Lazy Bones

~Prologue~

The world snapped into focus as light faded around the unicorn, he swayed on the spot threatening to collapse, but quickly felt two pairs of hooves take his weight.

“Clearly, that long ranged teleport needs a little refinement,” he said glancing up at his rescuers. The elder of the two just smirked before letting go, satisfied that if he could make jokes, he could also stand on his own four hooves.

“My apologies for the delay,” he said stifling a yawn, “I was in the middle of some tedious business when your message arrived.”

“Not at all,” the older of the two pegasi assured him, “we appreciate the effort it took you to come here at all on such short notice.”

With that said, all three silently agreed it was time to start walking, and so the elderly unicorn followed his two escorts down the cobblestone street as they explained the situation.

“It was actually junior here who discovered the anomaly,” the older continued, gesturing at his younger and somewhat unsure partner, “normally this kind of thing could wait until morning, but in this case… well you’ll understand when we get there.”

“No, no, of course, I trust your judgement Mason,” the unicorn said before turning his attention to the younger Pegasus who so far hadn’t uttered a word, “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure, Glyph, at your service.”

The young Pegasus seemed taken aback at the sudden address, “oh… uh… pleasure, of course,” he stammered hurriedly, “I mean… Feather Duster, at your service.”

Mason and Glyph both laughed at this, only increasing the colt’s anxieties. “Oh my boy,” Glyph said in a fatherly tone, “there’s no need to be nervous, your among friends here. I take it you’re a new recruit them?”

Feather Duster looked briefly up at Mason, as if hoping he would answer for him, when it was apparent he wasn’t he looked back at Glyph, “first month on the job.”

“Don’t worry, it gets easier I assure you,” Glyph said offering him a comforting smile, “I remember I was once in your horse shoes myself.”

“You… you were a guard?” Feather Duster asked in disbelief.

“Yes, I was in the same garrison as Mason back in Canterlot, this was before I became a high wizard of course,” Glyph explained, Feather Duster stared in awe at Glyph and Mason as they began reminiscing about their time in the guard together.

“Oh Celestia, do you remember Back Bone?”

“Do I? I don’t remember feeling more glad to be on solid ground after flying with him.” The pair laughed together, before Mason suddenly realised they had arrived at their destination. The three stood outside what looked to be an abandoned mill, Feather Duster hurriedly dashed forward and began fiddling with the padlock on the door.

“Odd place to find a disturbance like the one you described,” Glyph commented, Mason just nodded in agreement as Feather Duster stepped back from the door.

The inside of the building didn’t look any more inviting than the outside. Lighting his horn, Glyph followed Mason closely, Feather Duster shutting the door behind them. Together they navigated the dilapidated corridors until they arrived in a wide room, Glyph presumed it was once used for production, but what really caught his attention was what lay in the centre of the room. Approaching it cautiously Glyph cocked his head slightly, examining what lay before him. It looked almost like a rip in the floor, a tear which was emitting an eerie red glow.

“What do you think?” Mason asked at his side. Glyph wasn’t sure what to think, he was a high wizard in Celestia’s court, in charge of all research into natural magical disturbances, and he could fathom a guess at what he was looking at now.

“How did you come across this?” he asked over his shoulder at Feather Duster who remained a few feet back.

“I received a tip off a thief was hiding out here,” he began to explain, “When I came to investigate I found this, but… it was smaller then, not as wide.”

“Hmm…” Glyph thought about this, “how long ago was that?”

“Um… it couldn’t have been more than six hours,” he responded unsure.

“Well there’s no doubt that whatever this is, it’s expanding, and at a fast rate by the sounds of it,” Glyph confirmed turning back to the other two who were watching him expectantly, “you were definitely right to alert me to this.”

“Could it be dangerous?” Mason asked a hint of worry in his voice.

“Unfortunately I can’t answer that,” Glyph admitted, “I don’t have enough data to make any solid presumptions yet.”

Glyph considered the matter more, he wasn’t satisfied it was urgent enough to alert the princess or any other higher authority, it might be wise to request the aid of a few other unicorns from the castle, at the very least send word of this discovery, but…

“I’m confident that whatever this is, I can analyse it fully myself,” he announced at last turning back to the rip in the floor boards. Crouching down he lowered his horn until it was mere inches away from the… thing. He could feel the power it was emitting, strange; it was completely unfamiliar to him.

Again he considered backing away and requesting help before proceeding, but again he dismissed it and continued to focus his magic. For the next several minutes Mason and Feather Duster stood silently, waiting with baited breath for something, anything to happen. Then, without warning, a faint click echoed through the room causing all three to glance up quickly.

