A constant dripping sound forces my eyes open. A piercing pain in my skull follows immediately after. I feel like my head is slowly being crushed. I close my eyes. The pain numbs slightly, but not even remotely enough to disappear. I can hear a faint dripping from some sort of liquid. I focus on that in hopes to distract myself from the pain. Judging by the sound of the drips, I'm in a cement room. Probably a prison. I sigh internally.
Wait. I'm most likely in a prison. Maybe the soldiers I was sent to find are here too. Assuming they're even still alive. If they are, I have a chance of getting out of here and stopping Tranquus.
I wait for the pain to lessen before I crawl to my feet. They hold themselves up. Tranquus or her workers didn't poison me while I was knocked out? Tranquus is full of two things: pride and shit. I'm going to use those flaws to destroy her.
If I can stand up, I can do more. I try to cast a simple illumination spell. Nothing happens, except for worsening my headache. I’ll have to see if spells work later. Maybe the room is the problem. I’ve heard of anti-magic rooms before. They’re usually in prisons in Equestria. This place is probably no different. I’m still in Equestria, right? I don’t even know how long I’ve been knocked out. Tranquus' goons could have easily dragged me to some other country far away.
I look around the room. It's a cubic room made entirely of stone. There only thing that stands out is the door, and that's just a bunch of metal bars. There's also the damn leak.
I walk over to the metal bars that act as the door. Upon closer inspection, the hinges are made of stone rather than metal. It's like they're asking me to break out of here. I can and I will. I just need a plan of escape. Just busting the door down and hoping for the best is never a good idea.
The sudden screech of metal on stone nearly makes me jump out of my exoskeleton. I take a few steps back and prepare myself for a fight. A mare is seemingly thrown in. I step back before I see she lands on her face. The mare looks up at me. I remember her. She's the secretary from before I met Tranquus. Here eyes open widely when she realizes she sees me.
She crawls backwards. I hold up my hooves in a defensive position. This seems to calm her down. I take a few cautious steps towards her. I point to her blue coat, then outside.
"...Are you Blue Skies?" She asks. I nod. A second passes by. “You’re a changeling?!” She shouts. I cover her mouth with my hoof to silence her. I know that the guards know where we are. I just don't want another headache. After a short seconds, she understands to shut up. I take my hoof away. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I shake my head and point at my throat. “You can’t talk?” I shake my head. “That doesn't really answer my question." I glare at her.
She rubs the back of her head. “Can you… Do your thing?” My thing? Does she mean shape shifting? I tilt my head slightly, like a confused dog. “You know. Change your form.” I shake my head. “Hmm… Before they threw me in here, they cast a spell on me. It might be a magic prevention spell. I've heard of some like that. Do you think they cast one on us?"
It sounds like something they'd do. I nod. I walk over to the door and point at the hinges with my horn. The mare looks at them. "What about it?" She asks. Dear Luna, is she being serious? The look on her face says she is.
Something clicks in my brain. I can't identify her emotions either. She doesn't look like the kind of pony that's smart enough to hide her emotions like Tranquus. This confirms my suspicions that the room is blocking out magic. I'm curious about the spell the unicorns used on this idiot. I hope it was an IQ draining spell.
I struggle to not sigh in frustration. Not being able to speak makes thinks extremely difficult at times. I point at the stone part of the hinge. "Oh. It's stone. That's weird." I nod. "It should be metal. It'd be a lot stronger that way." She blinks. "We could do something with that."
I nod again with enough force that would probably break my neck if I was a pony. The only thing preventing that from actually happening is my exoskeleton. Thank you Chrysalis for that. "Just busting the thing down isn't a good idea." She says. Damn. It's like she read my mind. Once again, I nod. "Any ideas?"
I shake my head. "Maybe we should just break it down, then." I glare at her. "Unless you've got any better ideas..."
She's got a point. It's the only idea we've got. It's a bad one, but it's probably better than nothing. I'd rather die out there and fight for my freedom than die in here.
I nod to her. "You kick it down. I'm not good with physical stuff. I'm a secretary for a reason."
I do as she asks. The door breaks off its hinges easily. That's almost insultingly depressing for them. I look both ways down the hallway. There aren't any guards. This is way too easy. This isn't going to end well.
My mare companion leaves the room at a full gallop. I follow her. I know I have a mission to find the three soldiers. If Luna told me more about Tranquus, I'd have ignored the soldiers and focused on Tranquus. That's what I have to do now. Tranquus is a serious threat against Canterlot and Equestria. Once, I would have probably been an ally with her. I'm not blind now.
The mare continues down the hall. She slides to a stop at a large door. She opens it before I stop. I run inside and stop at the sight of Tranquus. She turns towards us. "I thought I locked you two in a prison. My guards are terrible." She says with disappointment dripping from her words like blood from a wound.
