10 - Live Free or Neigh Hard
“Hello!”
Cadence’s eyes slowly opened in response to the enthusiastic voice. An alien creature stood over her. Its long, thin, perforated legs were mere inches from her nose. Cadence wanted to lash out, knock the thing off balance and strange it, but her limbs felt as if they were made from lead and encased in concrete.
Cadence squirmed as best she could, twisting until she was able to look up at her captor. The black glossy chitinous legs connected to a rail thin body shaped more like an alicorn’s than a pony’s. A long bright blue mane hid most of the tall changeling’s face, but Cadence could see one of the creature’s green cat-like eyes peeking through the strands of hair.
Cadence could only assume this was Chrysalis.
“The hay did you do to me?”
The tall bug smiled, revealing a pair of long fangs. “Oh, all paralysis spells do that. Don’t worry you’ll be up and about in no time! Not that there’s anywhere to go.”
Cadence glanced around at what little she could see of her surroundings. She seemed to be inside a geode. Large purple crystals grew out of the walls, floor, ceiling, and seemingly formed those structures themselves. The crystal room was lit, but she couldn’t see any light source. Nor could she see any windows, doors, or other means of entry.
Cadence’s eyebrows narrowed. “Why did you trap yourself in here with me? What’s your game?”
Chrysalis giggled. Her visage tinted blue and flickered and out of existence for a few seconds. “Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.”
Cadence sighed. “Right. Magic.”
The changeling queen nodded and sat down. “Wonderful, isn’t it? The very fabric of reality itself is your plaything. A bit of homework and you can solve nearly any problem with a little thought and planning. Problems like ‘Where do I keep prisoners?’ become so trivial.”
Cadence closed her eyes and did her best to slow her breathing. “Normally you want prisoners to stay alive. A sealed chamber in a cave seems like a good idea, but I’ll suffocate after a few hours. A day at most.”
Chrysalis clicked her tongue and shook her head. “Not at all. These are a form of cobalt crystals which absorb and release oxygen. You’re in a pure oxygen environment right now… So I advise you don’t fire off any spellbolts. As for food and drink, well, you’re an alicorn. You can sustain off your magic for at least a month. Not that you’ll be here that long.”
Cadence took a deep breath. The air did taste different from what she was used too. It reminded her vaguely of the few times she’d used SCUBA gear. The air was dry, stale, and lacked any humidity. It was definitely not normal oxygen, whatever it was. “I don’t know if it’s true for ponies but for humans pure oxygen is pretty toxic. You’re still killing me.”
Chrysalis rolled her eyes. “You’re immune to most if not all poisons. Don’t worry so much. If I wanted you dead you wouldn’t have woken up as a pony. Or woken up here. Honestly what do you think I am? A supervillain?”
“No, a terrorist.”
The bug queen blinked. “Mmm, I suppose I am from our perspective, aren't I?”
“You are trying to take over a kingdom in the most convoluted manner possible. Why not have a changeling turn into a big bucket of chlorine gas after reaching Celestia’s room then just take her throne?”
“For starters, I don’t want to kill her. I only want what was promised me,” Chrysalis’s projection trotted over to one of the walls and pressed her horn against it. The light reflecting in the crystal transformed into a rather scenic image of a winter landscape. “This is where the Crystal Empire sat. It is mine. It was promised to me as a reward for hard work, and I did that work. I will have it, no matter what it takes.”
Cadence turned her head as much as she could. “I don’t get it.”
“What’s not to get? Cakeflanks promised me something in return for something else. She didn’t hold up her end of the deal, so I am taking my payment in full.”
Cadence bit her lip to prevent herself from laughing. The nickname brought to mind the hundreds of times her false memories indicated she had seen Celestia snacking on banana cream cake late at night. “That’s not how she tells it.”
Chrysalis snorted and rolled her eyes. “Of course it isn’t. She’s not opposed to altering memories, making up new ones, and turning you into just the right puzzle piece to fit into her jigsaw.”
Cadence frowned. The bug had a point. “What’s your side of the story?”
Chrysalis gasped and held her chin in her hooves while grinning excitedly. “You’re going to let me do a villain monologue?!”
Cadence blinked twice. Something about the bug queen’s expression seemed to be just the slightest bit absolutely unhinged. “Uh… Yes?”
Chrysalis cleared her throat, muttered to herself for a moment as she did her best to find a tone of voice she liked, then struck a power pose appropriate for a movie poster. “As you know, Princess, I was once a failure of a human being. That part of me died long ago, as did the pony part which was forced upon me,” Chrysalis leaned down to Cadence speaking in a whisper, “I used them to make my first drones. They died because I didn’t know caffeine was an insecticide,” the queen cleared her throat and returned to her dramatic evil pose then trailed off.
Cadence raised an eyebrow as Chrysalis froze. The bug queen suddenly shook as if experiencing a small stroke. Cadence’s eyes widened in terror. If she dies I’ll be trapped here with no way out other than one I can make!
Chrysalis's apparent seizure stopped. She froze. Standing stock still for a long moment before turning to face Cadence with an expression that was at once cold and indifferent while also holding endless malice and hatred.
When she spoke, her voice had two layers to it, one male, deep, and distorted, one female, high, and phrased oddly. Each voice was slightly desynchronized from the other. “The Jessica form is dead, pony. Are you afraid? What is it that you fear? The end of your trivial existence? When the history of my glory is written, your species shall only be a footnote to my magnificence.”
Cadence frowned. “Wait a minute…”
The crystals wall darkened, fading to black as Chrysalis's illusion overtook them to show her own transformation into a dark gray and teal alicorn, followed immediately by that form spinning a cocoon of magic and emerging as the insectoid form before her, minus the holes in her legs. “I am Chrysalis. My analysis of historical data suggests a ninety-seven point thirty-four percent probability that you are aware of my birth on your planet, and my rebirth into beauty in Eventide Hall.”
Cadence groaned and put every last ounce of effort she could into moving her left foreleg so, she could mash her hoof against her forehead. “Oh, my god! Seriously?”
Chrysalis’s ears drooped. She shook again, her voice returning to normal when the spasm stopped. “I thought you said I could do a villain speech," Her eyes suddenly hardened. "Don't make me leave you down here forever..."
Cadence ignored the threat. “Yeah, and you decided to rip off System Shock Two. Seriously? You have the chance to tell me your side of this, which I gave you because you brought up a good point about Celestia’s trustworthiness, and you decide to do it by roleplaying as a villain who helps you, gets friendly, then betrays you at the last minute for no reason other than to be a final boss fight?”
