Life in the guard isn't an easy one. First there's that awful test just to get in, then one must suffer the most brutal training and after all of that, their time is split between fighting, training to keep in top condition or the more likely wandering on a set path. Just walking around bored out of their skulls. This last one was the case for Private Steel Hooves. When he signed up for the guard he thought he would be seeing some action, but no. He was honestly beginning to think he would spend his military career with nothing exciting happening but earlier today a group of assassins managed to break into the palace itself undetected. Not only did this happen when he was off duty, but he couldn't even get the juicy details from the ones that were on duty because they all slept through it!

Now here he was just walking down his boring, set path through the dungeon as he checked each occupied cell. Well if nothing else I can at least see these guys. He thought to himself as he checked the next cell only to see it empty. Eyes widening at this he quickly unlocked the cell door before running in and looking around to see nothing. "No no no no! I just know I'm going to get blamed for this!" he said before turning to go raise the alarm.

"Most likely." A voice agreed before he could leave. Looking up he saw a massive blob of a pony somehow able to hold his body up against the ceiling of the cell by pressing his hooves against the rafters. "Belly bomb!" The blubbery pony shouted out as he launched himself down at the guard, and for Steel Hooves, everything went black.

Standing back up with a grunt Strong Heart took a moment to check on the pony he just landed on before giving a sigh of relief when he saw that the poor guard would be ok. "Sorry about that friend, I know you think you're doing the right thing but when the princesses are freed from that monster the truth about it will be reviled and then you'll know this was for the best." He said sadly as he lifted the unconscious guard and placed him on the bed before grabbing the keys and locking him in.

"You want to shout the names of your attacks any louder? I don't think the warden herd you." Hawk Eye said in annoyance from his own cell as he stuck his beak through the bars. Strong Heart just rolled his eyes as he walked over to let the griffin out only for him to sniff the air a few times. "Did you get a bath?" he asked in confusion.

"Yes, the princesses ordered that I be bathed after the first thirty seconds they tried to interrogate me." Though he had to admit it will be useful for sneaking out, he wished they weren't so thorough. On top of the fact he never felt so violated in his life, they found all fifty-four of his hiding places and took all his stuff, even the snacks! It was a good thing their inside pony was able to sneak in a few small pieces of equipment in their food to aid in their escape.

Hawk Eye just gave an appreciative nod with a smile. "Well then at least something good came out of this fiasco." The griffin said before his face turned serious. "Think we can try again?" He asked causing Strong Heart to frown at the thought.

"No, unfortunately we stand no chance at the moment. The guards are all awake and the princesses are here, not to mention the beast is now on alert. Besides if we want all of this to bear some fruit we need to report what we learned about it. Knowledge on its fighting style and that it's now confirmed that it has personal minions will be invaluable to planning the next attack." Strong Heart said causing Hawk Eye to give a snort of annoyance.

"Fighting style? What fighting style!? All it did was dodge attacks and used a dirty trick to knock me out. And what minions? Are you talking about that pompous prince?" Hawk asked in a whisper with a flat look.

"Its clearly a tactical fighter, favoring misdirection and will use its environment to its advantage. Its cunning like... well like a fox, a trickster and a caster threw and threw. And impressive reflexes aside it always stayed out of range of any attacks it could so that tells us it's useless in hoof to hoof or melee, probably. And it had two ponies in black stealth suites, assuming they were even equine at all. Bucking unicorn hit like a train." Strong Heart said with a frown as he rubbed the spot on his stomach that mare was wailing on. "And I don't think the prince is so much a minion as he is a gullible fool. It also had some kind of monster bird." He said as he motioned for Hawk to follow as they worked to free the others. He wasn't looking forward to explaining to his superiors that some of his troops were taken down by a chicken. Not that it was the only thing he didn't want to tell them. All that planning and preparation, memorizing the floor plans, sneaking potions into the guards breakfast that were carefully calculated and concocted by our best alchemist to put them to sleep at the same time, sneaking him and his team in, arranging the royal sisters departure, and having it all synchronized only to fail. There's no way all of that was easy and being the one to drop the ball didn't sit well with him.

With the party back together they were making there way to the warden's office. From the floor plans they knew that there was an old tunnel running directly underneath it that was once used to move supplies when the palace was unfinished. They had to take down a few more patrolling guards on the way but nothing that they couldn't handle quickly and quietly. However there was one obstacle that might prove a challenge, in order to get to the office they would need to sneak through the guard's break room without letting any of them sound the alarm...

"Help! I'm lost! Where's my mommy!?" All of the guards in the room looked over to the entrances to the break room at the sound of a filly crying.

"How did a filly get down here?" One of the guards asked as he got up and moved toward the sound. A few minutes after he left the crying never stopped. "Hey guys, a little help here? I can't find her." The guards voice called out from the doorway which prompted nine of the other guards to get up and walk out to help.

"Pony bolder!" At the sound of that shout a large ball rolled out taking out all the guards that went to help look and before any of the other two that stayed could move to sound the alarm they felt a sharp pain and everything got swirly. They looked up to see the griffin prisoner with a blow dart gun who managed to sneak up to the ceiling without anypony noticing before blacking out.

