The Story of a Royal Guard [OUTDATED]

by Himntor

Hydra and Family Problems

Sword Shield woke up with the sensation he was being shaken. There was shouting, relatively close by but it sounded like a mile away.

"Shmmph Shmph!" somepony said. Sword Shield regained his senses and a panicking Shining Armor came into focus. Shining Armor was apparently the one shaking his bunk and shouting. He wondered what all the fuss was about.

"Sword Shield! Wake up!" said Shining Armor.

Sword Shield slowly rolled out of his bunk and stood up, shaking his head. "What's going on?"

Shining Armor was all suited up, he started tossing Sword Shield his armor, which he put on quickly.

"I need your help," said Shining Armor as Sword Shield got suited up. "There have been some hydras spotted nearby, and Princess Celestia thinks they might threaten Canterlot. She's sent me to deal with them, and I want you to come with me."

Sword Shield's ears perked up to the sound of some action. "Hydras? Finally! I mean... yes Captain, right away. What about the rest of the Royal Guard? Are they going to help too?"

"The rest of the guard are to stay here and protect Canterlot, just in case. I might be able to take on one hydra alone, but in this case I think I'll need a bit of extra help, and right now you're my best candidate. Let's go."

Right before they left the barracks Cadance came by and stopped them. "Be careful Shining Armor," she said, giving Shining Armor a quick hug. "And you too, Sword Shield."

"I'll try," said Sword Shield.

"Don't worry about us, we'll be fine and back before you know it," said Shining Armor.

They ran out towards the gates of Canterlot and down into the forest. It was roughly daylight outside, and there was still morning fog hanging low to the ground. Most of the city hadn't even woken up yet. The two of them reached the forest below Canterlot in half an hour's time and stopped to catch their breath.

"So... where do you think... the hydras are?" said Sword Shield in between breaths.

Shining Armor looked around. "I'm not sure. I heard that you can fly on your sword, do you think you can fly above and see if you can spot them?"

"How many hydras are there?"

"Just two, as far as I know."

"Okay... two hydras and two of us. No problem. I'll be right back."

Sword Shield brought out his sword and morphed it into a surfboard shape. He hopped on and flew up into the air slowly, wobbling just a bit but he managed to find his grip. He looked out into the forest, and to the east he could see Foal Mountain and one of its large caves, which gave him an idea. Also to the east was a group of small moving heads, which he guessed to be one of the hydras.

He flew back down to Shining Armor and put his sword away. "Okay, one of the hydras seem to be to the east. Foal Mountain is also over in that direction. I think we should try to drive the hydras to Foal Mountain and into one of the caves there. We can seal the entrance off with magic or debris."

Shining Armor nodded. "Good idea, thinking like a real Royal Guard Captain. The tricky part is getting its attention from a safe distance and then somehow getting it to the cave."

"I don't suppose magic will be able to factor in on our advantage?"

"No, hydras are too strong and aggressive. Levitation magic wouldn't work. But what might work is if I serve as a distraction," Shining Armor paused to think. "I can put a shield around myself to protect me from harm, while you get behind it and strike it from the backside. That will get enough of its attention to chase after you, and then you'll need to book it to the cave. Are you able to fly quickly enough?"

"I think I can. Don't worry about me, just try to be careful yourself. I don't want to have to disappoint Cadance."

Shining Armor laughed. "I'm sure you don't. Let's go."

Shining Armor and Sword Shield continued eastward towards the hydra. Once they were in hearing distance of it they slowed down to a stop. Shining Armor motioned Sword Shield to veer right and get behind it. As for himself, he cast a shield bubble around him and walked over to the hydra.

Shining Armor waved at the hydra. "Hey, lobster boy, over here!"

The large four headed beast looked around in confusion then finally focused on Shining Armor. It roared at him with ferocity and began to pound on the shield Shining Armor had cast, but failed to penetrate.

On the other side, Sword Shield was sneaking around and getting ready to strike. He took out his sword and grew it larger to have a stronger hit on the hydra, and then jumped out. He took one large swipe at the hydra's backside and quickly turned around, transforming his sword to fly and jumping on. The hydra screeched in pain. It turned around and saw Sword Shield flying away, the hydra quickly gave pursuit after him as fast as its legs would carry it.

Sword Shield flew as fast as his magic and balance would let him. He reached Foal Mountain and the entrance to the cave. He flew inside with the hydra right behind him, and dodged left and right from being in a tighter space. Once he felt he had gone deep enough he whipped around and zoomed past the hydra back outside. He hopped off his sword and quickly changed its shape into a large wall to block the entrance of the cave. The hydra pounded on it furiously, but to no effect.

"Perfect. Now I just have to wait for Shining Armor to get here and put the real spell on the entrance," thought Sword Shield.

