Pain.
Trixie groaned and shifted, immediately cutting off the noise and the movement when they managed to bring forth a spike of pain. It felt like a railroad spike was being driven into her head exactly where her horn was, and another in her chest. The forehead sensation she recognized: magic exhaustion, and pretty hefty magic exhaustion from the feeling of it.
She twitched, hissing again at another spike of pain. The long-range teleportation spell that she'd cast... she guessed that it had worked to some extent, considering that she wasn't currently little bits spread over a fifty mile radius, but how well? It'd be rather embarrassing if the Royal Guard had had to pull her smoking flank out of a crater just outside of Canterlot, not to mention the fact that her possession and use of a magical artifacte without proper mage licenses was going to cause all sort of questions, and not ones of the friendly kind. If she was especially unlucky, one of the princesses might take interest or exception, and she definitely didn't want to be staring one of them down across a desk.
At least the mattress she was on was somewhat comfortable... slightly lumpy, sure, but it was softer than the practical bench that she'd had in her tiny suite. A little itchy, though. Something tickled her nose and she sneezed, flinching at the pain this caused, then barely restraining a second flinch at the pain triggered by the first.She figured that there wasn't any use pretending to be unconscious at this point, so she forced her eyes open with some amount of effort.
The first thing to greet her vision was a gray concrete wall, with blue markings and brown stains. She blinked blearily at it, then grimaced. Well, it appeared from the plainness of the wall and the fact that she was lying on what appeared to be a thick layer of straw that she was currently the guess of either the town guard or the Royal Guard themselves. Rolling over slightly revealed that one of the walls was constructed of bars, with a classical prison door. Fantastic.
She rolled herself to her feet, debating internally. A hoof to her neck revealed nothing that she could feel, meaning that they'd most likely separated her from the amulet itself- goodbye power boost. Even if it'd been a remotely good idea, she wasn't blasting her way out of this. A second search, surprisingly, revealed that the holdout lockpick she kept tucked in her tail was still there; provided that the door wasn't spelled against lockpicking, and there wasn't a canceling field up, she could get herself out of this. She snorted at the thought. Yes, provided that the guards were blind, deaf and literally dumb as rocks, provided that her magic even worked at the moment through her exhaustion, provided that there wasn't about five hundred different alarm wards between her and the exit. Assuming she could even find the exit. No, it was most likely best to remain here, and wait for whomever she was captive of to come along and explain the situation.
Trixie thought back, reaching into her memory... what had happened? She'd cast the spell, felt the power of the amulet flow add to her own power and the power she'd drawn from the vita navitas surrounding her and poured it into a very basic matrix that she'd remembered from magic school. Such a matrix was the simplest of the simple, as matrices go, but the idea was less to take as little power as possible and do efficient and effective things, and more to take a huge surge of power all at once and direct it as according to a singular desire. These matrices were most often used to call for a specific book or item within approximately two hundred feet, or to perhaps provide a quick and dirty way to cast a simple spell, but they could achieve impressive things if they had enough power pumped through them all at once.
And she'd pumped more than enough power through it. The amulet had let loose a flood of sheer magical energy into the array, and it had done what it was programmed to do and latched onto her thoughts... which was also why such matrixes were taught at magic school and not to foals. Meditation was a required subject in magic schools, focusing the mind and balancing the flow of magical energy throughout the body in order for greater fine control. This also helped with the control of one's train of thought, remaining focused on the task at hand, an incredibly vital skill when dealing with loose magical energy or with the 'wishmaker' array that she'd used. Either were capable of latching onto an errant thought and expend the entirety of their energy attempting to make such a thing happen. Certainly, this had some interesting effects, and certain entire branches of magical or scientific development had occurred as a result of such accidents, but often as not they tended to kill the caster in creatively horrendous ways.
Not that she felt bothered by that. To be perfectly honest, she felt rather mentally... numb. She hurt, yes, and that was annoying, but not much more than that. Knowing herself, she should be feeling entirely panicked at the idea that she might be injured, but instead... she was annoyed. Even now that she was thinking about this, the emotion associated with it wasn't panic as would have been her normal reaction, but a very calm, slightly cold concern.
She was certain that that... wasn't right. In fact, she didn't quite feel herself, not since she'd woken up scant minutes ago. This finally managed to awaken a flicker of actual fear in her, dulled though it was: had the teleportation gone awry? Teleportation as utilized by unicorns was the process of taking anything within a specific radius that was attached to the sense of being of the caster, applying the effect to the caster and all within range in cases of area of effect teleport matrices, and changing their spatial coordinates. The externally visible effect was essentially that the unicorn disappeared from one place and reappeared in another, but the actuality of the situation was more or less like taking a step. Teleportation wasn't so much actually moving the pony as it was folding space and ensuring two sets of spatial coordinates aligned exactly, then allowing the caster to switch the 'active' coordinates-
Trixie grimaced as her head throbbed and abandoned that line of thought. Without repeating verbatim the entirety of the Celestia's standard magical textbook (grade twelve) chapter on teleportation, it essentially just folded space. This also had the odd effect of causing anything a caster would appear in to give out under the sudden appearance of matter and energy within it, causing the material sharing that same space to either be vaporized or pushed outwards at speeds nearing or equal to the speed of sound- a telefrag. The released energy tended to cook whatever the unicorn appeared inside of, but was typically recaptured quickly enough that it didn't affect anything else.
Vaguely, she recalled appearing on that street, crimson fluid exploded over the landscape... indeed, she'd teleported directly into spatial coordinates already occupied by some sort of living being, which had... exploded. What was more worrisome was that testing done regarding this effect and using short-lived magical clones had demonstrated that ponies that 'telefragged' a target would suffer anywhere from a slight loss of blood to catastrophic brain and internal organ damage. This was what worried her.
Thankfully, the first bits of good news were already right in front of her. First, she was still alive, which was always a good place to start. Second, she'd been moved while unconscious, which meant that some amount of time had passed between her appearance and her awakening. This meant that she was most likely biologically and medically stable, or at least close enough to call it more or less the same thing. Thirdly, besides the dampening of emotions, her thoughts were as clear and quick as they'd always been, though she'd have to check her magic later.
