Author's Notes:

If you didn't notice the tags, this sequel is different than the other two. The first was comedy about fixing a mishap, the second more slice of life about accepting himself and fitting in. This one handles some darker themes than the first two and is about building a life for himself and moving past all the bad things that have happened.

I groaned as I woke up feeling a painfully tight muscle in my back. This kind of soreness must have meant I slept on it wrong, or possibly slept on a jagged rock. Flexing my wings made the pain worse so I gave up on making any kind of progress in sitting up. Still, it did offer a distraction from the sudden headache coming on.

There was a sense of deja vu, and I cracked my eyes open to try and see. The white light washed all color out and I had to close my eyes to hide them from the harshly lit room. I reached out with a hoof to shield my eyes, but seemed to be stuck in that state between awake and asleep where my body didn’t respond normally.

More than anything I just wanted to remember why I was so sore, and if I was this sore why Dash hadn’t done something to help with the pain. I moved my foreleg to the left trying to feel for her in bed, but hit the frame instead. There was a stinging in my arm, as if I wasn’t in enough pain already, and I tried to call out to Dash. I felt like I had a mouth full of cotton and wasn’t able to say anything.

Earlier that week…

I had gotten home after an interview with the police station in Ponyville. Once Shining Armor had put in a good word for me, I was almost handed a job there. The police chief was more old fashioned though, eager to meet any pony that planned on working in his station.

This was such a quiet town that the police force didn’t need more than a few officers, and that was mostly to cover each other’s holidays. My main task had been to sell my skills at tracking ponies for search and rescue. Sure, the police could look for a missing pony, but as I pointed out my talent was finding and rescuing them.

I’d gotten the job and now that I was home, I went upstairs to take a shower and get cleaned up. Dash had been getting ready for winter and working late, so I usually went to her house to see my marefriend.

Tonight as I entered my bedroom and took off my saddlebags I saw a note on the nightstand.

Dawn,

I’ve got something special planned for tonight that’s gonna be totally awesome! It’s a surprise… just leave the balcony door cracked when you go to bed and I’ll do the rest, you’ll love it!

XOXO, Dash

Smiling, I left the note there and headed into the bathroom to get cleaned up. Dash had a wild streak and it’d become something of a game to roleplay the dominant and submissive in the bedroom. If she’d left me a note like that, I could only guess she planned to pounce me while I slept and use me as her little stallion toy.

This would be a good night indeed.

I woke up coughing and felt like I was going to hack out a lung. My mind immediately resumed the headache from earlier, the coughing causing the pressure to build ever higher until I could feel the pain throughout my forehead and sinuses.

As my eyes opened and watered from the harsh light, I found it wasn’t so painful that I had to close them. Slowly, my eyes adjusted as I continued to cough, my dry throat and mouth doing little to aid the intense scratching at the back of my throat that had triggered this whole thing.

There was usually a glass of water on the bed stand for when I woke up with a dry mouth, so I reached out towards it. I felt a pair of hooves take my foreleg and hold it. Dash must have been in bed with me after all, and I managed to whisper hoarsely “water.”

A moment later I felt the cup being put to my lips and slowly tilted back. I tried to drink it faster by nudging it up, but what water did make it into my mouth was coughed right back out. After a couple more attempts I’d managed to get some water down, and my eyes had adjusted enough to realize it was not Dash giving me the drink.

“Fluttershy?” I blinked and rubbed my eyes, looking again to be sure. Behind her were white walls stained grey from years of being weathered. Bland tan curtains hung from the ceiling, rustling slightly from wind coming through an open window. The smell of lime disinfectant was the final hint to my addled brain that I was most definitely not at my house.

Applejack stepped forward, taking her hat off and setting it down. She looked at Fluttershy and spoke, though I couldn’t catch any of the words as I struggled to wake up.

I rubbed my ears with my hooves, feeling the tape holding the IV in tug at my skin. As my hooves eased the pressure I tried to sit up. My back and neck immediately protested and I collapsed back onto the pillow. The only thing I could control was stretching my wings out to regain some feeling in them from sleeping on them funny. “Fuck,” I muttered before coughing a couple more times.

“Dawn, you’re going to be okay, we’re here for you,” Fluttershy said.

“What?” I blinked, turning to face her and Applejack. “Where am I?” A moment before they answered I recalled the white walls, curtains, and sickly smell of disinfectant. It was a hospital.

“You’re at Ponyville Hospital, Dawn. Ya got in a bit of an… accident. Do ya remember?” Applejack asked.