Half an hour passed, but there was still no sign of Shining Armor. Sword Shield continuously paced at the cave's entrance. "Had I really gotten so far ahead? Where the hay is the Captain? What if the other hydra found him? What if he's in trouble!?" he thought.

He began to panic and paced around even faster, when there was a yell in the distance, which he recognized it as Shining Armor's voice, but he couldn't leave the cave entrance without risking the hydra escaping.

"Shining Armor! Over here!" he yelled as loud as he could, hoping that the sound might reach Shining Armor.

The ground started thumping. He could finally see Shining Armor in the distance, running for his life. Directly behind him was a giant hydra, much larger than the one Sword Shield had already trapped. Shining Armor finally was within hearing distance.

"It's too big for the cave!" he yelled.

He was forced to turn left, heading directly for a deep chasm. Sword Shield watched wide eyed as he led the giant hydra over to the chasm and jumped. The hydra followed right after, falling into the black pit.

Sword Shield reacted as quickly as he could. He took down his sword from the cave entrance and shaped it into a surfboard with lightning speed. He jumped on and raced to the chasm. The hydra which was trapped was released and chased after him, but he ignored it and dived right into the chasm towards Shining Armor.

"Faster! Faster!" he thought. He accelerated and finally reached Shining Armor, swooping underneath and catching him right before he hit the rocky bottom. Flying back up Sword Shield could see the first hydra tumbling over the side. He quickly dodged to the right and avoided colliding with the beast. He reached the surface and landed, putting an unconscious Shining Armor on the ground, and caught his breath. He looked over the edge of the chasm, seeing both hydras were at the bottom, still alive. They stared up at Sword Shield and hissed, then stomped away.

Shining Armor stirred and sat up with a groan. "What happened?"

Sword Shield gaped at him. "You jumped off a cliff! Are you insane, Captain!?"

"How else was I supposed to get rid of the hydra on my back? Thanks for saving my rump though." Shining Armor stood back up and brushed off his armor.

"Don't mention it. Really, I'm sure Cadance would become upset. Let's get back to Canterlot and tell Celestia everything's been handled."

Sword Shield used a Sight Seeing spell on his sword for a second time and started flying it back to Canterlot.

Shining Armor watched him curiously. "What are you doing?"

"Flying my sword to Canterlot, I hope. As far as I know I have almost unlimited range when using magic on my sword, I can simply fly it to where I want and teleport directly to the sword. I also want to see if I can teleport more than just myself to it."

"Let me guess, I'm going to be your test subject?"

Sword Shield laughed. "Yup."

Shining Armor sighed but agreed. Sword Shield found a good spot to land the sword and cancelled his Sight Seeing spell.

"You might want to put another shield around yourself, I'm not certain this will work, but it should."

Shining Armor skeptically put a bubble shield around himself again. Sword Shield focused his magic on both himself and Shining Armor and locked onto his sword.

Flash.

They reappeared in the air upside down and fell down to the ground. They'd teleported to the sword unscathed, but somehow managed to come out upside down. Shining Armor got up from the ground and shook his head from the sudden vertigo of teleporting into an upside down position.

"Nice job," said Shining Armor.

"I must have calibrated the pull of gravity wrong and made us teleport back upside down," said Sword Shield as he stood back up. "Sorry."

Shining Armor began heading to the castle. "I'm going to go report to Celestia. I'm going to give you some time off today, so feel free to do whatever you want for an hour or two. You deserve it."

"Thanks, Captain. I'll report back in a few hours."

Sword Shield decided to check on his parents, he hadn't payed them a visit for a few months now, mostly because of personal reasons. His father hadn't been particularly kind to him in the past, and what he might possibly say to him now frightened him slightly, but he couldn't just forget about his parents. His father was a very social and noble unicorn in Canterlot, and Sword Shield needed to show that he was too.

He swallowed his fears and walked down the road to his house, still wearing his full set of armor. He awkwardly approached his old home's door and knocked. The door opened and his mother, Sacred Shield, came into view. Her face lit up as she saw him standing in the door way and immediately gave him a hug. His mother was a white coated unicorn. Her mane and tail were short with light blue and purple colors, and she had forest green eyes. Sacred's cutie mark was a thermometer, and as such she worked at the Canterlot Hospital.

"My little Shield! How I've missed you," said Sacred, using the nickname she gave Sword Shield when he was young. She looked into his face. "What happened to you? You're all scratched up. Did something bad happen? Come here, let me fix you up."

"No Mom, I'm fine-"

Sacred grabbed Sword Shield by the ear and dragged him inside. "Nuh-uh! No excuses. You're a mess, come in, sit down."

