Excelsior

by GJT_Productions

Balance of Loyalty

Emerald green eyes open on a beaked face. The first thing visible when they come into focus is Princess Celestia smiling down at him.

"Is it done?" she asks, her tone a gentle concern.

The griffon looks around in wonderment for a few moments, then rolls over on his side from the position on his back he had been sleeping on. Slowly he gets to his feet - it takes a minute for him to find his balance. He then looks around the room in a great deal of puzzlement.

"The ritual worked. The mirror will show you the regeneration of your body." Celestia says, pointing a forehoof at the large stand-up mirror in the room. The griffon looks over - and is immediately transfixed by the figure he sees in the mirror. Immediately, he slowly walks over to the mirror and puts a taloned foot up to the mirror, just to confirm that it really was him.

The new griffon was strong and proud as any warrior of their race, coated in fur that gleamed gold and a fiery red mane of feathers on the head. He spread out his wings - wings he had never been allowed to use before - and found that their feathers too gleamed a golden yellow. Even if the golden and fire red plumage weren't considered colors of beauty to a griffon - and indeed they were - it was still a magnificent figure to behold in the mirror. The awe-struck griffon turns from the mirror and does the only thing he can to show his gratitude: bow before the sun princess of Equestria.

"There is now beauty where once was ugliness." Princess Celestia began to speak to the bowing griffon. "There is now strength where once was weakness. There is life where once only death threatened. Along with your new life I will grant you a new name. Arise, Excelsior! May your years of service to Equestria be long and glorious ones indeed!"

The griffon comes up from his bow, staring into Celestia's smiling eyes. And, for perhaps the first time in his life, a smile plays across his face too.

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A LITTLE LATER...

"Back, all of you! The armor makers must be allowed to work without interference!" Lieutenant Captain Shining Armor barks out, and the throng of curious Equestrians back away from the object of their attention - the ex-slave griffon now called Excelsior. Around the griffon several different ponies were taking various measurements for the purpose of forging a set of Guard armor for him.

"In accordance with Princess Celestia's wishes, Captain Gibraltar has given Excelsior a provisional Guard Upper Class ranking." Shining Armor began explaining to the two Lieutenants, Vesper and Stratocumulus, beside him. "He'll be in Academy a few weeks to learn the basics and get some flight training, then put on the night shift as per the Captain's instructions. Lieutenant Vesper, when the Academy deems him ready for active duty he shall be assigned to your command. Acknowledge?"

"Yes, sir!" the bat pony Lieutenant Vesper replies with a salute.

"Very good. Lieutenant Stratocumulus, please inform the Captain of the progress of the operation and the rendering of my decision." Shining Armor states, turning to the pegasus as he speaks.

"Right away, sir." Stratocumulus replies, turning to head toward the Captain's office. After a few turns down the hallway though, he is yanked into a utility closet by an unseen figure. Before Stratocumulus can even figure out what's happening, a light in the closet comes out to reveal a figure completely cloaked and hooves covered, a white unicorn horn sticking through a hole in the cloak.

"Agent Snake?" Stratocumulus whispers nervously to the cloaked figure, getting the sense he was in some kind of trouble.

"You failed me, Agent 3!" Snake exclaims in a stage whisper, his tone angry. "You said Formula X would kill by the end of the night! He wasn't supposed to survive long enough for the sun to save his life!"

"The formula was never tested on griffons! How was I supposed to..." Stratocumulus tries to explain, only for Snake to start approaching, the figure's eyes glowing a fierce red. It is not long before Stratocumulus is against a wall and up on his hind legs as the fear spreads on his face. Snake rears up as well and plants a forehoof on Stratocumulus' neck, causing the pegasus to start choking and gagging from the pressure of the hoof pushed on his neck.

"Let me make something very clear, Agent. I am tired of failure!" Snake's angry stage whisper continues. "We were supposed to backstab the griffons with the formula after they had the moon princess! That's the whole reason I had the Quartermaster eliminated in the first place! I've already had to dispose of one Agent for not hiding the Quartermaster's body well enough, don't make me have to do you too!"

