Chapter 2: In the Clutches of Chaos

“What’s going on?”

“They’re slavers, you idiot.”

Gotta say, nothing wakes you up quite like your shoulders being tugged so hard they nearly dislocate.

Almost immediately, I became aware of several things. First; I was staring up at a metal-plated ceiling, probably the interior of the Taurox I’d seen parked next to the campfire. Second; I was buck naked (pun not intended) and gagged by something that was almost certainly a bridle. Third; several cold, hard metal loops were clamped around my neck and my torso, the one wrapped around the latter pinning my wings to my sides. Fourth; shackles were clamped around all four of my hooves, and those shackles were secured to the benches built into the Taurox, leaving me immobilized on my back with my furry belly completely exposed. Fifth; remember that human cultist with the shock maul? Guess who was leaning over my shackled forehooves, giving my chains a few testing (and painful!) yanks.

“There we go, nice and tight.” The cultist commented, a muffled whine slipping from my throat as I tugged on my restraints, trying in vain to free myself. “Don’t want our slave-to-be running off in the middle of an inspection, do we?”

Sixth, and finally; I was well and truly frakked!

“No, we don’t.” The same pony who’d whacked that one captive with his own Shock Maul chuckled to himself as he hopped up onto the bench, carefully stepping around my hind legs, his shadow creeping across my helpless form like something out of a xeno abduction holovid. The irony inherent in that comparison was not lost on me.

At this point, most Commissars would have started vigorously thrashing, screaming bloody murder through the bit gag and trying to snap their restraints so they could rip out some throats. But in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not most Commissars, largely by virtue of being primarily motivated by fear and self-interest rather than fanaticism or glory. I’m not going to be doing any sort of big, flashy heroics if I can help it,1 but I’m also far more reasonable in my decision-making than most of my peers. For example; it probably wouldn’t have occurred to your typical Commissar that trying to struggle right now would almost certainly be futile, and that it would be better to conserve their energy for when a better opportunity to attempt to escape cropped up.

So instead of trying to fight, I just clamped down on my urge to struggle and went limp, playing the part of a disoriented captive too terrified to resist as the cultist started poking and prodding and tugging at me all over, his pony helper occasionally using his xeno witchcraft to grab parts of me the cultist would have had trouble reaching and doing other little things to help. That pony was being awfully frivolous with the use of his psychic abilities, especially considering that such talents usually come with a not-insignificant risk of frying your brain or worse even in the absolute best of circumstances.2

“Hmm… an actual, natural-born alicorn… and one that’s free of Corruption, to boot.” The human cultist commented, snapping me out of my thoughts.

“Bet he’ll fetch quite the price among the more research-oriented warbands.” The pony added. Beneath the blue cloak, I could see that his coat was deep indigo in color, with a dark purple mane and creepy blue eyes I could swear were glowing. And there was something around his neck, something that looked an awful lot like the loop of metal currently clamped around my own, aside from the blue flame emblem inscribed on its front.

Surely you can imagine my confusion in that moment; here was another of those pony-like xenos, apparently made a slave, enthusiastically helping his sadistic, human master subject me to the same treatment he’d presumably been put through.3 Pretty much the only indication that he was a slave to a chaos cultist rather than a chaos cultist himself was that collar.

“Decent muscle tone, too.” The pony continued speaking, rubbing one hoof over my belly, and I had to actively fight the urge to try and jerk away. “Especially with regards to one particular muscle…”

…one particular muscle? What is he talking about…? I wondered to myself… and immediately stopped wondering when his hooves drifted lower down. Oh… oh throne… The next thing I knew, I was being groped by this disturbingly enthusiastic slave, and oh how I wish I was joking.

This time, I couldn’t resist the urge to jerk back reflexively, my chains jingling softly as I squirmed in their grip. A low, miserable whine slipped through the bridle around my throat. I saw a perverted smile blossom into existence on my attacker’s face, and clamped down hard on my shame; this pony seemed to be enjoying how much discomfort I was feeling, and the last thing I wanted to do was encourage him.

