//------------------------------//
// 2.2: Changes 
// Story: Fullmetal Pony 
// by Leoshi 
//------------------------------//





The summons had arrived early in the morning. On official parchment, no less: Shining Armor's presence was requested in the military quarter's Administration Building before noon. He was also to bring along a certain forgotten bag from his train ride. The scroll was the first thing he had seen when he awoke, and the last thing he wanted to see at all. He had barely any time to sleep.

Even now, as the door to a freshly-painted office stood open for him, he felt his stomach doing aerobatic stunts. The summons prompted all of his sour memories from the day before to replay in his mind, and more than once he mistook someone's rushing hoofsteps for the start of Pappy's trademark cackle. His anxiety stole his senses to the point that be barely saw the inside of the office.

Eventually, one of the building's aides had to coax him inside to await the brigadier general's arrival. The smell of paint was stifling. The one sense he kept. Curse my luck.

For the second time in as many days, he was left with his own horrible company. To his credit, he had managed to keep Pappy's saddlebags shut tight. He was certain that whatever awaited him would be much worse if he poked around. Besides, the bags probably didn't have anything important. Just some personal items for a private bathroom, maybe. Or even a forgotten lunch. Eugh. Whatever it was, it was none of Shining's business, and he pointedly looked away from it as often as he could. Which, he quickly realized, was only because he kept looking back to it again and again.

He swallowed. He had skipped breakfast - the scroll had stolen his appetite, too. A good, oversized sandwich would be wonderful. Where was that old man? The sooner this was over and done, the sooner he could get back to important things. Like unpacking from his trip, and visiting his marefriend, and a million other things that did not involve sitting and waiting in a cluttered room. That was also true; a number of boxes, most open to the paint-heavy air, were stacked all around the room. Appropriately, there were also several shelves and cabinets lining the walls, waiting to be filled. Shining Armor appreciated the tasks for what they were, wishing he had one to occupy his time. Come ON, you old bag, I don't have—

There was a heavy thunk just behind him, followed by a dreadful sound. "Eh heh heh! Well, good morning!"

Curse his luck. He was so focused on his own thoughts that he had forgotten to listen. Remembering where he was — and, more importantly, who was with him — Shining Armor turned and snapped off a salute. At least this time he was in proper dress.

Both of them were, for that matter. Pappy was grinning at him over the sharp blue of his own uniform, decorated at both shoulders with a number of ribbons. The silver star of his rank shone in the sunlight of a nearby window. He kept his cover tucked inside one of his pockets, but even that was immaculately clean and crisp. The sight of his bald head, oddly smoother than yesterday (Oil? Probably oil.), also caught the light and gave yet another distraction.

Shining Armor pushed past it all. "Good morning, sir!"

"Ahh, none of that, none of that." Pappy waved off the salute and strode in like he owned the place. How fitting. "You're here as my guest! No need to get right to business."

"Sir, I was summoned with official documentation."

That gave him pause. Pappy glared at the scroll like it had personally offended him. "Of course you were." He sighed, a deep, throaty thing that sounded like it came from a swamp. "Well, if you have to be like that, then I'm hereby commanding you to loosen up. You just came off leave, didn't you?"

Shining had no idea how to take that. As Pappy walked past him, he let his foreleg fall. "I...yes, sir, I did." He heard the general muttering to himself about paper trails and red tape.

"Well, give the thing here, and I'll see to it that it gets signed in triplicate and passed up the bureaucratic ladder like the good dog I am."

Hesitant, Shining Armor handed off the scroll. Pappy casually tossed it onto one of the many open boxes, where it settled in next to a series of other scrolls and parchments. Without missing a beat, he pulled a marker out from somewhere Shining didn't see and drew a large black circle on one side. With that done, the general tossed the marker too, where it landed with a clatter somewhere behind Box Towers Five and Seven. Shining Armor winced. That looked like an expensive marker.

"One of these days, my boy. I swear, one of these days, I'll do away with all this paperwork nonsense! In its place, we'll go back to stone and chisel!" Three resounding laughs pierced the air. "We'll end up eating through the entire mountain before the weekend!"

"Th-that's, er...very inspired, sir."

"Ah, stop it, you're practically a rock yourself! Didn't I tell you to loosen up?"

"Yes, sir—"

Oh wait. That had been a command.

With a long moment to think, during which Pappy gave him a stern stare-down, Shining Armor allowed himself to relax. Not completely, no way — just enough to feel his shoulders drop and his neck to lean forward, releasing the strain of standing straight. He saw Pappy subtly nod in approval.

