Arc Angel

by Valorousspectre

Defender

I am fucked.

I am so fucking fucked and it's too late to run.

Defender is just standing the the doorway, smiling at me, a strange look in his eye. I don't like it, and it's difficult to stop my knees from shaking. Prince Defender is the leader of the Knights, the Night Guards, the Midlight Knights, Moonlight Guardians, call them what you will. He had the reputation of being a hardass and severely punishing lax guards or guards who screw up even the slightest. His methods could sometimes be considered borderline barbaric. He believed in hard discipline, and he wasn't afraid to dish it out, although sometimes he left it in the hooves of the ever mischievous Princess Luna. No matter how you look at it though, whether he kills me or imprisons me, I'm still fucked.

It's like a rainbow has been combined with a tornado. A tornainbow. And it's too late to fucking save myself.

"It's been a while my little pony. I hadn't thought you'd arrive so soon! I'm glad to see you."

I swallow heavily as he approached me. It was everything I could do just to keep my body from shaking. He was still smiling. With a smirk however as the doctor entered the room, he winked at me and mouthed something at me. It took me a moment to realise what he said.

'Play along Arc.'

Still wondering what the hell was going on, I forced myself to smile and rubbed my foreleg with my other one shyly.

"Well, I tried to get here as fast as I could. My teacher told me I'd been called to Canterlot, but I didn't know it'd be somepony so prestigious..? Is that the right word?"

He chuckled softly and, to my complete and utter surprise, drew me into a big hug with one large foreleg, holding me against his chest and against the cold metal of his chest accessory. If you remember, Celestia and Luna both wear similar accessories, but his is more like a combat chestplate, although more ornate. I flushed and, thankfully, he spoke first as the doctor looked away.

"Of course! I'm not letting my little god daughter have anything less than the best of educations."-

Still holding me to his chest, he leveled a stern look at the doctor. I could feel the uniorn cower away from the glare.

"You will oblige my god daughter's questions to the best of your abilities, understand? If you do not, you will be answering to me. Is this quite understood?"

I looked over at the doc to see him nodding vigorously. This is certainly going better than I thought it would. I pushed at him gently with an embarrassed giggle.

"Defender! You're embarrassing me! Lemme go!"

He laughed richly and let me go, then nudged me towards the bed again. I looked to the unconscious Princess again and looked to the doctor, fluttering my eyelashes at him.

"So um, are you going to tell me the situation or not?"

The doctor nodded instantly.

"Of course! Of course miss uh..?"

"Sparkling Grotto."

With a nervous glance at Defender, now looming in the corner, the doctor swallowed.

"Miss Grotto then. Uh, the patient is obviously Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, known as Cadance by her husband and friends. Almost two weeks ago she was attacked by an unknown assailant and she's been in a coma ever since. We got her in here as quick as we could and started treatment, analysing her wounds. They were blunt force trauma, most likely hoof strikes. However she's not in a coma because of the trauma. We've found minimal traces of a poison in her system, but it's certainly not native to Equestria. We actually don't know where it comes from, but it's torturously slowly destroying her system organ by organ. We've managed to slow it down even further with a series of injections and certain wards carved into her bedframe, but I'm afraid unless we find a cure, she's going to die."

I frown and think for a moment before asking cautiously.

"Can we tell if it was synthetic or natural?"

The Doctor opened his mouth to talk but stopped, and frowned, then looked at the clipboard he'd brought in with him, then back at me. I'm not sure if I said something wrong, but he seemed concerned.

"I... I don't think we'd even thought of that. I suppose we certainly could find out. Since you don't have a horn however, I'm afraid I'm going to have to perform the spell. It's a simple spell really, and it should tell us whether or not the poison was magically created, or synthetic, or if it's natural. I'll ask you to wait a moment whilst I cast the spell."

Holy shit I am so lucky. I was winging it there, I'll admit. I wasn't sure if he was going to think I was stupid or not, or if he'd catch me out. I suppose there must have been something right about what I said. I barely noticed as he began casting his spell. Poison. Cadance had been poisoned. That's why she hadn't woken up yet. And she won't wake up until she's cured. But without knowing what the fuck this poison was, I couldn't find a cure. And if that happened, Celestia and the ancients protect me.

"Yes! That's it! It's a naturally occuring poison, not magically created. The problem is that it seems to alter itself whenever magic is used to try and heal it. If we try and destroy it, it multiplies instead. If we try to change it, it reflects us. I can't heal it with the resources I have here, I'd need to know more about it."

