Knight in Smoking Armor

by Mocha Jon

Chapter 2

At the palace, two guards were standing in place barricading the door like expected. Upon seeing the three return, they opened and allowed them all in gratefully before standing back in attention. Cadence was waiting in the entrance, pressing her mane down with her horn to make it look like she hadn't just gotten out of bed. Upon the three entering, Cadence rushed straight up to Twilight, hugged her, and their signature greeting was performed.

“SUNSHINE SUNSHINE, LADYBUGS AWAKE, CLAP YOUR HOOVES AND DO A LITTLE SHAKE!” The two mares looked happy with their greeting, but Shining Armor and Spike just blushed and looked at each other, clearly uncomfortable at how girly that was.

“Twilight it’s so great to finally get to see you without needing to fight some bad guy!” Cadence said as they all began to make their way around.

“You say that now, five bits says otherwise.” Spike added as he rolled his eyes. “So what are we gonna do here anyway? This palace is cool and all but there has to be some fun stuff to do in the Empire.”

Shining Armor turned around and seemed eager to suggest something, “Hey, maybe we could try…” He began until Cadence cut him off.

“Twilight we need to go shopping at the Crystal Galerina!!! They have all these gorgeous paintings of the powerful mares who were used as eye candy when King Sombra ruled, and the even have books on their lives! Those mares were beautiful and empowered and I love seeing them,” Cadence suggested before even noticing her husband was about to suggest something else.

Spike himself looked a little excited at the idea, as he knew what she meant by ‘eye candy’ and started imagining those mares, “Beautiful mares? Alright I’m in!”

Twilight naturally seemed interested in the lives of the past crystal mares and anything involving books, “Sure that sounds great! I’ve been needing to send Starlight Glimmer some information about them for her friendship studies!” She said as she grabbed her notebook.

“Then it’s settled! Let’s go now before the line gets too big and we have to feel guilty for using our royal status as an excuse to cut in line!” Cadence said excitedly as Spike and Twilight followed her. “Finally some girl time with my favorite sister in law!”

Shining Armor just stood in surprise for a moment as they had all just impulsively left him there, “Oh, okay I guess I’ll see you guys later then…” He said as he sighed and walked out by himself, “Okay, I guess I’ll just go to the first ever Crystal Pony’s hoofball tournament by myself then…” Shining was a bit dishearted by this as he was hoping they could all do something together, but he understood that his wife did need some girl time.

As Shining Armor made his way outside to the event he could see everypony was batting eyes at him and chuckling. This was to be expected, after all, he didn’t have his wife around to stand up for him. Two teenage mares noticed him and walked right up to his face, “Oh hello ‘your majesty…’ it is an honor to be in your presence…!” One mare said with a very clear indication of sarcasm. Unbeknownst to anypony was that there was some dark smoke coming from a barrel near by…

“They dare disrespect their ruler like such…?” A very quiet voice was heard out loud, but nowhere enough to be noticed or concerning. The voice was deep and menacing with a mildly horsey rasp.

Shining rolled his eyes at that comment the mare made, “Nice to meet you too, it’s always fun to meet a fan and then call security on them later…” Shining responded with equal sarcasm.

“You know I’m surprised your wife let you out alone, do you have a curfew?” The other mare asked as the two started walking away, “Tell Cadence we said Hi, we’ve always wanted to meet true royalty…” They both started laughing as they walked away.

Shining was visibly frustrated at how little the ponies respected him, his eyebrows scowled as his horn began to light up… “Oh I’ll show you what true royalty can do…” He said quietly as he pointed his glowing horn to the mares.

“Yes… Make them pay. Respect must be demanded…”

Shining suddenly breathed out and looked down as his horn stopped glowing, “I can’t… No matter how much they hate me, I can’t give them a reason too…” Shining sighed and began to walk back to the hoofball game, but he stopped again when he heard a faint growl… “Huh? Hello?”

Suddenly smoke started to surround the area very quickly, making Shining Armor begin to cough for a bit until he was surrounded completely by darkness… “They do not respect you…” The deep voice said, Shining Armor finally able to hear the voice, was understandably confused and scared about what was going on.

