Defenders of Harmony

by chillbook2

The Attack

“See anything?” I heard Twilight ask from over my headset communicator. I walked past the Heaven’s Impaler building for the thirtieth time, marking a pattern of who showed up there, how long they stayed, and what they did while they were here.

“I’ve seen about forty changelings rotating around the building and heard them talk of about twenty more on the inside. If we’re getting in, we’re not doing it by force.” I muttered into my hidden microphone. The invisibility spell was holding. I circled the Heaven’s Impaler, the tallest commercial building in the tri-state area, a few more times, just to be sure. “How about you?”

“Me and Aj have about the same. RD, how are you and Rarity doing?” she asked.

“We have similar numbers. Is everything in place?” replied Rarity.

“I have my eye on Sunset Shimmer.” said Isaiah. “You’d have thought that we would have found her before now, what with her hair that’s damn-near glowing.” It seemed that everything was in place. The day after the party, we began to put together a plan. First, we had a drawing to make teams. Each team would take on a different enemy. Twilight and Aj were a team (Black Team), Rarity and Rainbow (Green Team), Pinkie and Rob (Red Team), and Fluttershy and me (Yellow). Isaiah would be giving sniper support from afar and would be a member of all teams. The Black Team went after Discord, the Greens after Chrysalis, the Red Team after Sunset, and me and Fluttershy got (with my amazingly good luck) the strongest, evilest, most powerful of the group: Sombra. We took another two days to train and collect some information. I had staked out the Impaler for eight hours a day, finding out every nook and cranny we could get in or out of.

“Like I said, brute force is out. That means put away the explosives that I know you are loading up, Robert.” I said.

“Damn. How’d you know?” he asked.

“Ive known you since we were 5. By now I’m pretty sure I know the types of things you’d like.” I quoted. “I also know you convinced Pinkie to hide a grenade in her shirt, so put that away.”

“Party-pooper!” whined Pinkie Pie.

“Anywho, we need to get in stealthily. Probably for the best. Princess Celestia wanted us to capture them, so that’s what we’ll do. Isaiah, can you modify your sniper to shoot non-lethally?”

“Tranq gun at the ready.” he said after a short pause. “Give me the word and I can take them out.”

“Good. Fluttershy, are you in position?” I asked.

“Uh… er… y-yes.” she said panickedly. Good. We could begin.

“Everypony ready?” I asked.

“Let’s go.” said Isaiah.

“Yee-haw!” exclaimed Aj.

“Party time!” said Pinkie.

“We got this.” said RD confidently.

“Can we hurry this up? The dresses are probably piling up at home. I hope Sweetie Belle didn’t take it upon herself to fill out orders. That’d be horrendous!” said Rarity.

“Where’s Robert?” asked Twilight.

“He’s here. He’s just concentrating.” said Pinkie.

“Everypony knows the plan, right?” I asked.

“I don’t remember.” said Fluttershy.

“It’s simple. You will go up to the front desk and distract the lady at the front desk. When she’s focused on you, I’ll knock her out. From there, we’ll go upstairs and sneak past the changelings. If we can get to Sombra undetected, we’ll knock him out. I’ll open a Rift that leads right into Canterlot Castle, where the Princess will be waiting to arrest him. Hopefully by then the others will be done, but if not, we’ll go assist the Black, Green, and Red teams, in that order. If we do this right, we can be in Equestria in time for supper.” Sounded easy in theory. Let’s see how it worked in practice.

I looped around the building one last time. I got to the front and watched Fluttershy enter the building. I waited for a minute, then entered. I reached into my messenger bag and pulled out a book. That’s what it looked like anyway. In reality, it was a device that would reveal changelings in disguise. I pointed it towards the lady behind the main desk. It would send a small neural buzz directly to my brain if it was a changeling. I waited a few minutes and when nothing happened, I walked right past the lady.

“You s-see, I d-don’t really have an appointment.” said Fluttershy to the receptionist. I looked around, and when no one was looking, I jabbed her in the neck, knocking her unconscious. I picked her up and sat her in her chair, laying her head down to look like she was napping.

“Good job, Flutters. Come on.” I whispered, walking towards the elevator. The Heaven’s Impaler wasn’t the actual name of the building, but we’ve been calling it that for so long that we can’t remember what it is actually called. It was headquarters to Vetri Quaz Industries, which sold everything you could think of. I entered the elevator, waited a beat for Fluttershy to file in behind. I pressed the button to take us to the top floor, where we knew Sombra would be. I took the time to steel my nerves.

“Let’s get in and out as quickly as possible.” I said. “Just strut in like you own the place.” Just then, the doors opened. We stepped out and were surrounded by office workers. Over fifty workers were on this floor, looking at us menacingly. They seemed pretty ordinary, until you notice the eyes. Some of them had no visible pupils. Instead the entire area of the eyes was turquoise. The others had eyes that were human-like, except crimson in color. The book was nearly melting my brain from the buzz of so many changelings.

“Who are you?” growled one.

“Me? I’m Sylvester Richards, owner of Equine Industries. This is my assistant, Francine. We’re here to talk to the boss about starting a line of saddle bags. I think it would be a great investment, and I love your other products.” I said confidently.

“I.D. Now.” hissed another.

“Oh, but of course!” I said, reaching into my bag. I dropped the book and dug around. Ammo, boots, food. Ah-ha! I grabbed what I was looking for and yanked from my bag. I pointed Celestial at the nearest guy for half a second, then swung at his leg. He fell to the ground as his friends rushed at me. I sliced one in the arm, covering my blade in that green blood. Fluttershy ran backwards and pressed herself against the wall as I took out enemy after enemy.

