//------------------------------// // Arrival Mk2 // Story: Once Bitten // by Damaged //------------------------------// The disguise hadn't felt right, and with a rush of green fire Vinyl Scratch appeared. She felt right, more herself, and looked out the window of the train. Vinyl watched the huge city of Canterlot get closer and closer. Reaching a hoof over, she gently tapped Shining on the shoulder. "Yeah, I see it. I hope she hasn't gone too overboard." Shining Armor looked at the massive blue barrier around the castle—shimmering with the colors of Cadance's magic. "It must be draining her pretty hard. Shields were always my… our… thing." "Shields an' music. You could make some great tunes even before you invented Vinyl." Vinyl felt a little odd talking about herself like that. She was an entity that had been created only months earlier, but had existed as part of Shining for most of his life, and still did even as he was part of her. "You look like you just ate a rock." Shining put a foreleg around Vinyl and hugged her. "What's the matter?" "Just thinkin' about where we stand, who we are… who I am…" Vinyl huddled against Shining. Despite her other half not being a stallion, Shining was big enough to snuggle against nonetheless. "You are more of me. I created Vinyl as a means to escape what life seemed destined to thrust upon me. I love her to bits, she helps me exist. You're not her, but you have her inside you, just like I do." Shining breathed out, huffing a little as she fished for the words she wanted to use. "We might need to work out names better at some point, but for now you can be Vinyl, because of every other pony in Equestria, you know the most about her." Vinyl found she was fine with everything said so far. "But what about me?" She looked up at Shining, but Shining's eyes were locked on the castle and city of Canterlot. "I don't know you as being any different to me, so we will have to see." Shining Armor turned her gaze down to the mare pressed to her side. "You know more about me than I do about you, but I want to learn more." The front of the train kissed against the magical barrier, and like a sharp needle pushing into the bottom of a balloon it pressed into the force field. Shining and Vinyl both snapped their heads up at the same time and saw a blue barrier sweeping along the carriage towards them. "Oh bug…" Thorax stepped forward and threw her own magic out. With the tip of her spell formed into a point, Thorax flared the rest to pierce a careful hole in the field and then closed it behind her. Her heart was pounding, and the queen changeling looked around at her drones. "That… that could have been bad…" "Don't you think it was strange that it let your magic in?" Walking right up to Thorax, Shining butted her head against her neck in a show of affection and thanks. "Almost like someone had tampered with the spell." "Or the spell caster." Vinyl almost trembled in fear at the thought of what the monster was doing to Cadance. A horrible thought hit her, of what if one of the larvae was allowed to infest Cadance. "We have to go now, we have to save Cady…" Shining's head snapped to her twin at the use of the very private word she had used. 'She remembers Cady, I can't hold her love against her', Shining thought. "We need to find out when the wedding is. It was supposed to be tomorrow, somepony said—" "That was me." Octavia walked not to Shining, but to Vinyl. "And it is. We have a night and a morning to get in there." Vinyl reacted instinctively to Octavia, reaching a foreleg around her friend and hugging her. "Well, best way to go is to Mom and Dad's. If we convince them not to go, it gives us two great disguises too." "Okay." Shining pulled back from Thorax, and smiled at her. "Thanks, I needed that." She was referring to the comfort and relaxation just being near Thorax gave. "Come on." The last was to the rest of the car's occupants. Disguised as a princess, Shining Armor stepped from the train. "Make way for Princess Guardinia!" Apple Bloom, disguised as a guard with nondescript, shiny armor, trotted around Shining and led the way. Her fellow Crusaders, each in their own guardspony disguise, rushed to make a royal escort up. Shining was taken aback at first, but couldn't do anything but play to the lead the nymphs had made. And it worked. Ponies stared at them, but made way for "the Princess" and her retinue. Holding her head high, Shining Armor A.K.A. Princess Guardinia, strode down from the platform and through the station. Apple Bloom was proud of her quick thinking, and was so excited to play a big part in the mission that she completely forgot an important fact. Not half a block from the train station she turned her head slightly. "Where do your parents live?" "Scratch that, we can't go there now. Straight to Canterlot Castle." What little plan they had made was shattered; a royal delegation couldn't march up to somepony's house. "We could be visiting Princess Cadance." Adore Belle was marching at Shining's side, and doing a great job of making her armor look ten times more fabulous than all except Sweetie Belle's. "And asking the groom's parents." "Alright. Alright. Straight on until that blue shop, then left. Be ready for when I stop after that." Shining strutted as best she could, ruffling her wings and tossing her mane a little with perfect movements. She knew she was showing off because it was what Cadance did when others weren't there to see. At last she slowed and stopped, and amazingly all the Crusaders halted on a dime. "Your Highness, this is the residence you asked for." Apple Bloom spoke as if there was no doubt that this had all been arranged in advance. "Good work, Lieutenant." Shining relaxed into standard Guard titles, not wanting to mess up any plans the nymphs had worked out in advance or would work out on the fly. Stepping past Apple Bloom, Shining lifted a hoof and knocked on her parents' front door. "Coming!" Twilight Velvet made her way from her start charts to the front door. Opening it she found herself almost double taking. A squad of guardsponies stood at attention around an alicorn mare that looked a lot like her Shining Armor. "May I help you?" Not sure what she expected would have happened, Shining was caught off guard when her own mother didn't recognize her. She had three full heartbeats—loud and thudding in her ears—before her brain kicked into gear. "Princess Guardinia," she bowed her head, "and I was hoping to see