- 1-1 - Skill Issue

Waking up bound and gagged is very rarely a good thing.

Usually when one wakes up like this they struggle to remember their previous night to see if they either got kidnapped or somehow got talked into some weird stuff by a nice lady at the bar.

Seeing as I was almost certain that I went to sleep alone in my bed last night, It was almost certainly the former for myself.

It didn’t help that I was also hanging from the ceiling in a pitch black room.

The quiet creaking of whatever material was holding me up as I slightly swayed back and forth was the only sound I could hear. That and the frantic thumping of my heartbeat.

Blinking heavily, I noticed a few more things.

For one, I could not feel my feet, and my head felt all kinds of weird. It could be attributed to being upside down, but this was a new level of weirdness that the blood pooling in my brain just couldn’t hope to compare to.

I flexed a little to test the bonds that kept my arms trapped. They had a small amount of give, but seemed quite sturdy.

Straining my hearing once again, I made sure that I was the only one around. Bracing myself, I pushed with all of my might against my constraints.

For a moment I thought it wouldn’t be enough, but the slight sound of tearing and the feeling of fresh air on my body rewarded my efforts.

Now with my arms free, I reached up to my mouth to remove my gag. Fumbling for a moment, I had a strange problem.

There was this strange protrusion where my face was.

The problem was that when I poked it I could feel it.

Did my captors perform some strange bloody cosmetic surgery? I didn’t even know that was feasible with the current technology. And are those bloody horns?

I patted the protrusions my hands had bumped upon their exploration of my new face. Sure enough I had a pair of gnarly horns protruding from my head as well. My face was a harry mess, and I had horns.

Sweet.

I needed a mirror, but as far as I could tell I had the face of a minotaur. Were these guys some sort of weird Greek cultists? They probably could have asked and I would have come willingly. Getting turned into a mythical creature sounds like a hell of a time.

But the whole hanging from the ceiling needed to end. I stretched my arms up to my feet, and found that the motion was easier than it should have been.

Now I was a fit man, but I still admit that it should have been difficult to reach my feet by flexing my core to reach them. But sure enough, it was a piece of cake and I found that they really went the whole nine yards with the minotaur stick.

I had hooves, two of the strange things.

How does one walk with hooves? Well, I guess I’m about to find out.

With a mighty tug, I pulled off the strange smooth substance binding me to the ceiling. With a mighty thump, I fell to the ground in an ungraceful sprawl.

Alright, sight is useless at the moment. Fumbling around, I felt around on my hands and knees looking for just about anything.

In the end my head found my next point of interest by quite literally knocking my head on another form hanging from the ceiling.

Holding back a swear, I steadied the swinging body and felt around for where they were attached to the ceiling.

With one arm firmly around the… miniature horse? I broke the connecting part to the ceiling.

Evidently they were either asleep and woken upon the fall or faking it before, because as soon as they were free from the ceiling they were wiggling like their life depended on it.

“Stop that, do you want me to drop you?” Oh hell yes my voice changed. I even sound like a big minotaur. Also, the wiggling miraculously stopped almost like they understood me.

Weird.

In any case, I set the pony on the ground and got to work undoing it’s restraints. All of its hooves were bound together, and it also had a gag on it.

But get this, it has wings. Leathery wings, but wings nonetheless. It took a moment to get them properly free, but before long the… pegasus? No, they have feathered wings… thestral maybe? That’s what they were called in Harry Potter anyways. Anyways the thestral was standing free of the weird bindings.

I was admiring my work when a world shattering event idly came and said hello.

The thestral quietly said “Thanks.”

Close enough.

I instinctively said “Think nothing of it.” before freezing a moment later when my brain caught up.

I peered in the general direction of where I thought they were before asking “That was you who said that right?”

“Yes, who else could have said that- oh you can’t see. Right.”

They sounded feminine, but that could have been the smaller frame making their voice higher pitch, but I felt like my hunch was right.

“Yea, it’s throwing me off a little. Lass, you got a name?”

“Yes, sorry, distracted. My name’s Autumn Night. Lieutenant Autumn Night. Yours?”