Well, okay. Let's tear off this bandage. Shining Armor looked at the other stallion square in the eye. "I apologize for my behavior yesterday, sir. It was unbecoming of me, even if I didn't know who you were."

To his shock, Pappy waved that off, too. "Bah! If I wanted you to know anything, I'd have made it easy on ya!"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Eh heh! You gave an old pony something to do during the train ride! Something far more engaging than a tactics meeting inside a giant metal death-trap, that's for sure. It was only a matter of time before Carrot Cake collected me, of course, but I'm grateful for the distraction." Pappy stepped forward and clapped Shining on his back. The impact stung something fierce. "For that matter, I should apologize for putting you through all that! I bet seeing me in uniform made the rest of the night pretty rough, eh?"

"That's...one way of putting it, yes."

"Hope you didn't lose sleep over this little prank, my boy."

On cue, Shining felt the urge to yawn. He wisely stomped all over that urge.

Pappy spared a moment to look around his new office, shaking his head at the state of things. It was then that he noticed the faded tan bags resting at Shining's hooves. "Oh, there it is!"

"Ah! Yes." Shining Armor wrapped the saddlebags in his telekinesis, then passed them along. Pappy fed his foreleg through one of the open straps. "I assume this is yours? It was left above my seat yesterday."

"I'm glad you found it! This holds some important stuff." Pappy nosed the main pocket open and glanced inside.

Shining didn't admit it, but he was expecting a sharp odor of spoiled food to escape the bag and was somewhat disappointed when none came. "I made sure to keep it secured, sir. Nobody has opened it before now."

"Heh, not like these would do you any good." With a steady spin, Pappy upended the bag over one of the nearby boxes. A selection of folders and clipboards slid out, neatly arranged and still looking new. "I could've used these at that meeting, but...well, what's done is done, yeah? At least I'm not set too far behind. Do you know what these are, son?"

Shining Armor stole a glance at some of the paperwork. He couldn't see any distinguishing words, but he did see some photos of ponies he didn't recognize. There were also big red stamps of CONFIDENTIAL set in the corners of several papers. Okay, so maybe one distinguishing word. "No, sir."

"Pegasus dossiers. Some soldiers and Republic Alchemists that spend their whole lives in the clouds. Still, they're good eggs, so they're being transferred to my command. Like I'm supposed to know what's best for a bunch of featherheads!" Pappy shook his head again, this time at the contents of his bag. "At least we're using the good paper for this nonsense instead of these damnable scrolls."

Experience with his sister had taught Shining that it was generally a bad idea to interrupt somepony mid-rant. He waited patiently for Pappy to lose steam. As the seconds ticked by, he gazed about the cluttered room again, not really seeing anything amid the mess. He was watching a carpet beetle retreat into the floors by the time the officer finally ran short of breath. With the grace he was trained for, he returned his gaze forward just in time to catch a question.

"You said you were here to become a guard, yes? Looking to serve the Republic?"

"Yes, sir," he replied. Shining noticed once again that Pappy's eyes were much sharper than his smile let on. Perks of being a leader, perhaps.

"To what end?"

"I wish to lead a squad of my own some day."

"Oh yes?" Pappy's smile returned with vigor. "Captain Shining Armor? Eh heh, that has a nice ring to it!"

"That's the plan..." Shining Armor paused. Something wasn't right. "Uh, pardon me sir, but...ahh..."

Almost like he expected this, Pappy casually reached into one of the boxes - the one with the fresh circle on the side - and pulled out another file. This one was much lighter than the ones from his bag, and also had Shining's name on it.

Pappy answered the question before it was asked. "I took the time to learn your name, my boy. Don't act so shocked. It's my job to know more than you!"

Suddenly all the anxiety from earlier came rushing back. He swore the paint on the walls was now giving off a sweltering heat. Maybe he could duck under the carpet like the beetle? Or hey, if Twilight could burn a hole in it...

"After we parted ways yesterday, I looked into your file. Color me impressed! If you truly aspire to lead your own squad, then I think you're well on your way, son. I wish I had a soldier like you in my ranks."

Were the walls closing in? Oh, nevermind, the towers of boxes were growing larger. Much better. Maybe he would get lucky and have them topple over him. Death by box tower suddenly appealed to Shining Armor - anything to avoid hearing what he knew Pappy was going to say.

"Though that does put you at a disadvantage, doesn't it? Ah! You don't know my name yet, do you?" He gave a curt nod. "Like I said earlier, Pappy'll do just fine, but if you see anything signed by one Poppy Seed? That's me."

Poppy Seed? Uncle to Carrot Cake? Am I in the bakery back home, now? Is this an oven nightmare?

