Blackest Knight
Chapter 10
Twilight could not believe her ears.
“Now her reward is to watch her friends be executed before her eyes.” Chrysalis’s cold tone resonated through the hall.
Twilight turned as she heard commotion behind her. One of the changelings had grabbed Fluttershy. Rainbow Dash rushed forward to stop the changeling, but two others grabbed her. “Fluttershy!” She called out.
“What are you doing?!” Twilight stepped forward as well. Another changeling stepped in front of her, brandishing a large spear that had an axe head.
“John,” Chrysalis looked at the large metal monster that led them here. “execute her.”
Twilight’s mind shattered at the command. She looked at the metallic biped as he snapped his head toward the changeling queen. She heard his voice get shaky as he said, “No, No you can’t …” His body went rigid, and Twilight thought she heard a grunt of pain be uttered from the darkness of his helmet.
“No, please! Not again!” Twilight heard pain in his voice, not just physical pain, but pain that seemed to come from a distant nightmarish memory. The metal legs started to move rigidly toward Fluttershy. They seemed to be moved by an invisible force while their owners struggled against his own actions. A gauntlet gripped the hilt of the giant sword on his back.
“You monster!” Rainbow struggled against the changelings and reached toward her friend. “Fluttershy!” Pain emanated from the cry.
Fluttershy was forced to the ground by the changeling that brought her forward. His horn flared and Fluttershy’s head was stretched forward. The metal beast continued to advance, crying, “No! I can’t do it again!”
Silence filled the hall as the monster stopped before Fluttershy. Twilight looked on in horror as his gauntlets met on the hilt of his sword above his head. She could see one of Fluttershy’s blue eyes through her mane. She was looking into the dark visor. Twilight expected to see fear in the eyes of the timid pegasus, but she found only acceptance. Tears flowed unhindered down her cheek. For a moment Twilight saw a flash of something else pass through her friend’s eye, but it was gone in a moment.
A large metal sword came crashing down.
Blood spattered everywhere. Everyone in attendance could only look on in shock as the sword tore through flesh. A head rolled across the floor. Everyone’s eyes tracked what was once part of a complete body as it made its short trek. The silence of the hall was broken only by the small sound of blood spattering the floor.
Chrysalis looked on as the head came to a stop by her feet. Sheer luck dictated the face to come to a rest looking up at her. The eyes looked into her own. Her gaze was not torn from the eyes as John began to scream in pain. The changeling queen saw only the deep blue eyes.
All but two pairs of eyes focused on the human. His cries of pain broke the silence. The force of his cries drove everypony but Chrysalis back a step. John fell to his knees as pain racked his body. He clawed at the back of his neck and his fingers caught the edge of his helm. The helm raised, leaving a gap between the helm and the back of his chestplate. A small black orb burst through the skin. The orb was launched into the wall, where it stuck into a small crater of its own making. John fell forward, unconscious.
Chrysalis was still looking into the blue eyes of the severed head.
Everypony was motionless until Twilight caught sight of Cadance and her own bewitched brother. She skirted around the motionless Chrysalis and made her way to Cadance. She zapped the changeling goo around the pink hooves and told her, “Go to him.”
Cadance did not hesitate to run to her fiancé. She touched her horn to his and he closed his eyes. He opened them and saw Cadance smiling weakly at him. “What happened?” He asked. “Is the wedding over?”
He was about to turn towards the gore, but Cadance stopped him. “You need to cast your shield spell Shining.”
“I don’t think I can, I don’t have enough magic.” Shining admitted.
“I will help you,” Cadance touched her horn to his again. A heart erupted from the contact. Their horns flared together and a shield enveloped the couple. The shield started to grow as Chrysalis tore her eyes from the blue eyes of the severed head. The changeling queen realized what was happening as the shield reached her.
“No!” She cried as she was thrust through the window. The other changelings that stayed in the room followed her. The shield spread throughout the city. Every changeling was caught and expelled from the city. Their goo dissipated, freeing captured guards as well as Princess Celestia. The goo covering the crystal cave dissipated as well and Luna erupted out to find her sister.
Soon, the only evidence that remained of the changeling was an unconscious, armored human, his blood soaked sword, and the body and severed head of a changeling named Mimic.
John awoke and saw lavender hooves. He tried to look up but his head would not turn far enough to look at the face of whoever was standing next to him. He was face down and tried to get his arms under him to pick himself up. The lavender hooves uttered a gasp as he moved and stepped back. John focused on picking himself up, he raised himself a few inches before his strength failed him and he fell back to the ground.
“He’s waking up!” The lavender hooves ran away from him. His head swam as he tried to remember where he was. More hooves surrounded him. A warm yellow field enveloped him and he was lifted from the ground.
“I am going to sit you up,” a set of white hooves spoke softly to him. He could sense a hint if uneasiness in the voice though.
John was spun around and his back met the wall. His vision cleared and he saw Celestia surrounded by two ponies. He recognized Twilight Sparkle and Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. Both did not look exactly happy to see him.