The more she thought about this situation, the more she was certain that she was more or less functional. The only real issues that she could find were her general pain, and the strange things going on with her emotions. The first would require a diagnostic scan to actually be investigated, of course, and the second thing actually had a quite good and convenient explanation. Namely, that she was in shock.
That was something of a relief to think, to be honest. It meant nothing was really wrong with her, not permanently, she just needed time and space to recover from... whatever had happened to her. Teleportation accident, in all likeliness: she hoped she hadn't killed anyone. That would complicate things.
First thing first: she needed to get a better look at her surroundings, figure out if this was a place she could escape from. If she'd really gone as far as Griffonia, there might not be magic in the bars, meaning she could pick the lock or outright cut them given enough time. A flicker of memory, and she recalled the armoured figure that had been lying on the ground, wounded... come to think of it, there had been an awful lot of blood and meaty chunks, and the figure had been wearing damaged armour that looked like it had been clawed apart pretty well. Maybe she'd saved them from some sort of monster, whatever species they were: maybe that'd buy her a more lenient sentencing for whatever she was under arrest for.
Still, though, there was the matter of her getting out of here. Carefully, she slowly forced herself to her hooves, hissing and groaning at every spark and spike of pain her actions caused. It took her long moments as she tried to find a way to hoist herself most ungracefully to her hooves, but she managed it, with great difficulty. Ensuring that she was at least relatively stable there, she turned her attention towards the room she was in.
The first thing that was odd was that the ceiling was composed of what appeared to be painted metal, with a variety of pipes bolted and riveted to it. Those were the terms, she was sure. The metal looked slightly corroded, some rusting here and there, especially along what appeared to be the edges of the panels. The pipes looked to be in... mostly good condition, with only one dripping a clear fluid, and thankfully that was on the other side of the room from her. Light came from the roof, a square with a metal cage over it shedding white light that was enough to make her squint and look away from it.
The walls themselves were plain concrete, gray and uninteresting save for a number of water stains. There were a few pieces of furniture scattered about, a wooden dresser, an actual bed on a metal frame, a worn and faded-looking chair... hm. She focused on the dresser. Perhaps there were some answers that it could provide? Ponies typically kept what few clothing items they owned in dressers like these... she made to trot over to it.
Immediately, her legs tangled, and she found herself with a stinging muzzle, and every sore spot suddenly singing with pain.
She waited there, making little whimpering and groaning sounds, while the pain faded back into the background that it had been before. Eventually, she felt confident enough to stand once again, and this time she turned her attention to her own body in confusion and fear.
Thankfully, all her wounds were properly dressed with what looked like white bandages- well, at least she didn't have to worry about that. A leg, around her barrel, and both of her back legs were bound with the cottony white material, and it seemed to have been changed relatively recently. However, something disturbed her, and deeply.
It took Trixie a few moments to realize what she was so worried about. The sense of wrongness was more subconscious than anything else, and she really wasn't sure where it was coming from, but... and then, a little, niggling thought made its way through her mind. Had she been this far from the ground before?
That realization cinched it. Dull panic flared again as she realized that, yes, her body appeared to have been, for lack of a better term, sized up. Her legs were definitely longer, her hooves bigger, and her barrel was larger than it had been. On top of that, while she maintained the litheness that had characterized her form before, there was a certain amount of toned muscle that underlined her form, the legs especially. She couldn't exactly be called muscular, certainly, but this was... about the level of musculature that an Earth pony could maintain with little effort, given the assistance of their magic. It was more than just appearances: she... she felt healthier, more... stout? Energetic. Trixie wasn't sure exactly how to describe it, but she'd never felt this physically good her entire life. That somewhat outweighed the panic.
She glanced up at the dresser again, then, with a huff of annoyance, ignored it entirely and began slowly trotting in small circles. Direct answers could wait for when she was capable of controlling her body more than a half-grown filly. In fact, she noted with annoyance, she most definitely had to completely adjust how she moved, not just for her new size and the length in her legs that had not been there before, but also for the new weight and force her sudden musculature granted every movement. Every hoofstep sounded deeper, and there was more weight settling into the hoof than she ever remembered having. Every time she turned, she realized anew that she was half again as heavy as she had been before, the turns slightly wider and most definitely much clumsier than they'd been before. Somewhere in her mind, she began to wonder what had done this to her and why, but for the moment she pushed those thoughts aside. Considering such things without any more evidence than what she could see right now would be counterproductive, and her time in this moment was better spent regaining mastery over her form.
Accustoming herself to this new style of movement took time, time she was loathe to give, but knew she had to. After all, she couldn't very well look the fool before the princesses, or whatever royalty ruled wherever she was currently... she paused. Well, on the other hoof, now that she thought about it... perhaps playing the fool would assist in the authorities going easier on her, if she could play the part well enough? Certainly, she wasn't all that bad of an actor if she did say so herself, and perhaps she could put up a good enough act to get them to dismiss her as somepony who had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, or hadn't known what she'd been doing?
But, as soon as she though that, she shook her head and dismissed the idea. Oh, certainly, she might start such an act well enough- perhaps she'd even fool them long enough and well enough to convince them. But, Trixie knew herself, and privately she even admitted that she might be a slight teeny-tiny, minuscule little bit... egotistical. Maybe. She was sure that it would go well to a point, and then she'd make some haughty comment and burn the whole thing to the ground in an instant. Most likely, she'd even make said comment to the face of the ruler of the country, and she'd probably accidentally spill some sort of drink on them either before or after the comment itself, knowing her luck. No, it was best to stick to being herself, and letting what charms she had go to work.
She really hoped it wasn't the princesses, if it came down to her charms. From the rumors she'd heard listening in taverns, if she started speaking in dulcet tones and batting her eyelashes, Princess Luna might think she was serious. You could never tell with strange nobility from bygone eras.
