Injured
“Captain, the Changelings are advancing!” a black unicorn stallion shouted towards Shining Armor.
“Flash!”
An orange Pegasus stallion with a blue mane took his helmet off before offering a salute.
“Sir?”
“You’re the fastest we’ve got and I need you to help all of Canterlot’s residents to safety-if nothing else, we have to avoid any unnecessary collateral damage.”
“Got it.” He replied before spotting a Changeling, that was flying after a young colt, chucking his helmet at it and knocking it to the ground. He then began racing to the child’s side with speed that lived up to his name.
Despite being physically weak, the pony-shaped, winged parasites ability to fly made them extremely difficult to hit, let alone lock on to.
“Do whatever you can to hold them back!” he shouted. “I have to make sure Cadance is safe!”
“Yes, sir!” the soldiers all forming the defensive formation around the staircase replied dutifully in unison.
The unicorn then fired a magical blast from his horn, as the blast hit the creature began shrieking in agony before dropping out of the sky and crumpling to the ground where it landed on its back.
Its legs flailed in the air helplessly before being pulled towards its chest as the creature’s body went limp.
“Ha!” he exclaimed triumphantly before another one jumped on him and sunk its fangs into his neck.
“Gaaah!”
“Hold on!” shouted an Earth stallion as he slammed a spear through the creature’s eye, causing it to release its prey as it shrieked out in agony.
The second the Changeling had released his grip, the unicorn began casting a spell on himself to heal the broken skin and stop the bleeding, before a geyser of blood could explode from his severed jugular.
Shining Armor broke into a full gallop as sweat poured down his face, desperately trying to reach Cadance; praying and hoping against hope that he wasn't too late.
The further he climbed, the longer the staircase seemed to be, as if it were some sort of cruel optical illusion the palace itself was traitorously playing on him to prevent him from reaching her in a sadistic attempt to see him fail the only thing that truly mattered at that particular moment in time.
Even the sounds of the battle taking place below were drowned out by the heavy pounding of his heart, reverberating through his brain and into his ears, every muscle in his body screaming in agony as his lungs begged for air.
When he finally reached the top, he could see that Cadance was being held hostage by a Changeling with its foreleg morphed from a hoof to a curved, serrated blade with its tip lightly digging into the soft pink flesh of her throat.
At that point he only saw red and charge towards the creature, while keeping his head lowered in an attempt to impale it on his horn.
His charge was interrupted, however as something slammed into his side-knocking the wind out of him and forcing the two of them over the tower’s balcony.
In this moment of dark surprise, he recognized his attacker as another Changeling and mentally berated himself for making the amateur mistake of not checking for traps in his hastiness before charging in like a cocky, inexperienced rookie.
Cadance’s scream of horrified despair at seeing him take such a steep fall rang in his ears as he regretted his actions, not only was she going to die-or worse, become a prisoner of the Changelings-but, she had to see him die and she would undoubtedly feel that was all her fault.
Before he knew it there was a sickening crunch as he fell on his back, the sensation of it being covered in a warm, sticky liquid as a hurricane of agony wracked through his entire body before he fell into an ocean of darkness.
---
Shining Armor awoke with a pounding migraine and an agonizing pain his side, he grunted in pain as he looked down at his chest to see it wrapped in bandages.
He didn’t even have dreams anymore, just memories of that day with some details either obscured or distorted, but all of the major points had more or less stayed the same.
Painfully, he forced himself to sit up before getting out of bed.
The muscles in his chest as well as his broken and fractured ribs groaned in protest, but he ignored it.
Instead he looked around the Golden Oaks Library and marveled at the fact that not only had it been built inside a tree, but the tree itself was still alive and healthy, despite the fact.
Moving around to the end of Twilight’s bed he opened his footlocker and pulled out a black t-shirt to cover up the bandages-after everything Twiley had told him about this town in her letters-they would probably be killing him with kindness, insisting that he stay in bed and rest to get better.
The only problem with that was the fact that having the responsibility of being an older brother for the majority of his life plus the added pressure of becoming the youngest Captain of Celestia’s royal guard in the history of Equestria, he was neither used to nor content to just lay around all day.
