Between a Rock and a Hard Place

by Lurker5532

Inspection

Rend’s eyes opened, and he immediately wished that they hadn’t. He shut his eyes as the bright lights of… wherever he was… assaulted his senses. God, he hated mornings. The cave was always nice and dark at night, and the mornings weren’t nearly this bright. The soft green glow of energy crystals was far preferable to the harsh lights of…

His eyes snapped open once more as he realized something- he had literally no idea where he was. Jumping to his feet, Rend ignored the aching pain that shot through his limbs. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he surveyed his surroundings. He wasn’t happy with what he saw.

He was on a large white table, splattered with green blood. His own green blood, he realized with a shudder. In the corner of the side of the room he was facing, a large table (not like the one he was on, but still white- why was everything WHITE in here?) with multiple tools strewn across it. Saws, needles, bandages, gauze… even if they didn’t have most of those back in the hive, Rend wasn’t stupid. Those were Doctor’s tools.

Someone had been messing with him while he slept! The Changeling growled and turned around, his mind racing. The guard must have brought him back here so Celestia’s thugs could dissect him. They must not have counted on him waking up again!

Suddenly, a flicker of movement caught his eye. His head swiveled towards it, and he froze. Hoof almost to the door, stood a terrified looking Pegasus in a white lab coat. Even if Rend couldn’t sense her terror, the look on her face would have been enough.

Before he could do anything, the Pony bolted, slamming through the door, screaming something that sounded like “Guards! Guards!”

The Changeling snarled and leaped off of the table, but he almost collapsed again as pain shot through his left hoof. Raising it, he glared at it as if that would somehow make it better.

Some-ling had bandaged it up, and it felt a lot better than it had before, but he doubted that it would hold up well
to any more landings. He’d have to be more careful. After a few seconds more inspection, Rend galloped outside the door…

… And straight into a heavily armored Guard.

Although the Guard may have been bigger, Rend was heavier, even without any armor. His chitin and carapace were just as tough and as heavy as any armor Ponies could dream up. Rend had never quite grasped how they’d been able to fly without dropping like a stone, actually.

Of course, Rend didn’t actually have any time to comprehend this, as suddenly he was on the ground wrestling with some-pony. Slamming the Guardsman into the ground, he bared his fangs, preparing to maul the poor fellow.
And then suddenly he was in the air, flailing wildly, desperately looking around. His eyes landed on a Unicorn down the hall, flanked by the lab coat Pegasus. He growled at them, and flailed in their direction, to no avail. He was trapped.

“Sedate him, Aura,” the Unicorn grunted, his horn glowing a bright red. “He’s a wild one, and I can’t keep him up in the air forever.” The Pegasus nodded and strode forward, timidly avoiding the flailing monster in front of her.

“I can smell your fear,” Rend snarled at her. “And I’m going to drain you dry.” He was rather satisfied with the spike in her terror, but she still walked past him. The Changeling snarled once again at her, before turning to the now recovering guard he’d tackled.

Funnily enough, it was the pony from before! As he got up, the Changeling laughed maliciously. “Don’t you want another round, pony? I was this close to ripping your throat out!”

The guard sighed, and Rend was extremely annoyed as he realized that the only real emotion that he was emitting was sadness. “Look. You can do this the easy way, or the hard way,” he began, but the Unicorn cut him off.

“Tower! Don’t speak to the thing! He was about to kill you!” The Unicorn was giving off an aura of rage, and Rend decided to encourage him.

“I'm going to kill you too," Rend snarled. "And then I’ll shift into you, and I'm going to go after your family…” The Changeling paused for a moment, pretending to lick his lips. “They always cry when I rip them to shreds."

The Unicorn cried out in anger, and for a split second, his concentration faltered. The levitating Changeling dropped to the ground, and ignoring the pain that shot through his hoof once again, he bared his teeth and stumbled backwards...

… Right into the point of a needle. As he whirled around, he was greeted with the retreating Doctor (Aura, hadn’t the Unicorn called her?), who was holding a mostly empty syringe. As a wave of fatigue went through him, he lunged towards her.

Luckily for Aura, the sedative kicked in almost immediately. As Rend reached her, his vision went blurry again, and he collapsed to the ground. The Pegasus backed away further, and watched as he reached for her weakly.

“I’ll… kill you… monsters…” He muttered, eyes slowly edging closed. W…won’t… won’t fail… my queen…”

And then, for the SECOND time that day, he succumbed to the darkness of sleep.

--------------------------------------
The third time he woke up, he was grateful that it wasn’t so bloody bright anymore. In fact, it was actually kind of dark. Just how he liked it.

As he got to his hooves once more, he surveyed his surroundings… again. Rend had the distinct feeling that someone out there just wanted him to basically relive this horrible day over and over.

The room was small but not tiny- he had enough room to move around in, at least. The walls were carved stone bricks, and the floor was some kind of carpet. There was a small sleeping bag in the corner as well, and a little table.

Of course, as was immediately evident to Rend, this was a prison cell, if a nicely furnished one. There was a small window about horn high with him, but it had steel bars on it; the door to his cell had a meal slot, and looked like it had been reinforced.

This was… interesting. Rend had expected them to stick him in the darkest, dampest dungeon cell that they could find, and leave him to rot. This was… surprisingly nice, honestly. Why did they put him here, of all places? What was their game? Did they just want to soften him up?

The Changeling trotted over to the sleeping bag and curled up on it. He needed to think, he told himself. He could get out of here. Maybe he could chew away the bars? They were solid steel, though. That would take forever.

Rend briefly toyed with the idea of jumping a guard and impersonating him, but he figured that they would easily
see through that. They were housing a Changeling, after all- and with whatever happened at the Wedding, they probably knew all about them already.

Still, there had to be something, Rend thought desperately. He couldn’t be stuck here. What if they forced Hive Information out of him with a spell? They could do that, right?

And he couldn’t even use magic to escape! Well, he could, but he was terrible at it, he thought remorsefully. He was a soldier, not a mage.

However, his train of thought was interrupted as the door to his cell clicked, and swung open. Jumping to his feet, Rend growled like a caged animal, tensing as three guards entered his new ‘home.’ Two new ponies, and… what was his name? Tower, he realized. That was correct.

“Ok,” Tower began, looking suspiciously at Rend, “we just want to ask you a few questions…”

Author's Note:

Wooh, second chapter!

Anyhow, I hope I didn't make his cell too nice. I mean, Celestia is nice- and she has her reasons for giving him this kind of luxury- but there are limits.

Comments

[Mary-Rowland]

Seems to be going well, I saw no typos or errors and the story has a good starting plot. Not bad for your 1st story?

[Lurker5532]

7721484 Thank you! I've written stuff before, but this is my first MLP story, and the first fanfiction thing I've ever written.

[Lurker5532]

7722016 Thank you! :D

[Profesionalac]

It's good a cliffhanger though but good.

[Mary-Rowland]

7722008 Your welcome and sense your just starting out here tell u what i'll keep my eyes out for typos and errors and let u know if i find any, good day and will wait with for the next chapter

[Lurker5532]

7722224 Why, thank you! I'll have the next chapter up in a jiffy.