SCP: To Kill a Lizard
>>Log-in.
>Scan ID Card.
>ID Card Accepted. Analyzing...
>D-Class Detected. Welcome, D-558.
>>Access Dossier: Doctor Howard Tobias.
>Parsing... Done.
Employee: Doctor Howard Tobias.
Employee #: 221-B.
Access Level: 2/682-698.
Service Length: 24 Years.
Service End: [DATA EXPUNGED]
Reason For Termination: Failed to follow standard security access procedures for written articles about the objects with which he had been entrusted. Charged with eight counts of the obstruction of duty. Injected with a Class-B amnesiac and sent to [DATA EXPUNGED] to live out the rest of life span uninterrupted. Further Foundation interaction is not permitted.
Service Record: [DATA EXPUNGED]
Psychological Evaluation: [DATA EXPUNGED]
Physical Evaluation: [DATA EXPUNGED]
Further Notes: [DATA EXPUNGED]
>>Log-off.
>>Close.
Captain Shining Armor of the Equestrian Royal Guard was on his way to send his sister a letter when he was bade to the Chamber of the Elements.
He was confused, to say the least. Luna had been exceptionally vague about what Celestia had needed him for and even more so when asked why half his guard had been relocated to the same area. From a militant's perspective, he was heading into a possibly compromised facility with little-to-no intelligence, little-to-no backup and little-to-no communication with others should things go wrong. Sure, there was Celestia, but it was his job to ensure her safety -- not the other way around.
As he stalked down the halls, instinctively wary due to the known terrorist threats to Canterlot, he noticed a distinct lack of any stray staff members. Every section of the wing had been completely abandoned. Maid carts were left deserted, beds unkempt, the candles barely glowing; everything had been dropped in a hurry. A slow, chilling breeze made him shiver in his warshoes. His migraines persisted, sending brutal pain through his skull and up his horn even then.
Eventually, he reached the impressive doors to the Chamber of the Elements. Jewel-emblazoned replicas of the Elements of Harmony were embedded into the fifteen-foot tall marble doorway at several times life-size. Slowly and carefully, he pushed the door open with a creak and peered cautiously in. Inside, he found the most horrifying thing he had ever laid eyes on.
Putting duty before his errant instincts of flight, he rushed to the side of his princess, worried for her well-being. "Princess! Are you okay? What happened?"
She flared out her wings protectively. "I'm fine, Captain. And nothing has happened. For the moment." She glanced back at the reptile hovering behind her.
"What is that?" Shining Armor slowly made his way up to the source of his awe, examining it.
"I have no idea. It has said nothing as to the nature of its existence." The unicorn was about to say something in surprise but was cut off by Celestia. "And yes, Captain, it can talk." He found that hard to believe. And even if it could, he found it hard to believe that it was very intelligent.
"Okay, ma'am. What's the situation? What do you need me for?"
"This creature effectively disabled a high portion of the guard and poses a significant threat to the sanctity of Canterlot and its citizens. And it might prove to be an ample wedding crasher, if it is allowed. I have called you here for your expert opinion and advisement on the situation. So, do tell me, Captain: how should we proceed?"
Shining Armor didn't have a clue. "We should probably question it before any real action is taken," he suggested.
"That is probably wise."
"Did you try getting information from it forcefully? With magic?"
"No, but there would be no use. I tried to do so not five minutes before you arrived, but I was swiftly booted out. The creature's mind was like a fortress. I could not hope to make any progress." That certainly said something. If Princess Celestia couldn't break the creature's mind, then what hope did he have?
"I guess we'll be doing this the old-fashioned way, huh?"
"Indeed you will. Proceed on your own judgement, captain. I must be off. The diplomatic waves that are sure to follow the wedding will be large, indeed. I am required at meetings with both the zebra legion and the griffon horde within the hour. On different sides of the globe. Report back to me when you are finished, Captain Armor." She was about to teleport away when she stopped to tell the stallion something else. "Oh, and Captain, when Twilight and her friends arrive, please refrain from telling them about this incident. They are sure to have enough problems as is."
