The first thing Sail noticed was pain, horrible pain. His head felt like it was being crushed, stabbed, and liquefied all at the same time, it was worse than anything he had ever felt before. But, thankfully, it didn't last long. It only took around a minute for the pain to dull to a light but constant throbbing. Finally, being in enough of a good headspace to move, he started to slowly open his eyes, and lift his head. The first thing he saw was metal, metal, and more metal. It was everywhere. Every surface seemed to be made out of it. He lifted his head enough to look straight ahead, and saw what looked like a Unicorn shield projected over the large doorway of the room he was in. It was shimmering a faint blue, but it was also see through. What he saw through it was what seemed like a hallway stretching off to both sides past the doorway, and across from him he could see another room shielded by another faintly blue glowing barrier. There were ponies in it.

"Well, welcome back to the land of the living Sail." He heard from behind him.
He turned around to see seven more ponies, waiting and watching him.

"Wha-" He tried to say, his mouth felt extremely dry.

"Oh, here." Said one of the poines, handing him a plastic cup full of water. He grabbed it and chugged it. It tasted metallic, and was slightly warm, but it quenched his thirst. He sat the cup down, and took in a few breaths. Now that he was able to concentrate without pain, he managed to look around the room he was in.

The room was a box, a completely metal box. Every wall was covered in metal, he didn't know why somepony would need to use so much metal in one room of seeming non importance, but he didn't ask. The room held eight beds, four on each side wall, put into a square on each side, two above, two below. On the back wall sat a single toilet, and a single sink. The beds themselves didn't look two comfortable, all they were was a hard looking pillow-ish thing and a thin sheet on a plate of metal suspended off the wall by two cables. The beds seemed to be able to fold up against the wall. Sail looked around the room at the ponies with him.

"What happened? Where are we? Where is everypony else?" The sailor that had given him the cup looked at him, he was a Earth Pony, and he had spoken with a semi-southern drawl. He didn't know his name but he knew who he was, One of the ship's carpenters.

"Well Sail, I'll be honest, I don't rightly know what happened, where we are, or where the hell everypony else is. What I do know is we're being held captive, and if you look outta the cell we're being kept in, you can see more cells all down the hallway. Can't see the ends though."

It took a couple seconds for Sails mind to process the information, it not seeming to stick through the slightly painful haze that still encompassed his mind. When he was finally able to find his thoughts, before he could ask another question a loud clack clack clack started echoing up the hallway.

"Shit, their back." Whispered the Carpenter. Backing away from the entryway.

"What? Who's back?" Said Sail. Slowly clambering to his hooves.

From out of the entryway he could see two figures come to a stop in front of the cell across the way. They looked sort of like Abyssinians, but they were taller. They had five fingers, and five toes on their feet. They also had claws on each of their toes, all of them extended. They had goat looking horns, looked more like a cross between a raccoon and a fox than a cat, and seemed to have shorter fur.

One of the Not-Abyssinians raised their hand, and taped a small button next to the other cell's entryway. The ponies in the other cells started to sway, and then suddenly collapsed. The other cell's shield collapsed, and one of the Not-Abyssinians made their way in. The Not-Abyssinian grabbed one of the ponies from the group, a Unicorn, and started to drag them out and down the hallway. The other one put the shield back up as soon as the first was out of the cell, and then left to follow the other Not-Abyssinian down the hall.

Sail watched the whole thing, stunned. Unable to completely comprehend what he was seeing. Two creatures, unlike any he had ever seen but also very similar in many regards, just walked up to a cell full of ponies, knocked them out with some kind of magic, and dragged one off.

"W-what…?" Sail stuttered. "What just happened? Who are they? What did they just do? Why did they drag that pony off!? What are they going to do to us!? How-"

"Stop!" The Carpenter yelled, interrupting him. "Stop. Don't ask so many questions so fast, and don't yell. They don't like it when we yell, they get annoyed. And if you annoy them they start to target you."

Sail stared at him, his mind reeling from what had just happened. Sure he was a first mate, but he had only served for two years, he wasn't supposed to be doing anything big, nothing like this was supposed to happen! He didn't vocalize his thoughts, but he wasn't able to get rid of them either. So all he was able to manage in reply was a stiff nod.

"Now then." The Carpenter said. "I know you have questions, lots of them." He leaned back against the wall."So ask away." It took over a minute to get his thoughts straight, but he managed to.

"What… What just happened? Where did they take those ponies? And what are they?"

The Carpenter sighed. "Let's start with what they are so we got something to call em. Since we can't actually understand em, we call 'um Foxcoons, cus, y'know, they look like a fox fucked a raccoon. Now to what just happened and where they were taken, well, we don't know where they were taken. Noponies ever awake for it so we ain't got any info on that. In fact the rest of the ponies still in the cell are usually still asleep by the time the one taken gets dragged back. Whatever they use to knock ponies out is powerful and leaves a mighty headache. But what just happened was them coon fellers came by and decided that one of those ponies was right for some kind of experiment of theirs. They knock out all the ponies using who knows what, and take one to who knows where to do stuff to em for who knows why. Most return, some don't. And those that do usually have a few new scars that they didn't have before."

The Carpenter paused to catch his breath, and stared at Sail with a serious expression. "As for if that could happen to us. It could. And there's fuck all we can do to stop it."

Sail stared back for a second, then sighed and sat down.

"Well… Fuck."

Rusty Anchor sighed, he didn't know if he was able to call himself Captain anymore. He had no ship, and sure he may have had a crew, but he had no true idea where most of them were. He assumed that they were further down the hallway his cell was connected to, but they could have been split up. Maybe only half his crew was here and half was somewhere else. Maybe only half of his crew was still alive.

