The Interrogation
Jason came to, feeling basically like shit, and probably looked like shit. His head pounded painfully, and he could feel the cracks on his back and leg throbbing and moving slightly around. It was not a feeling he was fond of. His forelegs had a pressure on them towards his hooves. He opened his eyes, and found himself being stared at by the mane six AND Celestia, in a place that could easily be a part of the palace, judging by the tall stone walls and the stained glass. He chuckled and looked at his cracked hoof. It was tied with some rope to a metal ring, and had a line of dried blood where he assumed the crack was. From what he could see out the window, it was almost dawn. He looked back to Celestia.
"I must be quite the VIP, all the elements and the Princess, all here to see me. I'm honored." His gaze hardened.
"Shaddup you!!" Applejack yelled. She looked like she was going to start yelling again before a stern glance from the Princess silenced her.
"Now," the Princess started, "We have brought you here, mercifully, to interrogate you for information. If you give me what I want, you will get a nice cozy jail cell instead of the normal penalty, death. How does that sound?" The Princess was much taller than the other ponies, but was surprisingly unimposing nonetheless. It was kind of an odd trade-off.
"Fuck you." Jason spat out. The Princess was slightly taken aback.
"Just tell us what we want to know."
"I'm not telling you shit." Jason smiled at her.
"We have ways of getting you to talk..." This was definitely not the kind, affectionate princess that Jason had expected. It kinda made sense though, a leader can't really be effective without an element of fear over the people.
"You sure do make a good Machiavellian leader." He decided to buy time, and try to figure a way out of this mess. He could burn through the rope, and get down from where he was, but it was kind of doubtful that he could possibly fight all of the elements and the princess. Actually, where was Dash? Probably in the hospital room. He hoped she had ended up totally healed, or at least that her wings worked.
"What do you mean, changeling?"
"I mean you rule by fear, disguised in a layer of 'love' towards your suspects." He tried to make air quotes again. "Good thing none of them ever rebel, because where I came from a leader killed over twenty million of his people to keep order." There was a gasp, which was expected, and a few stares at Celestia.
"I do not rule by fear, but by love alone."
"I seem to remember that your personal student was afraid that she would be sent to the moon for turning in a late friendship report."
"How do you even know that?" Twilight yelled. Celestia ignored her.
"Shut your mouth, you are an enemy of the state and have no right to speak unless told to." She paused. "Now, what plan of Crysalis have we foiled by taking you here?"
"No plan. I'm not affiliated with the hive."
Twilight spoke up. "What do you mean, not part of the hive? Every changeling needs the hive mind to survive. Without it, they almost certainly die or turn into medical vegetables."
"Well that's obviously incorrect, because I have never had any contact with the hive, and I never plan to, and last time I checked, I'm not dead, or a medical vegetable. Unless... *gasp* I am a medical vegetable, and this is all a crazy dream devised by my subconscious while I'm in a terminal coma!"
"But my book says--"
"Your book is fucking wrong!!!" He paused. "Next question."
"Are you one of the healer changelings?" Back to Celestia.
"Fuck. Obviously."
"So how do we know that you aren't actually a part of the hive? You could easily be lying."
"Didn't Crysalis' hive just attack here?" She nodded. "I was under the impression that she lost, badly, so why would she send an attack of one changeling? I wasn't even attempting to imitate royalty or anyone close to it, so I couldn't have staged an assassination attempt. Also, if I was an assassin, and part of the hive, wouldn't she just cut me from the hive mind and kill me if I failed, to keep me from ever releasing sensitive information?" He paused. "Could I see a map?" One floated over, showing Equestria with the griffin kingdom to the south, west, and northwest, and several other kingdoms to the north and east. "So, changeling lands are here," he pointed, "in the griffin kingdom to the west?"
"That's what we think, yes," Jason started laughing.
"You people are idiots militarily. Just totally and completely retarded."
"What do you mean, changeling?" She growled.
"Why would I tell you? That would be too easy. Just figure it out."
"I swear, I will kill you right here if you don't speak."
"I dunno, if you killed me, you would never get the information, now would you? It's not like I really have any reason to tell you anything."
"Let me just remind you who's in charge here."
"Oh, yeah, you have all the bargaining chips."
"Why did you heal Rainbow Dash? When the doctors checked her over, they found her injuries had disappeared."
"Who?" Celestia face hoofed. Never had she had to deal with such an annoying prisoner. Of course, most prisoners were afraid of her, or at least afraid of death, unless this guy was just really good at bluffing.
"Rainbow Dash. Blue pegasus, rainbow mane..."
"Never heard of her."
