Greybled

by Honeypunch91

Chapter One

Chapter One

Silently he moved through the corridors. In the back of his mind, he feared the consequences of his actions, should he get caught.
But this was it, the first time he put his training to the test for real. Without obvious reason, he ducked behind a door frame and started counting.

“6…5…4…3…2…1…” The next moment, two guards, clad in matt black amour passed by. “Like clockwork,” he thought with a smile.

For weeks he was watching the guards making their rounds, always at the exact same time. If there was one thing the changeling race was considered professional, it was organizing big groups of individuals.

As the sound of hooves disappeared, he left his hiding place behind the rotten door frame and continued his journey to freedom. Slowly, the gray hybrid made his way to the canteen, or rather, to the room behind the kitchen.

Only a short hallway separated him from his destination, when suddenly, he heard a sharp command bellowed behind him.
“Stop right there buddy!”

Careful, not to make jerky movements, the caught colt turned around and let his saddlebags drop on the floor. The shout came from a now very cocky smiling changeling guard with a long spear in his hoof and a purple swelling over his left eye.

“Our little Greybled is making a run for it,” declared the guard, while stepping closer to Greybled, his spear ready and his horn loaded with a potent combat spell.

“How’s the eye, Strikebolt?” the unicorn named Greybled asked.
“I hope the others didn’t give you a hard time for getting beaten during combat class by a “freak” as you like to put it,” sarcasm dripped from every word he said.

“Oh, after the beating the queen will give you for trying to leave the hive, I would be surprised, if you would ever hold a spear again,” he retorted viciously.
“But I’m still thrilled, that I can be the first one to punish your traitorous abomination flank!”

The next moment, the knock out spell Strikebolt was preparing, fired straight at Greybled, who, just in time, raised his right front leg. The spell harmlessly bounced off the dark gray metal gauntlet which covered his right leg from hoof to shoulder.

“Sorry to disappoint you, Strikebolt, but I didn’t come unprepared,” he bragged with a confident voice.

“All I see is some kind of jewelry that hides the last sign of your heritage,” Strikebolt roared while delivering a barrage of spear hits, each one parried by Greybled’s armored hoof. Then Strikebolt changed his tactics, by retreating a few feet and using his higher range to aim deadly stabs at his opponent’s neck.

“This is it,” thought Greybled, while stomping his right hoof on the ground. A short sound of metal grinding against metal was heard, when suddenly a one foot long, one inch thick, metal stick extended from the gauntlet.

Strikebolt was shocked when a metal bat smashed forcefully through the wooden shaft of his spear. In the next moment, he saw a lime green flash, and then everything went dark for him.

The Greybled`s horn stopped glowing and the colt looked in awe to the weapon attached to his leg.
“I have to thank Beta, when I see him the next time… If there is a next time.” The last part was in a quiet, almost sad tone. Beta 213 was one of the hives oldest blacksmiths and one of the few changelings, who treated Greybled with a quantum of kindness. He made the custom armored leg protector, he and Greybled designed.

He snapped back to reality when his eyes fell on Strikebolt's unmoving body. He would be paralyzed for at least two hours, not quite a lot time to escape the badlands without wings. Then Greybled noted something. Silence. If the other guards would have been alarmed by the sound of the fight, there would be at least a hundred changelings in the room by now.

The guard instructions, state without a doubt, that Strikebolt should have called for backup, before engaging a suspect. But why didn't he alarm anyone?

“Maybe he wanted me to escape,”Greybled thought optimistically, but then a more plausible answer came to his head,
“he didn’t want to arrest me, because he wanted to kill me”

He stared down at his ex-comrade in arms with venom in his eyes. He was only one room away from a working incinerator, it would be so easy.
“If I just kill and incinerate him, I would have all the time I need to get away... But that's what she would do!”

Greybled leaned down to the fallen changeling and with one swift punch, hit the side of Strikebolt’s head with his unarmored left leg. It even started to bleed a little but wouldn't cause a serious injury.

He smirked and made his way to the room at the end of the hallway. Inside, there were two ovens, one was burning away the garbage of the hive and the other one had just a sign on it, which stated “out of order” in the changeling tongue.

The hybrid was relieved, that they hadn’t yet fixed the incinerator he broke two nights ago. He climbed inside the opening, gazing upwards, to the light at the end of a long tunnel.

“Here we go!” he cheered out loud, when he started to push himself with all his hooves against the inside of the chimney. Slowly but surely, he made his way from the underground changeling hive, to the surface.

Delighted, he took his first breath of fresh air since two years. Standing on top of the chimney, he realised, he had to move. If Strikebolt would wake up or be found, changeling scouts would be all over the place. His mother was not the forgiving kind of leader.
He started running with his destination in mind ---northern Equestria--- he would find the Crystal Kingdom and more importantly, his father.

***

"What is the meaning of this?" Queen Chrysalis demanded, when the obviously hurt guard was dragged before her in her throne chamber.

"The prince fled," the wounded changeling stammered, while being held on both sides by fellow guards.

"Should we send out our tracking unit, your highness?" one of the other armoured changelings asked, not forgetting the royal form of address like Strikebolt did.