“You can help yourself to this slave-to-be tonight, Tentacles. After he’s settled.” The human cultist chided as he gently pushed the pony’s hoof away from my private parts, the casual tone with which he discussed raping me sending shivers down my spine. “Don’t want to hit him with too much at once; slaves driven to madness don’t sell quite as well, do they?”

“Right. Besides, I think the other stallion will be a lot more fun to play with.” ‘Tentacles’ responded, giggling playfully as his master scratched his ears like he was some kind of pet. Seriously, what the frak was wrong with that pony? Is he secretly a Slaaneshi cultist trying to pull a fast one on Tzeentch or something?4 “But I’ll have plenty of time for all that later. For now, let’s show our newest piece of property his accommodations.”

The slave who was way too enamored with her station in life stepped up toward the head of the table, his horn emitting an eerie blue glow as his telekinetic warp-sorcery pulled out a chain and a small, crystalline key that shimmered unnaturally in the Taurox’s interior lights. He inserted the key into the collar, prompting the piece of metal to create a small slurping noise as it's pushed into the metal, almost as if it’s sliding into a particularly viscous liquid. With that done, he somehow hooks up one end of the chain to my collar, and I struggle not to choke as he gives it a short, testing pull.

Next he moved onto my shackles, inserting that crystalline key into the metal cuffs and somehow unhooking the chain that secured them to the table. And finally, he pried off my bridle, leaving me free to speak… or so I thought. The shock maul that my captor pressed against my neck when I opened my mouth to talk made it pretty damn clear that wasn’t the case.

“Do you know what some slavers do to slaves-to-be who don’t know when to shut up?” I shake my head wordlessly; I don’t. But I can guess.

“They pump them full of pain-amplifying drugs, strap them to a table, and cut out their tongue. And then their vocal cords. Slowly.” Tentacles answered, still smiling as his voice dropped to a hiss. Yep, my guess was right. “Do you want to know what that feels like?”

I shook my head vigorously, not even daring to speak out loud. “You learn fast…” Tentacles chuckled as he tugged on the leash, pulling me off the table and onto my shackled hooves. The human cultist nodded with approval, before turning around and pushing open a nearby hatch, Tentacles following in his wake like a loyal Canis being led around by their owner. Again, the irony in how he was the one ‘holding’ my leash wasn’t lost on me.

*** *** ***

As it turned out, these slavers kept their captives in honest-to-throne cages; they stored the things in the trailer the Taurox was hooked up to. I have to admit, for something a bunch of insane Chaos Cultists came up with, it was a pretty sensible idea. After all, if you’re trying to lure in slaves-to-be by pretending to be ordinary travelers, you probably don’t want cages full of ponies sitting out in the open. And if that means your slaves don’t get anywhere near as much sunlight and fresh air as they’d like… well, they’re slaves. It’s not like you’re under any obligation to give a frak about what they want.

As I was led into one of those cages, I took another moment to silently rail against the unfairness of my plight. Wasn’t it enough for the mysterious Daemon Lord in charge of this hellhole to turn me into a frakking animal? Did he really have to have some of his cultists keep their human bodies so they can treat me like an animal too?

As usual, the answer was yes, at least if the way Tentacles was somehow securing the leash to one of the bars like I was some kind of frakking pet was any indication. I let loose a despairing huff as I lay down on the dirty straw, trying (and utterly failing) to get comfortable.

A moment later, my captor had finished affixing the chain to the back wall of the cage. For a second, I let myself hope that this was the end of the humiliation conga line, at least for now.

No such luck. Before leaving, Tentacles trotted over to me. He leaned in close, nuzzling my neck, one hoof grabbing my shackles seemingly just to make it clear there was nowhere I could flee to.

Every single fiber of my being was screaming at me to lash out, to scream for help, to kick Tentacles away and try to run, to do something, anything to put an end to this before it progressed into full-on rape. Fortunately, none of those screams weren’t quite loud enough to drown out my sense of self-preservation, and it was telling me to stay calm, stay still, and not do anything that might incur any kind of punishment. And that’s exactly what I did; I sat there, silently wallowing in discomfort and misery as Tentacles licked his way up my neck.5

“Sleep tight, don’t let the soul-eating Daemons bite…” Tentacles whispered in my ear, before giving it a very, very slimy lick. I could feel something twitching beneath his cloak, but at the time, I’d chalked it up to my imagination and discomfort. As you can probably guess, I was dead wrong about that.