"Twilight!" he exclaimed, suddenly remembering what he was doing before. "I have to tell her that I'm getting married! She's not going to be happy that I put it off for so long..."
Celestia looked at him with a hint of scorn, questioning his ability to prioritize given the severity of the situation. "Captain? I've already messaged my student and her friends about the wedding. You don't need to."
"I know," he panicked, unbefitting of a captain of the royal guard, "but she has to hear it from me!" His blatant fear of letting down his sister in any way would've been somewhat cute to Celestia. That is, if it weren't getting in the way of duty.
"Captain, I do believe you have a bigger problem at hoof." She pointed at the reptile in the back.
"Y-yeah. That's right. I'll get on that, ma'am," he saluted.
"I have no doubt that you will. Good luck, my little pony. " It was what would happen when he did so that worried her. She teleported away.
All the while, SCP-682 had been silently observing their exchange and was wondering what to do. Not in terms of breaking out -- there was no wondering to be done there -- but, surprisingly, what his disposition would be when the inevitable deluge of never-ending questions from the mountains of insipid imagination came. Should he be reserved or should he be mildly outgoing? Should be be aggressive or silently malicious? For that matter, why was he thinking about this? He never spared a single brain cell to the mere mention of such a trivial manner. What powers were at play that made him care about his own attitude towards others? Already, they began to make him feel more and more indifferent to their appearances.
How horrifying.
The alicorn was something interesting, he gave her that. Not much of what he said to her was proven to be true, but if anything was, bonus points. The arrogance was there, though. Definitely. From a lifetime of being unchallenged and virtually indefeasible. He itched to rectify the existence of that blemish of a life-form. And that unicorn... Captain Shining Armor... what could he learn about him?
Sharp-eyed naturally, 682 took little time to take in every possible detail about the newcomer. He had already done so with everyone else in the room. It was a strange thing, his mind. It could be called a mind palace, but that was both incredibly insulting and unsatisfying in every aspect as a definition. It was more like a fortress, as Celestia had put it so concisely. One the scale of the Great Wall of China. And the creature knew every square inch of it perfectly. His "throne room" consisted of his current, and most important, memories, and everything else was stored in the walls of the fortress. Such a vivid representation did wonders for his total mental ability, but he gained an astonishingly poetic manner of speaking involuntarily when he chose to speak at length at all. Or when he wasn't shouting rage-induced obscenities towards his prey. He would have much preferred it to be otherwise, but that was something he just couldn't help. His thoughts on Captain Shining Armor were as follows, compressed from a time-frame of two seconds.
Dent on armor above left shoulder blade; training accident likely. State of guards nearly complacent, meaning that most of the action they see is sparring. Dent very deep, meaning he was hit hard and was given a slight injury because of it. Feasible weak point. Rest of the armor looks fine and undamaged, meaning that captain takes good care of his armor and that event happened recently.
Mane and coat clean and moisturized, indicating a sense of good hygiene or a special occasion. Given the discussion of a wedding, latter is most likely. Centered crest on the front of armor is unique and clearly not part of uniform. Celestia's sun mark on flank suggests that all members of species bear similar marks, therefore the crest must be the unicorn's mark. Little to no scars, supporting hypothesis that military is in a state of disuse.
SCP-682 suddenly had a feeling of shame that he was captured so easily.
Manner is largely professional. Relatively competent. Attachment to family and fear of the reaction of sister shows a weakness of will unsuited to any warrior. Likely to form an excuse for his lack of sending letter, but more from the fact that he was given an order than from his cunning. Morally driven. Another vulnerability.
Unicorn, meaning he must have access to the same reality-bending forces other unicorns have access to. Captain, meaning he must be better at it than most. Coercing himself into the position is all but out of the question due to his nature.
And, lastly, his current emotion as he turns to face me. Fear. As to be expected.
