10 - Broken Armor: Part 1
The Crystal Empire
Things were relatively quiet in the Crystal Empire. Stallions, mares and foals alike went about their usual days beneath the sun of Princess Twilight Sparkle. The crystal palace glimmered in that sun, and in these early hours Princess Cadance was getting a rare lay in due to a clear morning schedule. Her husband however, Shining Armor, did not have that luxury.
“How are things progressing?” Shining Armor asked the foreman of the workforce currently working within the lower halls of the palace, Brisk Colt.
The workforce in question were chipping quickly away at a previously hidden, and sealed doorway found quite by accident by a few servants going about their duties. The crystal wall it had been hidden behind was shattered, the remains piled up to one side. The door was wooden, but long decaying runes etched into its surface still proved to make the doorway quite sturdy. Several guards stood nearby guarding the hallway, all of them crystal ponies with the exception of a single Pegasus, Flash Sentry.
“We are very nearly through, your highness,” Brisk Colt reported. “The runes strengthened the door, but they were hardly invincible.”
“Alright then,” Shining Armor looked concerned. “So, what are the theories on this door and its contents?”
Brisk Colt turned away from the crystal prince to study the ancient doorway, “Well, it was hidden way, not meant to be found. The passage in the throne room has parallels to this but…”
“But?”
“All of… his secrets required dark magic in order to access them, or at least had dark magic in its workings. This door shows no sign of any dark magical properties,” Brisk explained.
“And that means what exactly?” Shining Armor asked for elaboration.
“It means that it’s likely the tyrant king didn’t create this. We believe that this was created to hide something from him, not from us.”
“From King Sombra? By Queen Amore?”
Brisk turned back to Shining and nodded. “That is the theory anyway.”
Shining Armor nodded his head in understanding, but still felt somewhat uneasy about the whole thing. “A nice theory, but let us play it safe nonetheless. I want you to take Flash Sentry and a squad of guards with you when it opens. The first sign of trouble and you get your flanks out of there, understood?”
Just as Shining finished sentence, a shout of victory chorused through the workers as the door finally cave in to reveal a long dark passage way within.
“Understood, your highness,” Brisk Colt bowed his head. “Now that the way is open, permission to investigate further?”
Shining stepped towards the doorway and looked down the hallway within, he could just spot a set of stairs at the very end. Spider webs hung from the ceiling and long dead torches hung on the walls.
He hesitated momentarily, before sighing. “Permission granted. Just be careful. If you need me, I will be in the throne room.”
“Alright you lot,” Flash Sentry motioned to four of his fellow guards. “The prince has given this the go ahead, but I want you all to be on constant alert. Let’s not have an unspeakable evil seep into the palace today.”
“Yes sir!” The four saluted.
“Good,” Flash looked at the other ponies that would be joining them, most of the workers were taking a back seat to the scholars on stand-by, “Civilians! You stay together and do not wander off for any reason. If we tell you to do something, you do it.”
“We understand captain,” Brisk assured the orange Pegasus, “After you.”
Flash Sentry nodded, before he and the guards took point and entered the dark and dingy hallway. One of the guards lifted torches from his saddle bag as they went, removing the ancient ones and lighting up the newer. The architecture was the same as the rest of the palace, but was more cramped. It was apparent it had never been a public area, or often visited area. The civilians followed shortly after the guards, Brisk Colt at their head. The group reached the stairway and began to descend, and kept at it for several minutes, undergoing several turns in various directions as they headed deeper into long forgotten areas of the palace.
However, the stairs and hallways eventually came to an abrupt end. Everypony gasped as the hall suddenly opened up into an enormous chamber filled with bookshelves around the edges, and a giant shimmering crystal chandelier still filling the massive complex with plenty of light.
“A second library?” One of the scholars muttered, “Why would Queen Amore build the palace with two?”
“Depends on the books,” Another responded.
Something else caught their eye however, something that seemed strikingly out of place with the rest of the vast room.