Princess Mi Amore Cadenza before the wedding. A Vinyl Scratch suggested I would find her here." Twilight Velvet's eyes widened at her son's secret second self. There was only one pony she knew of who would link the two, apart from Shining Armor himself, and the mare before her wasn't Night Light. "How intriguing." Part of Twilight assumed it was a trap, the other part started putting dozens of little facts together. Her son's behavior over the lead up to the wedding had been quite strange, and something about the way the mare before her stood started to tip her off to something she really didn't like the idea of. "Come in, please." She paused and looked at the guards. "I think you might find it comfortable if you go around to the back yard." Shining stepped forward, entering her foalhood home, and breathed a sigh of relief. "Mom, you have to believe me, I am Shining Armor." "I take it this is another mission for the guard?" Twilight froze the moment Vinyl Scratch walked into her home. She looked from the alicorn to the unicorn, and back again. "I think we need some tea." The words soothed both mares, Shining looking at Vinyl and then reaching a foreleg out to give her a hug. "Mom, there is a lot to tell you, and it might be best if Dad is here to hear it too." "Your father doesn't get home for another hour. Don't worry about him, I will pass everything on." Twilight calmly made the pot of tea. Setting cups and all the needed accouterments on a tray, she made her way into the living room where her son, and his alter ego, sat together. Taking a seat opposite them, she began pouring the tea. "Tell me what happened." Shining Armor stretched a wing around Vinyl, remembering how great it felt when Cady did that to her. "It was… I am not sure exactly how long, but I left Canterlot after a gig as Vinyl, and headed to Ponyville. I sent 'Tavi ahead to our house there, and collected my bags. Then they struck." "What struck? Or is it 'who'?" Twilight knew her son well, and the way the alicorn spoke matched him perfectly, right down to forgetting some of the more important details. She sipped her tea slowly. "Changelings. Monsters." Shining took a deep breath and called her fire. The big form melted off her, and she shrank down to the nymph she was. "Like this, but bigger." "Shining! You could have warned Mom first!" Vinyl got up and marched over to Twilight Velvet, helping her pick up the extra cups that had bounced off the tea set. "Sorry, but you need to know, Mom. This is… this is what I am now. Vinyl too." Shining flashed her fire and resumed the princess form. The explanation continued. Vinyl cuddled against her when she described being invaded. She cuddled her when she spoke of being forced to follow and help in the capture of foals. She cuddled her when she described giving birth to an egg—to Vinyl's egg. Twilight's cup of tea was long gone, and the pot grown cold. "This is a lot, and big. So the stallion pretending to be you is this evil bug queen, and you are here to stop her?" Shining and Vinyl nodded to her. "And you were going to rush in and save the day? You came here with support, why wouldn't this queen have as well?" "That is why I didn't march into the city as Shining Armor." Shining rolled his eyes. "But we have to stop this right away." "No, tomorrow is the best time." Twilight Velvet sighed a little over having no more tea. "You want their queen to reveal all her plans, pull all her hidden agents into the light, and round them all up together. Poor Cadance will just have to bear it one more night." "Can we stay here?" Vinyl had Shining's wing around her again, and felt relaxed and safe in a way she knew wasn't true. Memories came unbidden of Cadance hugging her just like this. "Of course you can't, you must go to the castle and announce yourselves. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna need to be informed of all this." Twilight Velvet frowned a little. "But not Twily. She already suspects Shining of being some kind of monster, and seems devoted to trying to work out what made you go so bad. She would explode if we told her now." "Cadance?" Shining and Vinyl said the name together, and both looked at their mother with beseeching hope in their eyes. "If you can get close to her. She has been acting quite strange lately, and hasn't gone more than seconds without either the fake Shining nearby, or one of her new guards…" Twilight shook her head. "Well, I guess we know some of the changelings will be those guards." "Do you think the Crusaders can pull this off?" Vinyl hated feeling so safe and cozy against Shining, she was meant to be the wild one, but this was really serious. "Of course they can. They were trained by the best." Shining felt a little, telltale tug from Vinyl and let her go. "Can you head around the back and get them to form up, I will wait at the door." Pausing a moment, Shining grinned. "And remember Vinyl, you have some Shining Armor in you too. You can be the big tough stallion if you want." "Yeah-yeah. Everypony will get confused if 'Vinyl' starts being the big hero." Vinyl knew the way to the back door as if she had grown up in the house. Twilight Velvet waited for her newest foal to leave the house, and she was trying to drive that fact home; Vinyl was her daughter now, and literally always had been. Getting used to her colt's alter ego walking around on her own was almost as strange as getting used to her colt as a filly. "What about Cadance?" Twilight looked at Shining directly. "I know, and I don't know. We both love her, we both remember every good thing that happened with her, and all the bad things too. I love Vinyl like a sister, but… I need to talk to Cady about it." Shining looked out the window of the house, watched her "guards" forming up. "Don't you lose that mare of yours, Shining Armor. I don't know as a trouble magnet like you could find another like her." Twilight stretched up and offered her cheek. Shining didn't hesitate, leaning down and kissing his mother's cheek, and then reached his wings out and around her for a hug. "I know, Mom. I don't…" She gulped and tried to continue. "I don't want there to be anything in Vinyl's way if I don't get through this. Make sure she knows that, makes sure they both do." "Don't you dare let that mare down, Shining Armor. And don't you dare think that anypony is a substitute for yourself." Twilight opened the door herself and pushed Shining's plot out. "Go on and save the day, Shiny."