Author's Note

So something I want to mention before we continue.

As the number of chapters increases, there will be an increased chance for plotholes or contradictions to appear. As I wrote the third chapter, I found myself leaving our various bits from the previous two chapters, and you'll soon take notice that my style of writing changes suddenly as I had to scrap some ideas.

On the subject of scrapping ideas, some of which are due to various other forms of media influencing my work. I have to mention that even though this project is for fun, I want to give you viewers the highest satisfaction I can regarding the story elements, characters, and plot, so I try to be careful with how I write.

As of right now, the ratings of this story are 14:1, 165 views, bookshelves by 41 people, and being tracked by 21 people. I just want to say that I'm happy that things are turning this way, and I appreciate the support. But anyway, I believe it is now time for you guys to go on and read the next chapter. Feel free to drop by and offer some ideas as to how this story could go.

Death By Tickles

Chapter 3:

“You’re still not going to help me, aren’t you?” Gallus asked as Midnight couldn’t help but give a smile. Seeing that his new superior wasn’t going to do anything at all, the young griffon groaned before completely collapsing onto the floor, causing the young pegasi to shake his head.

“Tck tck tck. A shame that you weren’t able to do a single sit-up.” The blue pegasi commented, before examining the griffon’s body. “You barely even have any muscle on you.” Midnight commented as the griffon groaned, realizing he could’ve just rolled over onto his legs and lifted himself that way. Tired from all of his efforts, the griffon laid on the ground as he responded.

“Of course I don’t. I lived in Griffonstone for my entire life. We barely have enough food to go around, much less gain some muscle.” Gallus commented, as he slowly began to regain his strength. After recovering a bit of his stamina, the griffon rolled onto his legs and lifted himself, only to fall again onto the floor as his legs gave out. With an unamused face, the young griffon let out one complaint.

“… Why?”

Not wanting to let this continue, the young blue pegasi begrudgingly helped the griffon up, though not without a fair punishment as Gallus nearly barfed upon being suplexed by the young pegasi, before being set onto the floor.

“W-Why d-did you do that-!?” The young griffon asked as the feeling of nausea coursed through his entire body. Midnight couldn’t help but laugh as he began to properly help Gallus by planting his feet onto the ground firmly.

“Well, you did ask me to lift you, but you never told me how.” The lieutenant general stated, laughing a bit. “As for the muscle and food problem, I wouldn’t worry if I were you. You’ll be eating enough food for those muscles to grow in no time.” The young pegasi assured before looking at the young griffon. “You did eat before coming here right?”

With Gallus shaking his head, Midnight face-hooved before he began to lead Gallus outside of Shining’s office and towards the cafeteria, grabbing him by the shoulder to make sure that he wouldn’t collapse onto the floor again. Passing through the large white doors, Midnight signaled the young griffon to come towards the lunchmare who was already preparing food for breakfast. Noticing the two boys, she smiles as she leaned over the counter to greet them.

“Hey, Midnight! Who’s the young fella?” The golden earth pony says as she examines the blue griffon. Wanting to address her, Gallus lifts one of his claws to wave at her, smiling while doing so. After clearing his throat, Midnight began to present the two to each other.

“Well let me introduce you to him. This is Gallus. Gallus, this is the cafeteria mare who never bothered to mention her name to me.” Midnight said casually, causing Gallus to snicker as the lunchmare deadpanned before rolling her eyes.

“Welp I guess that’s what I earn after flirting with him without ever mentioning my name…” The golden mare muttered before smiling again. “Well my name is Sunny Side ‘Up’, what could I do for ya? And no, the ‘Up’ part isn’t part of my name.” The mare added before the young griffon could comment on that part of her name. Meanwhile, Midnight took the opportunity to order for the recruit

“How about a bagel?” The young blue pegasi requested, which the golden mare happily obliged. After buttering up the two sides of bread with cream cheese and jelly, the lunch mare passed the tasty treat to the hungry griffon who immediately began to wolf it down. “And if you want I could order another one for you.” Midnight said, smiling upon seeing his subordinate savoring the meal.

“What about you? Are you going to eat anything?” The golden mare asked the blue pegasi, who shook his head.

“You know me, I don’t need to eat much. I’ve trained enough for my body to become efficient enough with what I already had last night.” Midnight responded, waiting for the young griffon to finish his meal before patting him in the back. “Alright, it’s time to leave. Say your goodbye if you want.” The young blue pegasi said, and thus Gallus waved goodbye at the golden mare who simply smiled.

“Hope things go well for you in the military. Cause you’ll need it.” The golden mare said as Gallus and Midnight left the cafeteria. Looking back at the mare as they walked outside of the cafeteria, the young griffon asked Midnight a question that had been bugging him since her introduction.