"Wait, Tranquus." The mare says. "Can you please let us go?" She asks softly. Her body is trembling. I wouldn't be surprised if she collapses soon. "We didn't do anything to stop you."
Tranquus just looks at the secretary. "You want me to let you go." She repeats. Tranquus shakes her head and laughs to herself. "Alright. Come here." The secretary steps forward.
Tranquus tilts her head down and thrusts it forwards. I have the worst view of seeing her horn impale the mare's neck. Tranquus pulls her horn back. It lights up and the blood on it disappears.
The mare blinks once. She falls to the floor. I can't rip my eyes from her corpse. She couldn't have known what happened to herself.
Tranquus looks at the fresh corpse. "Shame." She says, pulling her eyes from it and turning to me. "She was a good secretary, too. I'll make you pay for that."
I glare into her eyes with a fire in mine. I take the form of the secretary. Half of the reason is to honor her in a way. The other half is to say what I want. "I'm going to kill you."
"If I had a bit for every time somepony told me that." She smiles. "I wouldn't have any. You're the first to say that to my face. We both know you're no pony. I mean that in two ways, changeling."
"I'm still more than you."
She whistles and laughs. "I have to admit, that's a nice comeback. I can't think of any retorts."
I keep my stance locked in a fighting position. I'm absolutely certain she's trying to distract me. "Shut up and fight me."
"Antsy, aren't you? Alright." A guard in armor I haven't seen yet steps forward. She's probably an elite or something. Tranquus stops the guard from continuing. "Hold it. I've got this. I can fight. Only intervene if it's an emergency." The guard nods once and steps back.
Tranquus steps forward. Her horn starts to light up. I start mine up. A beam of aura is sent my way. I don't have enough time to cast a shield spell. I jump out of the way. The wall behind me is blown to pieces. My heart nearly stops. That's the closest I've been to death in a long time.
I charge for Tranquus, sending quick blasts of magic at her. She easily deflects them with her own magic. She isn't in any fighting stance. She's just standing there menacingly. When I get close to her, I take the chance to tackle her to the hard ground. She doesn't do anything to try to stop it. Her head bounces off it once. I step off of her. She looks up at me with a surprised expression, like she thought she couldn't be knocked down. “What are you? Really?”
I lean down so our heads are only centimeters from touching. “I’m a stranger. I’m a changer. And I’m danger, maybe.”
“Using my lines against me, I see. A taste of my own medicine. This is where I'm supposed to say it tastes bitter, right?” She shakes her head. "You're not going to get that satisfaction." Tranquus crawls to her hooves.
We look at each other. Her lip is busted open and bleeding. She closes the wound with her magic. A small line of smoke rises from the recently closed wound. Shit. She cauterized her own wound. If she can do that, she can definitely use some sort of pyrokinesis. I've spent enough time with Twilight Sparkle to know that.
I take a step back. Tranquus grins at the sight. "You're afraid of me, changeling. Admit it or not, you are. And I'll use that to my advantage."
"It's not smart to tell your opponent what you're going to do." I tell her.
"It doesn't matter. I'm going to go to Canterlot and I'm going to kill your Princesses. You can't stop me."
I rear up. "You'll have to kill me first. As long as I'm alive, you won't be able to even get into Canterlot."
Her smile is large. "That's the idea." Her horn lights up. A beam of aura strikes the floor. It slowly moves in my direction. The beam leaves a blackened path. I can feel the heat of it. It's no more than 5 meters away.
I try to escape the beam's path. I move towards Tranquus with a wide approach. She can't turn her death beam towards me quick enough. She kills the magic when I'm right next to her. She's learned from her previous mistake.
She headbutts me in the chest with enough force that I taste blood in my mouth. The sheer force of the impact forces me to rear up. While I fall back down, I aim my front hooves for her neck. She moves herself forwards. The next thing I know, her head is in between my legs. She rears up and carries me with her.
The next moments go by in a blur. I feel the impact on my front leg, then immediately after on my face. My vision is fuzzy. I look up at Tranquus. Somepony is next to her. "Tranquus." The pony says. "You need to get to Canterlot. I'll take care of the bug."
My vision clears up. The other pony is a mare. She's the guard with the unique armor. She's probably an elite or something. Tranquus looks at me, then to the mare. "You're right. Don't kill him. I want him to see what happens once his Princesses are dead."
The mare smiles. I crawl to my feet. "You won't be able to touch them." I say firmly. Tranquus turns to leave. I don't even take a step towards her before the mare gets in between us. All I can do is watch as Tranquus leaves the room.
I glare into her eyes. Her only response is a smile and a wink. I drop my form, revealing my real appearance to the guard. Her facial expression doesn't change. She doesn't even flinch. This is the first time I've never gotten a reaction out of a pony. Even from ponies that know I'm a changeling.
"Are ya ready to fight, bug?" She asks like she's talking to one of her closest friends, complete with an upbeat voice. This mare scares the shit out of me already.