"You know perfectly well who I'm talking about, why did you heal her?"
"The better question is, why didn't I heal this mystery pegasus?" He tried to make a confused look on his face. Celestia turned to look at Jason's cracked arm.
"Hows the arm?"
"Oh it's great, I---AAAAAAAAAGHHHHH!!!" Celestia had pulled the two sides of the crack slightly apart from each other with her magic. Jason smiled at her, attempting to piss her off even more. "Resorting to corporal punishment, I see. You'll still never get any fucking information."
"Oh, I will, I assure you. I will." She cast a spell at Jason, who flinched backwards, but was hit with it anyway. The same pain feeling ripped through his arm. He yelled again, swearing some more. Celestia smiled. It was definitely kinda creepy. "See, no more physical punishment, your brain already knows what that feels like, I just have to tell it to remember that feeling.
"Oh, I see--AAAGHH." The more Jason told himself that the pain wasn't real, the more he felt it hurt. It was like an unfightable nightmare monster, one that just got stronger the more you tried to kill it. He wasn't going to talk, though, even if he had to die, although he was unsure whether or not that was possible from imagined pain. Talking would result in the probable association of Dash into his 'crimes,' and even if there was less of a penalty than death, he wasn't going to ruin her life with possible jail time or worse. After all, it was mostly his fault she was in this mess, he didn't want to have healed her wings just for her to be stuck in jail.
"So how's the tourist industry around here?" Another jolt of pain. "Dammit." He looked at his arm. Every single time she used that spell, he felt like the chitin on his arm was going to pop off. It felt a lot like someone getting their tooth pulled when there was nothing wrong with it, and having it at the brink of being pulled out. "Is that the best you got? I could do this all day." He sneered. Celestia turned to Twilight, who didn't seem particularly afflicted, although the rest of the mane six seemed pretty queasy, and it looked like Fluttershy had left. Shocker. "So am I just hanging around here until I actually talk or what?"
"Have you changed your mind?"
"Umm, well, about that, how do I put this, no." The pain again. It still hurt, but you could only get so far with repetition in torture. He didn't know what was supposed to pass for torture around here, but this was pathetic. Something hit him hard in the cheek. That was new. "Was that a rock? Where did you even get a rock?" he could feel some blood flowing down his cheek. "And that just healed too." he tried to throw up his arms. "Come on!" He chuckled. Celestia looked enraged. "So what crimes am I accused of, exactly, Celly?"
She growled. "Manipulation of ponies, theft of love and replacement of loved ones and therefore abduction of ponies, and theft of government property."
"Is that it?" She seemed taken aback yet again. Apparently he was saying all the things that no one expected him to say, not like it was all that hard.
"The penalty for all of those are only fines or jail time, except for the abduction and murder of ponies, which are both death penalties when one is not a citizen of Equestria."
"So are we done here?"
"You still have sensitive information that I need, if I remember correctly."
"Oh yeah, the stuff that I'm not telling you about. Funny, those things I know, that you don't know. Those are the best things, really." He was getting bored. This was going nowhere, and yet she still tried. Clearly, he shouldn't have mentioned that military stuff, that's when they decided that they actually needed information from him. Like it wasn't obvious. "Have you ever tried to torture someone before? Be honest." She didn't answer. "Big surprise, because this is some of the most uneventful torture, if you can even call it torture, that I've ever seen. And you expect me to talk." He jerked his arm as another bolt of pain ripped through it. 'God dammit it's getting worse, and I'm running out of ideas to buy time, and I still don't have a plan.'
"Quiet, you."
He looked around, still generally bored, trying not to think about the dull pain still present in his fore hoof, still attempting to come up with a usable plan, which at this point, looked like a pipe dream. He noticed a large dot outside the window. Or maybe it was on the window. The dot grew, so it must have been outside, or maybe some sort of incredibly fast growing bacterial colony. The dot took on a pony like shape, and continued to grow, until...
CRASH!!!
The room filled with broken glass from the window, causing the princess and the remaining mane six to try to turn their heads towards the source of the offending noise and falling objects. Some broken glass passed in front of Jason's face, giving him a nice view of the cuts on his face as it passed. The scar from before had broken open and grown to form a longer and more painful crack than before. Jason closed his eyes, and got ready to burn the ropes off in the distraction that the broken window had caused.
BANG!!!!
God, what I would give if authors of other great stories like this updated half as often as you do.
