//------------------------------// // Chapter 61 // Story: 64 vs. The Underground // by Jman9877 //------------------------------// Chapter 61 3rd Person POV It was about 6PM when 64 and Frenzy landed back in Equestria, each of them exhausted from the trip. 64 was struggling to keep his eyes open as he stumbled out of the Motorized Chariot, managing to trip and fall into the dirt under him. He felt something walk over him, because whoever it was was blocking the sun. "Stay right there... I need the shade..." 64 muttered, before getting pulled by the back of his shirt back onto his feet by Celestia. "Why hello there Princess. It feels great to be back home." "I'm sure being back in a moderately warm Equestria is a bit more pleasant than freezing in Ethaxial, isn't it? Now that you're back, I need a report on absolutely everything that happened." Celestia explained, but saw the tired looks that Frenzy and 64 had on their faces. "But... I'm sure I can get them once you've had a pleasant night's rest. You both look tired from your journey." "Trust me... that's bit of an understatement." Frenzy sighed. Celestia noticed that the usual happy gleam behind his eyes was gone, and his fur looked a bit duller than it was before he left. "I can give you the report right now. But you'll have to ask 64 for his report later. He got mixed up in a bit more than I did." Celestia nodded and let Frenzy pass, heading into the Palace. 64 rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I think that I might've broken him... He was so optimistic about everything, thought that he could fix everything... But nope... instead we get mixed up in a coup and the other nations leave out of anger or fear." 64 muttered. "Either he learned that not everything can be fixed with words, or that he shouldn't take Diplomacy jobs." "I believe that was also a lesson that you had to learn in the past, wasn't it?" Celestia asked, making 64 scoff a bit. "Well, from my birth and upbringing... I knew the world was a shitty place. I guess I just had to learn that I couldn't help everyone." Celestia looked down with a semi-sad look. "Everypony has to learn that lesson from time to time, especially with the failure that were the Agreements." She looked back up at 64. "Get a good night's rest 64. I believe you've earned it." 64 nodded with a grin and walked past Celestia, heading towards his room with his feet dragging. Once he entered the Palace, he looked around to see a flurry of attendants and maids running around as fast as they could, each of them cleaning everything up as best as they could. He saw a unicorn mare bolting past him, but he grabbed her by the tail before she ran off. "Whoa wait up, what's going on around here? Where's the fire?" "Oh! We have to make the Palace as presentable as we can! We can't have a Royal Wedding in a dirty palace!" She yelled before running off, a feather duster being held with her magic. That's when 64 remembered that Shining had proposed to Cadence while he was gone, but... that meant the wedding was going to take place a few weeks from now, why was everyone running around in a hurry? "I gotta find Shining..." 64 muttered, making the walk downstairs to the Barracks. All throughout every single hallway, arrangements were being made to clean up. It didn't look like decorations were going up yet, but things looked as if things were going pretty quickly. The flurry of attendants stopped once 64 arrived in the Barracks, knowing that nopony was going to come down here during the wedding. He went into Shining Armor's office, only to find that nopony was in there. He looked towards the guards standing guard in front of the door. "Where's your captain? I need to talk to him." "I believe he is in his quarters. I... actually haven't seen him since yesterday." The guard explained, causing 64 to sigh. "You haven't seen him come out of his quarters since yesterday, and you didn't think to send somepony to check on him?" "Well... I decided to respect his privacy..." 64 scowled at the guard and turned away, already heading towards Shining Armor's quarters. Once he arrived, he tried the door knob to open the door, but found that it was locked. Not having the patience to wait for the stallion to open the door, he forced open the lock and swung it open, taking one step inside. "Yo Shining I'm ba-" His words were caught in his throat as his eyes widened, seeing the image displayed before him. It was exactly what one would think was happening, but... these kind of actions were usually reserved for during the honeymoon... "WHOA! LEAVINGNOWBYE!" 64 yelped before he jumped backwards and slammed the door shut, leaving him red in the cheeks. There was a clambering noise coming from the other side of the door, before an equally red faced Shining Armor, who was now wearing a robe, came bursting out of the door. "You know there's a reason for locked doors right?!" He yelled embarrassed, flustered that 64 had walked in during something like that. "How was I supposed to know?! Dammit I thought couples saved shit like that until after the honeymoon!" 64 retorted, returning the glare he was receiving from Shining Armor. "Really? That's your argument for breaking into my room while I was having a private moment with my fiancee?!" "Well that's all I got! I really need to talk to you about something." 64 tried to defend himself, but Shining's stern glare told him that it wasn't enough. The robe wearing stallion sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Grr... Give me a moment to explain this to Cadence, then we'll head over to my office to talk." With that, Shining Armor walked back into the room, allowing 64 to sigh and lean back against the wall, the redness on his face subsiding. 