Princess Cadance and her assistant Andesite were trotting their way to the Crystal Palace's infirmary. The medical office was similar to all the other ones that could be found in places like schools and offices, with bottles of potions and enchanted bandages to enhance a pony's natural healing abilities. What set it apart from other ones, however, was that it had its own magical wound scanner, several physical rooms instead of beds with curtain dividers, and it was staffed with a GP doctor instead of a nurse in training with just simple CPR and First Aid under their belt.
As Cadance and Andesite drew closer, they took note of two guards standing at the entrance to the infirmary. The guards, taking note of the two ponies approaching, called out for them to stop.
"There's been an alert for changelings issued by one of the commanders", the guard explained,"Because of this, we have to verify the identity of everypony coming and going within the palace. If you would please ignite the magic in both of your horns."
Cadance and Andesite looked at each other with a moment of worry before they both ignited their magic. Cadance's was the correct blue, and Andesite's was the correct and slightly darker blue as well.
"You may pass, and we apologize for the inconvenience, your highness" the guard said to her as they moved to the side to allow them to pass.
"You need not apologize for performing your duties" Cadance told them as she and Andesite entered the infirmary. After they were past the guards, Cadance became concerned. "Changelings in the Crystal Palace besides Thorax?" she thought to herself,"We'd better find them before they escape the empire, or else we'll have the whole hive here ready for another attack."
The princess thoughts were interrupted by the doctor of the infirmary approaching her.
"Hello Doctor Caduceus", she greeted him,"I trust you know why I am here?"
"I do, your highness", he answered her,"but I must ask you to stay back a safe distance."
Cadance looked confused. "Why must I stay back?" she asked.
"Being around the changeling right now isn't safe" he told her, then gestured to a pair of small benches off to one side of the room. "Please, have a seat, and I will explain everything that's happened so far."
Cadance nodded in agreement and took a seat in the appointed spot, Andesite finding a spot beside her. A few moments later, and the doctor returned with three cups of water, offering to both the princess and her assistant.
"Now, to begin", the doctor commenced his story,"The changeling was brought to me about fifteen minutes ago. He was in a very poor state, and the guards who brought him had administered first aid to him, covering his wounds in healing bandages and treating his horn with healing potions to try and seal up some of the cracks in it. It worked partially, but it will take a lot of rest to properly heal, and more time before the changeling is able to use even basic levitation. Of course, that's if he wakes up."
"If he wakes up?" Cadance questioned.
"Yes, if", the doctor confirmed,"The changeling has sustained a great deal of physical trauma across large portions of his body. The only place he didn't have any marks on him was his flanks and back legs. His forelegs are cracked, most likely from trying to shield the vital parts of his body from harm."
"Yes, I was told he was attacked", Cadance interrupted,"Do you know anything about that?"
"Not much", the doctor continued,"The guards only said he was attacked and that they never got a good look at the attackers. They made the assumption that it was changelings because the one guard remembered the one attacker falling from the ceiling, and then both..."
The doctor paused for a moment, until Cadance urged him on. "Then both what?"
The doctor took a breath before answering "both guards claimed to have been knocked out, and then woke up later feeling fatigued and having headaches. Everypony in the medical fields knows by now that those are common symptoms of a changeling feeding on a pony's emotions."
Cadance nodded grimly at the assessment. That meant that right now, two changelings had definitely been here in the Crystal Empire, and that they needed to be found and captured before they either drained more ponies, or made their escape to tell their hive and queen of the empire.
Andesite probed for more answers. "Sir, why can't we be let in to see this changeling?"
"Apologies", he continued,"I got off topic for a moment. Anyways, the changeling came in with lots of bandages, but he was also missing the inhibitor ring on his horn, the bindings for his wings, which were also severely damaged in the attack, and the cage on his muzzle. We thought nothing of them since he was unconscious and bound to the gurney. The decision was made to treat his wounds before we at least put the ring back on, but the restraints were all destroyed in the attack. We can replace the muzzle and wing bindings easily enough, but we'll have to enchant a new ring to use on him in the future."