“What exactly are you being?” Celestia’s voice held authority and benevolence.
“My name is John,” he answered. His head pounded as he spoke, but he ignored the pain. “I am a human from a world called earth.”
“What were you doing helping Chrysalis if you are not from this world.” Celestia had heard this from Cadance, but she wanted to hear the human’s own words.
“Chrysalis abducted me from my world several months ago. She implanted a curse within my mind. The curse forced me to do her bidding.” He looked down. He could not remember what happened after her last order. He did not know if he carried it out. His breath caught in his throat as he thought of the blood of another innocent on his hands.
“Curse?” Twilight asked. She walked to the crater in the wall and retrieved the black orb in her magic. “You mean this?” she floated it over to John.
John took the orb and looked at it. A small tendril rose from the orb and reached towards his face. He could feel the dark energy that had once been in his mind emanate from the orb. “Yes, this is it, how did you extract it?”
“We didn’t,” Twilight answered. “It shot out of the back of your neck.”
John felt around his neck, but he could only feel skin.
“The hole it created seemed to heal itself as quickly as it was created,” Twilight answered the unasked question.
John looked down at the orb again. He gripped it harder and squished it in his gauntlet. The curse uttered a small scream before it was crushed. John’s hand opened and revealed a dark green goo. He sighed and rested his head against the wall. It was finally over.
“Are you alright?” Princess Mi Amore Cadenza asked.
“Yes,” he answered. “Thank you Princess.” He remembered the yellow pegasus and looked down again. “No.”
“No?” The pink alicorn looked concerned.
“I … I …” He could not finish. The three mares looked at him before he quietly muttered, “I killed her, didn’t I?”
The ponies looked at each other. Celestia was the one to respond. “No, your sword did not draw blood from Fluttershy.”
He sighed in relief. “What happened then?”
Celestia hesitated before answering. “Your sword found the flesh of the changeling who had brought Fluttershy forward.”
“Mimic?” He looked down.
Celestia nodded, “If that was his name, then yes. In Chrysalis’s resulting confusion, Twilight freed Cadance and Cadance helped Shining Armor power the shield to expel the queen and the other changelings.
“Why was I not expelled with them?”
Princess Mi Amore Cadenza answered, “The shield we used was meant to expel evil. We knew your actions were not your own, so you were not expelled.”
John looked at the pink princess. “I thank you then Princess. The changelings would only have replaced the curse had I been expelled with them.”
The pink alicorn asked, “Do you remember what I told you about my title on the train?” John nodded. “Good, because I would like you to call me Cadance.”
“I do not deserve for you to call me friend,” John replied.
“Whether you deserve it or not doesn’t matter. What does is that I still call you one. You are the one who stopped Chrysalis. You saved my wedding as well.”
“I thank you then.” Silence filled the room until John addressed the looming question. “So what is to be done with me?”
Celestia answered, “We have not decided yet, but we will after the wedding. The real one. It will be happen once the hall is cleaned and windows fixed.”
John stood in the back of the wedding hall. He did not pay attention to the ceremony, nor did he pay mind to the looks that the ponies attending gave him. The hulking metal monster was largely ignored in everything but uneasy whispers before the ceremony. He was snapped out of his thoughts by a loud sonic boom. He looked out of the window to see a rainbow stretching over the newly married couple standing on a terrace outside.
John waited as ponies filed out. The five ponies he had been ordered to execute were the last to leave. The orange earth pony glanced at him before looking forward and walking quickly out. The pink earth pony’s wild mane seemed to deflate a little and she stopped bouncing as she passed him. A white unicorn with a styled mane simply ignored him. The cyan pegasus glared at him angrily while stomping out. He could not look at the yellow pegasus that tried to hide behind her cyan friend as they exited together. Twilight, Celestia, Cadance and Shining Armor did not leave, approaching him instead.
“So you are the human?” Shining Armor asked tersely. John merely nodded.
Cadance smacked Shining before saying, “John was the one who stopped Chrysalis. If he hadn’t fought his curse, then he would have been made to execute Twilight and her friends and Chrysalis would have taken over Equestria.” Shining rubbed his smacked head and looked away.
“Yes,” Celestia began, “we do thank you John. I only wish we had met under lighter circumstances.”
“As do I Princess.” He bowed.
“You have our gratitude for stopping Chrysalis, but I’m afraid we still need someone to keep an eye on you to make sure no lingering effects of the curse remain.”
“I understand.” John figured that he’d probably end up in jail, but he was glad he wasn’t going to be executed.
“Twilight, Cadance, and I have talked about this at length. Twilight does not like our decision, but we believe it is for the best.”
John looked at the lavender unicorn and could tell she was not happy with whatever the arrangement. “And what is your decision.”
“We have decided,” Celestia answered, “That Twilight and her friends will keep the Elements of Harmony with them, and keep an eye on you in Ponyville.”