10 minutes back in Equestria, and he had managed to catch one of his friends in the act. Not the best way to return home. 64 POV "So, back in Equestria already? I thought you and Frenzy Scribe were supposed to be in Ethaxial for over a month?" Shining asked me, sitting on the other side of his desk. I wiped my forehead and nodded. "Unforeseen events led to a quick return. The captain of the Royal Gryphon Guard tried to seize power in a military coup, then we discovered of another plot against Equestria. We decided a hasty return was the best course of action." I explained, reaching into my Satchel and pulling out the letter from Queen Chrysalis. "Remember her? Well looks like she's back." I gave Shining the letter and gave him a few moments to read over it, wanting to gauge his reaction. His face remained stony as he read, the only movement on his face being his eyes darting back and forth as he read. He finally put the letter back onto his desk, before closing his eyes and letting out a deep sigh. "Things don't ever get easier... do they?" Shining asked, and the only answer I could give was a shake of my head. "Really? Now we have to deal with the former Queen Chrysalis infiltrating Canterlot?!" "Yes! That's why we have to treat this tactfully. We can't just go around and interrogate everyone in the city, that will make her get scared and drive her off. She doesn't know that we know that's she in the city, so we gotta make it seem that we're oblivious." I tried to calm Shining Armor down, but it just seemed to make him angrier. "So we just sit here and do nothing because we're supposed to pretend that we know nothing!?" "Of course not! Just... dammit it'd be easier if Ghost was here. He'd be able to seek out Changeling magic way easier. We need to find if anypony has been acting strangely. Chrysalis is masquerading as someone in the Palace, otherwise she wouldn't know so much about Ghost and I. She won't change her disguise too much, otherwise she'll have too many bases to cover. So we just have to focus and find out who's been acting out of the ordinary." "Any ideas who it could be? I mean, who would be able to get around that easily?" I thought about it, and two potential targets came up. "Well... the first option would be that she's disguising herself as an attendant. She'd be able to get around easy, and most ponies around here wouldn't ask too many questions." "That's true. Attendants can literally walk into pretty much any room except for the Princesses Quarters and the Barracks. It wouldn't be hard to go undetected." Shining agreed, writing some stuff down onto a paper head had in front of him. "What else is there?" "The second option would be a guard. They wouldn't be able to move around much, but they would definitely be able to hear whats going on around the Palace. Ponies usually forget that they actually have ears." I clarified, motioning towards the door where 2 guards were standing just outside of. "That seems a bit less likely. I'm sure Chrysalis would want to move around as much as possible to learn as much as she could. I doubt standing in one position everyday would be a good way to do that." "So what should we do from here? Start asking around?" I asked. "Sorry to say but I'm not too friendly with most of the attendant staff. But... I'm sure Blusa is. I can ask her if she's seen anything strange." Shining's eyes widened for a moment, before leaning forward. "Actually, she hasn't been seen for 3 days. I've already gotten the Military Police investigating the case, but there hasn't been much. She lives alone and her closest family lives in Manehatten, so there aren't a lot of references. We asked around to some of her friends, but nothing substantial has came up." "Shit... do you think..." I trailed off, not wanting to think of that possibility "I hope not. But now this means Chrysalis might have already gotten others as well. Crossroads left a letter stating she was going to use some of the vacation time she accumulated over the years, so we can't rely on her to help us." “She left right after Frenzy and I took off? That seems… unusual.” I commented, but Shining pulled the letter out of his desk. “It has her hoof writing down to a tee. The stamp of recognition from her desk, everything. If you’re saying what I think you’re saying, I don’t think that Chrysalis would be able to pull that off. I mean, Crossroads wouldn't go down that easy would she?” Shining countered, his voice wavering a bit. “Until we find Chrysalis, we have to take every single gut feeling we have and stick with it. That means that Crossroads and Blusa are... missing, at the moment. We gotta search their rooms to see if we can find anything, signs of a struggle, anything. Chances are that Chrysalis might have cleaned up a bit, do the trail is gonna be a bit cold. I'm gonna go check things out." I stood and was able about to walk towards the door, but another question I had on my mind made itself apparent. "Why does it seem like preparations for the wedding are beginning way too quick? I can get the stuff like getting a dress ready and the actual ceremony, but why are the attendants doing things such as dusting and pretty much decorating already? The weddings not until a few months right?" Shining's cheeks flared red for a bit, before he chuckled uncomfortably. "Well... when I proposed, Cadence was so excited I was afraid that she wouldn't be able to sleep for a week. She went