When I woke up however many days ago in my own bed, I never thought I'd be bound, gagged, and tortured by a pastel horse from a kids show.

Funny how life works out that way sometimes.

Or at least, that's what I would've thought... if Rarity actually had the stomach to do it. What happened instead, both shocked me, and strangely enough, didn't surprise me at all.

I sat there, putting on a brave face as Rarity brought the needle closer to my face to do... I didn't want to know what.

She hesitated a moment, then pulled the needle back somewhat, and rapidly shook her head.

"I c-can't!" she sobbed, taking a staggering step back, "I can't do it! I'm s-sorry, darling... b-but it's too much!"

With that, she fell to the floor, dropping the needle and wire altogether and bawling her eyes out. I would've been relieved, had it not been for the Captain's earlier threat.

Now I was terrified.

I whipped my head around just in time to see the Captain shake his head in disappointment. He walked over to Rarity as he spoke.

"Expected, but still a damn shame," he said with a sigh, "I'll make you a ruthless second-in-command yet, my little Jewel, but it seems we still have so much work to do."

He raised a hand and flexed it, pushing out five very sharp claws as he walked towards and past a horrified and still sobbing Rarity, making a beeline straight for me.

"No!" the distraught mare cried, scrambling to her hooves and rushing towards the Captain, "please, there has to be something else I can do! Anything else! Just... don't kill him, please!"

I could've kissed the mare, but as things stood, it was looking like I'd be down another universe, and I couldn't do a damn thing about it.

The Captain stopped suddenly—whirling around and smashing a powerful leg into Rarity's face as she approached. The surprise kick had enough force behind it to send the mare flying backwards.

She hit the ground a little ways away with a whump and didn't move.

That... wasn't good.

Beneath all the fear, a spark of indignation arose as I stared at Rarity's unresponsive form. I knew the Captain was a complete asshat, but... well... I guess I should've expected him to do something like that, really.

The sudden agonizing tightness in my throat and the following lack of any air was more than enough to distract me from my thoughts.

"Like I said, she'll learn... in time," the Captain began, lifting me from out of the chair by the neck, "though now that she's indisposed for the moment, I suppose I'll have to settle for showing her your remains rather than having her watch as I—"

"If I may make a suggestion, my dear..."

The Captain froze, his grip loosening somewhat as he turned towards Napoleon. I was getting lightheaded, but I managed to turn my teary eyed gaze towards the pig.

He was looking at Rarity with an odd sort of calm smugness on his face.

"Napoleon?" the Captain growled, a hint of bemusement in his voice, "what the devil are you on about?"

The pig glanced in the Captain's direction, but didn't say anything, turning back to Rarity's prone form a moment later.

"...why not give the Captain a hooves on demonstration of your excellent sewing technique?"

Remember when I said what happened next shocked, but didn't surprise me?

I wasn't talking about Rarity not being able to commit a terrible act of torture. On that front, the Captain and I both agreed that that was going to be an expected outcome.

No, it was what happened next that shocked me.

"Napoleon, what in the seven hells are you—"

A familiar hum filled the air and before I could fully register what was happening I was dropped back onto the chair, though I landed slightly off and the chair fell over with me on it.

My frantic gasps for air turned into pained grunts as I banged my knee against the hard wooden floor, inwardly cursing as my glasses flew off and landed... somewhere.

An angry, pained roar filled the cabin, and—unable to pull myself to my feet—I shifted my body so that I was facing the Captain.

The world had become a horribly blurry mess for me, so the only thing I saw was a large, humanoid blob flailing about in apparent agony.

I turned and saw a white, less humanoid blob I assumed was Rarity, standing just a bit further away. I had to see what was happening, so I ignored the Captain's loud expletives and searched around for where my glasses had landed.

With my arms, legs, and hands tied, I had to worm my way over to where I had heard my glasses fall. Fortunately it didn't take me too long to find them, but unfortunately I had to find a way to actually get them back onto my face.

It took some finagling, but I managed to kind of push them onto my face using the floor as leverage. With that done, I turned to see just what the hell was going on.

I saw Rarity standing just where I thought she had been—her face completely blank as she stared at the thrashing Captain, and her horn aglow with a light blue aura.

I furrowed my brow at the display. My mouth would've hung open if it wasn't already forced open with a cloth.

What... the fuck? Is she...