The unicorn walked towards and around him, observing and watching his every action. 682 refused to move an inch. After six laps, Shining came to a stop in front of his cage, staring at him intently.
"Well? Come on, then! Talk!"
He stayed silent.
"Look, the Princess said you could talk."
His lips never parted.
Shining sighed. "Look, you're just going to stay in there if you don't. So, talk!"
Truth be told, half of what 682 wanted was to be left in silence. The other half was to kill everyone in the room. But just then, he felt something. It had been there since he arrived, silent, but it just made a fatal error: it thought that he wouldn't notice. It made the tiniest of blips and he caught it. There it was.
He was feeling... well, he didn't know exactly what he was feeling. Genial? Amiable? If it was possible to feel receptive to social activities and be annoyed about it, SCP-682 was feeling it. It was almost as if that thing was forcing him to feel pleasant. A passive-malignant parasite, if one wanted to be pretentious about it. It was subtle, but it was there. It was so unlike the alicorn's intrusion that he had barely noticed the parasite until it had implanted its roots firmly in his head. Plus, it was impossible to be rid of with the rune they placed on his prison. For now.
"What about?" he rumbled out, albeit reluctantly.
Shining Armor jumped back, confused that thunder had just come alive and started talking to him. Then he realized that what he said had been obeyed. "Oh! Um..." He racked his brain for questions. He made a gesture for a guard to write whatever he was saying down. "What are you?"
"Angered. Irritated. A multitude of other things."
"That's not what I meant."
"Then say what you mean."
Shining Armor grimaced. "What is your species?"
"You do not need to know."
"What if I said I did?"
"Then I hope you are prepared to debate this question for a long time."
The captain wisely chose to skip that one. "Do you have a name?"
682 took a moment to think about it. He certainly didn't want to give the one that the Foundation had given him. He had had enough of the designation as it was. He didn't have a given name. "No."
"None? None at all?"
"None I am proud of."
"Oo-kay. I guess we'll call you The Pugnacious Lizard, then." The equine smirked. He could go ahead. 682 had jars upon jars of disdain and self-control. "What are you? A male... female?"
He was rather fond of the male pronoun, but he didn't have a real "gender," per se. "Neither. I am not restricted to such an inane prison as a gender."
"Got it." He really didn't. "Where are you from? How did you get here? You apparently just appeared in the center of the room, according to this."
"Where I originally came from is none of your concern. And teleportation was obviously the answer if you cared to exercise a bit of non-retardation."
Shining Armor did his best to avoid the fact that he was getting verbally abused by what was, in essence, a giant, talking lizard. He also tried to avoid the weaponized tension that was quickly filling the air.
"Who teleported you?"
"I do not know."
"Have an idea?"
"Perhaps you should search within your own hierarchy for that answer."
That chilled him. Was the reptile implying that one of their own had brought him here? If so, that was a major security breach, and one that had to be investigated immediately.
The captain straightened up and told the guardspony to bring him his clipboard. He gave it a quick once-over before telling 682, "That'll be it for today. I'll be back tomorrow with some more questions," and walked away.
Unbeknownst to him at the time, SCP-682 would come to greatly enjoy the following day. Not for the fact that Shining Armor came back -- he never did; he had bigger problems, which was saying something -- but for a different reason.
A rather "fickle" reason.
The sound of crashing debris and screaming ponies quickly became prevalent to SCP-682's ears.
And so did the smashing of stained glass, shortly after.
It had been at least a day since Shining Armor had last spoken to him. Perhaps longer. The containment had been boring, but it was a welcome change in comparison to being trapped perpetually in a tub filled with hyper-reacted acid. Some people, who probably were masochists, in retrospect, sometimes wondered what acid felt like. The best description one could possibly give to someone who had never felt acid of that caliber was this: it felt vaguely reminiscent to skinning yourself with a butter knife and then taking a bath in lemon juice that was microwaved on high for three hours. Which is to say, not good. Therefore, a few hours of hovering in the air without interruption was very, very nice.