Fortunately, Tentacles released my shackles and stood back up a few seconds later, leaving me free to scramble into the rightmost corner of the cage, curl into a ball, and spend the next minute or two reigning in my urge to puke.

Once my nausea had subsided to manageable levels, I looked up, taking stock of my cagemates for the first time. There were two other slaves locked up here, besides myself; one, a light-blue stallion to my left, was curled up in a back corner of my cage, discreetly fiddling with his chains as if trying to undo them somehow. The other—the same pale-furred pony who’d tried to warn me of what these cultists intended—was moping in the cage next to mine. A bridle had been clamped around her snout, wide, ragged lacerations crisscrossed their way down her spine, and her whole back had turned an unhealthy shade of purple in what was obviously very extensive bruising. Something told me that the cultists hadn’t liked that she’d managed to call out a warning, even one that came far too late.

“...so, I don’t suppose our captors will let us get a cold shower,” I commented, trying to lighten the mood. Yes, I was actively trying to fraternize with xenos, but it was possible I’d be stuck with these two ponies as my only true company for quite some time, and the better an opinion they had of me, the less likely they were to live up to the tales of backstabbing xenos depicted in Imperial Propaganda and murder me in my sleep.6

The pale pony snorted, a muffled chuckle slipping through her bridle. “I wish. I swear, that stallion gets off on our shame and misery.” The light blue pony grumbled, letting loose a sigh. “My name’s P-21, in case you were wondering. And that pale-furred idiot over there is named Blackjack. What’s yours?”

For a second, I panicked internally, briefly floundering for an appropriate alias. Haley? Sunset? Solaria? I didn’t know enough about the naming conventions of these xenos at the time to pick a name that seemed appropriate, so I just went with my own name. It’s not like these xenos have been reading Imperial propaganda, right? “Ciaphas.”

P-21 narrowed his eyes in suspicion, so I asked another question in an attempt to deflect attention from what was apparently an odd name for a pony. “What did Blackjack do to earn the title of ‘idiot’?”

“That warning she shouted out to you? The one that came way too late to be of any use to you? It earned her a flogging from our oh-so-gracious hosts. With a shock baton.7 Doing something that does nothing but get yourself hurt sounds like something an idiot would do, doesn’t it?” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Blackjack wince like a human who’d been slapped on the face. The number of similarities between the body language of these xenos and the body language of humans were mind-boggling to behold.

“Hey, at least she tried.” I countered.

“Yeah. Just like how I spent my first few hours in here trying to find the locks on these shackles, and failing because there aren’t any.” P-21 snapped, and I glanced down at the shackles around my front hooves. To my alarm, there wasn’t a keyhole. Or a latch. Or a seam. Or anything suggesting the shackles hadn’t been forged right onto my hooves.

The light-blue stallion was saying something else, something about “trying” and “the good it’s done us”, but I wasn’t listening anymore. Panic was welling up in me as I pawed at the shackles with my hooves, feeling around for a latch or keyhole. I found nothing. I rolled onto my side and reached for my neck with my shackled hooves, gingerly feeling around the collar for the latch I’d assumed was there. Again, my hooves found nothing but smooth metal. I ran my hooves all along the collar for a second and third time, searching for some way to remove it. And again, there wasn’t any. Not because the mechanism to open it required a key or something, but because, just like with my shackles, that mechanism did not exist. There wasn’t a keyhole or seam or anything; everywhere my hooves touched, they felt nothing but smooth metal.

Giving up on getting the collar off, I instead turned my attention to the ‘leash’ it was hooked up to. It was a struggle to keep my breathing even as I ran my hooves around the collar again, finding where the ‘leash’ was hooked up to the collar and attempting to disconnect it. As you can probably guess, this worked out just as well as trying to get the collar or shackles off; the leash was connected to my collar in such a fashion that I couldn’t even figure out how it had been attached, let alone undo it. I felt my way up to where the leash was attached to the cage’s bars... and my blood froze in my veins.

