Gear Knights- Initiations

by Amalvi

5-Nothing of value was lost

Amalvi was slowly recuperating his sense. His head was hurting and there was probably a bump on it right now. He didn't want to move or do anything just in case someone would realize he had come back. However, he half opened one of his eyes to look around. It was useless though as the room was in total darkness and he couldn’t see anything. Knowing that probably there wasn't anypony there he tried to move and tried to make sense of what was happening. He could feel that he was hoofcuffed and he was laying on a stone floor. His saddlebag was missing, but he already expected that. His head was hurting a lot, but it was nothing compared to the pain his foreleg was suffering. That told him that someone had tried to take the watch out, and the movement of the nail had reopened the almost closed wound. Luckily for him they couldn’t take it off.

He was startled by the sound of somepony approaching the door, or the place where Amalvi though the door was. He laid his head and pretended that he was still sleeping. As the door opened, he heard the conversation between two stallions

“Look, there he is. Still sleeping.”

“Sleeping... Are you sure he’s not dead?”

“Oh come on, he’s still breathing, see? Also, I’ve never killed anypony with just a kick in the head.”

Amalvi carefully half opened one of his eye to take a peek at his captors. Watching through his eyelashes, he saw two blurry figures that he could distinguish as an earth pony and a pegasus. The stallion was partially relieved when he saw them wearing the armor of the royal guard, meaning that he was probably caught in some dungeon of the castle and not by some kind of kidnappers or murderers. Amalvi closed his half opened eye to pay all of his attention of what the guards were saying.

“So, where did you catch this guy, you said?”

“Oh! I was doing my regular patrol when I heard hoofsteps coming from the hallway of the royal chambers. I took my arrest bag, and before I could even look at him I put it on his head and hit it to leave him unconscious.”

“I think that’s too much for just a guy who simply has broken in. Was it really necessary to bring him to the dungeon and hoofcuff him here?”

“I first I thought that, I was planning on just throwing him outside the castle, but while I was inspecting his saddlebag I found this.”

“Wow! That’s dangerous! Sure.”

Amalvi didn’t need to open his eyes to know what they were talking about. He had realized what a stupid idea was to carry that combat knife with him compared to what a brilliant thing it seemed to be when he decided to keep it. However, it was just bad luck, so he couldn’t blame anyone except himself.

“Do you think this guy was planning to do something?”

“I’m not sure. True is that trying to kill Celestia is impossible, but on the other hand he seems very suspicious. Especially because he is carrying a watch.”

“A watch? Oh look, is true.”

Amalvi felt how his foreleg with the watch was kicked and moved a bit and resisted the urge to make any sound because of the pain.

“Why you didn’t take it off?”

“I tried, but it seems like it’s cleaved in the leg with a nail and it’s impossible. The only thing I can tell is that a pony with enough wealth to buy a watch doesn’t seems to need to enter the royal castle just to steal something for his family.”

“”Indeed. Anyway, you have done a good work, soldier, I’ll call the interrogator to ask him some questions later. You may retire now.”

“Thanks sir.”

Amalvi heard the door closing and the sound of hoofsteps fading away. Then he opened his eyes and tried to accommodate his vision to the darkness. At first he couldn’t see at all, but after some minutes his pupils were dilated and he could poorly see something in the darkness, thanks to some light coming from the chick of the door. He was in a small room, prepared for isolated confinement and probably with the walls soundproofed. Whatever happened inside there couldn’t be good, not to mention the fact that it was too clean for being a cell, that only meant that it was cleaned often. The stallion wasn’t sure of what would be the job of an interrogator, but with a little of thinking he could imagine what was it, and he didn’t like it, not at all. So he needed to escape somehow, and for that he would need some help from his supervisor, Miriam. Amalvi was wondering why she hasn’t contacted him yet.

But first he needed to get rid of the hoofcuffs. These weren’t tied to anything in the room, but it was impossible to move with them, it wasn’t even possible to stand up. He moved and struggled, but it was in vain. At first he thought that his legs were sliding slowly out, but then he realized that he only had managed to hurt his skin a bit. Those hoofcuffs were made exactly for a pony of his size, meant to hold, but not suffocate, which meant that that specific kind of hoofcuffs couldn’t hold a bigger or smaller pony. And that gave him an idea

So it was about time to use it. The first problem was that he had no idea of how to do it to start with. He tried to imagine how a unicorns do magic, they concentrate, their horns glows and suddenly objects are floating in the place. Okay, that wasn’t very useful, so what else? He tried to imagine himself for when he was just a foal, and suddenly when he started to think about his age at that moment he felt how the watch gave him a shock, pretty similar to the feeling of being grabbed by magic. That startled him for a second, but then he smiled at the discovering of how to make the spell work, so he kept concentrating in his image as a foal as he was receiving more and more shocks from his watch.