I shook my head, eliciting a sharp pain in my skull as my headache reminded me that my brain would rather not be moved or used for critical thinking right now. Another pony entered the room and came over to me. White fur and a pink mane. I knew this pony, but it was stuck on the tip of my tongue.

“Dawn’s in pain, just look.” Applejack pointed to my face, and the nurse nodded.

“Visiting time is over,” the nurse said. She pulled out a syringe from her scrubs pocket. Despite my current dazed and confused state, I’d worked in a hospital long enough to know it was a painkiller to put me back to sleep.

“No,” I whimpered. I didn’t want to go back to sleep, I wanted to figure out what was going on. What had happened to me? Why was I here?

My vision blurred and I yawned as the medicine hit my system. I gave Fluttershy one last pleading look for help, and saw tears rolling down her face.

I had woken up with a horrible pain in my jaw, and my head bouncing along the ground. It had hit several rocks and the increasing pain was starting to piss me off. As I regained consciousness I began to struggle, realizing rather quickly I was in a thick burlap sack.

My mind raced for answers, and I called out for help. A thick, sweaty cloth had been shoved in my mouth and another cloth tied around my head far too tight, muffling my calls for help. The ropes on my legs had been hastily tied and slipped off easily, and I tried to untie the gag. Giving up on the knot, I instead tried to force my way out of the burlap sack.

I recalled getting showered and going to bed, and I recalled the note from Dash. She had something kinky planned, but would she really go this far for sex? It didn’t seem like her.

As I began to struggle harder and groan out more loudly in protest, I felt a sudden blow to my side, knocking the wind out of me. I did my best to growl in the gag, though being unable to breathe really hindered the effort. I had found the exit to the bag, tied shut tightly by a rope. I tried to loosen it to no avail.

The final reward for my efforts to escape was a second blow, this one connecting with my upper neck and knocking me out cold.

I was a bit more prepared when I woke up this time, caught in a haze of memories from both before and during whatever had happened to me. The image was becoming clearer, but my battered body was still sluggish to piece it all together.

I looked over for my cup of water and instead of Fluttershy, I saw Twilight. “Water?”

She looked up from the book she had been reading and gasped. “Dawn!” Twilight ran over and levitated the water up to my lips, using her magic to carefully control the flow into my mouth.

I finished off the entire glass this time, and it was wonderful. Next I rubbed my temples as I waited for the damned headache to end. Much to my relief, I felt the tingle of magic as Twilight removed the headache for me.

She leaned in and winked. “Our little secret, I’m not supposed to use magic on patients.”

Nodding, I asked her what I really wanted to know. “What the hell happened?”

Twilight frowned, looking around as if to see if she was really the one who had to tell me. Still, we were the only two in this forsaken white and tan room so far as I could see. “Dawn… you don’t remember? Do you remember any of it?”

I groaned and shook my head. “Would I ask if I did? I feel like I was hit by a bus.”

She squeezed my hoof and offered a small smile. “Well, you’re fine now, he won’t hurt you anymore, but I really think you might need more time before I tell you—”

“Just tell me, Twilight! I’m a large, semi-muscular stallion, I can take it!” I felt a sharp pain in my back as I tried to sit up and glare at her, reminding me once again that perhaps I couldn’t take it all head on.

“Dawn, you were—”

“Dawn’s awake?!” The tan curtains parted instantly as a pegasi shot through them, hovering in the air above me.

I was so excited to see Dash again that I couldn’t help but smile and try to sit up again, using my legs to try and push past the pain and reach her.

“I’m so glad you’re okay!” She landed on the bed, careful not to step on my sore body, and nuzzled my neck. “Just rest, Dawn. Get better and I’m here for you. I woulda come sooner but we were tracking that sick bastard down with the police.”

My heart began to beat faster as her words stirred memories. Dash being close to me, the stallion who attacked me, the kidnapping… The vital signs machine attached to me started emitting several beeps, some fast, some slow, as my heart-rate spiked.

“Soarin…” I felt a renewed surge of hatred and anger pulsing through my veins, and soon there was a cacophony of beeping sounds from the machine monitoring my health.

Dash panicked, worried she had caused all of this, and flew up into the air over me. “Twilight, get the doctor!”

“I’m already here,” Doctor Stable shouted as he ran into the room, followed by Nurse Redheart.

“I didn’t mean to, I just nuzzled him and told him we caught Soarin!”

Twilight flew up to Dash and started to herd her out of the room, as the two medical ponies began to open drawers and check the machine attached to me. “What’s going on? Where is he?”

