The Fecal Matter Impacts Upon The Oscillating Cooling Device
Weapons clashed, Halberd and sword colliding as the sound of metal on metal filled the air. Across the entire training field were pairs of guards practicing their combat techniques after a month of inactivity. For the first time since the Equestrian takeover, crystal ponies in their traditional crystal armour trained beside changelings armoured in enchanted steel plate. Despite the fact that they were here to train for what they assumed was the upcoming war, the air was jovial and soldiers remained in good spirits.
“I have to admit, they’re not half-bad,” James commented to Strategy, Reflection and Chalmers while the four watched on from the wooden observation platform. “While primitive weapons-wise, they have good discipline and work together incredibly well.” As if to punctuate his point, a mixed squad of five changelings and five crystal ponies approached a line of snow-bag targets in the centre of the field. Quickly, the five ponies crouched low with their halberds held out in a spear wall, while the five changelings behind them annihilated the targets with green magic bolts.
Strategy grinned at the display, remembering the testing of the tactic in the battle against the Elk. It was deadly and efficient, only possible through the co-operation of both species.
“You’ve… actually managed to hold an empire together,” James complimented the Emperor, sounding incredibly surprised to Strategy.
“Well, the good Captain is very good at his job,” Chalmers chuckled, not bringing up the fact that he was the one that had suggested the tactic. “We might have to offer him a commission.”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Strategy replied, grimacing at the memories of what Nigel had told him about ‘modern’ military equipment and doctrine. “I’d rather stick with spears, swords and pole-arms than laser cannons and chemical gas.”
“Probably for the best,” James agreed. “Although I must agree with Nigel, you do seem to have things under control, Captain. I doubt there’s much I can really teach your soldiers that they don’t already know. Most of my expertise is in other areas.”
“I see,” Strategy answered, however Emperor Chalmers cut in with a wave of his hand.
“Wait one second, I have an idea.”
“Really? I doubt there’s much more I can do.” James nodded his head towards the drilling soldiers. “I mean, they don’t have access to most of our equipment or technology. They don’t have any ties to other military branches and to top it off they are not even bipedal.”
“True,” Nigel continued, Strategy listening on with interest. “But they do have something that we don’t, and that is military members that can disguise themselves as citizens of the enemy.”
“We do have cloaking,” James pointed out, Nigel shrugging the point away.
“Still, it’s not as fun as this. Listen, it’s simple. We take ten of the best changelings we have, probably the ones that were in their previous army, and you train them in infiltration, sabotage and other covert warfare. Then, we insert them into enemy territory to act as our eyes and ears in Equestria.”
“What about Agent Orthodox?” Strategy inquired. “He’s already in Equestria.”
“Orthodox is far less reliable than any of your soldiers,” James snorted with a cross of his arms. “Besides, he wasn’t sent into Equestria to remain stealthy.”
“So, do you think it’s possible?”
James turned away at Nigel’s question, and stared down at the training field. Strategy noticed that he was eyeing one group of three changeling soldiers, chatting to each other at the side of the field with their helmets off.
“How precise is the transformation?”
“We can look exactly like a pony and change our voices,” Reflection answered, the changeling having remained very quiet during the training session. “We haven’t had a need for it for a while now, thanks to the crystal ponies, but it’s innate so we won’t need any practice. One issue is that we have green blood instead of red, so we can get found out if we get injured.”
“It’d take some time,” James considered, still staring down at the group of three. “Probably a week and a half if we spend every day training, and that’s just for the basic stuff.”
“That works for me,” Nigel nodded. “It’ll give Iron some time to come up with any gear that they’ll need.”
“Iron?” James inquired, Strategy pointing a hoof towards a changeling dressed in a heavy suit of armour with a shield covering the front and a green glow coming from the sides.
“Iron Greaves is the Head Blacksmith, and he invented the ‘Infantry Suppression System, Changeling Model’, which is what that changeling is wearing. He also made the standard changeling armour and our siege weapons, with the ideas coming from the Emperor of course.”
“He’s quite the inventor,” Nigel confirmed. James hummed, before pointing to the three he had been observing.
“I’ll give it a shot, something to do I suppose. I want those three on the team however.”
“Why?” Strategy asked while he looked at the trio in confusion. “They’re just privates, and new ones at that.”
“It’s good to combine experienced with non-experienced,” Nigel answered for James with a knowing smile. “Also, those three appear to be decent friends with each other. The key to an infiltration squad is that they have to be able to naturally get along with each other, you’d be surprised at how fake some relationships can look like. If you combine them with, say, five of the more experienced guards and another two rookies, you get a team that learns with each other and from each other.”
Strategy gave his Emperor a hesitant look. Apparently, the two humans and Orthodox were his friends and former squad mates, and yet they fought all of the time.
“While training, they’ll develop a bond and get to know each other,” Emperor Chalmers continued on without noticing the stare. “This will ensure maximum efficiency during any operations they preform, as well as providing them with some autonomy. You pick a soldier who displays the most wits and intelligence, and you place them in command. The experienced changelings will aid their greener comrades with the finer points of changeling tactics, and James will cover the rest.” The Emperor’s hand patted him on the helmet, gaining a giggle from Reflection. “Don’t worry Strategy, we’re pro at this after all.”
He considered the idea, weighing up all of the points. Chalmers was right; the humans knew more about ‘covert warfare’ than he did, and likely the Equestrians as well. Combining the natural abilities of the changelings and human know-how seemed like a potent combo, and they would be far more suited to long periods away from the Empire than crystal ponies.
Except for one thing.
“What about food?” he questioned, looking up at James. “Changelings need to feed on love, and without the Crystal Heart…”
“We’re already looking at enhancing the crystals capable of storing love,” Nigel informed, crouching down next to Reflection. James and Strategy looked on while Chalmers held the gem attached to Reflection’s necklace, the changeling smiling at the attention. “Reflection’s here can last her for a week if needed, and already the unicorns say that they’ve managed to bump that up to three and a half weeks. A little more time and we can hopefully have ones that can last a month and are no larger than a fist.”
“They will also be prepared to use alternate methods to gather needed food,” James commented. “I don’t know about the specifics of changelings, something Miss Reflection and others could hopefully inform me about, but all ISA squads are able to live for years behind enemy lines. Obviously, the lack of time to train is a limiting factor, but the ones I choose must be willing to do whatever it takes to secure victory.”
“My troops are loyal,” Strategy replied. “While I can’t guarantee what they themselves will think, I’m sure that they would acknowledge the price of victory. I only ask that I be present during the training if possible, they are my soldiers after all.”
“That’s fine with me,” James answered. “They will face many tests, both physical and mental, but from what I’ve seen they should make the cut. I can’t make them do what they don’t want to, but I hope to help them understand that there are no such things as morals in war.”
“Don’t go too hard on them,” Chalmers spoke up while standing up. “We don’t need a legion of ultra-trained killers with no inhibitions, they’ll take our jobs.”
James and Nigel shared a laugh, leaving Strategy and Reflection confused. Strategy still couldn’t figure out what was going on with the Emperor, and it was bothering him. He glanced towards Chalmers, the Emperor beginning to discuss the details with Agent James.
“Advisor Reflection,” Strategy addressed, keeping his voice low. “Have you noticed anything… different about the Emperor?”
“Not really,” Reflection whispered back. “He’s the same as he was before, you know…”
Strategy nodded and let the issue drop. He was still uneasy about the Emperor’s behavior, and for some reason he felt like he needed to understand why. He turned when a hoof tapped his soldier, finding Reflection looking at him.
“I’ll talk to him about it later and let you know what he says,” she offered, Strategy about to thank her but the Emperor turned away from his conversation with Agent James.
“So Strategy, you think you can pick out another seven?” Strategy remembered the topic that he was supposed to be focusing on, only having a second’s pause before replying.
“Yes sir, I’ll have all of the ten soldiers organised by the end of the day.”
“Very good,” Chalmers praised while he gave one last look down towards the training field. “Well, I’d hate to keep you from your duties and your troops, and I have to attend to some other matters, so I’ll be off.” He stepped past, Reflection at his side before he paused at the stairs. “James, you should come along as well, I have something to show you.”
“That doesn’t sound ominous,” the fully-armoured agent muttered in reply, before following the Emperor.
“We’ll catch up later Strategy, see how the old pub has fared in my absence.” With a wave, the Emperor and his two followers left the observation area. Strategy gave a final salute before turning back to look over his troops.
He watched on as the training continued, officers giving orders to their troops and directing them. Most of them bore some scars, a large amount of them having been promoted after the bloody battle with the Elk. Then again, almost every one of the guards still bore scars from that night, physical or other. Strategy glanced down at his own left foreleg at the thought, a deep gash having been torn in the copper fur by an Elk antler-axe.
“Captain?”
Strategy glanced behind him, Sergeant Opel Blitz climbing the stairs and looking around the platform.
“Yes Sergeant,” he replied. “Is something wrong?”
“No sir,” Blitz answered with a shake of her head. She must have never been up on the platform before, eying the inside of the small structure with interest. “I was just after the Emperor, and I heard he was up here.”
Strategy remembered that Sergeant Blitz was somewhat of a favorite with the Emperor, the mare having accompanied him to Equestria a few months back. He had a suspicion as to why she was after him, but he wanted to confirm it to be sure.
“You just missed him, but he only left a few minutes ago. What did you need him for, if I may ask?”
“I wanted to talk to him about Chatter,” she replied, lowering her head at the mention of the dead soldier. “You see, we were both part of the guard that went to the Equestrian palace with the Emperor, and Nigel was pretty friendly with him. Also, they came to house one night after he had helped Chatter escape from the hospital. I know they were good friends, and I just wanted to make sure that he’s okay.”
“The Emperor is fine,” Strategy answered, stressing the title of the ruler so that Blitz would stop calling him by his first name. His own concerns reared their head however, and he softened. “Still, I can understand your reasons. I won’t stop you, and last I saw they were heading back to the castle. If you want, you can leave early-“
“That’s not needed, sir,” Blitz interrupted hastily. “I’ll try and catch him after, when he’s less busy. Besides, I have my own squad now, so I better get back to them.”
Strategy nodded, her dedication overriding the fact that she had interrupted him. With a departing salute, Sergeant Blitz turned and left, her diamond-like crystal armour clinking slightly with her steps. He found himself smiling, the fact that others were also concerned for Chalmers was relieving. He focused back on the field below, teams of guards preparing to use the powerful crossbows that the Head Blacksmith had invented months ago.
A group of twenty-two new recruits, eighteen crystal ponies and four changelings, watched the veteran instructor demonstrate the loading and cranking of the weapons. With a twang, a steel-tipped bolt thudded into a snow-sack target and landed just outside the inner circle of the bulls-eye. Seeing the weapon in action brought back yet more memories of the past battle, and he grimly recalled that they worked just as well on living things as they did on targets.
