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Platform Seven2,521 words
On Dragon's Wings2,961 words
Down the Drain1,445 words
At the Safehouse1,453 words
Late Night Snack1,877 words
In with a Mew2,316 words
It's a Trick, Get an Axe1,975 words
Out with Bang2,208 words
Time Enough for a Sisterly Chat2,692 words
Down Where the Foals Play and Mares are Made2,018 words
In Bed with You1,995 words
In the Dark, It was Born1,863 words
Therapy was Involved2,887 words
A Trip to the City2,233 words
Seeds of Love3,373 words
Her Princess8,886 words

In with a Mew

Chapter 6

Cadance groaned softly, her eyes fluttering open in the dark, and her breath stopped. For a moment she had no idea where she was, until it all came flooding back. She was in Equestria. In a safe house. In the hooves of Twilight Sparkle. Her breath unhitched and her heart started to beat steadily again as a feeling of warm safety filled her.

Her guardian breathed rhythmically next to her in the huge bed of the master bedroom. Twilight’s spellbook still lay open, face down on Twily’s chest. Cadance smiled as she recalled closing her eyes while Twily rattled off a complex formula for casting battle spells that would let her mix elements and control the shape and power of her combat magics. It might as well have been in draconic haiku for all it made sense to Cadance. She’d never had a head for combat magic. She tended to excel in more subtle areas, like personal enhancements spells that aided her in diplomatic relations or changed her speed and strength for a short time, among other things.

Cadance snuggled deeper into Twily’s grip, resting her head against the unicorn’s chest and listened to Twilight’s heartbeat. She was safe here, even if the Royal Sisters believed assassins were in Canterlot and after her. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t in the walled-off Minotauran Collective, sweet talking traitorous merchants into revealing state secrets. She wasn’t in the southern waste, spelunking the ancient cairns of long dead sorcerer-kings. She wasn’t in that hot, fetid Zebrican jungle, running for her life from the sounds of drums and serpentine hisses.

Cadance was home at last, with her Twily, and everything was right in the world. She yawned, her jaw popping pleasantly. Sleep took her again moments later as she squeezed Twilight in her hooves.

“Something’s wrong.”

Cadance jolted awake, groaning, and lifted her head slowly. “What?”

“Something is wrong, Cadance.” Twilight was awake and alert, her eyes darting about the dark room. She eased out of the tangle of their legs, slipping out of bed. Her spellbook snapped closed and flew to join the rest of her equipment on the bedroom dresser. “Stay here, I’m going to get Spike.”

“What’s going on?” Cadance rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She felt groggy and weak from far too little rest.

“I just felt the defensive spell batteries start charging. Something, or someone, tripped the early detectors. Hopefully I’m just being paranoid.” Twilight flashed a smile at Cadance that told her everything was going to be ok. Twilight certainly hoped that was the case. “I’ll be right back.”

Cadance nodded numbly as Twily slipped out of the room, with only her staff at her side. She heard the door lock as it closed. She shook her head to clear the fog of sleep, stretching out her wings to banish the stiffness. She wasn’t going to sit around and just wait, she hadn’t lived this long by being passive. Cadance rolled out of bed and trotted into the bathroom. She splashed water from the basin sink into her face to wake herself up faster, grabbing a towel at the same time. With a simple thought she activated her horn, opening a small tear in the fabric of reality and retrieved a sturdy oaken chest from the æther.

She popped the heavy brass latches on the lid, reaching inside to pull out her peytral and flipped it around to check the charge levels on the embedded crystals. Each small gem glowed with a full charge, so she slipped it on and felt its defensive enchantments activate. An invisible skintight personal force field that would block most basic physical attacks surrounded her. Another embedded enchantment helped silence her movements and allowed her to fade into the background easier when she tried to hide.

“If I’m lucky this is just a false alarm, and this is all I’m going to need.” Cadance reached for the chest’s lid, when there was a series of loud bangs as the reinforced shutters on every window in the safe house slammed shut. “Ok...not a false alarm. Better grab it all.”

The twisted warren of Canterlot’s southern residential district stretched out below her as she perched on the parapet of an old tenant building, looking down on a smaller stone structure. The trail she had been following throughout the night led up to it and then just vanished. She’d circled around it twice now, making sure it wasn’t some sort of bait and switch, but the more she examined it, the more the building looked suspiciously nondescript. Nothing about it seemed to stick out, no details were particularly unique or noteworthy.

It was almost cute that these ponies thought they could hide from a master of disguise and ambush tactics. The openings in her chitinous exoskeleton registered swelling magic emanating from the building, and she could almost taste the enchantments that must be laced through the entire structure. Sneaking into it would be difficult.

She thanked her creator that her orders had changed and she no longer had to worry about sneaking.. No longer did she have to worry about setting up situations so that they looked like accidents to any outside observers. No longer was her existence so secret that no one could be allowed to see her in her new form. Coming back to Canterlot was Princess Cadance’s biggest mistake. The reins were off now, and one way or another, she was going to be leaving town before dawn with Cadance’s head in tow.

As she moved closer, arcane power continued to flood the area around the building, washing out all other traces of the target’s trail. It left a sour ozone-like taste in her mouth. It didn’t matter though, she knew this was the place where the princess hid with her sole bodyguard. The walls’ enchantments were anchored to rods of crystal set into the stone that peeked out just above the mortar. It was a simple, but brutally effective system. It drew power from the ambient heat and weather, storing that energy in the rods. When the enchantment was triggered, it would release that stored power as directed electricity and hurl lightning bolts at any intruders.

When it worked.