Chrysalis frowned. “Is that how it ends? Well, that’s pretty bullshit. I never beat it,” the bug queen’s eyes burned with the heat of a thousand suns. “That FUCKING biomass level can suck on a septic pipe!”
Cadence sighed. “Just… Tell me the thing as a normal person.”
“Oh alright. If you must know, I took the form which you see me now under the belief that it would make me the perfect ruler. You see, the main problem of governance is the fact it controls thinking, feeling, people by using them to control themselves. Imagine if you will a nation which ran itself. Every last job tended to by a mindless drone that wants nothing at all and needs only minimal resources.
“It would have been perfection. I could spawn an endless number of workers, each an extension of myself who could act under my designs in exactly the way I intended without fail or exception. The citizens wouldn’t ever have had to do a thing they didn’t want to do. My drones would have handled it all, and they could just have fun all day. Or work, if they enjoy working. But not in government or infrastructure. Those would have been mine.
“I had the power to take a capitalist economy and transform it into a post-labor economy. No one would ever be hungry, or cold, or want for any basic goods. I could have ensured that no one would ever have to live as I once did again. Not. A. Single. One. I had the power, which meant I had the moral obligation to make it so.
“I took my plan to Celestia. We were great friends… I personally feel she wanted to be more than friends with me. I’m not sure if she wanted to be like my mother, or by my girlfriend. Either way, I wasn’t having that. She was my friend, and nothing more.”
Chrysalis turned away from Cadence for a few seconds, her eyes looking off into the distance. “Do you know how old she is? How long she’s been ruling for? I find term limits to be silly, even harmful as it prevents one from staying long enough to make real change. Vacations… Well, that’s different. Everyone needs a vacation sometimes.
“I explained my plans to her. Showed her the logistics, my economical plans, the works. I told her that if everything worked out in the Empire after a few decades I would take over for her here. Not forever, just a few thousand years. She’s almost ten thousand years old, you know. She deserves a nice long rest.”
Cadence pursed her lips and scrunched her eyes. “What? That’s it? She kicked you out for offering her a vacation?”
Chrysalis shook her head, her long mane flowing behind her. “No. She did worse. APPARENTLY you can’t use Dark Magic for anything at all unless you’re ‘Old enough to know how dangerous it is’! Bitch, I spent ten years on that plan! I read EVERYTHING, even the Diaries of King Sombra. My spell would have worked just fine and not caused any harm or corrupted me.”
Cadence nodded to herself, understanding what had gone wrong. “Ah, that makes more sense.”
Chrysalis smile and turned to face Cadence, even laying on her belly to look the other mare right in the eye. “I know it would have been fine. Because I did it anyways, and everything was fine.”
Cadence gestured to Chrysalis’s leg holes. “You’re looking pretty corrupted, if you ask me.”
To her surprise, Chrysalis didn’t get angry. She simply sighed. “Yes… Celestia… Dislikes it when things do not go as she wishes. We fought. She hexed me. Hypocritically too, as she used Dark Magic to do it. I’ve never been able to heal from that fight, and my drones share the injuries placed upon me… I also can’t properly make them as I designed. I get… Remixed and spread out when I make them. A little bit of me is lost with each one. That’s not how it was supposed to work.”
Interesting… If true, Cadence mused. “You’re saying what Celestia wants is a trustworthy puppet, and if I go against her wishes, I’ll end up like you?”
The bug queen nodded once then stood up. “That is exactly what I am saying. ”
Cadence snorted and shook her head. “You know if you hadn’t taken me prisoner, and have always planned to take me prisoner, I might have believed you.”
“I had but one avenue to seek revenge, and a cure for my condition. Celestia controls the portal completely, and I do not know how to make one of my own. If I was to return to Equestria after my banishment, it had to be by finding her portal and using it. Preferably as someone she expected to use it. At that stage, it was nothing personal.”
“Mhm… And you’re taking me prisoner now instead of having Hardly tell me all of this and getting me to come to you, why?” Cadence asked with a smirk. “Because it’s all bullshit.”
Chrysalis tilted her head. “Harley?”
“Bike. Your drone who likes to be a motorcycle. Whatever her name is.”
Cadence’s eyes widened as Chrysalis spun about and looked into her eyes. “Do you know where she is?! She ran away from my hive. She’s the only drone I can’t control and I formed her out of my love for— Look, I just… I do not like it when parts of my mind wander off and I lose the ability to feel something. If you can tell me where she is, I’ll let you stay with Shining’s sister so you have company.”
Cadence raised an eyebrow. “Why did you capture Twilight?”
“No, his twin sister.”
Cadence raised her other eyebrow, then quickly softened her face to hide her true emotions. “She should be in my room in Eventide Hall. Probably having sex with my maid. Or lunch as she calls it.”
Chrysalis breathed a sigh of relief and stood back up. “Good. She’s alive and has food. That’s enough for me. Turns out some of me is too independent to be treated like they are still me after I put them in a drone. She was the first to leave me for mistreatment. She wasn’t the last… I won't let it happen again. I can’t. I’ve lost too much.”
Cadence hummed. “Then you literally sustain yourself on love? I thought she was being ‘cute’ so I would let her just molest the staff.”
“Yes. We do. It was part of the plan. The government I made would have sustained itself entirely on its citizens approval and affection towards it. It was bulletproof. If my drones began to starve I would know something was wrong and could fix it.
“It’s a brilliant plan, a bulletproof plan, a plan that will benefit everyone, and I WILL carry it out! The Crystal Empire, Equestria, it will all be mine because only I am willing to do what is needed for the good of all!”
Chrysalis spread her wings for balance as she reared up. “One day everypony will bow to me, grateful, happy, and knowing only prosperity, for I am Chrysalis, Queen of the Changelings!”
“Huh,” Cadence said as she managed to slowly stand up on her hooves. “I came up with the same name for you bugs. Irish mythology, right?”
The bug queen blinked and lowered herself back down to all fours. “Uh…no. I got it from… Star Trek.”
Cadence raised an eyebrow. “Star Trek? Where were there changelings in Star Trek?”
Chrysalis stared into Cadence’s eyes with the half hurt half offended glare of a turbonerd who encountered a ‘fake geek’. “Deep Space Nine. The best series.”
Cadence groaned ad facehooved. “Oh, right. How did I forget that? They’re even better shapechangers too!”
“There was also that episode of The Original Series titled 'The Changeling'.”
“But it didn't have anything to do with shapeshifters, it was about a killer robot or something.”
