Shining Armor Saves Everyone

by 42Zombies

As Important As It Is Uninteresting

Shining Armor had a solid idea of the work it took to run a nation. The Crystal Empire, while small, had the same needs as any other kingdom. There was infrastructure, education, public works, defense spending, and the national pastry budget. Every country needed these things.

But, again, the Crystal Empire was small. Equestria, meanwhile, was big. And while Shining Armor had worked alongside Cadence in running the Empire, he was more or less on his own now.

So when Shining Armor was guided to the throne room and presented with the list of ponies he would be speaking with, he was very quickly overwhelmed. It looked like everypony in Equestria’s government needed to speak with him! The list was longer than the list of things Flurry Heart had destroyed with her magic, and that list was very long.

“Why do I need to talk to all of these ponies?” Shining Armor asked as he looked up from the list. He was sitting in Celestia’s throne, which felt a little weird. Flash Sentry and another guard both flanked the throne, standing at attention. Flurry Heart was hovering beside Shining’s head like some sort of grim familiar.

“Equestria’s various officials feel the need to bring you up to date with everything they’ve been doing,” Neighsay explained. He was standing at the other end of the throne room, by the entrance, and holding onto the other end of the scroll Shining was reading. “In addition, many different projects have recently reached the point where they need higher approval before moving forward. The princesses honestly chose a very inconvenient time to be abducted.”

Shining sighed and used his magic to help Neighsay roll up the massive scroll. “I just feel like I’ve been having a lot of meetings today.”

“Yeah,” Flash Sentry said. “And it’s still so early in the day!”

Flash Sentry pointed out of the nearby window at the dawn-colored sky. It had been several hours, but the sun and moon still hadn’t moved at all—it still looked like the early morning. Shining and Neighsay both looked back at Flash Sentry, who laughed sheepishly.

“That… That was a joke,” he said. “I don’t actually think that it’s still morning. I was trying to bring some levity to the situation.”

Neighsay narrowed his eyes disapprovingly at Flash Sentry.

“Try harder next time,” he said.

Flash Sentry hung his head in shame. This was the appropriate action to take, because he wasn’t funny and deserved to feel bad. Shining Armor felt sympathy for the young guard, but not too much.

“So when are ponies going to start coming in here?” Shining asked as he turned to face Neighsay. The chancellor had finished rolling the scroll back up into its original, log-sized state and was somehow tucking it under his cloak.

“I don’t know,” Neighsay said. “I’m not your secretary. I have to go and do my actual job. With Princess Celestia missing, I need to find someone who can run her magic school.”

“Hey, yeah, that reminds me…” Shining said. “Why was the head of the EEA organizing all of this anyway?”

Neighsay shrugged. “No one else wanted to.”

“Oh.” Shining frowned at that. “… I feel like that’s not a very satisfying explanation.”

Neighsay lifted his hoof up to his badge and gave it a quick tap. A pony-sized portal of crazy magic opened up behind the chancellor, bathing the throne room in eerie light. It was very neat.

“Nothing in life is satisfying,” Neighsay said dourly. “Now I have to go and gather five random ponies so I can tell one of them that they’re substituting at Celestia’s magic school. I’m very bad at telling people this sort of thing. I wish someone else would do it.”

“Yes,” Shining agreed. “Bye.”

Neighsay stepped through the portal, and it quickly disappeared behind him. Then he was gone. He continued to be gone for quite some time.

“Is it weird that I’m scared of that guy?” Shining Armor asked his two guards once he was certain Neighsay wouldn’t hear him. “Like, he seems like an okay guy, but for some reason I’m just terrified of him. He looks like the king of funerals.”

“I generally try to avoid judging folks based off of how spooky they are,” Flash Sentry said.

“I’m not supposed to talk,” the other guard said. He didn’t have a name.

