Believe it or not, this was not Twilight Sparkle’s first experience being captured by monsters. Twilight was soft and inquisitive, always wanting to learn more about the monsters who came to the surface through open dialogue with them, which was at odds with her fellow Paladins who were trained to slay monsters on sight.

This impulse tended to get her captured. A lot.

Twilight was sat in the hallway, secured to a door knocker-esque panel on the wall by a chain attached to a collar fastened around her neck. Her legs were folded under her, her hooves tied by the ankles and attached to a rope around her stomach.

Her arms were tied behind her back, fastened to her chest with at least three different coils of rope in three different places, and rope was tied around her chest and shoulders too, as well as her legs being tied together at the thighs, and above and below the knees.

The monsters who restrained her clearly did not want her to break free, though she had a suspicion that the salamander who actually performed the bondage was just enjoying the act of tying Twilight for her own sake.

Twilight was also gagged with a thankfully clean wad of cloth in her mouth, and then silvery tape strapped across and around her muzzle. It kept her quiet for sure, but mostly she was dreading getting it taken off of her fur. That was going to hurt.

She sat at the end of a long hallway, that seemed to stretch farther and farther out every time she looked at it. The floor looked like brick but was cheap linoleum, fading and withering with age, and the walls weren’t faring much better; they were at one time white, but were now an amalgamation of disgusting shades of blue, grey, and orange.

The only lights came from square windows in the ceiling, but the glass covering those windows were so caked in grime and ooze that they were functionally useless as lighting, only illuminating enough to see vaguely two feet in front of Twilight’s nose.

Twilight’s ears were working just fine though, and they perked up at the sound of hoofsteps coming toward the hall from around the corner. No, these weren’t ‘hoof’ steps, these were something else; much more delicate, scratching against the floor.

Clawsteps. If Twilight had to bet, she’d say it must have been Applejack, and she was quite delighted to see her theory prove true when Applejack turned the corner into her hallway, stopping in her tracks and standing perfectly still at the end of the hall, nothing more than her silhouette visible in the pale lighting.

As Applejack slowly approached, Twilight wondered what kind of tact she should take with her. Twilight didn’t get a very good read on the werewolf’s personality, covered as it was by a wall of stoicism, so Twilight wasn’t sure what kind of airs she could put on to endear herself to the werewolf.

Oh well. When in doubt, honesty was the way to go. And the truth was, Twilight was tentatively excited to see Applejack, so when the werewolf came within view, Twilight perked up and let out a muffled greeting. Her words were lost to her gag, but her pleasant tone carried through.

“Awful cheerful for a hostage, ain’tcha?” Applejack let out a bitter laugh, but Twilight just shrugged as well as she could through her ropes. “Damn, Autumn really did a number on you. This feels unnecessary, lemme just…”

Applejack knelt and slashed through some of Twilight’s ropes with her claws, freeing her shoulders and her ankles, the latter of which was especially useful to Twilight as she was worried about circulation to her legs, and now she was able to stretch them out in front of herself, and that felt wonderful. She even let out a little sigh of relief.

“Agh, she used tape?” Applejack groaned as she inspected Twilight’s gag. “That girl never thinks anything through, that’s gonna be a nightmare to take off. And it’s only gonna get worse too, so I might as well do it now.”

“Mm! Mhm, mhm!” Twilight nodded happily and pleaded. She would love to get this gag off of her.

“Alright, hold still,” Applejack sighed and dug her claw under the edge of the tape wrapped around Twilight’s muzzle, Twilight bracing herself for it.

Twilight wasn’t sure what to expect; either Applejack ripping it off of her in one excruciating motion, or slowly and agonizingly letting it peel off her and take a bunch of her fur with it. What she was not expecting was for Applejack to be so methodical, following the peeling tape with her other thumb to make sure it came off as painlessly as possible.

It still hurt, and Twilight winced and whined through the whole process, which took quite a while since Autumn Blaze had tied several loops around Twilight’s muzzle, but it was mostly painless, and Twilight was surprised at Applejack’s charity and deftness of hand, and also was just glad to be able to move her jaw again.