Shaking his head to clear his mind of the distracting thoughts, he focused back on the field underneath. There was no time for idle thought, not with an attack possible at any time. Celebrations would be few and far between, and much work was needed after a month of inactivity.
Staring down at the hundreds of soldiers below, all training with equal enthusiasm, a small smile grew on his face.
If there was another attack, this time they would be ready for it.
Legal Tender glanced up from the pile of bits he was counting as the doorbell jingled. A small, sky-blue mare hurried into his tiny bank, Legal’s green eyes lighting up. Quickly, he slicked down his unruly brown locks with a hoof, before returning his leg to the wooden counter.
“How can I help you, Miss Honey Glaze?” he tried to sound suave, but unfortunately his banker genes hadn’t created much of a mare’s stallion. Still, he’d do anything to secure a date with the small town’s perky baker.
“I came in here to warn you,” she hissed, glancing back at the door while she walked up to him. Legal was at first too caught up in staring at the sparkling golden eyes framed by her matching mane to take any notice, before her words caught up to him.
“Warn me?” he stuttered, hoping that it wasn’t too bad.
“Keep your voice down,” Glaze pleaded. “He was coming this way, and he seems to be able to hear really well.”
“Who’s coming?” With a swipe of his yellow foreleg, the bits jingled together while falling into a small coin bag. “Is there a new pony in town?”
Hayside only had a population of forty and was a farming town, so visitors were uncommon. Looking back, moving from Fillydelphia and opening a bank wasn’t the best idea, but thankfully running the post office on the side managed to net him a nice income as well.
Besides, a banker was a position of respect, at least in his eyes, so there were more perks to be had than just money. Being the only unicorn in a town of earth ponies was also something he saw as an advantage.
“Not a pony,” she answered. “He’s about as tall as you, but he walks on two legs and is covered with this black, metal armour.” Glaze stepped closer, Legal’s cheeks heating up when she leaned on the counter and moved her head towards his. “There’s something about him, I think he’s a bad sort.”
“O-oh, you think so?” Legal stammered, Glaze seeming oblivious to his behavior while she answered with a nod.
“I thought, ‘where would I go if I was a bipedal thing that looked suspicious and wore armour?’, and I immediately thought of the bank. I doubt he’s here to buy some corn, or sample some of my cookies.
‘I’d sample your cookies,’ Legal thought to himself, a happy grin spreading across his face.
“Legal Tender?” He shook his head at Glaze’s voice, the mare tilting her head at him. “Are you feeling okay? You seem pretty happy considering the danger-“
“I’m not happy,” Legal quickly interrupted. “I’m downright shocked, what a nefarious character!”
“Shh!”
“Oh, sorry,” he remembered, lowering his voice once more. “Do you think that maybe he’s just passing through?” In response, Glaze narrowed her eyes and lowered her head, glancing back towards the main door and straining to see through the glass.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he robs this bank, with what he looks like.”
“Now Glaze,” Legal tried to reassure, only now realising that this was the longest conversation he had conducted with her so far. “I lived in the city for years, there are a lot of strange creatures out there in the world. I doubt this new visitor will be as deadly as say, a griffon.”
It was at that moment that the doorbell rang again. Both ponies froze and looked towards the front door, the very creature that they were discussing entering the bank and post office. Legal found that his voice had fled him, his eyes staring at the intimidating black armour, the piercing blue optics meeting his gaze. Two bulky objects were clutched in his claws, both the same colour as his armour.
“Am I interrupting anything?”
The creature’s voice was surprisingly clear, with a slight grating tinge to it. It sounded jovial, and Legal found himself relaxing. Honey Glaze, however, flushed red at the newcomer’s comment, and she quickly took her forelegs off the counter and dropped back down to the floor.
“Ah… no you’re not,” Legal managed to get out, the biped walking around to browse the stationary and stamps that lined the wooden shelves.
‘Maybe he’s just here to buy a stamp,’ Legal thought hopefully, smiling when the visitor turned and walked up to the counter.
“What can I get you sir?” With his smile still strong, Legal gestured towards the set of stamps on the counter next to him. “We have some limited edition Princess Celestia stamps in, only two bits a piece!”
“I’m not here for stamps,” the creature replied merrily. “I was directed here and told that this is also the bank.”
“This… this is the bank,” Legal answered warily, his bank-manager senses tingling.
“Good,” the visitor responded, nodding his head. “Very good.” Quick as a snake, he raised his arm up and pointed one of the black objects right towards Legal. “I wish to make a withdrawal.”
Legal found himself staring into a wide barrel, Honey Glaze gasping at the motion.
“But you don’t have any funds,” Legal replied, confused at what the creature was doing. “Do you have a claim letter or a transfer notice-“
“Are you fucking dense?” Legal and Glaze both winced at the strong language, very out of place in the sleepy farming town. “I’m holding you up! Now, get me all of your gold and jewels!”
It was then that Legal caught on. The object pointing at him must be some kind of weapon, and now that he looked at it he could see that the creature was holding it in an aggressive manner. He must have seemed hesitant to the creature, one of the claws inching towards the trigger. Legal’s eyes widened, he hadn’t been a victim of a bank robbery yet, but he had heard tails of major hold-ups in Manehattan.
“Okay, just calm down,” he tried, remembering that keeping the robber calm and collected was the best thing to do.
“I am calm,” the robber replied. “Perfectly calm, I am a serene butterfly floating in the win- Hey! You there!” Legal peered around the biped to spot Honey Glaze sneaking towards the door. The second black object was raised towards her, the baker shaking as she was faced with the weapon. “Mare! If you even think about going for that door then I’ll put more holes in you than a changeling has on its legs! Get behind the counter!”
Honey Glaze quickly obeyed, moving beside Legal without a word. The robber stared at them for a moment, and Legal felt a shiver run down his spine.
“Now kiss.”
‘What!?’ Legal couldn’t believe his ears; did the creature just order what he thought he had ordered? Honey Glaze seemed just as shocked as him, but the mare quickly turned her head to look at him.
“You… you heard him Legal,” she trembled out.
Legal was torn. On one hoof, he was being robbed at weapon-point. On the other, he now had a legitimate excuse to kiss Miss Glaze. Trying hard to not show any enthusiasm, he leaned towards Glaze as she moved towards him. Instead of her silky lips, Legal instead met the cold, hard barrel of the robber’s weapon.
“Oh my… you were actually going to do it!” the creature laughed, tapping the other weapon against his thigh in mirth. “That’s hilarious! What, you think I was going to shoot you because you failed to kiss?”
“We didn’t know-“ Legal tried to speak, before he was cut off by a wave of the weapon.
“Yeah yeah, less complaining and more ‘getting me money’, I ain’t getting any richer with you just standing there.” The tone switch from mirth to threats prompted Legal to move. He quickly moved to the back wall and opened his small safe with practiced skill, his hooves only trembling slightly. With the awareness that the robber was staring at his back, he removed the sack of bits from the safe as well as the mint condition ‘Princess Celestia Summer Sun Festival Special Edition Stamps – Second Edition’ stamps. He placed the sack of bits and stamps on the counter, the robber holstering one weapon so he could pick up the sack.
“That’s it?” he uttered in disbelief, gesturing towards the stamps. “Only a small sack of coins and more stamps? I thought this was a bank!”
“It is,” Legal mumbled, put out at the lack of satisfaction. “That’s over four-hundred bits, and those stamps are worth five bits each! There’s only two-thousand of them made, and they’re a limited edition-“
“I couldn’t care less about stamps!” the robber shouted, kicking the wooden counter in anger. Glaze and Legal jumped back, a black metal boot emerging out the other side. Legal felt a pressure around his side, and when he turned his head he found that Glaze was holding him out of fear. At her terrified face, he felt his own courage swell. No, this would not stand, no petty robber would threaten his crush!
“Listen here, this is a small bank,” he informed, glaring at the rude creature. “We’re not the Canterlot Treasury, so we don’t have much money, but by golly we have a lot of stamps!” His voice raised, and he pointed his hoof at the robber. “Either take what we have and leave, or stay here and complain about it! It’s my bank, and nothing you say will belittle that!”
Silence descended in the small building, Legal and the robber staring off. With the rush over, Legal started to realise just how badly he may have screwed up. After all, the robber was armed and seemed fairly violent.
‘Oh Sweet Celestia,’ he thought while he watched the creature raise his weapons once more. ‘It’s over.’
“Canterlot Treasury, you say? I’ll make you a deal, pony.” Legal gulped when the robber stepped forward, the barrel of his weapon pressing against his forehead, right below his horn. “Tell me how to get to Canterlot, and I’ll spare your life.”
“It’s over a week’s walk away!” Legal blurted out, the cold ring against his head helping to loosen his tongue. “We don’t even have guards here, we’re that far away! Please, the only way to get there quickly is to fly, I swear it!”
“Well that puts a spanner in that plan,” the robber muttered, before glancing towards the front of the store. “Or does it…?”
‘Is he going to let us go?’ Legal hoped, the weapon leaving his head before the creature turned around and left the store, the doorbell chiming as he exited.
“Did he just leave?” Glaze questioned, the abrupt and bloodless resolution surprising both of them.
“Without the money and stamps as well,” Legal confirmed, smiling at the loot that the robber had ignored. “Whew, that was a close one.”
“You were so brave, standing up to him.” Glaze gave him a nuzzle, Legal going a beet-red. “Thank you Legal, I was sure that he was going to hurt us or worse!”
“It… it was nothing,” he stammered in reply.
“No, if you haven’t shouted at him, he wouldn’t have left!” Glaze encouraged. “He’s just a bully; as soon as you stand up to him he goes away!”
While Legal wasn’t convinced that it was his own performance that caused the creature to leave, he decided to seize the moment.
“I wasn’t scared for a second,” he bragged, puffing out his chest. “In my long line of bank managers, we’ve never given in to simple hoodlums, thugs or scoundrels! He won’t be back Miss Glaze, I can assure you of tha-“
“Oh no, I’m robbing the bank!”
The slow yell of the robber was punctuated by a loud ripping noise, and Legal pulled Glaze behind the counter as glass shattered. Woodchips rained down from the roof as something thudded into the ceiling, a full three seconds of deafening noise sounding out through the entire bank and town. Legal’s ears rang for a full ten seconds after the main noise had stopped, and when his hearing returned he could make out the screams of confusion and terror from the other townsponies.
“Oh no, I hope nobody heard that and is on their way to fetch the guards to arrest me and take me to Canterlot,” the robber cried out. “That would be horrible!”
“Well, this is sure something.”
James let out a low whistle when the guards had finished opening the vault door, revealing the huge room filled with all manner of gold, jewels and other valuables. There was probably enough wealth to buy a small battlecruiser, and since Nigel was the ruler of this empire that likely translated to being his.
