It took a few seconds for my eyes to recover from the flash of light accompanying Twilight's spell. I looked up to see Rarity still standing between me and the crepuscular Unicorn, still on her feet and breathing. That was a good sign.
Silence still reigned in the room, its three occupants trying to make sense of the last few seconds. I was still roughly where I had been, having only had time to throw my arms up in front of my face as the spell had gone off. The only difference about my person that I noticed was the towel I had been wearing blew away in the blast of the spell. What did a guy have to do to beat indecency around here, anyway?
Twilight opened her eyes not long after I did, and was taken aback to see Rarity standing between us. This left her in a very confused state.
“Rarity, why did you...” Twilight began, but trailed off when she noticed the effect her spell had had on her friend.
The spell Twilight had cast on me was not intended to harm me, but to restrain me. To that end it had manifested restraints. From where I stood, I could see that Rarity was now hobbled and blindfolded. Two short chains bridged the gaps between cuffs on her pasterns, one for her front legs and one for her rear legs.
She had another problem, too. She had still had some momentum when the spell went off, and it had not magically disappeared when the spell went off. I could see that she was still having problems balancing, not adjusting quickly enough to being blinded and the equivalent of having your shoelaces tied together while running. She was about to fall.
“Mmmph!” Rarity cried as she started to lose her balance, her hooves getting entangled with each other and the hobbles. I rushed forward to try and stop her fall. Her hooves had stopped moving, but she was still falling forward and to the side, away from me. I got to her in time to get a hand around her back. Leaning over as I was, though, I did not have enough balance of my own to stop her. My feet had run into her hooves, and I only succeeded in ensuring that I fell down with the bound pony.
A short confusion of flailing limbs later, we came to a stop. Rarity had ended up on her back, and I seemed to have landed on top of her. I opened my eyes to see her face right in front of mine for the second time today, only this time it was much closer. And she was blindfolded. And from this angle, I could see that she was gagged as well. Let it be known, when Twilight Sparkle tries to incapacitate you she doesn't leave out any details.
I consulted my body to see what position I was in. My knees both seemed to be on the same side, which was good. I think I would have died of embarrassment if I'd wound up straddling her. I could feel a folded foreleg on either side of my head, and the chain of the hobble across the back of my neck.
“Mmph mmphhmphh! Mphh mph mmph mph,” she said.
Two sentences. First sentence, two words. Who was I kidding? I didn't have time to figure out what she said with an angry Twilight Sparkle in the room. I started to dislodge myself, putting a hand on each side of her barrel behind her elbows to steady my balance.
“Mmph!” she exclaimed, startled by the contact from my comparatively large hands. She was only a little taller than me when she was standing on her hind legs before, so my hands covered a great deal of area.
“Get your hooves off of her this instant!” Twilight seemed to have gotten over the initial confusion of her spell misfiring, meaning trouble for me. Looking up, I saw her approaching with her horn glowing again. She hadn't already cast anything at me, and I thought I knew why.
“Sorry Rarity, change of plans,” I said quietly so only she could hear me.
“Mmph mph mmph?” she asked. I shifted my hands from a bracing position to a gripping one, and stood up, hauling Rarity upright as I did so. “Mmmph!” she shouted.
“I need to get you talking before Twilight blasts at me again, do you mind playing along for a bit?” I asked her quickly in a whisper.
“Mmmph,” was her reply.
Taking it for a yes, I addressed Twilight. “Don't come any closer or these bonds will be the least of your friend's worries!” She stopped in her advance, but her horn was still charged. “Drop the spell, Sparkle.”
She looked surprised that I knew her name, but acquiesced.
“Let Rarity go,” she demanded. Softening her tone, she continued, “I'm not going to hurt you, but you aren't going to be able to run. The fastest Pegasus in Equestria is outside in case you try to escape, but if you let Rarity go safely I promise we'll go easy on you.” It seems she really did think the worst of me. Of course, I had just given her another reason to dislike me, but it was all so I could clear my name, I swear. It had nothing to do with holding a bound, blindfolded, and gagged Rarity... right up against... my naked body. Shoot. Towel was still gone. Her forelegs were still draped over my shoulders. I still had my arms around her. This could easily be mistaken for something entirely different.
“I'll go quietly,” I said, making a show of turning myself in. “But first I'm going to ungag Rarity. There's been a big misunderstanding here, and I need a few minutes to explain myself.” I reached up behind Rarity's head to undo the knot in the gag, but in doing so wound up dragging her closer so our chests were pushed right up together. The feeling of her warm fur up against my bare chest was comfortably unwelcome, as was the rubbing of her forelegs on my neck and shoulders.
I hurried to untie the knot.
