The Return of Flutterbat

by Stotter

Chapter 4: The Intrigue of Knightly Dagger

A drop of water falls from a stalactite and lands on the corresponding stalagmite below. Its tip had been broken off due to recent activity in the cave. Ordinarily you could hear the echo of the droplet against the stone, but it is currently being drowned out by the sounds of wood and steel clashing against each other. Among the pairs of bat ponies keeping their skills sharp in their dark surroundings are Evening Cloak and a struggling Fluttershy.

“Come on, you don’t have to hold back. Right now it feels like you’ve never sparred with anypony before.” Fluttershy continues to parry, as she pretty much has been doing up to this point. While it is quite possible she has the strength to go on the offensive, violence is already so contrary to her nature, and lethal weaponry doesn’t help to encourage her.

“Couldn’t we use something less sharp for this kind of thing?” She suggests to the young soldier who knows better.

“You’re kidding right? That was basic training stuff. We’ve reached the point where we can be trusted not to hurt each other accidently. So long as apples aren’t involved, you’ve got good control right?” She can’t exactly explain to him how much of a novice she truly is without revealing too much so she just reassures him.

“Right, of course.” He uses the other end of the spear to pull off a reverse sweep on her left hind-leg, causing her to fall unto her left side.

“I don’t know how you got through basic training.” He lends his hoof to lift her back up. As she gets back on her hooves, a whistle pierces through the noise.

“Attention!” They stand at attention, Fluttershy still getting used to the required level of readiness. “We’ve got orders from the princess herself. Tonight we will patrol the streets of Canterlot, sifting through its underbelly with a fine-toothed comb looking for suspicious ponies and objects. If the worst happens and you find yourself facing off against dark magic, you are to send out an alert and we will converge on your location. The signal is simply to screech at a pitch other kinds of ponies can’t hear. Do you all understand everything?”

“Sir yes sir.” They say in unison.

“Then move out.” They take off, flying towards the exit in double file. Meanwhile on the side of the mountain, just above Canterlot, a false boulder is pushed aside and Knightly Dagger emerges. Despite having the trademark sheen of a crystal pony coat, it has an unmistakable darkness to it, like obsidian. As he looks down upon the enemy capital, literally and figuratively, he lifts the hood of his cloak up and begins his descent down the Cliffside, galloping with a sense of purpose he's been missing for a long time.

[++++++]

Down in Canterlot, most of the citizenry have gone to sleep. The only ones up at this hour are hard workers, night club goers, and those whose activities are best left under the cover of darkness. As the pairs of bat ponies arrive and spread out, Evening Cloak and Fluttershy land nearby an alleyway is a certain curio shop that begs scrutiny. They enter, setting off the bell and eventually drawing the attention of the shopkeeper.

"How may I help you travelers?" The items in the shop are left in disorganized piles like the collection of a hoarder. Among the various knickknacks and oddities one can see the glass case that used to contain the alicorn amulet. The shopkeeper has never seen the likes of bat ponies before, let alone the Night Guard. "Nice armor you've got there; and that look; it's like Nightmare Moon's design for pegasus guards."

As he fantasized about strangling the shopkeeper, Evening Cloak explained that they are part of Princess Luna's personal guard. As it occurs to the shopkeeper what's going on here, he tries to remain calm and polite. "Ok, so what brought you to my shop this evening?"

"We came looking for possible contraband, such as cursed and/or dark magical objects." He looks around the place while the shopkeeper tries to mentally catalog the things he shouldn't have on display. Ever since Trixie, he's made it personal policy not to keep that kind of merchandise out in the open anymore, but he can never be too careful.

"I don't know what you might of heard, but I'm running a legitimate business around here." The line was too cliché to be believed by the young bat pony.

"Then you won't mind if we do a thorough search of this place" He begins to do so and Fluttershy also helps.

"Just to warn you ahead of time, the bottles with skull and crossbones on them are properly labeled and the zebra skull is just a prop." The shopkeeper is glad he's not dealing with unicorn guards, who could probably use some kind of detect magic spell or something to find his more arcane wares. Just as he thinks he's in the clear, Fluttershy makes a concerned gasp. This startles both stallions.

"What is it?" He inhales, ready to give the signal, while the shopkeeper thinks up excuses.

"This glue doesn't have an animal-safe label on it" Her partner thinks her reaction was exaggerated under the circumstances while the shopkeeper is more apprehensive than before. She explains herself timidly. "That's against some regulation, right?"

"Well, you know your rulebook I'll give you that." He looks over the glue bottle front and back. "It looks like this hasn't been regulated at all. I've never seen a brand like this." The only thing on the bottle's label is a unicorn horn diagonally placed in a circle. "Well if there's nothing else, I guess we should move on."