“You got an upgraded paycheck,” James murmured while entering the vault itself, prompting a chuckle from Nigel.
“It’s not mine, really,” Chalmers tried to pass off, rubbing the back of his head. “It’s supposed to be used for the infrastructure, the paying of workers, the… staying in this room and looking shiny?” He ended his answer with a shrug, before holding up a finger. “It’s not this room that’s the important thing though; we have something far more valuable in the back, so to speak.”
‘What could be more valuable than an Emperor’s ransom of treasure?’
Deciding to not voice his thoughts, James followed Nigel and Reflection to a blank section of wall, only a small amount of golden and silver coins heaped around it. It was only when he neared the wall that he realised what was going on. The sensors in his helmet registered a wall of energy in an ideal door-shape, James guessing that it was some kind of magic illusion.
He was proved correct when Nigel reached out and touched a light-torch, or more specifically the glowing gem that helped light up the room with it’s warm yellow glow. With a shimmer, the section of wall faded and revealed another stone-walled room.
“Try and keep this a secret,” Nigel requested, before frowning. “Also, don’t tell Orthodox about this no matter what. I don’t want to know what would happen if he got his grubby claws on these.”
“On what?” James inquired before entering the secret room with Nigel and Reflection.
“Oh, only on the objects that will probably catapult our military technology up a few levels,” Nigel replied casually. James looked around, the room larger than he first expected. Rows upon rows of coloured gems were lined up on selves, hundreds of them seemingly grouped according to colours, size and shape.
In the center of the room was a line of wooden workbenches, ponies with horns on their foreheads working over dull gems in utter concentration. The trio watched on without a word while horns glowed, infusing the gems with magic. James turned away from the group of twelve unicorns and ran his eyes over the nearby shelves.
He saw labels such as ‘weight reducing’, ‘ignition’, and ‘strengthening’ under different groups of gems. It was then that it clicked, these must be the same sorts of gems that were infused with the armour of the local guards, such as the ones that enabled the steel-clad changelings to fly despite their armour.
“Ah, Emperor! It’s a wonder to see you after that horrible month!” James re-faced the work area, a golden-coated unicorn with a matching mane approaching after leaving his seat. Nigel smiled and held out a hand, the unicorn meeting it with a hoof.
“It’s good to see you as well, Golden Ring. I hope the caves weren’t too bad.”
“It was nothing, I’m sure you endured worse,” Golden replied, before quickly changing the subject. “At least the Equestrians didn’t find our supply of gems from what I can see, and we’re already back to full productivity.”
“Excellent work,” Nigel praised, before nodding towards James. “Golden Ring, meet Agent James.”
“A pleasure,” the unicorn greeted, offering his hoof. James instinctively reached out and shook it, the unicorn staring in awe at the sophisticated armoured digits that encircled his limb. “Your armour is certainly amazing, and all made without gems as well.”
“We’ve had a few years to work on it,” James replied, keeping his tone professional.
“I can imagine. Moving on, I heard that you are quite interested in the science of magic, I assume that you cannot wait for me to explain to you our processes in enchantment.” It took James a few seconds to work out that the unicorn was mistaking him for Elijah, and he quickly rectified the mistake.
“I’m sorry, but I believe that you are thinking of my colleague, Researcher Elijah.” James glanced towards Nigel, the Emperor focused on Reflection while he rubbed her behind the ears. “I’m certain that Chalmers only really brought me here to show off the gold and jewels.”
“Lies and slander,” Nigel responded lightly, still focused on pampering the purring changeling at his side. “I actually came down to talk to Golden about those love-storage gems, and how the progress on expanding their capacity is going.” He turned his head towards Golden. “So Golden, how’s it going?”
“We’ve made leaps and bounds, sir,” Golden answered happily, his horn lighting up with an orange glow. A roll of parchment floated over from his desk at the back of the room, a set of small reading glasses also floating over to settle down upon his muzzle. With a clearing of his throat, Golden’s eyes traced the words written on his scroll. “We’ve managed to create gems that will theoretically hold enough love for a solid two months, if the user is careful with how much they consume. Realistically, the actual time is more like a month and two weeks, and that is based on three ‘meals’ a day.”
“That will be more than enough,” James answered with a nod, another question coming to mind. “How large are these gems? We’re after something concealable preferably, or at least something that won’t attract attention.”
“One second, and I’ll show you,” Golden answered, trotting back over to his desk. James noticed that a few of the workers were waving at Chalmers, the ponies seeming to be genuinely happy to see him. He shook his head when Nigel waved back, he never thought that he would have witnessed the day that Chalmers would actually get along with other people for a long period of time.
He refaced Golden just in time to see the unicorn return with a small box. With an orange glow, the lid was opened and Nigel, Reflection and himself leaned over to stare into it.
“They’re pretty small,” Reflection commented, James silently agreeing while he examined the small gems that about half the size of his unarmored fist. It was still fairly large for a gem, but it should be easy to hide around three of them on one’s person.
“I was informed of the requirements,” Golden explained. “I wanted to go smaller, but unfortunately that is going to take some time. With the high possibility of war on the horizon, I’ve had to focus my team’s efforts on restocking our weaponised gems and developing new ones. We’ve only managed to get twelve gems enchanted so far.”
The lid of the box was shut, Golden keeping it held in his magical grasp.
“Twelve is enough for our needs at the moment,” Nigel reassured. The Emperor removed his hand from Reflection’s head and held it out towards Golden. “Thank you Golden, once again you and your team has performed above expectations. Agent James here is in charge of that particular assignment, and he’ll organise their collection when they are required.”
“It’s my pleasure to serve the city, Emperor,” Golden meet Nigel’s hand with a proud grin on his face. “I also look forward to discussing theories with… Researcher Elijah, I believe it was?”
“That’s right,” Nigel replied, before he turned to James. “Speaking of Elijah, where is he?”
James checked his suit’s sensors, Elijah’s I.D lighting up on the helmet display.
“Apparently, he’s in the castle dungeons,” James informed, staring at the blinking dot on the digital map of the castle. “He’s likely harassing those prisoners of yours.”
Chalmers sighed, James smirking at the reaction.
“We better go get him before he tries to vivisect one of them,” Chalmers grumbled while making his way to the door. “Goodbye Golden, I’ll check back with you later on.”
“Goodbye sir, you’re welcome anytime,” the unicorn replied, the rest of the workers taking the time to shoot off farewell waves. James returned them unenthusiastically, before he followed Nigel and Reflection out of the door.
He was not looking forward to having to deal with Elijah and his shenanigans.
Twilight sighed and stared down at her forelegs, the human scientist waiting for an answer to the question. Unfortunately, he had picked her as his favorite ‘subject’, subject in this case seeming more like ‘victim’. The barrage of questions had been going on since the morning, ever since they had been given their breakfast of toast, jam and water. Compared to the often befuddling questions, being stuck in the cell was actually not that bad. The food wasn’t the worst and the guards were fairly friendly, but the scientist was a different matter.
“Do you, or do you know of, the methods commonly referred to as ‘blood magic?”
She looked up at the human’s question, rolling her eyes at him.
“No, blood magic is outlawed and has been for hundreds of years.”
“And what about-“
“It’s the same with dark magic, necromancy, and every other type of evil magic,” Twilight interrupted, the stress evident in her voice. “There is no summoning rituals, no evil spells, nothing!” Her voice raised to a yell towards the end, the pure ridiculousness of the situation getting to her. Looking around, she saw that all of her friends were staring at her with alarm, while the human scientist just watched her with a smirk and pushed his recorded closer.
“Okay, let’s talk about this,” Twilight managed out between deep, calming breaths, her voice lowering. “Listen, if you let me write a letter to Celestia, and let us go, then I can ask her to let you read every book in the royal library including the ones in the high-security wing.” She looked up pleadingly into the white helmet’s visor, the owner silent for a moment.
“No,” he answered, leaning back on his stool and entering something into the glowing pad he held. “Although this library does sound interesting, I’ll make sure to visit it sometime. If you can’t tell me about any of these spells you foolishly label as ‘dark magic’, then you can begin to explain about your titles. What are these ‘Elements of Harmony’, and why are you integral to their operation?”
Twilight glanced towards her friends, all of them watching the interrogation. Rainbow Dash was glaring at the human, the exception to the others’ looks of worry.
“Don’t tell him anything,” Rainbow growled. “He’ll only try and do something evil.”
“I can assure you, my motives are far from evil,” the scientist assured, turning to face Rainbow in her cell. “For example, if I was evil, then I wouldn’t be talking to you so civilly.”
“You tried to starve us,” Rarity pointed out. “It was only thanks to those noble stallions over there that you stopped.” All glanced towards the three guards at the end, the crystal ponies shifting uncomfortably in their armour.
“Our orders are from the Emperor himself,” the sergeant spoke up, more to the human than to them, Twilight observed. “The prisoners are to not be harmed.”
“And thanks to that I have been getting nowhere,” the scientist muttered, before looking back at Rainbow Dash. “It is due to your refusal to cooperate that has kept you imprisoned in these cells. If you tell me the information that I require, then I could talk to the Emperor about getting you actual rooms. You’ll still be prisoners, but in your own rooms instead of cells.”
“Including a bathroom?” Rarity inquired, looking to be mulling over the deal while gazing down at the chamber pot in her cell.
Twilight shuddered with her at the memories. It hadn’t been a pleasant stay in the dungeon.
“Of course,” the human replied, friendlier than before. “A bed, a bath, a toilet, better food, all that you need to do is tell me about these ‘Elements’.”
Twilight looked around at her friends once more. Pinkie’s mane was deflated, her normal energy gone. Fluttershy hadn’t spoken much, the whole experience terrifying to her. Applejack had been worried about how her family would react upon receiving the news of her imprisonment. Rainbow had been defiant, but the lack of sleep was starting to show in her eyes. Rarity had surprisingly been the strongest, telling them all that there was no way Equestria would let the Emperor keep them hostage.
It was true that they were nearing their breaking point, the dank dungeon sapping their wills. Twilight sighed, hoping that at least this way, they would get the possibility of a warm bed to sleep in.
“Well, the Elements are magical artifacts that only we can use,” she started to explain, aiming to keep the information basic. “They are Magic, Generosity, Laughter, Honesty, Kindness and Loyalty. We’re the bearers and we use them to fight evil, like Nightmare Moon and Discord.”
“You say these Elements are magical artifacts,” the scientist questioned, recording everything down. “What form do they take?”
“Five necklaces and a tiara,” Twilight answered, confident that this information wasn’t really harmful for him to know. After all, pretty much everypony in Equestria probably knew about them. “Princess Celestia has them hidden, so you’ll never find them.” The human snorted, and continued to tap on the pad.