But, no true use pondering those questions. They wouldn't help at all in the current situation. He went back to staring at the slightly blue glowing shield in front of him, trying to find a way to interrupt or break it. Or just find where it originated from. One of the Unicorns tried to blast through it with all his power, all it did was give him a case of magic drain. After a few more minutes spent just staring at the shield and thinking, he gave up once again. He hadn't thought of anything the last hundred times. He wouldn't figure anything out this time.

He turned around to look at the other ponies occupying his cell with him. He knew all of them, but the one he focused on was the yellow furred black maned Earth Pony huddled in the corner. He was currently being comforted by two others, and he was shivering. Rusty walked over to them.

"How's he doing?" He asked one of the ponies. A dark blue maned and lighter blue furred Pegasus stallion by the name of Wave Crest.

"He's doing better." Said Wave. "But he's still shivering badly, and loud noises still make him jump. But it's better than he was."

Rusty slowly shook his head. Three days ago the yellow pony, by the name of Sunray, was taken by the Foxcoons. But by the time they had all woken up, he still hadn't come back. It was two more hours before he had returned. He was awake, kicking and screaming, and crying his eyes out. He Was being pulled by four different Foxcoons, which was more than they had ever seen at once before. Now normally, if everypony is awake by the time the Foxcoons come back with the ones they take, they knock them all out again. But this time they just deactivated the field and tossed him in. Nopony was able to do anything anyway because they were all too shocked at what they were seeing.

When the Foxcoons turned the shield back on and left, one of the ponies had tried to approach Sunray, but he lashed out, punching the pony across the face and retreated into the corner of the room. Sobbing his eyes out. They tried to get closer, but Everytime they did, he would just buch up and start screaming for them to go away. To took a couple hours for him to stop sobbing constantly, and over a day to allow anypony to approach. During all this time, the Foxcoons observed them. Usually one would come down and watch through the cell shield, sometimes two. But they always focused on Sunray. Sometimes if there were multiple they would yip to each other in that weird language of theirs, but nothing could be discerned from their conversations. When they did talk, Sunray would always sink deeper into the corner he had claimed as his.

They had finally got him to talk about what happened only two hours ago. According to him what happened was that after being knocked out, he had been woken up in a round metal room. They had strapped him to a slab of metal and flipped it upside down. He couldn't move his head or any of his hooves, so he could only see what was in front of him, which was the ground. Weirdly, while his body had been strapped to a metal sheet, his head had instead been sealed in a loop of metal that held it in place and stoped him from moving it. The reason for this soon became clear, as he felt a sharp point being put against his flesh just below his skull where his brain stem was. When asked to describe what happened next, he started to shiver and sweat, and his eyes gained a vacant look. All he said was "They put something in me.".

He said that after that, he doesn't remember much of what happened till they got back to the cell. The doc that's with us, named Bloody Cut, says that this is probably his mind intentionally forgetting and sealing away memories so as to be able to still function. I'm inclined to agree with him. Now though, he's also said that he's able to actually understand the Foxcoons! Or at least get the gist of what their talking about. He said he started noticing it yesterday. That sometimes when the watching Foxcoons started talking that he could at first understand a word or two, then a whole sentence, then basically the entire conversation. He doesn't know how this is happening or why, but guesses it has something to do with the thing they put in his neck.

He says that they talk about or make references to him mostly. That they mention him as "Subject 37", and talk about how "the experiment must have failed." And shit like that. Once again he doesn't know what they mean, but guesses it has to do with the thing inside his head. One of the Unicorns we have with us, a stallion by the name of Crackling Spark, took a guess and said that whatever they put in his head is like a Magi Crystal. Something that can hold a spell. And the spell this one holds is a translation spell. But the kicker is that it didn't work as intended. He guesses it was supposed to be two way translation, but it's only working one way. Like the doc, I'm inclined to agree with Sparks guess. Spark was one of the ships resident mages, experts in all things glowy and magical. And if he says it's a translation spell, then it probably is. Though, he doesn't know what kind of translation spell would need to be put on a Magi Crystal and then put into someponies body to work, as they work just fine on their own.

Rusty Anchor was shaken out of his thoughts by a metallic squeal, he looked over to the back wall of the cell and saw a small hatch open up in the wall. Through it fell multiple sealed packets of a substance that the sailors had come to recognize as the only food they were served. Three times a day, everyday, the same bland tasting mush in a bag. They weren't even given spoons, they either had to stick their muzzles in the bag to eat, or squeeze it out onto their tongues through a small hole they rip in the bag with their teeth. Rusty sighed as he grabbed his packet. They had been trapped for over a week, or what they guessed was a week, and they haddent found anyway out of this situation. It seemed like things couldn't get any worse.

He was once more distracted from his musings by the sound of the door in the hallway opening. He looked up to see two Foxcoons walking through it. They were one of the closest cells to the door of the hallway, so they were always one of the first to notice when something was happening. His eyes didn't move away from the hall, he was waiting to see who they would drag back with them. He had see everypony they had draged away, and he committed all their names to memory, just in case they didn't come back. Crystal Hammer, Shield Shard, Powder Keg, Rolling Barrel, Twisted Wire, and more. They had never come back. He waited to see which poor bastard they dragged off this time, praying all the while that they would come back. He heard the distinct clack clack clack of the Foxcoons always extended claws, and watched them as they came into view. The pony they were dragging, it was Silent Sail.

"...Shit…"

Author's Note

Wanted to share the song that inspired this story, and still makes me think of more things every time I listen to it.
https://youtu.be/3Gc1MVz-sqA

Also should probably have mentioned this earlier but this may be a slow burn story