**EDIT**
Well, I finished reading this and... I loved it. While normally I would hate when a human is under the thumb of Celestia, I love his resistance. I'm betting my lucky stars that, that blue dot is Rainbow, meaning the era of an annoyed Celestia is coming to an end, which makes me sad. If I can ask one thing of you, could you please not have him tell the ponies all about earth and them being a show. Have him toy them with his superior knowledge for a little more. Also, why has he not turned into a human yet? I imagine his natural form would be nicer to move around in.
I could maybe have someone make your an art piece for commission? But what would it be exactly?
Not quite certain as to the why of his mindset with these folks, one would think with some talking with Dash and him NOT being a complete total asshole, things could go over a lot smoother for everyone all over. Then again, wherever you're trying to drive the plot I suppose, but yeah.
and now because of princess celestia's cruelty towards a defensless creature ponies such as fluttershy will be forever afraid of her
Indure torture and defiant a freaking god, only to keep safe his friends…Jason, you are by all means a true friend, I just hope Rainbow Dash, will clear his name.
Yeah, yeah, changeling mind control and everything, but come on Celestia…you can scan magic to see mind control, you can see he defend Dash acting fully altruist, for pith sake, he reveal in front of every pony TO SAVE HER…he act completely as a innocent man…what crime is really there? And don't tell me, kidnap of Arteminis, they can complain all they want, but they will eventually will have to realize, that he tell the true…and if not, make him look to AJ and repeat that, while holding his powers.
Come on Celestia, is right there, how can you can't put 2 and 2 together? You have live for more than a 1000 years, you are way to wise to be racist.
Shorter chapters? Nah its alright, as long as they cut off at changes in setting and big events.
Now where was I, oh right. I love how he's annoying Celly, specially during that kind of pain :P
1811018
Actually, while ponies might be lovable, adorable, and kind, they are also horribly speciesist. For instance, they were terrified enough of Zecora, who was basically just an earth pony with stripes, to hide in their houses whenever she came to town. They also use species-specific pronouns on a planet with a multitude of sapient species, while humans, who are the only sapient species they know of, use species-indeterminate pronouns. And they used to be racist enough to cause an ice age.
Interesting and yes I can believe the one crashing the party is Dash. The Element of Loyalty at it's extreme as it were and no ones not even those who are/were her friends will be left without a good kick/scolding.
1811196
Ah I get it, man someone will believe that Twilight will have learn her lesson about don't "judge a book", then again the whole wedding thing is still fresh.
And again Celestia is more than 1000 years old and in the most recents episodes, she has talk with virtually horses. The whole healing, plus he apparently only commit crimes that Twilight told her (clearly over the top) over her letter, even she has to realize that how he acts and what Twilight is accusing doesn't match.
Also AJ will find out quick enough, he heal her sister, expose to save Dash, and virtually don't nothing wrong when he has the chance, she is not dump, she will figured out very soon, she and Fluttershy
Something tells me Zecora will be appeal to his innocence, and it will be kind of funny she quarrel Celestia
1810944
Two things. He will probably never reveal the show or anything, because that tends to be trite and overused in these stories, and I'm trying to come up with something to set myself away from he pack. Hopefully I didn't give away too much there. I'm also assuming that Changelings can only mimic ponies, because they are the only species with similar proportions and bone structure.
All of these comments decided to display in reverse order. I have no idea why. Just thought that was weird.
Meh, I don't really call this 'dark'. Mild torture for me just isn't what I would classify as something dark. Now get guts spilling, blood flowing, and corpses crawling out of holes to rip your skin off, then THAT'S dark. Still, I have a feeling (as does everybody else here, I assume) that the shadow pony is Dash, and she brought a few of Jason's "surprises" with her.
Nice chapter... wounder if i can make my old DOS box display this website..... I am now determined to have the oldest computer.... after reading this last night, my win 98 crashed, would not boot, so i did thr sinseabe thing, beat it a few times w/ a baseball bat. Works like a charm now =)
1811261
I didn't change the tag for stuff this chapter, but for the ones that should happen a while from now.
You know my long tirade about OOC Twi? Scratch that, this 'interrogation' is simply awesome. I love how he is pissing Celestia off. And she so easily falls into anger. One would think a thousand years of wisdom is enough to not fall for simple tricks or to not even resent one being because of actions of its species, but... not to mention some things he said should be enough to turn on alarm lights about the entire situation.
And really, to assume changelings would hide in a territory of a species they cannot mimic... how does it even work? And the fact they can't is even written in a book about changelings...
And that crash was definitely Rainbow followed by Sonic Rainboom. No, I don't know why am I stating the obvious.
Keep up the good work!
1811284Well okay then. Know what's weird? My friend pointed this out to me the other day. Most of the stories I've referred him to (which is a lot on my favorites) have a dark tag in them. I have also referred him to this story... See what I'm getting at here?
