I wake up in a groggy state lying on my side. I shift quickly to my feet to stand, and then stumble down to a quadrupedal stance. Slowly, I get my bearings and realize that I am supposed to be standing on all fours: I am still in pony form. I try to focus to remember what happened when I hear a crack and immediately feel a sharp searing pain in my . . . front shoulder? Hurts too much to try to think of the proper term.

Instinctively, I drop lower to the ground and turn to look in what I think is the direction from where the sound came from. Immediately, I see a pony with a horn, the horn glowing and holding onto something that looks slightly like a cannon, barrel smoking. Taking a glance at my mana pool, I wince before focusing and creating a low-powered shield between the unicorn and myself. The unicorn gives a short lived facial expression I cannot read before narrowing its eyes and refocusing its weapon on me.

Hoping my shield is strong enough, I look about, searching around to find something I can use as a weapon. I hear another crack, and look up to see my shield spark and crack. It only will take one more shot.

I find what looks like a rusty pipe half buried in the ground. The unicorn is not dumb, and after wasting a shot into the shield, it takes a few steps to the side, giving it a clear shot, which it takes, narrowly missing my head when I bent down to grab the pipe. Once I have the pipe, I rush into what looks like a decaying group of trees to use as cover.

I hear some kind of burst of static before barely hearing the unicorn say, "This is Nighty. We have a weird intruder. I heard a teleportation pop before I located it and engaged. It looks like an earthpony but appears to be capable of preforming some basic magic. Over."

After some static again, "Intruder is in the Grove. Permission to pursue?"

After again more static, "Understood. Returning to Post."

Letting go a breath I didn't realize I was holding, I start to realize that this is not a good thing. If they are unconcerned about a singular intruder, than they likely have enough defenses to deal with one without much concern. Quickly glancing at my shoulder, I realize that it was just a glancing blow, not a direct hit, although it definitely hurt! After healing myself with my mana pool, I quickly realize I don't have much mana left for combat.

Taking a look at what I have, I have enough mana for maybe four more shields like the last one, could squeeze out maybe six if I don't worry about having food in the near future, or can recycle the shields. My spell casting matrix is active, and contains the base matrix of my shield spell and the spell keeping me in pony form. I don't have two hours to make another matrix for another spell, so that is out. Finally, I have this weird weapon in my mouth.

Spitting it out, I examine it and find it is not a simple pipe, but has some kind of mechanism behind it to, well do something, likely something similar to the weapon Nightly was wielding. It has seen much better days, given the rust and dirt on the weapon, and seems to be missing some kind of rectangular device that slots into the bottom. It has a trigger similar to a crossbow, but in a sideways orientation? It might fire like a crossbow, but when I try it, nothing happens. Maybe it needs the rectangular device to fire. I don't know so I just again grab it to use as a club.

I move away from the Grove towards my shield, crouching and moving as stealthily as I can in a quadruped form. As I pass my shield, I tap it to recycle some power from it to my mana pool. After crawling for fifteen or so minutes, I stop and think, 'Stupid. You have no reason to be here, why not just leave?'

As I slowly turn around, I hear a burst of static before I hear Nighty's voice again, "It's time to change posts?" A pause before she says, "No need to involve the boss, you bitch, especially with him breaking in the new slave. I'll head in immediately."

'These ponies are slavers!?' I totally forget about my plan to leave. Instead, I move stealthily towards where I heard Nighty's voice, and spot Nighty in the distance, maybe thirty feet, looking away from me. Not wasting this opportunity, I rush forward and bash their head with the pipe weapon in my mouth, dropping them to the ground.

I quickly strip them of their armor after realizing that they and I have a very similarly colored coat. When I compare our two physical sizes, we are close enough that I can probably use her armor. I don the armor that covers most of my body, and then take her equipment and put it on. I don't know enough to know if Nightly is dead, but I drag her out of the light and into grass on the side. As I drag her, I cannot help but shudder at the cat-o'-nine tails mark on her backside. When I am done, I continue down the path she was headed.