"Now, I hadn't noticed it at first, but after we'd had the changeling in here for a few moments, I noticed some of the guards becoming lethargic and rubbing their temples as though they had migraines. I had a suspicion at the time, but only when I turned the lights off to the changeling's room and saw the pink energy for myself did I know for sure what was happening."
"He's feeding on the ponies around him" Cadance said flatly, a look of anger in her eyes. The doctor, surprisingly, raised his hoof.
"I wouldn't become too upset with him yet, your highness", he stopped her,"One of my first courses of action after treating the changeling's wounds was to try and restore him to consciousness with some smelling salts, but he was still unresponsive after a minute or two of doing that. I fear that he may be comatose for the time being, with no clear indication as to when he will wake up. With that being said, I think what is happening is a self-preservation reflex that his body is acting on."
"Self preservation?" Cadance questioned.
"Yes", Caduceus answered,"Since changelings feed on love, their body processes it into forms it can use. In this instance, I believe his body is trying to heal itself, but it is running low on love, so it's taking it from nearby sources, such as any ponies in the vicinity. That's why I'm not allowing anypony close to him until I'm sure they can do so and be safe."
"Do you believe any of the fed upon guards will have any negative effects from it", Andesite asked the doctor.
"I don't believe so" he answered her. "From what we've seen, the guards were only fed upon a small amount. If it were a complete draining, they could become catatonic and unresponsive."
Both the princess and Andesite breathed easier. "I'll inform my husband to give those guards a pass to recover", she told Andesite,"I want you to cooperate with and help oversee a complete search of the palace with all staff available."
Cadance then turned her attention to a guard in the room. "I want you to inform the patrolling guards outside the palace to begin searching the empire for those changelings. It is of the utmost importance they be found and captured!" The guard saluted and exited the infirmary, followed by Andesite.
Cadance finished her water and stood up. The doctor looked at her confused. "Your highness?" he questioned her.
"I'm going to have a look at your patient, doctor" she told him.
Caduceus went wide eyed. "Princess, I must protest your decision. Who knows how much love he'll take out of you once you go in there."
"I understand your concern", she replied,"but I do not plan to stay long. Just to assess his condition so as to accurately report it to my husband. No more than a minute at most."
Caduceus wanted to protest more, but he simply bowed his head. There was no telling the princess what she could and couldn't do. "Very well, your highness", he conceded,"but please, if you start feeling weak or a headache coming on, leave the room immediately."
Cadance nodded as she walked past him and began looking in the rooms of the infirmary. She quickly deduced the door that was both shut and magically locked was the one she was looking for. Casting a spell, she unlocked the door and walked inside.
Lying on the bed was the changeling called Thorax. He was restrained with straps to the bed, and his head and torso were covered in white bandages that glowed a light blue color, working to heal the serious wounds that covered his body. Cadance flipped off a light switch to confirm the doctor's story, and sure enough, a trail of pink energy was leaving her body and flowing over to the changeling.
Letting out a breath, the princess walked over to him and noticed how severe the attack had been. Something happened to interrupt the attackers, because he was only a few blows away from being too wounded to save. She looked at how damaged his head was and guessed that he had suffered a concussion before losing consciousness. If he did, then there was a chance that he suffered brain damage.
"If he ever wakes up, he may not have any memory of the attack" she said to herself.
The princess noticed a small headache starting near the base of her horn and feeling a bit tired, so she took that as her cue to leave the room. As she did so, she saw a mare rushing past Caduceus and coming to a stop a short distance in front of her. The mare gave a very short bow before she addressed the princess.
"He's in there, isn't he?!", she asked Cadance,"How is he?!"
Cadance, now recognizing her as Brass Polish, the cleaning pony that was friends with Thorax, couldn't help but notice the franticness in her voice. "Yes, he's in there", she answered,"and he is not conscious at the moment. I must also advise you not to go in there; In his current state, his body is draining love from ponies that get too close to him."
