Red Wood had his eyes closed and was drifting in the dark.
“I probably should open my eyes” he thought to himself but the idea was distant like someone else was thinking it.
“Open your eyes!”
“No I don’t want to.”
“Open your eyes!”
“Oh stop it! I like the dark.”
“Open your eyes!”
“Oh buck you! Fine! Just a quick blink.”
BLINK
“OW! OW! OW” PAIN! “Light hurts! See what you made me do?!”
“Open your eyes, look around and be quiet!” the idea flickered in Red Wood’s mind.
“Wait! I didn't ‘think’ that! I 'read' it! What the?” Red Wood was confused in so many ways now.
He repeated to himself, “Read? Oh right.” He closed his eyes again. This time, he made an effort to look for the writing.
“Parker? Is that you waking me up?” Red Wood asked in a quiet voice.
Now that he knew to look for it, the distorted text was easier to read.
“Stay Quiet! You weren’t asleep, you were unconscious, and I’ve been trying to snap you out of it for hours. We’re in a lot of trouble. Nod if you understand.”
Confused, not quite being able to process all the memories of the fight in the street and suddenly being in the dark, Red Wood took a few seconds to think about what Parker was asking him to do, then shakingly nodded.
“Good, now listen, you were out of it for hours, for whatever reason my side our shared brains must be a bit more hardheaded. I stayed conscious but with your eyes closed, I've had to guess what's been going on, and it hasn't sounded good. "
Red Wood asked in a whisper "Did Twilight escape?"
"I think so, she was trying to teleport us all out, but only got the two palace guards in the street. That left all the other guards to be captured with us. One of them was sitting with us for a while, he kept asking about the Princess before the cultists dragged him away. I couldn't talk to him but I think he somehow did something to hide us."
Curious red wood asked "hide us?"
Parker wrote,“He pushed our body over and we fells a short distance. It been very dark back here and the noise was muffled. The cultists kept coming near us and dragging ponies away, not just the Guards we knew, but also a large number of village ponies. But they stopped coming more than an hour ago.”
“So what do we do now?” Red Wood asked.
“Well, try opening your eyes again, and lets look around. I think we’re alone, but I might be wrong.”
Red Wood gingerly reopened his eyes again, this time the pain was bearable. He looked around and realized Parker was right, his body had been hidden under some hay. He could see other haybales stacked up around him in a drafty barn. He tried to move to see better and realized his rear and fore hoofs were tied together. He didn’t want to make too much noise, so rather than struggling with the ropes he bent his long neck around and looked around the haybales to the larger space beyond.
“I don’t see anypony.” He whispered to Parker. “But were tied up and with this headache I doubt I can use my magic for much.”
“You can’t use your magic anyways, I heard the guards talking about an inhibitor ring. We need to get it off somehow.”
Red Wood tried to look up but couldn’t see at his own horn without a mirror, still it did feel odd, like there was an extra weight on his head. Inhibitor rings were a fairly common law enforcement tool. The cult wouldn’t have much trouble acquiring them. While it was on his horn, he couldn’t cast any spells.
“Forget about trying to take it off, we’ll have to get you untied without magic. Do you see any knives or anything sharp out there?”
Moving like a worm, Red Wood squirmed his way over the haybales and from the higher location, looked around. The room was clearly a commercial barn. Mostly peg and slot construction with few nails or metal bits. Light came in from small windows under the roof line and Hay bales and dirt seemed to be the only content. Red Wood didn’t see anything helpful.
Parker asked, “on the backwall there looks like there are hooks for farm tools. Maybe there’s a blade there?”
Red Wood disagreed, “Used to be there, none of the tools are there now.” He moved closer to be sure. “Yes nothing here, just nails as hooks to hold the missing tools.”
“Those nails aren’t round, they’re squared off splinters of raw iron. Probably made by a local blacksmith.” Parker noticed.
“Round nails? You only use them for fancy furniture, most nails are squared, or flat faced, makes it easier to keep them steady when you have to balance them on a hoof.” Red Wood, knew quite a bit about wood nails, and their different sizes and weights from all his wood working.
“It not exactly a knife, but it is a flat edge, can you try to cut the ropes with one of them?” Parker asked.
Red Wood gave the nails a closer look, some of the larger ones that had been set to hold heavier farm tools, did show a bit of an edge on their flat sides. Without a word, he reached out with his front hoofs and tested the rope against it.
“I think it may work.” He whispered, and indeed soon his front hooves were free. It was more than a little awkward but he also found a nail low enough to cut the ropes off his rear hoofs.
Once free he tried to pull one of the larger nails out of the wall, it would make a passable knife, but it was set too deep and he didn’t have enough leverage to pull it out.
“Quietly now.” Red Wood whispered to Parker as he sneaked closer to the main doors to the barn.