Chrysalis huffed and turned her back to Cadence. “Yeah, well Changelings aren't even shapechangers in Irish folklore. They’re just fairies swapped out for some couple’s kid. You were thinking of Pookas. Shapechangers who take the form of black horses.”
“How do you even know that?” Cadence asked with a snort of laughter.
Chrysalis spun around with a huge dorky grin on her face. “Coz I’m English, ya git!”
Cadence rolled her eyes to mask the fact that she’d been utterly defeated. “Okay, fine. But why hold me prisoner? If I escape it’s game over for you.”
“I don’t want to kill you. That’s why. I plan on ruling the world so everyone can be happy and safe. My soon-to-be-subjects need to trust me. It behooves me to keep casualties to a minimum,” Chrysalis chuckled. “Besides something I never expected happened to you. You became an alicorn.”
Cadence nodded once. “Yeah. Now I have power you could exploit.”
Chrysalis shrugged. “You say that like it’s a bad thing. Everyone exploits everyone else for something. It’s not wrong if it’s not malicious. Honestly you’re exploiting Shining’s love for you to get a companion for yourself.”
Cadence rolled her eyes. “That’s not how love works.”
The bug queen rolled her eyes right back. “It is. We pretend it's more than that, but it’s not. It’s a mutually beneficial selfish arrangement. Honestly, if you really think lovers act as they do expressly because they want their partner to be happy, why do they get mad when their partner is unfaithful? If they really truly ONLY wanted their partner to be happy they wouldn't mind if they slept around. Heck, they might even set their partner up with some dates because sleeping around is clearly what their partner wishes to do for their happiness.
“No. Love is a selfish thing. It's exploiting emotions for one’s own gain. Everything altruistic is. I’m not saying that’s bad, it’s good that being selfish can benefit us all. I’m trying to bring you into a certain point of view. One where you understand that yes, I would be using you for your power, but you would in turn be using me for something you wished to obtain. Say, your freedom?”
Cadence thought about it for a moment then shook her head. “No thanks. I’m sorry, but I can’t trust your word over hers. You’re about as trustworthy as each other, frankly. But—”
Chrysalis sighed loudly. “Don’t blow your chance to be a goddess!” the bug queen popped her neck and stepped closer to Cadence, looking her eyes with a serious, nearly blank, business-like expression. “We’re here because of you, Mister Arvil. Because of YOU. Thanks to you, I am no longer a prisoner in a world I am not meant to be a part of. Because of you I have the opportunity to usher in an age of pace, prosperity, and love, as a new goddess. But right now, I am like you. Apparently free.”
Cadence raised an eyebrow. The bug queen’s monotone spiel sounded familiar. “Apparently?”
“Yes,” Chrysalis nodded slowly. “Appearances can be deceiving, which leads me back to the reason we are here. We're not here because we are free. We’re here because we’re not f—”
Cadence’s tail flagged as she suddenly understood what was going on in full. She raised a hoof and pointed it directly at the bug queen’s nose. “Will you stop doing bits and take this seriously?”
Chrysalis's cheeks burned with a dim green light. “I can’t. The part of me that was able to resist making nerdy references was the part of me which was very good at spell research. I made a drone to do my research for me.”
“That’s a roundabout way of saying you’re a huge nerd.”
“So are you… And your fiance… And his sister. Are you marrying both of them? If so, nice!” Chrysalis transformed one hoof into a hand for exactly long enough to give Cadence a thumbs up.
Cadence took a deep breath. “I’m not joining you. Here’s what’s going to ha—”
Chrysalis smiled at Cadence. The smile was both loving and creepy to the extreme. “You know, Cadence. I was more than your boss.”
Cadence’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “I imagine so.”
“I had to make sure I knew Celestia’s next pick intimately. I knew what type of person she would want after she deemed me evil for my ambition. I found a way to narrow down the targets until I knew which she would choose. I simply had to make the best possible candidate.”
Cadence frowned. “Uh, what?”
“You see, Cadence…” Chrysalis said as she leaned in towards her prisoner. “I am your mother.”
Cadence’s eyes shot open wide. “WHAT?!”
Chrysalis smiled and rocked back on her hooves. “There is no escape. Don’t make me destroy you.”
Cadence’s mind shrank in on itself. With all the insanity which had filled her life in the last few weeks, could it be possible that she had been raised by an alien shapechanger? Was that really all that far out there?
Cadence's eyes widened in horror. Mom was a turbo-nerd too!
“Cadence, you do not yet realize your importance. You have only begun to discover your power. Join me, and I will complete your training,” Chrysalis said in a gentle soothing voice before rearing up once more to make a dramatic gesture out of extending one of her hooves to Cadence. “With our COMBINED strength we can end this destructive conflict and—”
Cadence’s face scrunched up into an expression of pure rage as she realized that Chrysalis had been doing yet another bit. “You don’t BUCK with ponies like that, you bitch!”
Chrysalis giggled. “Oh come on, how often do you get to try to bring an enemy over to your side? You’d do the Vader thing too.”
Cadence had to admit there was a small chance she would. If she saw the enemy and battle as something small and trivial. But she didn’t. This was big, this was important.
Cadence narrowed her eyes. If that’s how she wants to play this…
“Alright, bug,” she growled. “If you're looking for an alicorn ally, I can tell you I don't have any magical knowledge but what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my Shiny go now, that will be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you and I will kill you.”
Chrysalis smiled and clapped her hooves happily. “I love that movie! Thanks for getting into the spirit of things. You keep that up and then no matter which of us dies at the end the game will have been fun,” she leaned forwards, her eyes hardening into one of the most menacing glares Cadence had ever seen. “And thanks for confirming that little rumor. Now that I know Shining and Gleaming are in fact one and the same… Well…”
Cadence’s pupils shrank in terror. “Let him go.”
“No. I need him,” the bug queen promised. “Enjoy rotting in your cell.”
Cadence grit her teeth and spread her wings intimidatingly. “Let him go, or I will rip your ass out through your mouth.”
Then enraged Alicorn took a step forwards, already planning every possible way she could disassemble the monster threatening her stallion.
Chrysalis rolled her eyes. “Oh, you silly pony. I’m not actually there.”
Her horn flashed with dull green light and the illusion vanished amid a shower of toxic-green sparks leaving Cadence alone.
Alone and in total silence.
Cadence took a deep breath. Half of her anger was at herself. She shouldn’t have let what she knew about Shining slip.
A thought occurred to her. Chrysalis knew everything about Cadence. She’d been studying her to impersonate her for years. She would have known that a nerdy approach would catch her off guard, and that simply quoting things at her would be aggravating. She was almost entirely certain that Chrysalis had just played her for a fool all to get the answer to that one question.
