//------------------------------//
// Storming the Castle 
// Story: Rest for the Wicked 
// by Lost In A Vacuum 
//------------------------------//

	Mordecai surveyed the town from the hill he was on top of. It looked suprisingly small from his view point. He was out hunting, trying to clear his mind and get his priorities striaght. He then heard rustling in a bush behind him. He pointed his gun in the direction of the noise. Nothing moved for a few seconds. He kept the sights trained on the bushes. Finally a small, purple dragon slowly walked out of the bush. Mordecai focused his sights again.
"Wait!" Spike said with his hands up, out of breath. "You gotta help me! My friend! She's in trouble and needs HELP!"
Mordecai lowered his gun and turned his back. "Tough luck, kid. I see friends die every day. What difference does YOUR situation make?" He said in a low mumble.
Spike then pulled out a bag filled with pure gold bits and showed it off to Mordecai, "This." Mordecai walked over and picked up the bag. It was very heavy and was surprised that this little dragon could carry it. He thought about running off with it, but relised that if this little guy could carry all this wieght like it was nothing, he might be a problem.
"Deal." Mordecai said eyeing Spike.
"Great! Let's go. Hurry!" Mordecai followed the dragon as they bolted through the woods. Mordecai couldn't help but feel a little suspisious about the dragon. Either this was a trap or he was a real wimp, he was a DRAGON after all. He should be able to do whatever he wants. They finally came upon a castle in the middle of the woods. Just as they left the brush a large barage of gunfire from the castle was shot at them. They jumped back into the bush.
"What the hell was THAT!?" Mordecai yelled. "Is this a TRAP!?" He pulled out his knife.
"NO! They're the one who took Twilight!"
"Twilight?" Mordecai thought for a moment, was this the same Twilight that HE was looking for? "Shit!" He then pulled out a spare submachine gun and began to return fire from behind the bushes. A grenade bounced over the cover. Mordecai pulled Spike by the neck and threw him in front of the bushes. He saw the gunmen and instantly knew that he was going to die. He closed his eyes. He then felt the pound of bullets against his scales. He didn't die though. He opened his eyes to see that Mordecai was using him as a meat shield!
"WHAT THE BUCK!" He yelled at the man behind him. He then looked to see that the bullets began to ricochet off his scales.
"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! You're a god damn DRAGON. You got SCALES! I got flesh! And these guys aren't packing SHIT! Just take it like a man." They finally got to cover and he threw Spike back onto the ground. They had managed to get up some stairs and got behind a large pillar on the castle grounds. Spike saw the lady from before.
"Follow me!" He yelled to Mordecai as he ran towards the woman. Mordecai saw Lilth also battling the bandits and ran to her side.
"Long time no see, Lilth!" He said behind her. She jumped a little from the surprise.
"GOD DAMNIT, MORT! Don't sneak up on me like that!" She then continued firing at where she thought the men were.
"Care to explain why you bailed on us!?" Mordecai asked before also returning gunfire.
"REALLY!? You want to talk about this NOW!?"
"Oh, you've been in a firefight before. Just answer me this: What the fuck man!"
"I thought we might not make it so I bailed. Happy? If it make you feel any better, can you sleep at night now!?" Mordecai then saw a bandit load an RPG and fire it at the three.
"INCOMING!" He yelled. Lilth then burst into a bright blue spark. The rest of the world suddenly slowed down. She got her barings and saw where the rocket was coming form. She then grabbed the two by the collar and pulled them out of the rocket's blast radius.
To the men it seemed that they blinked and then they were saved. It was time like this that Mordecai really thought that Lilth was an actual angel.
"What's the status on her whereabouts?"
"Twilight's? She's in the castle, that's for sure... since we're asking questions, what's your deal with her?"
"Pay. What's YOUR deal with her?"
"She's a good friend, okay?" Mordecai didn't know how to process this. Lilth wasn't the greatest people person he knew. There had to be more than just a friendship here, but he would find out what later. They slowly worked closer and closer towards the entrance of the castle. The two managed to rack up quite a kill count by the time they did. It was odd though, the were SO many bandits, all trying to protect this Twilight pony. Maybe she was worth it.
They finally reached the giant doors. Lilth provided cover fire as the two others pushed the heavy wooden doors open. When they did enter the castle walls, they quickly shut the doors on the bandits. The three heard a rocket collide with the door, but it still held. That should buy them enough time to find Twilight. The two mercenaries suddenly began to take this matter professionaly. They slowly checked each room as they stayed as quite as possible. Any time they came across a possible enemy, they would carefully decommission the patrolman.
Spike then heard some sort of chanting when they neared a ballroom. He alerted the others as he began to peek into a crack in the door. He finally got a good look at Twilight's captors. They were a large assortment of various species of animals, spanning from humans to ponies, some gryphons, a zebra here and there, and even a buffalo. They all idlely sat, staring at the large wall. As Lilth had approached the small dragon she decided to take out another watchman. Just as the guard hit the ground, Spike saw one of the figures in the room instantly get up, grab a weapon, and head out another door. Mordecai also saw this and thought of an idea. He slowly opened the door and approached the group. Lilth tried to stop him but he assured her with a simple look.