"And you said that learning the ghost noise spell was useless." One of the unicorns gloated to the other causing his fellows to roll their eyes at him.

"What's all the ruckus out here!?" An elderly but muscular earth pony covered in scars and missing one eye called out as he walked into the room. After seeing the damage and escaped prisoners he quickly turned and made a run for the chain hanging from the wall that will sound the alarm but before he could make it he was surrounded by a large barrier that trapped him in with Strong Heart, Hawk Eye and one of the knights.

"Calm down old timer we're just going to make you sleep for a little while and everything will be fine." Strong Heart said with a reassuring smile. But rather than calm the old stallion down it just made him angrier.

"Just try it you snot nosed brats." He said with hostility as he got into a fighting stance. This caused the knight to charge forward to restrain the old pony so he can be knocked out by one of the others. But when he moved to grab the Warden he quickly grabbed the knights foreleg with his own and with his other struck the outstretched leg causing a sickening snap to fill the air followed closely by a scream of pain as the old pony then let go before rapid punching the knight in the gut. During this Hawkeye got three shots in but the darts don't seem to have any effect. The Warden then leaned down and grabbed one of the knights hind legs with one foreleg before launching himself at Strong Heart and while in midair got a firm grip on the knights leg and to everyone's shock swung the stallion like a hammer at the blubber pony. As surprising as it was to see the old pony using one of his opponents as a bludgeoning weapon, Strong decided to just stand there and take the blow so he can act as a cushion for his knight rather than let him strike the stone ground. When he felt the collision Strong lunged forward to grab the Warden but was only struck twice in the face before his target jumped back out of reach. By this time the Warden had eight darts sticking out of him but he didn't pay them any attention.

"I'm out of tranq darts and it's not even doing anything!" Hawk eye shouted in frustration which he was about to find out was a big mistake. The old pony jumped back a few times before quickly pulling the darts out of himself before throwing them all at once at the griffin. Hawk squawked as he tried to get out of the way but a few hit his wing, grounding him. Strong Heart's eyes widened at this. This was ridiculous, he thought it was time to implement a strategy that unfortunately wouldn't have worked with magic resistance.

"Reel it in!" Strong shouted to his unicorns, resulting in the barrier shrinking. Quickly all of the combatants were being forced closer together and when there was too little room to avoid it Strong moved to finish this. "Belly bomb!" He shouted as he grabbed the old pony who was rapped punching Strong Heart in the stomach but his fat protected him as he fell onto the Warden. "Spunky old stallion, just like our old teacher right?" Strong asked Hawk Eye as he waited for the pony under him to lose conciseness.

"Look at all the waves... are we at the beach?" Hawk replied as he wobbly stared at Strong's fat as it jiggled from the Warden's struggles.

"...ok." Strong said in annoyance before getting up. "Drop the bubble and bind them, especially this old guy. And somepony help these two out." He said as he walked into the office and pulled out two containers which he poured in a circle on the floor overlapping each other and stood back as it bubbled and slowly sank into the ground. A short wait later and the floor collapsed in a near perfect circle before he threw a powder over it to neutralize the acid. "Alright lets move out!" He felt a wave of relief as he jumped down. It was clever trying to use the royal sisters to extract information but now that it's failed it will doubtless move to torture soon, so he was glad the jailbreak was going so well.

Today was a bad day, it started before breakfast when I was told the guys that want me dead for some reason escaped. Then again at breakfast with mine having been poisoned. This forced me to spend an hour and a half on the toilet purging the poison from my system. Then Celestia had me fill out forms so I can legally use dark magic... well, ok that part provided me with some entertainment.

(Earlier that day.)

I was walking along the halls of the palace when I was stopped by a light blue unicorn mare with a facile expression that reminded me of Miss Harshwhinny. "Excuse me lady Rin, but it seems there was some problems with one of the forms you filled out. Now I know you've been away for a while so you can't know how they work so let me help you finish this." ...They think I was being series with those answers? This will be fun.

"Oh? Alright, so what are the problems?" Straight face Rin, straight face.

"Well to start with, where it asked Sex?... You answered 'yes please'." Straight face! Strait face!

"Oh, ok so my room or is there one set aside for this?" I asked with an innocent look on my face which caused her to look confused for a moment before realization and then horror crossed hers.

"Wa I a n-no! Lady Rin we will not be going to any room's!" She exclaimed with a red face.

"Well we can't do it here. Somepony will see." I say while still managing to keep a convincing look of genuine confusion.

"No! Gender! It's asking you what your gender is!" She shouted with a look of panic.

I blink at this with a look of deep thought before replying. "So why doesn't it just say gender on it?" At my question she opened her mouth to answer but then it closed and she just looked confused.

"It is rather inappropriate. My best guess is that a rather immature fellow working in an office got bored and wrote it as a joke and it just caught on... I'm just going to write down female for you." she answered as she wrote onto a piece of paper. I hope I didn't just invent the F.C.C. in this world...

