Equus Proditor Servus

“WAKE UP HUMAN!”

The angry voice, coupled with the bright light shining in his face and the harsh slap across his face jerked Jay back into awareness. He jerked sideways with a groan of pain. His vision swam with the brightness of the light blaring against his eye-lids as he closed them, shaking his head in an attempt to clear the haziness. He lurched sideways as dizziness overcame him but the shackles binding his arms tightly behind his back kept him upright. The pain searing through his jaw intensified as a second slap caught him hard across the other cheek. He was pretty sure that whatever it was that had hit him had managed to knock out one his teeth, though he couldn’t be sure. The force of the attack had numbed the side of his face.

“I said…WAKE UP! NOW!” The voice roared at him again. Jay blinked rapidly trying to clear the haziness from his vision. From what he could see past the searing light, several figures were moving around in the massive shadows cast by the light. Creatures with four legs, tails and judging from the clip-clopping sounds that were coming from his unknown captors, hooves. Hooves. Four legs. Jay shook his head again, refusing to believe what he could only guess who was holding him.

“W-What…where….” He began but the first voice who had had shouted at him interrupted. This time, the voice had dipped its volume to a low menacing growl.

“Who are you? What are you doing here human?”

Finally Jay’s vision managed to clear. A pony’s face filled his vision almost immediately. With white fur covering the pony entirely, it had a strong face, with a powerfully muscled snout, with its muzzle open in a snarl, showing its teeth. The pony’s cyan coloured eyes were full of anger and hate as it continued to glare at Jay. From what Jay could gather from the rather limited view of his captor, the pony had a long, neatly combed mane, sporting a deep, Navy Blue colouring except for a long streak of light blue, almost teal, through the centre of the mane. The pony’s deep voice suggested that his captor was a male. After a few seconds of silence, Jay finally managed to work up the courage to speak.

“Okay….one get your snout out of my face,” He said coldly. The pony’s eyes blinked and his snarl vanished, to be replaced with a look of utter shock. “Two, where the hell am I?” The pony stepped back from Jay, allowing the captive human to get a better look at the stallion. The pony’s entire body was covered by a large piece of metal armour that snaked around the front of the pony’s barrel and over its back. Armour, similar to iron shoes was closed over the stallion’s hooves, providing a clanking noise on the floor. Jutting out from the centre of the stallion’s forehead was a pearly white horn, tapering to a sharp point. On the pony’s flank was what appeared to be a small silver shield, with several purplish pink stars grouped about it. Jay knew what this was meant to be. A cutie mark. From Jay had heard about ponies, a cutie mark was a special symbol that appeared upon a ponies flanks when they had discovered their special talent, though personally, Jay had no idea how on earth the marks were supposed to work. Just like the mane on the stallions head, a long tail coloured the same navy blue with matching teal stripe was swishing about with clear agitation over what Jay had just said. Jay took the moment to look round, but the light shining in his face blotted out all other features of the room, except for the fact that the room seemed entirely composed of stone, with no windows around the blank four walls. The only difference that Jay could see was that the wall behind his captor was a large set of bars, with no obvious way to leave the room.

“Answer the question human.” The unicorn answered coldly, baring his teeth once again in a look that was clearly supposed to be threatening. Jay raised his eyebrows and smirked.

“Give the info I want and then I’ll….”

CRACK!
The unicorn standing in front of him had hit Jay so hard, that Jay was pretty sure that either his nose was broken or the unicorn’s armoured hoof, now covered with blood had split his lip open. Since blood was now flooding into his mouth, providing a nasty coppery taste, Jay was inclined to go with the latter. The human spat sideways as the unicorn in front of him began to shout again.

“You just don’t get it do you human?! I know you kidnapped Fluttershy and that you were trying to escape to attack Canterlot itself! Do you deny it? Huh? DO YOU?!”

Jay stared at him, confused.
“Kidnap Fluttershy?” he repeated shaking his head slowly, keeping his eyes focused on the panting unicorn that seemed to have shouted himself hoarse. “No, we were trying to get away from other humans after we broke Fluttershy out of prison.” Jay said keeping his eyes peeled for any sign of reaction from the unicorn. The unicorn froze, his mouth falling open in a perfect O shape. The unicorn took a step back, then collapsed on his backside looking confused.

“You’re….you’re telling the truth.” He stammered, looking shocked. Jay frowned.

“Obviously, your charming way of interrogation is so easy to open up to.” He replied sarcastically, shifting his knees slightly to alleviate the uncomfortable pain that had begun to grow from kneeling on the stone floor for so long. The unicorn blinked and some of the aggressiveness came back into his voice as he spoke again.

“Fluttershy claimed that you and partner agreed to “take her away.” Judging from what we know of human’s behaviour…” The unicorn gave Jay a glare of deepest loathing. Jay nodded calmly, seeing no reason to attempt to lie. Judging from that horn, Jay guessed that this unicorn meant business.

“Yes I did say that,” he said, prompting the unicorn to look at him slightly harder. “I only said that as a way of saying that I was going to bring her back to Equestria. Speaking of which, I am in Equestria right?”

The unicorn in front of him did not speak at first but gave a soft shake of his body so that the armour covering most of his body rattled loudly. The unicorn’s Teal eyes had lost some of their mistrust and anger but was steadily being replaced with a creeping suspicion. Jay titled his head to the side, grinning widely, though there was nothing very funny about the situation.

“Anypony home?” he asked, giving a soft nervous chuckle. The unicorn in front him blinked, shook himself again, making the armour rattle then got to his hooves.

“My name is Shining Armour. Prince of the crystal Empire and Captain of the Equestrian royal guard.”

“W-Wha…” Jay stammered, frowning at that unexpected titbit of info. One minute this Shining Armour was shouting at him, demanding that Jay tell him what he was doing here, under the delusion that Jay had kidnapped Fluttershy and was trying to get away from Equestria instead of returning the yellow Pegasus to her homeland. The next second, he was speaking quite formally, almost as though this was a meeting for a sale on a house or something of the sort.

“I’m…guardsman Jay. Guardsman of London compound Grey-vale.” Shining Armours suspicious look faded slightly. He eyed Jay cautiously before stepping closer and looking him dead in the eyes. Jay shivered at the glare Shining Armour gave him.

“Well…” The unicorn said slowly, moving his head closer to the captive human so that the horn atop Shining Armour’s head threatened to poke Jay’s eye out. “You seem to be more truthful than other humans I’ve interrogated. Your friend we brought in just shouted and swore.” Jay grinned, imagining Robin shouting at Shining Armour then the Unicorn shouting right back at him. Shining armour shook his head with a sigh.
“There’s nothing more to do than wait for the princess’s decision about you and your friend. She’ll want to talk to the pair of you then I suppose you’ll join the other humans that have, “Crashed” here.” The sarcasm in Shining Armour’s voice had increased steadily as he’d talked. Jay tilted his head slightly, feeling half annoyed at the unicorns sarcasm and half curious about what Shining meant about “joining the other humans.”

"But be warned human." Shining Armour said with a slightly twisted grin, "Once Princess Celestia gets her hooves on you...you'll wish you and your friend had never crashed here!"