“You underestimate the abilities of my colleagues,” he informed before pausing. “Especially if the said items look valuable, ISA agents have a habit of… ‘acquiring’ shiny things on their missions.”
“ISA?” Applejack asked from her cell. As the human turned to face her, Twilight noticed that the guards were also leaning in to listen.
“The Internal Security Agency,” the human answered. “It’s one of the intelligence departments of our military. Nigel, who is Emperor Chalmers, is a high-ranking ISA officer. Agent Orthodox, who is that small, orange, dragon-looking fellow you may have seen, is a field agent. Agent James and myself are also former members, and we have moved on to other departments.”
“You?” Rainbow Dash began to laugh. “A spy? You’re too much of a nerd!” Twilight shook her head in disbelief at her behavior. Sure, he hadn’t exactly been nice to them, but insulting a being who was willing to starve them wasn’t the best idea. Thankfully, the human didn’t show any signs of being upset, although it was hard to tell because of his concealing helmet.
“I was indeed a ‘spy’, Rainbow Horse,” the human replied, Rainbow Dash stopping her laughter at the insult he leveled at her.
Surprisingly, the scientist put his pad down and held his left arm up in the air. With a hiss and a whine, the white armour separated at his shoulder. Twilight and the others watch on amazed while he removed it, a plain grey jumpsuit underneath. After the two halves of the arm armour were placed on the stone floor, the scientist removed the glove from his hand.
Twilight’s eyes widened when she saw the metal hand, nothing like the skin-covered hands that the Emperor possessed. It looked like it was silver, and highly advanced judging from the way it moved like it was real. Even the fingers seemed to work fine, Twilight not knowing a lot about the digits, but they clenched and unclenched in a disturbingly natural way. With a zip, the human pulled something up his arm and freed it from the jumpsuit sleeve. What Twilight saw next nearly made her gag, if it wasn’t for the scientific curiosity brewing inside of her.
Halfway up the upper arm, the metal met white flesh. It was evident that the arm wasn’t natural, a sort of metal ring halfway between the shoulder and elbow. The rest of the girls, and the three guards, stared at it in shock while the human swiveled around to show it off.
“Lost it on a mission, it was trapped under a pile of rubble and we may have had just initiated a countdown for a large explosive device a few minutes earlier.” The human paused and glanced towards the three pony guards. “It was your Emperor that cut it off, you know,” he told them. “He saved my life in a way.”
“Is that why you’re helping him to do this to us?” Fluttershy spoke up quietly. “Because he saved your life?”
The human laughed, surprising them all. “Help Chalmers because he saved my life?” the scientist repeated mirthfully. “I doubt it, considering he has directly endangered my life far more regularly than saved it. No, ponies, I’m helping him because I choose to do so. Well, that and the promise of examining your world before the rest of my colleagues from the Research Department arrive and squabble over it.”
“Oh,” Fluttershy replied, sinking back down in her corner.
“What is it made out of?” Rarity asked hesitantly. “It is horridly morbid, but that metal…”
“It’s a mix of alloys and numerous other materials,” the human answered. “However, due to my work, I had it plated with silver.”
“Silver?” Rarity repeated with confusion. The scientist must have interpreted it as a doubt of validity, another hissing sound audible before the metal part of the arm disconnected from the rest. Morbidly, the human grabbed the metal part with his armoured hand and pulled it away, leaving a stump behind. Twilight nearly heaved when he turned to poke the disconnected arm through Rarity’s cell bars, the stump turning towards her.
The metal ring was covered with a mass of plugs, bits of flesh visible through a clear cover of some sort. She could actually see the muscles and blood vessels of the arm, the stump a horrifying blend of machine and human.
“No, take it away!”
Rarity’s wail caused Twilight to tear her eyes away from the stump, the human removing his metal arm from the bars.
“It’s only a prosthetic arm,” he chided, plugging it back into his stump. As soon as it was in, his fake fingers began to move again. “It’s not going to hurt you, and besides, you wanted to see that the silver was real.” He glanced towards Rainbow Dash, who was silent and opened mouthed at what she had just witnessed. “Is that substantial evidence for you, Rainbow Horse?”
Twilight didn’t hear Rainbow’s reply, her mind focusing on something that the human had said.
He apparently worked for something called the ‘OEMAD’, in which the first word was ‘occult’. He said that he had his fake arm plated on silver because of his job. Twilight knew that silver was allegedly something that could hurt evil things like vamponies and other monsters like that, but those things only existed in foal’s tales.
Right?
“Elijah.”
Twilight was pulled out of her thoughts at the sound of the Emperor’s voice, and she noticed that the scientist had just finished putting his armour back on. The three guards saluted as the Emperor, the changeling and the other human walked down into the dungeon with another four guards in their wake. Twilight noticed that the changeling shuddered when its eyes glanced over them in the cells, and she remembered that it too had been incarcerated.
“Oh what is it, my glorious liege?” the human named Elijah replied sarcastically while standing up and bowing. He sounded lighthearted to Twilight, and judging by the Emperor’s chuckle he didn’t see it as an insult.
“Well, I came down to save the prisoners from you,” the Emperor answered, gazing around at them all. “But they surprisingly seem to be in good health. Did you find out anything interesting?”
“They are not the weapons themselves it seems, but merely some sort of conduct through which they act,” Elijah started to explain while glancing at Twilight. “The unicorn named Twilight Sparkle has told me that there are five necklaces and one tiara, and that they are guarded by Celestia.”
“It is no matter,” the Emperor dismissed. “Without their conducts, the Elements are assumed to be useless. We have other matters to worry about at the moment, and your presence is required down in the vault.”
“Ah, with the enchanted gems!” the scientist’s voice was filled with child-like glee. “I will depart immediately!”
“Elijah, wait-“
The Emperor was cut off, the scientist moving past him and disappearing out the door.
“Private Mirage,” he addressed, one of his changeling guards nodding. “Go after him, and actually show him where the vault is.”
“Yes sir,” the steel-clad guard confirmed with no trace of enthusiasm in his voice, before he turned and headed for the exit.
Twilight gulped when the Emperor turned to look at her, his smile not easing her concern. The fact that he was smiling was somehow more haunting, and he patted the head of his changeling.
“Emperor, sir,” one of the dungeon guards spoke up. “Mister, uh, well the other human in the white armour promised the Equestrians that if they told him about the information he was after, then he’d talk to you about moving them up into some rooms.”
“Did he now?” the Emperor muttered. “And let me guess, they gave him-“
They gave him the information,” the guard confirmed, eliciting a sigh from Emperor Chalmers.
“Of course they did,” he replied, crouching down and staring at Twilight. “Didn’t you, purple unicorn?”
“Twilight Sparkle,” she informed him, scooting back away from the bars. "And... I did."
“Indeed,” the Emperor continued with a roll of his eyes.
“You’re not going to give them a room, are you?” the changeling asked, moving her head up into his hand. The Emperor hummed, scratching her behind the ears.
“Well, they haven’t really done anything to me or the Empire,” he started, Twilight perking up at this. “And remember, you were in here too for a month. Wouldn’t you have preferred to be locked in a room instead of down here?” Twilight flinched when the changeling’s wings buzzed, but the creature didn’t advance. Instead she stood up on her hind legs and threw her forelegs around the Emperor’s neck, taking everyone by surprise.
“Don’t say that!” she asked him pleadingly. “Don’t remind me of that!”
“Okay, okay,” the Emperor reassured, patting her on the back and giving his fellow human a look. In return, the black-armoured human shrugged. “Do you want to go back up? I’ll meet you in the throne room after I’m done here.”
“I’ll go back up,” the changeling whispered back, Twilight having to strain to hear it. The changeling stopped hugging him and got back down on all four legs, giving him a quick peck on the cheek before moving towards the door.
“Reflection, wait.” The changeling stopped, the Emperor looking towards a guardmare. “Private, please escort her back up and keep her company.”
“Yes sir,” the guard replied with a salute, before moving to the changeling and ushering her along.
“Can we really afford to move them up to rooms?” the armoured human inquired after the pair was gone, tilting his helmet towards Rainbow. “Especially with multi-colored over there.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rainbow glared, the Emperor raising a finger in the air and waving it at her.
“Shh, quiet down there.”
“Why you-“
“The Emperor ordered you to be quiet,” one of the guards reminded forcefully, earning a glare from Rainbow but also her silence.
“Thank you soldier,” Emperor Chalmers acknowledged. “Now James, while we’d lose two guards for each room, we gain so much more. For one, we still have Celestia’s precious Bearers secured away. We’d have more compliance and better leverage when negotiating, due to the better conditions. Bar up the windows and there’s only one door each they can possibly escape from.”
Twilight wondered why he felt okay with freely talking about this when she realised something. Even if they did escape, where would they go? The entire city would recognize them in an instant, being the only Equestrians around. Then, if they somehow did get through the city, they would have to trek through snow and blizzards with no supplies. Once again she glanced around at her friends, hope in their eyes.
“We won’t try to escape,” she spoke up, earning the attention of the Emperor, the other human and the guards. “If you put us in rooms, then we’ll stay there.”
In truth, she was intending to try and figure out something while trapped, even if she could try and send Celestia a message somehow. The human Emperor grinned at her, his joy slightly unnerving.
“Good choice,” he replied, standing up from his crouch and clapping his hands together. “There’s not really any point in you being down here if you behave. You haven’t really done anything wrong, but being the servants of that back-stabbing bitch means we have to take some precautions.”
Twilight flinched at what he called Celestia, his cheery tone wavering for the briefest of instants. Looking back at what had happened, they were incredibly lucky that the Emperor just didn’t take his anger out on them.
“You can’t call the Princess that!” Rainbow shouted out, glaring at the Emperor.
“I can call her whatever I want to,” Emperor Chalmers shot back. “She lost all of my respect a month ago, and I never forgive traitors.”
“Rainbow,” Twilight added, giving her a look that said ‘drop it’. “Just don’t say anything.” Rainbow looked at her, disgusted. Twilight remained stoic, while she hated saying that to a friend, antagonizing the Emperor who was holding them hostage was not the best thing to do. They just needed to sit down, shut up, and hopefully Celestia would get them out of this soon.
“You should listen to your purple friend,” the human called James spoke up. “She seems to be a bit more level-headed.” Rainbow snorted at this, but thankfully sat down, crossed her forelegs and only glared at the humans and guards. The Emperor must have found her reaction humorous, the human smirking at Rainbow.
“Yes, that would be recommended.” He turned to the remaining three guards that had come in with him, nodding towards the door. “Please inform the blacksmith of the needed requirements; I’d like to have the rooms ready before this evening.”
“Which rooms, sir?” a guard asked, the stallion saluting while he did so.
“Six of the standard guest rooms on the first level should be fine, we’re not going too soft on them.” The guard nodded and moved to leave the dungeon with his two comrades in tow, the Emperor turning back around. “Now, Miss Sparkle, we’ll still need to ask you and your friends questions of course.” Twilight grimaced, not looking forward to more interrogation.