Sword Shield sighed and sat down on the living room couch. "It's nothing mom, just a bit of hard work I had to do this morning."

Sacred began using a sponge to clean up Sword Shield's face. "I'm sure, but you need to be more careful, you could get an infection from one of those cuts. There, that should help." She walked back to the kitchen to put away her supplies. "Your father is still working at the bank, he should be back soon for a lunch break though."

"Oh, that's okay, I was just coming for a quick visit."

"I see. So, how's work at the Royal Guard been?"

Sword Shield let out a long exhausted sigh. Going against two hydras was not a way to start a morning. "Relatively slow, but I'm getting to know Princess Cadance and the Captain more, and a few other interesting things are happening here and there."

Sacred came back with a cup of tea and sat on the couch. "Oh? Cadance seems very sweet. I wonder when she'll start actually ruling her own kingdom."

"Cadance doesn't rule anything?" It was surprising to him that Cadance hadn't any sort of part in ruling over Equestria. Even during his time as her guard he hadn't known.

"Not necessarily. She holds some political power as a Duchess, but she's mostly served the ponies around Canterlot. Well, some day I bet she'll stumble upon some area that she can rule over."

"Hmm... I'm sure she'd do a good job. I acted as her guard for a while so I know she's very good at making the citizens of Canterlot happy. Also, I seemed to have... gained some new spells, so to speak," Sword Shield glanced at his sword strung to his side.

"New spells? Like what?"

"It's my sword. When I first came into recruitment I was tasked to make my own weapon," Sword Shield brought out his sword. "I put crystals in the hilt and enchanted mine. No other Royal Guard ever used an enchanted weapon, at least not recently. Such a thing hadn't been heard of in over a thousand years. I wanted to be the first since then."

"How do you know it was that long ago?"

"One of my books I read when I was young. Anyway, because I enchanted it, it's much easier to use magic on. It's like I have unlimited connection to the sword. I was over at Foal Mountain earlier-"

Sacred interrupted. "What were you doing all the way at Foal Mountain?"

"Nothing, I mean... just Royal Guard business. I was over at the mountain and I was able to use a Sight Seeing spell on the sword and levitate it all the way back to Canterlot without breaking a sweat, and then I teleported right back to it along with the Captain, who was with me at the time," he chuckled. "Of course, we teleported in backwards."

Sacred was now wide eyed. "You teleported that far?"

"Yeah, not only can I apparently teleport very long distances using my sword, I'm able to change its shape and size with ease. Watch this," he hopped up and changed his sword into the regular surfboard shape and jumped onto it and floated a few feet into the air. "I'm also able to fly on it."

Sacred gasped. "My goodness! Get down from there before you break something young stallion."

Sword Shield hopped off and put the sword away. "Sorry. I didn't even know that enchanting a weapon would be this useful, or why other Royal Guard's haven't thought of it before."

"I'm sure your father will want to see this as well."

Sword Shield fidgeted in place. "Uh, I'll have to skip that. You can tell him yourself about how good I'm doing." He wanted to avoid any confrontation with his father.

"Don't you want to see him? It's been months now." Sacred wasn't aware that he didn't want to see his father, as she was always too busy working at the Canterlot hospital during Sword Shield's foalhood to notice he didn't like Steadfast.

"Yeah, of course I do, it's just I have duties to get back to at the castle." It was a lie. He could have easily stayed just a bit longer to see his father.

"Oh alright. I'll tell him myself, but you really must come by and show us both sometime."

Sword Shield nodded and headed for the door. "I will, I promise. I'll see you later mom."

"Alright, I love you, and stay safe!"

"I love you too, and I will."

Sword Shield left his parent's home and headed back to the castle, passing Arden and Swifty who both gave a quick salute and went back to their duties. He reported to Shining Armor and was sent to his regular post on the wall for the rest of the day.

Author's Note:

Not much to say about this chapter. We see a bit how much Swordulan's father has affected him as he's gotten older.

Comments

[Mr Pones]

Well, the colors don't look shitty, I'll give you that.... It just looks to me that he REALLY needs a beard...

Also, all these deleted commentsimg.photobucket.com/albums/v55/CRaptor/FracturedAss.jpg

[Himntor]

1923758

The deleted comments were cause they were from ages ago when I posted this the first time, so I was just clearing out old stuff. Nothing against those people, this is just a renewal of the story so I didn't think they would be relevant.

Edit: Oh, and though it may look like it in the picture, that isn't supposed to be a beard or anything, that's just his mane behind his head... it does look kind of silly.

i.imgur.com/bqe6D.png
i.imgur.com/j55u8.png
i.imgur.com/NAZBs.png
These are a few other designs of him, the last one being the original version.

[Lucky424]

If that was me, I'd be in that bank rubbing it in my fathers face...........