“Ptoo!” Rarity unceremoniously spit out a wad of cloth once the gag's wrap was undone. “Thank you, Sam. If you could get the blindfold too?” I obliged, also hurrying. Her vision restored, she smiled. “Now if you would be so kind as to set me down, I can get these hobbles off.”
I gladly stepped back a bit, holding her steady at arms length while she unhooked her forelegs from around my head. Once she could see the front hobble, she started casting a spell. The cuffs gave a small metallic click sound and fell off. Straight onto my bare toes.
“Ouch!” At the sudden impact I let go of Rarity, pulling my wounded foot up and grasping it with my hands. “Son of a--” My tirade was cut short, however, as the quadruped in front of me, deprived of support, began pitching forwards towards me.
“Waaah!” the falling mare shouted as her front hooves slammed into me, knocking me off my one footed balance and sending me sprawling on the floor. Again.
Rarity was luckier, however, and was caught in a familiar purple glow before she reached maximum entropy. Twilight dragged Rarity away from me and set the designer down gently at her side, undoing the rear hobbles as she did so.
“I've never seen two ponies with such bad balance. What is this, some cartoon from Neighpon?” she deadpanned. “So what, exactly, is going on with this colt, Rarity? I thought he was some sort of pervert, but you seem to think otherwise. Though I'm not sure how anything I've seen here disproves that...” said Twilight Sparkle, who had just recently cast a spell that would make every bondage enthusiast jealous.
Splayed on the floor in a most undignified manner, I heard the wind chime-like sound of magic as I saw a light blue tint cloud my vision. At least somepony hadn't forgotten about me down here. Rarity didn't lift me outright with her magic like Twilight had done with her, but rather used it to politely assist me to my feet. The effect was very similar to low gravity like you get at the top of a roller coaster's camel back. She also had hung the towel in the air nearby, and I gratefully grabbed it and rewrapped myself. Take that, nudity.
“Perhaps you should tell her, Sam,” Rarity said. “I think it would be better that she heard you speak for yourself in case she has questions.” Twilight hadn't taken her eyes off me, but she had swiveled one ear to listen to Rarity. She turned that ear back to me now.
“Well,” I began rather lamely, “When you found me in your bathroom earlier, it was not where I expected to be. The last thing I remember before I woke up there was going to sleep in my own bed last night.” Twilight raised an eyebrow. “I don't even know how I wound up in Equestria,” I continued. “No one back home even knows how to get here, and I'm pretty sure no one in Equestria even knows about where my home country is.”
“Of course I know where your home country is,” Twilight waved a hoof dismissively. “It's one dimension removed from this one.” My jaw dropped, and Twilight rolled her eyes. “Honestly, what part of 'Princess' personal student' don't ponies understand?”
“Wait, so if you know where my species comes from, why did you try to attack me?” I asked, very puzzled. She snorted.
“Wouldn't you be afraid of somepony doing that with a doll of you in your bathroom?”
“Wait, a doll of who now?” Rarity chimed in, turning to Twilight. Suddenly the window was looking very inviting.
Twilight turned her attention to Rarity. “He had a little plushy version of me when I found him. He was holding it like he was rutting it. Did he not have it when he got here?”
“He had something with him, I didn't see what it was. He got rid of it when I was doing something else. Though, later I did find... a doll... that looked like...” Rarity began trailing off. “Oh eww! I picked that up with my mouth!” Rarity was incensed. It looked as if I had lost my ally, but I was already to the window and opening it.
Twilight heard the latch of the window as I slid it open, her ear instantly flicking in my direction. It was followed shortly thereafter by a turn of her head as her horn charged up for another spell.
“Where do you think you're going!” she exclaimed as she fired the spell in my direction. It was too late, though, I was already through the window. The Turbo Bondage 9000 hit the window instead and locked it tight, forcing the two mares to double back through the building.
As I began sprinting out into the falling night, desperate to make distance on the two Unicorns behind me, I neglected to watch the skies. My negligence came back to bite me, though, when I was spotted by a certain cerulean Pegasus.
“Stop right there!” I heard a voice call out from above.
I redoubled my efforts, trying to reach the cover of a stand of trees ahead of me, but to no avail.
As I was running past a particularly muddy patch in the road, my pursuer caught me with a tackle to the small of the back. I went down and we both went sliding for several feet in the mud. I wound up on my back, staring up into the face of my captor.
Looking back down at me, front hooves on either side of my head and rump seated squarely on my gut to pin me, was the polychromatic maned Rainbow Dash herself. She was wearing the predatory grin of someone who has just completely trounced their quarry, and is looking for ways to further humiliate it.
She wouldn't have to try very hard, as it turned out.
My towel was gone, again.