Brass went wide eyed. "He's draining ponies?!", she said in shock,"He said he'd never do that again!"
"And I'm sure that he meant that", Doctor Caduceus chimed in,"but he is unconscious and in not very good shape, which most likely means that his body is doing the only thing it knows to begin healing itself, which means to take whatever nearby love it can get and convert it into energy to be used to heal itself."
Brass processed what the doctor had told her. She stood there for a few moments before a look came across her face.
"Princess" she said quietly.
"Yes, Brass?" Cadance replied.
"Everypony knows what happens when changelings drain love from ponies, but..." Brass trailed off, unsure of how to say what she wanted to say next.
"But what, Brass" Cadance pressed her.
Brass let out a breath and looked the princess in the eyes and asked a question nopony had ever thought to ask before. "What would happen if a pony gave a changeling love willingly?"
Everypony but the one to suggest the idea let out a gasp of shock. After a second, Doctor Caduceus voiced his opposition to the idea. "Madam", he addressed Brass,"I do not believe that to be a very good idea. That may very well lead to a pony being drained even faster and more completely than if they did resist."
"I'm afraid that I must agree with the doctor, Brass", Cadance concurred,"There's no knowing what could possibly happen, so it's too big of a risk to try that."
"What if the pony agreed to go through with it, knowing the risks?" Brass asked, her voice sounding more like pleading.
Caduceus was about to voice another protest, but Cadance stopped him. She looked Brass up and down and then straight into her eyes. "Brass", she asked,"Do you love Thorax?"
Brass was fidgeting nervously, but replied,"He's my friend, and I care about him as much as any of my friends."
Cadance took a moment to weigh the options. On one hoof, what Brass proposed was something that she was sure almost nopony had ever considered: What would happen if a pony willing gave their love to a changeling? On the other hoof, there was the already established evidence of what happened to ponies who had their love taken against their will. Logically, she could only make one choice.
"I must apologize to you Brass", the princess began,"but I'm afraid I cannot allow you to do what you are suggesting. I understand and sympathize with you wanting to help your friend, but if he were here right now, would he want you to risk yourself becoming catatonic and without emotion just to save him?"
Brass looked at the princess for a moment, but hung her head in defeat. Cadance approached her and placed a hoof on her withers. "I promise you that we are doing all that we can to help him. We just have to make sure everypony stays safe while we do it."
Brass looked the princess in the eyes and gave a small nod, the disappointment at hearing her decision clear on her face.
"Please, wait in the seating area or out in the hallway", Cadance asked her,"I'm sure if he wakes up and it's safe, Dr. Caduceus will allow you to visit him."
Brass nodded and turned to go take a seat in the sitting area. Cadance turned to Caduceus and simply said "I know the changeling is in a sorry state, but if it looks like he won't make it, try to keep him alive and conscious at least long enough he can give a report to the guards."
Caduceus had a grim look on his face but nodded. "It's too early to tell, but I think he can pull through this once he's healed enough."
Cadance gave a nod at his remark. "Let me know of his situation when you check him again. I need to go speak with my husband now."
The doctor nodded and returned to his duties. Cadance left and made her way to her husband's office. As she walked, she hoped that Thorax would at least help them capture the two changelings at large in her empire.
Captain Shining Armor was filling out some paperwork in his study. He had just had dinner with his wife and daughter an hour or so ago, and decided to get some last minute items out of the way before bed time. As he was signing off on a requisition for Vanhoover's division of the guard to receive new training equipment, there was a knocking at his office door.
"Come in" he called out.
The door opened, and in walked his wife.
"Cadance!", he said in surprise,"What are you doing here?"
"Something rather serious has happened" the princess told him.
Shining looked at her with confusion. "What's going on?"
Cadance took a calming breath before explaining. "You know the changeling that I've permitted to stay here?"
Shining's look shifted from confusion to disgust. "Yes", he answered,"What about him?"
"I was told earlier this evening that he was attacked and beaten within an inch of his life", she continued,"I wouldn't have believed it, but I just came from the infirmary where he's laying in a bed, unconscious and wrapped in healing bandages."