Well, given the strange structure of the cell itself, she very much doubted that it was an Equestrian dungeon. She vaguely remembered the class tour of the Canterlot dungeons that she'd had when she was a filly: they'd been sparkling clean, and constructed out of magic-hewn stone, with iron bars and decent cots. This? This was nothing like that. The bed was of a different quality, though higher or lower she could not tell, the pipes and metal worked into the ceiling were wrong, and the walls and floor were concrete, not stone. Slowly, taking extreme care, she turned to examine the fourth and final wall of her cell.
There was a large rectangular piece of metal off to one side, and a window on the other. The window was composed of thick glass, nearly half a hoof thick from what she could see, and was set in more metal that was bolted to the concrete around the edges. Just from looking at it, she could clearly see that the wall itself was a definite two hooves thick, which was frankly incredible. The metal piece was large, painted blue and grey, though a little bit of rust had crept in here and there. There were a number of squiggles on the door itself, and, farther up, there was what looked to be three thick, vertical bars painted in yellow. Perhaps this was the language of whatever people had contained her? If so, it was none that she recognized. It seemed to divide near the floor, and the entire slab was set into the wall. Off to one side was... something? It was a box, attached to the wall, with what looked to be a switch of some kind? Trixie wasn't all that familiar with machinery.
She glanced up at the light again. Perhaps it wasn't magic, but electricity? It would make sense, she supposed. She'd heard that the minotaurs were more reliant on machinery and technology than any other species, owing to the rarity of actual mages among their numbers. Perhaps she was in the minotaur's homeland? It would certainly make sense, if the rectangular slab of metal was actually a door: the size was much too large for any pony dwelling, but it might be perfect for a minotaur. Additionally, a pony door switch would most likely have a button, which would be much easier to operate with hooves than a switch.
She glanced back at the window, then did a double take as she realized that something was staring back at her. It didn't have fur except for the top of its head, and what appeared to be very light stubble around the mouth, and two hands were pressed up against the glass. It was smiling at her, and as she watched, one hand pulled away from the glass and waved. She blinked, hesitated, then waved back. The figure seemed... surprised, turning to its right and saying... something? Trixie could vaguely hear it, muffled though it was, but once again it sounded like no language she'd ever heard.
The figure turned back to the window, and as she watched, another figure joined it at the window. This one resembled the first in most ways, though this one was markedly different in that it was wearing a hat, in addition to its skin color being much darker than the first. She waved at this one as well, matching the first one's smile, trying to seem as friendly and nonhostile as possible for when they brought in the translators and she had to make her case. No sense in not making friends with the guards, regardless of where she was.
The new figure seemed surprised by these actions, as far as she could tell: she assumed that the raising of eyebrows and rapid blinking meant more or less the same thing in terms of facial expressions from species to species. The second figure said something back to the first, to which the first replied with some amount of enthusiasm. This elicited the sort of long-suffering sigh from the second figure that Trixie recognized from just about every authority figure in her life.
If she were less sure of herself and her obvious talent, she might think that there was something of a pattern there. As it was, all she had was an inexplicable sense of comradeship with the first figure.
She frowned as the two had a quick conversation in a language that she didn't understand. She felt a flicker of annoyance at the fact that they weren't attempting to communicate with her, but she easily dismissed it with the thought that they most likely didn't know Equestrian. She'd never heard of this species before, let alone seen them, and thus she must be on the complete opposite side of the planet from Equestria. That was a disturbing thought, for a mare that had never left her home country before, but she shrugged it off. It was what she'd wanted, after all: a fresh start in a place where her reputation couldn't follow her.
Well, not that she'd actually get said fresh start if she couldn't even understand the natives of this country. She glanced at the two natives in question again, but now they appeared to have engaged in casual conversation, the first figure leaning against the window with his... forelegs? No, that wasn't the right word for them. Minotaurs had limbs that were roughly comparable to forelegs in terms of anatomical locale, but they were referred to by a different name, and they had the weird little tentacle sausages on them that hand another weird name- arms! Arms, that was it! The first figure had his arms crossed, but it just felt like something he'd done just to do something with the limbs, from how casual he was acting.
So, Trixie would have to find her way around the language barrier. If she'd not been a unicorn, this would have been a real problem: it would have taken her weeks to slowly build a competent understanding of their strange language, and longer to be fluent in it. Thankfully, though, Trixie was, in fact, a unicorn. At Celestia's school, there had actually been a class for travelling abroad- it was an optional elective, and Trixie had chosen it because she'd dreamed of seeing the world one day, perhaps even as a showmare. A large portion of the class had been a crash course in the vibrant variety of cultures in the countries whose borders made contact with Equestria's, or were nearby enough that their countries regularly traded diplomats and tourists alike.
Trixie had learned two things from that class, primarily. The first was that Griffonia was something of a craphole and that it would be best to avoid it, a piece of information that Trixie had taken to heart, considering that she'd never gone there, but wasn't particularly relevant at the moment. The second thing, however, was much more useful, especially in this situation: as part of the coursework for the class, she'd had to memorize a translation array. Medically, how it worked was that it flash-scanned the speech center of the brain in a voluntary (or unaware) subject, then used magic to superimpose the patterns that governed language over the speech center of the caster. It was essentially a basic understanding of the language, and it faded quickly with disuse, but the second effect was that it made the language much easier to learn if one continued to practice regularly and had constant contact with those who spoke it. Thus, the basic knowledge of language that the spell provided was good enough and quick enough for emergencies, while also creating a foundation of fundamentals upon which the understanding of a language could be constructed.
In this case, seeing as they obviously hadn't cast anything of the sort themselves, it would serve her well to cast the array on her own and figure out where she was and why. A brief check of her internal reserves revealed that she had what felt like a full tank, which was something of a surprise... but she guessed that she'd been out long enough for her body to generate enough mana to replace what was spent on the malfunctioning teleport. After all, Trixie couldn't have miscast it: therefore, something else had interfered with the spell and caused it to misfire.