“Shining Armor, what are you doing out of bed? I thought you were supposed to be resting?” Spike yawned, rubbing some morning grit out of his eyes with the back of a balled-up fist.
“Probably, yeah…” he admitted. “But, if I stay in bed all day, I think I’ll go crazy.”
“Okay…” Spike replied uncertainly. “I’m not trying to bug you…I just don’t want Twilight to get mad at me if she finds out when she gets back.”
“Don’t sweat it-I’ll cover for you…wait, ‘gets back’?”
“Oh, yeah…Twilight said something about you being awake between asleep while you were staying here and that you probably wouldn’t remember everything.”
‘You mean ‘drifting in and out of consciousness.’ He thought, but didn’t say.
“Princess Celestia thought it would be good for you to get out of Canterlot for a while and Twilight thought it would be perfect for you to stay here since you’re her brother and she’s going to be gone for a while to learn more spells and train to have better control over her magic-Celestia said that a lot of them were pretty dangerous-and that it would be best to practice them far away from other people so no one would get hurt if any of them backfired.” Spike explained.
He then stopped to catch his breath from the long-winded summary of the past twenty-four hours.
As he breathed in, he began to do what appeared to be some form of dry heaving as for a horrific moment he believed the baby dragon would end up vomiting over Twilight’s finally polished wooden library floor.
But what happened instead was almost worse as he let out a loud belch with the air from his lungs being expelled as bright green embers before what appeared to be a scroll fell to the ground.
The letter also had what appeared to be the royal seal which Shining Armor stared at for a moment before looking back at Spike quizzically.
“Uh, you’ve got mail?” Spike asked, shrugging sheepishly.
“Sorry, it’s just I’ve heard you could do that in Twilight’s letters-I’ve just never seen them delivered like that before.” He apologized before opening it up with his magic and reading it;
Hey, Cap!
Celestia says you’re supposed to be in bed at your sister’s resting, but knowing you I doubt that’ll stop you from going out and exploring around town.
Let me tell ya, I’ve got a newfound appreciation for the duties you perform as Captain-and I don’t really like being referred to as your ‘replacement’-it feels like I’m stealing your job from you.
And before you ask; yes, Cadance is still in critical condition-it looked like it broke the Princess’s heart to have to leave her like that-but, she says that what she needs to teach Twilight is important and can’t wait.
I’ll look after her for you and make sure none of the guys try to make a move on her.
Don’t worry, I’m a stallion of my word and like I said before; the bookish ones aren’t really my type (again, no offense.)
If the other guys didn’t me before because I was the ‘new guy’, the really hate my guts now that I’m sort of their boss.
I’m trying to follow your example of being tough, but fair-hopefully everything will eventually work out this way.
(I can’t way ‘til you get back-at this rate the stress of this job is going to kill me within a month.
How do you do it?)
Well, I probably rambled on long enough. Again, I hope you get better soon Captain. And try not to push yourself too hard (or do anything too stupid), okay?
-Flash
P.S. (What’s it like to see that little dragon guy spit out letters-I’ve only heard what you heard rumors-but, I bet it looks cool.)
He smirked before refolding the letter and putting it on the nightstand next to Twilight’s bed.
“So who’s it from?” Spike asked. “Is it from Twilight…or maybe the Princess?”
“Nah,” he shook his head. “Just a friend of mine back in the guard, he’s sort of taking my place until I’m healthy enough to get back to my duties, he’s a good kid-reminds me a lot of myself when I was younger-he’ll keep an eye on Twilight while she’s staying at the castle in case…”
When he saw Spike’s expression, he realized who and what he was talking to.
“In case of um…another Changeling attack.” He finished before walking out the door leaving the baby dragon behind, confused.
It was a bright summer day and the temperature was perfect, with a sky that was almost completely devoid of cloud cover.
If he was going to be stuck here for a while, then he figured that he might as well learn who the people in town were and get accustomed to his new surroundings.
The thought occurred to him that since he didn’t remember his trip to Ponyville that he must have been brought there by one of Princess Celestia’s personal escorts-these gaps in memory were really beginning to bug him.
His ribs still hurt, but as far as he could tell no one else in Ponyville knew who he was and as long as he paced himself and avoided wincing or showing any other signs of physical distress, no one would take notice his injuries or make a big deal about it.