to go show her friends the engagement bands, and when she came back, she apparently wanted to have the wedding as quick as possible." I stared and blinked. "How quickly...?" I asked slowly, wondering if I would regret asking that. "Uh... ya know. 1... maybe 2... weeks." "What the fuck!? 2 weeks? Shining how were you okay with that!?" I yelled, not believing what I was hearing. Granted that he might've not known that Chrysalis had managed to infiltrate the Canterlot Palace like this, the preparations for the wedding would allow her to move through the Palace with relative ease. "Well, you need to tell all of the attendants and Cadence that you'll have to extend the date back to the original time. We can't investigate for Chrysalis with all of these preparations." "I can't just do that! We already have a collaboration of wedding planners from all over Equestria flying in to help plan my wedding, there's no way I could get them to just put things on hold! Especially not with Cadence! I don't know if she's just really excited to get married, but she's trying to move everything along as fast as she can. She's the one who managed to get those planners out here, who's pushing the attendants to get the Palace ready... she's pushing everything!" Shining exclaimed. "So... the Princess of Love is turning into a bridezilla? I guess... that makes a bit of sense. Marriage is one of the bigger steps in showing love, so no doubt she's eager to partake. Was that why you two were so... eager?" Instead of blushing and getting bashful like one might think Shining would have done, instead he put a hoof to his chin and thought for a bit. "Actually... that was Cadence too. I originally wanted to have a small agreement about saving it until the wedding night but... I guess she just had different plans." I shook my head and walked towards the doors, ready to start investigating what was going on. I'd just let Shining Armor deal with his marital problems. I mean, he could deal with Cadence... ...right...? 3rd Person POV "And that was when the other nations began to depart. I mean, I had hoped that we would all leave on better terms, but it just felt so... anti-climactic. We all went through all that, only for everyone to leave either receiving partial aid or emptyhoofed. If anything, all this trip did was prevent King Blackbeak from being overthrown." Celestia had listened with great interest to everything that Frenzy was telling her, minus the parts that 64 would have to add to his report, and was astounded that so much could go so wrong within the span of 3 days. She had thought that the Ethaxial Monarchy had been going a bit too smoothly for quite some time, so it was only a matter of time before something like that happened. Then... there had been the letter. Frenzy, displaying an impressive amount of memorization, recited the letter sent from Queen Chrysalis to Illudere, even remembering what kind of macabre ink was being used. "I wouldn't say that the meeting wasn't beneficial. If we hadn't had attended, then we would have never discovered Queen Chrysalis managed to somehow infiltrate the Palace. We can begin investigating any suspicious behaviour around the Palace immediately." Celestia said with determination, ready to order Shining Armor to start knocking down doors. "Already on it." 64 said with a smirk, entering the Throne Room. "And Shining Armor and I already had a chat about what's going on, and how we should handle things." Celestia wore of curiosity. "And how did you suggest we handle things?" "Well, Chrysalis is creeping around the Palace, and she has probably already taken the form and gotten rid of two residents in the Castle. Crossroads, and Blusa. They've gone missing and no one can confirm their whereabouts." 64 started, walking towards the Throne. "Chrysalis doesn't know that we know of her presence, so she'll continue to act accordingly. We just have to maintain a certain level of feigned obliviousness, and sooner or later she'll slip up. We just gotta be there when she does." "You're plan is to wait and see what she does? Doesn't that pose a threat to everypony else in the Palace?" Frenzy asked, a bit doubtful of 64's way of thinking. "Well we can't start a witch hunt, especially with Shining Armor's and Cadence's wedding only 2 weeks away. That might scare her off. And like I said before, if she thinks everything is going well, then she'll continue to do exactly what she is doing right now. We just have to keep an eye on any of the attendants that seem to be out of place, that's the best form Chrysalis could take." "Unfortunately Frenzy, there isn't much we can do to find Chrysalis. If she receives word that we know of her plans, she may flee and we will miss out chance to apprehend her. For now... all we can do is wait, and remain vigilante. 64. I want you to begin bugging rooms. Use Communication Shards and hide them in each of the attendants quarters." "Yes ma'am." 64 agreed, already knowing where to place them. "Anywhere else? I mean, she might also be disguised as a guard. Plus some attendants have homes outside of the Palace." Celestia's face grew pensive, considering spying on her own subjects on a larger scale. What kind of ruler would purposefully spy on their own citizens? "No. I don't want to have to do that unless we absolutely have to. We must keep a level of privacy in this endeavor." Celestia answered. "Alright then. But, while we're on the topic about Chrysalis, I had an idea on how to prevent her from leaving." 64 inquired, looking up at the ceiling. "Ever think about casting a force field?"