“Please, calm down, Dawn,” Stable said. “You need to take it slow, easy, you’ll hurt yourself.”

“I’ll destroy him! Where is he?!” I screamed.

Stable just had to look at Nurse Redheart, and that one unspoken command was all it took. I felt a wave of drowsiness hit me as a sedative flowed through the IV and into my veins. Despite wanting to remain angry and to shout and scream, I felt my body slump to the bed defeated.

Sleep overcame me quickly, but it was an uneasy one filled with memories I would sooner forget.

I had woken up in a rather grimy stone cell with my face flat against the slimy moss. When I tried to stand myself up, I found my forelegs had been tied harshly behind my back, rendering me unable to fly properly, or walk.

The cell itself was only a few feet wider than I was, and as I tried to push my way towards the open door I felt something yank on my hind leg. It felt metal and heavy, and a chain clanked on the ground as I shook my leg.

Groaning, I tried to think of some way out of this. It was clear now I was kidnapped, because if this was part of Dash’s “sex game” we’d be having a very long discussion on boundaries. Before I could worry about any of the implements or tools on the wall, my captor walked in.

“Well, what have we here?” I immediately recognized the voice as Soarin. “One body-snatching alien, minion of Discord, and stupid enough to fall for my trap!” He dropped the note from Dash onto the ground in front of me. “Of course, you’re also the foul beast who stole my girlfriend from me!”

I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach and began to grind my teeth. As my mind came up with a rational response, my mouth blurted out the first thing I could think of. “Dash left you because you’re a fucking psycho!”

Soarin yelled as he stepped forward and carried his momentum into a kick which hit me right below the ribs. “Don’t you dare talk to me like that! I see you for what you really are, a monster, an abomination to Equestria!”

The sharp pain as my muscles spasmed made it hard to breathe. Gulping for air, I looked up at him from my spot on the floor. “The only monster here is you.”

He kicked me again, hitting my ribs this time. I felt an intense sharp pain and faintly heard the rib crack. I screamed in pain, which caused my ribs to contract and an even worse pain as the broken rib rubbed against the surrounding tissue.

“Keep talking, Dawn! You open your mouth one more time when I’m not asking you a question and I’ll break more than ribs!” Soarin shouted. He paced around the room as I whimpered in pain, as if gathering his thoughts. “Just admit you’re in league with Discord, and maybe I’ll turn you over to the police. I think once Dash finds out you were working with him all along I can get her back.”

I chuckled until the pain in my chest forced me to stop. “In league with Discord? He’s probably the only being in existence whose ass I want to kick more than yours right now!”

Soarin glared daggers at me and I hardly saw his hoof as it flew through the air, connecting with my jaw and cutting my lip open. “If you won’t admit it and fix all the things you fucked up, I’ve got a plan in motion to make sure you spend the rest of your life miserable and alone!”

I bit my tongue this time so as to not provoke him into kicking me again. A bit of blood started to drool out of my mouth as well and I wondered where it was coming from, perhaps a broken tooth? A cut in my cheek?

“Now, Dawn. Tell me why you really took over Dash’s body. Tell me why you mocked our courtship by sleeping with me. Tell me why you had to go and steal her from me!”

Soarin stomped a hoof in front of my face when I didn’t respond at first. Sighing, knowing he wasn’t going to like the answer, I gave it to him anyway. “I woke up in her body, I did everything I could to get out of it. I slept with you because I wanted Dash to be happy and I wanted you two to be together. Turns out, you were too big of an asshole for even me to try and fix!”

He snorted and reared up on his hind legs, towering above me. As his forelegs came down I flinched, knowing it was going to hurt like hell. Luckily, the intense pain knocked me out in mere seconds.

This time I awoke to find myself crying in my sleep. It had been full of nightmares as I relived several sessions of interrogation and torture over and over. Soarin had truly gone off the deep end, somehow convincing himself I was the next villain threatening Equestria.

A pink hoof quickly wiped away my tears and I saw one of the widest, most comforting smiles in Ponyville. “Hi, Dawn, I baked you a get well cupcake! The doctor said it was okay to eat it too!”

I couldn’t help but smile as I looked at her. “Thanks, Pinkie. Who else is here?”

“Just me, darling, I came by to make sure you were okay. I couldn’t believe what I heard happened.” Rarity glanced me over from head to hoof, lingering on my lower body. “Had to see it to believe it, honestly.”

I groaned and glanced over at the cupcake. This time I was able to reach it on my own, taking a small bite and then swallowing. “How long has it been?” I began to eat the rest of the cupcake.

