Jacked Up

-{Chapter 3: Any Sufficiently Powerful Being...}-

~~~~~

Monday, April 21st, 1002 ANM

Canterlot, Equestria

Canterlot Sewers (Exact location Unknown)

"CON!"

Denise had been searching the sewers for nearly an hour, to no avail.  The twisting septic catacombs taunted her with their uniform appearance- she was even more lost than she was before.  Now, her only option was to press on forward, hoping that Conrad would hear her eventually.  That hope was growing increasingly faint, however, as Denise realized the sheer scale of the sewer.  For all the tunnels' simplicity, it was a massive system.

Denise suspected she was under some sort of major city, but that didn't help her sense of direction any.  She was in a new body- for all she knew, she wasn't even on earth anymore.

She gave a half-hearted chuckle at the thought.  If she was a changeling, maybe she was in Equestria.  That would be a laugh- a hopeless, deranged junkie like her in the land of sunshine and rainbows.

She hoped they had morphine, a least...

Suddenly, a far off sound caught her attention.  Denise stopped in her tracks and listened.  There was silence for a moment, then the sound came again.

"... Dee?"

It was faint, but she recognized the abbreviation of her name- and the slight accent it carried.

"CON?!"

Silence, and then...

"... Dee!  Where are you?"

Some part of Denise's mind registered that she should not have been able to make out the faint cry, but she pushed it aside, chalking it up to the new body and leaving it at that.  This situation was weird enough already, she didn't need to trouble herself with logic for now.

"CON, STAY WHERE YOU ARE, I'M COMING!" she cried, and sprinted off in the direction of her friend's voice.

"Jesus Christ, Dee, you're not gonna to believe this!"

The faint, ecstatic cry of her companion sent chills up her spine- she knew him well enough to infer what he was talking about.  Denise figured he'd have... changed... too, but she didn't want to acknowledge the suspicion.  Maybe she had still been grasping at some hope that things weren't completely jacked up, that there was still something about her situation that would follow some actual logic.  No such luck, apparently.

"DEE! DEE, YOU STILL THERE?!"

She was getting closer.  Con's distant cries had become shouts, echoing across the labyrinthine tunnels.

"I'M HERE!  JUST STAY WHERE YOU ARE!"

Denise rounded a corner, then another, following the shouts to their source like a bloodhound.  She could hear the splashing of her hooves against the wet soil- wet with what, she didn't want to know, but that was beside the point.  Soon, it was accompanied by a similar splashing, coming from the same direction Con's voice had.

Suddenly, a shadowy figure darted out from a corner ahead of her.  It turned excitedly to face Denise, blinking its large, red eyes, then came dashing towards her.

The figure came to a halt a few feet in front of her, breathing heavily.  Denise immediately recognized it as a changeling, but it was different from what she remembered in the show- she seemed to recall changelings having a distinct blue/green hue, but this one seemed to be just the opposite, with bright scarlet eyes and a distinctly red and pink color scheme to its tail and short tuft of a mane.

"Con, is that-"

Suddenly, the changeling began to speak, erasing all doubts about its identity.

"DENISE, DENISE, YOU'LL NEVER GUESS WHAT HAP- oh, it happened to you too- er, anyway, can you BELIEVE this, I mean, I'm a bloody CHANGELING, and so are you and that means we're in EQUESTRIA and-"

"Con-"

"-if we're in Equestria that means there's PONIES and WE'RE ponies and- "

"Con-"

"- well technically we're not ponies, but we can pass for them and-"

"CONRAD!"

Con's speech practically skidded to a halt.  A moment later, he was gripped in a tight, but brief embrace by Denise, wrapping her forelegs around his neck.

"God, it's good to see you," she sighed, stepping back, "What the hell happened?  Where are we?"

Con looked around briefly.

"Well, if the stench is any indication, we're in a sewer."

"Thanks, I got that," Denise groaned, rolling her eyes, "But what the fuck happened?  Why are we... y'know..."

She was skirting the issue intentionally.  The last thing she wanted was find out she really wasn't human anymore.  There was that small glint of hope, a spark fueled by equal amounts shock and denial, that was keeping her from losing it.  She needed to hold onto that spark, at least until things calmed down.

"Hell if I know," Con muttered in reply, "Last I remember, that bloke in the bar was giving us a job, then there was a flash of light, and...  Well, then I woke up in this little cesspool."

"Same here," Denise sighed dejectedly, "You think... maybe that creep..."

"Did this?"

She nodded.

"I dunno," Con replied, "It makes sense- I mean, compared to everything else that's happening.  But then..."

"I know...  Look, let's just get moving." she sighed.  Their questions were obvious, they didn't need to be spoken.  How did that creep send them here, turn them into... changelings?  And why?

The two friends walked in silence, pondering these questions.  Their thinking only brought more questions- what did that guy want from them?  What did he expect them to do?  And above all else, why them?  He had given Denise plenty of reasons, but there had to be more people with those talents than just them.

Could it have been coincidence?  The two simply being in the wrong place at the right time?  The more Denise thought about it, the less likely it seemed- she had been spot on about dealing with the devil.  Well, maybe not spot on, but close enough.  That man... he wasn't a man.  He was something else, and he was planning something.  He had to be.  But what could he be?  A god?

No, that couldn't be true.  Denise had never been terribly religious, but she firmly believed that there was only one 'god' in the universe.  Anything else was just powerful.  It had been that way a lot in history, with ancient cultures worshipping certain creatures, objects or people simply because they seemed all-powerful, but they were always proven wrong.  The sun wasn't a god, it was a perpetually exploding fireball floating in space.  The moon was nothing more than a hunk of rock that got blasted off of the earth before life existed.  Egyptian pharaohs were just as mortal as the next guy.  Denise had once heard someone say that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic- well, any sufficiently powerful force was indistinguishable from a god.

But now wasn't the time to get theological.  She was in a potentially hostile situation, with no plan and an immature Brit for backup.  She had to focus.

"You see an exit while you were in here?" she asked, attempting to make conversation.

"No... Actually, I have an idea."

Denise stopped, turning to her companion.

"Well, there's no pumps from what I can see.  That means it's all flowing down on its own.  If that's the case, then this place is on an incline, so if we head in the opposite direction of the flow..."

"... We get closer to top, and thus an exit...  That might actually work, Con!"

The former human gave a smug grin.

"See?  I'm not completely useless after all!"

"... We'll save that conversation for later."

The duo cantered off, in the direction of what they hoped would be freedom...