Then all of the sudden, Amalvi felt a powerful discharge of magic, and then the feel of being electrocuted. He cried and shouted in pain while feeling his bones decreasing, his muscles shrinking and his coat and skin burning. At that moment the agony was so intense he thought he was going to die, and unconsciously he wished to, luckily for him, the suffering stopped. After a moment of silence, he opened his eyes and looked at his body, he was still himself, but with the appearance he had when he was just a small colt, shorter, skinnier and with no cutiemark, but still an earth pony with blue coat. Needless to say, the hoofcuffs were now too big to hold him and he easily took them off.

However the moment he tried to stand up he felt dizzy, his stomach started to hurt and his head spined on itself. He staggered to one of the walls and not being able to hold himself he puked on the floor, feeling much better after it. It was probably because he had now a smaller stomach that couldn’t hold all the food he had eaten before, or perhaps not since he hasn’t had anything to eat in a while, it was irrelevant, the . After recuperating the breath and resting for some seconds he crawled to the other side of the room and sat against the wall, then he pressed a button of his watch, lighting it and making some runes appear along with a familiar voice.

“Congratulations Amalvi, your first mission is accomplished and the spell of your watch works nicely”

“Ver...

Amalvi stopped for a second, surprised to hear himself speaking with the voice of a foal, but then he continued, still feeling a bit awkward.

“Very funny Miriam. I need help, can you tell me where I am right now?”

“Don’t worry, I tracked your position. Everything seems to indicate that you are at the subterranean dungeons. In an isolated cell suited for interrogations.”

“Interrogations? I don’t like how that sounds.”

“Is not as bad as you think. They first use some eloquence and if it doesn’t work they beat you up a bit. But you have a lot experience in that field, right?”

Amalvi rolled his eyes even if he knew Miriam couldn’t probably see him doing it.

“I can’t say I’m not, regardless, can you get me out?”

“I can give you directions if that’s what you want, but how I’m supposed to open the cell for you? Don’t be an idiot.”

“Well, duh. I’ve never asked for you to do such a thing. Anyway, directions.”

“Okay, once you are out of there you have to go upstairs three times. The dungeons are designed as a labyrinth to make escapes more difficult so you need to memorize this: two right, third left, first right, up, second left, first right, up, fourth right second right, third left, first right and all the way to the end of that hallway. You got it?”

Amalvi smiled and his eyes moved each in a different direction as he tried to remember what he was just told

“NO”

An even if he couldn’t see her, Amalvi could felt how Miriam was giving him a inquisitor look of desperation and anger

“You are such an idiot. I’ll contact with you once you are out to give you instructions as you go.”

“That seems to be a better plan.”

“So, goodbye, and by the way, we didn’t expect you to survive the spell, but since you did you should know that the more you use it, the less painful the procedure will be each time, according to Lightrod.”

“Thanks Miriam.”

“Bye Amalvi, try not to get killed.”

“Say what again?”

The watch went off and the runes disappeared. Once he was alone again he started to think of himself at the age he was before the transformation, a grown stallion. After feeling the electrical shock passing through his body he started to suffer pain as well from the muscles and bones suddenly growing and his cutiemark coming back, but the pain wasn’t as agonizing as the first time. Amalvi shook his head, still being a little bit stunned by the transformation and looked at the time.

Now he only needed to wait, it was just matter of time that the interrogator entered the room and that would be the perfect chance for him to escape, so he moved to the side of the door and looking at his watch he stayed there for about half hour until he heard hoofsteps again. He got in defending position, preparing for attacking, but he could hear how the hoofsteps faded away, so he had to wait more. After fifteen minutes he heard hoofsteps again, this time getting closer and closer to the door, so there was no doubt somepony was going to his cell.

When the door opened, a unicorn gasped when he found the hoofcuffs in the floor, but before he could close the door again he was hit in the head by the hindlegs of Amalvi and getting KO'd instantly. Amalvi jumped to the corridor where there was an earth pony with angry expression and wielding a spear.

Fights between earth ponies are a match of endurance, since both fighters resist hits pretty well, there is a complete equal fight in which only the toughest and the most trained will win. The question for Amalvi was, who was better trained? an elite soldier of Celestia or just a regular guy with a few years of military training? The answer was obvious, in normal conditions Amalvi had no chance whatsoever against the earth pony guard. Amalvi counted with the surprise factor and the guard counted with a weapon, heavy armor and the fact that his rival had his leg wounded. However, his advantage was also his disadvantage. The corridor was too narrow to make a spear an effective weapon and the armor, while protecting the vital parts like the chest, the flank and the head it made him very slow and didn’t offer any protection for the legs. It seemed like Amalvi had a chance after all but he would need some luck.