“A week recovering, and you were with him for a few days…” Rarity used her magic to levitate a napkin over and clean the frosting off my face.

“Ugh, days? Did nopony notice me missing?” I asked.

Rarity frowned. “Actually, we didn’t. A prisoner escaped Tartarus and nearly conquered Equestria. Chrysalis helped him drain the magic from everypony, we only barely defeated him... and then we couldn’t find you in the aftermath. It’s a miracle you were found at all.”

“Yeah, and that organizer thingy you got Twilight turned into the last super-secret key we needed to beat him!” Pinkie began to pantomime a fight between what I assume was Twilight and the villain. “But we didn’t figure it out until it was almost too late, and then Twilight went all kick-ass on him and blasted him through a mountain!”

I reached over and took a drink of the water. “Yeah, Pinkie, I’m sure that’s exactly what happened.” Now that I was recalling the recent events more clearly it was a struggle to keep myself calm. I knew if I got upset they’d just knock me out again, and that helped me keep my emotions in check.

“Dash… Dash said they caught Soarin?” I asked.

“Yep! In the deepest, darkest prison in Equestria awaiting trial,” Pinkie explained. “I think he’s never gonna taste a cupcake or see daylight again.”

“Good, the more I remember about what happened the better and better that’s sounding.”

“Indeed, we’ve been taking turns staying with you twenty-four hours a day, Dawn. And since you woke up while I’m here I just want you to know I’ll be glad to make you new clothes.”

I sighed and waved a hoof dismissively “Sure thing.” Fashion seemed all she could think about but I could care less about a winter wardrobe. I rolled over to get comfortable on my pillow and yawned loudly. “Night, girls.”

By then I’d lost track of how long I’d been in the cell. Soarin was determined to force a confession from me. After being repeatedly kicked, punched, and drenched in icy water so I couldn’t sleep, I was very tempted to just give it to him. Even if it was a lie.

This time as I woke up I smelled something most unusual. Next to me there was a bowl of soup. My stomach growled and my parched throat rejoiced at the prospect. I knew that Soarin had no reason to feed me, except to keep me alive for more torture. If I had not eaten it, maybe I’d have died off before he tortured me more, but that would have been the coward’s way out.

I inched my way to the bowl and strained my neck to get my mouth over the soup. It was cold, and I could see vegetables and broth in it. With a sigh of defeat, I began to eat. I had to keep what strength I could. Soarin would slip up eventually, or my friends would find me. Either way, his day would come.

Once I’d licked the bowl clean I felt my stomach begin to cramp. “Damn it!” I shouted as I felt the soup upsetting my stomach. I should have known he’d resort to poison like the coward he was.

As the world went black I had fully expected to never wake up again.

This time I woke up and the light didn’t hurt my eyes. It didn’t trigger a headache, either, and I was able to stretch and yawn without my back screaming out in pain. It was a huge improvement, and I began to look around for my friends.

Though I couldn’t see her, I could hear Dash snoring. There was the sound of hooves on the floor, and a distant machine beeping. As I focused, I could even make out some hushed conversations.

Once again I found some water next to the bed and drank it, realizing for the first time that I was starving. It felt like I hadn’t eaten in days which was likely true, having been kept on an IV instead.

The curtain was pulled back and I caught sight of both Dash and Fluttershy sleeping on a couch in my hospital room. It would have been cute in any other situation to see them passed out, sleeping on each other.

Doctor Stable walked in quietly, smiling. “Well you’re up late, though that may be good so we can talk privately.”

I nodded. “Sure, about what?”

“Well, you’re both in good health, but before you leave I’d like to do one last exam. I’d also like to hear exactly what happened again.”

A feeling of dread overcame me and I quickly shook my head. “No…”

“Relax, you’re safe here. We’ve never had a case like yours and it’s important I know what really happened in those last few hours.”

My heart began to race and I became paralyzed in fear. I didn’t remember what happened, I didn’t want to remember. I just stared at Stable as if he were the devil incarnate, come to toss me into a lake of molten brimstone.

“Dawn? Dawn, can you hear me?”

I felt myself getting dizzy as I breathed rapidly. “No, no, I don’t want to…” I couldn’t stop now, my whole body panicking as I felt adrenaline flooding into my veins. As I looked around in panic I noticed I’d woken the sleeping pegasi up, and they were now watching the doctor anxiously.

“Dawn?”

I laid down and stared up at the ceiling, feeling a worse and worse pressure in my chest. I couldn’t breathe, I could barely see, my heart was pounding in my ears, and all for one reason.

Soarin.