The Sinner of Equestria

Operation One

WIngs of Freedom

“I don’t want to die.” That was all Adelle could think of while running as fast as she could from the a-class Dionaea. Looking behind, she saw the abductor heading towards her as she took a left turn to an alleyway. She pressed myself against the wall hoping that it wouldn’t see her. To her luck and surprise, it worked as the abductor ran past her.

“Straight out bullshit. This was not how I wanted to spend my freedom. I had it all planned out. Buy as many supplies as I can get, head over to the secret oasis that I found underneath the abandoned city, and live out the rest of my days in the comfort of my makeshift home in that small haven. But no! I'm running for my life from a fucking abductor sent here from the people On High...fuck to make matters worse. If I don't leave this place, then they'll think I have something to do with it...and then it's back to being a sinner." She said before shaking her head to get her thoughts together. “J-Just try to stay calm Adelle. At least things can’t get any worse right?” While she was sitting there trying to collect her thoughts, she felt something wet hit the top of her head. She thought it was raining until she heard a low growl. She slowly looked up and saw it was a tiger-like abductor with blood dripping from its fangs and claws as it was looming over her from the building in the alleyway she was in.

"....I fucking hate this world!" Adelle yelled before rolling out of the way of the abductor trying to pounce on her. The moment the human recovered from the barrel roll, she countered by pulling out an assault rifle and unloading a round into the robot's face. The moment she ran out of ammo and started to reload, the wall next to me exploded. The force behind it caused her to be sent flying backward and out of the alleyway leaving debris everywhere and revealing the Dionaea that ran past her.

She noticed that Dionaea opened its mouth and shot out a fireball at her. She didn’t have time to move out of the way as she switched out my binding thorn for her shielding thorn. She quickly formed a barrier of thorns around herself as the fireball crashed into it. To her surprise, the barrier worked well for a few seconds. The Dionaea swung its tail at her and was sent flying through four to five slabs of solid concrete walls. After going through the last piece of concrete, she was flung through the window of a house as her body hit the floor.

"Aw...hell," Adelle said as she tried to pull herself up, but soon fell back down and clenched her chest after hearing and feeling one of her ribs break. "Double hell...that attack could've killed me had I not used shielding thorns to boost my defense," She said before feeling the ground give out as she fell through the hole. Her eyes widened as she saw that the house she was in was hanging off of a cliff. The human quickly used my thorns to latch onto a nearby pipe sticking out of a building. She felt my arm dislocated the moment the length of the thorn reached its maximum length. Adelle quickly released the thorn’s grip on the pipe as she fell on a nearby rooftop. She felt herself rolling off the roof and landing on the roof of a broken-down car.

“Fuck that hurts!" She yelled while trying to pull herself up. She soon looked over her broken arm as she winced from seeing it twisted with two pieces of her arm bone sticking out “Scratch that, this hurts more than landing on a car back first.” With her other working arm, she pulled out a first aid pill along with some painkillers. It helped to nullify the pain and fix her arm a little, but it was still broken from what she could feel. “The universe just loves to screw around with me doesn’t it?” She grumbled before noticing something casting a shadow over her. Looking up she saw both Dionaea and Ramosa jump down heading towards her. “I need to keep my mouth shut.”

She quickly jumped off the car she landed on and ran down the streets just in time as the two abductors landed behind her. There wasn't anything she could do given the situation she was in. Her accessory was destroyed, her gear was only at level five which couldn’t do much damage, and most of the reinforcements were killed off due to the surprise attack from the people of On High. It was like trying to fight against a tsunami...with a butter knife.

As she was thinking of a plan to escape, a sudden particle of pale blue energy passed by Adelle’s vision. She looked behind herself to see Ramosa in the air firing off Will’O shots at her. The human’s eyes widened as she quickly tried to dodge the oncoming attack, but to her best effort, she was hit with a barrage of Will’O bursts. She was once again sent flying as her body hit a metal wall. She slid to the ground as blood ran down her left eye. She could only guess that her skull was injured seeing how she could hear a slight ringing sound in my ears and her vision was getting blurry. Slowly, she began to stand up from the ground but soon kneeled after feeling a slight surge of pain from her femur bone snapping.