The guard pointed the spear at the blue pony and said:

“Don’t dare to move a bit”

Not like he wanted to. Amalvi knew that any attempt to run in the direction of the guard would result in him being impaled by the spear. So instead he slowly walked as closer as he could, staying away from the range of the spear. This surprised the guard, who said.

“Didn’t you hear me? Go back into the cell, you scumbag!”

Then he proceeded to try to hit with the lance, but the colt was just at the exact distance to not get hit by it. That didn’t prevent his hearth from shrinking and getting frightened when the blade of the spear passed just a few inches near him. Now the guard understood the plan, spears are a bad weapon for earth ponies if they aren’t attached to their flank. He could do so, but that would give Amalvi a chance to strike. Also, if the guard tried to move forward the colt could easily avoid him and get closer, were the spear would result useless. But Amalvi couldn’t move either, they were in a stalemate at the moment. Waiting for the other to make the next move.

After some awkward silence, the guard decided that it was stupid to use the spear at all, so he got rid of it. The moment the spear touched the floor Amalvi had already moved forward and launched a kick on one of the front forelegs of the guard, making him fall on his chest. The colt jumped on the fallen guard and used his back to launch himself, however the guard predicted that and bucked with one leg the chest of Amalvi, sending him a few meters away. Both stallions stood up as soon as they could. Amalvi could just run away, but he couldn’t outspeed the guard with a wounded leg and he didn’t want that guard to call for reinforcements. The guard then charge towards Amalvi, even with the weight of his equipment he moved faster than the colt predicted and with all his strength headbutted Amalvi chest and threw him to the floor again. The guard was about to stomp on the head of Amalvi when this decided to kick the unprotected stomach while he was still laying on the ground. The hit was so hard that the guard choked and emptied his stomach, luckily for the colt it didn’t spill any on him. Taking advantage of this, Amalvi stood up as soon as he could and with all his earth pony strenght he launched a kick to the face of the stallion, which wasn’t nice at all if we keep in mind that he was hit directly in the right eye. That hit bursted the eye of the guard, who was now shouting in pain and touching his bleeding face. Amalvi was both happy for knowing that he had won the fight and horrified for doing such a mess to the face of the poor guard. Regardless he took the helmet of the guard off with his foreleg and once it was unprotected Amalvi threw a kick to his head to put him to sleep as he turned. The guard was knocked out, but he still mumbled nonsensical gibberish before totally fading out. Having pity of him, Amalvi took a piece of clothing from the armor and tearing it apart with his mouth he used the piece of cloth to poorly bandage the head of the guard, covering the bleeding eye.

He had no time to waste, who knows if somepony heard the fight he just had and if another guard could come at any second. Amalvi lifted his leg, tried not to think about the pain and pressed the button to call for Miriam. She then answered with her usual neutral tone.

“What a disappointment. Anyway, directions, first go to the second corridor to the right.”

Amalvi couldn’t prevent to get curious about the words of Miriam. Disappointed? She expected him to beat the guard faster than he did or something?

“Disappointment?”

“Oh is nothing, just that me and coworker were betting about who would win, and now I own her 10 bits”

“Lovely. Second, what you said?”

“Second corridor to the right”

The blue colt commenced to walk. His moves were slower and clumsier than usual due to the wounds he was suffering but at least he could still walk, which was more than could be said from the royal guard. After giving only a few steps he turned back to search the guards body, finding a set of keys, a little map of the place with some times on it (which Amalvi supposed it would serve to tell the guard their workplace and working times) and a little sack with some bits. Amalvi thought of taking those objects, but he didn’t have a way of carrying them as he had lost his saddlebag so he just left them in the floor.

Right left, left right. The whole place was designed like a dungeon and if it wasn’t thanks to Miriams instructions Amalvi would have sworn that he was simply going in circles because of the fact that all the corridors looked the same: grey stone walls, metal jails inside them and an iron door at the end of some. Sometimes Amalvi had to make a detour to avoid some guards, but luckily for him he only had to do it twice and with the help of Miriam he didn’t have to worry about entering a corridor with no way out. He couldn’t but think how he was so stupid as to not ask her for help when he was searching for the room of Celestia. After ascending through the dungeons he finally found the exit at the end of a hallway, which cleverly looked like another iron door just like in the rest of the corridors but after being opened by Amalvi it revealed to lead to a bigger hallway with windows and furniture instead to another isolation room.

