Knight of Equestria III: Pizzicato and Changelings

by scifipony

Radioactive

Nestled in the padded cylinder, the object had the shape of an ordinary quartz prism. It wasn't so much smokey as burnt and black and almost metallic as the light glinted off it. It radiated a corrosive sense of everything wrong, the same as if you saw a log burning with flames that didn't consume it. Somehow, it managed to glow deep green, dark purple, and black. Black.

Threat.

My hooves clattered on the metal table and I stood over Ghost Zapper. Everypony reacted, even the illusionist, who groggily pushed himself away and slid himself off the table behind me. Gasps echoed from Aurora Australis and Riverdale.

I dived at Flowing Waters, swatting the cylinder from his magic. I swept him and the lime-green pony away into the corner of the examination room furthest from the open door where the cylinder landed and slid into the hall. The rolling stool banged into a metal cabinet. I jumped sideways, got in front of Riverdale, lifted my hind legs, and shoved him back to join the others.

Breathing hard, I glared at the... threat. Further exposed, the black quartz radiated even more not-rightness, infectious not-rightness. It made me think awful things. It was as if... if I closed my eyes, in a blink, I might grow venomous fangs, or sprout slashing knife-edged hooves, or gallop like a pestilent pony of death running out of Tartarus to infect the entire world. I stared, hyperventilating, trying to figure out what to do to fight its influence.

It—it...

"Wha' what's happening," Ghost Zapper asked.

I reared, pedaling my hooves. I'd crush it to dust!

Riverdale warned, "Don't do it."

I growled in frustration, jerking spastically as I fought my instincts. I— I— I— "Bloody Tartarus!" I shrieked. Tilting my head back, I continued until my throat hurt.

I had no idea what the prism could really do, but my feathers were fluffed and my hackles up and I knew three things: It could hurt ponies, I wouldn't let that happen, and a force I could barely resist had seized control of my hooves.

I rapidly looked around me for what I could do and saw the cap discarded beside my right foreleg. I grabbed it with my teeth and with a flutter of my wings, swooped into the hall. I struck the side of the cylinder with my rear hooves, sending it rolling until it fetched up against a wall. The nurse had sensed the wrongness of it, too—or maybe she'd heard me shriek. She had backed all the way into a little office until she stood against a mahogany desk. She kicked closed the door and it slammed.

The thought of getting near the prism made me want to shy back, but I looked and saw a bit of moulding sticking out from around a door. I took a deep breath around the cap clamped in my jaws and trotted forward, dipping my head, aiming carefully, hoping the precipitating drool from my wide open mouth wouldn't cause the cap slip, or me to trip. Shoved against my tongue, the material tasted gallingly bitter, like a lemon spoiled by bleach or maybe lye.

I shoveled-up the end of the crystal.

A headache and purple and blue phosphenes bloomed in my head as if I had struck my forehead against an overhang. A devastating cold like the depths of an iced-over lake enveloped me and I started shivering. I felt dizzy. My vision swam. I was about to swoon, but I couldn't—I couldn't!

I might lose myself, forever.

I resisted. And pushed and the thing seemed to cry "No!"

I ground my teeth on the cap and pushed harder against a counterforce, which might have been myself, sliding the whole cylinder back until the end of it touched the moulding. My stomach started spasming. As the prism slid in and became less and less visible, I swung out a wing to steady it. I didn't so much push as leap forward.

The cap clicked closed.

"Shag me," I breathed and flopped legs and wings splayed bonelessly on the floor, relieved, returning warmth spreading through my body. I'd done it! Though the horror it had radiated had vanished, I still shimmied back, trying to find space. I wanted to spit away the taste, but settled on scraping my tongue with my upper teeth. The poisonous taint actually lessened the farther I got from the cylinder, which validated my instinct to back away. I levered myself up as I heard Flowing Waters enter the hall.

