One day I’ll learn to be careful what I wish for. Especially when I’m wishing for excitement in Ponyville.

I had been in Rarity’s boutique getting outfitted for some dress shirts for my male form. There was a function happening in a few weeks involving various diplomats and other well-to-do folks from all over the world. For appearance’s sake, I would be attending as a male, which is just as well, since if I was going to trip over my two left feet, I’d rather do it with pants on than a dress.

In any case, I was standing around doing nothing much as Rarity double checked my measurements and levitated bits and bobs this way and that. Suddenly a pulse of sickly green magic flew through the room, washing over both of us.

“What the hell was that?!” I shouted in surprise as I checked myself to see if anything had happened to me, but if something had been done, it wasn’t visible to the naked eye. Satisfied I wasn’t about to die suddenly, I turned to Rarity.

“Are you OK?” I asked and a sense of wary unease filled me as Rarity turned to me with a very predatory expression.

“Oh, I’m more than OK, darling~ I have a strong handsome man like you around~” Rarity cooed and I was very freaked out. Rarity was fully capable of being a flirt, but never had she spoken with such raw lust in her eyes.

I tried to employ the Fast Break technique, but Rarity was quick enough on the draw to keep me from escaping. Using magic to detain me, she pinned me against the closest wall.

“Naughty, naughty Ranma~ Don’t you want to play with me?” Rarity asked seductively as she pressed herself up against my immobile body, her chest against mine and her left leg lifted up, rubbing against my crotch.

“Not particularly,” I said, trying to keep my heart from beating out of my chest. I could maybe fire off a Chi blast, but I was hesitant about potentially hurting Rarity. There was also the possibility that she could dodge or block the blast and then I’d really be up a creek without a paddle.

“Oh Ranma, your mouth says one thing, but your body is more honest~” Rarity purred. Yes, Rarity rubbing against my cock was giving me an erection, but that didn’t mean I wanted to have sex with someone not in their right mind!

“You’ve read way too many trashy romance novels if that’s the line you’re going with,” I taunted.

“Provoke me all you want Ranma, I will get what I want and you will thank me for it after we’re done,” Rarity responded with a lustful smirk.

“That’s a bold statement for someone whose sexual experience begins and ends with the aforementioned trashy romance novels,” Yes, I was shooting my mouth off at a very bad time. Yes, I myself was a virgin still, despite my girlfriends’ best efforts. Still, I just couldn’t let a comment like that go. It wouldn’t be the first time I made a snide remark when I shouldn’t have and it won’t be the last.

Rarity’s eyes took on a dangerous look as she grabbed my head and planted a firm kiss on my lips. I’d be lying if I said I hated being kissed by Rarity, even if the circumstances made it uncomfortable.

“Let’s move this to my bed, Ranma~” Rarity purred and I shuddered. Kissing was one thing; sex was a whole other kettle of fish. I didn’t think of it as rape, given Rarity was in no more control of the situation than I was. Still, call me old fashioned, but I wanted the giving of my virginity to be something special. As such, I was very much against Rarity’s designs on said virginity.

I was floated up to Rarity’s room, struggling fruitlessly to break her telekinetic grip. She pinned me to the bed and was about to take off my shirt when a blessed, piercing shriek rang out.

“RARITY! COME HERE!” Never in my life had I been gladder to hear Sweetie Belle’s voice.

“I’m in the middle of something!” Rarity shouted back. She continued undoing the buttons of my shirt.

“NOW RARITY!” Sweetie Belle demanded from somewhere in the boutique. Rarity’s growing aura of bloodlust was quite impressive and I was very much glad it wasn’t aimed at me. She turned to give me a look with fluttering eyelashes.

“Now, don’t you go anywhere Ranma. I’ll deal with this pest in two shakes of a lamb’s tail~” She then summoned some of her cloth to tie me to the bed before marching off to ‘deal’ with Sweetie.

Whether she genuinely thought strips of cloth would keep me tied down or that I would actually want to stay, Rarity was about to have a rude awakening as I fairly easily tore off the cloth and immediately made my escape out the window.

Any hope I might have had that the mind altering magic had only affected Rarity was shot as soon as I looked around outside. It was utter chaos. Some people were brawling in the streets, others were making out like their lives depended on it, still others were curled up in balls crying, and a few were stealing in broad daylight even!

Whatever was going on it had hit all of Ponyville. That meant Twilight wasn’t an option. So I had to make contact with Canterlot and hope they were outside the radius of whatever spell did this. I turned to head home to call Luna, only to be met with a metal bat to the head.

As I came to the only think I could think about was how much my head hurt. I let out a groan of sever displeasure.

“Ah, finally awake, are you?” A somewhat familiar voice asked. I opened my eyes only to immediately shut them again when a floodlight snapped on, blinding me.

“Bon-Bon? What the hell?” I asked as I noticed I was manacled to a steel table with metal restraints on my wrists and ankles.

“Who do you work for?!” She snapped at me.

“I don’t work for anyone?” I was confused. What was she babbling about?

“LIAR!” She screeched, “But we have ways of making you talk…”

“Bon-Bon, what are you-” my question was cut off as a wet cloth was slapped across my face. I had consumed enough spy media in my life to know what was about to happen next. Sure enough, I soon had water being poured on me.

There’s a reason waterboarding is considered torture. It worked exactly as advertised too. As Bon-Bon poured the water over me it definitely felt like I was drowning. The cold water also triggered my transformation.