“So it’s true that she never told her name to you? Even though she was flirting with you?” Gallus asked, with visible confusion on his face. After blinking for a moment, the young blue pegasi looked at him, his head tilting to the side.

“Yeah, she never told me her name. Wonder why.” Midnight said, not even hearing Gallus state the fact that she had flirted with him, as if he was either unaware or didn’t care. “Anyways, considering that this is your first day, I won’t train you till tomorrow. I know how stressful it must’ve been to apply, so instead, I’ll be asking you some basic questions. I want to know you better so that my training style will fit you the best. Alright?” Midnight asked. Seeing this as a better alternative than falling onto the ground for the next few hours, Gallus decided to agree to this.

“Yes sir.”

“And don’t call me sir, at least for now. I’m barely younger than you, and it feels weird that an eighteen-year-old is saying ‘sir’ to another eighteen-year-old. I’m not that old. So just call me by my name which is Midnight. Got that?” The young blue pegasi said, his eyes darting to the side as he still felt a bit uncomfortable being referred to as ‘sir’.

“Hmph, you remind me what Headmaster Twilight Sparkle wrote in her Friendship Journal, and how she wasn’t comfortable being called a Princess, especially by her friends,” Gallus stated, recalling one of the lessons that Twilight and her friends taught him in their Friendship School. Midnight couldn’t help but let out a soft laugh.

“Oh, you mean the Friendship Journal? Yeah, I read that too during my free time. Even though my studies are now solely related to the military, I can’t help but learn other things, which was something I picked up from Twilight.” The young pegasi said with a grin, causing Gallus to raise an eyebrow.

“You’re making it sound like you two knew each other.” The young griffon commented, but this time Midnight placed a hoof on his beak as he chuckled.

“Hey hey now, I said that I was going to be the one asking questions, not you. Perhaps I will answer that, but in due time.” The young pegasi said in a fashion that showed that he was not diverting the question but simply preferred to have things go the way he planned. After considering between the option of pressing on his question or going with the flow, Gallus nodded.

“Alright, guess I could ask that question later. Hit me up.” The young griffon said, before doubling over as he felt the young blue pegasi uppercutting his stomach. As the young griffon began to groan onto the ground, Midnight couldn’t help but smile.

“Hey! Why did you hit me!?” The young griffon said, clutching his stomach. At least it didn’t hurt, but it certainly caught him off guard.

“You told me to ‘Hit you up’.” The blue pegasi said, smiling not because he liked to inflict pain, but because he liked using their words against themselves.

“I-”

“Not Sorry. And consider it as part of your training. If worse comes to pass you’re going to have to take a lot of hits, so either learn to dodge or learn how to cope with the pain. Alright, kid?” The young blue pegasi, his grin becoming even wider as Gallus began to protest.

“We’re the same age, don’t call me a kid-”

“Well somebody’s going to have to annoy and mess around with you like it always happens in those military stories. Look at the bright side though. At least you won’t get bored to death by the other guys.” Midnight said, and slowly the young griffon began to smile, before beginning to stand up again.

“Welp, at least that’s something good I have in for me. So when are you going to start asking those ques-”

“DODGE!”

“Ow!”

“Not Sorry.” Midnight said after ‘lightly’ punching Gallus in the stomach again, barely giving him time to properly place his feet on the floor as the griffon fell onto the ground again. The griffon simply deadpanned as he remained on the floor.

“You’re going to keep doing that right?”

“Yep.”

“Every. Single. Day?”

“Nope.”

“Then when-”

“DODGE!”

“Ow!”

“Whenever I feel like it, and I think I have enough fun today.” Midnight said, trying his best not to laugh at the fallen griffon. Gallus let out a sigh of relief as he began to lift himself again.

“Oh great! Now I’ll finally be able to go through an hour without my face being on the-”

“DODGE!”

“Ow!”

“Never let your guard down, that’s one of the many rules that I made up that you’ll have to be learning. Now let’s go to the gym, I’m itching for some training.” The young blue pegasi said, stretching his wings as he guided him towards the gym.

“But what about the ques-”

“DODGE!”

“Ow!”

After going to the gym to continue his ‘training’ with Midnight, the young light blue griffon fell onto the ground for what felt like the thousandth time as his superior stretched his wings, smirking at the young griffon. Midnight had begun to ‘teach’ Gallus the ways of dodging, to ‘feel the wind before the blow’, but unfortunately for Gallus… he wasn’t getting the hang of it to say the least.

“I think it’s time for us to end this session.” The young blue pegasi said, causing the young griffon to groan.

“Yeah, no kidding,” Gallus said, wanting to enter a hint of sarcasm. Unfortunately, when he tried to do it the first time, their lesson, instead of ending two hours ago, went on till right now, something the young griffon regretted. He found out the hard way that either Midnight took jokes too seriously or that he liked to turn them against his opponents. It’s not like Midnight didn’t know how to tell jokes, he had managed to cause Gallus to laugh a few dozen times before he hit him again, obviously, but it seemed that he wanted to teach Gallus some of the rules in a more… ‘unconventional’ way.

