seem to have abandoned all semblance of neutrality."

Wait, what was he talking about?

"Between your wife throwing her unquestioning support behind the Blessingists and Yinyu Wu Yan being very vocal in her condemnation of Shimmerism, my associates are very riled up," Rossman continued. "We believe Arbiter may have a soft spot for these ponies, not to mention you, and ensuring their well-being could help force her hand at removing the compulsions. We only need one Dreamwarden to cave in. If she proves heartless, then we may be forced to try to pressure Yinyu Wu Yan."

Tonya, what have you been doing without telling me?

That was a question for later. Right now, I needed to get more information. 

"Where are you and these Shimmerists getting your money, Rossman?" I asked. "Secret prisons with magic dampening cells don't come cheap."

Rossman tsked me. "Miss Blessing, you even knowing about those cells highlights why I can't give you that information. All that information would only be funneled to the Dreamwardens and our misguided government if I told you. It would be a major breach of trust on my part to even so much as give you a clue who our benefactor is. You won't be getting that information from me."

"Breach of trust?!" I growled. "That's rich, coming from a pony who was conducting secret experiments behind my back with my money. You put on this nice guy facade, but I saw what you did to Bursa. You're a monster."

"I... I don't know what you are talking about," Rossman said quickly, far too quickly. 

I couldn't see anything, but I still narrowed my eyes. "You didn't hear? We found your victim. She is still alive, if just barely. You can't justify what you did to her with your high-minded Harmonist bullshit. I'm guessing that's why you locked her away in a cave. You didn't want anyone to know how much of a monster you really are."

I could hear Rossman breathing heavily. I had struck a nerve. He was terrified of anyone knowing about Bursa. 

"We’re done talking for today," Rossman finally said. "Please get Miss Blessing into a cell. We shall continue tomorrow."

I didn't get to say anything else because the next thing that happened was Fain laid her hand on me and held it there. By the time the pain stopped, I was being thrown on the ground, and my hood yanked off. I barely could make out the light of the doorway before the door slammed shut.