"That's impossible!", he proclaimed,"He's under 24/7 guard supervision. Who could've been able to get to him?"
"Shining", she said calmly,"The two guards who were with him claimed they were attacked by changelings."
The anger on Shining Armor's face increased tenfold. "That bug!", he shouted,"Of course that was his game! Lull us into a false sense of security and wait for our guard to be lowered!"
"SHINING ARMOR!"
The captain of the guard flinched as his wife raised her voice to him, a level just shy of the Royal Canterlot Voice.
"The changeling was attacked, and it was a legitimate attack" she informed him, showing a set of dressings covered in blood. "You can check these if you'd like, or go to the infirmary yourself and see him there."
Shining wanted to offer protest, but after seeing how serious his wife was, opted not to. "I assume you've begun a search for these alleged changelings?" he asked.
"That was the first thing anypony did", she replied,"Searches are being conducted inside AND outside the palace."
Shining nodded. "Very well" he said,"We'll continue the searches until we find the changelings. In the meantime, we'll make sure to have everypony sleep with locked doors and windows-"
"Are you even listening Shining?" Cadance asked him in disbelief,"A pair of changelings got their way into the palace. I would say that constitutes a lack of security that needs to be investigated!"
Shining flinched upon hearing his wife's disapproval. "Okay", he relented,"I will review the palace's security measures, again, and try to figure out where the security lapses occurred."
"Please do", Cadance told him,"This time, they were after the changeling. Whose to say they won't be targeting me, or Flurry Heart next time?"
The princess left, leaving the question to weigh on her husband. The full gravity of the situation laid before him, Shining began pulling as many documents as he could to review the security protocols for the palace, and where things would need to be shored up.
As the princess made her way down the hall towards her bedroom, she was stopped by Andesite.
"Andesite", she said to the mare as she approached,"You look haggard. What is the matter?"
Andesite, who had been running at a full gallop, took a moment to catch her breath before answering the princess. "In the infirmary, your highness! Brass Polish slipped past the doctor and locked herself in the changeling's room! She won't come out and she's refusing to listen to reason!"
Cadance let out a gasp. "We need to get to the infirmary, now!" she told her assistant, as both ponies broke into full gallop towards the infirmary.
Inside the infirmary, Brass Polish was locked inside one of the treatment rooms with Thorax. The lights in the room were off, and the mare could see a trail of pink going from her body to the changeling in the bed. Behind her, hooves were beating against the door as a muffled voice called out to her.
"Miss Brass!", called Doctor Caduceus,"Please come out! It's not safe for you to be in there!"
Brass continued to ignore the doctor and instead walked over to the bed where the changeling lay. It hadn't been but a minute or so, but she could already feel weakness setting in, making the short walk across the room feel more laborious than it should have. She was soon by the bed, looking down at the black creature covered in bandages.
"I don't know if I could ever prove it", she said to the unconscious changeling,"but I know that Feather and Elbow were behind this somehow." Brass knelt down with her forelegs on the bed, partly because of fatigue from being drained, but also to look more closely at Thorax. As she knelt there, tears began to form in the corner of her eyes.
"You gotta wake up", she said to him tearfully,"You got to! You have friends that care about you. Sunburst, the elements, Spike... me." Brass could feel the tears running down her cheeks, but she didn't care. She continued to lay there quietly weeping with her head resting on Thorax's barrel. She could feel more love draining out of herself, but she didn't care; If giving him every last bit of love in herself would help her friend, she'd do it. She'd do it for any of her friends, really.
As she continued to shed tears, one of those tears managed to fall onto Thorax's exposed chitin. When it did, it turned a pink color and seeped into the shell-like skin. More tears followed, and the same effect occurred. Underneath the changeling's bandages, his body began to heal much more quickly, the cracks in his carapace sealing shut, the exposed flesh from the stripped away chitin beginning to cover over with new skin, and Thorax's brain beginning to repair the damage from his concussion.