~~~~~

Time passed...

Con had been right- things were seeming more organized the further upstream they went.  Denise had begun to notice some slight signs of visitation- a discarded bottle here, a missing tool there.  Eventually, they came across what appeared to be maintenance walkways.  People- or ponies- had been there, relatively recently.  That meant there was an entrance close.

"Oh, I can't wait to get out of here," Con said with a grin, "I mean, odds are, we're in Equestria.  Equestria!  Can you believe it?!"

Denise rolled her eyes at his antics.  She was looking forward to reaching the outdoors, too, albeit for a different reason.  Once they got out of the sewers, they might be able to figure out what exactly was going on.  At the very least, they'd be away from the stench.

"Oh my god, I wonder if we'll meet the Mane Six?  Or the background ponies?  I always wanted to know if Bon-Bon and Lyra were really-"

If they could find out where they were, they might gain some insight into what exactly the creep had wanted from them.

"Ooh!  Or maybe we'll meet The Doctor!  Oh, that'd be brilliant-"

Denise was still uneasy, though.  They were changelings.  As much as the show may preach love and tolerance, she doubted reality would be as forgiving.  Changelings had tried to overthrow their government, for crying out loud.

"I wonder if- hey, what's that?"

Maybe she was overreacting.  For all she knew, that hadn't happened yet.  Hell, maybe they weren't even in Equestria at all?

"Oi, Dee, I think I found something-"

Oh, who was she kidding, of course they were in Equestria! Where else could they be?  She doubted they would have become... Well, all signs were pointing towards Equestria, at any rate.

"Denise?  You listening?"

Suddenly, it hit her- she was in Equestria!  This could be exactly what she had wanted when she left Newark!  A fresh start, a chance to-

"Denise!"

Her train of thought was interrupted by Con's yelp.

"Huh?  What?"

Now it was Con's turn to roll his eyes.

"I found a door?"

He gestured to the left, Denise's eyes following suit.

"Huh.  Whattaya know?"

It was more of a passageway, really, but still.  A cleanly-carved opening lead to a flight of stone stairs, leading upwards- and if Denise was right, things seemed to get brighter as it went up.  The two climbed, single-file, coming closer to freedom one inch at a time.

When they reached the top, they were greeted by a dark room, lit only by lamplight.  Barrels of what was likely expensive alcohol were stacked neatly under a stairwell, and several doors lead further into the basement- at least, they assumed it was a basement.  There was an intricate, expensive-looking rug on the smooth stone floor, accompanied by matching banners on the walls, each adorned with a peculiar crest- a trio of crowns.  It seemed to be someone's wine cellar- but why would the sewer lead to a wine cellar?

The answer became clear when they entered the room- there was a rough hole in the wall where the stairs ended.  It was likely the building had been built atop an old sewage station, and the entrance had been walled off- though this raised the question of who had decided to open it up again.

"Well," Con commented after a moment, "this is lovely."

"It's fancy," Denise muttered, "I'll give it that."

Suddenly, there were clacking sounds from above.  They lasted only a moment, but didn't seem to be headed in the direction of the stairwell.  Still, the pair tensed.

Wordlessly, Denise motioned for the stairwell, Conrad nodding in understanding.  Slowly they ascended, creeping closer to the door.

Muffled voices could be made out from the other side.  As quietly as they could, the pair leaned their ears against the door and listened...

~~~~~

"... just don't see why we're keeping the dumb mare!"

Two creatures argued, standing over a tall, lean pony with a white coat and pink mane.  The mare was tied up, whimpering, with tears forming in her eyes.  The creatures' voices had an odd buzzing quality to them.

"C'mon, it's simple," groaned one of the creatures, "If she's dead, Ol' Moneybags up there won't pay up.  So, we keep her down here while the others put the pressure on the big guy."

"But we don't need money," growled the first voice, "Why can't we just take these dummies' sky chariot and fly on outta here?"

"Because we'd get blasted out of the sky before we made it out of the city!  Sheesh, think things through, why don'tcha!"

The mare whimpered pitifully, as if begging for mercy.

"Ah, shut up.  You're lucky these fellas are so insistent, or I'd slit ya neck right now! Dumb ponies..."

~~~~~

"Those voices," whispered Con, "They sound like us."

"Changelings?"

"Probably."

They stepped back from the door.

"Think we should go in?" Denise asked.

"Dunno.  They don't exactly sound like they're having a tea party in there."

"Good point..." she muttered.

From what it sounded like, these changelings were involved in a ransom exchange, and Denise wasn't interested in joining that particular party.  Still, those changelings might be their only shot at getting answers.  But was it really worth getting involved in a hostage situation?

She shook her head, steeling her resolve.

"Con, follow my lead."