A Penny for your thought

by Damaged


92 - Action

While being rated as 'Teen' leaves me with a lot of leeway, I still must warn sensitive readers that there will be some bad language in this chapter. If you are sensitive to such you may want to avoid it

Jenny tested the bonds, the ropes were tight but thankfully not cutting off her circulation. She kept her eyes closed, the thump on her head had left her with a migraine. But she had seen enough to know it wasn't a pony kidnapping her. Trust her luck to come to Equestria and end up being grabbed by some stalker.

Slowly, with much squinting, she opened her eyes. Thankfully it was dark but she could see light coming in around the painted-up window. The coolness of the ground led her to think it was a basement of some kind. Feet were pacing.

"Get it together Bradly." The guys voice was too loud for Jen, but she had to focus and listen anyway. "Okay her friends are after her, I need to get out of the city."

It was good news for Genevieve. In a way. Her friends were trying to find her but what then?

"'s let me go…" Jen managed to slur a little, her brain still recovering from sleep, although adrenalin was doing a good job of waking her. "Untie me and just leave."

Brad turned and focused on the woman. "Then what is the point of it all? Damn it, I screwed it all up, screwed up everything because I couldn't stand to see you."

"What? The hell, just let me go dammit, this is fuckin' stupid. Call yourself a brony?" Jen spat the words out, anger was better than fear, anything was better than fear.

"A brony? Ha. I watched the show with my niece, that was all. I didn't even ask to come here, I wanted to go to the Bahamas." Brad took a step toward her. "Besides, what was wrong? I was trying to be nice, I just wanted a date, you didn't have to sic your changeling on me."

"I didn't need to 'sic' her on you. She is my friend, she stepped in when she saw you were making me uncomfortable. You are still doing that, just F Y I." Jen tested the ropes again, hiding the more vigorous attempts with her speech.

"And why would being asked for a date make you uncomfortable, you are a cute girl, you should get guys asking you all the time." Brad sounded like he had rehearsed this. "Even when you went to that chick-flick you took one of your pony friends."

"Pony friend?" Jenny laughed. "Fucking idiot, you were asking to take me out on a date while I was standing there with my…" Jen hesitated a moment, she hesitated not due to indecision, but with realization, "boyfriend."

Brad was silent a moment, then the kick came. Jen wasn't ready for it, she barely had a chance to tense her gut when his foot struck. "You think you can lie? God damn it! Why would you even think such bullshit would work? He is a pony…"

Jen curled up as much as the bonds would let her, she brought her legs up to protect her belly and ducked her head down against her knees.

"Wait a second…" Brad stopped his assault. "You mean you are a horse fucker?"

It was an accusation that, true as it might be, hurt Jen. "I love him…" She let the admission slip out and heard Brad choke in disgust and stomp away. Her ribs hurt where he had landed a few hits, her shins took the brunt of his assault better.


"Please, we have to find her…" Sablee was begging the guard who, to his credit, looked as upset with his powerlessness as Sablee was.

"We can't find him. We searched the place he was living and found nopony. We even searched his work. Do you have any idea where he might have taken her?" He had asked the question already and Sablee felt the uselessness of it.

"I just want my Genevieve back…" There were ponies flanking Sablee, magic holding him from slumping down. Penny was on one side and Hay the other.

They were standing at the site where the pair had been assaulted, a few night guard inspecting the scene, when a changeling trotted up, right to Stick. They stepped up to the other changeling and leaned in to whisper to them. "Thank you." She kissed the unknown changeling drone on the cheek and turned to the assembled. "We might have a place to check."

The guard glared at the changeling a moment. "Very well, but I hope your… friends, aren't doing anything compromising." It was as much warning as Stick would get from him but she didn't care if they did, there was somepony who could be hurt and she didn't like that.

Their hooves all moved, following the changeling. "We will find her, you think there is a single pony in this city that a changeling couldn't find?" Penny tried to encourage Sablee, but in doing so was buoying up her own spirits.

It wasn't all that far, as distance went in Canterlot. Stick led them to a warehouse that looked very much in use for regular purposes. "There is a caretaker's house behind this. A few hivemates work here, claimed there was a light in the old place early in the morning. We would have heard sooner but they didn't find out about the incident until they were off-shift."

A trio of changeling drones met them as they approached the industrial building. "Stick!" One called out to them, waving a hoof.

Penny and Hay's mate looked shocked and trotted forward to give the drone a hug. "We need to catch up some time, but right now can you lead us to where the light was?"

The drone she was hugging nodded. "It is around back. These all your 'friends'?"

Penny and Hay blushed, but then so did Sablee at the implication.

"Later, this is important." Stick tried to wheel the familiar pony back to the task. "Sablee's marefriend got foalnapped."

"Yeah, I heard. Didn't think anything of the light at the time, but when Stand In told us all about it, it seemed suspicious." They were walking while talking, bringing the group to the corner of the big warehouse, only a small gap between it and the city wall that it was beside. Behind it was a small house, looking a little run-down but otherwise serviceable. "That's the place."

Stick changed, green fire flowing over her and leaving her as Penny thought, in her 'fighting form'. It was really just the same snuggly changeling as normal, but her carapace was thicker, her fangs a little longer and she had spines protecting the more sensitive places on her body.

The three other changelings gasped. "What… where did you learn that?" Stick's friend was looking with wide eyes.

Stick started stepping toward the house. "Necessity. Hay, please keep back with Penny and keep her safe." The changeling looked at the guard, getting a wary look from the pony. "I don't want to hurt him, but if he turns nasty get behind me, okay?"

The guard was torn, it was his duty, sworn to the princesses themselves, to protect ponies and put himself between them and danger. But this changeling looked like 'danger' herself and more, looked like she had dealt with it before.

