"Aren't you going to sleep, Pennington?"
"Not on duty, ma'am..."
"But the sun is going to rise in only a few hours! Your shift should have ended long ago." Luna turned back to him again. The two had been silent through most of the night, each wrapped in their own thoughts.
"It's not a strenuous post, Luna, just standing here. The hours are a bit longer."
"Don't worry, Luna, I'm here to relieve him of his post!" A voice called out from the stairwell. After a few seconds, Princess Cadence, accompanied by another night guard, emerged into the top of the guard tower.
"Cadence? What are you doing here?"
"Shining Armor is busy, so he asked me to come and make sure that the exchange of the guards went smoothly."
Luna gave her a suspicious glance. "Aren't you supposed to be busy, too?"
"We won't be able to make the last few preparations until morning, so I have a little time before the sun's up." She smiled. "Besides, Aunt Tia got to meet your new student already! Why can't I?"
Luna rolled her eyes, but nodded her agreement. "Pennington, thank you for accompanying me for the night. You're relieved of your post for now. Get some rest."
Pennington nodded his agreement, walking to the door as the second guard left Cadence's side. The two night armored ponies took a moment to glance at one another. After a moment, Pennington nodded in understanding, as did his replacement. As he stood in front of Cadence, he took a moment to give a low bow.
"A pleasure to finally meet you, your highness. Your reputation precedes you!"
Cadence laughed as they turned back towards the stairs. "In a good way, I would hope!"
"Your majesty, I've heard only the best about you..."
As they left, Luna turned to her new guard, an orange-coated pegasus. It was out of the ordinary that a night guard would be admitted to duty without undergoing the bat-pony augmentations to their senses.
"Are you here on temporary duty, as well?"
"Yes, your highness. Called in from the reserves on short notice." He seemed every bit as impersonal and emotionless as the rest of the guards.
"Well, thank you for your service..." When the guard nodded his acknowledgement, she turned back to watching the city again.
I miss Pennington already... At least his face showed some kind of feeling!
"You left a changeling with Luna? Seriously?"
"Just in case anything goes wrong... Like your little dragon friend showing up to warn her." Pennington cringed as the anger in her words literally stung at him.
"I apologize for my foolish actions, your highness... I should have put a better lock on the door where I sealed her."
"Spare me the apologies..." She growled, turning on him in the stairwell. "At the rate that he's losing his strength, Shining Armor's spell will fail just after the wedding ceremonies. After that, nothing can stop us! Until then, a single flaw could ruin all this work we've done!" Her eyes narrowed as she practically spat her words at him with frustration. "From now on, you will take no action against me. Understood?"
"Never in the wildest imaginings of the deranged mind would I stand against you, my queen." Pennington bowed even lower than he had before. To his surprise, Chrysalis's hoof came down on top of his head, keeping him submitted to her.
"That's why I knew I could come to you... You're loyal, and you know your place." Her horn glowed softly. "But you tend to forget it... Don't forget that I could retreat down to the caves at any moment and kill the princess if I wanted to... Along with Twilight Sparkle and Moonstone."
"What?"
I caught the dragon trying to reveal my true identity to her, supposedly under your orders! Don't ask me what!" He pressed down with her hoof again, forcing him to lay his head on the cold ground. "You've been conspiring against me from the start!"
"My queen, it's true that at the beginning I was... reluctant! When you related your plan to me, it was beyond my comprehension!" Pennington pleaded, unable to remove his cheek from the floor. "But since then, I've grown! I no longer would want anything that isn't for the best of the hive!"
"Then this is your chance to redeem yourself..." She smirked, grinding her hoof against the side of his helmet. "They will undoubtedly be making some kind of pitiful attempt to escape. Go down to the caves and ensure that they stay put." She accented each of the words by knocking on his helmet. "Do your job right, or I might stop liking you so much, Pennington..."
"Y-yes, Queen Chrysalis..." Pennington whispered. As she let him stand again, he began sprinting down the tower's stairs.
"And Pennington..."
If they make it back to the surface, I'll kill all three of them once the invasion is over! Just as an example!
Pennington shuddered as her voice hissed on the inside of his skull, slithering its words along the passages of his brain.
Save them, Pennington. You're the one who can save them...
"I found another one!" Moonstone shouted as Twilight and Cadence ran to catch up to her. Looking down from her vantage point near the ceiling, Moonstone smiled at the familiar sight of one of Pennington's wide-bladed scimitars embedded in the wall. She knew that it was barely able to hold itself together any more, the magic that had been used to create it had faded to almost nothing, but the sight let them know that they were on the right path to reach the surface.
"I still don't understand how he did this... Creating swords out of thin air?" Cadence shook her head.
