//------------------------------// // All I Want to do is Go Back to Bed // Story: A Hiss in the Dark // by Knight Breeze //------------------------------//         Prince Blueblood cantered at a brisk pace, not really sure why he was doing what he was doing, but he did it nonetheless.  “Let’s see, left at the maid’s quarters, a right at the kitchens... “ Blueblood muttered to himself.         Get up and move...         Blueblood was more focused on this than he had been on anything else in his entire life.  He wasn’t sure what that voice had been, only that he needed to follow what it had said.  It wasn’t some compulsion that drove him, either; just the sheer terror he had felt at those words. Follow these directions… “Of course, that’s assuming I’m not actually going insane,” Blueblood said out loud as he continued to follow the directions he had been given.  “I mean, I haven’t exactly been myself, not since…” Or everything you know and love… Blueblood shook his head ruefully as he slowed down.  “Seriously… I really need to see a psychiatrist…” he mumbled to himself.  “Now I’m jumping at the voices in my head?  Really?  I should just go home and hope that the voice doesn’t-” He was about to turn around and head back, but stopped dead in his tracks when an odd procession marched around the corner;  There were five ponies in all, four of them marching in the manner that Blueblood had come to expect from the royal guard, each taking position around a fifth pony.  The fifth was somepony he easily recognized, though she really wasn’t the reason why he stopped. “Excuse me, but where are you off to?” Blueblood asked as he stepped towards the strange procession. This immediately got the attention of all of the guards, as well as the white mare with the purple mane and tail that they were escorting.  To be fair, the last time they had met, he hadn’t been the… best of stallions.  Which is why he wasn’t too surprised that all she gave him was an annoyed huff and an upturned nose. “We’re escorting the Bearer of the Element of Generosity to a safer location,” the sergeant in charge said with a salute. “Ah… of course.  Actually, I was hoping to get a chance to speak with Miss Rarity, if you don’t mind,” Blueblood said pompously. The guards gave each other a look, then back at the prince.  Before any of them could speak, however, they were beaten to the punch by the angry mare in the middle.  “What could you possibly want from me?” the white unicorn said with another huff of impatience. Oh boy, think fast… what could you say to her to get her to walk with you for a second? Blueblood thought to himself.  Before the silence could go on for an awkward length of time, however, an idea suddenly came to the prince.  “If you’ll forgive me, the matter I wish to discuss is something rather sensitive, something that Auntie Celestia wished for me to tell you in private.” The guards all mumbled at that, but didn’t object as Blueblood sidled through the surrounding guards and held out a hoof to the mare between them.  “We’ll just be using that room over there, and then I’ll be out of your hair.” Rarity gave the prince a suspicious glare at that, but eventually relented.  “Oh, very well, lead on.”         Blueblood was about to lead the white unicorn towards the room in question, but was stopped by the guard before he managed to take two steps.  “Hold it, we’ll need to check the room first,” the guard said quickly.         Blueblood took a step aside, knowing that the guards would find nothing.  It was just a broom closet, one that he had used often during his… less than reputable days, when he wanted to spend some ‘quality time’ with one of the castle staff.  As soon as the guard had taken a look, Blueblood waved Rarity inside, closing the door behind them with a snap.         “What is it, Blueblood?” Rarity asked.  The level of venom that she directed towards him with just the mention of his name nearly took him off his hooves, but he held his ground.         After all, she was the one in danger here.         “Listen very, very carefully, and do not make a sound,” Blueblood said, his voice losing the jovial, playboy edge he had cultivated over a lifetime of indulgence, and instead taking on a much more serious one.  “I don’t know where you think you’re going, but you cannot go with those guards.”         She just raised her eyebrow at that, a less-than-amused glare plastered on her face.  “What are you talking about, Blueblood?”         “Those guards are traitors, and the last thing in their minds is to take you somewhere safe,” Blueblood said, dropping his voice a few more octaves.         Rarity just gave him a flat look at that.  “Really?  That’s the tale that you have decided to go with?  Really, Blueblood, I don’t know what kind game you’re playing at, but I am not buying it,” she said with a huff. “Oh for… Listen, this has nothing to do with what happened at the Gala!  You’re life is in danger!” he hissed at her. She continued to give him a death glare for the longest time, until finally giving a small sigh.  “Fine, let’s say, for a second, that I do believe you.  How, exactly, do you intend to get us away from them?” “In a second, that door is going to open.  As soon as it does, I’m going to provide a distraction.  