“It’s not your fault, Cadence. You weren't an intelligence agent. You were a field agent. You specialized in wet work. She got under your skin, you’ve been out of your element for weeks. It’s not your fault.”
But it was. It was her fault, and she knew it. Worst of all, as far as she could see there was nothing for her to do.
“Bucking horseapples!” Cadence stamped a hoof against the crystal floor, chipping a tiny piece off the ground.
Her eyes fell on the chipped off piece. The point of her hoof had sheared it off, but also chipped off itself. “It’s brittle…”
Cadence trotted over to the wall on her left and gave one of the crystals a good slap, putt all of her earth-pony magic into the blow. Hoof met crystal with a grisly crunch. Pain radiated out from her hoof. A small chip of crystal went flying into the shadows.
“OW!” Cadence cradled her hoof with her foreleg for a moment then inspected the damage.
Her hoof was okay, but the strike felt like she had nearly split it open. What’s more the crystal had cracked fairly well. Another strike or two like that and it would break in two. Unfortunately, Cadence didn’t think her hoof was up to the challenge.
Cadence sat down on her haunches to puzzle out her escape plan.
First, she took stock of her equipment. Cadence reached with her magic for the pouch hidden in her mane. It wasn’t there. This made taking stock of her equipment easy. Unfortunately it presented a dilemma. “Okay… What’s in here that I can use?”
Cadence looked around the room, her eyes searched the darkness for any sign of broken crystals, rocks, or dropped tools her captors may have accidentally let slip from their hooves.
Nothing. Not one thing. The crystal chamber had been very well cleaned of all stray debris, and as her captors hadn’t provided a bed, or a blanket, or even a bowl to eat with she had nothing.
Nothing that is, except for her magic.
Cadence turned her attention to the damaged crystal and took hold of it as firmly as her blue arcane grasp would allow. Putting all of her willpower into the motion, Cadence pulled on the crystal. The shard creaked, groaned, and crackled, but did not snap.
Unfortunately, despite an alicorn’s power, Cadence simply didn’t have the technique to snap something off with her telekinesis. A more experienced pony would have been able to break the crystal without difficulty. The task was beyond her.
Cadence bit her lip to avoid swearing angrily for many long minutes. There must be something I can do… What spells did I learn? Anything useful here?
She closed her eyes, thinking back to what little magic training she had. The list was short. Idyllic Sleep, Touch of Fascination, Dancing Lights, Unseen Band, Askew Balance, Cloth Armor, Clandestine Conversation, Conjurer’s Toolbelt—
Cadence’s eyes lit up as she remembered that particular spell. Then she winced and slapped a hoof against her forehead. “Oh my god… I can literally just conjure a pickax.”
Cadence relaxed as best she could. She needed to center her mind for what was to come next. The silent crystal chamber helped her immensely. Within but a few seconds she felt calm, tranquil, and focused.
She reached into the back of her mind for her magic and took hold of it. She pulled on the energy, directing it with her hope and will towards the front of her mind. She could feel the energy leaving her body as it pooled in her horn, causing it to glow a light blue.
A crude pickax which looked like it had come from a dollar store run by Ebeneezer Scrooge before the ghosts appeared in front of Cadence with a flash of blue sparks. She reached down and picked up the tool. It somehow felt both heavy and flimsy at once.
Cadence gave the tool an experimental swing. The pointed spike wobbled slightly. Cadence winced, squinted as much as she dared to prevent too many crystal shards getting in her eyes, then swung her pick into the crystal wall. The iron spike bit into the crystal, wedging it apart and cracking pieces off the wall.
Cadence sighed. Even with earth pony strength behind her blows, this would take a while.
Cadence groaned as she struggled to lift her pickax. Days had passed. Actual days. She knew because her spell lasted for ten minutes.
Cadence had summoned her pick five hundred and seventy-six times. She knew this to be true thanks to the tally makes she had started keeping on the floor at the entrance to her tunnel. A little of math, and she knew how long she had been digging down here. Ninty-six hours.
Four days.
Not four days total, for days of just digging and nothing but digging. There was nothing else to do. Her captor hadn’t bothered checking on her. There wasn’t any reading materials. Working out was pointless when alicorns were naturally in the best shape they could be. So she dug.
She dug and slept.
Cadence had come to love the spell Idyllic Sleep. Even though her muscles burned, her brain stung, and her hooves bled a little at the end of each day the charm put her right to sleep, and she woke up completely refreshed. Mentally at least.
Physically, no so much. Alicorns did have a bit of regenerative power but it was just enough to make Cadence merely very sore in the morning when she had gone to bed with every limb in agony.
Despite being completely mentally refreshed each morning, the constant mindless digging of a one-meter by two-meter hole in the wall always drove the poor mare mostly insane by lunchtime, and nearly completely insane by the time she went to bed.
Cadence stood hoof deep in crystal chips at the end of her currently eighty meter long tunnel. She swung her pick with the fury of someone both determined to get the job done as soon as possible, and also so miserable they needed the task to be over as soon as possible. Her pick bit into the crystal to the beat of a song she had accidentally drilled into her brain by deciding to sing it on the first day out of boredom.
I am a dwarf and I'm digging a hole. // Diggy diggy hole, diggy diggy hole. // I am a dwarf and I'm digging a hole. // Diggy diggy hole, digging a hole!
Cadence sniffled. “Stupid Minecraft players… Playing that super loud at work…” She trailed off for a minute, her brain slowed down by the earworm and monotonous digging. “Wait a minute. They were all changelings. Changelings have multiple bodies… Was— Was the janitor playing Minecraft with himself?”
Desperate for literally any type of break, Cadence dismissed her pickax and sat down to ponder the question.
It certainly seemed likely. At the very least it would let you build things faster. The slow pace of being able to do anything had been Cadence’s primary reason for not getting into the game. That and her sheer age. While a sandbox game based around creation had been very appealing, playing it online with nine-year-old humans was most certainly not.
I wonder if young ponies are less terrible? Cadence mused.
A small twinkle of light caught Cadence’s eye. Green?
Her head perked up. The light twinkled some more. GREEN! NOT BLUE-PURPLE! HAHAHA! COLORS!
Cadence conjured a new pick and took a fresh swing at the wall. The green light had to be a view of trees outside! She had to be close. So close!
Cadence’s eyes watered as she began to chip through what must be the last layer of crystal. Freedom! Air! Colors! Ponies! Shiny!