The second component of an array was the local Vita Navitas. Magical fields and energy differed from country to country, species to species, with every creature generating and using mana and affecting the surrounding ambient mana in completely different ways. A unicorn's spell would differ slightly, region to region, which is why it was a good idea to either practice a little in whatever country a unicorn was looking to operate in or lock the Vita Navitas out of the spell entirely. The latter made spells more costly overall, relying only on the internal reserves of mana within the caster, but it was considered more or less a fair exchange for making the spells more stable.
However, when Trixie extended her magical awareness to encompass the surrounding ambient magic as she'd been trained to do, she noticed immediately how entirely wrong it felt. Ambient mana flowed like a river, each magical creature a sort of tributary from the fast-flowing water that made it up. This was due mostly to the fact that every creature used ambient magic on a low level, drawing off of it for abilities most weren't even cognizant of, like the earth pony's incredible durability and stamina, or the pegasi's agility and reaction times. This stirred the ambient magic, ensuring that it was always active and flowing.
Here, though, it was most certainly not. Where-as Equestria's vita navitas felt like a great flowing river, here the ambient magic felt stagnant and unmoving, like a swamp. Mana clung to her probe like sticky mud, and she felt the energy around her stir slightly in response, but it was essentially comparable to swirling a stick through the water of a stagnant pond.
During her years as a showpony, Trixie had heard quite a few weird things and strange rumors. Right now, she was reminded of one in particular, which she'd overheard in a tavern in Hollow Shades, when she'd been passing through with a bat pony troupe. Supposedly, the minotaurs had such advanced technology because their mages were extremely rare, and therefore they couldn't rely on magic for much of what they wanted or had to do, as opposed to ponies where one third of the entire species was capable of spellcasting. Thus, they advanced their science and technology before their magic, and this, with the addition of the fact that the minotaurs used ambient magic the least of every species on Equus, made their vita navitas feel stale and stagnant.
Looking around the room, observing the trappings of technology, Trixie thought to herself that this was exactly what was happening here. This species had rare mages, perhaps even none, and most likely they did not use ambient magic for much of anything. This would explain both their apparent state of advanced technology and the stagnancy in their vita navitas. Still, it would serve well enough for her needs.
It took her a moment to ensure that she'd remembered the matrix correctly, checking it against her memory and doing the spell equivalent of dry firing, giving it little sparks that were not enough to trigger or power it, but enough to see if they flowed right. Satisfied after testing it, Trixie reached out to tap into the ambient magic, and was surprised when it tried to flood in and threaten the integrity of the spell. With great mental effort, she managed to coax just enough of the stuff into the spell to serve her purpose before closing herself off from it. The rest of the charging was done with her own magical energy, powering up the array with mana drawn from her own reserves. Once again she was surprised when it took only the barest spark to power the array, her internal reserves feeling barely even drained at the relatively tiny action. of course, it wasn't like much magic was needed from the caster for this specific spell, what with ambient magic being needed anyway to ensure no magical rejection from the target, but Trixie felt that it should have taken just a bit more from her to power it.
She pondered this for several long moments, then pushed it aside. She had things to do, after all, and she could easily take a closer look at her own magic later, when she wasn't in such an obviously precarious situation. For the moment, she simply concentrated on her casting, making sure that the energy she'd already pumped into the matrix was flowing correctly. After watching it for several long moments and determining that it most likely probably wasn't going to explode in her face, she congratulated in her excellent spellwork (as usual), and turned her attention back towards the two creatures just outside the window.
The one that had showed himself (she guessed it was a 'he', if only because she really had nothing else to go on than the fact that the voice sounded somewhat stallion-y) first was still leaning against the window, attention on the second figure. The second was mostly speaking directly to the first, though Trixie could see his eyes darting every so often to her, one... hand, right, that was it- one hand on something at his side. She dithered for a moment, not sure which of the two to target for the spell, before finally deciding on the first figure. Her horn glowed as she pushed out the spell matrix.
In a bare moment, her headache twinged upward as she was suddenly filled with the slightly-jumbled knowledge of an entire new language. This was normal for absorbing languages via this particular spell, as her mind tried to sift through the sudden influx of information to try and make sense of and incorporate it. She took a breath and relaxed, allowing herself the time to settle down and properly absorb the new language she'd learned; English, she thought it was called. Slightly odd name for a language, but like most languages, she guessed that it was named after the country that primarily spoke it, most likely this country. She'd never heard of a country called Engl-something, but it was what it was. Did this mean that these people were a species whose name began with En? Maybe Eng? Perhaps even the entire phrase. Maybe their species name was the same as the name of their language? English didn't sound like a terribly bad name for a species, all things considered.
She rolled words around in her muzzle for a few minutes, which she spent outwardly trotting around the room, exploring it. It was rather odd that a prison cell had obvious piping in its roof; Trixie would think that a cell would do without such things, just in case a prisoner tried to get smart and remove one to use as a weapon. Not that Trixie would do that! Magnificent as she was, she didn't have any real martial training beyond some basic self-defense magic classes, and those had been years back, when she was attending Celestia's school, and this wasn't to mention the fact that she had little desire to discover what the purpose of the pipes was by having the contents spray everywhere. It was hard to appear dignified when one looked rather like a drowned rat, even for her.
Thus, when she finally spoke to the two figures, she would try to be as eloquent and friendly as she could be with her limited vocabulary in their native language. The question was how, exactly, she would go about that. She highly suspected that, even though she had not tried it as of yet, the door would be sealed tight and no doubt locked. Trixie felt that picking such a lock or attempting to force the door open via magic right in front of her hosts and/or captors would most likely not do anything to endear her to them. Therefore, the door was most definitely closed to her, until such a time as her captors came to open it themselves. Trixie played with the lockpicks in her tail for a long moment, then sighed and released them. Their time had not yet come.
Therefore, that left speaking to them through the window. Trotting closer and examining it, causing the two figures to turn and look through the glass curiously.