Doctor Caduceus' pounding became louder and his shouts more insistent. "Miss Brass, please!", he called through the door,"I understand your wanting to help, but risking yourself becoming a shell of a pony is not the way to do it!"
Brass ignored him. Changelings needed to feed on love to survive, and she would give Thorax all the love he would need, no matter what it would cost her. She simply continued to shed tears over her friend, hoping that it would somehow help him improve. As she rose up and wiped her face, she suddenly heard a small groan.
"T-Thorax?!" she asked in surprise. She looked down and saw his body shift in his unconscious state. Moreover, she also noticed that the pink love energy was no longer leaving her body.
The changeling lying before her groaned a little more and shifted slightly, groaning a little bit louder after each movement. Brass stayed still, wondering if he was going to wake up, but Thorax still stayed unconscious. Without further delay, Brass cast her spell on the door to unlock it.
Doctor Caduceus rushed in and took hold of Brass and tried to drag her outside. "That was incredibly foolish, Madam!" he scolded the mare. Brass rolled her eyes.
"It's safe to be in here now", she told him,"Take a look for yourself."
Doctor Caduceus was going to offer a retort, but he then noticed that the pink love energy that had been escaping everypony and heading towards Thorax was now gone, and he then saw the changeling shifting slightly. Immediately, he rushed to the changeling's side to try and bring him back to consciousness. "Miss Brass", he told her while pointing,"Go into that cabinet and give me a pack of smelling salts."
A strong smelled roused Thorax back to consciousness. The changeling groggily opened his eyes, but closed them again as they were assaulted by light. "He's coming to!" he heard a voice exclaim, the loudness of it causing him to wince.
"Thorax!" came another loud voice, one he immediate recognized.
"B-Brass?" he groggily replied. Immediately, he felt a weight on his chest and two legs wrap around him. Unfortunately, the pressure caused him to grunt in pain.
"Oh, sorry!", she apologized,"I guess hugs can wait."
"W-Where am I?" Thorax asked.
"The palace infirmary", replied the earlier voice,"I'm Dr. Caduceus, and you've been through quite the ringer."
Thorax went to prop himself up, but was rewarded with a sharp pain in his head, causing him to let out a groan.
"Try not to move", the doctor cautioned,"You have a great many wounds from your barrel all the way to your head, as well as a concussion. You also have damage to your flight muscles, though I can't say to what extent due to my unfamiliarity with your species' anatomy, but my best guess is you won't be flying for quite a while."
Thorax didn't give any reply. By the sound of it, he would be laid up in this infirmary for a while. Then, there was the question of his wings; Would Princess Cadance and Captain Shining Armor allow him to rehabilitate them so could fly again?
Brass placed a hoof on his shoulder. Thorax looked up at her, his eyes now better adjusted to the light, and then they went wide eyed. He could feel her love and sympathy for him, which only meant one thing. "M-My ring!", he said as he reached for his horn, letting out another groan of pain as his hoof made contact with it.
"Please lay still!", the doctor instructed him,"If you keep jostling around like you are, you'll reopen your wounds and take even longer to heal!"
Thorax laid in place, deciding that following the doctor's advice would be the best course of action.
"Now", the doctor continued,"You were found with most of your restraints missing by Miss Brass Polish here, along with a pair of guards who were recovering from being knocked out. Your restraints were also found near your body, and all of them destroyed beyond use."
"Additionally, as you were being treated, your unconscious body began draining nearby ponies of love, so we've had to keep you isolated until you recovered enough to stop doing that, though I suppose we have Miss Brass here to thank for that."
Thorax frowned upon hearing what happened. He never intended to drain love from anypony, but could he really be blamed if he was so out of it that he didn't have any subconscious control of his feeding instincts? He was sure some ponies would, just out of pure prejudice.
"Now that you are awake and back in control of your body functions", the doctor continued,"would you please try to describe what happened to the best of your abilities? Don't worry about a whole lot of details; just the basic facts is all I need."