He crept up behind one of the entranced ponies, keeping his submachine gun up all the while. He slowly brought his hand in front of the pony's face and slowly waved it up and down.
The pony did nothing.
He then pulled out one of his bad pistols and began popping a bullet into everyone of the animal's heads. Spike screamed, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?" He ran over to Mordecai to stop him.
"I'm taking these guys out before they get up." He returned as he continued to kill the helpless animals. Lilth stopped him.
"He has a point. Maybe there is a way to help these guys." Mordecai observed the sitting beings. Their eyes were oozing a black slime, and they all kept mumbling softly inaudible chants of sorts. They looked around the entire ballroom. There was a few dusty scrolls here and there, but nothing else. Spike decided to take a few, they might catch a nice price in the market.
Outside, one of the 'bandits' accidentally fell off the side of the wall, he died on impact.
Inside, another 'bandit' awoke from his trance and got up to replace his fallen bretheren. He was almost out the door when he saw the three intruders.
"AAAIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEE!" The rest of the entranced animals suddenly broke from there trance and also got up. The all looked at the intrders and, all at the same exact time, pulled out a small knife from their belt with either their mouth or hands. They all jumped at the three.
Mordecai could only yell "GO!" before a knife was thrown into his shoulder. He clutched his shoulder as one of the 'bandits' jumped on top of him. He didn't even grab Mordecai, he just let his body weight hold him down as the others surrounded him. A large volly of knives was just about to come down upon him before they all stopped in mid-swipe. They all backed away as a few ponies had picked him up and carried him over their backs.
Mordecai couldn't move. There must've been some sort of paralysis inducing drug on the tips of the blades. He blacked out for a moment.
Lilth had only managed to use her siren ability to escape with Spike. She felt bad for abandoning Mordecai but carefully followed the group of 'cultists' as they carried Mordecai's unconscience body. They headed for the throne room as the group began to chant some more. They reached the throne room as the group then threw Mordecai's body onto the ground in front of a large dark figure. The figure observed the body. It motioned it to a table on the other ide of the room. The cultists had hooked up Mordecai to a large blood transfusion machine. One of the zombies had flipped a switch as the machine then began to take blood from Mordecai. Lilth pulled out her sniper rifle as she lined up a shot at the machine.
She took a shot and managed to stop the machine from working. She then decided to add insult to injury as she also took a shot at a large container of a red liquid titled "Element" and another titled "Hero". She then pulled out her submachine gun and began to gun down the oncoming horde of attackers.
She was fairly decent at keeping the attackers at bay for the moment, then some cultists with firearms had joined the fight. Lilth flipped over a table for cover. The cultists didn't bother to head for cover, they just stood out in the open firing from the hip. The charging cultists were getting closer and closer. Lilth still didn't have enough energy to make another escape using her ability. She threw a grenade at her own feet and jumped out of the cover. As the cultist moved toward Lilth's old cover a giant fireball erupted from the turned over table, consuming most of the group. A few bullets grazed Lilth's elbow and calf as she ran for more cover. She could hardly lift her gun to return fire. She threw a few more grenades, but the cultists had gotten smart enough to throw them back. She was getting backed into a corner of the ballroom as she retreated to more cover away from the slowly advancing horde of enemies.
She had finally gotten stuck between the back wall and another flipped table. One of the cultists had thrown another grenade. Then finally she had gotten enough energy to use her ability once more. A large blue flash sparked as she ran past the nearly frozen cultists. She loaded one of her enhanced submachineguns and stood right behind the crowd. Just as her abiliy ended she opened fire upon the group. When her clip ran dry, she had disabled the entire crowd. The entire room was quite, except for the occasional moan. The dark figure that had remained at the throne the entire time finally spoke up.
"I had not seen such ability here before." The figure said in a deep, feminine voice. "You are not of normal human attributes. You shall make the greatest of trophies in my collection." Lilth loaded another magzine in her weapon.
"Who are you?" She asked the now standing pony.
"If you wish to know, join me." She said with a slight grin on her face. "Join me and have ALL your questions and MORE answered!"
"Pfft! Like I'm gonna fall for that!" She raised her weapon.
"What a shame. You could've had so much potential." The dark pony then began to mumble some words very softly. Sunddenly every single one of the dead cultists had shot up. They were oozing more black goo this time. Lilth raised her weapon at the pony and began to open fire. Unfortunately some of the cultists had moved in front up the bullets and made a wall as others began to surround Lilth. Lilth's weapon then clicked. She reached into her bag for more ammo but only felt air. The dark pony then returned to her throne and at the base of the throne a large black hole opened. Out of the hole crawled an entire pack of were-skaggs. Lilth looked around her, all she had left was an automatic pistol and she was surrounded on all sides. Her ability wasn't even half-way done recharging. She took a deep breath.
Then the throne door blasted off it's hinges. Out of the thick smoke a volly of rockets flew. Roland ran towards the crowd of enemies and yelled, "YEAH, BABY! GET SOME!"