The thing was thick, very think. Trixie guessed that the concrete wall that the window was set in was one and a half, perhaps two hooflengths, thick enough to stop most explosions in their tracks, and perhaps even enough to slow down Princess Celestia or Princess Luna themselves. The window itself was thick plate glass, perhaps around a fourth of a hoof thick in all, and had a very slight gray colouring that was extremely difficult to notice even up this close. The plate glass was set in the edges with two thick bands of steel, both lipped to hold the glass between them, and bolted into the concrete. Trixie could vaguely hear that there was a conversation going between the two figures, but other than that, she couldn't hear a thing. The words were muffled into abstract sounds, and even straining a little, she couldn't really make any sense of the words.
She considered her options, mulling over her library of spells. Sound amplification array? Well, that would get the sound to them readily enough, but the 'volume' part of the spell was rather delicate and she didn't want to accidentally deafen herself by setting the volume too high and have the sound trapped in this tiny little space. She supposed she could apply a sound conducting array to the glass itself, make it so that the glass essentially acted like air, but she didn't think she had a diamond on her and was certain that any effort in that regard wouldn't be appreciated either.
Or... she could just yell. Really, it wasn't like the window blocked out sound completely, and she was pretty sure that she could get something intelligible out. Unfortunately, this wasn't exactly the most showy of options, and she did want to make a good showing of herself. After all, why shouldn't she show these people exactly who they had locked up in here? She was the Great and Powerful Trixie! And wasn't this the chance that she'd hoped for when she'd cast the teleportation array, a chance to be in a new land where the stigma of... of the mistakes of others, unfairly attached to her, wouldn't follow her? She'd struggled in Canterlot, with not enough money to leave and being more or less equus non grata, with the spread of the fact that she'd attempted to humiliate the personal student of Celestia Herself.
Not that she'd actually have challenged the personal student of the god empress had she known who the purple upstart was, but muttered comments about what could have been didn't mean all that much when she'd just been led out the door of the fifth entertainment establishment in a row by armed security. In the end, the only places she hadn't been thrown out of on the merit of her name were the more raunchy establishments, and no matter how clean and well-regulated they were as per Celestia's law she had no desire to perform for stallions and mares with those interests... she shook her head. She was getting sidetracked.
She'd definitely have to impress the rulers of this country, wherever it was and whatever its name. Perhaps she could even land a cushy job entertaining the king or queen if she managed to be impressive enough, which, given the lack of magical engineering in the structure around her, was looking more likely by the moment. But, first, she had to get out of this cell. And, of course, the easy solution only now presented itself to her brilliant mind... ah, Trixie, such intelligence hath she that she would sometimes get caught in her own magnificence and miss the small things. Of course, that was only natural, but still.
She approached the window, grimacing and groaning at the sparks of pain running up and down her poor legs. The second figure seemed to notice this, indicating the window to the first figure, who turned to look. Immediately, the first made a face and a noise that resembled that of a pony upon seeing a frolicking puppy or a kitten with a yarn ball, though Trixie took it as simply her having mistakenly mistranslated awe and respect at her magnificent form for such. Undaunted by such clear and obvious praise, though she mentally tucked away a reminder to preen later about it, she tapped on the window to draw their full attention and cleared her throat.
"The Trixie who is of Great Power Knowledge would like to asked the attention of his hosts!" She stated, enunciating as clearly as she could- she thought that that had been at least some semblance of grammatically correct. Sometimes these translation spells could be a bit dodgy, especially about pronouns, but she was relatively confident that she had gotten it right.
The first figure cocked his head and raised his eyebrows, but it was the reaction of the second that truly confused her. Instead of speaking to the first again, the second took a quick step back from the window, his hand going to some sort of hand at his belt. Trixie wasn't sure what the handle was for, as she wasn't sure how a sword could fit in that little sheath or why its handle would be bent out of line with the blade itself, but it was relatively clear that this was a weapon of some sort. What truly unnerved her, however, was how focused he was now. His eyes, smaller than most creatures that she'd seen, felt almost like the eyes of a predator eyeing a potential threat. It actually spooked her a little, though she wouldn't mention anything of the sort once she was out of here. Clearly he was a guard of some sort, and she wasn't sure whether to be relieved that this nation had such intimidating individuals dedicated to its protection or terrified that the attention of such a creature was directed at her. Eventually, she settled for the former, partially due to the bewildering fact that she couldn't muster enough fear for the latter.
The first fielded some manner of question to the second, not breaking eye contact with her. Stranger still, this caused the second to reflexively balk and release the hilt of his weapon, breaking his line of sight with her for the first time since he'd appeared in order to look, aghast, at the first. The second voiced a question of some sort, low enough that she couldn't make it out, which the first responded to without looking away from her. Another exasperated sigh came from the second, and he waved the first forward, though Trixie noted that his hand went back to the weapon at his belt.
The first, however, grinned and moved off to the left side of the window, outside of Trixie's range of vision and towards the steel door that blocked the only entrance and exit from this room. For a few moments she wondered what he was doing, then jumped when the door made a hissing noise and split in half, the lower half into the floor while the upper was pulled into the ceiling and out of sight. She was so surprised by this that she didn't do anything but stare until the first figure poked his head through the door and smiled at her, and even then, she just switched the subject of her bewildered gaze to his grinning face.
"Hello!" He said, quite brightly. Trixie thought this was grating to her ears. "You can understand me, right?"
What sort of stupid question was that? She'd just spoken to him! Had he forgotten that already? Had they never seen a translation array at work before? Well, then again- Trixie glanced about the obviously industrial nature of the room, which demonstrated a surprising lack of magic. Perhaps they didn't have access to magic at all? How entirely peculiar. Nevertheless, she'd have to communicate with her hosts, and either finagle her way into an important position or out of the country entirely.
"Greeting. I am understanding." She scrunched her muzzle a little. The language felt strange on her tongue, a lot of odd little muzzle and muscle motions were required to make each sound, and she was hyperaware of them as one might be hyperaware after being told they're breathing. The letters felt very odd crossing her tongue, and she thought that it was rather obvious that the language was designed for an entirely different mouth structure and tongue shape. She must have one Tartarus of an accent, but it was serviceable nonetheless.