“I understand,” she said with a sour face, before getting an idea. “But, if we do, maybe the six of us could be allowed to eat together? If we’re going to be locked up in our separate rooms-“
“I see no issue with that,” the Emperor answered, giving his fellow biped a glance. He received a shrug in return, the other human raising his arm in an exaggerated motion.
“You’re the Emperor, it’s your call. We’ve still got a lot to do so we’d better get a move on.”
”Yes, we better,” Emperor Chalmers replied, before giving a final glance around the cells. “Remember; if you behave then you get more privileges, so I suggest cooperation.” With that and a wave of his hand, he made to leave. The other human followed him with a shake of his head, leaving the three guards alone to guard them. Twilight looked towards Rarity, the seamstress coughing into a hoof while Rainbow glared at the Emperor’s back.
“Well Twilight,” Rarity began, the others all looking towards her. “At least we’ll get our showers.”
“Taking their sweet time, aren’t they?”
Orthodox grumbled to himself, leaning back against the tree in the center of the town. It had been hours since he had ‘robbed’ the bank, and he had expected the local law enforcement to turn up ages ago.
He snorted and glanced around at the surrounding houses, ponies staring out at him from their curtained windows. They hadn’t been game enough to come out, even though he was unarmed. His two machine pistols had been concealed inside his chest armour, and after he had buried his plasma rifle behind a house he was ready to be taken into custody.
With a sigh, he ran an armoured hand down his face, the wait agonizing. He was half-tempted to set a house on fire to see whether that would bring the guards faster, or at the very least it would help to get rid of his boredom.
His right ear raised when he heard the clanking of metal drawing closer, and he let out a low whistle when he looked up.
A horde of flying pony guards were closing in on the town, their golden armour glinting in the setting sun. There must have been at least fifty, and as he watched they spotted him.
“Phase two,” he muttered to himself with a grin, placing his helmet on his head and making sure that it sealed. He ensured that his tail was limp and non-threatening, before knelt down to pick up a rock. “You’ll never take me alive!” he yelled, chucking the rock at one of the oncoming guards. The mare swerved and speeded down towards him with increased speed.
Orthodox ran as quickly as his legs could take him, down the main street of the town.
“Fly, fly, fly as fast as you can!” he shouted out. “You can’t catch me, I’m the-“
His taunts were cut off when a weight slammed into his back. While his powered armour would normally be able to compensate for something like that, since he was running at full pelt and wasn’t using his tail for counterbalance he ended up face-down in the dirt.
“Fuck,” he cursed, before trying to roll over with the weight still on top of him. He came face to face with one of his pursuers, the guard appearing dazed with a dent in the golden helmet. Looking at the pony closely, Orthodox saw that it appeared female. The pony’s blue eyes were unfocused, and drops of drool were falling from her mouth onto one of his eye optics. “At least buy me dinner first,” he grumbled, trying to wipe it off with his hand.
“There it is!” a male voice called out. “Private Streak has him!” Orthodox did the one thing he could think of.
“Police brutality!” he started to yell. “I have rights! Rape! Get me a lawyer!” Gold-armoured hooves pulled the stunned pony off of him, and with a few kicks he was soon facing the dirt again. “You can’t arrest me, my dad owns a dealership! I’ll sue you, you pigs! Just you wait until I get out; I’ll come for all of your families!” The guards must have caught on that his armour was harder than their shoes, and they stopped kicking. Orthodox felt something jab his back, and a surge of electricity crackled over his armour harmlessly. “Don’t tase me bro’!”
“What in Tartarus is he made of?” a pony questioned, Orthodox finding himself hauled up from the ground. He looked to his sides, two ponies flying and holding his arms. He smirked when he realised that they had handcuffed him, he doubted that anything they had could resist power armour. Still, he had a plan to go through with, so he had to resist the urge to break his bonds like they were paper.
“It doesn’t matter,” a gruff voice answered, Orthodox looking towards the front and seeing a guard wearing a helmet with a larger plume. “He’s our prisoner now.” The pony that Orthodox assumed was the guard leader stepped closer, the rest of the ponies crowding around. “Do you know why you’re under arrest?” Orthodox smirked, even though the pony couldn’t see it.
“Yeah, I plowed your mother last night, bitch likes it rough.” A barrage of hits landed on him, the guard leader watching while his subordinates attacked with no effect.
“Elegent,” the pony growled, waving a hoof and ordering the ceasing of the kicking. “But no, you’re under arrest because of your affiliation with the Crystal Empire. Princess Celestia is very eager to speak to you-“
“I bet she is,” Orthodox purred. “She can’t resist this hunk o’ spunk.”
He once again found himself on the ground, the guards laying into him with their armoured shoes. Orthodox made sure to disable his external speakers, as he didn’t want them to hear his laughter at how easy they were to rile up. After a solid minute of kicking, the guards all taking a turn, he was lifted back up again.
“Not so funny now, is it?” the leader smirked, Orthodox getting his chuckles under control before re-enabling his speakers.
“Your guards kick like schoolchildren. Actually, I’ve met schoolchildren that kick harder.”
That had been a strange weekend.
The guard leader’s smirk disappeared, a frown replacing it. “We’ll see how hard you’re laughing when you’re rotting in the Canterlot dungeon, Scum. Take him away.”
“Oh no,” Orthodox stated with a grin hidden under his helmet, while a barred chariot was flown down from the sky. “Anything but the Canterlot dungeon.”
Shining got out of the chariot and helped Cadence down; making sure that the cloak covered her completely. The shaving had been a huge blow to her self-esteem, and Cadence didn’t want anypony to see her like she was now. She had cried all through the trip back to Canterlot, and Shining had been at a loss at what to do before he had run into his father. Nightlight was the third pony to leave the chariot, the older stallion rushing to the oak door of the large house that they had stopped at.
“Come on inside,” he suggested, Shining giving the guards drawing the chariot a nod of thanks before he helped Cadence inside of his parent’s house. They left the front yard and entered the hallway, pictures of the family hanging up on the wall. They followed Nightlight into the living room, Shining helping Cadence onto the couch before moving into the kitchen with his father.
“Thanks for letting us stay,” Shining acknowledged, his dad smiling while he levitated the teapot down from a white shelf.
“You need time with your family, it’s far better than staying in the castle,” Nightlight reassured. “After what you and Cadence went through, some time in a nice, relaxing setting is the best thing.” The dark blue stallion shifted awkwardly on his hooves, a box of tea bags floating in mid-air. “They didn’t… do anything else to her, did they?”
It took Shining a second to process the question, and when he did he was thankful for the answer.
“No, they didn’t do anything like that,” he replied, opening the cupboard that contained the biscuits. “The Emperor’s not the nicest guy, but he wouldn’t do that.” His father gave him an incredulous look.
“He’s ‘not the nicest guy’? Isn’t this the same Emperor that killed and was banished to Tartarus by Celestia herself?”
“He was okay before that,” Shining defended. “I ate and drank with him, remember? He just… thinks differently to everyone else.” It was then that he remembered the other humans, and the lizard thing. “Okay, I think everything from where he comes from is strange, but he isn’t a madpony like Sombra was.”
“Didn’t he beat Sombra to death?”
“That’s not the point Dad,” Shining sighed.
“Well, I don’t see your point,” Nightlight finished, levitating the complete tray with everything they would need. “He’s an enemy of Equestria and shaved your wife as a warning to the Princess, not to mention he took Twilight and her friends hostage. That’s evil enough for me.”
Shining lowered his head at the reminder of his sister’s imprisonment, but something told him that the Emperor was going to keep his word about her safety. He followed his father back out to the living room, Nightlight setting everything down upon the small coffee table and taking a seat in a light-blue armchair.
“So I heard that one of the Emperor’s minions was captured today.”
“Yeah, he tried to rob a bank in a farming town,” Shining answered while sitting down next to the silent Cadence. “Why he did it I don’t know, but from my brief experience with him I think he’s possibly the worst out of all of them.”
“Why does a small farming town have a bank anyway? There’s apparently only forty ponies living there.”
“I don’t know Dad, I’m not a banker.” Shining knew what Nightlight was doing, the older stallion trying to steer the conversation away from anything to do with the Crystal Empire. He glanced towards Cadence, still wrapped up in her cloak. She had took it hard, losing her coat. With a small sigh, he poured her a cup of tea and levitated it towards her.
“Your mother should be out soon,” Nightlight informed, tilting his head towards the closed study door behind him. “With what’s going on, with Twilight, she’s been shut up in there since she found out. I told her you and Cadence were coming, so hopefully she’ll show herself.”
Shining nodded and took a sip of his own tea, not really knowing what else to say. He hoped that his parents didn’t blame him for Twilight’s imprisonment.
“Thank you for inviting us to stay,” Cadence mumbled, Nightlight glancing towards Shining before replying.
“It’s okay Cadence, it’s not like you’ve been a stranger to this house after all.” His words prompted a small smile, Cadence no doubt remembering happier times. Placing his tea down on the table, Shining put a foreleg around her and gave his father a thankful nod.
All three sat in silence for a few minutes, simply enjoying their tea. In truth, none could really think of anything to talk about, all wary about bringing up the trouble in the Crystal Empire. The chime of the wooden wall clock caused Shining to look up and see that it was seven o’clock. Nightlight also took notice, the stallion glancing towards the study door again.
“We’ve already got the guest room ready for you two, so you don’t need to worry about that.”
“Thanks,” Shining replied, the silence returning. With another glance, Nightlight rolled his eyes and placed his empty cup down on the table.
“Hang on, I’ll drag your mother out of hiding.” Nightlight left his seat and trotted towards the study door, Shining and Cadence watching while he knocked. “Velvet, Honey? Shining and Cadence are here and we should probably get dinner started.” He didn’t receive a reply, Shining furrowing his brows when his father knocked again. Nightlight and Velvet had always been talkers, and it wasn’t like his mother to be this quiet. Something in his gut didn’t feel right, but Shining dismissed the feeling. He hoped that nothing was wrong, they already had enough to worry about.
Nightlight tested the knob and found it unlocked, after which he walked inside.
“Velvet?”
Shining and Cadence waited, a few moments passing before Nightlight’s strained voice called out to them.
“Shining, could you come in here please?”
Giving Cadence a puzzled glance, Shining left her on the couch and walked towards the study. When he entered to small room he saw his father, the stacked bookshelf, assorted stationary and the prized family typewriter. However, there was no Twilight Velvet in sight.
“Where’s she gone?” Shining asked, the feeling in his gut increasing. Nightlight didn’t reply, and instead pointed to a piece of parchment on the writing desk with a stony expression on his face.