When you see an opening, I want you to run for-” Blueblood said, but was interrupted as the door flew open, revealing a disappointed-looking guard and his fellows. “Oh, dear.  My prince, you really shouldn’t be telling stories…” the guard said as he leveled a spear at the two unicorns.  “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to have to ask both of you to come with us…” *        *        *         Sergeant Fire looked up in alarm at the hatch in the center of the room.  “Sir!  That’s the signal!”         Warrant Officer Breaker looked up at that, his face a steely mask.  “Open the hatch, but be on guard; we don’t know what may have followed the lizard.”         The guards closest to the metal lid nodded at this, their spears leveled at it as Sergeant Fire reached out for the hatch, gulping loudly as his hoof gripped the handle.  As soon as he had received a nod from his commanding officer, he turned and yanked the handle, pulling the hatch open and getting clear.         It was actually a little bit anticlimactic, then, when nothing came out of the ominous black hole.  Well, almost nothing;  A heavy breathing could be heard faintly from far down below, though that was broken up every so often by a faint, almost sobbing whimper.  “Uh… sir?  You down there?” Sergeant Fire asked as he edged closer to the hole.         “Y-Yeah… I’m here…” the lizard replied back, his voice sounding haggard, almost as if he were fighting just to stay conscious.  “You’re going to have to come down and get me; I really don’t want to fall down this shaft again...”         Sergeant Fire moved closer to the hole, but was stopped by a single hoof on his withers.  “Hold, soldier, it might be a trap,” Breaker said as he drew closer.         “Be that as it may, sir, we can’t just leave him down there,” Sergeant Fire said with a salute.         “True, but at least take a gemlight with you,” Breaker said as he hoofed over his own.  The gemlight was a long cylinder with a flared end, into which a gem was affixed with a light-producing spell.  Many ponies nicknamed the thing the flashlight, or the torch, though Breaker personally preferred its actual name.         Without a word, Sergeant Fire turned on the light, put it into his mouth, and unfurled his wings.  Then, with only the slightest of hesitations, he dived into the yawning black pit in front of him.  Fortunately, the other guards didn’t have to wait very long before they heard from the sergeant.         “Oh, horseapples…”         “What?  What is it, sergeant?  Report!”         “...Sir, the area’s clear, but we’re going to need more ponies down here to move him.  He’s… well… he’s pretty banged up, sir,” the sergeant said quietly.         “Ah, you’re just jealous about how much prettier I look now,” the guards heard the lizard’s voice echo up.  “After all, chicks dig a man with scars.”         There was a pause at this, during which Breaker looked at one of his sergeants.  “Chicks?  Man?  what in Equis is it talking about?”         “I don’t know, sir,”         Breaker closed his eyes for a second, then opened them, a grimace on his face.  “It doesn’t matter.  Private Hawk, Private Hearts, get down there and help the sergeant.”         It took the soldiers a couple of minutes, as well as a whole lot of rope and some inventive levitation, but they finally managed to pull the lizard out of the hole he had crawled down.  As it turned out, Sergeant Fire’s understatement was just that:  an understatement.         “Holy… what happened to you?” Breaker gasped in amazement.         The lizard-thing wasn’t a pretty sight:  His clothing was tattered and torn in several places; the cast that he wore on his leg had broken apart at some point; through one of the holes in his tunic Breaker could see a large, angry bruise forming over where the heart would be on a dragon; and his skin looked cooked. Seriously, his entire hide had a nasty-looking red sheen to it, one that just screamed first and second degree burns.  However, all of this paled in comparison to whatever he had done to his right arm. The arm sported a deep, nasty looking cut right through the inside of the elbow.  It must have been deep enough to sever some tendons, by the way the arm hung limply at his side and some of the muscles bunched up near his shoulder without him bending it. That wasn’t the worst of it, though.  Over the cut, Breaker could see a round, black, nasty burn, one that, even though it had stopped the cut from bleeding, had still done far more damage than it had prevented. The creature just gave Breaker a weak, cheeky grin.  “I got stupid.  I was right, though; there’s undead down there.” Breaker didn’t respond at first, choosing instead to close the hatch as his medics started applying healing magic to the injured reptile.  “How many?  What kinds?”         The lizard gave a sigh as the pain-killing magic washed over him.  “It’s bad, they’ve got these… Frankenstein-things with them…” “...What?” The lizard shook his head.  “They’re some kind of stitched together abominations.  No two are the same, though all of them are armed with jagged, very painful weapons,” he said as he gripped his limp arm with the one that still worked.  “They don’t move too fast, though they’re strong enough to make up for it.  