The stallion wanted to rest but he was too close to being finally free that he couldn’t waste any second and get caught, not now. However the simple vision of the sun rays passing through the windows gave him enough energy to continue. He walked to the closest window and looked outside, the sun had appeared moments ago and the first rays of the dawn were heating the land. Amalvi then tried to open the window but realized that it didn’t budge, he was just about to buck it when he heard the hoofsteps of some pony approaching. Panicking, he kicked the window multiple times, but he was too tired and wounded to do a proper kick that would allow him to open it. There was no place to hide and the hoofsteps were getting closer and closer. So Amalvi though that would be his end.

Luckily, or unluckily for him who showed wasn’t a guard, but a mare with purple coat and blue mane. Amalvi didn’t know if to be thankful or to curse. In any case there was only one question in his mind, what is she doing here?. Pie examined the room and then realized the presence of the stallion, she was scared for a second but then she looked again and letting a brief laugh escape she exclaimed.

“Hey, isn’t it the douchebag of Bright. Where is my knife?”

“They took it, and if it wasn’t because of it I wouldn’t have had to escape the dungeons.”

Taking advantage how bad was Amalvi, the mare got closer and hit him with her forehoof in the face.

“Do you know how expensive it was? Go back to get it for me, you imbecile!”

Amalvi ignored the hit, compared to the hits from the guard that kick was nothing. He stood up and walking away he said.

“You crazy bitch. You are stupid if you think I’m going to get back there again”

Just as he expected, but hoped not to happen, the mare jumped on him, and with a very agile maneuver she managed to land with all four legs in the back of Amalvi, making him fall to the floor again. He tried to struggle but it was useless, he was too weak at the moment to move Pie off him. He turned his head and looked how she examined his body for some seconds before stepping off him. He sighed with relief and stood up again. She then said

“Just saying that the only reason I’m letting you go is because you don’t have anything I could take from you and because I have nothing to kill you with.”

Amalvi turned to hide his smile and then said

“Like if I give many bucks, anyway, seeya.”

She didn’t say anything and instead started to look inside some furniture and put some silver cutlery inside her bag. Amalvi ignored her and after looking for an open window he jumped out of it. The fall was larger than he expected and he landed with his face. Overcoming his weariness, he trotted as fast as he could away from the castle. Luckily for him there were no guards in the gardens and he went pretty straight forward to the place he entered from. Now that he thought about it, Pie couldn’t have cut the fence, so there was even another intruder inside during his stay. Oh well, it wasn’t anything of his business. He was free, but he didn’t have much time until the guards started to look for him so he had to make haste, towards the train station. Then his watch lighted again and the voice of Miriam sounded, again.

“How do you pretend to get on a train without money?”

He didn’t paid attention. He already planned to sneak inside some train and go illegally

“I’ll figure out something, the biggest problem is already solved

“As much as I would love to leave it by yourself now, I’m supposed to help you, so I contacted someone over there who will give you a ticket you can use to get back to Baltimare”

Oh sweet Celestia, he couldn’t believe his luck.

“For real?”

With sarcastic tone Miriam replied

“No, I just wanted to give you false hopes. Now, why the hell would I do that?
“Is just too good to be true. Anyway, who is this pony?”

“Apparently another agent called Sal Sundae is in Canterlot as well, she agreed to get to the train station and buy you a ticket. She is an earth mare with green coat and blonde mane.”

“Green coat, yellow mane, got it. I’ll go there as fast as I can.”

“Goodbye agent, congratulations for not getting killed.”

The communication closed and Amalvi ran towards the train station. Some ponies were already going out of their houses and opening their business so the streets were slowly filling with activity.

Once he arrived at the train station, a crowd was starting to gather there, however he had no trouble finding Sal Sundae, who also had noticed him and approaching the stallion she said.

“Are you Amalvi?”

Before answering anything he inspected her, and only when he saw that the mare was wearing a watch like his own he answered.

“Yes I am, are you Sundae?”

The girl nodded and after searching inside her purse she retrieved a ticket and handed it to Amalvi, who thanked her and took it. After saying a brief goodbye she walked away and disappeared. The stallion then turned to look at the train and walked with steady pace to it, The ticket inspector was surprised to find a pony covered in wounds hanging him a ticket, but he made no questions after the stallion rejected his offer of medical attention. Amalvi dragged his hoofs to his seat, and only when the train started to move he closed his eyes and let the
depletion took over him, finally falling asleep.