"One thing...after another with me," Adelle said while cursing to herself. Even with the painkiller dulling most of the pain, she can feel her entire body screaming in pain. All she could do was ignore it while popping another painkiller into her mouth and swallow it. The perk of having medicine like this is that it’s fast-acting as she reached for her P.R.P. and tried to send an S.O.S. to anyone nearby for help. Unfortunately, because Panopticon systems were heavily damaged, connections to other people in different Panopticons were cut off. She soon heard the sounds of heavy metal footsteps making their way over to her location. "Seriously!? How are they able to find me so damn fast!"

She soon turned her attention behind herself and saw the abductors closing the distance between them and began to quickly limp her way down the only path that was presented to her. She could hear their footsteps getting closer as she turned around and fired upon them with her rifle, hoping that it would do some kind of damage to them, but to no avail. While she continued to return fire, she suddenly felt her foot slip. She looked behind herself to see the edge of a cliff and a large pool of Will’O energy in liquid form flowing down in the pit. Given how there were broken pipes and molten metal still visible. She can assume someone must've overheated the chambers where the Will'O vat was being held and triggered an explosion. Adelle continued looking down at the chasm full of Will’O, forgetting about her current situation. It was almost...calming in a way, but sadly reality brought her back when she heard the abductors walking toward her.

“Talk about being cornered like a rat,” Adelle said before weighing her options. “Okay, I have three options. I go down guns blazing, commit suicide, and hope I don’t feel anything from them ripping me apart, or I fall into the chasm of Will’O energy and hope I survive long enough before the energy kills me.” She let out a sigh of defeat, option one would work if she had a team and were doing a final stand formation. Option two, she was too much of a coward to blow her brains out. Option three was pretty much the only option that didn’t sound that bad, but she could still die just slow and painfully. Due to the amount of Will’O energy she would be absorbing, it would be like drinking poison if not treated quickly.

“Fuck it, I’ll take poisonous death over slaughter death.” She said while limping backward even further towards the edge. “Finally got my freedom and my reward is death…Suppose it’s better than being a sinner forever.” Adelle took one last look at the abductors that were preparing to attack her. She could feel tears running down her face before flipping off the abductors, leaning backward, and falling into the chasm of Will’O. The moment she made contact with the pool of Will’O energy, she felt a slight feeling of an adrenaline rush flowing through her body, but also pain as the poison began to flood her body. She could feel her vision beginning to fade as her life started to flash through her eyes.

“What will happen to me when I die? Will anyone remember me when I’m gone...or will I be forgotten? I guess it doesn’t matter seeing how they don’t care for us sinners.” She wondered as her vision faded into darkness.

[Equestria]

EverFree Forest

The sound of bugs chirping, plant life swaying in the wind, and water flowing down a stream caused Adelle to let out a small groan. The moment she felt a bug land on her nose, she nonchalantly batted it away. It was when she picked up the smell of plant life and water, that the human began to slowly wake up. A groggy groan escaped her lips as she rubbed her eyes due to how tired she felt. Once her vision was cleared, she was soon taken by surprise at the fact that she was in the middle of a forest. She blinked in surprise at this before pinching herself to see if she was dreaming.

"W-Where am I?” Adelle asked while scanning the area she was in. “I remember that I was falling to my death, everything went dark, and then-" Adelle paused the moment she brought her hand up. Instead of it being her usual brown skin, it was now replaced with gray fur. Looking down, she noticed that she didn't have any feet, only...stubs. "W-WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO MY FEET!?” She screamed, wondering if someone cut off her feet, and left her for dead. She tried to pull herself up so she could walk over to the stream next to her, but couldn’t due to not being used to having stubs as feet. She decided to crawl over to the stream of water and her eyes widened upon seeing her reflection in the water.