“This is gonna hurt,” Applejack said as she dug her claw under the edge of one of the two strips of tape pasted across Twilight’s mouth. “I don’t want this to take another year, so brace yerself.”

Twilight tried to grit her teeth but ended up just biting down on the cloth in her mouth. When Applejack started peeling the tape off, Twilight winced and her whole body tensed up, but Applejack didn’t let up, slowly peeling the tape off of her mouth and leaving a painful red imprint in its place.

The second strip didn’t go any easier, and Twilight swore there were tears stinging her eyes by the time it was done. Applejack held out her hand and Twilight spit the cloth out into it, breathing a huge sigh of relief as her mouth was now fully freed.

“Great! Now untie the rest of me, please!” Twilight said with a big smile, and Applejack laughed out loud.

“Damn girl, love yer confidence,” Applejack said with a smile of her own, showing off the fangs that were a constant among all monsters from the Underworld. “I’m obviously not gonna untie you. If I released you, you’d just have the boss of this Circle on yer ass in a second, and trust me, you don’t want that.

“The safest place for you right now is here, chained to this wall.”

“The boss of the Circle,” Twilight hummed, figuring it was time to play detective a little bit, “is that this Rarity you were talking about before? The vampire?”

“That’s right,” Applejack nodded and sat with her back against the wall on Twilight’s right. “She’s a vampire queen, and a damn powerful one. You don’t wanna get on her bad side.”

“Is that why you’re afraid of her?” Twilight asked. “She’s too powerful for you and your friends to defeat?”

“I ain’t afraid of Rarity!” Applejack snapped, Twilight clearly hitting a nerve. “But here in the Underworld, you respect the hierarchy of power, or you get yerself killed. I ain’t intendin’ on gettin’ killed until I reach my goal, so for now I’m workin’ with what I got.”

“I see, I see,” Twilight nodded. “So what does this mean for me, then? What happens to me and my companion?”

“I wouldn’t worry about yerself too much,” Applejack said calmly. “Rarity needs yer soul to do whatever it is she wants to do, and a pony soul is too valuable to lose by killin’ its host.”

“And my companion?” Twilight said strictly. Sunset may have been a real jerk, but she didn’t deserve to be tortured or killed or anything like that.

“Depends on her,” Applejack shrugged. “If she wants to hand over the soul nicely, I’m sure nothing bad’ll happen to her.”

Yeah, that’s not gonna happen. Not with Sunset Shimmer.

“Otherwise? Her fate’s up to Rarity,” Applejack continued, and then she stood up with a groan. “Tell you what though, the pair of ya impressed me during our fight. I could use some decently strong meat shields for what I’m tryin’ to do. So I’m gonna talk to Rarity and see if we can’t all get what we want.”

“Sounds good,” Twilight nodded with a smile. “I trust you, Applejack.”

“Yeah?” Applejack laughed. “That’s a good way to get yerself killed.”

“Maybe,” Twilight just shrugged. She missed it while she was more heavily restrained so now she wanted to take full advantage of the opportunity. “But I’m willing to bet on you. I hope we can be friends.”

“I ain’t interested in makin’ friends,” Applejack growled, and frankly Twilight should’ve expected as much.

“Fair enough, fair enough,” Twilight relented, nodding affirmatively. “Well I hope we can work together, and that we can all get what we’re chasing after.”

“Mm, yeah,” Applejack scratched her cheek and looked away from Twilight, “we’ll see.”

Okay, now Twilight was getting a read on Applejack’s personality, and to be quite honest, Twilight was confident that if she played her cards right, she’d be able to get Applejack on her side. The werewolf was outwardly only concerned with her revenge, but Twilight could see the cracks in her armor as if they were glowing neon.

Twilight didn’t want to put the cart before the horse of course, but she had a good feeling that she could rely on Applejack, whether the werewolf wanted to play along or not.

listen, if there's one thing we can all agree on, it's that twilight makes a very cute damsel in distress

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