This town was smaller than Canterlot, which was a refreshing change to all of the self-important, uptight, so-called ‘social elites’ that made living in the big city such a pain as it reflected poorly on not only the city’s residents, but Unicorns in general.
It would also be nice to walk around in public without having to worry about frequently being saluted while trying to perform simple mundane tasks, or being harassed by citizens about laws they believed to be unfair, which he had no jurisdiction over.
Slowly, he took a few steps forward to try getting into a decent walking pattern to avoid collapsing.
Finally, he found an almost comfortable pace where the pain in his chest and side merely felt like a minor nuisance as he turned around to get a good look at the library from the outside.
There was an image of a candle on the library door and he wondered who had been the librarian before Twilight and Spike had moved in and how the tree was able to avoid getting struck by lightning during storms, but then again; a Unicorn as magically gifted as his sister was probably smart enough to erect some form of lightning rod or magical force field to prevent such an event from occurring.
Still, this was pretty nice-his duties always head him jumping from one emergency into someone else’s personal crisis or keeping his men in line whenever they tried to use their positions to circumvent the rules of modern society-but now, he finally had some time to relax and be alone with his thoughts.
Before he honestly hadn't realized how completely stressed he had been, but now it seemed like he would actually enjoy his stay here.
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Hmm... Here's a pairing you don't see too terribly often. This could be intriguing.
Sooooo.....are Shining and Cadance married in this? I ask because of the AU tag and no one called her his wife.
I'm just looking at the character list and thinking, "This is going to be some interesting stuff..." Can't wait to see you write some more of this!
~SolidFire
Needs an editor
daaaaaaaaaaaaayum that sentence Is long!
Try
“Got it.” He replied before spotting a Changeling, that was flying after a young colt, chucking his helmet at it and knocking it to the ground. He then began racing to the child’s side with speed that lived up to his name.
Or something, theres also multiple paragraphs where words are missing and it doesn't make any sense!
Dayum Cadence, that's freaky!
When you sort all these mistakes out, ill give you a fave but for now, a like is all I'm giving you
This pairing is unheard of. It is unique.
I LIKE IT!!!!!!!
3203142
No they are not...the day of the flashback Shining Armor and Cadance were in a serious relationship and he was going to propose but, that all changed when the Changelings attacked...
3203152
Do you want to be my proofreader?
The last person I had wasn't very punctual and unresponsive to most private messages due to school work.
3203218 enope, just because I showed you the mistakes doesn't mean I'll proofread for ya' sorry
Oh man... I been waiting for SO LONG!
3203257
I thought as much.
Like the concept. Though it feels like this chapter was a bit rushed. Changeling attack and suddenly, Shining is in Ponyville.
Just some constructive criticism. So far, I'm liking the idea. Interested to see where this goes...
3203534
Yeah, I was under a lot of pressure to crank this out ASAP-hopefully the next chapter will make more sense.
3203207
So would you say that...
Everything changed when the Changeling nation attacked?
3204182
Yes, I screwed that one up, didn't I?
That one changeling with the morphed hoof to serrated blade was so Terminator T-2000. Sucks to be Shinning at that moment.
Flash's letter was so 'professional' lol. I always liked the idea that since they were short on staff, they allowed just about anypony to come from far across the lands. Eventually, Shinning Armor met THIS pegasus named Flash that was as Bro-dude as he was, and made him Captain after a few corn dogs and sharing cool bro-stories with each other.
Flash's childlike behavior and the Crystal Palace's lack of professionalism due to being only reawakened after so long and trying to establish a proper army for a place that's heavily reliant on the Crystal Heart and its Princess. Well, one can only imagine a lot of complacent ponies that just assume that since bad things rarely happen up there, that they can take it easy most the times.
Wait... Flash Sentry is Shining Armor's stand in?
Wasn't he called a Private in EqG?
*Looks at MLP wiki*
Why do I remember him being called a Private?
Whenever a character goes on like that, he loses my sympathy.
changling u dun fucked up
? um what?
did you mean they?
i think you meant wait
s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/f0/83/19/f0831960e4f8c3473464146fe836c262.jpg
twilight fails a spell and ends another invasion before it could get started