Snake pauses, letting the pegasus gag and turn a shade of green before continuing: "If you fail me again, You. Will. Die. Do you understand me?!?" The pegasus makes an effort at nodding, and Snake releases his choking push. Stratocumulus collapses to the floor, coughing and gasping for air.

"Get out of my sight, Agent! My patience is exhausted with you!" Snake warns with the fiercely glowing eyes underneath the hood.

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Lieutenant Stratocumulus spends a few minutes in a bathroom afterward trying to gather his frayed nerves. The last time he had ever been choked like that was in Guard training, and that was as part of a training simulation.

The pegasus Lieutenant didn't know fear easily. He had looked straight in the face of Nightmare Moon when she first appeared in Ponyville and lived to tell the tale. He had braved raging fire to save an innocent life in the catastrophe that engulfed the Weather Ministry. Between those two events, he had earned a Lieutenant's commission at a relatively young age and a Medal of Valor upon his dress uniform. No, he did not find reason to fear easily.

But he knew fear now because of what Snake had threatened. Stratocumulus, like many of what he presumed were his fellow Agents, had joined the Agents of Chaos because Snake had promised him something he wanted rather greatly. Now those words rung rather hollow, as the pegasus Lieutenant knew the whole organization was in danger of destruction. The number of exposed Agents was growing with each failed plot, and the odds of him joining that number were growing with each passing day.

The night shift gave a guard a lot of time to think, and think the pegasus had done. Stratocumulus had not originally planned to join the Royal Guard at all - his special talent was "cloud paving", or laying out a stable, perfectly horizontal layer of clouds. Anypony that couldn't walk on clouds couldn't understand the utility of the talent, but in a place like Cloudsdale or the pegasus "colony" above Canterlot it was invaluable for making sure you were building things on level foundations. The kind of construction jobs where that talent would be most useful, however, were seasonal work, so he had enrolled in the Royal Guard for a more guaranteed income.

His heart was still into cloud construction work, though. He tried to enter the Guard's Mobile Construction Unit, but found his applications were being consistently denied despite him showing his aptitude for the work. Finally, Snake appeared to him and told him that the supposed anti-pegasus prejudice in the upper ranks of the Guard were the reason that his applications were being ignored, and that if he joined the Agents of Chaos that eventually he would get his construction job. The frustrated pegasus agreed to the deal, but now Stratocumulus wondered if Snake had told him a pack of lies at the very beginning.

Betrayal of Snake risked a nasty death, but Stratocumulus knew that if he was exposed he would most likely be exiled to the frontier settlements or even executed as Princess Celestia had done to other Agents. He looked himself in the bathroom mirror and asked himself what his purpose was in the Royal Guard now.

The word "loyalty" popped into his head as he looked in the mirror - not very surprising considering the circumstances. He knew the Element of Loyalty was now held by a pegasus, Rainbow Dash. There was a certain irony in that, because loyalty tended to become perverted in pegasi with real power - the corruption of the now-dissolved Weather Ministry was legendary, the corruption of Lieutenant Captain Aten's morning Guard shift because of "loyalty favoritism" was rife, and it was rumored that Spitfire, the current Wonderbolt leader, doled out "loyalty" based on flying performance. This behavior, in turn, trickled down into the lower ranks.

A realization hit Stratocumulus: Snake practiced a perversion of loyalty, just like all those other pegasi with major powers over other ponies. Staying with the Agents was not true loyalty to anything, since Snake now made it clear Stratocumulus was disposable. Staying loyal to Celestia, that was where true loyalty lie. His previous personal oath to Princess Luna was not an impulse based on what he thought Princess Celestia wanted him to do, but a way to a more noble existence, to escape the traps that snared so many other pegasi.

The expression in the mirror becomes determined. Stratocumulus now knew what he would do, where his true loyalties lie. He would deliver his report, and perhaps something that would destroy the Agents of Chaos for good at the same time...

Comments

[Iron Comet]

Loyalty is a knife and it cuts both ways. Celestia knows how to inspire Loyalty. Snake knows how to abuse it. Lets see which way it cuts.

[Autumnfire]

cant wait for the next story...also i really need a double thumbs up button...

[Love able chaos]

How do you level out clouds in the open sky?