The throne room soon grew quiet. This was despite all of nature’s alarms that were roosting up near the ceiling. Shining Armor was surprised by how much he valued the quiet. It felt like he hadn’t gotten a quiet moment at all since he woke up in Flurry Heart’s nursery. Everything had been happening so quickly, Shining needed a moment to just try and get his bearings.

Unfortunately, something awful happened that prevented Shining from relaxing.

“Good news, everypony!” Prince Blueblood said as the throne room doors flew open. He trotted on in, his head held high. “I’ve come to complain about things!”

Shining Armor groaned. The guards groaned. Flurry Heart made a little baby groan. If the walls could have groaned, they would have. Blueblood didn’t groan because he was the one who’d walked into the room.

“Blueblood, what do you want?” Shining Armor asked. “I thought you’d be off sulking in your luxury apartment, crying into your billion thread count sheets.”

“Oh, I already did all of that,” Blueblood said. “But now I’ve come to air my grievances, like my manservant airs my laundry out in the summer breeze.”

Shining Armor wasn’t sure what sort of imagery that was supposed to invoke. He was mostly just disgusted that Blueblood actually called someone who worked for him a ‘manservant’. Not only was it a weird thing to call somepony, it also wasn’t a horse-based pun! Blueblood had failed on multiple levels, and that was really something.

“I already know that you want to be temporary ruler instead, Blueblood.” Shining said while rubbing his temple in annoyance. “Believe me, if I wasn’t worried you’d somehow cause a civil war, I’d give you the position. Just count yourself lucky you’re not the one putting up with—”

“I’m not going to count anything!” Blueblood said defiantly. His anger went away, however, and he soon began pleading. “Look, Shining, just let me be in charge! You already get to rule over a nation! It’s not fair! When do I get my turn?”

Shining wondered if he could somehow get all of the nature’s alarms roosting up above to chase Blueblood out of the throne room. Nature’s alarms were scary birds. Shining Armor had no idea how he’d gotten them to go along with the security system he’d designed in the first place. This was just one of those things he’d never understand.

That was all beside the point, though. Shining almost sort of felt bad for Blueblood. The other prince clearly knew he had no actual authority. He was basically just a very handsome piece of furniture. Maybe if he was given something to keep him busy, he’d stay out of everyone’s manes.

“Blueblood, I’ll make a deal with you,” Shining said. “I’m not going to make you Equestria’s temporary ruler. But if you promise to stop whining, I’ll give you a job. You can be the one who… goes to… the griffon embassy and gets their ambassador.”

Blueblood blinked. “The griffons have an embassy?”

They very much didn’t. Shining Armor knew that griffons weren’t terribly interested in diplomacy. They were more interested in making money, being mean, and having the worst town in the world.

“Yeah, sure,” Shining Armor said. “Go… get their ambassador and bring them here. Go do diplomacy at the griffon embassy. Because you’re so likeable.”

At first, it looked like Blueblood hadn’t been buying Shining Armor’s bogus busywork. But as soon as Shining lied about Blueblood being likeable, the other prince’s face lit up. Once someone said something that fed into Blueblood’s haughty world view, he automatically assumed they were telling the truth.

“Well,” Blueblood said confidently, “I’m not surprised you need my help. I’m just the stallion to charm the whiskers right off of their faces.”

“They don’t have whiskers,” Flash pointed out. “They famously have bird heads.”

“I’ll charm them so much they’ll grow whiskers and immediately lose them,” Blueblood said. “I’ll be that good.”

Smiling smugly, Blueblood lifted his head back up in the air. Without even thinking to ask for directions to the fictional embassy, he turned and began trotting towards the open doors he’d entered from. He walked slowly and deliberately, as if he was trying to give photographers plenty of time to get good pictures of him. Eventually, though, he left, and that was good.

“Ugh,” Shining ughed. He raised his hooves up and pulled Flurry down into his lap. The baby cooed, folding her massive wings behind her as her father held her close.

“That should keep him busy for a while,” Shining groaned. “Now he won’t be around to get in the way of whatever serious business I have to do.”

