Guards and Monsters

The armor didn’t fit. There was only one size, and it didn’t fit any of us.

After a fruitless search for a helmet with a hole for my horn, I balanced one of them on my head and turned to look at the rest of the armor which Spike was sorting by component, although he’d mixed all the horseshoes together in one pile for some reason. It was all clearly exactly the same size.

“I’ll help you with your armor, DeeTee,” Pipsqueak said eagerly, hovering over the scowling earth pony’s shoulders.

“I don’t think so,” she replied. “In fact, you and Spike should leave the room until we’re finished dressing.”

“Not this again,” Spike said, rubbing his forehead with one of his claws.

“It’s not decent!” Diamond Tiara replied firmly, glowering.

Spike waved his claws in the air. “You girls go around naked all the time. What are we going to see that we haven’t seen a million times?”

“Want me to show you?” I offered, with a grin. Everyone got really quiet.

“Wait, you mean there really is something?” Spike asked, scrunching his eyebrow-ridges.

I swished my hips back and forth, as I closed in on the puzzled drake. “Help me put on my armor, and I’ll show you,” I said, rubbing up against him. I winced a bit as he set one of his claws on the helmet, pressing it uncomfortably against my horn.

We started with the horse shoes. They were made out of a nearly weightless purple material – at first I thought it was some sort of ceramic, since it didn’t seem to have the heat conductivity of a metal, and ceramic was a commonly used substitute. But they were a bit flexible, and really oddly shaped. They didn’t want to go onto my hooves – not because they were too large, or too small, but because they weren’t exactly hoof-shaped. With a few stomps, and some help from Spike, I managed to get them onto my front hooves, but it was pretty uncomfortable.

For the back shoes, I had to flop onto my side so that I could reach down with my mouth and try to tug the rear set on. For shoes that you couldn’t just step into, this was always a step that involved a lot of weird contortion, and there was no way that my tail was going to keep my bits covered during the process, even if I’d been trying. The other girls politely looked away, but Pipsqueak and Spike were staring. I flicked my tail and whipped Spike’s muzzle, and he lifted his head to look me in the eye. I raised an eyebrow at him.

“Okay,” he said. “I get the picture. I’ll… I’ll be outside.”

“Aww, I don’t mind if you see me, Spike,” I said, tickling him under his chin with my tail tip. The air was a little chilly between my legs, for increasingly obvious reasons.

“I do,” DeeTee said. “Show’s over. Colts wait outside.”

Spike had to drag Pipsqueak out by his tail. Once the door slammed, I rolled the rest of the way onto my back and laughed. Bonnie clocked me upside the head for corrupting the innocent, but it was totally worth it. I mean, I had a Luna-forsaken helmet on. I barely felt it.

The armor still didn’t fit, although the material was weirdly flexible, so we were able to at least squeeze into it. There were huge slits in the sides for wings, which most of us didn’t have, and the hole for the tail in the back was tiny – and even after I painfully threaded my tail through it, the dark purple tail-cover floated up on the mass of hair as if it was designed for ponies who’d shaved themselves bare. And the breastplate… I didn’t even know what to make of it. It was solid, and stiff, made out of actual metal, but it only attached to the armor at a single point, flaring out to the sides around a huge gem shaped like an eye.

I was getting weird vibes from the gem, so I used a simple detection spell on it. “Oh wow,” I said, twisting my head to try to get a look at it. “This is some serious magic.”

“What does it do?” Bonnie asked, as I reached up and poked at it.

I yelped and cowered back, as I suddenly felt disoriented and sick, like all my insides were being stirred with a splintery wooden spoon – it didn’t quite hurt, but it was flirting with some serious, mind-shattering pain that kept building up but then twisting aside just before actually hurting.

Also, I was completely blind. It was like I’d been lurking in a dark room, and someone suddenly turned on the lights.

After a few seconds, both sensations faded, and I noticed that the armor fit like a glove. My hooves weren’t being squeezed, my sides weren’t being pinched, and the helmet was sitting flat on my head.