“AHHHHHHHH!” screamed Fluttershy in terror, as she was grabbed around the wrist. I jumped backwards and swiped my sword, taking off his hand. Red spewed from the wound, covering Celestial and Fluttershy. Some of them are human?! I thought to myself. I have to be a little more careful. Then, I got an idea. I reached back into my Mary Poppins Purse and pulled out the sheath for Celestial. I covered it and jumped back into the fray. I whipped it around, smacking changelings and humans alike, knocking some unconscious, breaking a couple ribs. I took out about twenty in total before they began to seriously fight back. The humans pulled small knives and daggers from under their shirts, while the changelings morphed their arms and legs into bladed weapons. Uh-oh. I sliced and parried, more concerned on keeping them away from Flutters than anything else.

“Fluttershy! If, at anytime, you feel like helping, that would be fantastic!” I shouted, wincing from the knife that grazed my knee. Neither me nor Rarity thought about any armor besides chestplates. Woops.

“I can’t!” she cried. “I left my weapons at home! I couldn’t do it!” Of course she did. A changeling jumped up and kicked, cutting me right across the nose. I leaned forward and kicked him with all my might, launching him to the side. I sliced at the last two enemies, knocking them out with blows to the head.

“Come on.” I said, breathlessly. “That was nothing!” We ran down the halls, kicking in door after door. Every cubicle, every conference hall, every break room was empty. I bashed in one last conference hall and walked in. Just like the others, it was empty. Fluttershy looked around confusedly.

“Where is he? He’s supposed to be up here. This is the last room on the floor.” she said.

“I dunno. We should check the other floors. We may have been mistaken.” I said, turning around. I stepped forward and bumped into a tall figure in a black suit, with a black shirt and red tie. His hair was long and slicked out, jet-black. His eyes were blood red and soul-piercing. He had a gray tint to his skin, and when he opened his mouth to speak, he revealed his mouthful of razor-sharp fangs.

“Celestia has sent her puppets to try and defeat me?” he growled. “And you rushed in so confidently. The mare doesn’t even have a weapon. Did you really think that you were so strong, or so smart that you could overtake me without any real weapons?” Slowly, I backed away. This was bad. I needed a plan.

“King Sombra, no?” I asked, hoping to stall. Maybe if I can get him near a window, maybe Isaiah could tranq him.

“A tranquilizer wouldn’t even touch me.” he said. Before I could even completely form the thought, he continued, “Yes, I can read your thoughts. What should I do to you? I could kill you now, but that wouldn’t be fun. I could make an example of you, torture you for a while. Or, I could give you to Chrysalis. She should be able to feed her children for a couple months with all the love you have for the mare.”

“What?” I asked. “Nononono, I do-” I began.

“Don’t lie to me. I can tell you’re in love with her.” he said, raising his hand. He opened his hand, and black claws materialized at the end of each finger. “And that’s what you decided to say? You’re worried about whether or not ponies know of your petty crush? Pathetic.”

“What are you doing here, Sombra? What do you have to gain from being here?” I asked, killing time until I could form a plan.

“What do I have to gain? Control.” he said. He swung his claw, scratching me in the right side. I screamed in pain as Sombra walked over to Fluttershy. I grabbed the wound and felt the blood leak out. I fell to my knees, squeezing my ribs. I moved my hand away to access the damage. There were five gashes in my side, very deep. The “blood” I felt leak was jet black. Ok. That’s bad. Have to get out.

“And you, my dear. We’ve met before haven’t we?” he said standing over Fluttershy. “Quite confident of your colt-friend’s abilities, aren’t you? Well, he’s about to die, so it’s only fair that you do as well.”

“NO!” I shouted, spinning around on the ground. I pulled Lunar out of the bag, aimed carefully and shot Sombra in the back. The bullet connected, but nothing happened at first. I shot him four more times, and he turned to face me. I emptied my gun into his chest, reached into the bag for more ammo, reloaded and fired again. He walked forward, disregarding Fluttershy. He took my bullets nonchalantly. When he got to me, he touched me on the face. He looked at me one last time, and then dissipated into black smoke. The smoke flew out of the room and down the hall. Fluttershy ran up to me.

“Are you ok?” she asked, concerned.

“I’m fine. We have to warn the others.” I said. I pressed my mic to my ear. “Oi! Everypony, abandon the mission. Meet back at base.” I tried to get up, and fell back immediately. She grabbed me and draped my arm over her neck. She hoisted me up, and escorted me to the window. She kicked the window, shattering the glass.

“Silver, can you change back? We have to get out.” she said. After much concentration, I pulled out my wings. She transformed as well and jumped out of the window. We flapped our wings and booked it back to base. We got halfway there, and dropped. We hit the ground and walked the rest of the way. I began to grow dizzy and I heard whispers. Whispers and laughter. I tripped all the way to the base. We got there just in time to see the other teams arrive. I fell to the ground on the front steps.

“I can’t move.” I muttered from far away.

“Robert, get him inside.”I heard Isaiah say from a distance. I felt myself be lifted up and carried into the house. He placed me down on my bed and covered me with a blanket. The room began to spin, and I couldn’t see properly. My ribs were melting and it seemed to be spreading to the rest of my body.

“Isaiah, can you help?” asked Robert.

“Twilight, I’ll need you!” he called. The world slowly faded into darkness. Right before I passed out, I heard myself whisper,

“We failed, guys.”