The queen thought for a moment,
"he knows our secrets... well, some of them, but I didn't raise a traitor..."

After a few long moments, she declared with her royal voice,
"No, let him go, he will come crawling back soon enough." "When they find out who he is," she added mentally.

The queen couldn't help, but feel a strange sense of pride. She didn't think Greybled had the guts for such a risky stunt.

***

After hours of non stop running, Greybled settled in for the night in the roots of a fallen tree, which formed at least some kind of protection from the night and more importantly, searching eyes. He didn’t see a single changeling since he left, which could be both, good and bad. Chrysalis wouldn’t let any of her subjects go, without an ulterior motive. Maybe she didn’t send search parties because she was glad he wouldn’t ever make a claim to the throne that was his, by right.

The more optimistic part of his mind held to another sentiment. “Maybe she wants me to be happy.”
While his time in the hive was hard ever since he started looking more like a pony, than a changeling, his mother Chrysalis was never downright cruel to him. She didn’t support him and she made it clear that he’ll never rule her kingdom, but she cared for him in the first years of his life and had a minimum of interest in him afterwards.

As long as he could remember, things in the hive had been tough for him. He was treated different than every other changeling, but it was bearable. It all went downhill when he was 10 years old. During his first training with the wooden staff, he discovered his talent with that kind of weapon and earned his cutie mark, two crossed black sticks.

Greybled would never forget the disappointment in the face of his mother after he showed her his mark. He was not allowed to leave his chambers for two weeks. Chrysalis most likely tried to find a way to remove the cutie mark without peeling the skin off. It didn’t come to that though, word spread fast in the hive and everybody already knew of his newest step towards ponydom, so there was no reason to hide him any longer.

His memories of his life in the hive were replaced pretty soon by an all overshadowing exhaustion.

Two days of travelling later, Greybled laid eyes on the first pony settlement, he ever saw. The sign at the city entrance read “Welcome to New Trot”. With two deep breaths, he walked into town, trying to look casual. Back home, he learned everything he needed to know, to pass as a pony.

The Village seemed to consist only of about 50 Buildings, all along the dusty main street, Greybled was walking along. He knew that this was one of the smaller pony sattlements. In the hive, he was shown a couple of pictures of Canterlot which were taken during Crysalis’ failed invasion 16 years ago. New Trot was completely different, no white marble towers with Gold roofs, just plain wooden houses with only two floors. Nevertheless, Greybled was amazed by his surrounding.

The teenage colt was surprised, how easy it was to infiltrate these ponies. He only got a few glazes from the passing citizens, but he guessed that it was normal when somepony new came to town. Greybled came to a halt when he saw a little hut, with colourful papers stacked on a counter and shelves. Behind the counter stood an elderly stallion with a white mane and a fitting moustache.

One of the papers caught Greybleds eye. On the front of the cover was a Picture of 3 alicorns with humble smiles on their lips. Above them, he could read the words “Moon Magazine” in capital letters. In a bubble on the right side of the page stood “The History of the Royalty of Equestria and the Crystal Empire”. Without a second thought, Greybled grabbed the magazine with his green magic and began to scan through the pages.

He could read the equestrian language for many years. He stopped on the page which said “The royalty of the Crystal Empire”. On the page was a big picture of a pink alicorn, a white unicorn stallion, a light blue pegasus colt and a little pale red unicorn filly.

His eyes were fixed on the white unicorn and the small text beside him. Greybled mumbled to himself,
“Shining Armor, Prince Consort of the Crystal Empire and former captain of the Equestrian Royal Guard”

For over a minute, Greybled just stood there and watched at the portrait of his father. His trance was broken by an old Stallion shouting at him.
“Hello! Anypony home?”

Greybled looked up in the eyes of the annoyed vendor.
“Ah ain’t no library, so either ya buy it or ya beat it”

“ahhhhh what?” was all the flabbergasted colt could stammer.

“If ya want to buy it, it’ll be 4 bits” The vendor said a little calmer than before.

Now it clicked in Greybleds head, the guy was selling the papers. The concept of payment was explained to the young changelings and him long and detailed. For someone who grew up in a hive, where everyone just took what he needed and did what he was told, it was hard to understand the matter of currency.

Then it hit Greybled like a ton of horseshoes, he didn’t have any of those “bits” he would need for nearly everything in the mainland of Equestria. How he could forget something that essential, was beyond him. In his saddlebags he stored enough dried food to last two weeks, but nothing valuable.

His thoughts were interrupted once again by the news stand owner who was now right in front of him and raised a hoof to snatch the magazine from him. When the hoof came down, the hybrid reflexively raised his armoured leg to parry a possible punch. A thump noise was heard, followed by a pained cry from the elder earth pony who was holding his right foreleg. Greybled suddenly felt a hundred eyes on him and decided that he shouldn’t stay there.

***

A thousand miles up north, a light blue pegasus with a yellow mane waited for his moment to shine.

He stood at sharp attention on a raised platform in front of a crowd of over 300 Ponies, most of them, crystal earth ponies. While the general of the Crystal Empire Army was holding a speech about “proud soldiers” and “the protection against all threats,” the eyes of the pegasus wandered to the first line of chairs in front of them.