In the centre sat an ominous, glowing obelisk, not unlike a certain other in a ruin far away from the empire.
And yet, unknown to them all, it served a very different purpose.
It floated off the ground with several shards of itself orbiting the obelisk. Red and green energies rolled off its surface like a putrid disease.
They all knew dark magic when they saw it.
“Alright,” Flash called, “I want you all to spread out and search the place for anything actively dangerous, but don’t touch anything! You can look at the book names to try and discern what is being kept here. And definitely don’t go near that thing!” He pointed to the centre obelisk.
“I don’t know captain,” one of the guards, a private, spoke. “I have a bad feeling about this.”
“Boy, you always have a bad feeling about something!” One of his peers rebuked.
“Cut the chatter,” Flash scolded. “As long as there is nothing actively endangering us we should be fine, just be careful.”
The group called back their affirmatives and all began to spread out throughout the library. The scholars began looking at the books littering the shelves with stars in their eyes while the guards started keeping an eye out for the first sign of danger. Brisk Colt just admired the obelisk in awe.
Flash circled around the obelisk, studying it from stem to stern. It was obvious to him that King Sombra had hidden the place, not Queen Amore. He had hidden it to hide away the object before him.
And yet the artifact was inert. Still.
Flash Sentry sighed as he let his nerves calm a little. He took a good long look at the writing etched into the obelisk’s surface, but couldn’t make head or tails of it. It wasn’t exactly his job after all, he was a guard not a scholar like the others loitering about the room like foals in a toy shop.
Flash shook his head with a chuckle at the thought, and then turned around to inspect other areas of the library.
And he barely had time to shout as a long, sharp, black spike of a horn impaled him through the heart.
“Captain!” One of the guards shouted as he saw Flash Sentry’s lifeless body clatter to the floor.
Time froze as all those present spun to see the scene. Standing just above Flash’s corpse stood a tall, alicorn like monster composed entirely out of some kind of black tar like substance. The only truly solid part of the creature was its vicious horn.
“Bring it down!” One of the guards shouted, lunging forwards with his spear. The creature simply side stepped the guards and grabbed onto his spear, swinging both it and him into a nearby wall where the pony impacted with a sickening crack. The guard slumped lifelessly to the floor.
The obelisk itself began to pulsate as more black tar began to emerge from its surface, rapidly forming more and more of the horrific monsters.
The civilians immediately started to panic, bailing towards the single hallway leading out of the death trap the library had become.
Brisk Colt tried to turn tail but, with him being so close to the artifact, was caught by one of the monsters as it formed and torn apart.
The ponies reached the door as the remaining three guards tried to hold off the incoming waves of death. However, in their panic they all tried to clamber into the narrow hallway all at once, and quickly found themselves clogged and stuck.
It was a bloodbath.
And soon everypony who entered the chamber laid dead on the cold crystal floor as the creatures began to rapidly climb up towards the palace proper.
And the ponies upstairs had no idea until the first abomination shot through, grabbed a random worker and tore her to shreds.
In the royal chambers, Princess Cadance was awoken suddenly as a group of her own guards burst through the doors.
“Your highness! Creatures are in the castle, you are in grave danger!”
Cadance had only just begun to wipe the sleep from her eyes when she processed the guard’s words. “Danger? What creatures?”
“Black, oozing imitations of alicorns, your highness.”
“What?! How did this happen?” Cadance quickly pulled on her regalia and shot towards the doorway.”
“I don’t know but-“
At that moment, everypony in the empire witness a shadow form around the very tip of the palace. And two green, very familiar horrifying eyes blinked to life within,
“Ah… my crystal slaves,” The voice of King Sombra echoed throughout the empire, causing great fear among the entire population.
“If you are hearing this, congratulations. You won, and I am likely dead. But did you think I would let such a thing come to pass without any chance for revenge?” Sombra chuckled hauntingly. “You poor, poor fools. Consider this a parting gift, as my servants consume you all! Farewell.”