They're about to walk out with the glue when the shopkeeper lets his greed overtake his caution. "Aren't you going to pay for that?" Evening Cloak looks back.

"Depending on what kind of ingredients are in this bottle, you might be the one paying. If it's cleared, we'll call it even." After they leave, he double checks everything and tries to remember why he had that glue in the first place. Just as he's let his guard down, the bell rings again. This draws his immediate attention, but instead of night guards it's a pony in a cloak.

"That better not be who I think it is under there. I don't care how great and powerful you think you are, I'm in no position to sell dangerous items anymore." It turns out to be Knightly Dagger.

"How fortunate for you then that I'm not who you thought I was. Fortunate, so long as I get what I want. Otherwise, I'll show you my dangerous items." He brandishes his signature clawed gauntlet. The shopkeeper thinks he knows what he's dealing with here.

"No need to make threats here. You're obviously not with the proper authorities, so I think I can help you find whatever it is you're looking for, for the right price."

[++++++]

Later, the drill sergeant is walking by himself when he sees two of his subordinates walk into a night club. A poster on the wall advertises that DJ Pon-3 is in there tonight. He's tempted to check in on them to make sure they're not goofing off, but trusts that they're just being thorough as ordered, at least for the time being.

Just then, he sees a certain cloaked pony dashing out the alley and in case that wasn't suspicious enough, he hears the distinct and familiar sound of clanking armor. He extends his wings and begins his pursuit, flying a few feet off the ground and closing the distance between them. Right before he can tell him to stop, he comes face to hoof with the suspect's hind-legs wearing gauntlets with rear facing claws. He's about to be bucked when he uses his armored hooves to block and push against the strike. Knightly Dagger spins around to face his opponent.

"You're clearly well trained, but I don't have time for this, I have important business to attend to." They both keep their battle-ready stances.

"Oh, I'll try to keep this short. I'm First Sergeant Pepperjack, and I need to ask you a few questions. For example, who are you and what are you doing here?" He tries to think up an elaborate lie, when out of the corner of his eye he sees his target only a few blocks away: Evening Cloak and Fluttershy. He makes a feint and tries to run for it before being blocked off by a spear. "I don't think so." Standing in front of the club, they could hear a Mortal Kombat sound-alike dubstep remix song.

He claws at the spear and is parried, infuriating Dagger, who lunges at Sgt. Pepperjack only to be blocked again. "I'm losing my patience with you. You have no idea what forces you deal with." He's pushed off.

"That's my line. Now you can cooperate with me or I can take you in."

About to lose sight of them, Dagger jumps toward Pepperjack with such force and at such an angle that when he pushes his hooves against the spear, it launches him behind the sergeant, at which point he heads into the nearest alleyway zigzags through them to shake off his pursuer and catch up with the young pair. Once he catches up with them, they hear his approach and Cloak narrowly dodges a claw that cuts off his saddlebag. He goes rummaging through it and finds something that gives him a wicked smile. As he grabs it, Cloak tackles him and their eyes meet.

"You!" After exclaiming that in surprise, he gets pushed off, causing Fluttershy to rush to his side to check him for injuries. Dagger sizes up the oddity before him. He wonders if the recruitment policies of ponykind changed this much after all this time, or if she's some kind of exceptional asset.

"I would love to discuss many things with you, but I have no time left. We should meet again soon." He looks for a manehole and finding one, pries open the manehole cover jumps in just in time to be seen by Pepperjack, who fails to pursue him further as the cover is put back. He lifts it back up to find it's a four way intersection below this particular manehole.

Evening Cloak looks through his saddlebag to figure out what's missing. "Did he take something from you Private?" He keeps looking and notices one thing not there.

"Just an insufficiently labeled glue bottle we found in a curio shop. It only had a picture of a unicorn horn in a circle on the front." He tries to sift through the words he heard from him before for any clue as to why he took such an innocuous item. Sgt. Pepperjack signals the others, causing them to converge on his location. Oddly, the pair that went into the night club almost showed up last despite being the next closest to the scene

"I hope none of you were interrupted during important leads," he says looking in the general direction of the aforementioned pair, one of which hid a glowstick just in time; "but a prime suspect guilty of assault, resisting arrest, theft, and who knows else has escaped down here with an item of indeterminate relevance to our orders to be here in the first place. He is armed, dangerous, and almost certainly militarily trained. So if found, do not engage before signaling the rest of us for reinforcements."

As he gives a physical description, Evening Cloak continues his train of thought while Fluttershy worries about how dangerous this is getting. "Oh, I don't know if I can do this on my own." She thinks to herself as she begins to lose confidence. "I wish my friends were here."

