Re-Enlistment

Chapter 3 - Stretching

"...key wakey, rise and shine! Rise and shine, wakey wakey rise and shiiine~" The cheerful voice of death and all that is unholy sang directly into my ear, as I blurrily awoke and shielded my eyes from a bright light fixture blasting my face with its Lummi-monstrosity.

"Charmed, You're disturbing the patient!" A voice hissed in a whisper to my right.

"Wakey wakey~!" She continued.

"I'm up, I'm up!" I groaned, trying to use my wings to shield my eyes, but finding them bound by something.

"
Ah, Ah! Don't move, silly! We've still got bits of you locked down so you don't hurt yourself!" The cheery Charmed said.

To my right, or left, or whatever direction they were, the nurse that had rendered me unconscious was busy pressing buttons on a large panel. It looked like a larger version of those metal boxes they were wheeling around earlier. Gathering my wits, I looked around to find myself in a white tiled floor, with sky blue ceiling and the walls were painted with a mural of a grassy field. It was all obnoxiously well lit, and hurt my eyes to no end.

"We were running some tests to see how your physiology was changing, given that the transformation into bat pony was stalled substantially by the stone you were imprisoned in. Nearly everypony has been complaining about a higher voice, and huge cravings for apples. Some ponies have even discovered that they aren't allergic to things they used to be allergic to, yet others are finding they don't enjoy the same
foods they used to. Most of these can be attributed to various psychological stresses of a body transformation but I hypoth--" Charmed was mercifully interrupted in her droning, by my savior of a Nurse pegasus, who I should really ask the name of at some point.

"Charmed, dear, He doesn't need to know all that. Save it for the report so you can talk with somepony that shares your enthusiasm." She chuckled softly, before releasing me from the last few medical braces that held me down. I tried to get up from the bed, but was gently pushed down by the nurse.

"Don't be in such a rush, deary. You've been out for awhile, and we've got to run a few last tests to make sure you're all there, okay?" The nurse reassured me, before taking her hooves off of me and grabbing her clipboard and pen.

"Okay, You've noticed a change in your voice, correct?" I nodded.

"Change in mane, hair and eye color?"

"My eye color is the same, actually." I clairified.

"Interesting..." She scribbled a small note before continuing. "Any changes in Sexual Preference?"

"Se-sexu-I-wha-no-I'm-fine!" I sputtered, suddenly alarmed.

"Hey, hey..." She coo'd, trying to calm me. "It's okay. Nothing to be ashamed of. We've come a long way since Nightmare Moon's time, sweety." I paused for a moment, considering my options.

"Just...just -how- far, are we talking?" I hesitantly asked.

"What do you mean, sweety?" I gulped, before clairifying. "Stallions and... Stallions?"

"Oh, you mean Colt-Cuddlers! Yeah, don't worry about that. Pretty much any relationship is fine nowadays, so long as its consensual and doesn't hurt anypony." She smiled, completely oblivious to the exploding spell she had just dropped onto my lap.

"You..." I trailed, still coming to grips with the change.

"Yep! Don't you worry none, Hun. Everypony is okay wi--" She reassured, before I grabbed her in a crushing hug while crying my eyes out with the slightly annoying sound of squeaks and squee's as I sobbed.

"Um... There there, honey. Its okay now." She offered, but I was far too relieved to even care that she was obviously uncomfortable at my emotional outburst.

Far back, I guess in 'my day', there wasn't an agreement about how attraction worked. Some hypothesized that it was based off of Cutie marks, and that you should find a partner that had one related to yours. Others insisted that it should be completely separate from your own cutie mark, in order to diversify the pony populace. Some insisted that it was based on gender, and that only Mares should go with Stallions or the Wendigos would come back and freeze Equestria again. Others had gone so far as to imprison or condemn those that went against their beliefs, or drive them from the safety of their village in order to 'protect the foals' from the 'aberrant' ponies.

To say to me, that all of that was over, and I could live without worry about that kind of thing, was like telling a wrongly convicted inmate on death row that they were to be set free, that they could see their family again and live their lives without worry once more. I don't know how long I held on to the nurse, but when I was finally freed of the tears of relief I could shed, the nurse was soaked and looking very
uncomfortable.
"All better?" She asked, letting out a breath of relief as I released her from my bear hug.
"Y-yeah..." I squeaked, wiping my eyes and sniffing.
"Okay deary, just one last question. Are you ready?" After a moment of gathering myself, I replied with a "Yes."

"Do you wish to continue your service in the Night Guard?"

***

I stood outside in the sun, accompanied by a squad of eight more armored bat ponies of the Night Guard, as we waited in a group for the rest of the ponies of our 'batch' to get ready. The nine of us included the mares from our room, which I had learned were called Night Breeze and Moon Sight. We five were designated to be a patrol group, with myself being the leader. Lantern Light and Moon Sight were in agreement that I would be the leader, but Night Breeze was too busy having fun at my expense to conclude with the discussion.