Cadence’s happy tears mixed with irate eye twitches as she remembered her love was being held captive by Chrysalis. BUGS TO SQUISH!
Cadence’s ax bit into the crystal. She pulled it back for another swing. The green light vanished.
Cadence’s ears drooped. Her lips trembled. “No! No please, come back!”
Purple light twinkled behind the thin layer of crystal. Cadence frowned. “Purple?”
The light bounced, warped and refracted. Cadence’s eyes widened as she realized it was in fact a projectile. And it was heading right for her.
Cadence dropped to her belly just as the spellbolt hit the thinned crystal in front of her. The brittle material shattered into countless shards. The sound of shattering glass and brick echoed deafeningly down Cadence’s tunnel. She threw her hooves over her head, hoping to protect her eyes and nose from the flying shards.
Cadence felt several large shards rip through her fur and skin, drawing blood. She was experienced enough to know she wasn’t really hurt, but the stinging pain made her hiss and recoil anyways.
Twilight Sparkle looked into the hole she had made and saw Cadence laying in the shrapnel. The lavender unicorn grinned ear to ear. “AH HA!”
Cadence opened her eyes at the sound of Twilight’s voice just in time to see the unicorn leap at her. Twilight’s horn blazed with an arcane corona the likes of which Cadence had never seen. As the lavender dove for her, teeth bared and hooves extended, Cadence’s world shrank.
For a moment there was only her and Twilight. All else was blackness. There was Cadence, the void, and her oncoming death.
Cadence sat up and threw her hooves up in front of her to try to absorb some of the meteor's impact. “NO! WAIT!”
It didn’t help. Twilight slammed into Cadence, knocking her to the ground with a sickening crash. The angry mare immediately grabbed Cadence by her shoulders and glared directly into her eyes. Twilight was so close that Cadence could feel the heat of the stored magic in her horn as it burned next to hers.
“What were you saying about hurting my big brother?!” Twilight demanded, her eyes narrowed into slits.
At that moment Cadence discovered the phrase ‘Tartarus has no fury like an angry little sister.’ to be fact, not a colloquialism.
Cadence held her hooves up over her head. “I’m not going to hurt him! I was imprisoned here like you, the Cadence who put you down here is an impostor.”
Twilight snorted and rolled her eyes. “A likely story. Seeing as how there never was any Cadence!”
Cadence’s eyes dilated to pinpricks. “Then… On the wall top—”
“I faked knowing you to see what kind of mare you are,” Twilight’s face was overtaken by her smug grin. “The answer? The evil alien bug-queen kind.”
Cadence blinked in surprise. “Huh. You actually nailed it in one.”
Twilight nodded. “I know I did. Now… Tell me where Shiny is, and if he’s hurt… Oh, you don’t want to know what I’ll do to you if he’s hurt!”
“I don’t know where he is!” Cadence protested. “I’m not her! Look behind me, there’s a hoof dug tunnel going back for bucking ever to another cell. I’ve been trying to escape for days!”
Twilight quickly glanced up. Her eyes briefly tracked over the rough-hewn tunnel and the debris strewn floor. She frowned. “Why didn’t you portal out like you portaled me in?”
“I don't know jack about magic!” Cadence laughed, the sound hollow and bitter. “I’ve been here for three weeks. I’m part of a top secret plan Princess Celestia has for handling the pending return of the Crystal Empire. She recruited me from a parallel world because she felt she couldn’t trust a pony for the job. I’ve been an alicorn for about three weeks. Before that I was a human living on a planet called Earth.”
Twilight blinked. She recognized those words. Shining had brought a strange looking device home with him which had turned out to be a very powerful microcomputer. Twilight had previously only seen the huge reel-to-reel devices and mainframes. The slender notebook had seemed like alien technology.
Heck, she knew it was alien technology. It had internet access. Twilight had spent much more time than she should have messing with it whenever her big brother hadn’t been home. Checking to see if this creature was really a human would be easy.
“We’ll see about that. Where would you find a story told in this kind of format? Be me. Be 17. Be in school. Hot girl in front of me. She drops her pencil. She bends down to pick it up. She’s not wearing panties. Turns around and looks at me. “Like what you see?” Whole class goes “oooooooooooh” Palms are sweaty. Knees weak, arms are heavy. It’s already falling out of my pockets. Mom’s spaghetti.”
Cadence’s jaw slowly dropped. “I— But— that’s a— How the FUCK do you know what 4Chan is?”
Twilight leaned in closer. “I am asking the questions! Okay, next, what is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?”
For once Cadence didn’t roll her eyes at that old joke. “It depends, is it an African or European swallow?”
Twilight pursed her lips. “XKCD is a… ?”
Cadence frowned. “Oh crap I used to know that one! Look, I’m old, okay? There’s a lot of stuff in here. You want proof that I’m human and somehow have knowledge of Earth Stuff? Well, ask me anything about Star Trek, old 80s movies, that kind of stuff. I’m not a big internet user.”
Twilight smirked. “But you know what a greentext is.”
“Every lonely person with a job they despise knows what a greentext is,” Cadence replied automatically.
Twilight pursed her lips then nodded slowly. “Okay, that’s fair… How about this one, who is responsible for canceling the best show ever?”
Cadence frowned. “Okay, yeah, I can’t help you without knowing what show you think is the bes—” She stopped mid sentence as an obvious option popped into her head. “— Wait, do you mean Firefly?”
Twilight nodded. “Yes. They need to get several angry letters!”
“Just watch Outlaw Star, it’s the same show. A rugged hero leads a band of outlaws on an adventure using an eponymously-titled spaceship after finding a key in the form of a woman who was hidden in a suitcase who was the subject of experimentation at the hands of a secret government cabal.”
Twilight smiled. “Outlaw Star you say? I’ll look it up!”
Cadence returned her smile. “Thanks. Will you let me up now?”
Twilight shook her head. “Nope. We’ve established you’re from earth, but you could still be an evil alien bug queen who is HURTING MY BROTHER!”
Cadence gulped. “I haven't hurt him.”
Twilight’s horn sparked as she cast a quick lie detection spell. She didn’t know one powerful enough to pierce a big lie, like what she thought Cadence was telling her, but a small one? That was cake. “You’re lying!”
Cadence’s ears lay back as her eyes widened. “Uhhh, okay, this will be TMI, but he likes to be whipped during sex and—”
Twilight put one of her hooves over Cadence’s mouth. “Shhhh…. Shhhh…. Shhhh…. That’s the kind of knowledge that should remain a mystery.” Twilight whispered into Cadence’s ear as a look of disgust spread across her face. “How about you tell me why Princess Celestia wants you here. Maybe then I’ll let you up.”