"I...I'm a....horse?" She said while still looking at myself in the stream's reflection. "How the fuck am I a horse? An anthropomorphic horse with bat-like features…T-This has to be a dream…right?" The human turned bat pony asked before punching herself in the face. She winced from the pain she felt on her right face as a sense of dread developed over her. This wasn’t a dream, and this was real. At first, she was about to freak out due to this sudden knowledge of her situation. But soon stopped upon hearing the sound of a frog croaking off to the side. Upon noticing it, she finally took notice of her surroundings with much better attention as she was amazed by the greenery around her. She had only read about what this stuff looked like in books and holographic records back in her cell, but she had never seen it in real life before. It was breathtaking, to say the least, and gave her a moment to calm down. She soon slumps down to the ground as she sighs.

“This doesn’t make any sense. I know I died in a pool of Will’O energy because of the poison I felt flowing through my body. Did I survive the poison that caused this mutation? Can’t be a hallucination given how I punched myself in the face.” She said before looking up at the sky, which took her by surprise given how clear it looked. Due to the constant wars over the years back on earth. Seeing a clear sky that wasn’t covered in smog, clouds, or a sandstorm was nearly impossible. The only time when she could see something like that was in books or holograms.

“Focus Adelle, you need to assess the situation. First order of business, information about your anatomy.” The bat pony said before looking over at her reflection in the stream. “Okay, so I have horse ears…I think. Bat wings.” She said while opening her mouth to see she had bat-like fangs instead of normal human teeth. “Fangs similar to a bat, stubby feet similar to that of a horse's feet, horsetail, and possibly more stuff underneath your clothing. Let's see if I can walk like how I usually do.”

The bat pony would pat herself on the face as a means of encouraging herself to focus. She soon crawled over to a nearby tree stump and used it as support to help her stand up. Once she stood up, she carefully took one step forward as a means to test her leg’s stability before taking another step. She was a bit wobbly at first, but after a few minutes of walking around in her new body, she started to get a better handle on it…well the walking and running aspect of it. The flying part is a different story seeing how she has no idea how to fly.

“Okay, walking seems to be as normal as a human. That’s good, this means this body is almost like that of a human’s minus the fangs, wings, and eyes looking like cat eyes.” She said before pulling up her portable responsibility portal via a digital screen. “I’m a bit surprised that I can still access my resources given how I was only allowed to use it only in my cell. But I’m not complaining, this just means I have no restrictions on what I can or can’t access.” With the digital screen presented to her, she began looking over some of the items she had claimed over the four years she had been a sinner in the Panopticon of New York. So far she had a lot of the standard-issued weapons ranging from handguns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, rocket launchers, sub-machine guns, light swords, greatswords, polearms, laser cannons, grenades, etc. She soon made her way to her storage unit as she was heavily stocked on medical supplies, ammunition, abductor parts, and other miscellaneous items.

“Other than having to upgrade a lot of my weapons, it seems I have everything. Now then let's see if I can find a town or city that can tell me where I am?" Just as she was about to look around, the bat pony heard a blood-curdling scream from over the bushes to the left of her. She blinks for a moment due to being taken by surprise from hearing the scream but begins to carefully make her way over to where the scream came from while making a sniper rifle appear in her hands. The moment she made it to the area where the scream came from, the bat pony saw that there was a blue anthropomorphic horse with a horn on her head wearing a mage-like outfit, next to her was some kind of animal that looked like a mix between a lion and a bird wearing a black shirt with a skull on it, blue jeans, and black fishnet stockings.

“...Well that’s something you don't see every day.” She thought before looking over to her right to see what they were looking at. To her surprise, she saw a monster with the head of a lion, the wings of a bat, and a scorpion tail. “...Shoot first, ask questions later.” The moment she saw the manticore taking a few steps forward, Adelle aimed from behind the bush she was hiding behind, and fired a warning shot at the manticore’s foot. The monster quickly jumps away after feeling the bullet pierced a hole in his foot as he scans the area to see who did it.

"Sorry ugly, but I can’t afford to have you eat them. I’m kind of lost and I need their assistance in something very important.” Adelle said after moving from behind the bush she was hiding behind. The manticore glared daggers at her before charging at the bat pony with the intent to kill her. The moment the manticore was halfway towards the bat pony. Adelle summoned red thorns around her right arm to latch onto a tree branch and pull herself out of the way of the charging monster’s path. Upon landing on the tree branch, she aimed and fired another bullet at the monster. Only this time she shot at the joint connecting the manticore’s arm to his shoulder.