The second thing I noticed was that the room had gotten a whole lot brighter, like someone had torn off the roof to let the sun shine in directly instead of filtering in through the windows.

“Oh,” Bonnie said, peering at me. “Does it hurt?”

“No…” I said, uncertainly, looking back at myself and seeing a pair of purple bat wings folded against my sides. I spread one tentatively, folding the little bony fingers in and out and watching the membrane stretch. “But wow, your voice sounds weird.” I paused. “And mine sounds even weirder.”

“That’s because you’re a bat,” Fluttershy said, closing her eyes and pressing the gem on her own suit of armor. She froze up and stood there shivering for a bit, as her coat changed colors, her wings lost their feathers, and her mane and tail vanished under the armor. “Oh dear,” she said, looking a bit ill. She opened her eyes – golden now, and slitted like a cat’s – then opened her mouth and licked at a pair of vicious fangs with a long, slender tongue, almost like a dragon’s. “I do hope we’re not vampire bat ponies.”

“I hope we can change back,” Bonnie said, as she went through her own transformation. She seemed to take it worst of all, falling to her knees and groaning.

I looked up expectantly at Diamond Tiara, to find her looking back at the three of us in horror.

“Hey look!” I said, stretching my wings out, and giving a few experimental flaps. The transformation must have included some instincts or something, because I was able to hover off the ground easily enough. “Wings!”

===

The lure of wings was enough to convince Diamond Tiara to transform, although she got bored with them after a few minutes and started complaining about the bat-pony form’s other peculiarities. I had to agree with her about the ears – how was I supposed to play music when everything sounded so off? Well, yes, the obvious answer was that I’d have to experiment with new chords and sounds until I found something that sounded good to bat-pony ears, and maybe play off the weird echolocation sense we got whenever Fluttershy squeaked? But that would end up with music that nopony could appreciate except for the six of us, and possibly Princess Luna, and I didn’t really want to be that Avant Garde. I wanted to be quirky enough to remember, and fake the rest of the quirkiness while still retaining broad appeal.

Bon Bon – at least, I think it was Bonnie, since the phrasing sounded like hers, but we were all identical down to the voices so I couldn’t really be sure of anypony but DeeTee who I’d watched transform and then started commiserating with – suggested I work some sort of transformation magic into my performance, but while I was trying to explain that gassing the crowd with magical hallucinogens would probably get me run out of most towns before I could finish my set, Pipsqueak and Spike finished putting on their armor, and we decided to head down to meet Luna.

“Aren’t you going to transform?” I asked Spike. “You just tap the eye gem thing.”

“I tried, but it doesn’t work,” he said, demonstrating. “I don’t think it’s meant for dragons.”

“Maybe you need to put on all the bits,” I suggested. He’d done an impressive job of squeezing himself into as much of the armor as possible, but he wasn’t wearing the helmet or the shoes. “Although that might require a pre-transformation transformation.”

“I just hope it doesn’t mean I’m disqualified,” he said, pouting. “Twilight’s going to be extra cranky if I have to go back now.”

We found Luna out in the yard, writing something on a big scroll, which she rolled up and hid as we came out into the light, squinting at the incredible brightness. She’d thought ahead enough to have us in a yard that was in the shadow of the castle, so at least we weren’t in direct sunlight, but the glare from the ice that covered parts of the mountain looming overhead was blinding. I tried closing my eyes and chirping, which sort of worked? But I’m not sure if I would have been able to recognize Luna if I hadn’t just seen her standing there. It would have been enough to avoid running into things while flying in the dark, but it was no real substitute for vision.

“Recruits!” Luna shouted, snapping into a posture which all of us instinctively emulated. “Form up!”

We shuffled into something resembling a line. “I’ll form the head!” I said, since I ended up near the center, which got a giggle from Spike and a confused look from the Princess. “Um… it’s a reference to popular culture. Or, well, not popular popular culture, but culture? Neighponese culture, although I think it actually –“

“Silence,” Luna said, in a perfectly normal tone of voice that brooked no hesitation or disobedience. I saluted, quietly, but she still gave me an extra add-on glower, before walking up and down the line, staring at us.