Stick continued. "Okay, we try talking first, or just stomp in?"

"If he… if he does mean her harm, we should go right in. He has already hurt somepony." The guard had to gulp a little, this kind of thing was not in the training manual, but it seemed logical to him.

Nodding and moving along the city wall, Stick worked her way around until it was unlikely anypony looking from the windows would see her. She galloped, charging at the building and halting dead at the wall. The guard, in his armor, was not so quick but was not far behind her.

Stick reached out with her talent, she felt one target inside that she couldn't get even a wisp of taste from. The second seemed to have some love within them, but it was being crowded out by other emotions. "Two inside." Stick whispered softly, getting a nod from the unicorn stallion. Slinking along the wall, lowering herself under the big windows, Stick made her way to the front door and reached to it with her magic. The handle turned slowly.

A creak sounded from the old hinges and Stick cursed whoever didn't live in this house anymore. "What… hello?" The voice inside sounded familiar, Stick knew it was Brad now. She had already pondered just drinking him senseless, but that would be beyond her without him feeling love. The changeling mare cursed silently that she didn't have the eye-trick that some changelings had.

"Hi there, heard something out here and figured somepony was using my old house, you want to come out and chat?" The guard looked blankly at Stick as the changeling had sounded just like him when she outright lied to whoever was inside.

Brad relaxed a fraction. Just some nosy pony, he could deal with this. "Sure hold on a second." He grabbed some bits, figuring he could just bribe his way out of this. "Okay I really like the place and…"

Stick was smiling up at Bradly. "Hi there, sorry to have to lie, but you did something really naughty and now you need to give up." She smiled, fangs quite prominent.

"Oh fuck this." Brad turned and tried to slam the door closed but it was like there was a wall there. He started to run for the back of the house.

"That is really not nice language…" Stick wrapped Brad in a ball of green force, the magic blocking not only the human's vision but anypony trying to see in. "Best thing about capturing a human, they don't have any-" Stick was proud of herself until the thunder-crack sounded. Her force ball gained a long crack in one side.

"What is that?" The guard looked shocked and formed a ball of protection around himself and the changeling. This did two things. It cut off Stick's magic and prevented the changeling from being able to charge the human.

The man was standing, holding both hands out in front of him with a little black device held white-knuckle tight in them. "Just get the hell back and don't do anymore magic!" From behind them, Stick heard Penny call out something.

It was obvious to the changeling that what he was holding was a weapon, there was a way a pony acted when they had something that could hurt somepony, and Brad was acting that way in spades. "Or what? You foalnapped my friend, you beat her special somepony up." Stick had moved herself in front of the guard, she hadn't consciously decided to do it, protecting just came naturally to the mare.

"I mean it! Come any closer and I will shoot!"

Stick looked at what the stallion was holding. It looked hard, metal. It looked like it was a serious piece of equipment and, if it was what put a crack in her shield, it was. "How many ponies will that let you stop?" She looked up at the half-crazed human. "You think you can get away with it? You think Princess Celestia will like the idea of you hurting her ponies?"

Brad's hands shook, it was hard to hold the heavy weapon up. He had five more rounds in the snub-nosed revolver. "Enough that I can get away from here. You can't stop me."

Stick didn't see the guard working magic, but she did see the gun tilt and lift to aim over her shoulder. She threw a sphere up around the stallion almost at the same time his spell was going off. The crack of thunder sounded and Stick started running forward. The guard's barrier had dropped while he cast a second spell, letting the changeling free.

Behind Stick, wrapped in green, the guard was staring at a crack that was right in front of his eyes.

The spell the guard had tried to cast fizzled with the tight shield around him, it had been a simple one most foals are taught early. He had simply tried to turn the thing into an orange.

Stick ran, watching as Brad's finger tensed again. She knew now what triggered the weapon and as she saw it closing down on the trigger she wrapped a force bubble around herself until she heard the thunder, then again and again. Stick was suddenly terrified, her shield was cracking and breaking and she had no idea how many times the weapon would be able to work. She counted the fifth time as she could see light outside her bubble and the sixth seemed to ricochet off her barrier.

Brad wasn't doing so well. The last round his gun held was sent speeding back after hitting the collapsing shield and his shoulder exploded in pain.

Seeing the weapon dropped, Stick bounded over and knocked it further away from the downed human. There was blood leaking from his shoulder. "Can you teleport?" Stick asked the guard who was approaching.

"No, but I can carry him. You sure he was the only threat here?" The guard was looking around and Stick had to admire him for thinking of their safety first.

"Yeah, him and Jen." Stick looked around and saw where Brad had been running for, there was a basement to the building. "I don't want to look at him anymore…" She gestured to the downed man.

"Understandable, what was that thing he had?" The guard picked the human up in a bubble, wincing at the cries from him.

"Human thing, don't know, but I will have it sent to the palace to be taken care of."

The guard wasn't sure why he trusted the changeling. A little voice inside corrected him, reminding him that she had likely saved his life with her bubble. "Thanks…" He would have given her a hug, but a spiky changeling was not worth the wounds to hug.

"Thank you too, you are a brave pony." Stick gave him a smile, a wave of flame banishing the defenses on her body. She stepped down into the basement. "Jen, you down here?"

Jenny heard a voice cut through the pain. She groaned a little, fearing it was Bradly coming back to finish the job he had started.

"Oh chitin, Jen!" Stick rushed to where she saw the injured woman, curled in a ball that looked for all the world like a wounded creature trying to protect itself. "Jen it's okay, we got Brad."

Genevieve's mind cleared enough that she recognized the voice and the message. "Stick?" She curved her lips into a smile. "How many times are you going to save me from that creep?"