The other end of the chain seemed to blend flawlessly into the solid steel bars. There wasn’t a latch, hook, or ring it was attached to. Hell, there wasn’t even a knot to untie; it was like the leash was originally part of the wall itself. Even if the cage door was opened and the cultists were being a little less careful than they should’ve been, my steel ‘leash’ would prevent me from trying anything. I was trapped.

I have to admit, there’s really no better term to describe my mental state at that moment besides complete and total panic. All my thoughts, rational and otherwise, promptly threw up an “out for lunch” sign, unilaterally declared “Frak this, I’m outta here!”, and took a headfirst dive right out the nearest window. In a matter of moments, my hooves were clawing desperately at the cold, hard loop of metal clamped around my windpipe. I was choking myself, and there were blue hooves tugging on my own, but none of those things mattered to me at that moment. I had to get these chains off, I had to get out of here, I had to-

“GAH!” I cried out as something tugged hard on my tail, the sharp pain snapping me out of my panic attack. I whirled around, instinctively kicking at whatever had pulled on my tail… and promptly let loose a yelp of pain as the frogs of my hooves impacted painfully on cold, hard metal bars.

“You okay?” It was only then that I registered P-21 standing over me… and the fact that my tail was poking through the bars of my cage and into Blackjack’s. And the alabaster white hoof on my tail.

“Yeah,” I said slowly, nodding. “Thanks, I guess.” Blackjack flashed me a small smile through the bridle around her muzzle as I climbed to my hooves, studying my shackles a little more thoroughly now that terror wasn’t clouding my thoughts. Sure enough, my restraints were all seamless loops of metal, with no visible seams or latches; they definitely wouldn’t be coming off anytime soon. “How the frak did they-” I started to ask.

“That horned purple pervert was the one putting us in chains. Take a guess.” P-21 responded. For a second, I just stared at him, not understanding how that supposed slave’s sexual harassment had anything to do with my restraints. And then my brain made the seemingly obvious connection between the chain getting fused to the wall and that pony using his psychic abilities to secure it in place. I allowed my head to drop, a cold, heavy dread settling into the pit of my stomach as I upped my assessment of the likelihood I’d be stuck with these two xenos from ‘possibly’ to ‘probably’.

“Yeah, I know, you don’t want to be here. Neither do I. But that doesn’t change the fact that we're here.” It was all I could do to stop myself from visibly flinching; normally I’m good at hiding my emotions, but apparently some of my despair had shown in my expression. “You should probably try to get some sleep. You look like you need it.”

I shuddered involuntarily at the idea of falling asleep here, of all places, but P-21 was right: I really needed to rest. The panic attack and my slipping grip on my otherwise-impeccable acting were evidence of that. I nodded as I shuffled over to the corner of the cage, curled up into a ball in an attempt to get comfortable, and did my level best to try and drift off to sleep.

*** *** ***

I awoke to a loud, ear-splitting CLANG. Oh for the love of… I grumbled to myself, forcing my eyes open. Stupid roll call…

Several more CLANGS rang out, sounding absolutely nothing like the bells on a voidship that marked the shift between the night and the day cycle. All of a sudden, I became acutely aware of the dirty straw I was lying on, the cold, hard metal wrapped around my torso and limbs, and the four hooves I had in place of my hands and feet.

“Wakey wakey, my little trick pony.” Oh, and the purple-furred pervert standing right outside the cage door.

Chains jangled as P-21 leaped to his feet. I, for my part, just pressed myself into the corner, cursing the fact that my mane and tail made me stick out in the trailer’s gloomy interior like a sore thumb. At least my coat was a darker color than everyone else’s.

“…how… how did…” P-21 sputtered.

“Listened to some of the entertainment on your marefriend’s Pipbuck. Apparently, she she keeps a whole frakton of recordings of you to jerk off to.” Tentacles declared casually, flicking his tail in the direction of the ‘marefriend’ in question. He didn’t pay attention to the expression on Blackjack’s face, preoccupied as he was with pushing open the door to our cage, but I did; it was a mix of surprise and bewilderment, untainted by shame. Something told me that whatever the purple pony stumbled across wasn’t her personal porn stash, contrary to his assumption.