The eyes closed, and the shadow dissipated from existence. And the creatures only grew more ferocious.
The guard struggled to find his voice, but was eventually able to finish his previous sentence. “Prince Shining Armor is setting up defences around the throne room. He sent me to retrieve you.”
Cadance’s eyes had narrowed on hearing the hated voice of her old enemy. “One moment.”
Cadance shot over to her writing desk, pulled up a dragon fire candle, a quill and a piece of paper. She quickly wrote a single word on the paper before sealing it and whisking it off to her beloved sister-in-law.
“There, Twilight and Luna will certainly be here with assistance soon, now the throne room,” Cadance turned back to the guards. “Take me there.”
The guard saluted, and forming a protective ring around their princess they briskly moved along the corridors of the palace in the direction of the throne room. They encountered no resistance on the way, though the still bodies of ponies in the halls were very telling.
However, that changed on reaching the throne room entrance.
Shining Armor grunted as he dodged out of the way of one of the creature’s horns, before spinning and driving his blade into where the horn connected to the head, a weak spot. The creature collapsed into a pile of putrid black goo, before even that evaporated into nothing. Another creature made a go at him, but only succeeded in scraping his armor before he disintegrated it with his magic. His anger heightened on seeing another of his guards fall to the creatures, before it was quickly offed by another.
Shining turned to see two more bearing down onto him, before both where blown away by a devastating beam of cyan magic.
“Cady!” Shining shouted as he saw his wife and her guards run up and dispatch the final few monsters.
Once the last one was dead, Cadance approached her husband and pulled him into a relieved embrace. “Oh thank Celestia you are alright!”
“Hey, it’s me we are talking about,” Shining Armor cooed.
“That’s what I am afraid of,” Cadance chuckled. “Shining, what happened?”
Shining broke off the embrace with a sigh, before motioning all present to follow him into the throne room. The last guards in closed the giant doors and got to work sealing them shut.
“Captain Sentry and several others descended into that hidden segment of the palace. These things are what came out again.”
Cadance’s eyes widened in horror. “I… see. I sent a message to Twilight and Luna, they will come for us.”
“Good, we may need their help,” Shining admitted. “Something in that passageway is producing these things faster than we can kill them. We are going to need reinforcements if we are to find and shut down the source of these abominations.”
As Cadance and Shining Armor continued to talk, they didn’t notice a black, tar-like figure reaching around from behind the throne.
“Are they in the city yet?” Princess Cadance asked.
“No, but that will change soon. If we don’t-“ Shining Armor’s head shot around to face the figure darting horn first towards his wife.
“Cadance!”
Shining Armor reached out and pushed Cadance to the side just as the creature closed the remaining gap and collided into them.
Flurry Heart landed on a lovely green hillside to quickly catch her breath. She had never flown so far so fast in her entire life. After hours of travel however, she was nearing her home.
The Crystal Empire.
The frozen north stretched out just beyond, and Flurry Heart could just make out the train tracks leading though the landscape towards the city.
And that wasn’t all.
Movement caught her eye as she looked up into the far distance.
Flocks of armoured Pegasi rapidly flew through the air towards the frozen north. The alicorns of the sun and moon at their head.
“I knew I could count on you,” Flurry Heart smiled.
Spurred on, Flurry stretched out her powerful wings and took to the sky.
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Woo! Featured!
Nice
7271813 I don't honestly know, when I heard of that fic in the comments after the prologue of this one was released I saved it to watch later but have been holding out so not to be overly influenced.
I just wanted to try my hand at TwiLuna after reading 'Twilight, Good Night'. Just with a vastly different premise.
YAY! BRAD IS DEAD
I'm getting flashbacks
comicfan9812.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/flood_infection_form_by_themefinland-db80ceh.jpg?w=1191
Aw, poor Flash didn't know what hit(stab) him.
When I saw "broken armor" I was like "oh I know exactly what's gonna happen" and I was correct, ya Twilight is gonna fall into a deep depression after this one.