//------------------------------// // Ch 7 - Dungeons and Foalnappers // Story: A Flurry of Problems // by MelodyMori //------------------------------// “Storm, eat your food and stop babying your sister.” I heard my mother order from the kitchen. “Okay, mom.” I smiled and continued to cut my sister’s food into more manageable bites for her. She smiled up at me, and I ruffled her pink and purple mane before setting her plate in front of her. As I took my own seat I looked up to see my mom’s head poking out of the kitchen. I felt her roll her eyes despite the fact I couldn’t make it out. Instead, there was just a blur on her pink coat as she waved a hoof at me. Wait. I snapped out of my dream to find myself in a blurry stone room. My mouth felt like I shoved it full of cotton balls, making it hard to breathe through anything but my nose. I tried to stand up but found that stretching my legs or wings forced them against something, and straining them only made it slightly more painful. I blinked several times to focus on the room before finding myself staring at the whimpering forms of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. They had their hooves tied together with ropes and their mouths gagged. Sweetie Belle had some kind of ring on her horn, while Apple Bloom had additional ropes to account for her extra strength. Great, as soon as I get some freedom we immediately get foalnapped. Somehow I feel like I will never hear the end of this. I took a deep breath through my nose and closed my eyes to calm and center myself. This wasn’t the first time I’d been captured, but unlike before I was now stuck in a child’s body so I would have to play it smart. For the girls’ sake, at least. Getting them out was the priority. Once I was sufficiently centered I let the breath out slowly, turning my ears towards the single door. Thankfully ponies weren’t masters of stealth thanks to their hooves, and I could vaguely hear the sounds of one of them walking up to the door. I quickly ducked my head, trying to pretend I was still knocked out. From where the door was I heard metal scraping on metal before the pony grunted and the sound came again. The hoofsteps turned around and left, with it ascending up what I assumed were stone stairs after about ten paces before I lost it. I slowly opened my eyes and looked around to make sure I pegged the room correctly before I tried to escape. Stone walls and floor, single metal door, no windows. Nothing other than three softly crying terrified fillies.  I grunted around my gag before forcing myself to fall over, wriggling on the ground despite the pain caused by my limbs straining against the ropes. I repeatedly rubbed my face against the stone, forcing the poorly-knotted gag to loosen. After what felt like an eternity I felt it slack enough that I could spit it out of my pony mouth. Well, that was harder than it was when I was human. Stupid pony heads. I spat out a glob of spit before I looked up at Apple Bloom. She was laying her head on Sweetie Belle’s shoulder, presumably to comfort the crying filly. Scootaloo was staring at me with wide eyes, a mix of awe and fear. I thanked my lucky stars that they had their front hooves bound in front of them, while I seemed to have mine bound behind my back. “Apple Bloom, you are a farmer. If I free you can you start to free the other two?” I whispered, voice a bit ragged. She thankfully nodded, holding her front hooves out for me. I wriggled over to her like a snake, hissing a bit in pain at the growing rope burn. Once I got to her I sprang forward to bite at her gag, almost kissing her by accident as I bit into the cloth and pulled. She fell back but coughed as her mouth was freed from the sweaty cloth. We both began to bite at the rope around her front hooves, her pulling at it and me grinding my teeth on it to weaken it.  After a few minutes of work, we were able to weaken it enough that Apple Bloom was able to wriggle her front arms out. She began to untie her back hooves, her brow furrowed in concentration while I turned to the other two fillies. “Listen, we’re gonna get out of this. But you need to be quiet.” I whispered. “We don’t know why these ponies foalnapped us. Could be for ransom, could be for slavery.”  Could be for a third reason, but I hope that isn’t the case and I don’t want to scare them so shush, brain.  They both nodded, leaving me to sigh a breath of relief. A bit more conscious of where I was putting my mouth, I pulled their gags off by biting the knot itself and grinding my pony teeth on them until the knot broke. Once Apple Bloom finished untying herself she began to work on Sweetie Belle while I worked on Scootaloo with my teeth. Thankfully Apple Bloom was able to work a lot faster than me with her hooves and the two fillies ran over to help me. Once they were freed I was okay with being untied myself, which was a process in itself. Unlike the other three, they bound my front legs behind my back, bound my legs, and then bound my wings shut. With three ponies working on it they made quick work of it, but not without a bit of trial and error.  “Okay fillies.” I stretched a bit now that I was free. My muscles were really pissed off but still workable. “Now is the hard part. We’re going to have to sneak out of here. Hopefully, there is a window nearby but worst case we are going to have to find a back door. Walk as quietly as you can, okay?” They nodded, making me smile. Maybe we could do this without anyone getting hurt. And then I could come back with a baseball bat and break some legs for harming the CMC. I stepped over to the door and put my ear against it as quietly as I could, straining to hear anything from the other side. Once I didn’t hear anything I began to examine the door holding us in. I didn’t see a knob or hinges, but there was a vision slit up top and through the cracks on the side I could vaguely see a deadbolt holding the door shut. “Sweetie, if you can see the deadbolt can you use your magic to pull it open?” I whispered to the one unicorn here. “I don’t know enough to control my magic.” She nodded before hopping onto Apple Bloom’s back to better see. After a second or two, her horn glowed and her face scrunched up in concentration before I heard the metal click. Once she was done she hopped