1811288
Sonic Rainboom? *laughs maniacally* There is no sonic Rainboom involved. Maybe I should have put one? Nahhhh...
1811247
Was this sorting even here in the first place? i can't recall the option to sort comments being available yesterday...
1811304
Oh, sorry... I forgot he made some bombs that RD probably used. I just assumed she would go to his aid so fast, that she would create a Sonic Rainboom and that BANG! at the end was the air catching up with her. You know, as it is with planes flying at supersonic speeds.
Or maybe that was simply her crashing into something?
Guess I overanalyse things.
Strange. My browser's spell check seems to think overanalyse is not a correct word... is it correct?
1811247
YES! Points for you, good sir. Very few bronies in Equestria use their knowledge to their advantage. As for why he cannot turn into a human, I suppose that's a very good reason. Would explain why only Crissy could turn into Cadance. I could be wrong about what I just said, I've never actually watched the show but I assume only Chrysalis ever actually turned into an Alicorn.
1811325
Thank you for being the one to point out that what came crashing through the window was actually a bomb, more specifically (and likely), a flash-bang!
And it is overanalyze, spell-check was right.
i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/347/473/eab.jpg
I thought all the bombs and flashbangs got used up? ...I'll have to go back and re-read, or wait, didn't Jason show Dashie how to make 'em? Hmm.
Once again, I feel like choking Celestia.
1815006 Only used one in the demonstration
Ugh, so tired....so cold... Honestly though, you should be proud of yourself that I'm still awake, seeing as i'm only awake because i'm hoping fo another update for this today. If you knew me, you'd realize how rare it is for me to stay awake when I don't feel good. That fact I'm doing so willingly.....yeah. I'm that psyched for the next upate.....but, really, I don't know how much longer I'll last, so tell me, is it going to update today/tonight? Or can I retire early tonight?
1816983
In like ten minutes it should be updated, probably less. Sorry for the late update today, but I didn't have much time to work on this and it's a long chapter.
1810944
Nice chapter, I'm going to go on a limb right now, and state that our good-ol-protagonist is going to get into Celestia's good graces by helping them military wise.
So, nopony even considers the fact that he voluntarily shed his disguise to help Dash. Nopony spoke with Dash about his friend "Alternis" in an attempt to find out any information that could lead to rescuing him, which would reveal that he really was Alternis as he claimed. There's not even a thought that "Alternis" is "not a normal pony name," yet rather fitting for a changeling. No, instead, it's straight to torturing the changeling.
That seems a bit harsh...
If all six of the main characters are in the throne room, How did Rainbow dash come crashin through the balcony?
I could try and draw a picture. I have some examples on my page.
Also, I love how this story is turning out so far!!
Oh crap it's FBI!
>> silverd4
Pay more attention to the beginning. Quote:
Just saying.
Celestia: Grossly OOC.
3467957
This, so very much.
More importantly, though, Jason is a moron. This is just artificial conflict for the sake of conflict; there's absolutely no good reason for Jason not to explain himself here. Or, failing that, if there's some good reason he doesn't want to talk about being human, he could at the very least defend himself from the accusation of murdering and replacing a pony, which he truthfully hasn't done.
3737337
If Jason tryed to defend himself with the muder and replacment of ponies, that his disguise did not exist, it would imply that Dash would have known that Jason was a changling and Jason is trying to ensure that Dash is not assosiated with his 'crimes'.
If he has enough knowledge of the show to remember details of specific episodes, then there's no way he could really think that Rainbow Dash would be in danger for helping him. This stretches my suspension of disbelief terribly.
This whole scenario feel extremely contrived.
Several thousand levels of bullshit here. Celestia uas never indicated that she would resort to torture. This guy would have to be trained better than special forces to deal with the pain. Not one, but two points of bullshit.
FLASH OUT
MOVE!
HOSTILES IN SIGHT
GO GO GO!
sorry
6595314 Um, no. Take it from an AF EOD, I've seen nine year-olds with a higher resistance to pain than some of our best paratroopers. It's all based on strength of will, not any special training. And when you actually think on a realistic level, Celestia's actions would more than likely be completely justified in her mind, and so are most likely in character.
7482924
Exactly. Experience with pain and emotional state has more to do with how you feel than the actual extent of the pain.
For a medical test, I once had to have the circulation in my arm completely cut off, then squeeze a stress ball until my muscles shut down. And that isn't even the most painful thing I've experienced.
Now, even though my nerves are actually more sensitive than most people's, I can just choose to ignore pain, and 90% of it goes away instantly.