“As if anyone could hear me.” Parker deadpanly wrote.
At the door Red Wood looked for a knot or gap in the wood, but had no luck. So moving as slowly as he could, he opened the door a sliver. Outside the barn door, was a allyway or narrow street partly covered by the barns extended roofline. There outside scattered in piles were the bodies of ponies. Red Wood let out a little gasp when he saw them all, but none of them moved or reacted.
“Are they dead?” he whispered.
“No I think they’re all asleep.” Parker replied, but this was already clear to Red Wood as several of them were snoring, and none too quietly.
Red Wood frowned, “Really what do you think happened?”
“Maybe the cultists didn’t want to kill so many ponies, and used magic to knock them out when they escaped?” It seemed reasonable to Parker, since the cultists failed to capture Princess Twilight, they were probably trying to get out of town as quickly as possible.
Red Wood quietly stepped around the sleeping ponies, there wasn’t much room to walk between them, but if he was careful he should be able to make his way to the more open street, and perhaps find a way to slip out of town.
As they were nearly as the exit of the ally, Parker noticed something nearby. “Look over at that pile of ponies near the rainbarrow. See that unicorn stallion near the wall? I’m pretty sure he’s the guard that had tried to hide us.”
Red Wood, “Yes that is one of the guards, I recognize his cutie mark. He still has a hornlock on his horn, we should try to wake him.”
Parker replied, “We have to be quiet, if we wake more than just him, we’ll have to deal with all these ponies.”
Red Wood thought a moment, “I’ll be as quiet as I can but a guard has got to have better training on how to deal with this than we do.”
Red Wood had to walk slowly and carefully to approach the guard. There were many sleeping ponies he had to step over and around, finding a clear spot to put down each hoof, sometimes stepping in narrow gaps between stretched out ponies legs.
Meanwhile Parker looked at the images he received from Red Wood eyes, and looked for more clues on what made all the ponies so sleepy and lay in such odd piles.
“Odd piles?’ he thought to himself, “Odd ponie piles, it’s like the morning after a drunken orgy.” Parker found the idea too outlandish to be anything but humorous. Most of the ponies he had met, mainly canterlot ponies, were way to discrete and proper to ever be involved with such crass behavior. Indeed the common nudity of ponies, somehow made them less sexual, it just wasn’t an issue in their public lives.
He had learned from observation, that mares kept their tails down most of the time, but not religiously, so random flash of anything under their tails was understood to be politely ignored. Likewise stallions were expected keep themselves under control and sheathed in all formal events, but if one slipped out, it drew no more attention than human male taking off their shirt to do gardening work. Some mares might stare a bit but it was treated as something informal, but not scandalous.
So the mere fact that he noticed that some of the sleeping stallions were unsheathed, didn’t at first strike him as odd. But as he looked around and noticed just how entwined the ponies were and the most likely places those unsheathed member had slipped from, his joking thughts about an orgy, suddenly stopped sounding so funny.
The placement of a mare earth pony next to the guard stallion they were approaching, was not pure random chance. She must have slipped down and off the guard as they slept, but it was now glaringly obvious they had fallen asleep while mounted.
“Red Wood, “ he wrote, “Something odd here, the guard, he wasn’t knocked out and left here in a random pile. I think there was more to this than that.”
“What do you mean?” But even as Red Wood whispered this to Parker, he had already leaned forward with a probing hoof to gently tap the guards shoulder, too late to stop.
With a startled nicker, the guard opened his eyes and looked up at Red Wood blinking slowly. “Oh good morning friend.” the Stallion said between yawns. “Morning already?”
Red Wood whispered, “Shhh, we got to be quiet, we don’t want to wake all these sleeping ponies.”
“Righty-Oh! Yes I could use some breakfast!” The stallion jumped to his hoofs and before Red Wood could react, he nuzzled the mare sleeping next to him. “Velvet it’s morning love.”
Red Wood blinked in confusion as the royal guard nuzzled the mare next to him, she definitely had not been part of the Canterlot troop. Yet the guard was being more than a little casual with her. As the mare stretched and started to stand, Red Wood leaned close to the guard and whispered, “I’m sure your new friend is nice and all, but we really need to try to slip away quietly if we want to rejoin the Princess.”
“Rejoin the Princess?” The guard asked, much too loudly. His eyes narrowing in confusion and growing suspicion. “Why would we want to rejoin her? You know she one of the misguided puppets of the pegasi, right?”
The guard suddenly stood up, making Red Wood back up suddenly, stumbling he slipped and woke two more of the sleeping ponies, who groaned and complained.
The guard spoke with an edge of danger in his voice, “Friend, you don’t still believe all the lies? Didn’t you learn your lessons yet?” Then the guards eyes widened, “Oh! You’re the civilian pony I foolishly hid in the barn! I forgot about you? This is great! I was so wrong before, now I can help teach you the truth!” The guard’s, or more properly, former guard’s, eyes were wild and almost hungry as he looked Red Wood over.