The manticore let out a roar of pain due to feeling his right arm dislocated. He soon flapped his wings before flying towards Adelle in an attempt to tackle her to the ground. The bat pony reached behind herself, pulled out a flash grenade, and tossed it at the monster’s face. The bomb went off in a matter of seconds as a quick flash erupted in front of the monster. The beast roared in pain before crashing into the tree that Adelle was in and causing her to fall from the branch and onto her back.

“Not one of my best choices, but at least it worked.” She said before slowly pulling herself up as she saw the beast rolling around in pain from the flash grenade hurting his eyes and making him blind. The bat pony took this opportunity to use the binding thorns to wrap around the manticore’s body and pinned him to the ground. Once pinned, Adelle made her way over to the creature, placed the barrel of her sniper rifle against his head, and pulled the trigger as the bullet entered the monster’s head. The manticore’s eyes widened for a moment before rolling into the back of his head before falling to the ground. A smirk can be seen running across the bat pony’s face upon seeing that the manticore was dead. She soon turned her attention onto the unicorn and griffon before speaking.

“Hey, are you two okay?”

“Y-Yeah, we’re fine.” The griffon said while staring at Adelle in a mix of fear and disbelief.

“The great and powerful Trixie didn’t need your help...But she is fine, thanks for asking.” Trixie said as she looked at me up and down. “You wouldn’t happen to be one of Luna’s Night Guards…are you?”

“Don’t know who this Luna person is, but no. I’m not part of her…Night Guard?” Adelle answered before noticing the griffon carefully making her way toward the dead manticore. She walked around it for a moment before whistling due to being impressed by the clean kill.

“No way this girl is part of the royal guards. They’re not that good at taking on a manticore by themselves.” She said before looking at the SR-44/ET sniper rifle. “Nor do they have something like that. What the hell is that thing?”

“A Sniper rifle…have either of you ever heard of a firearm before?”

“What is a firearm?” Trixie asked while looking at the weapon in the bat pony’s hand. “Tell Trixie who you are and where you come from. The Great and Powerful Trixie demands it!” She demanded while slamming her hoof onto the ground. The bat pony stared at her for a moment before pondering her options in her head.

“Normally it would be against the rules to talk with someone from a different Panopticon, not to mention that I would have been sent back to becoming a sinner. But seeing how I’m not back at home, perhaps telling them wouldn’t hurt…right?” Before she could answer, her stomach started to growl, causing the bat pony’s face to turn red in embarrassment. “I’ll tell them after I get something to eat.” She said before looking over at the remains of that manticore she killed. "Hey, is it possible for me to eat that thing?"

“You want to eat that Manticore!?” Trixie asked as Adelle nodded. “But you’re a pony!”

“Well yeah. Why’d you ask?” I asked.

"B-but you're a pony, right? Ponies don't eat meat. The only species that I know that eat meat are griffons like her and dragons." She said while pointing a hoof towards the griffin girl.

"Oh, so that's what she is? Geez, do I even want to know how a bird and a lion procreate?" She thought before shivering at the thought of it.

"This griffin has a name you know?" She said with a pissed-off look on her face. "The name’s Gilda by the way kid." She said while extending her claw-like hand for Adelle to shake.

"Normally Trixie doesn’t give out her name to anypony...But seeing how you saved us, I suppose she can give her name out to you." Trixie said her horn started to glow as she jumped back from Adelle and Gilda. "The Great and Powerful TRIXIE!" She said as fireworks and sparklers shot out from behind the unicorn as she spelled her name out.

"Right...Anyway, my name is Adelle Topaz, a former sinner of Panopticon in New York.” Adelle replied while shaking Gilda's claw hand.