“Makes me wonder how she’ll feel about being allowed to watch this.” Tentacles continued as his tail pulled the cage door closed behind him. All of a sudden, his false assumptions were the absolute last thing on my mind.

The light-blue pony looked confused for a moment, but that confusion quickly gave way to pure, mortal terror. All the color drained from his face; quite a feat, considering how pale his fur was to begin with. “No…” He whimpered softly. “You can’t… I don’t-”

“-want this?” Tentacles chuckled, cutting P-21 off with a small chuckle. “Then why is your cock going hard?”

P-21 glanced down at his now-erect cock. “I… I-” He sputtered for a few seconds, struggling to formulate a response. A small part of me was tempted to point out that an erection doesn’t necessarily indicate sexual arousal. If you’re scared enough, you can develop a boner from stress alone; I’m not ashamed to admit that, on the many occasions that I’ve found myself face-to-face with green-skinned psychopaths, betentacled chaos cultists, and remorseless killing machines, my cock is often rock hard, even though sexual intercourse is always the absolute last thing on my mind during such times.8

But another, larger, more craven part of me was telling me to shut the frak up. This pony had already proven that he was interested in me on a sexual level, and for all I knew he was also into threesomes. So instead of coming to P-21’s defense, I just pressed myself into the corner of the cage, watching in terrified, slightly guilty silence as Tentacles advanced on P-21 while his eyes weren’t on the purple stallion.

P-21 looked up and let loose a sharp cry as he caught sight of how close Tentacles had gotten, scrambling to his hooves and trying to press himself into a corner of the cage (other than mine, of course). “S-s-stay away fr-from me, or I’ll-” He sputtered, trying to sound confrontational and assertive; as you can probably guess, he wasn’t having much success.

Tentacles let loose another chuckle, louder than before… and a dozen other chuckles joined his own, all ever-so-slightly out of sync with each other. The unnatural voices caused P-21 to fall silent, Blackjack to recoil slightly, and me to shudder. And then, something beneath his cloak shifted, pushing it off of his back. P-21 let loose a shriek of terror, Blackjack reeled backward in horror as a similar cry slipped through her bridle, and I couldn’t help but flinch back.

And here I was wondering why that pony was named ‘Tentacles’…

Now that his cloak was off, it was obvious that he was no longer entirely a pony. Only half of his body was covered in fur anymore; the rest consisted purely of huge swaths of twisting, writhing, ever-shifting pink flesh. Tendrils jutted out from the patches of ever-changing tissues, writhing and dancing as if disturbed by an unseen breeze.9 Those tendrils were accompanied by eyes and mouths and other various facial features as senseless and impermanent as the rubbery pink flesh they were a part of, all twitching and squirming as if each and every extra orifice and organ had a mind of its own. Altogether, the mutant in front of me looked like some nightmarish cross between a pony and one of Tzeentch’s Pink Horrors.

“Do what?” The purple-furred freak asks, his extra mouths adding their voices to his own in a dissonant, out-of-sync chorus. And then the fun began.

I wanted to look away, but it’s never a good idea to take your eyes off a potential threat, especially when that “potential threat” is a mutated chaos cultist with questionable sanity. Instead, I forced myself to keep my eyes locked on Tentacles as his tendrils shot out, seizing P-21 and dragging him close, heedless of his screams. Forced myself to watch as he gripped his crystalline key with his warp-born telekinesis and slotted it into the cuffs around the thrashing stallion’s hooves, pushing the chains linking them into the floor of the cage and leaving the unfortunate rapee-to-be splayed on his back. To watch the tendrils begin poking and prodding at P-21’s orifices, the Shock Maul strapped to Tentacles’ back shifting as he mounted the thrashing blue pony…

All of a sudden, a plan popped into my head, a plan that would have me out of these cultists’ clutches in under an hour. But on the other hand, it was also a plan that entailed getting close to the half-pony monstrosity that was currently plowing P-21 and would probably plow me too if I drew too much attention to myself. And it also meant that I could forget ditching my new “friends” and running for the hills, at least if I didn’t want them calling out to the cultists and ratting me out…

It didn’t take me long to make my choice, but that didn’t make it any less hard.