“Dear Nightlight,” Shining began to read out-loud to himself. “I’m sorry to do this to you, but I can’t stand the thought of our Twilight stuck in a cold prison cell with the possibility of…” Shining paused to suppress a shudder. “…execution. I’ve managed to organise a lift with a merchant to get me close to the Empire, so by the time you’re reading this I’ll likely be only a day away from seeing Twilight.”
He stopped reading, glancing towards his father who stared back at him. Soft hoof taps sounded out on the wooden floor, and Shining noticed that Cadence had come to the door. “She didn’t really…”
“There’s more,” Nightlight reminded, Shining returning to his reading.
“I’ve taken some food and winter coats, as well as the money from the emergency fund. Hopefully the Emperor holding her captive will accept it as a ransom, and let her go. I also know that the Crystal Empire includes changelings as well as whatever the Emperor is, but I don’t want you to follow or tell the guard. I don’t want to risk them trying to rescue me, and putting Twilight’s life in danger because of it. If Shining is there when you’re reading this, please tell him that I’m sorry, and also glad that he and Cadence are okay.
PS, I’ve cooked some nice stew and put it in the fridge, all you have to do is reheat it and it should last you, Shining and Cadence a few days. I’m sure that Shining and Cadence can help you cook if needed, and don’t forget that the observatory wants you to work on Saturday.”
Shining continued to stare at the letter, unable to believe the words that were written. His own mother had left to try and pay the Emperor to let Twilight go, and without telling Nightlight or anypony else.
“She always was a little overprotective,” Nightlight stated, Shining shaking his head in disbelief.
“Overprotective? Dad, she’s traveling to a country that hates Equestria at the moment, and sees us as untrustworthy liars and Princess Celestia as a tyrant on par with Sombra.”
“And the changelings as well,” Nightlight added, Shining placing the letter back down on the desk and moving to leave.
“The changelings aren’t the main worry,” he replied, dreading how Chalmers and the crystal ponies would react to an Equestrian entering the city uninvited.
“Where are you going?”
“To go and stop her,” Shining replied as he moved past Cadence and made for the door. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Son, wait,” Nightlight called, Shining pausing at the hallway. His father trotted up to him, and put a hoof on his shoulder. “Look, I’m just as worried about your mother as you are, but you know Velvet, is she going to stop just because you’ll tell her that it’s dangerous?”
“No,” Shining didn’t have to think about shaking his head, his heart sinking when he realised that his father was right.
“See? She’s a determined mare, she knows that it’s dangerous and yet she still went. It’s a parent’s job to look after their children, and I would be following her.”
“Why don’t you?” Cadence inquired softly, walking up to press against Shining’s side.
“Velvet’s gone to look after Twilight,” Nightlight began. “But I’ve got a responsibility to look after you two. Following her or telling the guards will only go against her wishes, and she’s right when she says that it will only cause unneeded risks. That Emperor is far more likely to hurt Twilight if an army turns up, instead of a mother. Even if there is changelings and evil rulers, Velvet won’t stop. Not even if you tell her to.”
Shining sighed and nodded, stepping away from the hallway. Nightlight was right, and it was likely that Velvet was already too far to be stopped anyway. There wasn’t anything he could do, and he was already run dry from the past two days.
“He’s right, Shining,” Cadence contributed. Shining gave her a smile, although it wavered when he saw one of Cadence’s plucked wings through a gap in her cloak. He wasn’t sure how Chalmers would react to Velvet, and he hoped that his mother would be able to remain calm and not insult or attack him.
“Come on Son,” Nightlight tried. “There’s nothing we can do but give your mother a chance.”
“I guess,” Shining replied, irked that he wasn’t able to do anything about it.
“At least she left us some dinner.”
Shining smirked at his father’s observation, Nightlight’s confidence in Velvet reassuring.
“I’ll go and heat it up,” Cadence offered, giving Shining a quick kiss on the cheek before heading towards the kitchen. “I don’t trust you in the kitchen, Nightlight, not after that one time when you set fire to-“
“Yes, yes,” Nightlight huffed in response before muttering to himself. “She sure perked up enough to take a shot at me.” The entire exchange increased Shining’s grin, things almost seeming like he was a teenager again and having Cadence over for dinner. “So Shining, while Cadence is doing that, do you want me to tell you about the new craters we found on Princess Luna’s moon?”
“Sure Dad,” Shining replied while he started to head back to the chairs. “I’d love to hear about them, anything to take my mind off things.”
‘Heh, what a bunch of suckers.’
Orthodox grinned to himself under his helmet, his hands still cuffed behind his back. The four guards assigned to him passed his cell, the dark-colored ponies with bat wings and eyes glancing at him and moving on with the only sound being their armoured hooves clacking on stone and their lacquered purple armour clinking against their short spears.
He looked down at his armour, scratched from when the ponies had tried to remove it from him. Unluckily for them, it was made to withstand harder punishment than hammers and chisels. One bastard had even managed to make a dent in his groin plate when the pony had levitated an anvil and dropped it, but they had given up after two hours and had thrown him in here with the promise that the Princess would interrogate him in the morning.
He didn’t plan on giving her the chance, and besides…
They had already given him what he wanted.
“Time to go to work,” he muttered, his previously limp tail rising up and twisting in the air behind him. With a thought, his helmet brought up a small screen that showed the feed for the small optic built into his tail’s armor. Normally it was there to let him peek under doors and small gaps before breaching, but now it served another purpose.
Using the feed to guide him, Orthodox moved his tail so that the pointed tip touched his chains, and he grinned when the tip slid into the lock that held his manacles on. “They always forget the tail,” he chuckled, having lost count of the amount of times that he’d been cuffed or tied up while having his enemies think that he had no control over own tail.
With a slight blue glow and sizzle, the powerfield-wreathed blade that emerged from the end of his tail cut through the lock like butter. Orthodox was careful to keep a firm hold on the broken lock and chains, his tail withdrawing and allowing him to step back and hide the broken bonds under the dirty mattress that served as the cell’s bed. He quickly but quietly returned to his previous position, letting his tail lay limp on the floor and placing his hands behind his back like he was still chained.
Just like clockwork, the four guards walked past again, giving him glances to make sure that he was still there before moving on in their patrol. He silently wondered why the bat-ponies didn’t just stand still and guard him, but he guessed that since they appeared to be the night guards they didn’t have much to do and got bored easily.
He waited until they were as far away as possible before he withdrew a dull grey combat knife from his suit, having kept the weapon in a hidden compartment much like his two sidearms. He decided against activating the weapon’s power field and instead relied on the knife’s monomolecular edge to cut through the cell lock.
The superior metal of the weapon, the sharp blade only an atom thin at the end, sliced through the pair of primitive iron bolts that held the door closed. He returned his hands behind his back, still holding the knife, while he waited for the guards to come around again. Despite the fact that it was late at night, and that he normally didn’t care for stealth, he wanted to keep things quiet until he found his true goal.
Once again the clacking of silver shoes on stone grew louder, Orthodox checking his helmet’s clock and preparing for his next move.
“Right on time,” he smirked, having turned off his armour’s external speakers. “At least you can’t say that they’re not punctual.” The blade on the tip of his tail silently slid back into the armour, a small trio of prongs emerging from beside it’s housing. He waited until the guards were almost upon him, before he pulled an arm back and then pushed violently, swinging the heavy cage door into their faces.
Or at least, that had been the plan.
Orthodox had forgotten about his armour’s increased strength, and instead of the door just pushing open, it flew off its hinges when it reached to end of its arc. A yell of alarm was cut off by the crunch of metal-on-metal, Orthodox actually wincing at the sound.
“Ow, that had to have hurt,” he chuckled before walking out of his cage to inspect the damage.
The cell door had clocked all of the guards and knocked them to the floor, all seemed to be out cold with a couple of broken muzzles and dents in helmets shared all round. He was just about to step over them and make his way to the exit, before a spluttering cough drew his attention. He spotted movement, and he pounced on one of the guards who had been at the back, with his deadly knife at the ready.
The pony tried to cry out, but Orthodox quickly clamped his armoured claw around its throat to shut off its air and voice. He stared into the slited yellow eyes, able to see the creatures fear through his optics as it struggled for air. He had his legs on either side of the pony’s body to stop it thrashing, and the leather-like bat wings flapped in a desperate attempt to get free.
Its dark-grey face started to turn blue, and Orthodox took a closer look at the face of his victim. It appeared to be a female, with a slender muzzle dripping blood and a young face. The pony stared at him pleadingly, and out of the corner of his optics he could see that her right armoured forehoof was reaching for her dropped short-spear.
“Nice try,” he told her as his tail flicked the spear away, the weapon clattering against the wall. “But if it’s any condolence, it wouldn’t have done anything to me anyway.” The mare’s eyes started to close, and Orthodox smirked. “I did appreciate the attempt, though.”
He released her, the pony’s chest heaving as her body tried to take in as much oxygen as possible. Orthodox kept her pinned while she coughed and spluttered, blood dripping down from her injured muzzle. After her breathing got back under control, the mare looked up to find his helmet staring down at her with a knife rushing towards her face.
Orthodox flipped the knife over before it made contact, slamming the handle instead of the blade onto the guard’s forehead. The mare went limp at the blow, joining her fellows in their unconsciousness.
“Sweet dreams,” Orthodox whispered, getting up off the guard and brushing himself down. Nigel hadn’t said anything about bat-ponies when he had been talking about the Equestrians, so maybe these hybrids were special or something.
Besides, when she was underneath him like that and wordlessly begging for her life, she was kinda cute.
“Damn it!” Orthodox grunted, smacking his helmet with the handle of his knife. “I should’ve gotten her to tell me where the bloody treasury is!” He paused, and lowered his knife. With a shrug, he continued to stroll towards the dungeon exit.
“Eh, just means I get to explore the castle I guess.”
He paused when he reached the heavy door, glancing back towards the four guards he had left knocked out.
“Might as well,” he muttered, walking back over to them and reaching into an armour compartment. He withdrew a marker, and bent down over the mare he had almost killed. “Communication channel three-six-alpha-five, call me baby.”
His message scrawled on her chest armour, Orthodox stood back up and gave her a nod.
“Alright, back to work,” he muttered, returning to the door and finally leaving the dungeon behind.
Outside in the palace gardens, the night air was cool and crisp. As such, the guards normally assigned to guard a special area of the gardens had opted to help their colleagues watch the castle gates from inside the heated gatehouse. Besides, it wasn’t like anything happened in the normally peaceful gardens anyway.
A single statue stood alone, a sign warning against fighting or arguing set up alongside it. The figure was locked in a standing pose, and covered with a liberal helping of pigeon excrement.
Everything was quiet and peaceful, nothing disturbing the night air.
About the same time that a being in the dungeon below the garden had finished scrawling his confusing and useless message on the armour of a fallen guard, a crack appeared in the hard stone of the statue.
