Sydney's Rangers

I slowly woke up to the sound of muffled yells of pain and laughing. With a groan of agony, I raised my head and looked around. Through the blurry haze in my eyes I was able to make out a cell of some kind. The walls were pitch black and shiny, like they were recently sprayed with water. The door was made of some kind of green metal that looked like someone had been pounding on it from the inside. The floor was cold and had various odd coloured stains that could be dried blood. This was an all too familiar yet alien place: a cell.

Sighing, I tried to stand up. My muscles ached and my brain felt like it was boiling from the inside. I got halfway up before something seemed to clamp around my wrists and neck, violently throwing me back to the ground. Shocked and disoriented I checked my wrists to see what the hell happened. A translucent bracelet was placed on each wrist that glowed a deep silver. Attached to each bracelet was a long, twisted chain that led to the wall behind me. On the bumpy wall, wedged into the stone, was a long silver rod with pale green lettering of unknown origin that seemed to glow and whisper words into my head. I couldn't see it, but I assumed there was a larger restraint on my neck.

I had many questions, and none of them could be explained. The closet thing to an answer I could think up would be that I was in an American cell that was placed in some mine, and that these bracelets were some prototype tech that they'd salvaged and decided to use it to capture me instead of study and mass produce it, which would be fucking stupid. I'd decided I'd been drugged to make me complacent and this was all a hallucination. Deciding that since I was lucid enough to look at myself I'd best check what they'd confiscated from me.

My blue lucky hoodie and black shirt was still there, though they'd stolen my bulletproof vest. My pants and shoes were still there, my knee pads and added protected was gone. My necklace, badge and ring were gone, the pricks probably decided to melt them down for scrap metal. My backpack and supplies were obviously gone and I could tell by the fact that my vision wasn't impaired that my gas mask and its cover was taken as well. My cloak and bandoleer was gone, meaning they'd taken my gun and had probably stolen my knife as well. At least they were nice enough to leave me with my clothes, I suppose.

Silently cursing ever once in awhile, I waited until they would send someone to interrogate me. Aside from the sounds of someone being brutally beaten a few rooms away, there was nothing. After what felt like hours, and I'd counted all the sharp parts of the wall and oddities in the room, I heard the assault stop and a rusty door being opened, causing a loud screeching noise to reverberate outside the room. Silently, I waited as the sounds of armoured footsteps and a body being dragged near me. As it got to its loudest point, it stopped right outside my room. With a loud click, the door opened and I saw my kidnappers.

It would be simple to call them horse bugs, and I will call them that. They were weird, inhumane mutations of a horse. They were small, only coming up to just above my waist and they were very skinny, like they'd barely eaten anything in the last two weeks. They all wore black and silver armour that protected their slender, bony barrels, and they had twisted hooves that had large, perfectly circular holes running up and down their appendages and their short necks. Their armour seemed to flow and glide with the shape of their bodies, making it look like their armour was made of liquid metal.

Their heads were fucking weird. Their eyes glowed a faint blue, a slightly whiter shade of blue placed where their iris would be. Their mouths were lined with fanged teeth that sticked out of their mouths. They had silver hair that seemed to glow faintly, almost like magic. They had messed up horns that looked like someone took a hole puncher to a unicorn's head, their horns were twisted and had various holes in them. If it weren't for the dangerously sharp tip I would think they were useless.

There were four of this bug horses, two of them held spears with black wooden handles and emerald green tips, and the other two were dragging a normal looking horse...With wings.

This one was clearly in bad shape. Blood poured from his mouth and various wounds. His light bronze fur and wings were caked in various fluids, mostly his blood. Unlike the bug horses he was wearing nothing, giving me a decent look at the guy. He was taller then the bugs, coming up to my stomach, and had a fairly toned body for a horse. He had long two tone blue hair that was matted in sweat and sticked to his face, obscuring his blackened eyes. His light blue irises were bordered by blood shot veins and seemed to struggle to remain open. His legs were in bad shape, looking like they were broken in various places, just like his wings. Without medical attention I'd wager he'd be dead within the hour. His raspy breaths were the only thing that showed he was still alive. The guards carrying him threw him towards me, landing a few feet in front of me and to the left.

"Don't try anything, we'll be back shortly." One of the guards said with a mono-tone voice before him and his buddies stepped outside and shut the door. So, these hallucinations talk as well...Great. With nothing else to do I turned my attention to the ragged horse. He seemed content to lie on his back and stare at the barren roof.