I climbed to my feet, being very careful not to make the chains rattle too much as I crept up behind Tentacles, keeping my eyes locked on the shock prod strapped to his back and not the amorphous mass of pink rubbery flesh that his back was actually made off. Somehow, Tentacles didn’t notice my complete and utter failure to keep all those chains from jangling. Probably because he’d already mounted P-21 and was doing things to him with his tentacles and private parts that I won’t restate here, for reasons that should be plainly obvious to anyone with half a brain.10

In a matter of moments, I was right next to Tentacles, so close I could smell the mutant’s sweat and other bodily fluids. The urge to gag was almost overpowering, but I clamped down on it to the best of my ability as I grabbed the shock maul’s handle with my mouth, blocking out all thoughts of chaos contamination as I used my tongue to unclip the weapon from his back.

Maybe it was the sensation of the weight being lifted off his back. Or maybe one of his extra eyes spotted me. Whatever the cause, Tentacles had finally taken notice of me. He turned his head, but it was already too late.

“Ooh, seems like you want to join in on the fu-“ He doesn’t get a chance to finish the sentence; while he was wasting time chatting, I thumbed the shock maul’s activation switch with my tongue, and slammed the thing into his side. Tentacles cried out in pain, spasms wracking his body as he was knocked off of P-21, his namesakes emitting several lewd squelches as they were violently wrenched out of the light blue stallion’s orifices. P-21 let loose a final scream, scrambling away from his tentacled rapist and immediately curling up as tight as he possibly could. Unfortunately, I had more pressing concerns at the moment than making sure he was okay.

Like making sure the mutant who’d been raping him didn’t kill me. Said mutant was halfway to being back on his feet and ready to pounce (and halfway through the latest in an already-alarmingly-long series of vows to fuck my loved ones to death in incredibly painful fashion, among many, many other things) by the time I’d set the Shock Maul’s output level to the highest setting and brought it down on his skull.

There was something morbidly satisfying about hearing the kersplat that followed and seeing Tentacles’ head explode like it had just taken a bolt round to the brain. I was tempted to hit his corpse a few more times just to be thorough, but I had more pressing concerns at that moment. Like getting the frak out of here before all of Tentacles’ fellow cultists realized that their slaves were making an escape attempt.

I transferred the Shock Maul from my mouth to my hand-wing, snatching the crystalline key from Tentacles’ harness and inserting it into my collar. A few seconds of fiddling later, I'd figured out that twisting the thing like it was in a regular keyhole caused the collar to manifest a seam I could’ve sworn wasn’t there before and pop right open, and that the same was true of the metal loop around my chest and my shackles. With that done, I turned my attention to P-21’s curled, trembling form.

“Are you ok-” I stepped forward, touching the blue stallion on the shoulder… and just barely managed to sidestep the punch he threw.

“DON’T TOUCH ME!” He shrieked at the top of his lungs, kicking and thrashing like his life depended on it. I tried to calm him down verbally several more times, but he wasn’t listening. Eventually I just gave up and pinned him down with one hoof while I used the key to remove his restraints, praying to Him on Terra that the cultists would just assume he was screaming from being raped and not from him being too panicked to realize that I was trying to undo his restraints.

The instant P-21 was free of his shackles, he dove out from under me, scurrying over to the corner of the cage opposite mine. For the first time, I noticed that he had a pronounced limp; one leg had purple splotches that indicated heavy bruising, and from the way he was limping that leg was probably broken. “Do you need-” I started to ask.

“D-don’t come any closer…” P-21 whimpered, promptly curling up as tight as he could, burying his head and flattened ears beneath his hooves, his tail firmly pressed between his legs. Just my luck, on top of being a cripple, he’s also managed to get saddled with a bad case of battle-shock without even getting into a battle.11 For a second, I was tempted to just move on to Blackjack and leave him, but these two were likely the only allies I’d find for miles, and I didn’t want to alienate Blackjack. And something told me that abandoning P-21 would be a quick way to do exactly that.