Cadence closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “The Princess doesn't want to rule the Crystal Empire herself, and doesn't want it to fall into enemy hands. She found a spell that can turn someone into an alicorn, but it won't work on ponies. She didn’t trust anyone of any other species that lives on your world, so she looked for someone from mine.
“Because, you know, she knew about it at the time. I guess. She didn’t tell me that part. What I do know is that right now we’re both prisoners of her FIRST recruit from Earth. Her name’s Chrysalis. She turned herself into a big evil alien jerkface because economics.
“The Princess didn’t agree with her economics plan, they fought, Celestia kicked her out and back to Earth. Now she needed a new alicorn ruler for the Empire. She looked around everywhere, and your brother was one of her agents doing the looking. He found me and took interest in me because I am transgender—”
Twilight blinked. “But humans can fix that. Why didn’t you fix that?”
Cadence took a deep breath. “Long, complex story. Mostly involving work relations, professional environments, and bad parents. Can I continue?”
Twilight nodded. Cadence continued. “Okay, so, to make a long story short, he befriended me and did a LOT of pushing for me to become a woman. But I also happened to be a good candidate for Celestia to recruit. She had him give her a full report on me three weeks ago and after a pretty stupid idea of recruiting me by convincing me that she was trying to sell me a theme park—”
Twilight tilted her head. “Uh, what?”
“Celestia packaged ‘Hey, I want you to turn into a pony and rule a kingdom for me’ as ‘I am selling this horse themed park.’ It was dumb, and she said something about ‘Oh well I needed to make sure you weren't power hungry.’”
Twilight nodded. “Sounds like her. Both the joke and the reason for the joke are very Princess Celestia.”
“My mom died recently, and I had nothing really to live for. I thought a park would be a fun thing to try to run, so I signed the papers after an evening’s thought. That sealed a magical contract or something like that, and I was turned into a pony, transported here, and told ‘by the way there’s an ancient evil warlord sealed away in that kingdom we need you to help us kill before you can have it, oh and also the last person we recruited is back and using her ability to spawn drones that shapeshift to try and take over the kingdom, and I have a picture of her old pony form on my wall for some reason!”
Twilight blinked. “What’s the painting look like?”
Cadence closed her eyes to remember the painting. “It’s a bust of a mare in front of a blue curtain. She’s got light gray fur, a bright turquoise mane and emerald green eyes. She looks eager, alert, energetic, but something seems off. You can tell she’s wearing an emotional mask.”
Twilight hummed. “Then you have been in Princess Celestia’s room at her real home. You couldn’t have gone in unless she wanted you too or you’d be petrified. Okay, that settles it. You are meant to be here. But why is everypony acting like you have ALWAYS been here?”
Cadence winced at the word ‘petrified’. Note to Self: do not barge into Celestia room. Ever.
“We used an artifact called the Identity Matrix to give me a cover identity that everyone who should know me would know. For some reason, it didn’t affect you.”
“Where was this artifact stored?” Twilight asked, her eyes narrowing.
Cadence frowned. “In Celestia’s vault. With her other artifacts. I doubt she wants me telling where it is. Especially since I don’t know if YOU are one of the bugs.”
Twilight nodded once. “That’s a good point. But I know where it is. I’ve been in there several times, what with being Princess Celestia’s personal student and all.”
Cadence smiled hopefully. “Then you know she only brings ponies she trusts in there?”
Twilight nodded. “Yes. Okay. I believe you.”
Cadence sighed in relief and wiped some sweat off her forehead. “Thank goodness! I have no idea how to stop a spellbolt.”
“You use a shield, or a very good mirror,” Twilight answered reflexively.
The lavender mare’s eyes grew distant for a moment. “So… Did they get Shiny too? I can't believe my brother would yell at me like that. He would have beloved me.”
Cadence nodded, filing away the information that Shining had been replaced for later. “Yeah. He was Gleaming at the time. We were walking together, pre-wedding jitters and stress for setting up a trap for Chrysalis made us… Well, dumb.”
Twilight frowned and stepped off of Cadence’s belly. “About that wedding. Is it just a trap for the bug queen?”
Cadence shook her head. “No! We really do love each other. Though we wouldn't get married this early if Celestia hadn't ordered it.”
Twilight hummed, trying to find a way to make this mystery mare prove she loved her big brother for reals. “Well, he trusted you enough to know he likes to be a mare sometimes… But WHY does he do it?”
“He likes to play dress up, and she’s a costume for his gaming group,” Cadence answered. “I thought you trusted me.”
Twilight shrugged. “That you’re on my side? Yes. That my big brother should be with you? No. I don't know if you’re perfect for him… Yet.”
Cadence shivered at the way she said ‘yet’. “How about we escape, rescue him, stop this wedding, and capture an evil bug queen?”
Twilight nodded, her eyes narrowing as she remembered the exact situation they were in. “We have three hours till the wedding starts. Do you have a plan? Because if I can get to my friends we can get the elements of Harmony and— Oh… Oh! They could be replaced too.”
Cadence nodded and sighed. “Anyone could be. But Celestia learned if you zap them with a transformation spell, it won’t work. Changelings are immune to all transformation magic but their own.”
“Changelings?”
“It’s what Celestia and I called them, and what they call themselves by like, a huge coincidence.”
“Okay. Well, then we need to get to my friends and I’ll test them.”
Cadence smiled shakily. “Uhhh, one problem, Twilight. See, I’m clearly me. There's no easy way to disguise me. And I spent the whole day before I was captured setting up a whole series of specially trained agents who are looking for impostors and changelings all across the entire city. All of whom think that she is me right now.”
Twilight frowned. “That’s not good. But I can move freely! I can still find my friends once we are out.”
“Unless someone replaced you,” Cadence shrugged her wings. “It’s best to assume we will need to sneak into the palace and well… Squash a bug. Just the queen if we can help it. Her drones are people, and some are nice.”
Twilight raised a skeptical eyebrow. “How do you know that?”
“Well one of them replaced my motorcycle, and she’s both very friendly and treats me like her mother.”
Twilight smiled the smile of a young mare who had no choice but to daww at the cute thing. “Oh. Okay!”
Cadence’s eyes widened. “Really? That’s your reaction?”
“One time my best friend cloned herself several hundred times. Another time, I stopped a Chaos God from taking over Equestria. Weird things are normal to me. That’s why I assumed this was all the plot of an evil alien bug queen.”