With an innocent smile and those too-sharp eyes, Pappy threw the file down with a satisfying smack. "Hope you haven't unpacked yet, recruit! Get ready to swap bunks, because I'm your new C.O."

Shining felt a twitch at the base of his horn. Someone, please, just send me to the sun.





New orders. On the first day back. He hadn't even returned to his duty, and he was already set with new orders. Reassignment! The nerve of that general, making a decision like this! Surely there had to be something to fight this, right? Something hidden in the chain of command? Though the fact that it was a brigadier general made the chain more like a carabiner. One of those specially-made, Pega-Rescue ones that could support a bison.

"Ugh."

"Hm?"

"Tired."

Shining Armor had left the stuffy office only a half-hour ago. The heat of the sun was barely better outside than in. He had put the Administration Building behind him without looking back, fleeing from the nuthouse if he were honest. Nothing about the last two days had been good for his mood.

Well...if he were, again, honest, then that wasn't true. There were two things that made him smile. The first was the sight of his sister waving after him as his train left the countryside. The second was walking next to him.

Still... "Very tired."

To his left and setting their pace, a bubblegum-pink pegasus mare gave a mirthful giggle. "Sorry! I know I should have waited for tonight, but I was just too anxious!"

"Don't talk to me about anxiety, Cadance. Just don't. Please?"

She was a noble. That alone was rare for a pegasus, since Canterlot was largely populated by the unicorn elite. But more than that, she was the envy of nearly every mare in the city. Cadance, as she preferred to be called, was every inch a Canterlot ten, and she maintained her grace and stature without any actual lineage to speak of. She had been adopted by the Princess when she was still a filly, and cultured to exemplify the absolute best of the realm. All without access to magic.

Some rumors still crept around that the Princess had taken her in as part of a challenge or dare. Some other nay-sayers swear that the whole thing was a ploy for some dastardly plot. A few would claim, between pints of drink, that Cadance herself was the real royalty, while Luna was a figurehead being strung along. Baseless conjecture, the whole of them. Shining Armor knew better.

What he didn't know was why she had taken an interest in him. By rights, she was totally out of his league. But he had stopped questioning it a long time ago.

"Aww," she crooned. It was surely a mock, yet she said it in a way that left him wondering. "The poor soldier is sleepy. He's been away on too many missions of grave import. Should we stop at a hotel and let the weary warrior rest his heavy head?"

He hid a smirk beneath a foreleg. "Only if I can use your wings for a blanket."

With another giggle, Cadance gently placed her wing over his withers and pulled. Their shoulders touched, and soon their muzzles did too.

"I missed you," she whispered.

"I missed you too." 

This was the best part about returning to Canterlot. His lifelong dream of serving as a guard was well and good, but having a marefriend like Cadance? Few things in existence could compare. Anything that did would quickly be overshadowed. They had only been together for a year, but he was certain that she was all he needed. Some day soon, he would work up the courage to tell his family about her.

The moment of tenderness passed, and they resumed walking. This part of Canterlot was always busy but rarely crowded, so they made good time in their journey to nowhere. Other guards and soldiers nodded in greeting, many of them also looking at Cadance with an odd expression. Normally, civilians would never have been allowed so far in this part of the city, but she was the exception. Being the adopted niece of the monarch carried more privileges than could be counted.

Shining Armor finally got his oversized sandwich by the time noon rolled around. During lunch, he told Cadance all about his visit to Ponyville, saving the story with Twilight's alchemy for last. She reacted at all the right moments, even going so far as to question him about alchemy as well. To his embarrassment, he had to admit that he knew nothing about it.

It was just past two in the afternoon when he told her what had happened that morning. They were headed back to the barracks to collect his luggage by the time he finished. "Reassignment?" she asked.

"Means I'm being taken out of my troop and placed in another. Pap— uh, the brigadier general wants to personally oversee my progress. It's a nightmare."

Cadance casually stepped around some loose stone. "It can't be that bad. You're not off the career path, are you?"

Shining Armor scoffed, half-annoyed and half-relieved. "No, thank goodness. I'm still gonna be able to work toward my dream. I just have to do it with an entirely new commanding officer. A senior staff member, of all ponies." He turned to Cadance, an idea striking him. "Is that allowed? Can generals even do that?"

"Ponies take on apprentices all the time, dear. In your case, it's...definitely unusual, but not unheard of."

He groaned and turned his head forward. "So there's a history of it? Rats. Anything you can do, then?"

With a gasp, Cadance stopped and swatted his side with her wing. "Shining Armor! Are you suggesting I use my status to get you out of a situation you don't like?"