Due to the concussion, Thorax's memory was a bit cloudy, but he recalled all of the important details. "The guards were taking me back to my room when we went down a hallway that didn't have lights. One guard went into the bathroom, and a few seconds later, two ponies attacked us."
"Ponies?", the doctor said with confusion,"According to reports that the guards gave, they said the attack was two changelings."
"I thought so too", Thorax admitted,"but there were things they said and did that changelings wouldn't say or do."
"Such as?"
Thorax thought for a moment. "One of the last things I remember hearing before I went unconscious was 'Don't break character', but neither of them were wearing disguises."
"This comment", the doctor pressed,"was it before or after you sustained a concussion?"
"I'm pretty sure it was after" Thorax answered.
"Okay, so you were attacked after the one guard went into the bathroom" The doctor repeated as he jotted down notes. "I'll report this to the guard for now. In the meantime, I want you in bed and resting. Now, before I leave, I have one more question to ask you: Will there be any more of that instinctive feeding going on?"
"No", Thorax replied,"Most of that was on account of how badly hurt I was. Now that my more severe injuries have healed some, I should be able to control my body better now."
"Okay", the doctor responded,"In any case, I'm going to insist on keeping you quarantined to prevent it from happening again. Now, get some rest and let your body heal properly. Come along now, Miss Brass."
"Um, can I get just one second with him before I leave?" the mare asked.
"Fine", the doctor relented,"but only one." With that, the doctor left. Brass then turned to face Thorax.
"You had me worried that you were gonna be in a coma for a while" she told him, some tears still visible in her eyes.
"I could've", he admitted,"I just wish I could've been able to control my body when it started just feeding randomly."
"Hey, that's not your fault!", she told him,"Your body wanted you to live, and it did it the only way it knew how to."
"I know", he replied,"but I know that other ponies aren't going to see it that way."
"Well, tough cookies!", she answered back,"You were completely knocked out and in no control of your actions."
"Brass, I'm not dumb", Thorax countered,"They arrest drunk ponies that cause problems all the time, and a lot of them weren't able to control themselves."
Brass just glared at him with a small smirk. "Thorax, there's a big difference between getting conked on the head hard enough to cause a concussion and getting blackout drunk" she told him.
Before Thorax could offer another rebuttal, the doctor came back in. "Okay Miss Brass", the doctor said to the mare,"You've had your second. Now it's time to let my patient rest."
Brass frowned at him and turned to Thorax. "I'm coming back tomorrow on my lunch to visit you" she told him, then walked out of the room. The doctor watched her leave and then turned to Thorax.
"I'm locking this door so nopony comes in here by accident", he told Thorax,"but if you should need anything, there's a button on the table there to call for me. I won't be in to see you until a guard is present, so you may have to wait a moment."
Thorax didn't reply; He was too tired to carry on any conversation. The doctor simply stepped out and locked the door. As he was doing so, Princess Cadance and Andesite came in. "Where's Brass?" the princess asked the doctor.
"Miss Brass left for the evening" the doctor told her. Cadance looked at him with shock.
"You just let her leave?!" Cadance chastised him,"What about the love draining?"
The doctor gave a shrug. "I was able to get Miss Brass to open the door, and upon seeing her, she looked no worse for wear. Miss Brass is a rather moot point to be honest. The changeling has recovered somewhat and has stopped feeding on nearby ponies."
"He's stopped feeding?" Cadance questioned.
Caduceus nodded. "It stopped sometime after Miss Brass opened the door. I noticed the changeling becoming restless, so I helped him along to the waking world with some smelling salts. I did get a brief description from him of what happened."
"You did?!" Cadance said in surprise. "Please, recall it for me!"
Doctor Caduceus looked over his notes and gave a summary of the story. "Apparently, the guards were taking him to his room for the night, but went through a hallway that was dark and the lights didn't work. One guard apparently needed a restroom break and slipped into a nearby one. A few seconds after he went in, and this is the part that takes in for me, the changeling claimed that two ponies dressed up as changelings attacked him and the other guard. I called him out on this, but he said that there were things they said and did that a changeling wouldn't do, like breaking character. Of course, he heard this after he sustained a concussion, so I put little stock into that remark."