He grinned wider, and Trixie was struck, from somewhere deep in her genetic code, by the ancestral memory of predators with flashing fangs.
"Oh, excellent!" He turned away, towards the figure who still stood with quite some distance between him and the door of Trixie's cell. "You owe me ten caps, Preston."
Trixie heard a huff of indignation, though there wasn't any real bite to it. "General, plenty of mutants are perfectly capable of mimicking speech. It's a fantastic way to set traps for a Wastelander too stupid to go guns first." Trixie was unsure what a 'gun' was, or why one would wish it to proceed first into a trap, but she sensed that things were not exactly going in her favour. Well, then, she'd simply have to turn things around. Easy enough- provided her nascent knowledge of this odd language served her well enough.
She huffed indignantly, and unlike the second figure, there really was some real indignation in it. "Trixie of Great Powerfulness knowledge-" that had been right, right? Trixie had no faults, but any fault in her speech would be entirely due to the faulty spell, and therefore could not have resulted of her greatness- "is not setup of trap."
It was the first figure's turn to look incredulous, leaning back to look at Trixie around the thick doorframe, one eyebrow raised. Trixie blamed the lack of enthralling charm entirely on the poor grasp of Englishman this shoddy spell had given her.
"Forgive me if I have some doubts. All things considered, well... you're a talking horse that exploded out of a big, mutated monster. A talking horse that looks like a unicorn. You'll excuse me if I don't simply take you at your word."
Trixie frowned, though she attempted to keep the expression off of her face. No, she certainly wouldn't excuse his doubts based on her appearances, especially not considering that the Great and Powerful Trixie looked just perfect, as she always did. As far as Trixie was concerned, if this person didn't like how she looked, then he was either completely and entirely without taste, he was near-blind, or both. In Trixie's experience, those lacking sight often lacked taste as well. A tragedy, it was, but she only had to put up with this fool long enough to... wait. The second figure had referred to the first with some sort of title or term, hadn't he? General, right?
Trixie rifled through the dictionary of definitions that the spell matrix had given her, searching out the word 'general'. Affecting or concerning all or most people, places, or things? No, definitely not. It just didn't make sense with the context. She skipped over the second definition entirely, noting that the word had use as both an 'adjective' and a 'noun', whatever those things were. And no, spell, she didn't want or need to know the exact descriptions of both words, she was fine with the general feeling of what they meant.
She blinked in surprse, then the corner of her lip turned up in amusement. She'd apparently just used the second definition of the word by complete accident. Sometimes she was so impressive that she surprised even herself. Said amusement immediately faultered as she consulted the internal definitions of the word when used as a noun, and... a commander? Very high rank? Oh, dear.
Oh, don't get Trixie wrong; he was still a bufoon, no matter his rank or import. It's just that he was now a bufoon that she'd have to suck up to, which was not something that she was exactly opposed to. After all, the manipulation and direction of bufoons was literally her job. It's what she did. She flickered her eyelashes at him in a way that was probably seductive, provided that the target was drunk. And unconscious. Which, to be fair, was about the situation of most small-town hicks looking for a bit of late-night entertainment.
"Sir general, Trixie posses of entertainment to gift, should showing be desired- Trixie by far best of land at the action of entertainment, and easily entertain buf- ah, mighty individualism such as yourself!"
They both seemed stunned. Trixie grinned to herself: yet more won over by her perfect charms! She'd be in the lap of luxury in no time! After a few minutes of recovering (Trixie regretted the Alicornal properties of her voice, sometimes- a blessing, and yet a curse), the second one muttered to himself.
"Well, suppose that settles it... no wasteland mutant'd ever say anything like that where it thought others'd hear." That was good, right? Trixie was certain that it was a good thing. Good job, Trixie. Thank you, Trixie, you're the best.
Before she could get on with the self-back-patting session, the first let out something that was something between a snort and a sneeze, clearly reacting to something in the air. Must have been why he covered his mouth with a hand as well and turned away slightly- clearly, he didn't want to foul Trixie's personage, which she was rather thankful for.
"Well, 'least he convinced you, Preston." 'Preston' muttered something else in reply, but Trixie didn't listen. Nopony wasted time on the hired help when they had the ear of power, after all- or, at least, her experience with the nobility indicated this as such (read: that one time she'd convinced a group of sloshed nobility of her own purebred status and emptied their pockets out as fast as they could drink).
The first paused a moment more, turned away, gulping in a few breaths of air and clearly attempting to ensure that he wouldn't accidentally almost sneeze in Trixie's direction again. After a couple more shivers, he appeared to have suppressed his sneezing fit, turning back towards the door.
"So, an entertainer, huh?" He asked. His voice was unbelievably sunny, for a military commander.
"Indeed! Trixie is finest of Equestria!"
He gave Preston a look. Trixie interpreted it and good. "Well, I suppose she'll draw in the settlers and traders." Definitely good, then. He turned back to her again, sticking out a hand. "In any case- my name's Nate. Good to meet you, ah... hinee-ha-huh?"
Trixie stuck out her tongue. His pronounciation of the Equestrian version of her name was terrible, completely awful. Bad accent, worse tenses, and overall just a trainwreck of mispronunciation. Trixie found herself rifling through her new vocabulary once again: perhaps there was a moderately similar name in this Englishman language to serve her purposes? After a few moments, she alit on something that was more or less similar enough for her requirments and nodded to herself, placing her hoof in the creature- Nate's hand and pumping it up and down.
"Trixie. Tee-ar-eye-ex-eye-eee."
He nodded, the smile back. Trixie was a little blinded by it, to be honest, but the little shred of tact in her informed her that it would be rude to say so.
"Alright, 'Trixie'. Welcome to the club- at least, what we have. Thanks for saving my skin, by the way."