"You two search from the sky. I'll head back to the cave to guard the armory." He flies off, while Evening Cloak prepares to do the same in the opposite direction. He looks back at Fluttershy, who is clearly troubled.

"What's wrong? You're not scared are you? I've never fought an enemy of the kingdom either but we trained for this. Fluttershy?" He turns around to face her.

"Who was he? He looked like a crystal pony guard, but different. He wasn't dull, just dark. And that armor; I've never seen such a scary design. What is he doing out here? What was he doing-" She gets cut off.

"Calm down, we'll find out that stuff when we catch him." She almost asked about the meeting in the dark cave corner, but decides to save it for later. They both fly off, Fluttershy taking his lead. They head toward the castle and she starts to recognize the area from the Grand Galloping Gala.

"Why are we headed to the garden?" She asks, seeing it up ahead.

"If somepony wanted to get near the castle and have the option to hide, this is the perfect place." She used to think this was the perfect place for another reason, but that's neither here nor there. When they arrive, Knightly Dagger emerges to greet them.

"So you came after all, and you brought the intriguing mare. Such lovely fangs, so long and sharp." He places his wing in front of her in a protective stance. "Have you come to a decision yet?"

"Tell me what you're planning, the full details. If I don't like what I hear, I'll bring the full force of the Night Guard down you." Fluttershy listens attentively as well, as this is her purpose in being here.

"In due time, but first consider this: For the past millennium, a single alicorn princess proved she could rule and control both the sun and moon consistently the entire time. How useful can a princess feel in that situation when her role is secondary?"

"You speak of envy. She's already paid too great a price for that feeling."

"While the elder reaped too great a reward. She might not have seen it coming, but only because she ignored everything beneath her shadow, even her sister, just like the rest did. Clearly we are two of a kind, those who reside in those shadows. You relish the night and shun the day. If it were up to us, Celestia would not have been the sole ruler of Equestria." He neglects to mention that that's true only because he supported Sombra as ruler, but that's to be expected.

"That's enough terrible things. I'm going to take you down and turn you in." Fluttershy is quite surprised, mainly because those words came out of her mouth. So much for just listening. Dagger smirks.

"That's so adorable it's giving me chest pains. Try it, and I'll return the favor." He resumes his monologue. "When it comes right down to it, your loyalty lies with Luna, not Celestia. They don't conflict now, but without the elements to aid her, the balance of power will be decided by their guards. Will you stand by her when that day comes, or-"

He suddenly gets head-butted in the neck by an irate Fluttershy, which is followed up by a kick to the exposed part of his chest, and a reverse sweep for good measure. The red in her eyes practically sparkles as prepares to kick him while he's down, only to be held back by her partner. "We were ordered not to engage on our own. What the matter with you?" She struggles, still in a berserker rage.

"We were also supposed to signal the others on sight. You said you would. How did that not qualify as not liking what you hear? Why are you just having a conversation with him again? Do you actually hate Celestia? Is that why you were going that stab that melon with her cutie mark on it?" The harshness of her own words snaps her out of it as he lets her go. "Oh my, I just..."

"Lose control of yourself again? Now I know you didn't come from the pegasus guards; you're too undisciplined, unstable. I don't know how you got among us or who sent you or why and I don't really care at this point. I kind of envy it really, that lack of restraint. As long as I can remember, every major event and holiday, every social gathering, every off day, I held back any criticism of the great Princess Celestia, lord and savior of al ponykind, ruler of all under her sun, lest I look like the crazy colt for wanting to know Luna's side of the story. So many still look at her and see the Nightmare Moon they grew up with stories about." Fluttershy feels terrible remembering how she acted around Luna last Nightmare Night.

He continues. "I didn't think I hated her. just that it would be nice to go up to her, and give her a piece of my mind; make her explain herself and see if she still feels sad about it, or if she ever did." She's saddened by seeing this side of him. It's like Discord's betrayal all over again.

"It seems you understand quite well. Shall we be going then?" He gets up and Fluttershy lets out a sorrowful sonar screech towards the heavens, tears welling in her eyes for all of five seconds before taking a hoof to the back of the head from Knightly Dagger. Evening Cloak gets on his back and carries him into the air. "She'll be alright. Now remember to fly low."

She loses consciousness as Cloak and Dagger fly off into the sunrise. As she lays there, she's found by the gardener Mr. Greenhooves at the end of his night job. He carries her away not knowing her circumstances, let alone about the approaching Night Guard.

Comments

[lunasroyalguard4life3]

Wow just wow....... Cloaks a dick