“No, I’m serious. It’s already sunset.” The blue pegasi said, causing the young griffon to look up towards the huge windows that adorned the walls of the gym, and sure enough, the sun was no longer visible, having already set over the horizon, with Luna’s moon taking its place.

“How I’m not surprised… are we going to eat now?” The young blue griffon asked as he began to lift himself. Surprisingly though, he found out that he was able to do the task much more easily compared to earlier that day. Perhaps it was because he had a decent meal, or maybe because Midnight’s ‘unconventional’ way of teaching did work. He remembered how his professors would teach him in the Friendship School, and while he initially thought their methods of teaching were absurd, he slowly realized that he found himself learning much faster the magic of friendship, which allowed him to connect with his friends. Perhaps Midnight’s teachings were based on those principles, being both weird, but also helpful.

“Yeah, let’s eat, you deserve it. I honestly expected that you’d give up a few hours back so we could go ahead and do our survey, but I guess we’ll be doing that when we eat.” Midnight said, with an amused smile appearing on his face as Gallus simply stared at him. “Yes, you could’ve just given up easily and I would’ve been fine with it, but what would you learn from that? Nothing. Most of the guards choose ‘the easy’ path, doing the minimum they have to do to pass. I attribute this as one of the main causes that our military is a bit defunct. No, not a bit. It’s a complete train wreck. The guard is more of a propaganda thing than anything, hence why the Changeling Invasion… went as bad as it went.” Midnight said, his voice trailing off a bit at the mentioning of that event, before smiling at Gallus. “But you? Well, you continuously pushed on, even when your body screamed not to. That’s some type of determination that I’ve never seen before, and something I’m rather impressed with. You might be weak at this moment, but I do not doubt that you’ll become the next Captain of the Royal Guard someday in the future. Of course, you’re going to be trained how I want you to be trained because I feel like the other way is inefficient at best. It will be hard, but it’ll make you a better guard compared to others, alright?” Midnight said, smirking a bit, but he could tell that the young griffon was still somewhat unamused.

“Does hitting me to the ground for a straight six hours count as part of my ‘training’?” Gallus asked, causing Midnight to nervously chuckle before laughing.

“Yep. Those counts. As long as it works, it works. But anyway I think you’d prefer to go to the cafeteria for a nice plate of food instead of being thrown to the floor for the next few hours right? And hey. Just because I can throw sneak attacks doesn’t mean you can’t. I think Shining Armor said that you have a history of causing pranks back in the Friendship School. I plan to use everything I know about you so that my program could suit you, which is why I’ll be giving you those questions that you asked me before soon.” The young lieutenant general said as he lifted Gallus, cleaning the dust and sweat from him before guiding him back to the cafeteria.

“I’m going to be so sore tomorrow am I?” The young griffon asked, causing Midnight to softly smile.

“You will. Luckily for you, I’m a nice pony, and so there’ll be this schedule of intense training days followed by more peaceful ones. Depending on how well you’re going, those peaceful ones might either become a free day or just some light training or meditation. If I constantly beat you up every single day, not only would we get bored, but you won’t gain much growth, since muscles need both training and rest to grow. Sounds fair?”

“Better than being bored every single day right?” Gallus groaned as he began to lift himself, causing Midnight to smile yet again.

“Now that’s the spirit! So who do you think I most resemble out of all of your professors?” Midnight asked, starting his series of questions as he helped the young griffon maintain his balance on the floor. After thinking about it for a moment the young blue griffon answered.

“Rainbow Dash. She’s one of the cooler teachers, but also a bit annoying, especially when it comes to pranks. And considering you threw me down at least a hundred times, you’re around her level in terms of annoyance… a good annoyance mind you. She on the other… hoof? Claw? Hand? Erm… not so much.” Gallus stated, causing Midnight to smirk.

“Well unfortunately for you, Shining Armor is on the lookout for her, because she’s been pranking a lot of ponies within this military base, and if she finds you, welp I’m guessing that you’ll be having a bad time am I right?” Midnight asks, to which Gallus thinks about it for a moment.

“Probably yes. I’m no longer her student, so she has no obligation to limit herself anymore towards me. She could prank me as much as she wants and I won’t be able to do much against her.” The young griffon responded, already dreading such an event. Soon the two reached the cafeteria doors, and after meeting Sunny Side again and ordering their food, the two sat next to each other to begin the survey.

“So, any reason you wanted to join the Royal Guard? Was it to become stronger? To protect others? Or simply out of curiosity?” Midnight asked, causing Gallus to ponder on how he wanted to say his words.