“What…? Huh…? Coughhh…” He tried to ask between the coughs as he tried to not breathe in the fumes, “Who are you…?” There was a sharp pain that began in Shining’s head.

“The ruler of the Crystal Ponies must not allow such disrespect from his subjects…”

Shining tried fighting what was going on, he knew this voice was trying to get inside is head and was holding his breath from the smoke. Shining had trained in fighting such corruption spells ever since his wedding, but holding his breath was not working… “Coughhh cough… I… can’t… cough… hurt them…” He said as he finally gasped for air, and suddenly Shining started standing in attention and stopped resisting.

“Yes… Just breathe it in… Breathe deep and listen to my voice…” Suddenly Shining followed the order and sniffed the smoke deeply from his muzzle and as he did, swirls of dark purple and light green appeared in Shining’s eyes… “There we go… Nice and submissive… Now you understand that disrespect from the Crystal Ponies must be punished…”

“Yes… Disrespect from the Crystal Ponies must be punished…” Shining repeated slowly as the hypnotic smoke locked the notion in his mind.

As Shining repeated the mantra out loud, the smoke began to dissipate quickly and Shining was back where he was in the Crystal Empire. Once the smoke was fully clear, Shining shook his head off as the swirls in his eyes faded. “Huh? What just happened?” He asked as he looked at his watch and seemed disturbed, “Oh man! The hoofball game starts in 10 minutes!” Shining said as he quickly started running… However in his rush he accidentally knocked over three barrels being arranged next to seven others by a pegasus…. “Ouch…”

The pegasus looked angry, “Oh my gosh! Watch where you’re going!” He yelled as Shining stood back up.

“Huh? What?” He asked as he noticed the barrels, “Oh gosh, I’m sorry sir, it was an accident…” He looked understandably embarrassed.

“You’re sorry? I expect better from the Captain of the Royal Guards and our second banana ruler.”

Shining was confused, nopony was that direct with him before, “I said sorry… If you want I can fix these,” Shining said as his horn light up and all the barrels were levitating and arranged into a triangle like bowling pins, “That better?”

The pegasus didn’t seem impressed, “Yeah thanks I guess, just watch where you’re going…” He said in a very mean tone…

Suddenly before Shining could just shrug his shoulders and walk away like normal, the purple and green swirls reappeared in his eyes for about three seconds before fading… “You know what… You’re right!” Shining said as his horn light up and suddenly the pegasis was enclosed in a purple force field similar to his famous protection spell. The force field with the stallion inside was lunged right to the barrels and destroyed all ten and left the pegasus disoriented and upside down on the rubble, “STRIKE!” Shining yelled boastfully as he walked away.

The voice could be heard again without any physical manifestation, “Yes, there is more work to do, but there is potential in him…”

“You know, I wonder what Twilight. Cadence, and Spike are doing?” Shining asked casually as if what he just did was not out of the ordinary.

The scene changes to the museum, with Spike screaming at the top of his lungs in shock, “Oh my gosh! THAT is what they thought was beautiful!?”

Twilight was happily writing in her notebook, “Of course! These ponies are from 1000 years ago! That was back when being as fat as possible was the best thing anypony could do!” She said as Spike fainted from shock.

Comments

[Mix-up]

Well this story is getting interesting now and you writing is still proving with each one of your chapters. I will be looking forward to see hoe Sombra will manipulate Shining Armor into twisting him to become like him, and by the looks of it turning him to bad side will not be easy and her certainly doesn't seem to command any respect from his own citizens which is not really conducive to inflating his ego and he is already a push over for both his wife and little sister.

I will be looking forward to see what you will come up with next for this story.

Good luck

[SageBrony07]

This is interesting. I wonder what Sombra is going to do next to shinning. I think it would be funny for Shinning to infect his guards so they turns against mares as well.

[Mocha Jon]

8252823
Well sexism really isn't mesnt to be part of the story, but I do like the idea of the guards being possessed as well

[WOFDragonPony]

meow

[Mocha Jon]

8636079
Do you like it?

[WOFDragonPony]

8636300
AW YEAH!