So instead, I tossed the key to Blackjack, trusting that she’d seen how I’d gotten P-21’s restraints off and would be able to do the same. With that done, I promptly did exactly what P-21 was telling me not to do, stepping forward and laying one of my wings on his shoulder, hoping that an unfamiliar sensation (in this case, the feeling of feathers on his coat) would snap him out it enough that he’d be able to pay attention to what I was saying. He flinched, eyes snapping open as his entire body tensed up, but he didn’t break my wing; that probably meant that whatever I was doing, it was working.

As you can probably tell, I had not the slightest frakking clue what I was doing. But I certainly wasn’t going to let that show. Especially right now.

“Look, we aren’t going to get a better opportunity to get out of here anytime soon, and I don’t think I’ll be able to get away with a stunt like that the next time something like this happens.” I explained, trying to strike a balance between keeping my voice soft and speaking firmly. “You’re feeling hurt and violated and scared right now, and you have every right to feel that way. But that doesn’t change the fact that if you want to get out of here, you need to get moving. Now.”

For the longest time, P-21 just lay there, completely unresponsive. For a moment, I found myself wondering if he’d even heard me. But then, his head bobbed up and down ever-so-slightly. He started to rise, a pained whine slipping from his throat as he did so. I instinctively moved up beside him, draping one of my wings over his shoulder… and was promptly reminded of what he’d just been through by the way he jerked away from me, toppling to the floor in the process.

“...need any help?” I offered.

P-21 nodded again, and slipped in beside me. Now that that matter was all sorted, I turned my attention back to Blackjack…

…

I was starting to understand why P-21 called her an idiot.

She’d figured out the key could be inserted into the metal loops, at least. But apparently, she had yet to puzzle out that you needed to twist the thing in order to cause them to snap open, at least if the way she was rolling around and yanking the short crystalline knob sticking out of her collar this way and that was any indication. I gotta admit, the sight of her wrestling with her restraints was kinda funny; I probably would have chuckled if I wasn’t preoccupied with getting us all the frak outta here.

I reached through the bars, grabbed the key, and twisted it. Blackjack froze as her collar snapped open, her head tilting down to watch as it clattered to the floor. For a brief second, an expression of embarrassment crossed her face. Fortunately, she recovered quickly, extracting the key from the collar and using it to undo the rest of her restraints, before moving onto the cage door (like the shackles, it was ‘locked’ with the same unnaturally fusible metal the collars were made of, and thus could be ‘unlocked’ in much the same fashion).

As Blackjack slipped out of her cage and moved onto mine, she stole a glance at Tentacles’ crumpled form. “Is… is that freak dead?”

“I reduced his head to a fine red mist. So yeah, I’m reasonably certain he’s dead.” I couldn’t possibly have been more wrong, but again, I didn’t know that at the time. And can you really blame me for failing to realize that the chunky salsa rule didn’t hold true for that particular pony? “Anyway, let’s get out of-”

“Wait.” Blackjack cut me off as she pushed the cage door open, stepping toward me. “You forgot about your horn ring.”

“Horn…ring?” I asked slowly.

“The ring on your horn. Y’know, the thing that’s stopping you from using your telekinesis?” The short, nublike horn poking through her mane flashed white, an equally white aura enveloping the key lifted up the crystalline key and inserted it into something on my forehead. An instant later, that something clattered to the floor.

I looked down at the small metal ring that had clattered to the floor, catching sight of something long, thin, and the same color as my coat jutting from the top of my mane. “...oh.” I said to myself, allowing a little embarrassment to creep into my voice.

“Eh, no biggie. I’ve done things that make forgetting you have a horn seem smart.”12 Yeah, like failing to realize that the key worked like a frakking key. “Anyway, let’s get out of here.”

She spun around, heading toward the back entrance of the trailer… and then stopped when I stepped out of the cage and grabbed her shoulder, gesturing to the door at the front of the trailer.

“Why would we-?” She started to ask, and I stifled an frustrated sigh.

“So we can steal the Taurox,” I deadpanned. When she just continued to stare at me in bewilderment, I added, “Y’know, so we can get out of here faster?”

Now Blackjack was the one who was looking embarrassed. “…oh.”