"Oh yeah! Oh Yeah! Oh Yeaaaaahhh!" Night Breeze attempted, her pitch was slightly off key but it was a good overall attempt at my display from earlier. Apparently she had been woken from her sleep by my antics, and the guards posted outside of our
door had seen fit to spread the tale of my mimicry throughout the Royal and Night Guard.

"Oh yeah?" I challenged, to which she replied with another "Oh Yeah!"

Several faces were blushing, their attention drawn to our increasingly loud display of uncouth behavior, before a loud attention getting
cough was heard over our voices.

"AHEM." Captain Shining Armor cleared his throat a bit too harshly, causing him to cough a bit while his voice recovered.

"Well then, Now that -that- is in order, we can begin. Or... no we can't. There's only nine of you." He looked down at some metal attached to his wrist. "Well, That sort of messes up scheduling, now doesn't it?" He asked rhetorically.

"Can we get some of that tasty apple stuff again, boss?" Night Breeze asked with a raised hoof, completely out of order and lacking
in the discipline of rules that made the Night Guard a professional force.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. I suppose it's almost lunch time anyway. Come back here at..." He looked at the wrist metal again. "About half hour after one?" He nodded in confirmation of his own plan, and gave a salute to the few ponies gathered before swiftly jumping from the stage and into the castle.

"Well..." Was all I could say to that. Apparently there have been -massive- changes in how things are run in present time.

"Well lets get some food!" Night Breeze cheered, pumping a hoof in the air and flying off to the kitchens with a big smile.

"I don't think she's right in the head." Moon Sight bluntly stated, before flying after her guard partner.

"Hey Lieutenant, want to get lunch?" Lantern Light asked, as I tried to hide a blush with a loud cough while turning my head away.

"Y-yes!" I nearly shouted, far too eagerly and abruptly.

"You okay?"

"Perfectly alright!"

"You sure? Your face is gettin all purple around the cheeks."

"Yep! Fine!" I squeaked, my face growing hotter.

"'Cause it looks like you're choking, Lieutenant."

"Don't worry about me! I'll meet you in the chow hall." I said from behind a hoof, trying to make it appear like I was adjusting a strap on my helmet somehow.

"Riiiight..." Lantern trailed before taking flight to the kitchen.

Well, apparently my blush is purple. Good to know.

***

After a thoroughly awkward lunch, peppered with calls of 'Oh yeah!', We returned to formation outside of the palace proper, next to the hedge garden that had been crafted into an expansive maze. We were at a full hundred guards again, with a few complaining of soreness from the injections they had received. I was thankfully free from said comfortableness, and stood attentively while putting on my best 'I am an Officer' expression.

"Lieutenant, You look goofy as a minotaur in a tiara." Lantern said, making me deflate my puffed chest back to normal.

"What's goofy about it?" I asked, slightly exasperated that nopony had ever bothered to tell me in my years of service.

"Lieu, just look in the mirror when you do that. Honestly all I'm gonna say."

"Lieu? Why not Novel, or Thought?" I asked.

"Because you're my C.O. and It would be strange If we were on a first name basis?"

"Um... right." I finished meekly.

Captain Shining Armor came back from wherever it is that Royal Guard Captains go to, with a messy mane and his armor missing a strap. A few murmurs of concern were heard, followed by a fairly loud 'Oh Yeaaaahh' in the background, causing a burst of laughter.

"Alright everypony, that's enough. Let's get on with the briefing." Shining said, adjusting his armor and hiding his mane under a helmet that he grabbed off of a nearby guard's head.

"Now that we've got you immunized to present day afflictions and the like, We're going to be up front. You've all been asked if you would like to continue serving with the Night Guard, and every one of you agreed to continue your service. That kind of showing of unity and loyalty is immensely appreciated by the Princesses, and Princess Luna herself offers her heartfelt gratitude. She was going to meet with you all today,
but a situation had cropped up in a nearby town and she was forced to remedy that situation. She says that if you're the same guards she knew before, that you would be understanding of the situation."

A wave of quiet agreement was heard through the ranks of the gathered batponies, as Shining Armor continued.

"Members of the Nobility have expressed concern as to whether or not you are all truly freed from the corruption of Nightmare Moon, and we would like to give you the opportunity to undergo some magical examinations to be certain of this fact. I'm sure it will do good to ease any lingering doubts you might have, as well as those of the stuffy Aristo ponies that like to meddle in things."

This earned a few squeaky giggles of appreciation, as he finished his speech.

"Now, This examination will be lead by Charmed, and yes, I share sympathy for your plight. It should be relatively quick and painless, and no, not the kind of 'light pinch' painless like last time. Truly painless, or you have my permission to get cross with the unicorn treating you. Should you have any further concerns or questions, feel free to ask Charmed or one of the Royal Guard here."

He finished his statement and received polite applause, as the dreaded unicorn named Charmed took the stage.

"Hey everypony! Or should I call you Everybat? Everybatty?" she rubbed her chin with a free hoof absently, before casting the thought aside and continuing.