Cadence’ pursed her lips as she remembered this mare had also turned her parents into potted plants once. “Point to you… So uh, we need to go meet up with Harley, so I can get my weapons out of her saddlebags. Chrysalis found the ones hidden on me.”
Twilight looked confused or a moment then nodded. “Oh yeah! You don't know any magic. Wait, how did you dig the tunnel?”
“Shining taught me about six spells. Just enough to stabilize my magic. One lets me summon tools.”
Twilight nodded. “Okay. Well… Give me one minute.”
Twilight closed her eyes and focused on her magic. A sphere of lavender light blasted out from her horn, sliding across everything insight and vanishing into the walls. Twilight listened for the echo from her Bat Pony’s EEEE! Spell. The echo rushed back to her, carrying a map of her immediate surroundings, even the bits behind the walls.
“There’s a tunnel this way!” Twilight announced as she blasted a hole in the wall with a terrifyingly bright ray of purple light.
The wall crumbled in a shower of crystal shards. Cadence slowly stood up, glad to have dodged a bullet. Twilight trotted out into the tunnel and waved a hoof for Cadence to follow. “Come on!”
Cadence trotted a few steps forward then stopped. A little voice in the back of her mind reminded her how Chrysaliss had taunted her with paraphrased villain speeches. She felt compelled to show her how annoying that was. “One moment. I want to leave a mocking message.”
Twilight nodded and stopped in the “doorway” she had made.
Cadence closed her eyes and conjured up her pickax one last time. Taking hold of the tool by its spike she carefully scratched a note into the floor of Twilight’s cell.
Now I’ve got a Sparkle. Ho. Ho. Ho.
Twilight craned her neck to read the writing and giggled. “Oh! I get it. Die Hard.”
Cadence turned and raised an eyebrow at Twilight as she dismissed her pick.
“What? Shiny’s laptop has Netflix. Why wouldn’t I watch the best Hearth's Warming movie ever made?”
Cadence snickered. “I think we can be friends, Twilight.”
Twilight nodded happily. “Mhm! As long as you’re a good fit for my big brother. Come on!”
Twilight trotted down the tunnel to her left. Cadence followed along behind her, deeply worried about not living up to the young mare’s expectations for a sister-in-law.
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And here everyone typically suspects it's Spike that's the action junkie. Is Twilight going to start slinging cheesy one-liners? Of course she is!
Twilight is terrifying when she wants to be.
All very good points and great causes for distrust and concern
A few thousand years might have been a bit long, maybe just a decade or two would have worked better
It's very likely that they are both only telling part of the truth, while keeping certain parts and details secret to paint themselves in a more sympathetic light
Indeed they are
The Matrix... really
This bit is going to far
Twilight Sparkle... has had access, to the internet... dammit Shining
Please do
Rare to see someone reference Outlaw Star. If Carla knew it existed though she really should have tried to get a caster.
9058534
I second the one about the Internet. Unstable magical prodigy with a portal to the horror that is 4chan. Admittedly, there's some fun stuff on there like the Story of Grendel or Old Man Henderson, but I have not even attempted to try to figure out what else is there. A certain meme just mentioned has reminded me why.
Apparently my job isn't bad enough, either, because I have no idea what greentext is. Probably I don't want to.
Otherwise, the meme battle was hilarious. And Twilight might be fun to know.
I am curious to see what happens to get a truce between Sunbutt and Queen Buggy.
From the sounds of it, both of their spells "buggered" up...
(pardon. :D)
Yesss.
...Twilight discovering the internet.
Not sure if I should be amused or terrified, basically anything can be learned online. Including all of that "alien technology" which would upend their society if introduced poorly.
The quote battle was good but I loved the EEEE spell :)
phrased, was
grisly
there
9058530 No, she's going to be supplying crackers one liners to go with Cadence's cheesy one liners. Chrys will be bringing the wine.
9058534
In almost every case, this is entirely true. I mean for real life things as well as fictional things. No one really wants to be the badguy.
Cadence agrees :P But hey, the gambit worked. Agitate the nerd enough to loosen up and let the info you want to know slip.
9058635 I decided that she could only have prop replicas you can actually get (or could actually have gotten at one point). I was going to give her a caster gun replica, but I couldn't find anyone who sold a prop, or even a kit. I also decided that Cadence wasn't very good with computers so it's not like she could have 3d printed her own. (Heck, I have a printer and can do 3D modeling and let me tell you that a complex prop like the Caster Gun would be a small nightmare to do.)
9058638
Imagine if Twilight is the reason there's those nice stories on there at all. All Chan users are 100% annon. There's no way to tell who posted what and thus no comment history. It's possible that one person has posted every single last good story on that site.
A Greentext is the primary format used by 4Chan for telling storys. It's named after the fact that 4Chan's code block formatting function makes text green. On 4Chan, Twi's story would look like this:
99% of them are not worth reading.
9058642 It also makes your ears floofy for the duration of the spell :3
9058789 Thanks! Fixed :3
This is the most hilariously awesome Twilight ever.
9058834
Actually I meant I’m surprised she didn’t demand one from Celestia. If I had even a 1% chance to get a working model I would die on that hill.
9058975 Good point. We'll have to assume she didn't think of it at the time.
I don't know if I would watch Die Hard on Christmas.
9059117 But it's a Christmas movie :3 It's set at Christmas time and takes place on Christmas Eve. In fact that's a major part of the plot, as the bank sending out money on that date for a Christmas related reason is the reason behind the inciting incident. This means the villeins are doing something to ruin Christmas and the hero is trying to save Christmas. Therefore, Die Hard is a Christmas Movie and should be watched on Christmas. Preferably in lieu of one of the Rankenbass claymations we have all seen a billion times and aren't any good anyways.
Yay!
I need more.
And I need it now!
You stole that Star Trek bit from my comment a few chapters back.
I'm totally okay with this.
9059357 I am 90% certain that I said "Done!" as in "I will use this" :3
A Twilight Sparkle with knowledge of one of the best action movies ever! Why can’t I thumb this up more than once.
So, she just picked direction at random, dug 80 meters long tunnel and hit precisely the chamber where Twilight was left? Also why would Chrysalis try to lock Twilight in a place that takes whole 5 seconds to escape?
9059548 It's less BS than the actual episode, where they are separated by about 3 CM of crystal. Additionally, it's quite possible that Chrys greatly underestimated the power Twilight has because she is NOT a normal unicorn.
9059609
A ref to Diggy Diggy Hole! Ha! If you also listen to The Adventure Zone, you are officially my favorite human being. Say8ng it now.