A horse in the military with a stripper name? Sure. But my name? I’m a bloody minotaur, I can’t just say John Smith, it needs to have some pizazz to it.

“Name’s Voyager. Or at least, that’s what folks call me. You’re a military lass? And an officer no less? Heh, then we’ll be out of this mess in no time.”

I could hear her vaguely shuffling around in front of me, presumably inspecting the room. “Speaking of that, do you have any idea where we are?”

“Absolutely none. I woke up here swinging from the ceiling wondering which way was up for a little bit. Broke out and bumped into you. Now we’re here.”

“Great. Just great. There's a door over there, but as soon as we break out we’re certain to alert the changelings to our presence.”

“Uhh… changelings?”

Even though I didn’t see the look, I knew it happened. The look of ‘are you kidding me’ transcends visible boundaries.

“Don’t give me that look, what’s a changeling?”

“Uh, shape-shifting bug ponies? How can you not know this, they are the ones who ponynapped you. Also, I thought you couldn’t see.”

“I can’t, but I felt that bloody look you gave me. But I've never heard of these changelings before, sorry to disappoint.”

“For being called Voyager, you must not get out much.”

“That’s rich from the stripper name Lieutenant.”

“Stripper name, what does that even mean?”

Huh, I guess ponies don’t have strippers.

“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”

She audibly huffed.

“This is accomplishing nothing, we need to get out of here.”

“Thanks for the pep talk, but I still can’t see anything here ma’am.”

“Alright, just hold onto my wing so I can guide you to the door.”

I felt her wing extend out and brush my hand, and I lightly grabbed it. Using it as a guide, I moved over to the door with minimal incident. A miracle considering my now hoven feet.

“This door is reinforced with changeling membrane and is incredibly strong. This is going to be tough to get through.”

“You mean like the membrane I tore out of earlier?”

“...yea. That membrane. Can you uh, pop this open for me?”

“Only for you ma’am.”

“Stop saying it like that.”

A small smile graced my lips as I felt around for where I could get purchase on the door.

“Stop saying what like what?”

“Ma’am. You say it weird.”

Bracing myself, I started to work the door open.

“I’m just trying to be respectful ma’am. But if you insist, I’ll call you Nighty.”

“Go back to ma’am please.”

With a final grunt of effort the door was thrown open, only for a hail of green bolts to fly into the room. I dived into cover, and Night did the same on the other side of the doorway.

“What the bleeding blazes are they firing at us!”

From across the doorway, Night yelled a response over the racket.

“Looks like stunning spells! Don’t get hit!”

“That was a given! Also they can use bloody magic!? This information would have been useful thirty seconds ago!”

Now that the door was open, a small amount of light illuminated the room. The room was utterly devoid of any decoration. The walls were uneven and made of a smooth black substance that eerily reflected the green light of the stunning spells shooting past.

Night shouted over “Aright, I have a plan. Get ready!”

I looked back over to Night and watched in veritable awe as she confidently jumped out of cover and got hit with three stunning spells, immediately causing her to collapse like a sack of bricks to the ground.

“Lieutenant, I’m never going to let you live this down.”

I don’t think she heard me, as the sound of light snoring began to emanate from her prone form.

“Aye, if you need something done…”

Tensing up, I bolted over to where Night was laying on the floor. Scooping her up on the pass, I quickly dived to the other side of the doorway. For my efforts, I received a blast to my arm. I braced for some weird wave of exhaustion to hit me, only for it to never come.

Experimentally, I stuck my hand out into the doorway and was rewarded for my efforts with two direct hits to my hand.

All that happened was a small tinglyness. No loss of mobility, and no loss of feeling.

I looked down to the mare utterly zoinked out in my arms.

“You… you are a special kind of special.”

Shaking my head, I prepared for my dumb stunt of the day. Carefully positioning Night in my arms, I took a deep breath in, and rushed out the doorway at full sprint.

A few things happened in quick succession.

First, I was struck by at least five of the stunning bolts with minimal effect to myself.

Second, I got my first good look at these changelings, and I wasn’t that impressed. They just looked like bug ponies. I mean I guess they would look bad from the perspective of a pony, but honestly they looked quite adorable.