"It's a spell he learned from a zebra friend of ours..." Twilight grinned as they reached the marker, gently tapping it with her hoof. At her touch, it shattered and faded to white mist again, which quickly disappeared. "I recently had the opportunity to talk to her about it, and-"
"Twilight!" Moonstone called out as she dropped to the ground next to her, landing on her feet with ease.
"What?" Twilight was quickly becoming less and less fond of Moonstone's habit of interrupting her.
"We may have a problem..." Moonstone pointed into the darkness, where a figure was emerging. As a pair of green eyes flashed at them, Cadence and Twilight braced themselves.
"You won't have a problem if you just stay still..." Pennington's voice was barely recognizable as his own, a changeling's dual tone having settled in. As he stepped out from the shadows, Twilight gasped and stepped back as she caught sight of his darkened coat and hole-filled hooves. His cutie mark had even begun to blur and fade, like a pencil sketch being rubbed away. He was dressed in night guard armor, but it didn't stop her from seeing the fully developed holes in his legs marking him as belonging to the changeling hive.
"That's- that's not-"
"Yes, Twilight... It is." He spoke gently, but had taken up a firm stance between them and the direction they needed to be running in.
"What happened to you? You look like you did right after you made it out of the hive!"
"Well, I guess we never thought about what would happen if I ran into a changeling again, did we?" He shook his head sadly. "And then the queen shows up at my doorstep... I got blindsided. Never stood a chance. It was over as soon as she set hoof in my house. I couldn't fight it."
Twilight shook her head, trying to understand. "You mean that you'll follow any order she gives you? You're forced to?"
"All but one." His verdant eyes glowed as white smoke began floating off of his horn. "And unfortunately, that 'one' is not 'Stop Twilight and the Princess from reaching the surface.'" The smoke conglomerated in front of him, forming the familiar blade that Twilight was used to seeing: except that instead of the usual shimmering blue light filling the silhouette of the scimitar, it was a sickly green. Staring at it for a moment, Twilight shook her head.
"You're really going through with this? I never would have expected you to betray me like this, Pennington..."
"You don't understand! Between ploys and plots and disguises, a changeling lives off of the approval and other positive emotions of their ruler! My heart tells me not to, but my body can't help but obey her!" He shook his head again. "Besides... She told me that if you reach the wedding, she'll kill all three of you. If that happened, I'd kill myself!" He lowered his sword to eye level, directing the tip at her. "That is why I'm going to fight you, Twilight... To save your life."
Twilight closed her eyes, trying to focus. After several seconds, she could feel a cool mist beginning to gather around her. Without opening her eyes, she began pressing and molding it, trying to force it into a single form. After several more seconds, she felt a solid grip forming around the object she had been trying to create. When she opened her eyes again, a large, violet sword of her own was floating in front of her face: a long, slender rapier. Swinging it back and forth, Twilight smiled as its tip whistled through the air, slicing with ease. The sword itself was a tool of precision, classy, and able to get its job done with a few simple swings and jabs at a foe, whether it was meant to kill or maim.
Cadence seemed hopeful at the sight, her face lighting up with a smile of surprise, while Moonstone's jaw had simply fallen slack, leaving her mouth wide open in an expression of shock. After a few seconds, Pennington's morose face brightened for the first time, and he even managed to crack a smile.
"Did you really think that poor excuse for royalty would be able to kill me, Pennington?" Her eyes narrowed as she lowered her sword to an identical position.
"You see, that is why I love you. You never let me get away with anything." He grinned. "Make no mistake, Twilight, I'll be rooting for you in this fight."
"And I won't hold back."
"Then I shouldn't stand a chance."
For the first time, Cadence spoke again. "Will we need to kill you?"
"Didn't Moonstone tell you?" His grin grew wider as his eyes flashed with an inner light. "Just aim for the horn if you want to stop me. Without my magic, I won't be a threat to you."
Twilight glanced at Moonstone, who already had the ring discretely clasped in her claw, mostly hidden by the darkness of the cave.
With a nod between the two, Twilight ran forward, slashing downwards at Pennington's sword with her own.
"This is for your own good!" The two cried out together as they begun their attacks.
When Twilight's rapier fell downwards, Pennington's scimitar flung itself upwards to parry. The two blades met in a shower of sparks, each one grinding against the edge of the other as the two unicorns met below, locking their horns against one another in a similar manner as they butted heads. The two stayed this way, locked in an initial battle of brute force, for several seconds.
"You're not going to win, Pennington!" Twilight growled as she pulled her sword downwards from above them. She could feel Pennington's blade slowly beginning to fail, and the violet edge was beginning to grind its way through the green surface. "I'm stronger than you, and you know it!"