There sat, his mother, Princess Cadence, wearing the traditional Crystal Empire hair style and his father, Prince Consort Shining Armor in a dark blue blazer, the southern ponies usually wore to special occasions. Beside them, with a big grin on her lips, was his little sister, Victoria. Her violet eyes were excited to see her brother in this position and sometimes her horn glowed for a few seconds.

She had just received her cutie mark for medical magic a few months ago, after using a healing spell on him. While practicing ice-archery, he held his bow wrong and the string scraped half his leg, drawing blood. Victoria saw it and started using a healing spell, her mother only showed her once. The wound itched a few days, but left him with no scar, and his sister with a red heart, surrounding a purple star, on her flank.

Artemis’ cutie mark was two white, crossed, wings. Most ponies would assume it stood just for his love of flying, but to him it also symbolized curiosity and a sense of freedom.

After a few seconds, his father lifted his leg to his eyes and made a hoof gesture, to tell Artemis, to keep looking straight ahead and not at them. He never lost his proud smile while doing it.

When his name was called, a few minutes later, Artemis stepped forward, in front of the headmaster of the cadet academy. The sparkly elder began to talk with well practiced voice
“Do you, Artemis, swear to take up bow and shield when the need arises and will you do everything in your power to protect the Crystal?”

Artemis answered, more nervous then the seasoned soldier,
”I swear it on the Crystal Heart”.

This procedure was repeated, until everyone of the 32 cadets on the podium made their vows. A short speech from the headmaster later, the shiny crowd began to cheer and stomp their hooves for minutes on end.

As Artemis left the stage, he was tightly embraced by Cadence and Victoria. He smiled and looked over his shoulder to his father, waiting patiently for his turn. Next to him stood a Stallion, Artemis may have seen on a few social events, but he wasn’t sure.

He was released from the double hug and trotted over to Shining Armor, giving him a casual,
“Hi, dad”.

“Is that any way to greet your chief in command?” the Prince Consort replied mischievously.

Artemis rolled his eyes but complied nevertheless with a salute and a sharp clap with his hind legs.

His father smirked and began to speak again,
“Son, I want you to meet Captain Barding from the C.S. Temeraire, he will take command of the Dreadnought, as soon as it’s completed.” He pointed his left fore-hoof at the Stallion beside him. On the first sight, Artemis got quite an image into his head. The Stallion was around 50, bigger than average and had a steel-gray coat with an old scar, running down his neck. He wore a traditional Crystal Empire parade uniform.

The youngling saluted in earnest this time, making the elders face give the slightest of smiles.

Cpt. Barding took the initiative,
“The Prince Consort tells me, you want to serve on an airship?”

“Sir, I was always thrilled by the idea, Sir!” he replied sounding as official as he could.

“Then today is your lucky day, kiddo, when the C.S. Dreadnought is finished, I will need a first mate I can relay on, think you are up to that task?” Barding asked.

After three seconds of bafflement, Artemis answered,
“Sir, I am...

“Cut the ‘Sirs’,” he was interrupted by the Captain.
“When I’m not on duty on my ship, I don’t care much for etiquette.”

Artemis tried again,
“I am honored, but I am fresh from the Academy and have no experience on airships, and you want me to be the second in command on the biggest ship Equestria has ever seen?”

Barding chuckled,
“Well, that would overstate your ‘prince bonus’, the Dreadnought is not due to ship for eight months, until then you can learn on my current ship, the Temeraire. But be warned, you will have to do every job there is on a ship, from cabin boy to potato peeler.”

Once again, Artemis took military pose and declared,
“Sir, I will be honored to pledge you my bow and shield,” he recited the vow of the Empire but added “or my potato peeler”.

This time, Barding smirked openly,
“OK, smart-ass, Wednesday 0-7-00 pier 14, don’t be late, we’re going to the southern borderlands."

Author's Note:

Thank you everybody who read this far!

Some sidenotes, I call Shining Armor "Prince Consort" because it always bugged me that he is called "Prince" in the show. The Husband of the Queen of England is not King after all.
Also I know that "Artemis" is actually a female name, but if it fits, it sits ^^

Feedback is highly appreciated

Comments

[The Goddamn Batman]

ok, prepare for a couple of wise words from THE GODDAMN BATMAN.

First, you should(no, you MUST) start a new paragraph each time a character speaks, it makes it much easier to read, and in general keeps the reader from getting confused.

next thing is this error of a phrase.

“Like a clockwork,”

should be

Like clockwork

common mistake, makes more sense that way as well.

one more thing, when you end a sentence refrain from using period's, instead use a comma, like I am.

a comma
,

in conclusion, this story has potential, but it also has errors, once fixed, this will be a pretty good story

[Honeypunch91]

5701254
Thank you for your wisdom

I just fixed the clokwork thing and started new paragraphs. Please have another look at the chapter, if I did it right.

I don't really understand what you mean with more commas, wouldn't that create long monster sentences?

[The Goddamn Batman]

5701459 as I said, it is your choice, it's your story

[TheLastCapricorn]

Can't wait for Chapter Two!!

Keep on writing, your story is really awesome!