Cleaning up

by Less_than_good

Assassination

It was a bitter midwinter’s day, a few months after the wedding, and Lieutenant Gleaming Blade was walking up and down the walls of Canterlot, trying to avoid the greatest fear of the royal guards at current - balls being frozen off; although he was a pegasus, the fact that his race were used to dealing with extreme weather did nothing to help him endure the cold. There was also the hard and slippery ice, which was responsible for great hilarity, often paid for by broken bones, missing teeth and wounded pride.

Scraping ice off of his nose, he noticed one of his colts pointing towards the gate with his spear; the other guards followed suit, all pointing with their spears towards the gate at five cloaked ponies, who were understandably irritated at being delayed.

Leaning over the wall, he shouted at them. “Who are you?”

Without raising his head, the unicorn in front yelled “My name is Farah; we are prophets of a growing religion in the Far East”

This raised the Lieutenant’s interest; he asked “What brings you here?”

Still without raising his head the leader shouted back “We wish to see the Princess”

“Which one?”

At that point the cloaked pony hesitated. He’d forgotten the name! Their cover would be blown any second now and they would have to flee! If only he could...

“I asked, which one? I think that’s a simple enough question.” the Lieutenant interrupted his thoughts.

In a flash of inspiration, he started rambling. “Her majesty, Princess of the Sun, Grand ruler of Equestria, Mayoress of Canterlot, Heroine, Ruler, Commander, Royal Highness, the most fantabulous...”

“We get it! What do you want to see Celestia about?”

Thankful his rambling got him somewhere, but annoyed that the guards were still asking questions, he gave a short answer that annoyed everybody, “none of your business”.

Turning red in anger, despite the bitter cold, he eventually controlled his emotions, before giving orders to let them in but keep them under guard.

“Rest of the squad is to return to their posts while I and nine other colts accompany these ponies”.

Walking through the large, plain white marble corridors inside the keep, dimly lit with ineffective and poorly-maintained burning torches, the Lieutenant asked them many more questions, to which he always got the answer “it’s for the Princess only”. After the fifth time this had happened he gave up, realising he may as well get blood out of a particularly dry stone.

“HALT”

All the cloaked ponies jumped in surprise at the sudden command, coming from the end of the dark corridor that they had reached. The two pegasus guards at the end of the doorway stuck out their wings to block the entrance to the throne room, which seemed rather superfluous, given the door was already closed and barred.

Gleaming Blade piped up, keen to keep things running smoothly; he liked to get these things done quickly. “They’re being escorted in, you don’t need to worry”

However, the guards at the door would not budge. “I’m sorry, but everypony that walks through this door needs to be searched thoroughly for blades, blunt objects, explosives, toxic chemicals and anything else that might harm the princesses; it’s more than my job’s worth to allow five ponies with potentially dangerous items on them to enter. Furthermore...”

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Farah was by now peed off by the guard’s rambling, and wanted it to stop; he was no longer listening, just looking down at the floor.

It had been five minutes now and the guard was still going; how he came to know so much about Equestrian law was a complete mystery to Farah, which remained unanswered by the other guards. Everypony listening to him were sharing hopeless looks with each other.

“And so, under The Possession of Bladed Weapons Act of The Year of Our Princess 548 I cannot allow you to...”

The guard was cut off suddenly, a red line appearing across his throat and starting to weep, quickly flowing faster and suddenly stopping as the guard’s legs gave way, allowing his weight to slump on the floor. Farah removed his cloak, revealing an insect-like form with blue, compound eyes, an almost skeletal form with holes everywhere, a misshapen horn and translucent, veined wings with more holes in them, the look completed by a malicious grin made up of oversized fangs. The blade he had used was attached to his right foreleg, glinting mischievously.

The guard on the other side of the door just looked on in amazement before getting the same treatment.

As one, the other four prophets threw off their cloaks to reveal similar insect-like forms, deliberately throwing them at some of the escort in order to cause confusion, before they all slashed at Celestia’s forces, dropping four instantly without being scratched, and then they tried to run before the remaining guards could organise themselves.

However, the barricade over the door was heavy and it took four of the changelings using all their wingpower to finally heave it off, tossing it aside with a loud clatter, revealing another corridor that was lined with doors, and ended with a T-junction; this cost precious time, of which they now had very little. By the time they had done it the fifth creature had been overwhelmed and captured.

Farah cursed himself. Brilliant; we’ve lost Thirsk, we’ve lost the element of surprise and we’ve lost ourselves in this massive damned palace.

He thought a little while longer on his failure before having an idea.

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Gleaming Blade was now thoroughly confused; his squad had been chasing the assassins for a good half hour, passing doors, guards, dignitaries and confused staff, but he had completely lost them, and nopony else had caught any sight of them. It was as if they had just disappeared completely. Perhaps they’ve buggered off, he conjectured, but didn’t truly believe.

“Find some shields and search the entire castle. Stay alert; surprise is their only advantage. I’ll go report the threat to the Princesses”

Galloping off through the corridors, Sword searched everywhere he thought the Princesses might be, i.e. the throne room. To his luck he found both of them in there, meeting with several Generals, Admirals, Captains, strategists and other members of the Equestrian Council of the Armed Forces; the Princesses were conferring with four royal guards about the changeling assassins in the castle.

The Lieutenant nonchalantly trotted up to one of the guards, casually acknowledged him with a nod of the head, then unceremoniously turned round and bucked him in the face. The entire Council stood and turned round to face him and looked on in horror, swiftly and loudly drawing their weapons, ready to quickly kill whoever dared threaten the Princesses.

A changeling was lying on the floor unconscious, and the royal guard that Gleaming Blade had kicked was nowhere to be seen.

The other three royal guards became changelings and rounded on their targets, Celestia, Luna and Gleaming, with the efficiency of a well-oiled machine, before slashing and kicking dangerously at them.

Celestia and Luna, being by far the two most powerful identities in the state, incapacitated their opponents almost as soon as they noticed the threat, trapping them in glowing bubbles of blue and gold.

Gleaming fared a lot worse; the changeling’s blade was swishing, slashing and looping back round so quickly that all he could do was parry, stepping slowly backward to avoid being minced by the razor's edge.

Captain Shining Armour looked down at the floor, slowly shaking his head and sighing, before trapping the final changeling in a purple bubble, noticing the relief on Gleaming’s face.

Princess Luna turned round to her sister, a large smile on her face.

“I hate to say it, but I told you they were a threat” she said, in a tone of voice that betrayed she definitely didn’t hate to say it. “You owe me a hundred bits”.

Comments

[J8ck78]

yay! More Guard stories! and this one looks good!

[A Homicidal Bushman]

Interesting.

We require more chapters.

[Chaos Light]

HA! Ending. I laughed.

[jose41296]

ill read this later