As soon as Shining Armor said that, serious business started happening. The throne room’s doors, which had swung shut behind Blueblood, were flung open by a pair of guards standing just outside. A very small, very dull-looking unicorn stood in the doorway, and began trotting into the throne room.

“Presenting the High Chancellor of the Department of Health and Cleanliness,” one of the guards announced, “Chancellor Dynamite Dangerous.”

The doors once again swung shut as Dynamite Dangerous trotted further into the room. The High Chancellor was wearing a pair of saddlebags with several scrolls and clipboards sticking out of them. His mane was swept into a thinning comb-over, and a pair of rectangular glasses was balanced on the unicorn’s snout. The glasses didn’t have lenses.

“Princess Shining Armor,” Dynamite Dangerous said with a voice that sounded like a long wait in a doctor’s office. “I’ve come to present my twice-weekly report on Equestria’s health and cleanliness.”

Shining Armor tried to remember the list that Neighsay had showed him. Sure enough, he could recall seeing this pony’s name at the top. It was hard to forget a name like ‘Dynamite Dangerous’, after all. With a name like that, though, Shining had assumed he’d be speaking with a demolitions expert or hair-metal rocker.

“Should you really be doing this right now?” Shining Armor asked. “I literally just got put on the throne; I’m not up-to-date on everything that’s been going on in Equestria. I’m not sure how much you expect to actually get done, chancellor.”

“Princess, I can assure you that this report is vital,” Dynamite Dangerous said as he searched through his saddlebags. “In fact, it’s as important as it is uninteresting. Illness in Equestria is up 15% over the previous 12%, accounting for the 22% of the 30% who refuse to discuss 50% of their illnesses…”

“I’m not sure that’s how math works,” Shining said worriedly.

Dynamite answered Shining Armor’s question by not answering it at all. Instead, he pulled a clipboard out of his saddlebag and held it up to his face. The chancellor adjusted his glasses, squinted his eyes, and began to read whatever information had been written down,

“Now, to begin with,” Dynamite droned, “there’s a reported outbreak of gross-hoof in Cloudsdale. I advise sending a shipment of medicinal galoshes to the pegasi. These are galoshes that have been filled with a kind of special ointment that goes on gross hooves to make them wet and slippery. This does not benefit the pony wearing the galoshes in any way. Moving on, several ponies in the town of Seaweedattle claim to be suffering from various Vague Illnesses…”

On and on he went, dryly reading off of his clipboards and scrolls without even stopping to breathe. Shining Armor would have described it as ‘rambling’ but Dynamite was nowhere near emotive enough for that kind of descriptor. He made no effort to not be boring; in fact, Dynamite Dangerous almost seemed like he was trying to be as tedious as possible. He glossed over any interesting information and instead went into detail on all of the figures and fractions. It was awful.

Shining lost track of how much time Dynamite Dangerous spent talking about all of Equestria’s various illnesses. The sun and moon outside still hadn’t moved, and there were no clocks in the throne room. Shining briefly wondered if he could use any of nature’s alarms to tell the time, but then he realized that was stupid. Dynamite’s lecture was so boring it was making Shining stupid.

Everyone else in the room was being affected, too. Flurry Heart had fallen asleep in her father’s lap. The guard who wasn’t Flash was fidgeting anxiously. Flash Sentry himself, meanwhile, was listening politely to Dynamite’s speech, nodding every now and then. Did he think that he needed to take notes or something?

Wait. Were they supposed to be taking notes?

Shining’s boredom was replaced by panic. It was the same feeling he’d had back in the guard academy whenever he’d accidentally zoned out during a lecture, only to come back towards the end and realize he hadn’t been paying attention. The only difference was that Dynamite Dangerous wasn’t using slides on a projector. Also, Shining probably wasn’t going to have to pay student loans this time.

“… And so, in conclusion, diseases are bad.” Dynamite Dangerous finished his long, terrible presentation and looked up from his clipboard. “Thank you for coming to my brief summary of Equestria’s health situation. Do you have any questions?”