From the corner, Defender rich voice thrummed through the room.

"Sounds like we need the help of the Kirin. Aren't they the most well versed in floral organisms?"

The doctor jumped, like he'd forgotten Defender's presence, and he nodded quickly.

"I... It would seem so. We'll have to send messengers and some such, yes?"

Defender snorted.

"Don't worry about it. King Chlorophyll is here right now. I'll just have to drag him out of Celestia's room with a team of oxen. It's an easy... fix... Where the hay are you going?"

As he spoke, I watched the doctor's eyes flash. I had a vague memory of seeing that yellow colour before and the Doctor simply left the room with a vacant, blank face. For a moment we both stared at the doorway before it was enveloped in a white light and the door to the room shut quickly and locked. I started and turned to look at the Prince who was looking now at me with an amused face.

"You know, that disguise is quite impressive. You're lucky it was me who found you first and not either my sister or my wife. I'm not certain Celestia would show any leniency. Luna may have, but I have a harder time predicting my sister's actions."

I flushed and fiddled with the pendant around my neck.

"Why are you helping me? I'd thought that the Prince would want me as bad as Shining or the Princesses did."

Defender chuckled softly and nodded.

"True. If I thought you guilty. But I don't. I can see the truth of things on many matters, and yours was one. I knew you weren't guilty the moment I saw you. I also saw right through your disguise. But I'm fairly certain that nopony else has. Shining Armour is currently telling your illusion that he's going to tell him the truth. I'll have you know that you've deceived the Captain of the Royal Guard, you deserve to be a little proud of that. Well, until he settles down."

I could feel the heat encompassing my face intensifying and looked quickly at the door before back to the prince.

"You said that the Kirin were the best bet for information on the antidote for this poison, was that a clue?"

Defender grinned and I could feel myself doing a little dance deep in my mind. A little dance of triumph. I was finally getting someplace.

"Maybe. To be honest it'll probably take three weeks or so to actually get all the paperwork in order, even though Chlorophyll will want to get everything taken care of as soon as he can. Some things have to be recorded, if only for diplomatic leverage. We probably don’t need it, knowing how much those two are spending in their company. But that’s royal business, you didn’t hear that from me.”

I nodded quickly, just happy to be getting help from such a powerful pony.

“No sir, of course not.”

He nodded to me with a happy smile.

“Good. Now I think you really should get going. You shouldn’t push your luck, you’ve been here too long as it is.”

The door opened slowly and I glanced at it again.

“And don’t worry. Nightspring won’t be disciplined. I’ll see to that myself.”

I couldn't help it, I smiled thankfully.

“Thanks sir.”

“But I can’t guarantee she won’t chase after you.”

For a moment I felt a stab of concern before shrugging.

"It's alright. I would prefer her to remain here and away from potential harm, but she's always been a free spirit. If she decides she needs to follow me she will, and no force on Equestria will stop her. She's always been like that. Just don't tell her where I'm going because she'll probably use the excuse of hunting me to get out of here and come after me."

~*~

As I walked down the halls of the castle, I lost myself in thought. I think it's fairly obvious what I was thinking about.

The Prince. I was helped and concealed by the Prince Defender, and now I have the perfect alibi as to who I am and if they question it they can go and ask Defender about me and he'd back me up. But why in the hell did he help me anyway? His reason didn't really explain it. Seeing the truth of some matters? Was he spying on me somehow? I don't understand how that'd be even possible. I suppose scrying could work, but without the added magic needed to add audio, which is fairly advanced, he wouldn't know what was said. And no offense to his Majesty, but he's not terribly good at magic which is surprising given his alicorn status. And yeah, I see the Alicorn race as more of a status than a race.

Regardless however if he's helping me out of the goodness of his heart or for his own strange and inconceivable gain, he helped me anyway. And this was going to clear my name.

It won't be long now.

I have to get to the Somerset Glade.

Comments

[Reggie the Griffon]

OH DAMM Defender is so awesome.
Great chapter but, how do you write so fast?

~Reggie

[Diabolic Gnome]

yay first update read on my new laptop

[zmuscle]

well this is a surprising turn of events

[ChillaxBrony]

lax guards

tornainbow

Dude did you like, add lax bros and my torainbow pic into this chapter?!

Because if you did, then i love you.... no homo

[Valorousspectre]

1470398
I can neither confirm nor deny the presence of the added picture refs here in this chapter.

[ChillaxBrony]

1470661

K.