[Equestria]

Everfree Forest

Nighttime

A few hours have passed since the trio decided to camp out in the forest for the night. It wasn’t anything big. Just a small campfire, sleeping bags, and eating utensils for them to eat. Well, mostly Gilda and Adelle seeing how they were eating manticore meat while Trixie was having plant life from the surrounding area. During the past hours they had spent, Adelle exchanged a bit of information about where she came from, specifically Earth, and how it was in the past to the current year which was around the million-year mark. To say that Trixie and Gilda were kind of skeptical of her being from another planet, but given how she presented proof via hologram from the black boxes that she was carrying strapped around her waist. In exchange for said information on Adelle’s situation, they in turn gave her basic knowledge about Equestria, the history of how it was made, Princess Celestia & Luna, and the elements of harmony, and their current situation as to why they’re in the forest. Seems like the two of them got into a heated argument involving which direction to go. One thing led to another and Trixie fired off one of her fireworks in an attempt to hit Gilda, only for it to miss and hit a nearby sleeping manticore. Which in turn caused the two to run like bats out of hell due to the monster chasing them. It was a bit amusing to the bat girl but was glad she was able to help them as best as she could.

“So…you’re not a bat pony, but a hooman who somehow ended up turning into a bat pony after falling to some strange liquid that’s poisonous?” Trixie asked as Adelle nodded and showed her and Gilda what she looked like before the change. From what they could tell, the image showed a brown-skinned human with purple hair, and blue eyes, and was wearing ragged and revealing clothing. “Geez, you hoomans look ugly. Like hairless monkeys if Trixie is being honest.” She said, which caused Adelle to deadpan her and Gilda to smack the mare upside her head. “What!? It’s true!”

“Oh like you ponies are better looking than them?” Gilda said before looking over at the bat pony. “Is there a reason why you’re wearing rags like that?”

“It’s pronounced human, not hooman.” Adelle said while leaning back a bit on the ground before looking over at Gilda. “And to answer your question, Gilda, Sinners like me don’t get much when it comes to clothing or anything for that matter. The moment you get sent to jail, all your human rights are stripped away, you’re sentenced to one million years in prison, and you have to do whatever the people in charge of the Panopticon you’re in.”

“One million years!?” Gilda yelled as Adelle nodded.

“What kind of crime did you do to get that kind of sentence?” Trixie asked.

“I…prefer not to talk about it. But what I can say is that even if it’s just a minor crime, you would still get arrested and sentenced to prison for becoming a sinner. Oh, you stole a small piece of candy, it’s prison time for you. Oh, you killed someone out of self-defense, sorry. You’re going to prison. Doesn’t matter if you’re young or old, you’ll get a ticket to prison no matter the crime. Hell, it’s even worse if you’re a baby.”

“What do you mean?” Gilda asked as she flipped the manticore meat she was cooking on a stone in the campfire.

“Newborn infants born into the world are instantly labeled as a waste of human resources. They’re either killed off or worse. Trained in the Panopticon training facility to become sinners.”

“....Dear Celestia. How can somepony even think of doing something like that?” Trixie asked as Adelle shrugged.

“Well given how my planet is pretty much a barren wasteland of broken-down cities, sand, and lord knows what else. People have to do whatever they can to limit the use of resources wisely.” She said before looking up at the night sky. “Years of war and conflict in the past caught up to people like me in the distant future. You want your freedom, you have to undertake operations and donate materials to the greater cause for your Panopticon...I never believed that crap. I'm pretty sure the people in charge of that system use the resources just for themselves."

"Don't you have some kind of freedom while in jail? I mean, they can't just keep you locked inside and only let you out to do operations?"

"Not unless you're a level eight and claim the rights you lost upon becoming a sinner over time. Other than that, you're pretty much locked inside your jail cell."

“Trixie hates to live where you come from, though Trixie is wondering something?”

“How did I take down that manticore?” Addle asked as Trixie nodded. "Well back on earth, the missions I would be sent on were either taking down abductors that kidnapped people or fighting against the people from On High," she said before bringing up a couple of digital images of what an abductor looks like and On High soldiers. "The manticore kinda reminded me of a Ramosa. They’re kinda easy to take down if you know what you’re doing. Plus I've been doing this for the past four years.”

"...How old are you?" Gilda asked.

"Seventeen," The bat pony said as they were taken by surprise by what she said. "What? I was thirteen at the time when I was sent to jail after what I did."