I don’t know how long exactly Bon-Bon waterboarded me. Time flies when it feels like you’re drowning. Eventually she let up.

“Are you ready to talk?” She questioned menacingly.

“Yes! Yes! I’ll talk!” I shouted. Bon-Bon had clearly gone into some crazy paranoid nut mode. So the only thing I could really do to get out of this situation was ‘confirm’ her worst fears. Even if it probably wasn’t the most ‘noble’ thing to do.

“Who sent you?!” Bon-Bon demanded again.

“It was Lyra!” I lied and Bon-Bon froze.

“L-Lyra..?” She looked devastated and the possibility I was lying didn’t even cross her paranoia frenzied mind.

“Yup,” I ‘confirmed’, “Definitely Lyra.”

“LYRA!” Bon-Bon rushed out of the room, leaving me alone. Now I just had to figure out how to escape.

The change from male to female had left my wrists with a little wiggle room, but not enough to slip out naturally and I wasn’t of a mind to find out if breaking my wrist actually worked or was just Hollywood nonsense.

The obvious first thing to try was a chi blast, but that hope was quickly dashed when the beam bounced off the metal harmlessly. When that failed I tried brute force to similar success. Maybe, maybe if I had still been in male form I would have had more luck, but my female form just wasn’t strong enough.

“Think stupid, think, there has to be a way out of this…” I muttered as I thought about every martial arts technique I knew of from the manga and anime. Eventually my mind hit upon an idea. Happosai and Genma had been able to create physical chi constructs out of their battle aura. If I could do the same maybe the outward pressure would snap open the shackles?

“No big deal Ranma, just figure out how to do a completely new technique before Bon-Bon comes back and murders you for falsely accusing her girlfriend of conspiring against her,” Given she had got directly to waterboarding I shuddered to think what she’d do to me if she were actually wanting to hurt me.

In theory making a Chi construct shouldn’t be that hard. Instead of focusing Chi in the palms of my hands I just had to suffuse the concentrated Chi across my whole body and push it outward. Actually, I didn’t even need to do that much, if I could just do it around my wrists and ankles that would be enough for now.

It took a little bit of trial and error, but I was able to start forming solid Chi constructs around my ankles and wrists. Once I had that down I started pumping more and more Chi into them to make them expand.

Unfortunately, I had failed to take into consideration Newton’s third law. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. For every bit of pressure the Chi constructs were putting on my bonds, they were putting an equal amount of pressure on my ankles and wrists.

At this point I was too worried about Bon-Bon coming back, so I had to take the gamble. Which would break first, my bones or the restraints? I kept pushing on. It felt like I was trapped in a vice, slowly increasing the pressure. The pain was quite something, but it sure beat being waterboarded.

Just as I was sure my bones must snap I heard the sound of something popping open. For a moment, I thought my bones had snapped, but as there was no accompanying excruciating pain, I looked and saw the restraints had yielded first.

I took a moment to rub my sore appendages, but I was pretty sure I was going to have some nasty bruising in the morning. I got off the table and it was a simple enough matter to blast the door off and made good my escape.

Unsurprisingly, as I made my way home to try and call Luna for help, I was in a bad mood. I was wet, hungry, tired, and in pain. So I was in no mood to deal with an overly angry Rainbow Dash when she accosted me.

I tried to keep walking and ignore her, but I should have known better. Ignoring Rainbow Dash is rarely a smart move, even under more normal circumstances. She got up right in my face.

“Fuck you Ranma!” She shouted.

“Why don’t you do it yourself, you coward?!” I snapped back. That was my second mistake: calling Rainbow a coward. I quickly found myself on the ground.

“I ain’t a coward!” She yelled and forced a sloppy kiss on me.

Unlike with Rarity, Rainbow was a fighter, so I had no hesitation in blasting her off me. I then got on top of her and pinned her to the ground with one arm behind her back.

“Rainbow, you’re going to go away when I let you go, right?” I asked with all the menace of an elder brother tormenting their younger sibling.

“Let me go!” Rainbow demanded so I put a little more pressure on her arm, “OK, I give!”

I let Rainbow go and she bolted away. That was easier than I was expecting, but I wasn’t going to complain.

Eventually I made it home to find Thistle had caused a bunch of plants to grow into a protective wall around it. Had she fallen to the same madness as everyone in town?

“Thistle, open up!” I called out, hoping for a response. Fortunately, one was forthcoming as Thistle poked her head out of the growth.

“Ranma?” She asked and I breathed a sigh of relief. Thistle was still sane. She phased fully out of the growth and hugged me tightly, “You’re OK! Everyone else had gone crazy and I was worried!”

I hugged back, “I’m glad you’re OK too. Can you let me in so I can call Luna or Celestia to hopefully fix this mess?”

“Of course!” Thistle opened the way for me. We headed inside and I quickly made a call to Canterlot.

After that the Princesses showed up and made short work of the mess. Apparently the source of the problem had been some sort of evil amulet fueled by Windigo magic designed to cause strife in the hearts of Ponykind. Bon-Bon, in her role as Agent Sweetie Drops, had been disposing of it when Lyra had distracted her and she messed up the disposal, destroying the amulet and causing all the magic to be released in a more catastrophic way.

I suddenly felt a lot less guilty about setting the paranoid Bon-Bon on Lyra…

Sometimes you just want your character to suffer.