off her friend and the three fillies high-fived each other. I carefully and slowly pushed the metal door open, keeping an ear out for any returning foalnappers. Thankfully they seemed busy upstairs as there were no guards outside the room, just a metal chair and a set of stairs. The hinges also didn’t squeak as they moved, which was a bit odd all things considered. I shrugged to myself and led the slow, sneaky charge up the stairs, finding another wooden door. This once wasn’t locked and had no guards either, opening up into a kitchen. It was small and in complete disrepair, but there was a window by the sink! Wow, these are really bad foalnappers. I stepped out of the stairway and motioned for the three fillies to begin to make their way to the window. I stood just out of the way, keeping my eyes and ears open in case someone came. The three fillies managed to make their way onto the counter without a sound before Scootaloo hit a patch of water and slipped. CRASH The sound of six plates falling off the counter and smashing on the floor filled the room. I hissed under my breath before motioning for the girls to get out as fast as possible. Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom wretched the window open with all their strength as the sound of a pony running as fast as they could echoed through the house.  Apple Bloom and Scootaloo both jumped through the open window as a unicorn stallion came barreling into the room, holding what looked like either a cattle prod or a taser in his magic. He took one look at Sweetie Belle on the counter and me by the door before charging at Sweetie Belle with the taser. I growled and tackled him, using my smaller form to get under him and trip him up. Once he crashed into the ground I tried to hold him down to stop him, but he simply pushed me off with ease. Right. Smaller body, smaller muscles. God damn it. “Come on Flurry! We’re almost out!” Sweetie Belle yelled, seemingly frozen in place out of concern. “GO!” I yelled at her, focusing all of my vague authority into my voice as I rolled back to my hooves and prepared to charge him again. “Get somepony who can help, I’ll hold him off!” I could hear her hesitating before she jumped off of the sink. I almost breathed a sigh of relief before I saw the pegasus from earlier fly over my head and begin heading towards the window. I growled, reaching out with whatever magic I had, and grabbed her wing with as much force as I could. I didn’t see what happened but I heard her scream of pain before she crashed onto the ground. “Night Glider!” the unicorn yelled, reaching a hoof out to his accomplice. “You’ll pay for that.” He roared and charged at me, head down to presumably stab me with his horn. I went to roll out of the way but my new body wasn’t quite as fast as my old one, meaning I still got smashed into the wall by his shoulder. I growled and tried to bite at his face but all I got was the taser in the face as a reward. I screamed as the electricity made every muscle tense up before the pain forced my vision to go white. “Thank you for bringing me here, Storm.” I looked down to my side to see my girlfriend smiling up at me. “No worries, hun.” I smiled back and pulled her a bit closer to me before we both looked up at the sky again. From the hill we were sitting on we had a good vantage point on the fireworks going off for the Sakura Festival. While I couldn’t help but cringe a bit at each explosion, it being too similar to gunshots for my liking, my girlfriend holding me close made it worth it. After all, her smile could dispel any problem I had. As the fireworks came to a close I got up before helping my girlfriend up, her kimono and sandals making it a bit hard to get up easily by herself. Meanwhile, I was a bit less traditionally dressed, preferring my jeans and T-shirt. The whole festival, my clothes caused me to get looks from the others, but thankfully my girlfriend looked past my rough ‘American’ exterior and still loved me. The two of us headed back home, arm and arm. The closest path to our apartment building required us to cut through the sakura trees, but there were worse shortcuts. As we went, I couldn’t help but smile as she giggled to herself at her joke.  However, once we hit the largest Sakura tree everything went south. Instead of the massive tree that I was used to, the one I met Themis at, was a twisted crystalline mass. Six crystals were embedded in it, all of them a dull grey color. And sitting in front of it was an alicorn, pouring over a massive pile of scrolls and books. “Hello?” I stepped towards the alicorn, vaguely recognizing her from somewhere. “Are you okay?” She quickly turned around, her pupils small and jaw clenched as she stared somewhere above my shoulder. Before I could turn around I felt a sharp pain in my chest forcing me to collapse as something screamed in the distance. I opened my eyes, once again seeing everything as a vague blur. Straining my limbs showed them to be once again bound, albeit this time I heard clanking. I shook my head to clear my vision and was greeted with a more unfortunate sight than I expected. I was in some kind of dark forest, with my limbs bound by chains and my mouth once again gagged. Great. I lifted an ear up to hear if my captors were nearby, to be answered by a hoof smashing into the side of my head. My ear rang while I felt my mouth fill up with a bit of blood, forcing me to cough around the gag. “That is for making our life more complicated than it needed to be, Princess.” I heard the pegasus growl as she walked around me, the last word spat like a slur. “Now instead of going on a peaceful trip on the train, we have to trek to get to our boss.” I growled through the gag before sighing and lowering my head.  “See, was that so hard?” The pegasus laughed before stepping away from me. “By Luna’s ass, I hate foals. He better pay enough to make all this trouble worth it.” I looked up at the sky as soon as she walked far enough away that I hoped she wouldn’t pay attention. It was now nighttime and the moon was in full force above us, even though the moonlight was blocked by the gnarled canopy. I hoped the girls were safe. It is a very good thing my father isn’t here to see this. I already have two ponies hitting me, don’t need a grown man in the mix.