"So...What....are you in for?" He said between breaths. It sounded like a joke but I couldn't tell. His voice was youthful, energetic, yet clearly pained. I didn't reply, not wanting to address my fantasies.

"Silent type, huh? Fine by me." He rhetorically asked, splitting his sentences with a bloody cough. He slowly backed himself against a bed frame and sat up. We sat there awkwardly for awhile, him either coughing up blood and bile or breathing heavily. Soonish, we heard the door loudly unlock and we both turned to face it. In stepped the same four guards who now stood much taller and moved with a purpose, two of them standing on either side of the door as a new guy walked in.

"Buck, this guy again..." My made-up cell mate said bitterly.

"Now, now Flash, there's no need for hostility. After all, you were the one being uncooperative." The new guy said. He was similar in colour and shape to the guards, only this one was nearly as tall as me, only being half a foot shorter, and had long, flowing silver hair that reached down to his weird, see-through bug wings. He, like the guards, had a silver tail of the same hair type, though his was much longer and seemed more colourful. His horn jutted proudly from his head and covered upwards slightly, making it look more like a broken scimitar blade then a horn. He spoke with a smooth, condescending tone that promised pain.

"Now then, I'm glad to see you’re awake! We're dreadfully sorry about the accommodations, as soon as we have a vacancy in the castle we'll find you a proper room. In case you don't know who I am, I am King Silver Vein, ruler of the Silver Hive. You are?" He introduced himself with an obvious lie. If he wanted to be nice he wouldn't have thrown me in a cell with Menstrual Mouth.

"..." I answered.

"You were asked a question, I expect an answer." Silver said with an annoyed voice as he quietly huffed.

"..."

"Fine, act like a simpleton, we'll repeat the question later in a less civil way...What are you? Did you come from Equestria? Beyond the Broken Sea?" He threatened with a loud sigh as the guards seemed to chuckle before he asked his second and third question.

"..."

"You know, this is becoming increasingly infuriating..." He said angrily. Blood Face seemed to be enjoying the show, not that any of this mattered, since it's all in my head.

"If you won't answer my questions I will get...Less likable. If you won't tell me your name, what you are, and where you came from, then perhaps you can answer me this...Where did you find these?" He said, barely containing his rage as he fidgeted on the spot before he made my guns appear out of thing fucking air. They floated in a shinny, clear magical aura above the ground.

"This one in particular is familiar to me." He said while pointing at my revolver. "It seems similar to my machine, though slightly bigger and shinier. You see, I found mine while traveling the tundra, and when I found it it was in a poor condition: Rusted metal, jammed tube and only had three working explosive things in it. Not to mention the damaging magic radiating off it. A few hours of cleansing and it was fine but I still had no idea where it came from. We found a small, green cardboard box of explosive cylinders but we still had no idea where they came from. I implore you to alleviate my curiosity, what is it?" He explained as he played with my sidearm, I silently prayed he'd shot himself in the head or something.

"You should probably answer him, this won't end well for you." Bronzy said cautiously as he stared at me.

"Listen to him. I have the power to make your life very difficult, very easily. What is it, and where did it come from, I won't ask thrice." Silver said as he starred at me, his cold eyes saying 'tell more or I'll sodomize you with a drill'.

Sighing in defeat, I breathed in deeply and coughed loudly, drawing everyone's attention to me...And loudly burped.

"GGGGAAAAHHHHH!...Fine, if you’re so content to hold your secrets so close to your chest, then we must simply pry them from you....See you tomorrow, Monster, we're going to get to know each other very well soon enough..." He shouted in fury before collecting himself and, quite freakishly, smiled at me.

"..."

"Oh, and here." Silver Turd said as he did...Something to Blue Eyes, causing him to cry out in pain and surprise as his body seemed to shift and his legs repaired themselves with a loud series of snaps.

"I don't want you to bleed out just yet, there's still so much I can do to you...See you both soon. I promise it'll be fun!" Silver said with a devilish chuckle as he and his henchmen walked out of the cell.

"Bucking plothole...I gotta hand it to you, you got balls, whoever you are, just hope he doesn't take yours away to get back at you. You got a name?" He said with a small laugh.

"...Tycho." I answered truthfully, deciding this was going to be a very boring high if I ignore my fantasies.

"Huh, odd name, is it Griffic? My name is Captain Flash Sentry, just call me Flash." He said as he offered me his hoof in a...Handshake which I begrudgingly accepted. Noting that his fur felt VERY life-like I hoped to whatever gods still existed that this was a dream.