Third and arguably most importantly, It was hard to sprint with hooves.

To them it must have looked like the stunning attacks were having an effect, but in all honestly I was stumbling due to these infernal hooves. Still, they threw those green bean bags with even more enthusiasm than before.

I stumbled down the hallway feeling like a bull in a china shop, using a hand on the wall to support me as I hobbled away from my persusers.

Hallway after hallway I dodged the knee-high bugs trying not to hurt any of them. It turns out those small wings on their sides actually work somehow, so this whole outrunning thing was not turning out so great.

You know for being scary black bug creatures the damn things are making it hard to hate them. The ones going about their business scrambled out of my in such a comedic fashion it felt criminal not to make sure they did not hurt themselves. It’s not the same cute as the pony i’m treating as an american football, but they had their own charm.

I took a corner at high speed, nearly bowling into one piled high with supplies.

Shouting over my shoulder “Sorry!” I continued running. “Watch out for the group after me as well!”

Ah, they'll be fine. Unlike what I’m about to be In about three seconds. In front of me there was another group of what must have been their guards barreling through the air towards me. The buzzing of wings behind me informed me that I had not shaken my other pursuers either.

Caught in between a rock and a hard place, I opted to enter the large set of double doors next to me.

Half staggering, half sprinting, I pushed my way into the room and quickly pushed the doors closed.

Turning around and placing my back against the doors, I took in the room.

Sitting in an admittedly somewhat intimidating throne was another one of the changelings, but something was different about this one. They were taller and had this kind of aura around them that just shouted leadership.

Behind me a large thump came from the other side of the door, slightly pushing me forward.

“Hello.” With my free hand I waved at them.

Mutely, they just idly waved, seemingly unsure how to handle the mess which is my existence.

Another assault on the door launched me stumbling forward. My luck with my hooves ran out, and I was sent sprawling onto my back.

As my pursuers rushed in, I stayed splayed out onto the ground recovering my wits.

“Hah, that was a hoot.” I looked to the nearest changeling “No one got hurt during that escapade did they?”

An expression of confusion greeted many of the changelings near me, but the one I asked shook their head in the negative.

“Ahh, that's good. Getting hurt is no fun.”

From the throne, the big changeling finally decided to assert her power and position.

“Drones, just what is going on?”

One of the changelings immediately responded “My Queen, this minotaur and thestral escaped temporary holding after what we believe was a mistake with the transport sedatives. The thestral went down with standard stun spells, but the minotaur was mostly unaffected by standard containment spells. We pursued them here.”

“How much energy was wasted?”

“None my Queen, the minotaur showered most drones they passed with affection. We are still fairly into the net positive with energy expenditure.”

Wait, they feed on emotions? “You guys feed on emotions? Wait, sorry, go on. Wait QUEEN!?”

I looked up and sure enough, there was a crown sitting upon her head. That was where that leadership feeling was coming from.

“Yes minotuar, I am the Queen Chrysalis of the Badlands hive. I am surprised you have not heard of me.”

“Well uh, I’m new to town. Wayfaring stranger and all that.”

She got up from her throne and I began to sit up myself, only to cease once the death glares of the nearby changelings registered in my mind that it was in my best interest to stay on the floor.

“Tell me minotaur, how do you view us?”

Huh, that’s an easy one

I pointed to a nearby drone “They’re adorable. They look intensely huggable and I genuinely would be concerned for my heart’s health if they were any smaller. You look pretty. Nice eyes and all that. The crown pulls together the look well.”

Trying to get a read on an insect adjacent equine face while having one’s view upside down is not very conducive to the whole process, and the fact that they are also royalty means that there never was a chance to begin with. But I know how to read a room, and all I could tell is that something I said was damned strange.

Nothing new there, but I’ve never made royalty speechless before. Never even met royalty before now either, so I guess that skews the test sample. So one for one, not bad.

Little did I know that her next words would forever mark the day that my life got interesting.

“This… this could work…”

Author's Note:

Aye, my first chapter a multi chapter piece. Feel free to point out any errors.

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