Red Wood blinked, and in his after image, he could see the clear text of Parker’s writing, “RUN!!!” and he didn’t hesitate anymore. Turning on his rear hooves, Red Wood took off in a run.
“Oh Horse Apples! Bucking Hay!” He cried out as he ran, “Twilight said it takes weeks for their mind control to take over.”
Red Wood as he ran couldn’t focus on Parkers reply, but he got the jist that it was urging him on to run faster. Red Wood charged down the main street, the cries of the brain washed ponies following close behind.
While Red Wood’s sudden escape had caught most of the sleeping ponies flat hoofed, he was not able to outrun their cries and there was more alleyways and more piles of sleeping ponies throughout the village. Ponies stepped out of these places, shaking their heads and wondering about the meaning of the screams and yells.
Soon there were not just ponies running behind him, but more and more ponies were attempting to block from ahead of him. Red Wood dodged and more than once kicked, to find a gap to escape though. The majority of the ponies were still very groggy from the cult’s orgy, but his openings were getting smaller and smaller and the escapes narrower.
He was nearing the edge of the village, nearly at the same gate they have first entered through, when he felt the tingle of someone elses magic pulling at them. It wasn’t that strong a spell, but it threw him off balance. Red Wood stumbled and tripped, and this time he was not able to dodge when a heavy pony jumped on his back and pulled him down. Nickering he cried out for help, but the village was now only populated by cultists. He was held down firmly.
Red Wood was trapped again, he bucked and kicked, but it was useless, the weight of several burly ponies held him down firmly. They seemed confused and waited for instructions, which soon came.
All the ponies Red Wood had seen so far, were naked and more than a little compromised by their debauchery filled night, but a different pony approached now, dressed in formal robes and holding himself aloof from the rest. This pony approached and standing above Red Wood looked down on the trapped unicorn.
“The Traveler?” The cultists wondered out loud. “I thought we saw the last of you. Still you have returned to us. Interesting the prophecy did say something about that. I perhaps should have had more faith. Well the last time we met, you were the instrument of fate. Perhaps you will again be useful to us, I certainly am not one to look a gift pony in the month. ”
The cultist looked away, towards the far side of the town, "I should induce you myself but the burning has already begun, I have to supervise the flames or we'll reveal our hoofs too soon." Nodding to himself, he looked around at the pile of ponies around Red Wood, holding him down. "I pray to the Stone Heart you are all ready for your assignments. They will be difficult if you don't harden you hearts as instructed."
The cultists gestured to the majority of the cult ponies, most of them seemingly recent converts, he told them to gather at the far side of the village. “We must clean out the entire village, before long this land will be cleansed with fire.” He then told the handful of remaining cultists, including the ones holding Red Wood down, “Take him away from any of the buildings to avoid the coming flames, and Introduce the traveler to our order. You know how.” The cultist tossed a small glass tube to one of Red Woods informal captors. “You’ll need this.”
Red Wood felt cold sweat cover his body as they lifted him boldly into the air and holding him painfully by his limbs, paraded him down the road. All his protests were unheeded as they dragged him off the road and into a field of packed down wild grass.
When they pinned him to the ground again, the cultists stopped to talk with each other, giving Red Wood a chance to take stock of who they were. He saw that there were six cultists surrounding him, two stallions and four mares. Both stallions were unicorns, but the mares were all earth ponies. None were unusually colored or had memorable cutie marks. He didn’t recognize any of them, so they must have been either old time cultists or local villagers, recently turned. He wasn’t sure how he’d react if he recognized any as Canterlot royal guards or worse from ex neighbors from Coltsdale. They seemed to have no fear of him, and he had no trouble overhearing their conversation.
One of the unicorn stallions spoke first, “I didn’t wish to disagree with our elder brother, but he’s wrong, I don’t know what we're supposed to do with this pony. I only joined with the Stone Heart this morning.”
Three of the others nodded in agreement. Red Wood wondered what they would do if none of them, knew the brainwashing magic. Would they kill him instead? Would that really be worse?
One of the mares, a very shy looking female, who seemed to take a long time for her to find her voice. “I..I was awoken earlier in the day. I helped them with some of the misguided soldiers.” Then she blushed so red that even Red Wood in his fearful situation felt sorry for her. “I’ll start it but I I...I’ll need some help.”
She seemed reluctant, Red Wood wondered if the brainwashing hadn’t taken so strongly on her and perhaps he could use that. “You don’t have to do this,” he pleaded, looking mostly at the shy mare. “You can just let me go, I’ll stay away, no one will know!” Red Wood tried to put on puppy dog eyes, but it had been several decades since that had been effective.