Trixie blinked, confused. When had she...? She flicked her way through her memories in momentary panic, trying to find something that would fall under the odd expression, which bore some vague resemblance to the Equestrian phrase 'saved my coat'. Ah, and apparently it meant more or less the same thing. And, lucky break, she seemed to remember an armoured figure on the ground, and something having exploded into meaty chunks upon her arrival? In retrospect, it did rather remind her of the times that her instructors had teleported a small object into a fruit in a demonstration of why teleporting without checking the destination was a bad idea. 'Slurry' was an apt description for the aftermath, and she supposed that, again in retrospect, she hadn't exactly thoroughly checked her intended arrival location.
She really should have been more disturbed by the fact that she'd reduced some living creature to blended meat chunks and blood splatter, but she couldn't find it in her to do more than shrug at the moment and push it aside. Well, it got this General Nate into her debt, which was a good enough of a start for the moment. Still, she filed the entire mental exchange away- just because she was Trixie, and therefore as close to perfect as a pony could be, she still noted places where she could improve. She thought that, perhaps, casually murdering living creatures in rather gruesome and messy ways and being rather nonchalant about it wasn't the most laudable of traits.
"It was not a problem. Trixie is certain that nice general man find way to repay him?" Hm. Stupid gendered pronouns. Stupid faulty translation spell. She was about fed up with both. The general in question only widened his smile, whch seemed to to tremble slightly at the corners. Trixie took this to be a good thing, as well- perhaps that was how this species indicated that they had a good opinion towards somepony. After all, Trixie couldn't imagine any other emotion being attached to her than endearment, approval or, preferably, awe.
"Welcome to Vault one-eleven, then, I suppose. I hope that you enjoy your stay- if you'll be staying with us."
Oh, now, that was just silly. A good, strong, technologically advanced location with a high-ranking leader that was indebted to her? If Trixie'd been in this position back home, she wouldn't have even tried to enact her perfectly justified plan of vengeance against Twilight Sparkle! Well, she'd at least have been more subtle about it. Mostly. She might have settled for a string of minor and major inconveniences, instead of direct humiliation- it was, after all, perfectly reasonable revenge.
Preston, unlike his superior, didn't seem inclined to follow suit. That was perfectly fine with Trixie, as she had no desire to be touched more than was necessary, and at least Nate's blue and gold suit was reasonably clean. Preston's coat looked... well, anything but. Trixie neither wanted nor needed to check if his hands followed suit. Heh, suit... Trixie was on a roll, today.
In the midst of Trixie's train of thought, Nate stepped to one side and made a... gesture, with his hand. A sort of horizontal wave? It took Trixie a moment of staring before she realized that it resembled the Equestrian hoof gesture 'after you' well enough that it most likely meant the same thing, and thankfully, she didn't think her hesitation had lasted long enough for General Nate to actually notice. No need to look like she hadn't known exactly what he meant by that. Regardless, and just in case, she disguised the moment of confusion with a regal nod and stepped past. She was reasonably certain that he hadn't seen anything.
The exterior of the room was a hallway that lead out in two different directions. Farther down to the right, Trixie could see another branching hall coming to a T-section with the one that she was currently in; farther down, the hall turned to the right. A softly glowing sign set in the ceiling labelled that direction as CAFETERIA, whatever that... oh. Alright. It meant 'a place to eat'. At least the translation spell wasn't entirely worthless.
She glanced in the other direction, but all there was there were more doors, set in the wall in pairs separated from each-other by alternating with pairs of windows. From just what she'd seen, Trixie assumed that each of the rooms was just like the one she'd woken up in. It went down quite far, and Trixie counted about twenty-five window and door pairs a side, which made fifty rooms in this hall. The branching hallway that she couldn't see down was labelled as DORMITORIES B-D, and then, underneath that, STAIRWAY TO DORMITORIES E-H. So.. this was dormitory A, then? Did each of the dormitories have the same number of rooms? That would make, what... four hundred rooms? Trixie thought that was about right. Even she had to admit that she wasn't always the best at math, though this was entirely due to her focus and talents lying elsewhere.
"How many room exist? Why so many bed?" Trixie asked.
Perhaps she could get some information about where she was? If there were this many rooms, then maybe she was in a military installation of some kind. This was... another area where she lacked some amount of expertise. Besides the local guard barracks, which would house about fifty guardsponies at max, the only real military facilities she knew of was the central Royal Guard hub in Canterlot, and the rumours of more robust facilities along Equestria's borders.
General Nate spared a glance down the hall, following Trixie's gaze to the signs. He hummed to himself thoughtfully, crossing his arms and tilting his head. He was... very expressive, Trixie noted.
"Well... one-eleven was meant to hold a bunch of scientists and military personal from the surrounding area. Figure there are about, oh... a hundred of the upper level staff and officer's rooms, and the rest were for the lower-level personnel and the grunts. Around eight hundred beds in total."
Trixie swung her head around, looking up at the General and trying to look sufficiently awe-inspired. Not that that was very difficult, she was, in truth, rather awe-struck. A military installation meant to bunk eight hundred? And that wasn't even counting that thing that some Royal Guards had grumbled about in taverns and such, what had it been called... hot bunking? Trixie would guess that this place could hold a huge number of people, who must total more than the entire Guard presence in Canterlot combined, surely! Trixie felt and suppressed the urge to break out into a triumphant dance; such a thing was premature, and wouldn't exactly do any favours for her if she went and did it right here and now. She was trying to convince this General to take her seriously, not dismiss her as some overexcited filly. She had saved the life of a real life General, she should look and act that part.
Nate, for his part, smiled down at her, making a little high-pitched noise in the back of his throat that he quickly covered up by turning away and coughing. Trixie scolded herself internally. Obviously, the stallion... man? Yes, 'man', that was the word that her translation was providing her with. Obviously, this man had been more than slightly overwhelmed by her charms, and she'd need to tone it back a bit for a little. Not that that'd be easy: Trixie was perfectly aware of the fact that she just oozed charm out of every pore. Nothing to be done about that.