The path takes me to a two story building and when I get to the gate, I hear a voice say, "Stop where you are." Almost laughing, the voice says, "Come in Nightly." As soon as I enter the gate, I hear a voice from behind me say, "Not that smart are ya'. Nightly's a horny bastard, not a earth pony, ya' stupid bitch." I start to react, but instead I pass out as I take a blow on the head.

When I come to, I am chained beside a yellow-tan unicorn inside what looks like the remains of a seriously damaged male bathroom. Our forelegs are chained to the pipes above urinals. Ignoring the possible meanings of that, I refocus on inspecting the unicorn. She sports a heavily damaged and stained mane, tail, and coat. She has a mark on her rump that looks like a cross between a sunset and the yin-yang symbol. She has been bruised and beaten and shows the signs and scars courtesy of being whipped. She also noticeably was unable to sit down without squirming with discomfort.

I am interrupted at this inspection of my fellow captive by the door being slammed shut, revealing Nightly. She is carrying a cat-o'-nine tails, and I now have a sinking suspicion as to why she has that particular mark.

More acting than thinking, I use my back legs to push off the floor and use my forelegs to balance on the top of the urinal. I may have banged my head on the pipe, judging from the new pain, but I avoided her first and second swipe of the tails.

Having difficulty keeping my balance, and seeing Nightly go for another swing, I use a low-power shield to shield my lower half and to keep myself on the top of the urinal. I also take a closer look at the pipe I was chained to. Her second swipe gets me, and causes me to howl in pain.

Luck was with me however, as the pipe was only barely holding on due to age. In one quick motion, I pull the pipe out of the urinal and wall and absorb my shield, dropping to the ground with a new weapon in my mouth. It was disgusting, but the necessity of using it got me to avoid spitting it back out. My forelegs were still chained, after all. Nightly was not inactive, and made two more strikes at me. Her first strike mostly missed again, but her second bit deep into my flesh.

I slam the new weapon into her head, cracking the pipe and dropping her to the ground. Nightly screamed in pain before collapsing.

I place another low-power shield against the door and, still panting from the exertion, I turn to my fellow captive. "So. I am Auburn Knight. Who are you?"

"I'm Sunset Shimmer. Do you have someway to get the inhibitor off of me?"

Not truly understanding what she is saying, I just ask, "Inhibitor?" She just looks up towards her horn, and I barely make out a small ring around her horn.

"Oh. Let me get a look at it." I say as I approach. Narrowing my eyes, I focus on the ring to see any spell matrices stored on it. It is not a complicated matrix, simply one that redirects focused magic from a spell into the horn attempting to craft the spell. Attempt to cast a spell with it on causes the spell to rebound, damaging the horn and ruining concentration. Shuddering, I realized the spell does not have a cap for rebounded damage. Attempt a powerful enough spell, and it will destroy the horn. There is apparently no matrix to keep the ring on the horn, so I take a closer look at the ring.

I gasp, as the interior of the ring is full of barbed needles. If I attempt to remove the ring physically, it will cut deep into her horn and might even cause permanent damage. It also was already bloody, implying that Sunset had attempted removal before. Or, the slavers did it as a form of torture. . . No. Stop thinking of that for now.

"Sunset. I am going to need to use a shield to keep these barbs from cutting into your horn. I will need to focus for a while, around 45 minutes, to get the dimensions of the shield as close to your horn's size as possible." I pause, considering, "How long do you think we have to get out of this room?"

"Definitely don't have that long. Get me off of this urinal, and we'll worry about the inhibitor later. I'll need it off to take care of the chains, unless you have a way to take care of them?"

Thinking quickly, I have a way to remove the chains: A high-power shield could break the chains; but it would cost quite a bit of my remaining mana pool. I am not entirely sure it is worth it at the moment.

While I try to reason this out, I give the pipe above her urinal a sharp kick, giving us just enough space to slip her chains out from around it. Eventually, I settle on being somewhat honest with Sunset, "I have a way to break the chains, but it would limit the mana I have access to for our escape. I would rather save it for an emergency."