“Well I came here for various reasons… and well… one of them is Griffonstone.” The young griffon said after a short moment of silence, causing Midnight to become a bit confused.

“Griffonstone? Ain’t that your home? Are you trying to say to me that you hated that place and never wanted to come back there? Isn’t that the place where Gilda and Gabby are? Are they not your friends? And what about reconstructing that city? Surely you could’ve become part of it right?” Midnight asks, to which Gallus simply sighed.

“You wouldn’t understand. Any memories I had there, weren’t the best, to say the least. I didn’t want to go back there, heck, I even destroyed a holiday or two to stay in Ponyville instead of Griffonstone, it’s that bad. Sure, Gilda and Gabby are ok, but I feel that they, especially Gilda, are meant to be there. I… I didn’t have a place there. And so instead of returning home after graduating from the Friendship School, I decided to conscript. At least I had a better chance of seeing my friends here than back home.” The griffon said, not sounding thrilled anymore. Midnight after understanding Gallus’s dilemma nods.

“Alright, I won’t judge. Is one of your goals is to be the Captain of the Royal Guard? It’s usually what every guard wants to become, and yet few put the effort in to do so.” Midnight asks, to which Gallus ponders about it again.

“Sort of. Don’t get me wrong that position is alluring, but well… if I were to become the Captain of the Royal Guard, well there would be one nice little quirk there.” Gallus said, smiling as he saw Midnight thinking about it for a moment before shrugging.

“I don’t know where you’re going with that. Explain.” Midnight asked.

“Oh well, I don’t know… being with Headmaster Twilight?” Gallus said, before gulping when he saw Midnight smiling, and given that Gallus hadn’t learned how to read faces, he began to think of the worst outcome, which caused his face to begin to blush. “Ok ok! Not in that way. I don’t look at her in… ya know? That specific way. But she’d be… another close friend that I’d have here if I were to be in the military ok? Midnight please, don’t think that I… like her in… that way.” Galus said, his body twitching as his face only became redder. Midnight on the other hoof simply laughed.

“I don't even know what you’re talking about, that’s what makes this so funny. What were you thinking that I was thinking about? And that’s a question that you’re going to have to answer.” Midnight stated, laughing even harder as the griffon began to stammer.

“I-I… I… Uh… No No No No! P-please! A-Any question but that one!” Gallus said, his claws on his face as he tried his best to cover his ever-increasing blush. The young blue pegasi couldn’t help but laugh as Gallus began to break down through his embarrassment and blushes.

“Welp you’re going to have to answer that. I have no idea what you’re talking about and a bit of knowledge wouldn’t mind. My friend was supposed to tell me at lunch and I haven’t seen her in… oh.” Midnight’s voice began to trail off as he began to realize something. At the same time, Gallus began to realize a shadow slowly creeping towards the young blue pegasi and realizing that Gallus was looking at something, Midnight simply gulped.

“She’s behind me isn’t she?” Midnight said, a hint of fear within his voice. For a moment, Gallus was a bit surprised that this was happening, before slowly nodding to answer his question. Sweating even harder as he felt the shadows touching his back, the young stallion decided to utter a few more words. “Before I ultimately die from being tickled to death, just know one rule… Don’t mess around with Moonlight…” The young blue pegasi said, before flapping his wings as hard as he could, barely holding back a yelp as a familiar purple thestral mare nearly grabbed him by the legs, her eyes penetrating deep into his soul as he began to fly away as fast as he could.

“I had to wait… for six bucking hours, nearly falling over and sleeping on the floor twenty times in a row, only to see that you forgot about our meeting?! You aren’t just going to get tickled to death! No siree mister! I’m making sure that you’re going to lose all nine lives from death by tickling!” The nocturnal pony said, grinning madly while showing a playful side, before flapping her wings and taking off towards the fleeing blue pegasi.

“Please! Have mercy!” Midnight yelled as he barely dodged another one of Moonlight’s tackle attacks. “Why don’t you be like Shining who always lets Rainbow off the hook?”

“Well that’s because he’s too slow to catch her, but unfortunately for you, you’re the slowpoke here… and now… I’ve got you!” The thestral said as she finally was able to grab Midnight by the waist before they crashed through the open window.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO- Ack!” The sound of Moonlight laughing and Midnight being tortured through tickles filled Gallus’s ears, who couldn’t help but lightly laugh as he continued to hear his superior struggle against the mare. “N-No! P-Please! Stop it! Y-you’re m-my only weakness! Stop tickling me! Stop. STOP!”

As Moonlight began dragging Midnight away towards her chambers so that she could properly tickle him as much as she wanted fills Gallus’s ears, the young griffon can’t help but smile, seeing this as a way of the universe repaying Midnight what he had done to Gallus. Perhaps this place wasn’t so bad after all.