"That may be true..." He grinned devilishly as his disturbing, cat-like eyes stared into hers. "But even if Zecora taught you my little trick, you lack experience!" Without warning, Pennington leaped backwards and his sword twisted out from underneath the rapier, letting it plummet and embed itself in the ground. Twilight jumped back, as well, barely escaping her own attack in time.
"Look out!"
Twilight had been staring at her own blade, which had been buried halfway to the hilt in the floor, shocked at how far it had cut through the crystal. When she looked up again, she was barely able to duck quickly enough to avoid Pennington's next attack, flinging his sword at her. The blade barely flew above the top of her head, hitting the ground behind her and shattering into a splash of mist. The white mist flew back around her, re-forming itself front of Peninngton, fed by more glow from his horn to re-form into the blade.
With a grunt, Twilight pulled her violet rapier from the stone, turning its edge back on Pennington.
That scimitar is meant for slashing... Wide strokes, meant for hacking away at things. A rapier works much differently. If I can play off that... I might be able to win!
Twilight smiled as she began a rapid attack, swinging back and forth at him. Every time that he was able to block her, she would pull the blade back again and attack from another angle. Compared to her sword, Pennington's was sluggish and slow to respond, barely able to make the movements necessary in time to block her. Twilight could see the sweat on his brow as he worked harder and harder to parry her.
"Pretty impressive! As if I expected anything less!" He grinned as more smoke floated off of his horn, forming a second sword to help him parry.
"Sorry, Penn!" Moonstone shouted as she leaped up onto his back. The dragon had slowly been making her way around the edge of the battle for several minutes, and had finally managed to get behind him. Jumping onto his back, she slipped the black ring on around his horn, then jumped away again. The effects were almost immediate, with both of the swords disintegrating into smoke that disappeared, and a shower of sparks exploded from the front of his skull.
Before he'd even had the chance to scream, Twilight had cast another spell, placing a gag around his mouth. With another effort of will, she let her sword dissolve into a cloud of mist that gathered around his body. stepping forward, Twilight let the full effect of the spell take hold, forming a solid, single piece around Pennington's body, with only an open slot at the front for him to look through. Within seconds, he was locked inside of a prison constructed from her own magic. Twilight's horn glowed as she slowly walked to him, pouring more energy in to reinforce the single-piece suit.
"I left you a few inches in each limb to move, and you can turn your head a little... That way you're not locked in place. Hopefully you're not claustrophobic?" Twilight knew that he couldn't respond because of her gag, but he stared out at her, eyes filled with a mix of pride and sadness.
"Don't struggle too much, you'll knock yourself over. I'll come back for you once all of this is over and you have some semblance of self-control again..." With a quiet nod from inside the suit, Twilight found a reason to smile again.
"And don't worry about me. I can fight for myself, remember?" With that, Twilight walked past him, moving on down the tunnel. "Now, let's save my brother!"
Cadence and Moonstone followed, but each stopped at Pennington for a moment.
"You may have been forced to trap me here, but you still risked your life to save mine... So thank you." Cadence smiled. "I know a few things about changelings that might be able to help you once all of this is over, being the Princess of Love. Trust me, whatever's happened to you, we'll work it out."
"Then you'll be back to writing more 'Scorching Quill' novels in no time!" Moonstone chirped, knocking on the head of the armor-prison with a toothy grin.
"Wait... He's Scorching Quill?"
"Cadence, we don't have time for this!" Twilight shouted, already far ahead of them.
Cadence looked as if she were about to speak for a moment, but she simply cast a thankful glance at Pennington, then began running again. Even as she ran, though, the words of the letter that Shining Armor had shard with her returned to her memory.
Captain Armor,
You may not know me, but I can assure you that we have met before, and I hold you in very high regard. Because of this, I wish to speak to you on a matter of the most grave importance.
Canterlot is in danger of invasion. In my current danger, I cannot determine from where this danger stems, but it can and will affect all of Canterlot and even Equestria if the city should fall. The assault will begin three days from the time you receive this letter, but the invasion force will arrive in full, regrettably, on the day of your wedding to Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. You MUST increase security around the entire city, if possible, and screen all those entering or leaving. However, should your defenses fail, both you and your fiancee may be in grave peril. Do NOT, under any circumstances, allow either of yourselves to be left unguarded, not even in your own homes. I fear that your wedding itself may be the main target of the attack.
Please, I would make one request in return for this information, gathered at great risk to myself: I wish to remain anonymous until the time of crisis has passed. Your enemies are working through a VERY short window of time. Until then, as far as anyone outside of you and and your soon-to-be wife know, this tip was completely anonymous. Most of all, the Princesses must not know that this came from me. That is my request from you.
Please, be careful.
Scorching Quill
Could it really have been him? Trying to warn us about his OWN plans?