She worked her mandibles into a wicked smile, running her antenna over the exposed crystal at the top of the wall. The weakness of such systems was their automated nature. She didn’t have to break the crystal or drain its power when she could simply disrupt the chain of faint runic symbols and prevent the power buildup from activating the discharge enchantment. Breaking that chain of enchantments would lead to a catastrophic and explosive failure later on, but she planned to be long gone by then.

She chuckled quietly and set about her sabotage with dedication.

Cadance slipped on her bracers, grinning when the enchantment on them caused them to fade to the same color and texture as her coat. It would take a very discerning eye to even see them should she be searched. The bracers held several tiny pockets and compartments each, filled with lock picks and tools she had found useful in her travels. Under her wings, she loaded her holsters with the usual assortment of short blades she carried and the brand new “hull breacher” black powder weapon she’d been ‘gifted’ by the more mercurial members of the Minotauran High Council.

Cadance hoped she was sufficiently well equipped to deal with whatever was hunting her this time. Her gear had served her well so far. It had saved her life more than once in the more ‘accident’ prone countries far from Equestrian borders.

There was a muffled noise from below as Cadance slammed the chest shut, banishing it back to the void between worlds. If they were truly under attack they weren’t going to find this Princess cowering in a tower. She rushed back toward the bedroom door, looking it over when it didn’t open to her simple push. The door itself was reinforced metal, set in a steel frame, the key-only operated lock internal so that it could be secured from either side. She sank to her belly to level the lock with her eye. It was a simple deadbolt and she didn’t sense any enchantments from her side, so Cadance lifted a slender strip of metal from a hidden spot in her bracer, gripping it in her mouth.

Cadance slipped it into the keyhole and felt it bump against the tumblers. The lock offered up only minimal resistance, so she slipped out her lifter and started to work with small, quick movements. She wasn’t even going to need magic for this.

Her carapace made a faint, wet, snapping sound, splitting along the ridge of her back, and slick ebony feathers erupted from within. They spread out a moment to catch the air, lifting her over the wall. By the time she had a line of sight on the building within, her form had resettled into a blackbird against a black sky. A few wing beats later and she landed, unharmed and unopposed, on the rooftop.

She looked around the compound, fluttering her wings against her sides, and made mental note of all the obvious exits and defensive points. The target was most likely in the main building, sleeping somewhere below her while the guard watched the door. The inner building was no less defended than the walls had been, but the magics swirling off of it were purely defensive abjurations. She could sense the magic sweep over her, searching for a trigger to unleash its fury on. Whoever had placed them never anticipated a shapeshifter, or didn’t consider birds a threat, and the arcane patterns flowed over her feathers harmlessly.

Confident that she had disabled the primary defenses, she flew to another perch, looking for a way into the building. The roof had no access she could spot, however. The only doors and windows seemed to be on the ground floor and were already sealed. If she wanted in, she was going to have to ask nicely.

She hit the ground a moment later on all four paws and arranged herself in a bedraggled state before letting out a plaintive meow.

Cadance pushed against the wall at the top of the stairs, angling herself to peek down into the main room. The noise she had heard earlier seemed to have been Twilight and Spike turning the furniture into makeshift blockades and cover. She stifled a giggle, watching them hunker down behind the couch pressed against the door. The situation was serious, but she just couldn’t shake how adorable Twily looked with her ‘no-nonsense’ face on.

“Seriously?” Twilight deadpanned, looking up at Spike.

“I’m serious, Twilight, it’s just a cat. It looks like it had its tail handed to it in a fight too.” Spike shrugged, craning his neck to look over the couch and out the peephole.

Cadance remained silent and unnoticed on the stairs. The cover those two had set up might suit them fine, but it had always been her experience that the best defense was staying mobile and unseen. She lit her horn for a moment and nodded toward Twilight and Spike, casting a basic communications spell. If they became separated she could whisper to them and they would hear it, so long as they were in the magic’s range.

Assuming the assassin didn’t blanket them with anti-magics, of course. Or just try to blast the house. At least this building was mostly stone and steel. The last time an assassin tried something, they burnt down an entire block of buildings. Cadance swallowed and nervously checked her peytral’s emergency air supply.

“I think we’re getting worked up over nothing, Twilight.” Spike raised an eyebrow. “What if Cadance sees this, and it’s just a cat? Do you think being paranoid might spoil your chances with her?”

“Chances? Now’s not the time to joke about that. We have to be careful, Spike, this could be a trap or an illusion.” Twilight tapped the end of her staff against the floor in annoyance. “Princess Luna said the assassin was a powerful magic user. We need to be ready for anything.”

Spike leveled a stare at Twilight. “It’s a cat. If it is a trap, I’ll just eat it.”

“If this blows up in our face, you are the one who has to apologize to Cadance.”

Cadance grinned and shook her head slowly. If they were lucky, it was just a cat. But then again, she never believed in luck she didn’t make for herself. She tapped her peytral and activated its Chameleon and Spider Walk enchantments, pulling herself into the high corner of the ceiling where she could see the the whole room.

She meowed again when she heard the door unlock, slumping dramatically on her side as it inched slowly open. Ponies never seem to learn, do they? It was all she could do to not smile and chuckle as one of the literally oldest tricks in the book worked yet again.

She opened her mouth to meow again when a clawed hand, easily bigger than her current form, slipped out of the door and around her body. She froze, holding her breath. There is a drake in there‽ Where was my intel on that?

She readied herself to expand, but relaxed after a moment when the hand didn’t crush her and instead pulled her inside and past the building’s defenses. All was not lost, she should still be able to accomplish her mission and kill Princess Cadance, dragon or no dragon.

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My Little Dynamite: Book One - Fuzzyfurvert

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