For several seconds, Red Wood thought it might have worked. The mare seemed on the verge of tears and her eyes were so sad. The others also looked conflicted, none of them would look Red Wood directly in the eyes. Then one of the other mares said, “We’ll get in trouble if we don’t, and it’s not like it hurts. You’ll see, it’s really quite pleasant, and you’ll learn the truth.”
Red Wood tried to plead again, but he wasn’t given a chance. With words from the mare, the moment of indecision was broken and all six cultists moved to ritual kneeling positions, the shy mare guiding them with a few words and gestures.
Soon he was laid flat on his back, he limbs stretched out and each one pinned under the body of a pony. One of the stallions sitting at Red Wood’s head and holding the vial of potion the cult leader had given them, the shy mare at the opposite end, head bowed and if in deep meditation.
After a long moment, she spoke to the head stallion, “Give him the heart’s blood. Make sure he drinks it.”
The Stallion used his magic to force Red Wood’s jaws to open, he tried to fight it, but spell use centered at his jaws rear hinge and the pain was too great. WIth his mouth pried open, Red Wood could only watch as the open mouth of the potion jar was forced between his teeth.
He tried to snap his jaws closed, to break the glass, to knock it away, but the unicorn’s magic was too quick. Silver liquid, thick like mercury, tasteless and unexpectedly cold to the touch was poured on his tongue.
Red Wood tried to spit, to keep from swallowing, a hoof forced his jaws shut and his nostrils was pinched. He couldn’t breath! They were going to suffocate him, if he didn’t drink.
“Better that!” he thought to himself, he refused to swallow, but then noticed something that surprised him. The potion wasn’t waiting to be swallowed, it was soaking into his gums directly. There was a numbing feeling, and what made it worse, it was a familiar feeling.
But they weren’t HIS memories! This had happened before, but never so vividly. No he was getting a flash of Parker’s memories of his former life. He could tell the memories were alien, he could see in them the strangely clothed monkeys that were Parker’s people. They were from trips to the dentist or doctors, using nano flange drugs to deliver treatment and cures without needles. This potion, this poison they were feeding him, used Earth technology, how could the cult have this!
Red Wood closed his eyes tight, desperately hoping that Parker had a solution, an explanation. Parker was already writing, so fast that the text was stretched and nearly unreadable, Red Wood could make parts of it out.
“It’s nano probes! It can’t be! Ponies don’t know how to make them! There’s no telling what damage they’ll do if they try to rewire our head. The work the Doctor did to make us fit together is completely non standard. They’ll try to repair us and instead kill one or both of us!”
Even as as Parker was writing this text, Red Wood felt a wave of cold travel throughout his body, it he wasn’t so scared, it would have been a pleasant experience, he was drifting. Maybe it would be better to go to sleep, yeah, he could try to fight the cultists after husbanding some more strength, just a quick nap.
“NO STAY AWAKE” Paker’s writing was now strangely clear and so bold that Red Wood felt it like he was yelling.
“How do I fight it! I’m so tired.” Red Wood said this outloud, directing his plea to Parker, but one of the cultists answered him.
“You can’t fight it! But why would you? See it can be pleasant. Just listen to the Stone Heart, it will guide you.” One of the cultists said to Red Wood.
He opened his eyes in surprise, the cultists still held him down, but they were no long kneeling chastly, but had their fore hoofs stretched out, touching him. They were far from innocent touches, they were groping him. Especially the formerly shy lead mare, who was rocking her body back and forth, coming closer to Red Wood’s groin with each sway, though she herself wasn’t yet touching him, they motion alone felt indecent.
Red Wood found it very hard to close his eyes, the motion of all the surrounding ponies was mesmerizing. It took several tries, but he managed to look away and force his eyes closed.
With his eyes closed, he still could feel what they were doing to him. They weren’t just touching him with their hooves now, he could tell, there was tongues licking him, and hooves all over his sides. How long could he hold out? To not respond? There were reflexes in his body that he had no control over, they didn’t need his voluntary cooperation, they were getting what they wanted no matter what he did. He felt the weight of the mare on his body. She was completely on him now, wearing him like he was a piece of clothing and it was at first a loose fit was rapidly growing tighter.
Red Wood wondered, would it be so bad to give in? Even just a little? It wasn’t like he had been able to enjoy a mare’s company in many years. And … uhggg!
Barely able to think, he saw in his flashing vision, just two words from Parker.
“I’m Sorry”
Then suddenly there was pain.
Pain racked his body, all of it coming in waves from his head. It was like Parker was dragging claws over a chalkboard, yet ten times worse. His skin was on fire, his organs exploding. His heart racing.
Red Wood vaguely heard the cultists scream. “What’s going on? He not supposed to be in pain like this! Call an elder, I think he’s dieing!”
Then even the pain was now too great, he couldn’t process it anymore, and there was only darkness.