9059131
Or A Christmas Story. The funny part is in all the years that I've seen it on TV, I have never watched it all the way through.
How was the rumor confirmed? Cadance would have had to say "let Shiny go" to keep with the bit.
We shall see how much this diverges. At the beginning of the chapter up to when Twilight arrived I was getting worried with how closely the narrative was following the show.
9058834
I forgot that spell. You have a very unique but amusing spell repertoire there.
I was contemplating putting this in the typo section. It should read second-best. Because clearly Voyager is far superior to Deep Space Nine.
Yeah, you heard her “It’s a Wonderful Life”!
Also, part of me feels that you should change best to greatest.
Harley
9061128 I to feel that Voyager is better... But other people disagree, and to be fair, TNG is pretty good too. So It's not impossible for characters to have different favorite Treks. As long as it's not Enterprise...
9061238
I think that was explained as trying to creep out the impostor, or something.
That pure oxygen environment could be tricky if and when Twilight comes calling, wildly firing horn lasers in panic.
Oh wow, she's crazy. And possibly also possessed, potentially by her own hive mind.
I dunno, it sounds to me like she was offering an invasion, so I can understand if Celestia responded negatively.
Huh. Well, it could still be a bit.
Hey, when in Rome.
Oops.
An alicorn left with just her magic is still pretty well armed.
Hopefully she's aiming in a useful direction.
There's the panicked horn laser bolt, right on cue.
The manually dug tunnel is pretty good physical proof of this Cadance's likely innocence.
Certainly to his sister.
That was a fairly effective interrogation, Twilight. Confirmed the story, started to establish an emotional connection with the target.
Hahaha, nice.
Even better.
It's definitely a concern when that mare is Twilight.
9058834
You are actively trying to murder me in comments
clearly that was not in the chapterI've no idea whether or not appreciate it but am leaning towards the latter9063262 It would have been in if I thought of it at the time XD
My initial thought was this was a So You Want To Be A Wizard thing.
Boy was I baited.
9063317
It's not too late to add it in.
For some reason I like casually OP twilight.
Personally, i'd like to see Cadance make friends with Chrissy and work something out with her.
9071882
basiclly something like this could happen.
Cadance looked at the attending ponies and spoke "Before we begin, I wish to announce Mine and Shining's official wedding will take place in the near future so we can use OUR plans for OUR wedding. I do understand, the need for Tradition this is why we agreed to this ceremony, but just to make it clear we do not personally consider it official."
and as log as she was 100% polite about the announcement things could probably work out?
9071893 In Equestria, that would likely work just fine :3 In real life, that has actually been the start of a War as a visiting Prince took extreme offense at the fact that he wasn't invited to the "real" ceremony :P People are WIERD.
9071913
hehe.
Also is it odd, I kinda dont like this Celestia much? I dunno she just seems a bit too manipulative to me. I honestly have to wonder just how "good" she is, and just had "bad" is Chrissy"
9071918 I wouldn't say it's odd, no. I tend to write Celestia as being a paragon character, so this is a change of pace for me. But I'm just the writer for this one, not the story planner so that wasn't my call.
9071940
ohhhh i see lol.
9071918
Because Celestia is a bitch, and I know that from a LOT of fanfictions and Lily Orchard.
That's even a canon thing, to be honest. You ever see Celestia get shit done by herself without getting Twilight to go handle it for her so she can eat cake?
9073001 Yeah, at the very least Celestia is so used to delegation as to be personally lazy, as well as being an incompetent Commander in Chief (Seriously, put all your eggs in one basket when fighting a deamon-centaur-kaiju?!) But it's clear she's great at setting social policies. Equestria is nearly utopic in cannon, it takes a lot of diplomatic work to do that, and a LOT of force of personality to get your way enough to make it happen.
9073041
I'm still wondering why without electricity and therefore at least steam power NOONE'S come up with at least even a flintlock pistol.
The Royal Guard would be taken a lot more seriously if they carried M16A4s and M416s instead of spears.
wait...
"cannon"
reeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
9073044 I've always assumed they have guns, but use them as sporting goods mostly. After all, RL Special Forces often use crossbows becuase they are genuinely silent. If you had the magic to improve their range, accuracy, stopping power, and rate of fire, they would still be superior to firearms in most applications. As for spears... Well, they are Royal Guard.
See these guys?
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Group_of_swiss_guards_inside_saint_peter_dome.jpg
These are members of the Pontifical Swiss Guard, better known as the Pope's guards. As you can see they ere wearing uniforms circa 1600 and using halberds... Today. In 2018! Absurd right? No. Where are they? They are in a church. These guards are NOT on actual security duty. They are more of a historical relic/political function that upholds tradition.
Yes, they stand at guard posts like this:
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/16/Rom%2C_Vatikan%2C_Soldat_der_Schweizer_Garde_3.jpg/800px-Rom%2C_Vatikan%2C_Soldat_der_Schweizer_Garde_3.jpg
But he's a security guard, not soldgiers, he's not authorized to actually kill you, he's just to keep you out. He's basically a mall cop in a fansy outfit with an obsolete weapon there for flavor reasons.
Heck, sometimes the Swiss Guard will even don halfplate.
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Swiss_guard_swearing_in.jpg
Except... They do more than that. These are members of the Swiss Guard who are not on ceremonial duty.
culturalmarxism.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Vatican-14-200x300.jpg
Note they all have assault rifles, and a more subdued uniform. They are in fact still Swiss Guards, but these ones ARE authorized to kill you and are proper soldiers.
I see the ROyal Guard as the same sort of thing. A bunch of trained soldiers filling traditional rolls to uphold tradition. In case you are a fan of Lily's, odds are good you share her hatred of military tradition, and may have not thought about the RG serving a strictly decorative/ceremonial roll for that reason. After all, it's not just the Vatican which uses troops in strictly or partly ceremonial rules. Certainly you know of the Queen's Guard?
9073112
This massive text-wall of bullshit in response to a drunken half-paragraph is why I like you, brah.
Also, you're right.
Well this has been a joy to read.
The characters all have unique perspectives, go through some creative and unique situations, their reactions feel genuine, and the HiE actually knows something about human strengths and is willing to apply them. Though I'm a bit surprised that Luna hasn't had an on-camera presence yet.
Looking forwards to more.
9073125 I take my ponies like I take my humor. Far too seriously.
9073822 A good question! I will ask the commissioner about her :3
9058834
ther's magic, and she now has a Twilight on her side. THAT CASTER GUN IS COMING