LEVEL UP!

Intelligence Attribute Increased By One

New Perk Added (Companion): Idiot Savant (Rank 1). Blackjack isn’t an idiot, she’s just… different. And maybe a little crazy. And now that she’s joined your party, you can tap into a bit of that craziness to your benefit! You now have a random chance to receive 3x XP from any action.

Level 2, +8 to base Special

SPECIAL Stats
Strength: 3
Perception: 5
Endurance: 3
Charisma: 8
Intelligence: 4
Agility: 3
Luck: 10

1: Ciaphas’ track record for performing the exact sort of “Big, Flashy Heroics” he is showing such a disdain for here seems to disagree…

2: These risks are nonexistent for the abilities granted to ponies with horns (i.e. unicorn telekinesis). Unfortunately, Ciaphas hasn’t caught on to that yet.

3: I wish I could say I’m surprised by this. While it isn’t exactly common for slaves in service to the forces of chaos to become just as amoral, insane, and/or depraved as their masters, it is far from unheard of.

4: Probably not, unfortunately. Tzeentch’s followers have a concerning tendency toward sexual perversion; the exact reasons for this are unknown, though it probably has something to do with how one of the first warning signs a Planetary Governor has sold his soul to the Dark Gods (and Tzeentch in particular) is a high number of ‘Governor’s Couch’ incidents…

5: As unpleasant a situation as this must have been for Ciaphas, I’m impressed that he managed to remain largely calm and level-headed throughout. I must admit, when I found myself in a similar predicament during my first few hours on Equis I, my reaction to my circumstances wasn’t quite as well-thought-out or rational, and was far more violent. To be fair, I had implanted weaponry my Slaaneshi captors had failed to disable and thus the means to defend myself, and I doubt Ciaphas would have tolerated being sexually harassed like this if the same were true of him…

6: Some of my fellow inquisitors among the Ordos Xenos would likely demand that Ciaphas be executed for his failure to try and murder those xenos first. I, in response, would demand that said Inquisitors be executed for their complete and utter failure to exercise basic common sense.

7: While ‘flogging’ is usually done with a whip or cat-o-nine-tails, it can be done with other tools, such as a switch, a rod, or a baton. There is basically no precedent for flogging someone with a Shock Maul in Imperial society—contrary to popular belief, there is such a thing as overkill, particularly when it comes to corporeal punishment—but we aren’t dealing with Imperial society here, and these Chaos Cultists evidently aren’t concerned with going overboard on disciplining their slaves.

8: Ciaphas is not making this up. “Reflex Erections” are an actual thing, and I’m always surprised by just how many men do not know this.

9: Three guesses as to how this pony got nicknamed “Tentacles”…

10: Some of my fellow Inquisitors might be wondering what exactly that mutant was doing to P-21. Do yourself a favor and don’t bother asking. P-21 and Ciaphas filled me in on all the icky details in private, and trust me when I say that you don’t need to know and will be far better off in blissful ignorance.

11: For those of you unfamiliar with the term, ‘battle-shock’, also known as ‘shell-shock’, is essentially what happens when humans suffer more trauma than their minds can handle and their ability to think and act rationally starts to break down under the weight of all the stress they’re experiencing. Treatments vary wildly, ranging from ‘promotion’ to non-combat roles, to partial mind-wipes, to commitment to a mental asylum, and even servitorization, though summary execution is the treatment plan favored by most Commissars. Cain is an obvious exception to that mindset.

12: As someone (well, to use the pony term, somepony) who has met face-to-face with Blackjack and knows her fairly well, I second this statement.

Author's Note

Yeesh, this chapter was hard to write. Particularly the rape scene and its immediate aftermath. While there's plenty of material telling you how to handle a rape victim after the incident is over and the victim is someone safe, I couldn't find any about how to get someone who was raped less than a second ago back on their feet and out of immediate danger.

Oh, and if you have any constructive criticism to share, share it. This is the first time I've written a full-blown rape scene, and I'm not the sort of person who gets offended by legitimate, well-thought-out critiques. So please, if you think I did anything wrong and could've done better, don't be afraid to tell me.