The Wardens of Order

by ScottTrek

Meanwhile on the Surface

Shining Armour sighed as he finally sank into a chair. It had been a stressful day but at last could relax for five minutes.

The rioting ponies had finally been dispersed and calmed. Twilight's friends had finally arrived and made excellent time defusing the situation. There had been a few altercations but with his guards given the chance to organise properly things were now under control. There had even been a small contingent of Canterlot locals who had moved into to assist with situation, as it turns out not every-pony lost their mind in a crisis.

He’d have to organise some kind of compensation to the extra volunteers. Even those two weird PI's who had helped; one of whom had been asking him some unnervingly specific questions before his partner had dragged them back home, and she had apparently 'accidentally' hospitalised Kibitz during the scuffle.

"Urgh....Whatever works." He muttered to himself sitting back. Today was not a day to gripe at results.

In regards to the issue of who was in charge, Shining hadn’t been able to stop Prince Blueblood attempting assuming some form of leadership but thankfully that had gone better than expected. As far as Shining could tell he’d only managed to offend 10% of the nobility and upper civil servants before he had been quietly 'removed' (which must have been some kind of new personal record).

Shining Armour wearily looked up, eyes briefly lingering on his still distracted daughter playing with Discord, and up to the skies above. “Come back soon. Both of you.” He whispered, “I can’t do this by myself.”

It was at that moment a massive sonic boom shattered the relative calm, ratting anything not tied down. Shining jumped to his feet eyes racing to asses the situation, his tactical trailing running through a dozen possibilities in half an instant.

"Rainbow Dash?" He could't see the normal explosion of colour in the sky.

"The Princesses were back?" There wasn't the same beam of energy coming from the castle.

"Discord? .... Hmm." Discord seemed to have vanished, along with Flurry. "Had Discord kidnapped her?" Unlikely given his earlier apprehension.

Suddenly there was a flash of orange and a small bang of compressed air as a panting Spitfire appeared before him. Her normal calm demeanour cracked as she slowed from near supersonic speeds in the space of a few meters.

"Report Captain?" Shining asked as he fluidly leap to his feet while Spitfire fought through her own gasping breathe to answer.

"I...I... don't know where it....huh..came from...but there's something approaching from the north-west. It's ...huh...MASSIVE sir." Spitfire tried to keep talking but foiled as she tried not to hack up a lung. She was fairly sure she broken a few speed records responding to the explosion so quickly.

Shinning's horn began to build energy as he readied his shield spells. "How big are we talking?"

Spitfire tried to answer but was lost to another burst of coughing. Instead she gestured with her hooves, sweeping up and down in the direction she had come from. In the distance something began to thump heavily, the noise echoing through the ground.

Shining followed her movements as she gestured up towards the the spires above. "Its...its as big as the castle!?" he exclaimed as the thumping noise began to get louder.

Spitfire sputtered and found her voice again as a shadow fell across the land. "No sir..." She said directing his gaze higher. "I was pointing at the mountain."

"PONIES OF EQUESTRIA! YOUR JUDGEMENT BECKONS!"

Author's Note:

Shoutout included to my next big project after this story is done