A crack that slowly started to grow.
“Gold, wonderful gold, with emeralds, rubies and diamonds. With all of these wonderful jewels, I’ll be able to buy some islands.”
Orthodox sang as he heaped glittering loot into his chest armour, stuffing in all sorts of treasure. It had taken him a few hours to find it, but thankfully the treasure vault was one of the larger rooms and only guarded by a large metal door that had quickly fallen to a high-powered plasma-cutter. There had hardly been any guards at all, and he had managed to restrain himself long enough to sneak past them instead of just flat out clobbering them.
Not thumping them was probably the hardest part so far.
With the halls mostly vacant, likely due to the late time of night, no one had seen him to his knowledge. That meant less time fighting off guards and more time to nab treasure. While on the subject of treasure-nabbing, Orthodox realised that his chest armour was full to capacity.
“She canna take any more, Captain,” he mumbled to himself, turning to grab the white pillowcases he had ‘liberated’ from an unattended maid’s cart. There were four of them, each with gold trim and a golden letter ‘C’ in the middle. Overall, they looked expensive and fit for a queen.
Orthodox took out his knife and stabbed one of them, ripping the soft fabric apart to create three holes in the case. Sheathing his knife after the bout of pillowcide, he lifted the torn case up and placed it over his head. The three holes lined up with his optics and primary external speaker, the big letter C right in the middle.
Orthodox picked up a golden goblet, admiring his disguise in the reflection. He nodded to himself, now that he looked the part he could continue with his robbery.
Grabbing another pillowcase, he continued to greedily grab coins and jewels, laughing to himself while he imagined the sorts of things he could buy once he brought off all the valuables back home.
The entire galaxy would run out of narcotics when he was through.
The quiet of the night was broken with a series of cracks, stone flakes falling off to land on the ground.
Discord, Spirit of Chaos, cracked his neck and gave it a spin, ending up with it on backwards. Letting out a sigh, he grabbed and turned it around the right way, before popping his back and ending up in half. Glancing down at himself, he rolled his eyes when he noticed the white stains that peppered him. With a finger snap they changed into yellow polka-dots, before vanishing.
“Ah, it’s good to be back,” he grunted, re-attaching himself together and looking around. “Now, what is it this time?”
He swiveled around, gazing over the calm and peaceful gardens. He huffed at how… boring it all was. With a snap of his fingers the hedges animated, changing from green to red to blue, before repeating. He stopped when he laid eyes on the castle, sensing an absolutely delightful personality within. Something about it just seemed so volatile and promising.
“I do believe that I have found my knight in shining armour,” Discord grinned while floating up into the air, heading towards the castle and what would no doubt be an incredible source of fun. With a poof of pink smoke, Discord emerged with a pink dress and pointed fairytale princess hat.
“It would be bad manners not to thank them, after all.”
Orthodox gazed at the nearly empty vault, only a few stacks of coins remaining with the occasional jewel resting on a shelf. He was still wearing his pillowcase mask, and three bulging sacks were at his side. Necklaces were looped around his neck and arms, his form glittering gold while he struck a pose and grabbed his groin armour.
“You’ve been hit by, you’ve been struck by, a smooth criminal.”
“My, this is going to be more fun than I thought.”
Orthodox whirled around and drew his guns at the same time, looted coins and gems flying out as he pulled the weapons free. As the valuables hit the floor, he aimed at the…
Flying, dress-wearing, dragon-hybrid thing?
“I could have sworn that I didn’t take anything yet,” he mumbled, taking in the creature before him. Much to his alarm, it snapped its lion fingers and suddenly it was wearing a blond wig under its pointed hat.
“Oh, dear prince, I assure you that no substance clouds your mind,” the creature cooed while it swirled around him, tracing a finger along the armour.
“Look buddy,” Orthodox replied after slapping away the finger with a gun. “I’m not into that kind of stuff. Military college was a long time ago, I drank a lot-“
“What? Oh no, no, no!” Discord reared back, torn between being insulted or impressed by the amusing creature’s reaction. “I only wish to give my thanks for freeing me from my stone prison, you cause a delightful amount of chaos.” Orthodox frowned at the creature’s words.
“Well, you can ‘give your thanks’ over by the door,” he ordered with a gesture of a gun. With a poof, the strange hybrid appeared two metres away by the door, having teleported somehow instead of just flying. “Guess that explains about how he got in here,” Orthodox muttered to himself.
“What was that last part?” the hybrid inquired, his right ear enlarging.
“I said something about gold,” Orthodox answered while turning back towards his sacks and putting his weapons away. He didn’t have time to talk with this creature; he had treasure to steal, a castle to escape, treasure to bury, a map to make, and then the next step which he still had to figure out.
A low whistle rang out from behind him, Orthodox ignoring it and trying to heft up the sacks. “You’re actually robbing the entire treasury, I’m impressed. The last time I saw greed on that level was so long ago I can be bothered to remember it. What do you plan to spend it on, if you do manage to make it out of here of course?”
“Drugs,” Orthodox answered. “And girls, and booze, more drugs, an island on a nice ocean planet, some more drugs.”
“That’s all?” the hybrid followed up, snapping his fingers and suddenly the engorged sacks had roller skates.
“And a kebab,” Orthodox added, glancing down at the now-wheeled sacks. “Say, what’s your name?”
“You don’t know?” the creature asked incredulously.
“I’m not from around here,” Orthodox answered. “Humor me.” The creature twirled around in the air, his dress, hat and wig flying off around the room. He landed on the floor, standing on two legs and puffing his chest out.
“Why, I am Discord, Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony, and who am I addressing?”
“Orthodox,” came the reply. Orthodox tilted his head, this ‘Discord’ actually proving to be fairly interesting. “You mentioned prison. I didn’t see you down in the dungeon.”
“Stone prison, Tia and those accursed element bearers of hers managed to pull one over one me,” Discord threw his head back and stiffly held his arms out in front of him. “But I walk the earth once more!”
“Huh, funny.”
“I am known to have some talent in that field,” Discord began. “It all started when I joined the drama club in highschool-“
“No, not that,” Orthodox interrupted, earning a glare. “One of my friends has a beef with ‘Tia’ as well, if you mean ‘Celestia’, that is.”
“I do indeed mean Cakezilla,” Discord answered, his eyes widening in interest. “What did Tia do to this friend of yours to earn their wrath? Crashed his birthday to eat the cake?”
Orthodox wasn’t getting the cake jokes.
“No, she kind of banished him to Tartarus-“
“You’re friends with that grumpy centaur?” Discord questioned, scratching his back with his detached bird arm.
“What? No,” Orthodox replied, pulling the sacks along to test the wheels. “He’s actually less grumpy since he got out.”
“Ah, a different being then,” Discord nodded, before grinning and turning towards a wall with a number four painted on it. “He’s not out… yet.”
Orthodox didn’t even bother to ask just what he was doing, and instead opted to continue with his plan. Dragging the sacks behind him, he headed towards the door.
“Wait one moment friend,” Discord called, strolling out to stand in front of the door. “Where are you going? Things are just starting to get entertaining.” Orthodox nodded down towards the sacks.
“I’ve got to get these out and safe, secure my investment and all that.”
“Through the castle, crawling with guards?” Discord smirked before floating up into the air. “You’ll never make it.”
“Oh, I think I will,” Orthodox shot back while pulling out one of his sidearms and tapping it against his thigh. “I came prepared.”
Discord stared at the gun, Orthodox wondering if he even knew what it was for.
“Can that toy of yours wreak vengeance upon filthy pigeons?” he asked, shuddering for some reason.
“Only if the pigeons aren’t immune to super-sonic, fifty millimeter long armour-piercing gauss rounds that expand.” Seeing the blank look on Discord’s face, he followed up. “That means yes, they will ‘wreak vengeance upon filthy pigeons’ and then some.”
“Good,” Discord chuckled while rubbing his paws together. “Good…”
“Can’t you, you know, just ‘poof’ them away?”
“No, dear Orthodox, I can’t just ‘poof’ them away,” Discord replied, frowning and shaking a fist at the roof. “Once you have spent time as a stone statue, with those flying rats voiding their bowels on you every day, then you will understand my desire to see them suffer in a most violent fashion.”
“Okay then, I better be off,” Orthodox responded, deciding to get out while he was still sane.
Well, half sane.
“Wait, my dear fellow,” Discord halted, a scheming grin on his face. “How about I help you with that loot there, save you a trip through the castle?”
“What’s in it for you?” Orthodox warily asked while stepping back protectively. He reached down a hand and stroked one of the sacks like it was his own child, Discord smiling all the while.
“Nothing, well, nothing except that I wish for the chance to cause some chaos with a fine gentlecreature such as yourself. Come on, imagine what would happen when we turn the sun into Swiss cheese.”
“I’m fairly certain Nigel would try to seduce it, given his record.”
“Nigel?” Discord inquired, Orthodox quickly waving a hand to dismiss it.
“Just a guy I know with a thing for hole-riddled things, you know how it is.”
“Actually no I don’t.” With another finger snap, Discord conjured up two glasses of chocolate milk, with a slice of lemon at the top. He held one out to Orthodox, raising an eyebrow. “Anyway, some chaos, are you interested?”
“I don’t know…” Orthodox hesitantly answered. “I really should be getting this treasure to someplace safe…”
“Don’t worry about that,” Discord reassured before clapping his fingers together, summoning a floating rug with his own face printed on the middle. “I have a magic carpet.”
Orthodox was sold.
“Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” he grinned, the pillowcases teleporting onto the carpet thanks to Discord.
The Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony, scourge of Equestria, held out his paw towards Orthodox, voted ‘worst ISA agent of all time’ ten years running.
“Partners in crime?” Discord inquired, a pillowcase mask matching Orthodox’s appearing on his head in a puff of smoke.
“May our spree go down in the history books,” Orthodox agreed, meeting the paw and giving it a shake.
Nigel jolted up in bed, his chest heaving. Reflection stirred with him, the changeling glancing up with worry evident in her eyes.
“Is something wrong? Did you eat too much pie and cheese at the bar and have a bad dream?”
“No, it’s not that,” Nigel reassured, patting her on the head and stroking her mane. “There’s no such thing as too much cheese and pie.” This earned him a giggle, and Reflection gave him a sleepy nuzzle before laying her head back down on the pillow.
“What is it then? I want to go back to sleep.”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” he replied while laying back down, Reflection putting a foreleg over his chest and pulling close. “I just got the feeling that something very, very bad just happened and I’m not going to want to get out of bed in the morning to deal with it.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.026 seconds
Total duration
1,043 users online
1,550,659 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Lemme see if I have this right.
All that remained of another race was retreating, but he wanted to just wipe them all out and commit genocide. Celestia tried to talk him down and he didn't listen. And so she nonfatally stopped him...and yet we are not only supposed to agree with his viewpoint, we are supposed to believe the Mane Six have NO SKILLS beyond the elements at all? Seriously? And they just get taken out THAT EASILY?
