I
Chapter Eleven
The World Stops Watching
Whoever Shining Armor was, Aranea hoped that the shield of his could keep changelings in, because it was going to be a pain finding out who the bugs had replaced and how exactly they had got here and when. Celestia scribbled her response to Twilight and disappeared in a flash of light. Aranea walked out of the throne room with a yell, "LOCK DOWN THE CASTLE. INTRUDERS AND MURDERERS ARE AFTER THE PRINCESSES." While the main castle staff went into a panic, the guards saluted and made for each exit, informing the other guards along the way.
With a few steps past that she paused, "And why in hell are they listening to me?" A frown forced itself upon her face before she gave a deep sigh of annoyance. As a guard outfit, these ponies were doing a horrendous job. They should have demanded from from her, not gone off and done exactly what she said. Furthermore, the fact Celestia had given her her weapon back, despite prior events, was completely and utterly, for lack of a better term, idiotic. Who, in their right mind, gives a person who threatened the ruler of a country their weapon back, while they were in jail?
With a shake of her head, Aranea moved towards the entry hall of the castle itself. Hefting the weapon on her back into her hands, she grabbed the nearest guard. "Bring everyone here," she said, "and get the rest of you lot on it too." The guard gulped and nodded, disappearing down the hall as Aranea leaned up against the wall. "DISCORD!"
A loud popping noise, followed by a downfall of confetti, and the aforementioned draconequus made his appearance into the large room. "You called?"
"Can you figure out when a changeling has disguised itself as a pony?" she asked, giving him a glare. The draconequus blinked, then had a quick moment of realization. A few bubbles floated out of the O shape he had made with his mouth, quickly turned into a grin.
"Of course!" he grinned, Always the easy way out with this one. She raised an eyebrow, then sighed and nodded.
"Of course," she said with annoyance, "then when the guards have rounded everyone up, I want you to expose any and all the changelings." She gave the draconequus yet another look. He tipped a top hat from his head, having made it appear seconds before hand. With a swift pop, he disappeared.
"That aside, why are you helping the Princesses, you don't owe them anything," he asked, his voice sounding distant and echoed despite that he didn't need to sound that way.
"You're right, I don't," she said, frowning, "but at the same time I'd prefer to avoid people dying like all those years ago."
Discord hummed, "And what if the changelings are here just to get food?"
"As long as they haven't killed anyone, and have no darker plans, I'm all for it," she answered, waving her hand dismissively. Discord gave an amused chuckle, before going silent as the first few ponies entered the hall. The silver haired woman watched as a mass of nervous mass of small horses entered the hall. The guards ushered them in quietly, soon after followed by a somewhat bulked up male horse, with a white coat and blue mane. As soon as Aranea saw the shield on his flank, she realized who it was.
"Shining Armor, interesting to see you again, despite the circumstances," she called out. The colt turned and gave her a look before nodding. He walked up to stand by her side, giving her a glare.
"As much as it leaves a bad taste in my mouth, you know the most about this so do what you will and I'll step in if I'm needed," Shining said, moving to stand slightly behind her. A brief nod and she faced the panicked servants, a few made a move to run but the other guards had blocked off the exits. After noting the behavior, likely due to Shining's presence, she was grateful for the professionalism.
"Surely, you're all wondering why you've been gathered up here, in front of me and Shining Armor, instead of the Princesses," Shining gave a slight noise of discontent in response, "and the answer is simple. Some of you are not who you are pretending to be, nor even the same species."
A number of voices started protesting, but she shouted over them, "DISCORD, IF YOU WOULD!" A second later, a decent number of the ponies shuddered and a wave of green light rolled off their bodies revealing an insect-like horse beneath the facade.
"Guards!" Shining shouted, resulting in a number of guards forcing them out in front of the regular ponies. Each of the guards removed a gold ring from somewhere on their bodies and forced it onto the horn on each of the creature's heads. The changelings attempted to fight, but eventually all of them had a ring around their horn. Shining gave her a nod, and she stepped forward.
"If you are here to live, then you have nothing to fear. If you threaten the lives of anyone, even the Princesses, you will be immediately incarcerated and further punishment will be decided by the laws of the land," she looked back towards Shining who gave a simple nod. "First, you," she pointed her weapon at the the nearest changeling. Unlike the rest of them, it was calmer but still noticeably nervous, "What are your motives, here in Equestria?"
The changeling gulped, "I-I just wanted to live my life," it responded in a notably masculine voice. Aranea leaned down and gave it a look in the eyes. Immediately shrinking back, it closed it's eyes and turned away. A few seconds later, she gave a nod.