He had felt the barrier getting weaker for a while now. No guards had come to replace those currently stationed. This told him three things: one, the wedding was either happening now or happening soon. Two, the unicorn was more important in pony society than he thought. And three, the alicorn was stupider than he thought. She shouldn't have mistaken him for the lesser threat. Whatever she thought was the greater one was nothing in comparison to the havoc he could cause.
It wouldn't be long before he could overpower the energy field and escape. A few hours, at most. Six, maybe.
Then the massive coup d'état happened. He retracted his guess.
All the murals burst into shards and shot inwards at once, catching a few of the unicorns with nasty cuts. Half of the guards turned to see their bug-like aggressors swoop in from the jagged portals, firing green energy bolts from their mangled horns and crunching down upon their enemies as they landed. Half strength. A few more turned their attention and tried to fight back. Bones snapping. Groans of pain. More sounds to add to the cacophony. Fifteen-percent strength.
The attackers were equine-shaped in appearance, with eyes and wings more suited to an insect's. They had holes in their torso and legs traveling straight through their bodies so that one could see through them if they wished. They had no skin and bones, clearly, as they instead had a black exoskeleton that could withstand the bulk of what nature had to throw at them. The creatures' mouth opened to glimmering sets of razors and knives that could easily chew through any organic material with ease.
As they slaughtered the surprised guards one by one, the reptile had multiple surges of mixtures of both relief and hatred as the barriers in his mind lifted, and with it, the runes halting his adaption. Finally! Here was a creature he could hate freely, without that abhorrent parasite holding him down! Wait... no. The damned thing was still there. He still couldn't bring himself to the same level of loathing with the ponies. Oh, well. One victory at a time. With the infestation in his mind pushed back, he cut his losses and sealed off the breach in his castle quickly. He could already feel it poking around again. Five-percent.
The last unicorn remained admirably -- a whole four seconds before he was killed! But there was one thing the changelings failed to take note of in their assault on the guardsponies: they were holding something that they didn't want dropped.
Zero-percent strength.
SCP-682 fell from his prison and immediately crushed two changelings with a mighty WHAM! The floor chattered with the force of the blow. He caught one with his claws and stomped on another, relishing the satisfying crunch they made as they broke beneath him.
They tried to run away, frantically, but he was like Cerberus itself. Except faster. And a million times as deadly. All they got for their efforts was a chomped-on comrade, which, to be fair, helped them a little bit. The reptile blanched at the taste for just a moment before his taste buds informed him that it wasn't an issue anymore, and he soon continued after them. They had gotten as far as the doors now, but they wouldn't escape. It didn't matter if they got outside. They couldn't escape now that he was free.
Speaking of outside, 682 noted that the city was decimated. The invading forces clearly weren't worried about collateral damage. Lampposts were on fire, buildings were on fire, foals were on fire; everything was on fire, to be frank. The invaders must have brought a propane tank each, or something, which was plausible, seeing as there was quite the amount of them. An insectoid equestrian species with the possibility of a hive. For lack of a better word, neat.
The fleeing force actually did manage to get outside, but he was right behind them. What SCP-682 saw whilst in pursuit joyed him.
It was an entire platoon of the insects, mockingly costumed as and assaulting six ponies. And the ponies were beating them. That was rich. He could tell who the insects were from the ponies easily. Only the lowest of lifeforms could be fooled by such a low show of illusory trickery. Bugs, that were also horses, that could shape-shift. That, right there, was pure gold. He aptly and correctly named them "changelings."
He let out the loudest roar he could muster, which shattered the rest of the city's windows, unfortunately. The ponies' eardrums, however, by some form of miracle, remained intact. Huh. Learn something new every day.
Everyone stopped and turned towards the source, only to find him: the creature that was to be burned in their nightmares for years to come. He could have let out one of the thousands of witty one-liners that his brain thought up, but he wasn't that pretentious. Or vain. He settled on a low growl and charged the group of changelings.
Much changeling excretion was emptied that day.