Marty Stu much?
4803844
First, if you think you have to agree with his viewpoint, then you're not really getting the character.
He is a villain, he's a murderer, a monster in some respects, and he's certainly not innocent.
However, he also happened to have murdered the previous tyrant of the Crystal Empire, and that earned the respect of the locals. Hence, their viewpoint of him (and themselves, in some ways) appearing to be in the right.
Are you trying to tell me that six mares can fight an entire city which has guards that fought a bloody battle, aided by a bunch of pyschopaths with guns and copious amounts of cruelty? They're not against a single enemy, they've got an entire city against them.
Have you considered that maybe Twilight and the others realised just how screwed they were, and instead of risking it they played safe and hoped that Celestia would send help?
It's a shame that you've seemed to have missed the fact that you don't have to sympathise with the main characters, I mean, do people tend to watch 'Silence of the Lambs' for the heroine?
I got a small stroke by reading this.
(evil laugh of enjoyment that cannot be stop) oh Nigel I hate to say it but you unknowingly got a new ally in chaos!
Oh and Celestia? That hole your in? Just got deeper now thanks to discord.
How to write Discord:
Give drugs to a six-year-old, record what they say, and then cross-reference that with an insane sociopath. Input results.
got a update there is a new chapter
... slow day 
... i can read at work 
i'm at work
I was worried you'd go the villain rote for Discord rather than the trickster route, but right now I'm loving the Discord you've written, seems like a nice balance to Orthodox.
4803882
I ran out of six year olds halfway through.
4803869
You obviously want him to succeed. Why would I?
And BTW, there's no foil for him in this, no equal on the side of good like Silence of the Lambs had. If there WAS one, that would be understandable. And BTW, I watched Red Dragon to see someone actually match wits and fight against Lecter and hold his own. A good story has equals like that. Opposing and equal forces...of which there are none here.
But not only that, you make Celestia doubt what she did. She stopped him from committing genocide when she had next to no options at the time. What was she SUPPOSED to do? Would America have been justified in slaughtering all the Germans for what the Nazis did? Or what the Japanese did? Guess we should kill off all middle eastern people for what AQ has done.
That's not how a good protagonist acts. And because he's our only protagonist, the only person available and you're writing in a way that's clearly meant to imply you want us to agree with him and want to see him succeed, I have to call out how immoral he is. He ethically repulses me. He doesn't even show guilt over what he did.
Discord and Orthodox teaming up, well this is how the Equestrians should feel.
i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/2828426496/h96188944/
I can't wait to see how that one mare rescue mission is going to go.
Great fic and sorry to hear about your modem that sucks!
Horny mother bucker
The next chapter is going to be... Chaotic. Nigel is going to need more cheese to get through it
4803898 Shut up and enjoy the story. If you don't like it don't read it.
4803940
That's not how criticism works. If the only reviews or feedback anybody ever allowed was positive, nobody would ever know anything was wrong with anything. If Ebert was only ever allowed to say nice things about a film, we'd never know to stay away from movies like "North" and others. Criticism and critique exists to protect the unwary, point out legit issues with real work, and express opinions and thoughts in a meaningful and harsh, but fair way.
Unless someone is using swears or saying stuff like "hurr hurr, ur a f-g", you don't have the right to silence them. That's not how life works as not how writing is supposed to work.
4803898
It really depends on whether Celestia and Luna can get organised, get over their reservations and guilt, and then simply find a more permenant answer.
One, it wasn't even genocide, it was attacking a retreating band of raiders that was fully prepared to do exactly the same thing to the Crystal Empire. It was still a bad thing to do, but in the character's eyes, it was fine and dandy.
Two, why wouldn't Celestia feel guilt? I mean, that's what I get from her character. She knew him before the Elk attack, she saw him as different in thinking but ultimately looking out for his own subjects, and she even begged him to stop what he was doing.
He was too far gone to his rage, and she had to make a choice. After seeing the effect that the choice had on the ones around him, the pain she caused the innocent that had no part in it, of course she feels like she made a mistake and thus guilt.
Also, that whole 'kill all of them for one attack' thing? That's the norm from where the character is from, hence the reaction.
Good. It's good that he repulses you.
That's the constructed character. He feels no guilt for those that he's killed, he's ruthless when he needs to be and he's an 'evil' protagonist. It's a cold murderer mixed with charisma, something that exists in real life (Ted Bundy for example).
If you want a 'good' protagonist that's the shining beacon of morality, with little to no faults, then that's fine, I can accept that and you'll have to go elsewhere for it. However, a lot of other people evidently enjoy the fact that the 'protagonists' they're rooting for are not nice people, and the multiple moral questions that such a thing brings.
Why like this? Always cliffhangers...
I can't wait to read more Orthodox and Discord. In the little written space they had together, they amused me to no end.
Keep up the good work.
I've got tears in my eyes right now, I laughed so hard.
Orthodox is... he's... I don't even have words. I want a mug that says "What Would Orthodox Do?".
4803958
Reasonable and thoughtful points.
But I must say this. A moral question is next to worthless without something close to an answer. Hopefully you'll give a few for us to choose from.
And I know you might think the audience is smart enough to find their own.
We're not. I'm not. And I'm not being mean, I'm being honest about myself and my species. We're the kind of people who eat five subs just to get the sixth free. We're the kind of people who post selfies in front of places like Auschwitz. We're not that bad. But we're also not that smart. Especially not online.
For some reason, that made me crack up more than the rest of the story combined!
Another marvelous, wonderful chapter - and one which just highlights how screwed up things are going to get soon. Just one small flaw:
I can imagine Twilight and Shining's father as the head of a metal group now. (And I wonder if that's what you were listening to while you wrote this.)
Oooohshit, i did NOT expect Orthodox and Discord teaming up, this is going to be wonderfully horrible.
4803990
Eh, I layer deeper themes underneath basic comedy, and I can assure you that quite a few readers pick up on most of the stuff I try to convey. A glance back over the earlier comments will show you that, and the moral question isn't the focus.
Think of this as a 'filler' between the more serious fics on this site. It's meant to be entertaining without having to delve too deep into it, but also offers some more advanced themes if you're willing to look into it.
Hell, it's amature writing. If I could write professionally, then I wouldn't be working in IT.
4804007
Ah, no.
Well, 'Nightwish' is actually a name I used for a character in another fic, so I was getting confused a few times during the writing.
You mean Strategy.
So, to sum it up: Twilight's mother is beelining towards the Empire, Nigel has started preparing a circle of spies, Orthodox did less than I thought he would at first glance and now is with possibly the best partner he could wish for for this mission, and the mane six decided to become good obedient little POWs.
Yeah, not the most exciting chapter, but still fun to read. I'm guessing the next one will make up for it?
4804057
Think of this as the set up to the next.
4804071 Indeed.
I'm mad at you because Orthodox didn't make "i can break those cuffs" joke. Especially after don't tase me bro
Shame on you
Great chapter!
11/10 as always.
quickmeme.com/img/3c/3c6badae86ef343bfd905556021f534a18998e5fbe7f813c37eb5a8d6b0ce09c.jpg
4803844
The entire ISA is one big Marty Stu.
this was one hell of a chapter
can't wait for more Nigel
4804127
There's nothing inherently wrong with a Marty Stu as long as the characters from the source material are still competent and skilled and intelligent enough to match up with them. OR if they're played for laughs or meant to be satirical. That's fine!
My issue is that here...they're not. It feels like they've been severely depowered and made useless with almost no warning just so the villain can steamroll through them to show he's "for serious, yo". And they didn't even get any kind of fight scene. They had NO chance.
well, my dear. this is great chapter. do tell me, do we have to wait for another month for next one, or will you reward our patience with new one within week or two?
4803882 no wonder most of people are little insane
4803844
You've not read much of Nigel have you?
Oh gods. Orthodox is going to teach discord how the grownups make chaos.
Orthodox and Discord, a match made in hell, nice one. Looks like Nigel won't be the only one with a headache
I dont really care how long the next chapter takes to get out as long as it's as great as this one
I think Orthodox might be my new favorite villain in this fic.
Awesome, can't wait for more.
~Crystalline Electrostatic~
So yeah Nigel is not a nice man. He's done some pretty nasty things. But is he supposed to be the main villain in this story that has to be defeated? It will kill it for me if so, but I'm curious if you intend to put him up as the savior of a people only to have him slowly turn into a true villain that everyone agrees needs to be beaten.
4804421 chaos don't you mean mass genocide, murder, total infrastructure collapse and all around mayhem.
Thank every god, star, deity and power that I'm not there for this... I wouldn`t be surprised if they planet cracked equis and stuck the moon in the middle.
4804163
Chalmers is commander shepard grade trained and experience and from tech advanced civ which will waste celestia, her planet, her sun and the rest of their soler system easily. Is it hard to believe the princess who banishs her problems to tarterus and has such a weak guard and stomach for war is getting steam rolled. (frankly a few war soldiers with an empire could do that easy once prison is out and celestia wont sun bake the planet)
4803984 that is scary though I'd probable be safer with several cupcake pinkies.
4804761
That's the PROBLEM! He's too overpowered and none of the source material characters can hold a candle to him. That in itself is wrong. It makes for an unbalanced and unfair conflict. Especially when Celestia is always trying to go easy on him, but he doesn't care much about that.
4804521
nah, match made in tartarus. im sure they will get along great!
Orthodox and Discord teaming up? We'll this fic is gonna be short. Great Job!
4804163
Well, being attacked with no warning, also known as having the element of surprise, has a tendency of catching you with your pants down and unable to act in a meaningful way. It's not a matter of power, it's a matter of timing. A middle-of-the-night decapitation strike is not something you can easily predict or recover from.
4804790
That's the best thing about Out Of Context Problems.
4804932
Englishu, saisumemasen?
4804749 But you have to remember that he is there to undermine the government. When the people stop believing that the nobility, and the nobility stop believing that the princesses, can keep them safe, that's when chaos starts to spread.
4804163
Dude, that's what Nigel is, he's a military master mind. As if he's gonna let them put up any kind of fight. The fun of this is the fun of seeing everyone get steam rolled. And the unique ways it's done.
We all know Nigel is gonna wreck everybody, even his friends if the author says so, the fun is just seeing how. Stop looking for a serious fight here, you're not gonna get one.
You see, now since Orthadox is deciding to be non lethal, that makes Discord a far more helpful partner. I wonder if Nigel and Discord will make an agreement on being allies, giving Discord his own piece of land in the winter wonderland to turn into chaos. Discord's land. oooo its gonna be awesome!
Bonus if you don't make Discord betray them by the way. Bigger bonus if you have him mess with the equestrian prisoners.