She looks at me oddly before she looks at my forehead, "Wait. . . You're an earthpony! How can you cast magic?"

We are interrupted from our planning by the sound of the door being knocked on and a voice saying, "Nightly, you need to finish up in there."

"No time. And we need to be out of here," Glancing again at my mana pool, I sigh. "Get your chain as close to mine as you can. I am going to separate them."

Hoping that it doesn't take a lot of mana, despite knowing otherwise, I create a small high-power shield bisecting our two chains. I wince at the expenditure, but it was either that or getting trapped again. The shield shatters immediately as it splits the chains. Sunset wastes no time to finish pulling the pipe out of the wall above her urinal as I kick another pipe free from one of the heavily damaged sinks.

Now rearmed, I go up to the door and tap my shield, recycling its energy. Right as I recycle the shield, the door is slammed open, similarly slamming me against the wall.

Sunset's eyes narrow as she rushes forward with the pipe, slamming the head of the pony at the door with a sickening crack. She drops the now useless pipe and pulls the other pony into the room. She quickly snaps his neck and grabs the weapon from him as I pull myself out from against the wall.

It is another thing that seems similar to a cannon. She turns it over, opening up the side of it, and nods to herself. She also grabs the holster from the other pony and a small circular device. "Twelve Shots," she comments. Nine shots, eight more slavers dead, and after clearing this building, I understand how lucky I was that Nightly was not a good shot.

I was able to locate a single well-crafted dirk that I could throw and use fairly effectively, but I think I only took out one slaver to her eight. She located what she commented was a better weapon, a 'pistol' as she called them, and 'four clips' according to her, but was still using the 'revolver' until she ran out of ammo. We also each grabbed a saddlebag.

Once we were done with the building, she said that we need to get out of here. I asked about the other slaves, and she stated, upset, "There are somewhere close to sixty slavers in this complex, not including those attempting to grab more slaves. We try to take them out, in our injured states like this, we are likely to fail. If we are to have a chance, we need to locate better equipment, take some time to heal, and come up with a better plan than being enslaved."

I cough as she mentions my plan, and she just shoots me a look that seems to be some degree of pity and humor.

"Okay then. Ms. Shimmer, how do you expect us to get out of this complex."

"There is a small shack off to the edge of this complex. It is left alone most of the time, and so it should be a safe place for you to remove my inhibitor. Once that is done, I can get us to a better temporary safe spot."

It takes us a good hour to carefully sneak into the shack. It only took ten or so minutes before the whole complex started searching for us, making it extremely difficult to remain undetected. I took my time creating the shield spell before casting it and taking off her inhibitor. I slip it into my saddlebags before she says through gritted teeth, "Step through the gate."

Her use of a dimensional gate caught me off guard, as they are not exactly easy to create, even for temporary ones. We both walk through the gate, and she quickly closes it.

She looked at me using a curious expression and then sighs, saying, "This place will be safe for the night. I only have one bed. . ."

"I'll take the floor. You sure this place is safe?"

She sighs with relief and nods her head, "Sleep where you want. We'll talk in the morning."

Author's Note

Footnote: Level Up (?)
New Trait Added -- A Friend in Need is a Friend Indeed.

You run into people with something that needs to be done and you naturally want to provide assistance. You receive bonus experience and affinity while helping out with these tasks. You receive heavy experience penalties and affinity losses when failing to complete or abandoning such tasks.

Quest Perk Added -- Not From Around Here

You are not as it seems. You can cast magic despite not being a unicorn. You can hold magic within yourself and can absorb it from the environment and other sources. You must consume magical energy as a food source, and you do not heal naturally over time, instead needing to use magic to heal yourself.

New Perk Added: Magical Sight (1/5)

Rank 1: You can see the magical matrices of spells around you as well as their basic effects. This knowledge gives you extra dialogue and interact options.