“What was…” Mason began, but before he could finish, the rip burst open. Mason snapped his eyes shut as the room was flooded with the strange light that had previously been sealed rip on the ground. The last thing he saw before shutting his eyes was Glyph being hurled away from where he sat.

He didn’t remember falling to the ground, but sure enough, as he opened his eyes, he found himself in a crumpled heap in the corner of the room. His vision swam before him, the light was gone, but now something else stood in the room with them. He must have hit his head because whatever it was he was seeing double… no, triple… what was he seeing? Rubbing his eyes he stared up at the room, and the things that now surrounded him.

“Wakey wakey,” came a voice and Mason shuddered, that voice… it was unlike anything he’d ever heard before, it sounded neither male nor female, instead it was some kind of twisted mockery of the two. His vision finally clearly he made out what was speaking, leering down over him was… something, it was nightmarish, it had the body of a pony, a pony whose limbs had been twisted and warped, a pony whose skin was a translucent ooze dripping slowly to the floor, a pony that looked like it had been moulded from clay by someone who was blind… and a little bit demented.

But the worst part was the face, the eyes were out of proportion with one another, and stretched comically wide, and instead of a mouth there was simply a wide gash literally stretching from ear to ear. Mason shook in revulsion and barely disguised terror at what stood over him, he tried to form words but found his mouth was too dry, he tried to stand up but found his limbs were too weak. The creature observed his struggling and laughed again.

“Lazy bones,” it mocked, “you don’t deserve to be called captain.”

With that it bent down, it mouth stretching wide and wrapping across his head. Before he could even comprehend what was going on he felt its jaw compressing, felt the slate grey helmet upon his head shatter and his whole skull vibrating, threatening to shatter under the force of the things mouth. But surprisingly death didn’t come; instead the creature reared up and spat him back out, his body flailing to the floor again. All around him was laughter, twisted demonic laughter, and looking back up he realised in horror that what he’d seen earlier wasn’t the result of hitting his head.

Standing all around him were six identical creatures, all leering down at him with their identical wide eyes, and their identical smiles. As he stared up at the horrific faces looming over him, he felt the last of his courage slip away; tears welled up in his eyes as he thought desperately of his friends in the guard, his parents in Manehattan, his marefriend waiting back at home. The creature watched this, their smiles growing impossibly wider, and then one broke the silence, whether it was the same one as before or if the all sounded identical as well Mason would never know.

“This… will be fun.”

Sometime later, how long exactly these creatures didn’t know, to them the passage of time was a nuisance they chose to ignore. Looking down at the three bloody heaps of the guards and the wizard they laughed again, deriving great pleasure from the time spent with their new friends. It was only when they heard gently clopping of hooves on the wooden floor that they all fell silent and turned to face the seventh member of their group. It walked slowly between them; they parted respectfully to allow it to pass unhindered to the body of the unicorn. While this one too was identical to the others, anyone looking in from the outside could tell there was a difference in this one that ran deeper than mere physical appearance.

As it reached the unicorn it crouched low, examining the body. He was still breathing, good, that would make things easier. Reaching forward with a hoof it placed it between the unicorn's eyes, which were fluttering gently. Taking a few seconds to gather itself the creature pushed forward, its hoof sinking through the unicorn's skull, whose eyes shot open in agony as the creature pushed itself further and further into his mind. And as it did it began to feel things, it felt itself walking the streets of Canterlot, felt itself sitting in the library studying, felt as the unicorn had felt.

Then when the creature was satisfied it was wearing the unicorns mind like a glove it began shuffling through the archives of knowledge stored there, glancing briefly at one, dismissing it and moving on to the next. The creature felt after a while it was getting nowhere when at last it arrived at a memory that made it stop for some reason. Nothing about this memory seemed significant at first; the unicorn was just standing in a crowd in the Canterlot castle, staring up at a raised alter where six mares stood gathered in front of Celestia… CELESTIA! Back in the real world the creature clutched it’s chest in undisguised anguish with its free foreleg as suddenly it could feel its fury bubbling to the surface and for a brief moment was about to liquefy the unicorns mind there and then, but then something caught its attention, something about the way Celestia looked down at one of the six mares in particular.

After gazing over a few other memories to confirm what the creature suspected, it finally pulled out of the unicorn and turned to its six siblings who were waiting expectantly for it to finish. Then one stepped forward and addressed it.

“Did you get what you needed brother? Is it time to kill Celestia?” it asked, while they may all appear identical and above all gender neutral, they knew each other intimately.

“No… we’re not going to kill Celestia,” he announced causing the other six to exchange confused glances, but he just smiled, his grin cutting his face in half as he thought of that purple unicorn Celestia had looked at so fondly, “we’re going to destroy her!”