"Ok, the next problem is when it asked you the year of your birthday you answered, 'every year'. She said as she looked up at me with a raised eyebrow.

"What? Don't they celebrate birthdays once a year anymore?" I asked.

"No, it wants to know what year you were born." She said as I can tell she's struggling to remain respectful so I just answer with a shrug causing her to look confused herself. "You can't remember?" she asked with a sad look which I simply answer by shaking my head and she gives a sigh. "I suppose I should have seen that coming considering when it asks how old you are you wrote down 'I'm going to need more paper..."

(Present time)

But so far that was the only fun I had. After that I had to attend a diplomatic meeting with the high council of the Great Pigeon Empire set up by Fluttershy. I did get my apology...I think, and now I have several imps building them a capital building of their own just outside of their seat of power, Manehattan. At least I'll get a great spy network when it's done as they promised so I get something good to reap when this is done, two things if you count being able to call in an airstrike on anyone I want. And now I'm reading the Necronomicon and am disappointed at how little of this stuff I can use. Most of this stuff requires the sacrifice of or twisting and corrupting of souls. Which would explain why the first spell in this thing was how to steal them. I was currently using one of the spells in designing a new room. Its a spell for calling forth those that are unable or unwilling to move on, by slightly altering the spell and weaving it into the walls of my new creation I think I can create a room that can attract ghosts instead of only being able to get them by torturing others to death. The question was what to make it, this kind of thing works best if its a stereotype. So what is the most stereotypical room ghosts would like to haunt? I wondered as I looked down at the dark book.

The library and graveyard are already taken... Art gallery? Everyone knows ghost love staring at people through paintings. A play room? But that would just attract dead children and that would just be depressing. I lean back and think back while channeling my inner spook lover... and I can't decide. Its not like I can make an entire haunted house into a room... "I'm going to need a very big area dug out for this one.

(Three hours later)

I was sitting in the middle of the new room looking around with Vinyl and Trixie with me. "Did you need to make it all look so creepy?" Trixie asked as she examined my work. "And why are the flames on the candles green?" The room's walls were covered in paintings that I used that old trick that makes it look like they're always looking at you. Busts and suits of armor line the walls. In one corner there is a small stage with old school instruments on it and one wall is glass with a garden behind it. In the center of the room is a dining table with candle wicks and a chandelier above it. Against one wall is a grandfather clock purposely made so that it counts to thirteen instead of twelve. There is an upstairs balcony going around the room that can be reached with a spiraling staircase with two doors on three of the walls leading to six mini room for the ghosts and the blood red carpet went well with the worn, creepy wallpaper and cobwebs I had my spiders place. There was even a large chair in one corner modeled after the haunted mansion Doom buggy.

"I did my best to make it as haunted housey as I could. It's a haunted living area." I answer Trixie which causes the two too give me a look. "You're right that sounded stupid, I'll just call it the haunted room." I say with a nod as I admire my handiwork.

"Wait so you're trying to attract ghosts? Nice." Vinyl said with a grin but Trixie went bug eyed.

"You're kidding right? Ghosts aren't real." Trixie said worriedly as she looked back to us and we gave her the best 'wanna bet?' looks we could. "...What is Trixie saying." Trixie said as she face hoofed. She's doing much better then her first contact with the undead, though admittedly that flesh golem might have just been that scary for her and ghosts aren't that bad in comparison.

Well My works done here but I'm still in a sour mood from today's events. I need something else to vent. As if reading my mind fate threw me something to do. “My name is Asphyxious Lich Lord of the diamond dogs, the city of Canterlot is under attack and I need your aid.” My eyes widen at the thought. Yes I know it's not my Canterlot with my girls in it but still. So I create a portal and use my hand to grab all of my undead. After all whatever would attack that place would ether have numbers or is badass.

"Alright girls it's fighting time, follow if you're ready." I say as I jump into the portal

(Link to the fight.)

When me and my three main minions returned I was still drunk. "Wow easy there boss. Maybe you should get to bed, that law that says you're not aloud to get drunk is still up you know." Vinyl said as she tried to lead me to my room.

"Ok." I said sleepily as picked up Trixie in my tails, getting a surprised shout from her and wobbled along. I mentally give my imps the order to get more dead animals as I entered my room and found a note on my bed. "Oh, I have mail!" I said happily as I hopped into bed and opened it only for a small explosion of confetti to go off in my face. After blinking off the surprise I pull out an invitation to a Pinkie party! I smile widely as I set it on my nightstand next to my comic before laying back and pulling Trixie in for a snuggle as I thought she was my old plushy in my state of mind. Trixie was too drunk herself to protest and had even fallen asleep while I was carrying her.

(The next day)

I woke with a bad migraine as I pulled my plushie tightly against me causing it to grunt at the sudden movement. My eyes open wide at this as I look down and note a few things. One, I'm in bed with Trixie. Two, I'm all sticky. Three, we're covered in bits of confetti. As this is happening Trixie also woke up and came to the same conclusion I came to but reacted in a rather loud way, which was not appreciated by my hangover.