"Okay…while I am a bit interested in what your world is like…what are your plans now?" Gilda said which caused Adelle to raise an eyebrow at her. “I mean, you’re no longer in jail but you don’t have any money to help start a new life in Equestria. So what are you going to do?”

“I…don’t know. Originally the plan was for me to relax in the hidden oasis that I found back in my world and live out my days as a free person. But after what happened and me ending up in Equestria, I don’t know what to do now.” She said which caused Trixie and Gilda to look at each other for a moment before looking at Adelle.

“Why not hang out with us?” Gilda said, which took Adelle by surprise. “I mean we’re kind of in the same boat, but different. So why not help each other out.”

“Trixie will have to agree with the feather brain on this one. Plus with skills like yours, you might pass off as Trixie’s assistant in her magical act.”

“Hm, I suppose it’s not a bad idea…but are you sure you want me around? I mean, you did see what I just did to that manticore, right?”

“All the more reason to have around with us. Mainly because I might have a way to make some easy money.”

“What do you mean griffon?” Trixie asked before noticing a grin appearing on Gilda’s face.

“Up on a mountain top far off from Ponyville, there’s a dragon that’s hoarding a crap ton of treasure. Given how good you are with those fancy tools of yours, I figure we take down the dragon and take his loot.”

"Are you crazy, doing something like that in Equestria!?" Trixie yelled as Gilda rolled her eyes.

"You have a better idea of making money? Keep in mind, given what happened in Ponyville with the Ursa Minor incident and me calling Ponyville lame. Word spread like wildfire real quickly, so we don't have much going for us at this time.”

“She has a point,” Adelle added. “Plus I can’t get a job here seeing how ponies don't just hire strangers without a background check…right?”

“So yeah, we’re going to kill a dragon,” Gilda said as Trixie deadpans at her. “What? If it makes you feel better, we’ll hide the body or something.”

“That's even worse!” Trixie yelled.

“What’s the big deal? Adelle's going to be the one that kills him, not use." Gilda said, which caused the bat pony to burst out laughing while Trixie stared at her with a dumbfounded expression on her face.

"I'm not against the idea, but let's try talking to the big guy and see if he would hand over some of his treasure," Adelle said as she noticed Trixie’s manic expression. "What? It’s not like I’m not going to kill him without giving him a chance to talk.”

“Oh my……me.”

“Don’t you mean Celestia?” Gilda said as Trixie glared at her.

“You worship your thing. Trixie worships hers!”

“Ladies, focus, please?” Adelle asked before looking over at Trixie. “Look at it this way, Trixie. If we get the treasure, then we can fix your wagon that was destroyed by the ursa minor that you mentioned. Not to mention buy you new stuff for your traveling act, right?”

“You…make a valid point, but Trixie has her doubts about this. Not to sound like a downer, but how can you take down a dragon? The ponies that Trixie knows that can do that are Princess Celestia and Princess Luna.” Trixie asked.

“If the dragons are anything like the Dionaea’s back home, then I’m sure I can handle taking them down,” The bat pony said before reaching for her sniper rifle next to her. “From what I’ve read in storytelling books, Dragons' scales are as hard as steel, so I just need to make a few armor-piercing rounds to bypass their scales.”

“Armor piercing rounds?” Gilda asked as Adelle reached into her pocket and pulled out a bullet. She quickly popped it into her sniper rifle and aimed at a large rock a few inches away from them. The bat pony soon aimed at the rock and fired the armor-piercing bullet. Within a matter of seconds, the rock that was still intact shattered into pieces which caused Trixie and Gilda’s eyes to widen. “They were meant for the abductors back home, but I’m sure they’ll work on a dragon just the same.”

“Okay…Trixie suppose that will work…she thinks?” Trixie said before shaking her head to regain her focus. “Now, how are we going to carry all that loot once you kill it?”

“I’ll work on something to carry the treasure tomorrow as we make our way to the dragon’s home. For now, we should get some rest while we can. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow, and I want to get some sleep for once in my life without the worry of being called for some stupid operation or something.” Adelle said as Trixie and Gilda nodded and went back to their respective meals.