Also, the undead are all controlled by the same guy.” Warrant Officer Breaker gave a grunt at that.  “We already knew that, tell us something we don’t know.” “No, you don’t understand!  He doesn’t just control them, like gives them orders or something, he controls them with his mind!” the lizard said as he reached out and grabbed the warrant officer’s leg.  “Everything they see, he sees.  If one is destroyed, he can make the others react as if it had happened to them!  Any trap that works the first time-” “-Is probably only going to work the first time,” Breaker finished for him grimly.  “How many?” The lizard just shook his head at that.  “I don’t know.  There were around six hundred last I checked, but I can’t be sure now…” “Why?  Are they making more?  How is that possible?” Sergeant Fire asked quickly. The lizard started to shake at this, his entire frame convulsing as his eyes screwed closed, causing the medics to step closer, worry plastered across their faces.  As it turned out, their worry was groundless as a burst of short, pained chuckles broke from his lips.  “Making more?  You misunderstand… A friend of mine... showed up… managed to start a fire down there… turn a lot of them into ash and magma...” Breaker looked back at the hatch.  “You mean someone’s still down there?” he asked quickly. The lizard shook his head again.  “No… she’s… she’s gone…” he said briefly.  “But she’s given you a gift: Time.  I suggest you make the most of it.” Steel Breaker nodded at this, then motioned for several of his troops.  “Ponies, get this hero up to the medical wing; his part in this fight is done.” “I’m not a… Ow…” he started to say, but was cut off as he was put across an earth pony’s back, putting pressure on his bruised chest.  “Oh, never mind…” “As for us, we need to make sure that these things have no chance of getting up here,” Steel Breaker said.  “Private Hearts!  You’re to take a message to the lieutenant, let him know what’s happened down here.  Sergeant Fire!” “Yessir!” “Get to the armory and get some Force Stones:  If traps are only going to work once, let’s make sure that each one counts,” Breaker said as a grin broke out across his face. *        *        *         I hurt.         No, seriously, I’m pretty sure that what I felt was some of the worst pain I’ve felt in my entire life.  My whole body felt like one big burn, my arm was nothing but pain, and the bruise from that rock earlier was making it hard to breath.         On the bright side, though, my broken leg didn’t seem broken anymore:  At least, it took my weight even after the cast had broken apart without any pain. You know, the little things. That wasn’t too surprising, though, since the doctors said I could take it off in a week.  Well, actually, it was very surprising that it would only take a week, as opposed to three months, but that’s just semantics.  My point is, is that I really didn’t know how long I had been wearing the thing.  I could have been in that hospital bed for a year, for all I knew, though that was unlikely, seeing as how I hadn’t experienced any muscle atrophy yet. “Say, does anyone know any good one armed man jokes?” I asked, a little punch drunk. “Sir, you still have both your arms,” the unicorn at my left said as the light from his horn washed over me again, alleviating some of my pain.  “And it’s unlikely that you’ll lose your arm, too.  Healing magic has come a long way since the time of Discord; you’ll probably have full use of the thing in a matter of days.” I gave the unicorn a grin at that.  “Well, I really gotta hand it to you guys, you’re really handy with the scalpel.” The unicorn just looked confused at that.  “Excuse me?” “Ugh… that’s the problem with different species:  anatomy puns seldom translate,” I said with a grunt. Before the unicorn could respond, though, our rather odd procession stopped, causing me to look up in confusion. Charging down the hallway, giggling like a maniac, was probably the pinkest thing I had ever seen.  “Come on, grumpy pants!  If you want me, you’re going to have to catch me!” she shouted.  Before any of us could even think about saying anything, four guards charged around the corner, but stopped as soon as they saw us. The pink one didn’t stop, however, until she had reached our little group, and only stopped because one of the soldier stepped in front of her.  “Hold, there, Miss Pie, you having some trouble with the guard?” he asked seriously. I wasn’t focused on her, however.  Instead, I had my eyes glued on the guards down the corridor as they leveled their weapons towards us and their leader's horn started to glow. "Uh... guys?" “Leave no witnesses,” their leader said, immediately setting me, and the ponies that had been escorting me, on edge. “Yeah!  They’re trying to kidnap me and take me to a not-at-all fun anti-party!” the pink pony said with a bounce.  She stopped, though, as the ponies behind her began to charge, their spears leveled at us as she looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully.  “Is there a such thing as an anti-party?  Well, anyway, it didn’t sound very-Oof!” she stopped her rambling, though, as one of the ponies that I couldn’t see grabbed her and pulled her out of harm’s way. “Private!  