A grin broke out in spite of his fatigue. "Well, I wasn't gonna say it like that, but..."

Whap. The pegasus had turned to face him fully and added her other wing to the mix. The resulting blast of air completely mussed his mane. "The nerve!" she said. "To imply that I would attempt to undermine control of our realm's leadership just to get you out of a jam!"

The grin grew wider. Shining Armor looked directly into his marefriend's eyes. "You could always ask the Princess for a favor. That wouldn't be undermining anyone - that'd be coming from the top!"

Whap whap! His mane was well and truly tangled now.

"You're terrible today!" she chided.

"One of us has to be."

"Oh!" She huffed and turned away, stiffly walking down the path without waiting for him. Shining laughed, and it felt so much better than before. He didn't even notice the heat of the sun anymore.

Barely a minute later, after he had caught up with her, she spoke up again. "Is it really that bad, Shining Armor?"

Shining took a moment to both fix his mane and to seriously consider the question. "Probably not," he admitted. "I bet I'm just letting the trip and the lack of sleep get to me. I don't even know this guy, you know? He's just some old pony I met on the train."

Cadance gave a smirk of her own. "An old pony who is an officer, and one you probably insulted."

"And one who has casually poached me from my troop," he added. "To be fair, I don't know a thing about him...besides his cruel sense of humor. With any luck, that's not all he has to give."

A few seconds passed before Cadance draped her wing over his shoulders again. "I'll talk with my aunt about it. I can't promise to undo Mister Seed's decision, but maybe I can find something out about him for you."

They stopped a second time. Shining Armor let his shoulder brush against her own. "You don't have to, Cadance."

To his surprise, he felt her squeeze him with her wing. It was more than a hug; she was trying to make a point. "I know that. But if he's accidentally doing something to stop you from carrying on your father's work, then I'd like to help. That's the whole reason you're here, after all. Nopony should keep you from that."

Yeah. Dad.

Shining Armor hesitated, then smiled at her. She had a small blush that made her pink coat turn dark, and she gave the tiniest of squeaks when he wrapped his foreleg behind her neck and pulled them even closer.

"Hey," he murmured, "don't sell yourself short. I'm here for more than just my dad now, remember? A year ago, I met a nice little featherhead with a great personality. She doesn't look too bad, either, and she's got a rich aunt. She seems to like me for some reason, and I'll stay as long as it takes to figure out why."

Finally, as though he had just broken her down, Cadance laughed. It wasn't just the classy chuckles from before, but rather a joyful expression caused from so much ridiculousness. Her laughter rang out across the yard, drawing the attention of several soldiers leaving the commissary. Seeing their reactions only made her laugh a little longer, and by the time she was done, she had to wipe away tears.

For good measure, she shoved him out from under her wing and tucked it back to her side. "Can't believe I missed you," she muttered behind a smile.

Shining Armor swooped back in and planted a kiss on her cheek. He felt the warmth of her blush.

"Fine!" she said after a moment to recover. "Fine. If you insist, Shining Armor, I'll be your anchor. I suppose I can take at least this much pity on a tired little guard."

Shining pulled back and grinned. "Thank goodness. I kind of like it here."

They parted ways shortly after. Cadance started on the path back to the palace and to her aunt, leaving Shining Armor to re-pack some essentials and prepare to haul it to some entirely different barracks. As it happened, many of the soldiers-in-training were already told of the change, and gave him varying degrees of praise. Many of them thought it was a good thing to have a brigadier general in their corner, and many more tried to ask Shining Armor for favors. Shining used that to his advantage, and he walked comfortably while some other off-duty soldiers carried his saddlebags for him.

After going through some paperwork and meeting some new faces, Shining Armor settled in to a new space that, of course, looked exactly like his old bunk. The ponies already there - another unicorn like him, two pegasi, and an earth pony - all gave him odd stares. He knew he was, once again, the new guy, just as he had been when he had enlisted. But that was okay; just like last time, he would earn his place and win their respect. It's what worked for his dad, and it's worked for him just as well.

As he moved to get his belongings squared away, he kept mulling over the last day and a half. The train ride had left him irritable, and the whole business with Pappy was something he'd just have to accept. But he knew, after all was said and done, that his ultimate goal was unaffected. He could still push himself toward his dreams, as long as his new commanding officer didn't do anything to interfere with it. Knowing his luck, something would happen anyway, but he figured he could take whatever it would be in stride. Pappy seemed nice enough, anyway. If anything bad happened, he was certain he could handle it.

Or so he thought at the time.