She stopped at the end of the line, where Spike was standing awkwardly, a purple drake at the head of a line of identical grey bat ponies. “Recruit number one, what is your name?”

“Um…” Spike said. “Maggot?” That got a few giggles.

Luna stomped the ground angrily. “Are any of you going to take this seriously?”

“I will sir! Ma’am! Sir! Princess, sir,” said the bat pony a couple places to my left.

Luna sighed, and smiled. “Thank you Pip – thank you, recruit five.” She frowned, and walked at a steady pace to a rack of spears. “Since the rest of the recruits seem to think this is some sort of joke, I believe we should move on to the first test, and the demonstration of just how serious this is.” Her horn lit, and the spears floated towards us. “Take your weapons!”

Spike grabbed the spear with his claws, of course, and Pipsqueak sort of fumbled with his with his mouth and one of his hooves. The rest of us stared at the spears gingerly.

It looked like a real spear. I poked a hoof against it, and found that my hooves were, in fact, cloven, and that a gap in the bottom of the shoe was sized to allow the spear to slide into place where I could grip it between both halves.

Luna returned to the line of recruits and, after nodding at Spike, went from bat pony to bat pony, showing us how to hold the spear. I’d almost gotten it right! We couldn’t really stand while holding it, but, well, we had wings, and bat ponies can hover as effortlessly as pegasi.

“Recruit number one,” she said to Spike, “Attack me with your spear. Do not hold back.”

Spike threw his spear at her. It didn’t hit. Both of them stared at the spear stuck in the ground halfway to the Princess, and off to the side by about ten degrees.

“Do not throw your spear,” Luna clarified, levitating it back to Spike. “Your spear is your weapon. If you throw your weapon, you will be unarmed. Recruit number two, attack me with your spear.”

Recruit number two stood there for a few seconds, psyching herself up with increasingly loud, heavy breathing. Finally, she tensed up, bared her fangs, and let out the cutest little war cry as she flew slowly across the field towards Luna, finally closing her eyes and poking gently at her with the spear. The spear tip didn’t reach far enough, so she drifted close and poked again.

Luna looked down at the sharp metal point resting against her hide, then reached down and pushed it aside with a hoof. Recruit two squealed, dropped her spear, and flew off to hide.

“Oh, Fluttershy,” Luna said, with a sigh. “I know you have the potential within you to be a great warrior, but how am I to draw it out?”

“Injure a firefly?” I suggested, remembering one of the stories about their old adventures Twilight had told me.

“Berserker rage has its place, but not in the hunt,” Luna replied, turning to me. “Recruit three, do you think you can manage to actually attack me?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “This spear looks real. Won’t it hurt?”

Luna smirked. “Do not worry about injuring me. A weapon such as that could never do me harm.”

I nodded, fluttered back a few feet, then charged at her with all my strength, shoving the spear at her chest with my muscles as well as my momentum.

Did I mention that the bat pony bodies we’d been given were really strong? The spear sank into Luna’s body like a knife stuck into a pumpkin, complete with the sucking pressure holding it in place afterwards. Unlike a pumpkin, the juice that squirted onto my legs and face was warm, and as I tried to wiggle it free, something in Luna’s body twitched rhythmically against it – her heart, maybe, or her lungs. I tried jerking it out, and somehow ended up shoving it in deeper, scraping against a bone or something, deep inside her. I looked up at her face to say something stupid, but the words died in my throat as I saw the look on her face.

Agony. Eyes wide, pupils contracted to tiny dots, mouth slightly agape. The spear jerked in my hooves as her muscles twitched with some instinct, trying to pull free, and then her whole body dissolved into black mist, flowing off the spear like cotton candy off a spindle, a sticky sensation on my face marking where the blood that had splattered there peeled itself off as vapor, to join the cloud.

When she reformed a few feet to the side, she’d regained her composure. There was no sign of any wound. Just as she’d said, these weapons couldn’t injure her. But it had definitely hurt.