Shining blinked. “Uh, yeah, actually I—”

“I will not be answering any questions at this time,” Dynamite said.

The throne room doors opened up once again, momentarily breaking the spell of boredom that Dynamite Dangerous had cast. Thorax came galloping in, a distressed look on his face. Dynamite Dangerous made no attempt to get out of the Changeling’s way, because he was awful. Thorax wound up having to jump over the Chancellor before arriving at Shining’s throne.

“Shining, we kind of have a problem!” Thorax said.

“Yeah, the princesses are missing,” Shining pointed out.

Thorax’s face scrunched up.

“Yeah, I know,” he said. “Also, um… I think a lot of other ponies know now.”

It was at that moment that Shining became aware of a noise coming from outside. Dynamite Dangerous’s horrible droning had covered it up before, but it was clearly audible now that he’d shut up. The noise was vaguely familiar. It sounded sort of like a large crowd of ponies murmuring to themselves about missing princesses. Shining couldn’t be sure though.

Taking care not to wake Flurry Heart, Shining slipped his daughter into his chest-mounted baby-carrier. He got up off of the throne and began trotting towards the balcony that overlooked the royal gardens. Flash Sentry and Thorax both followed him. The other guard stayed behind, because he felt he had nothing to contribute.

When Shining stepped out onto the balcony, his suspicions were confirmed. A sea of ponies filled up the royal gardens. Unlike a normal sea, though, there were no fish. Instead, there was only panic and worry. Neither of those things were fish.

“Well,” Shining muttered. “Looks like the news about the princesses broke.”

“They seem to be taking it pretty well, actually,” Flash Sentry said. “Nopony’s screaming and running around.”

“That’s because there’s no room,” Shining said, gesturing down into the gardens. “They’re packed together like sardines, if sardines were kept out in the open instead of inside of tin cans.”

Sure enough, the countless ponies in the garden were crowded together shoulder-to-shoulder, with no room for any sort of running around like idiots. One pegasus tried to fly out of the crowd, but the sheer gravitational force of the gathered ponies pulled them back down. Or maybe they just fell. It was hard to tell.

“Hey, look!” A voice among the crowd rose up over the collective murmuring. Shining could see a hoof reaching up and pointing in his direction. “It’s an authority figure! Let’s all voice our fears!”

Suddenly, all eyes were on Shining. Every pony in the crowd looked up and at Shining Armor. Their voices rose in volume, some of them outright screaming at Shining. They wanted answers. They wanted to know what in the world was going on. They wanted to know where Shining had gotten his chest-mounted baby-carrier.

The massive crowd began to shimmy and shake in panic. Ponies started getting ready to trample each other in a frantic stampede of terror. Several mares and stallions were practicing shouting ‘We’re all gonna die!’ at the top of their lungs.

The panicking ponies were on the precipice of a riot. And it was going to be up to Shining Armor to try and calm them down.

“Oh boy,” Shining muttered.

Comments

[Deergenerate]

Ok wow, this story is amazingly funny. I love it.

[Ploish]

Under. Rated.

[The Great Derpsby]

Eh.

This is turning too meta and too much Fourth-Wall-Breaking for me to get invested. Honestly, it should be tagged Random.

[42Zombies]

9818038
Fourth wall breaking? I'm not sure what you mean. Where does the fourth wall get broken?

As for random, you're probably right that I should tag it as that. This isn't really much of an adventure, really.

[The Great Derpsby]

9818428

“I generally try to avoid judging folks based off of how spooky they are,” Flash Sentry said.

“I’m not supposed to talk,” the other guard said. He didn’t have a name.

A background character noted for being so uninvolved that they don't even have a name. Or perhaps I misread and it means Shining Armor doesn't know his name.

[Ploish]

The narration, which is self-referential, as opposed to anything any of the characters have said.

[42Zombies]

9819063
Ah, okay, I see what you mean.