"Okay Everybatty, listen up! We're gonna be doing some soul searching here in a little bit, and I don't mean poetically. This is a really intensive scan done by the best mages that Equestria and the Crystal Empire have to offer, so don't worry! We're gonna be scanning your soul for any hint of Discordant magic that may be lingering around. Also, we have no idea how to revert you back to your normal pony forms, but we're working on it for those of you that want your old bodies back! The scan itself should be relatively painless, unless we do find something that needs to get yanked out of you. We'll let you know if that has to happen, but its very -very- unlikely, okay?"

I looked amongst the crowd to see nervous faces at the mentioning of souls and pain, but Charmed continued her speech without pause.

"... make sure that nobatty here is plotting against the Princesses and Equestria, and to make sure that you can successfully return to duty and your lives that you'll have to get back together after being gone so long! Not to mention that you could meet your super distant relatives that might've carried down in your absence!"

I saw a few ponies break out into tears at that, and they were quickly consoled by friends and lovers soon after as the gravity of what
was said in far too cheery of a manner finally stuck.

"... all get ready to head out to the University, so we can get this scanning underway. Everybatty ready?" she called, her horn erupting in a heavy golden glow and blinded those closest to her display.

"Everybatty get close to me, so we can do this in one shot!" she called out, her horn glowing another level of intensity brighter than before.

The Night Guards quickly flew onto the large platform, and squeezed together as much as possible.

"Here we goooo!!" She yelled in pain, her horn erupting into a volcano of golden light as I felt my body compress and get squeezed through a hole shaped outline of myself, towards a building off in the distance.

ZA-POOF

"AAAaaaaauuuughhh YEAH." Cried Charmed, her horn a smoldering wreck as she collapsed on the floor. She was over exerted, and the effort of teleporting over a hundred ponies a few kilotrots to their destination all at once had made her horn burn out. How she even managed the spell or the fact that she was able to not die from the sheer energy required for such a feat remained a mystery to me, but I attributed it to her position as a University teacher in a school for gifted unicorns.

At least, that's what the banner said.

"Aaaaah! Monsters!" I heard a foal cry, as myself and a few other Night Guard turned around to see a classroom of foals looking terrified at the silver and midnight blue armored ponies with bat wings, fangs and slit pupils stared at them in surprise.

"You won't get my class! Not a single one of them, you hear?!" A mare yelled at us, causing Lantern Light, Night Breeze, Moon Sight and myself to turn towards the angry school teacher unicorn and receive a heavy blast of telekinetic energy to the chest, sending us across the room and embedding our armored bodies into the dry-wall.

Charmed was passed out on the floor, and we heard banging on the school door from the outside. I was just picking myself off of the floor before I was struck across the face by a very hard hitting hoof, sending me sprawling sideways and planting my head inside of a Cubby hole.

"Get back, monsters!" She cried, blasting what sounded like Moon Sight into a locker.

"Ma'am, Open the door!" I heard a gruff voice call from behind the door.

"They're mine!" another blast of energy and something collided with my flank. I tried to pull my head free of the cubby hole, but my helmet had rendered me helpless as it was wedged inside.

"Ma'am, please!" The voice called out.

I heard the tinkling of keys, and the door swung open with a bang as Royal Guards flooded the room.

"Oh, thank Celestia its just the Night Guards." I heard a younger voice state, before somepony grabbed my flank and pulled hard.

"Aaaaaooooww!" I screeched, in pain from the helmet clamping down on my head.

"What are these ponies?" The teacher asked in an exhausted voice, spent from 'defending' her school foals.

"They are the Night Guard, from the Nightmare Moon days. Ah! Don't worry, they're fine, just like Princess Luna is." The younger voice tried to reassure the teacher.

"Um... Mister? I can help you if you want." The voice of a filly said, with the guard still trying to rip my head out of the cubby hole.

"Sure, I'd appreciate the help." The guard released his grip of my flank, as I fell on my face from the cubby assembly turning ethereal entirely. I scrambled away from the wooden death trap as it came back into being, and the filly sat down on her haunches.

"I did it!" exclaimed the filly, who quickly inspected her flank to see if a cutie mark had appeared. Sadly, none did, and she quietly walked back to her seat with a pout.

"Hey, your face is weird. Your eyes are weird too. Your teeth are weird too!" A buck was saying, making me annoyed and I growled at him in an effort to make him go away, but it came out as a squeaky rumbling.

"Ha-ha. Your voice is funny!" he mocked, scampering off to his teacher. Realizing that I was getting angry with a Foal for being a Foal, I picked myself up and talked with the Royal Guards about Charmed.

"Yeah, well she tried to teleport all of you, but apparently only got about ten total. We've been looking around for you, and you're the last group that completed the teleport. The rest of 'em never left the platform. Yeah, they're all safe 'n sound, but we figured we'd just send you over to the University on Thursday, after the announcement speech on Wednesday.

"You mean, this isn't the university?" I asked.

"Nope, You're in Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns." He looked around a bit, before continuing. "You landed in Magic Kindergarden."