Cadance nodded. "May I please have a copy of your notes?", she asked Doctor Caduceus,"I'd like to pass them along to the guard and my husband."
"That would be no trouble at all" Caduceus told her, then levitated a second parchment up to the first and performed the text duplicating spell, leaving the previously blank parchment with a perfect copy of the doctor's notes. Once finished, he handed the copy to the princess.
"Thank you, good sir" Cadance said to him, then turned and handed the parchment to Andesite. "Please take this to my husband, and make sure the guards get a copy of that as well." Andesite nodded and left at a gallop for Captain Shining Armor's office. Cadance then asked Doctor Caduceus "May I go in and speak with him now?"
The doctor gave her an unsure look. "I can't tell you what to do", he admitted,"but I would prefer if you would wait for a guard to be present in case something should happen."
Cadance gave a nod and looked at a clock. Her eyes went wide. "I didn't realize it was so late", she said in surprise,"I'll just let him sleep and recover some tonight and come back tomorrow."
"Probably for the best", the doctor agreed,"He'll likely have recovered some more and his concussion should have improved slightly."
"That would probably be for the best" Cadance concurred. The princess then bid the doctor good night and left. A moment later, and a guard was standing outside the doctor's office.
"Stand guard outside the changeling's room", the doctor told the guard,"There's no other point of entry besides the door. He's asleep and strapped down to the bed, and they're enchanted against unicorns, so he shouldn't be able to escape if he were to wake up and try."
The guard gave a simple nod and took up his post for the night.
Captain Shining Armor reviewed the palace's security protocols thoroughly and could find no obvious loophole that would've allowed two changelings to get inside the palace. He rubbed his temples in fatigue as he returned the documents to a manila folder and placed them inside a nearby filing cabinet. A frown crossed his face as he considered a possibility that he didn't want to dwell upon: His guards may have been bribed to allow the changelings in.
But, what would the changelings have to offer the guards? Everypony in Equestria was aware of the changelings and how dangerous they could be. What could they offer that could make a guard overlook their entrance into the palace?
Shining needed to clear his head, so he decided to go to one of his favorite places in the palace: The military museum. It was a room about half the size of the throne room, and contained within it were relics of Equestria's military past, the uniform that he wore during his wedding and the failed changeling invasion, as well as items that he'd received from dignitaries of other nations like Griffinstone and Yakyakistan.
As he was passing by one of the display cases, he noticed something that made him stop mid-step. The lock on the display case was open. Using his magic, he examined the lock to find that it had been opened by unicorn magic, which made his blood run cold. This meant a possible thief in the palace.
Shining opened the case and looked over the contents. This one was for military artifacts from the minotaurs. Besides a suit of armor, there were several weapons, including a spiked mace, spiked club, spear, and a crossbow that was non-functional due to a split where the arms of the bow sat; If a pony or minotaur were to use it now, the weapon would break and could cause the user serious injury.
As he looked over the weapons, he was drawn to the mace and club, noticing something on the ends of both. Taking them out, he examined the "business ends" of each weapon. His already cold blood became ice as a pit of uneasiness rested in his stomach. The ends had fresh blood on them, and on the mace, there were pieces of some black material.
He took the clubs in his magic and hauled off to see a specific pony. Stopping at a door in the barracks portion of the palace, Shining banged his hoof against it loud enough that it could've woken everypony sleeping there. A few moments later, a unicorn answered the door. "Captain Shining!", the unicorn exclaimed as he gave a hasty salute,"What are you doing here so late?"
"Important business" Shining answered shortly, offering the two weapons. "I want you to use your forensic magic and find out which ponies besides me were the last ones to touch these weapons."
"Of course, sir!", the unicorn answered,"but why so late?"
Shining looked around to make sure nopony else could hear them. He leaned in close and told the unicorn "It is of the utmost importance that you find out who touched those weapons last. I'm afraid that we have a spy in the guard's ranks; one that's working with the changelings."