You take the lizard and the Bearer and clear out!” I heard one of my guards say as he and his fellows charged past us. “Yessir!” the private shouted as he turned and ran back the way he had come.  As he ran, I managed to get a look at how many had stayed behind to see to our retreat. They were outnumbered two to one. Pain is an illusion… There was no way they would survive this; they were going to gladly sacrifice themselves, all to ensure that we made it out alive. A useful illusion, do not get me wrong, but still just an illusion… I grunted in pain as I reached up with my one good arm.  Even as the two ponies we were leaving behind began to blast the approaching ones with lasers, I knew that it was only a stalling measure.  Especially with that pegasus that was about to dive-bomb them. And like all illusions, pain and fatigue may be ignored…         With a grunt, I shoved myself off of the pony’s back, rolling clumsily to my feet as my dagger came to my hand.  Fortunately, I was the rare left-handed guy, rather than the more common righty, so I would have no problems chucking my knife at the guy that was about to skewer my escort.         Don’t throw.  Instead, picture what you want to have happen, and let your body do the rest.  It knows how to fight far better than you do Kalivar, so listen to it…         I took a deep breath, shut out the world around me, and rolled my shoulder forwards.  The knife spun end over end as it made the trip, but I payed it no mind, trusting it to go where I needed it to as I slung my spear into my waiting hand.         I stumbled forward, my body sluggish and unresponsive as I made my way to where the five remaining ponies were duking it out.  I was faintly aware of a metallic thump somewhere nearby, but I ignored it as I focused on the unicorn in front of me.  He was creating a shield around the two other unicorns that had escorted me here, all in an effort to box them in and make them easier targets.         So I ended him.         Problem was, I didn’t quite have the strength to pull my spear out of his chest quickly enough, so I didn’t even try as I left it and ripped my sword from its scabbard.  The two earth ponies that remained seemed to have noticed me, seeing as how I rather effectively ended their support.  Problem with that, though, was that their momentary lapse in concentration gave the two unicorn soldiers the only opening they needed.  Both of them quickly charged their horns, sending out beams of light that blasted both of the earth ponies off of their feet, only to land like twitching ragdolls several yards away         Nobody said anything as I slowly turned around, clumsily trying to get my sword back into its sheath one handed.  I managed to do it roughly around the same time that someone behind me finally spoke up.  “How… how did you do that?  I didn’t even see you sneak up on him!”         “That’s because I didn’t want you to see,” I said with more confidence than I had.  To be honest, I still had no idea how or why I went invisible, but I didn’t really care.  I was just glad that I could. Feeling rather numb, I reached out for my spear, trying to pull it from the corpse of the unicorn at my feet. It was hard, though, seeing as I only had one arm to work with.  Eventually I was able to yank it free, though I hadn’t quite figured out how I was going to sling it over my shoulder again. My answer came when my spear was surrounded by the light blue aura of the pony near my side, gently lifting it and affixing it in place.  I turned to thank the pony, only to be confronted with the handle of my dagger. “Thanks,” I said as I took the weapon, shoving it home into my sheath next to its brother. “No, thank you,” the medic said after a few seconds.         I just shook my head at that.  “Don’t thank me just yet.  We’ve still got undead to repel, and now traitors to deal with on top of that.  We need to warn someone before they’re able to finish what they’ve started.”         As I turned back towards the way we had come, my eyes fell upon the pink pony from earlier.  Apparently both she and my ride had stopped when I had pulled my little stunt. My ride looked shocked, his mouth hanging open at my incredibly stupid decision.  I was sort of expecting that, especially when he hadn’t rushed in to stop me, or to help when I made my move.         What I hadn’t expected, though, was the look on the pink one’s face.  Horror and fear I could understand.  Those are emotions that I could easily recognize, and they’re emotions that one would expect from someone who just saw someone else butcher people.         Neither of those emotions were present on that pink face, however.  All I saw there was understanding and sadness.         I tried to keep eye contact with her, but I just couldn’t.  Those blue eyes bored right through me, seeing something there that I wasn’t ready to face myself.         “We should get going,” I said gruffly.  “There’s probably more from where these guys came from, and we’ll want soldiers ready to hunt them down.”         Nobody disagreed with me.  In fact, they all fell into line behind me as I painfully stumbled back the way we had come, letting me lead the way.  They were probably all too scared to say anything, and looked to me for guidance.         Too bad I had none to give.