The whole incident, the unmitigated stupidity of him opening the cylinder, made me turn on him and all but shout, "What in bloody Tartarus was that bloody abomination?" I stood breathing hard, blocking the cylinder from the doctor and everypony else, finally giving in to impulse and wiping my mouth on a foreleg. "That thing is a nightmare, I mean, of epic proportions."

"There's no worries she's evil," Flowing Waters said out of the side of his mouth to the ponies beside him.

I took it as a joke because he chuckled.

My traitorous fringe settled over my eyes, forcing me to shove it aside so I could better glare at him. I was evil. The magic wind proved that beyond any doubt. "This. Isn't. Funny!"

"That is an artifact Princess Celestia couriered over. It's a souvenir of a lost empire from before she banished her sister to the moon. You don't have an affinity for dark magic. The opposite, I'd say."

"I'm no unicorn. I've no affinity for any magic." And you can't read minds.

Riverdale, Aurora Australis, and a groggy Ghost Zapper all looked on, concern in their wide eyes.

The doctor adjusted his glasses as he said, "You've got PCD."

"Peachy, what?"

He enunciated, "P. C. D. Princess Compulsive Disorder."

I broke out in laughter, laughing from the depths of my belly until I started coughing and my legs became shaky, causing me to totter. Well, if laughter was the best medicine, then Flowing Waters was dispensing it generously. Beyond that? I shook my head.

Taking a step forward, Riverdale asked, "What are you going to do, now?"

I tensed, realizing I guarded the insulated prism instinctively. I wanted the thing destroyed. "Considering all the monsters that infest our world, there's only one safe place for that—an erupting volcano."

The whole thing was patently stupid. Princess Celestia had kept the thing for centuries to test ponies?

"I passed the test?"

"We should talk more about this, but. yes, very definitively," insisted the doctor. He looked at my rigid stance and said, "And the courier is in the waiting room."

I shoved the cylinder back and opened the door. Three guards in armor with spears waited, all on the green tweed couches, one reading a copy of PONY magazine with a bejeweled pink pony princess on the cover. They came to attention as I stepped back and pointed at the artifact. The one unicorn amongst the pegasi lifted it in her blue magic, and I found myself trotting after them.

Riverdale fluttered behind me. "Where are you going?"

"I—" It was a good question, but I didn't feel trusting at the moment. "I'm going to see this safely put away." I followed all the way to the university archive building, up the granite steps into the grand entrance hall. I saw a white alicorn there, standing limed in bluish light cascading from a skylight, talking to ministers—her mane flowing flag-like in an unseen breeze. It reminded me of the magic gale that had used my evil as a sail to toss me about like rubbish on the night seas.

I stopped.

Good enough. I didn't want to find out why the princess had ordered the test—or to let her test me further, or to recognize me and to ask questions.

Riverdale had followed me this far, but he didn't follow as I retreated outside.

My bristling fur laid itself back down. I had learned way too much about myself today.

What in bloody Tartarus was bloody Princess Compulsive Disorder?

It made a joke of what I felt. It was a joke.

I protected ponies.

When I had to.

Hopefully a next time would be never again. That wasn't the pony I wanted to be. That pony—the one who enjoyed the rush the melee, that would reflexively handle such chaotic events—she scared me.

She'd scare anypony!

The sun would set as soon as, I supposed, after the princess put her adorable little memento away. I took the the air, not seeing an obvious exit to the maze of castle buildings.

A minute later, I landed on the stage in the promenade. It wasn't completely abandoned. While the feedbag vendors were cleaning up their stalls, Helping Hoof had been stacking my records and placing them in my van. With the frog of a hoof, he picked up a vinyl triangle from a cracked disc and said, "You want to keep this?"

I chuckled and he tossed it behind himself. He said, "It appears the royals have sorted it out. Pinkie Pie just bounced away, saying the wedding and the parties will go on tomorrow."

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Kind of abrupt. I have as many questions as Flopsy, but I suppose she's in no mood to actually listen. Still, it'd be nice if someone explained PCD. Though if I had to guess, I suspect there are at least six more cases in Ponyville alone.