Still, her stepped far out of her way and gestured her down the hallway, towards the CAFETERIA. Trixie nodded to him, politely as she could, and trotted by and down the hall. Preston moved out of the way as well, though Trixie noted, with a very faint spark of anxiety, that his hand was still on the hilt of the weapon at his waist. His small eyes in his flat face, features both he and the General shared, were narrowed slightly at her in obvious suspicion. Trixie quailed for just a moment, hesitating in her stride, before puffing herself up a little and continuing forward, determined to not make it look as if he'd just been successful in intimidating her. She'd win him over, just as she had the General- it was just a matter of time and figuring out how.
Now that she was approaching the bend in the hall, soft hooves making muffled noises against the bare concrete, she noted that there was another lit sight behind the first that she'd missed upon her first, cursory glance. This one read OVERSEER'S OFFICE, one half of the sign quietly flickering, the light obviously on its last legs. What was an Overseer, and why were they important enough to warrant their own office when the highest-ranked here merely received a single room to live in?
The translation spell provided its own answer in but a few moments: it came down to, well... somepony who supervises others. So, a supervisor? Was that also the General, or did such a thing fall under its own rule? Well, if it was the latter, Trixie supposed that she'd just have to bring yet another pony... ah, human, under the effects of her charms. If the former, well, she already had the General 'in the bag', as it were, so problem solved! Wow, she really was good, wasn't she?
Trixie sauntered on down the hall, confident smirk plastered all over her muzzle, completely oblivious to the man who still had suspicious eyes trained on her.
Preston Garvey had been a Minutemen for a long time- five years, five years that felt like an eternity out fighting in the Commonwealth. He'd been around long enough to see them in their already-flagging glory, when there were still those hanging around that believed in what the Minutemen were supposed to stand for. What he believed the Minutemen to stand for.
He'd done the best he could, fought the hardest that he could have fought to keep the dying dream alive, but selfishness and politics had ruined them all the same. When Colonel Hollis had them hold out at Quincy while he sent a call to arms, some part of Preston had already known that the call would bring no reinforcements. As he'd read in an ancient, slightly burned Pre-War book, Gondor had called for aid... but Rohan had not answered. There was no 'Rohan' to answer. And when he'd led the shattered remnants of Hollis' squad, God rest his soul, from the burning husk of Quincy, he heard from the first settlement he bunkered at that the Minutemen had collapsed once and for all. There was simply no remaining power structure to fight over: no civil war, no big, final confrontation. Everybody left had packed their things and gone home, giving it all up as a bad job.
He'd lost people, too. He'd felt the awful pain of losing those under his command. First twenty, then ten, and, finally, five. Five people left, the only other remaining Minuteman lying dead on the front steps, having given his life to delay the raiders long enough for them to barricade an intact room at the top of the stairs. He remembered Lexington, the sudden ambush by ferals: they'd scattered before the ghouls, and he'd still heard survivors and Minutemen alike shouting and firing across the town... but there had been nothing he could do. He'd run, and run, and run again, and it had led him to that little room at the top of the Museum of Freedom. The irony of being trapped there hadn't escaped him, in what he thought were his final hours, poking his laser musket through holes in the wall and counting the few fusion cells he had left, hoping beyond hope that some random stranger that had fought off the raiders outside the Museum itself would come to their aid.
And, miracle of miracles, he had. Nate had come blazing in like their very own guardian angel, tearing his way through the raiders that had trapped themselves between a barricaded door and a very angry Pre-War soldier, and hadn't that been a pleasant surprise? And then, after checking that they were alright and patching a few wounds with what battlefield medicine he knew, Nate had given him a grin, showed him the fusion core he'd looted from the basement and made his way to the roof. There was nothing more beautiful that standing up there with a figure in T-45 power armour, wielding a minigun and raining absolute hell down on the poor scum beneath.
The Deathclaw had been horrific, and Nate had been just as prepared as every other great Minuteman Garvey had ever fought besides to give his life to protect them. He'd seen too much death already, too many good men and women falling one after the other to protect people... too many goddamn dead heroes. So, when the Deathclaw had up and exploded just as Preston was sure that he was going to see yet another martyr give themselves for the cause, Preston wasn't remotely ashamed to admit he'd let out a loud whoop of victory.
He'd offered Nate the position of General, now that there was nothing and no-one left to stop him. It had been serious: Preston was desperate, and here, out of the clear blue sky, was an actual, honest-to-God Pre-War war hero. He'd been glad to hand the command to Nate, relieved in so many ways. And as he'd watched Nate expertly arrange their rag-tag little group of survivors to keep as many of them protected by his torn-up suit as possible, he'd felt that ten-ton weight of junk he'd seemed to have picked up at Quincy slide right off his shoulders.
Nate had insisted that they move to a safer, cleaner location. It turns out that he'd had a real, actual, empty Vault hiding in his back pocket. Preston had expected ancient waterstained mattresses in a half-collapsed house, he'd gotten an infinite amount of fresh, clean water and a luxuriously comfy bed in a room all his own. So he'd scoff at Nate's eccentricities, and he'd act weary when the General joked and jested, but he'd never question his absolute loyalty to the man that'd saved his life, in more ways than one. He'd taken a shine to this strange blue creature that looked like something out of one of those ancient fantasy novels, had he? Well, then, Nate could do what he liked.
Preston would watch, and wait, and safeguard the new future of the Minutemen.
Author's Note
Current changes from canon:
- The Commonwealth's plantlife has mostly recovered after two hundred years, and instead of being brown, the wasteland is mostly overgrown.
- Vault 111 was designed instead to house a larger contingent of scientists and soldiers for a longer period of time in emergencies.
- Nate pushed Preston and the survivors of Quincy to settle in Vault 111 over Sanctuary.
Basically? I'm completely upending canon, because let's face it, the only thing half-decent from Fallout 4 is Far Harbor and the writing for the companions. I hope you enjoy the ride I have planned, because hoo boy, do I have plans...
Unlike my other works, every chapter for this fic will be over 10K. Eat your hearts out.
