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// Prologue - At first, everything was normal 
// Story: Sidejacked 
// by SurveyShip 
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I am a royal guard. I wake up everyday in the barracks, untangle my mane, put on my armor and report to my superior for my duties of the day. Being a castle guard means standing in the same place for hours at a time and rarely seeing any action other than to shoo a visitor straying too far into restricted areas or greeting VIPs.

One day I was assigned to a new area I have never been to before, deep inside Canterlot castle there is a room, perhaps a study or reliquary. I was ordered to look over the adjacent corridor, to not let anypony other than scientist or ponies escorted by royal guards to pass through. But this time it was a little different as another sentry, a Pegasus mare named Silver Spirit, was assigned to the opposite side of my corridor. I was so used to being on my own that it took a moment to get used to the near constant, uncomfortable eye contact. I could tell that my acquaintance was new to her job as a royal guard, likely her first post. 

For around eight hours we stood opposite to each other before the night shift relieved us from our post, in that time we saw very little movement. Courtyard-watch had at least one or two ponies other than guards in my line of sight, the birds singing faintly and the breeze howling by. But here in this tucked away corridor you’d believe time itself had frozen if it weren’t for the constant shuffling of my compatriot.

Apart from my fellow guard Silver being somewhat unprofessional, other ponies did pass down the corridor to bring a sense of life. From higher ranking guards to royal scientists wheeling in boxes upon boxes of who-knows-what. When I was first assigned to that corridor it was rare, but it went from perhaps once a week to every other day rather quickly. I would be lying if I said that I was happy about that, soon I would find myself lost in thought as my mind desperately tried to fight the near lethal levels of boredom.

My mind was numb from the eerie quiet, the occasional creek of the ancient walls or the hoof steps of ponies broke the silence every now and then. I am not afraid to admit that I would catch myself midway drifting into sleep. How I managed to survive the soul-crushing stillness of that corridor for so long is beyond me, perhaps it had something to do with my family's history of military service. 

It’s against the code of conduct for guards to speak casually amongst each other during duty, but down here that rule slowly downgraded to a suggestion. It started innocently enough with a “hey” or “how are you doing?” to kill the monotony but soon enough we found ourselves holding sporadic conversations while keeping our voices down so we didn’t get busted by a lurking superior. We’d often joke about being the uglier mares in the ranks and that was the reason why we were stuck here since all the other better looking mares were posted on more public areas, as the days passed the more we began to know about each other.

There is a lot you can learn from somepony when you are legally obliged to stand right in front of them for hours. Silver Spirit is apparently a huge comic book fan and for years she has collected all sorts of comics. She then subsequently tells me all about them. To be completely frank I was not enthused by her nerding out, I don't want to hear the plot of "IronMare" or "Doctor StrangeHooves" because I'm simply not interested in foal's stories. But at the end of the day she makes time fly-by a little bit faster, so she has that going for her.

During my time in the "Corridor of Immense Boredom" I noticed some patterns. One being that a small group of scientist ponies brought crates and canisters into the room at the end of the corridor, every end of the week at sundown. Another being a group of higher ranking guards escorting some rather important looking ponies into said room in the morning and then escorting them out around the end of our shift. I'm not suppose to ask questions so I just don’t think about it too much. Besides, if I ever did I'd probably get told "that's above your paygrade Specialist Frost Blossom".

But one day everything changed, It was like any other day. I woke up in the barracks, untangled my mane, put on my armor and reported to my superior for my duties of the day, but when I stood at my post I could feel something was off, like one of those gut feelings you get when something askew is going on. I couldn't figure out why I had this ugly feeling, and It didn’t help that the royal escort with the important ponies didn’t show up. As more time passed, I started to feel more and more uneasy. Something, somewhere deep inside of me was telling me that something bad was brewing, something really bad. I could feel my stomach bubbling with dread, I felt like I was going to hurl my lunch onto the corridor that I watched over for so long. Silver asked if I was ok, I told her what I had in mind, that I was getting a feeling about something bad that was going to happen. She then told me if I needed to see the medic. 

But before I could respond, the air around me felt electric, my fur stood up. I then felt weightless, like if my armor suddenly vanished from my back. I think Silver told me something but all the sound around me became muffled like if somepony place enormous pillows on my ears, what ever she told me I will never know.

My heart was beating madly inside my chest like a lovestruck stallion on Hearts and Hooves day.

All of my muscles tensed up like if they were made of concrete.

Time seemed to stop, but for real. 

Then everything went white….