She looked back at me, and nodded. “Very good, recruit three.”

I noticed I was breathing heavily, and licked my lips as I floated back into the line. I flopped onto my rear, propping my front half up with my spear. My heart was racing, and everything was tingling with adrenaline. I couldn’t believe it. I’d actually stabbed somepony. A Princess! Hard enough that if they’d been mortal, they’d probably have died.

I was so turned on. I wanted to do it again.

Unfortunately, it was Recruit Four’s turn, and judging by the way she was bitching at Luna about deserving a second chance (on the first try they’d stabbed her in the leg, and at least drawn blood, which Luna said was ‘adequate’) it was probably Diamond Tiara.

“It’s not a fair test! You say you need us to fight monsters, but you’re asking us to stab a Princess!”

“I thought that would make it easier for you,” Luna said, frowning with something other than disapproval for once. “There can be no question that I consent to your assault, since I was the one who ordered it.”

“Well, it doesn’t,” said Pipsqueak. I mean, number five. “We love you, Princess, and when you were stabbed, you were hurt! We don’t want to hurt you.”

Luna nodded. “Very well. Recruit number three, stand forwards.”

It took me a second to realize she meant me, but then I was back in the air, swooping towards her. She tore the spear from my grip, grabbed me in her magic, and set me next to her, in the middle of the field. “Would she make a better target?”

“Oh, yes,” Diamond Tiara said, with a nasty little grin.

“Do I get a say in this?” I asked.

“Do not fear,” Luna told me, “for the body you wear is made of shadowstuff, the same as mine. You will not die.”

That sounded like ‘no’. Then again, she wasn’t holding me in place with her magic, or paralyzing me or anything like that. I could have flown away. But part of me… part of me wanted to feel it, to know what it was like. If Luna was telling the truth – and I had no reason to doubt her – then it would just be like the Taffy incident. So part of me said that it wasn’t that unreasonable of a request, to stand there and get stabbed.

The rest of me was pretty damn scared, but reacting by freezing in place, instead of running.

Then there was a loud ‘clang’, and I stumbled back a few steps, my chest aching but not pierced.

“It’s not fair! She’s got armor on!” Diamond Tiara complained.

I lifted a hoof to my bruised chest, but all I could touch was the breastplate, which didn’t accomplish much. Probably for the best, nothing good comes from picking at an injury. “It wasn’t even your turn!”

“She said we could get a do-over,” DeeTee said.

“You didn’t need a do-over! You’d already passed!”

“Recruit number five,” Luna said, “You may strike at recruit number three or four, at your preference. Please try to kill one of them, I tire of their bickering.”

Pipsqueak looked at me, then at DeeTee, then back at me, and shrugged. “Sorry, Lyra. I’ll try to make it quick.”

Then that little asshole stabbed me in the gut. I mean, yes, there weren’t a whole lot of unarmored places, and I guess I wasn’t making it easy for him to aim, since me and Diamond Tiara were both fleeing for our ‘not-getting-stabbed’s, but when you say ‘I’ll make it quick’ that’s about the last place in the world that you go and stab somepony!

Did you know that flying flexes your belly muscles? It’s not something you’d normally think about, but when you’ve got a big spear stuck in your gut and each flap of your wings feels like it’s about to tear your belly open, it’s pretty obvious. I’m not actually sure how I got to the ground without killing myself – I was at least fifty feet off the ground – but somehow my random fluttering let me hit the ground at a less than fatal speed. Maybe it’s a pegasus thing that bat ponies also have; I’ve heard about Rainbow Dash running into mountains and libraries and things, and walking away unhurt.

I was pretty hurt, although that was because of the spear.

It honestly felt like I’d been torn open and disemboweled, although I got a look at it and the entry wound hadn’t really ripped open or anything like that. Instead, the spear had jostled all around inside me, slicing everything up, to the point where any move I made, no matter how small, was agonizing. It hurt too much to scream.

I was still floundering around in a pool of my own blood, when some bat pony or other stood over me, with another spear, and stuck it right in my eye. That’s how you make it quick.