Guards and Monsters

I woke up sprawled on the floor of the lounge where we’d put on our armor, a mint-colored unicorn again, with all my internal organs whole and undamaged. I curled up and cried for a bit, twitching every time the memory of the pain threatened to rise up and take me. I couldn’t think of anything but Pipsqueak, stabbing me in the belly, and leaving the spear there, while I flapped around, crunched to the ground, and slowly bled to death. Over and over, each sensation catalogued and filed under ‘ow’.

After a while, I realized I was masturbating. It didn’t take long to finish – aside from my crazy fantasies, simply not being in agony felt so good. If the others heard me scream out in climax, I guess they wrote it off to anguish and stuff? Or maybe they were just polite. Nopony ever mentioned to me if they knew what I’d done.

Once I was feeling better, I took my time putting on another set of armor, turned myself back into a bat pony, and headed out to join the others again.

Luna was surprised to see me. Bonnie – I assume it was Bonnie, it might have been Fluttershy – was really, really relieved to see me alive, and gave me a big hug.

“Is there some reason you had to make it hurt so much?” I asked Luna.

“Pain still serves its purpose,” Luna replied. “In time, you will learn to ignore it, when needed.”

I thought back to when I’d stabbed her, to the expression on her face. To how long she’d let me hold the spear inside her, before turning to mist and ending the pain. She hadn’t been ignoring it. She’d been savoring it.

She was as crazy as me. I grinned at the thought, and took my place in the next exercise, which was…

I don’t actually remember what we did next, sorry. We did a lot of training stuff, and it kind of all blended into each other. We learned to fight with spears, for real, and how to use these weird, flexible blades glued to our wings, and sharp little spring-loaded knives that we could hide in our boots. We also did a lot of flying around in circles, and running through the Royal Guard obstacle course, when they weren’t using it. It was a whole training montage!

The first night – well, the first morning, since she had us up all night training – we were so tired we basically slept in our armor. I woke up sometime late afternoon, curled up with somepony that I hoped was Bon Bon because it certainly wasn’t Spike, drooling on her breastplate. I must have jostled her awake, because her eyes opened as well, and I stared into the strange, slitted pupils until Luna stomped in and shouted us back out to the training fields.

The second morning, she had us kill each other. “Form up in pairs, and show me what you’ve learned. Survivors face off against each other. The winner will have the honor of sparring with me.” Her grin had fangs.

After picking up a spear at the weapon rack, I waved at Spike, and he nodded and lined up across from me. Glancing to the side, I saw DeeTee facing off against Pipsqueak – I could tell because they’d both picked wing blades, although until one talked I wouldn’t be sure who was who – and Bonnie with a set of clawed boots staring in dismay at Fluttershy’s back as she stood at the weapon rack, breathing heavily.

“Actually,” I said to Spike, “I’d better switch off. Bonnie!”

“But Lyyyyra,” Spike said, glancing at the advancing bat pony. “She’s scary!”

I rolled my eyes. “You have impenetrable scales.” I prodded at him with my spear to demonstrate. “Don’t be gentle. She likes it rough.”

Then I fluttered over to ‘Shy,who’d settled on the claws and was shaking as she put them on, one by one. I set down my spear, and wrapped my arms around her from behind.

Her squeal was hypersonic.

“Shhh,” I said, nibbling her ear. “Don’t be scared.”

“How can I not be scared!” she whimpered.

“It’s just pain,” I said. “And that’s only if you lose.”

She didn’t seem reassured. “Of course I’m going to lose. I don’t think I can even – why did Luna bring me here?”

“Look, plenty of things hurt that aren’t scary,” I said, leaning down and helping her with her weapons. “Like the dentist. You’re not scared of the dentist, are you?”

“I haven’t been to the dentist since I was ten,” she said, pouting and tossing her head to hide her face behind her mane, which didn’t work since her bat-pony mane was too short and trapped beneath her helmet besides. “I just brush a lot.”

I stared, and tried to remember if I’d ever seen her teeth. Would that work? Because honestly, I was a lot more scared of the dentist than I was of getting clawed to death.

“Let’s just get this over with,” she said.

I shrugged, and picked up my spear. Remembering what Luna had taught us, I did a quick feint directly at her eyes to make her flinch, and… she curled up in a ball, quivering.

“That is not how you parry,” Luna said, suddenly appearing at our side. She uncurled Fluttershy with her magic and set her back down in front of me. “Her spear is clumsy and slow, but has reach. Knock it aside, then move in for the kill.”

I glanced over at the other pairs. Bon Bon must have already died, since Spike was standing alone, leaning on a spear and rubbing at some slight scratches that hadn’t penetrated his scales. Pip had managed to cut off one of Diamond Tiara’s wings, and she’d picked it up in her teeth and was screaming in outrage while chasing him around with it.

“Okay,” Fluttershy said, bringing me back to my own contest. “I’m ready.” She was at least in the right posture, and had a determined look in her slitted yellow eyes. I did a quick feint at her face to make her flinch, and she squeaked and turned to run.

I grabbed her left hind leg in my jaws, my fangs sinking into her ankle, and she wailed as I dragged her down and slammed her on her back. I swooped around and clocked her in the side of the helmet as she tried to stand up, then hovered over her, aimed my spear, and – and I couldn’t do it. I mean, it was Fluttershy, and she was crying and pissing herself in fear. I felt like I wanted to throw up.

“What are you waiting for?” she wailed, flailing at me blindly with a clawed hoof.

“Strike fast, and true,” Luna said in my ear.

“Can’t I just ask for her to surrender?” I asked.

“I surrender!”

“There is no surrender in this. She is your enemy, she must die.”

I gritted my teeth, and plunged the spear into her throat. It was sharp; there was barely any resistance as I pinned her to the ground by her neck. Fluttershy spasmed, and her mouth opened and closed, blood leaking from the corner of her mouth, one hoof raised to paw at the spear, the claws scraping harmlessly off the haft.

“She’s not dying,” I hissed.

“Yes, she is,” Luna said. “But if you want an instantly fatal blow, strike here.” She indicated a spot on Fluttershy’s chest.

I braced my rear hooves against her belly, pulled back the spear from the gushing wound in her neck, and let out a quick ‘huff’ as I plunged it into her heart. Orange crawling sparks lit everywhere across her hide, and the quiet flames rapidly consumed her, leaving a pony-shaped statue of ash, which collapsed into a quickly dispersing cloud. In seconds, nothing remained but the armor, which flashed and vanished.

“Well, done,” Luna said, patting me on the back with her feathery wing. I still felt sick.

A little later, after getting my throat slit by a surprisingly vicious one-winged Tiara, I tracked Fluttershy down to the showers, where she was sobbing under a stream of hot water, her sodden feathery wings splayed out along the tiles, her mane soaked and in disarray.

“Are you okay?” I asked, stepping onto the tiles, and tossing my mane aside as the water started to splash on me.

She squeaked – in the normal, audible spectrum this time – and scuttled back into the far corner, where she crouched like a cornered rat.

I was starting to suspect that she was not okay.

I rubbed at my throat, remembering the tearing agony as Diamond Tiara had dragged the sharp end of her severed wing through it… the sudden weakness that had come over me… the slow fade into an ever-so-brief darkness before waking up back in the lounge. “Was it really that bad?” I asked.

Fluttershy gave a couple of shuddering sobs, before answering, “Yes!”

She headed home on the morning train. Spike went with her, although he promised he’d be back after he was sure she was going to be okay. Luna promised to have a set of armor that would actually transform a dragon ready by then.

The rest of us closed the blackout curtains, and crawled into bed. I slept alone, that day – I didn’t really feel very cuddly.