I glanced over to where Napoleon stood by the table, and sure enough, the pig had that same smug grin from before as he watched the Captain scream and hiss and spit and flail about.

Then I actually turned my attention to the Captain himself.

He stumbled this way and that, clawing at his face as he was ruthlessly assaulted by... something. I couldn't really see it that well from where I was lying, but I had a sneaking suspicion I knew what it was.

Setting my confusion and trepidation aside, I wormed my way a bit closer so I could get a better look, and narrowed my eyes.

It was only for a brief moment, but I was able to spot something small, thin, and wrapped in a bright, light blue glow. The object moved frantically and erratically around the Captain's head, and, looking closer, I could see small flecks of what I assumed was blood fly from his face.

As I watched. the Captain's screams became muffled grunts and he staggered backwards, falling over the overturned chair and landing right next to me.

I cried out in surprise and quickly shuffled away from the still thrashing feline. I was both horrified and awed to see that the Captain's eyes and mouth, and even nostrils had been completely sewn shut with silver wire, giving his features an oddly flattened appearance.

His furry face was matted down with blood, but the stitching itself was clean—almost not showing at all save for the glint of silver in the somewhat dim light of the cabin.

I watched him struggle for a moment more before turning my wide eyed gaze back to Rarity and Napoleon. Rarity hadn't moved an inch, merely continuing to stand there staring straight ahead.

Yup, she's been brainwashed... god dammit!

I knew things were going too well. I thought it was odd that Rarity had so much of her personality left, but apparently all she needed was a trigger.

How did a simple injection cause something like that? Didn't you have to be conditioned over a long period of time for that kind of thing?

Just what the hell was in that syringe?!

"Well, well, well... it seems I've saved your life, human."

I shook my thoughts away as Napoleon approached. That smug smile never left his face as he casually walked over to where I was lying.

He stopped a few feet away and cast a dismissive side glance towards the Captain. By this point the large cat's struggles had died down to weak twitching, his chest heaving as he tried to suck in any kind of air and failed.

He'd probably be dead in a minute or two.

"I'd say your luck has turned for the better, wouldn't you?" Napoleon continued, his eyes still locked on the Captain, "you can't tell me the Captain didn't have this coming, honestly."

I couldn't argue with that, but that fact didn't make me feel any better about the situation. If anything, I was more anxious at the sudden turn of events.

I had seen Napoleon's type before, and whenever someone like him showed up in a story, nothing ever went good for the protagonist—at least, not at first anyway.

Unfortunately I got the feeling this wasn't going to play out like some fictional story, and there was also the little problem of him brainwashing Rarity.

Nothing good was going to come from this—at least not for me, Rarity, and probably the other girls if they managed to make it off the other ship.

"Well, whether you agree or not, the Captain was becoming a nuisance," the pig continued, stepping over to the Captain's now still form and reaching into the feline's white captain's coat, "would you believe I was hired to do this?"

He chuckled as he pulled out a long flintlock pistol from the coat. He looked it over, nodding every so often as he continued to speak.

"You see, the Captain here has many, many enemies—shocking, I know," Napoleon explained, rolling his beady eyes, "and many of his enemies would love nothing more than to see him strung up, flogged with his own cat-o'-nine-tails, keelhauled, or—in a few cases—just straight up shot in the face."

He lowered the gun towards the Captain's head and pulled the trigger.

I don't know how he did it with his stubby little piggy fingers, but the resulting crack caused my heart to skip a beat. A sick squelching noise later, and the Captain's face was even more of a bloody mess than it was before.

"Rarity," Napoleon called out, tossing the pistol onto the Captain's chest, "be a dear and remove the human's gag would you? I'd like to have an actual two way conversation."

I heard a hum from somewhere behind me, and an instant later I felt the cloth remove itself from my mouth. I spit a few times, trying to get the foul taste of the cloth out of my mouth before working my sore jaw.

Once the soreness had dulled I looked over to Napoleon, watching with no small amount of nervousness as righted the chair and took a seat.

He made himself comfortable and beckoned Rarity over. The mind controlled mare dutifully trotted over to stand next to Napoleon and the pig turned back to me with an infuriatingly superior smirk.

"Now then, let's talk about what you can do to repay that debt of gratitude you now owe me, shall we?"

This story ain't over just yet, folks.