"Alright, but since we cannot guarantee your innocence, I want you to point out to me which of your kin doesn't have those motives," the creature nodded rapidly. She nodded to the guard behind him and he was pulled to his hooves. She led him towards the other changelings, and waved her hand forward. "The ones you don't point out will be locked in a cell, just as you will be, until we can determine their innocence. The rest..." She left it unsaid and a number of changelings gulped audibly.
She watched as he began pointing out specific changelings, each of whom was quickly pinned down by the guard and brought to the side of the room. Maybe I misjudged their professionalism... she thought as the final changeling was moved. Out of the seventeen changelings exposed, only four had not been pointed out, aside from the original. "Very well, guards, lead those few out of here and bring the rest to Shining and I."
A quick nod and a few of the guards led the now noticeably calmer changelings out of the room, whereas the rest of the remaining changelings hissed violently as they were dragged forward. "And get the other ponies out of here," she said, looking towards the changelings. Shining gave her a dark look before nodding to the remaining guards who quickly escorted the servants out of the room. "Shining, what does the law do to criminals plotting murder or having already murdered?"
"Lifetime in jail or exile," he answered.
She frowned, then looked at the changelings, "Alright, so then it's a lifetime in-" one of the changelings interrupted her by lunging forward, having broken free of the guard holding it. With a quick swing of her spear, the changeling was literally crushed against the ground, green blood oozing from the crushed chitin of it's head. To their credit, the guards remained mostly silent as she lifted her weapon away from the body. A grimacing Shining Armor was turning green himself, "Get them out of here," she spat.
"Did you have to kill it?" Shining said, the disgust clear in his voice.
"I've killed for less, in the past, but this was in self defense," she said, looking down towards the body with a glare, "and to be perfectly honest, I didn't think it would kill him." Shining shook his head, attempting to clear his head of the image and the gory result of what had happened. Aranea pulled a cloth from inside her armor and began wiping the spear off.
"Still..." Shining trailed off.
Celestia returned to the throne room, in the same manner as she had left it, and was surprised to see Aranea sitting down in a chair with Shining near her. In front of the two was a stack of papers, along with a set of folders. Shining seemed ingrained in what he was reading, only to look up at her shortly after she had appeared.
"Your majesty," he said giving a slight bow before returning to what he was reading. Aranea noticed shortly afterward and set the folder in her hand down, looking up towards the Princess.
"I took care of it," she said.
"Not like she would have," Shining offered without looking a up.
The dragoon glared and turned back to her, "As annoying as it is, he's right about that. I didn't take care of it as cleanly as I could have, in fact, I had to kill one of them."
Celestia winced, it had been centuries since the last time she, or any soldier of Equestria, had killed anyone. Sure, murders happened, but they were far from frequent. Moving towards the table they had set up, she noted the opened folder with the words Changeling-7 on the papers inside. When she looked towards Shining, his paperwork seemed to be diagrams of weapons and battle formations. "What happened?"
"I made them reveal themselves, the how not being important, and one decided to try to assault me after I had determined who was supposedly innocent," she kept it to herself, but was quite relieved her suspicions had been correct in that department. If no one had been a changeling, or if they had all been innocent, it wouldn't have ended well.
Celestia remained silent for a few moments before speaking, "...It can't be helped?" she said,a confused look gracing her face before she shook her head and put a hoof to her forehead, "I must apologize, it's been centuries since the last time anyone was killed in circumstances anything like this."
Aranea blinked, "That's surprising."
"I had to make an effort to prevent such scenarios," Celestia said, before putting her hoof back on the floor, "I suppose I should be proud it lasted this long."
"I thought you would arrest me," Aranea answered, a note of disbelief in her voice.
"Regarding what I have learned recently, I believe trusting you is anything but a mistake," the solar diarch said, her hoof waving dismissively, "I shall explain later, but first we must determine what happens to the guilty, and how to determine those you were told are innocent are truly so."
Aranea sat back down, holding up the folder she had had in her hand when Celestia had returned shortly before, "Shining had some of the guards interview both groups." Celestia gripped the folder in her magic and brought before her eyes.
"We'll need to verify all this at least once more," she said, looking at the folder.
"Shining?" Aranea said, looking to the colt in question. A short nod and he set the papers down, moving towards the doors.
"I'll interrogate them myself, your majesty," he gave a quick bow towards Celestia and opened the doors. After he had disappeared and the doors had closed, Aranea sat down and gave a deep sigh. Celestia blinked and looked at her before looking back to the folder in front of her.
Aranea leaned back in the chair and looked at the princess, "It's been one hell of a day."
Celestia blinked and thought back to the discussion she had with Twilight before returning, then she looked up at the ceiling. "Indeed it has..."