Shining Armor Saves Everyone

by 42Zombies

Fate Conspires to Enable Your Idiocy

Under the cover of night, Shining Armor and Thorax descended into the canals of Canterlot’s sewers. They immediately hated it.

The sewers were very spacious. In fact, Shining would go as far as to call them needlessly large. A massive canal of ankle-deep sewer water ran through the sewers, slowly flowing towards an unknown destination. Thankfully, stone walkways ran along both sides of the waterway, so Shining and Thorax could keep their hooves dry as they made their way.

Unfortunately, this didn’t make their trek much better than it would have been if they had stepped into the bad toilet water. Traveling along the walkway meant Shining and Thorax had to share space with the rude animals who called the sewers their homes. Disgusting creatures like cockroaches and pelicans brushed past their hooves frequently, and big rats kept throwing themselves at Thorax’s head.

As if things couldn’t get any worse, it was also dark. The only light that Shining Armor and Thorax had available to them was whatever Shining could generate from his horn. It could only illuminate a few feet ahead of them, so they had to move slowly to make sure they stayed on the right path.

Finally, to top it all off, the sewers’ interior design was just awful. Everything else in Canterlot was adorable, but apparently the sewers were exempt from that design motif. The walls were unpainted, the architecture had no thematic consistency, and someone had hung up a bunch of very tacky paintings of sad clowns.

All in all, it was just terrible.

“You know, it actually smells better in here than I expected,” Thorax mused as he and Shining traveled along the walkway. “I didn’t even need to get rid of my nostrils.”

“It smells like corn,” Shining pointed out. He had a copy of the sewers’ blueprints open in front of him as he walked. He wanted to get to the area of the sewers that the unknown spell had been cast from. The walkway they were traveling along would eventually bring them there.

“I know, but… It just smells like corn,” Thorax pointed out. “Nothing else; just corn. Doesn’t that seem odd to you?”

Exasperated, Shining looked up from his blueprint and turned to face Thorax.

“Look, Thorax, I don’t know what ponies do with these sewers!” He said. “Maybe they store a lot of corn in here! How would I know?!”

Shining only realized how hostile he sounded when he was finished speaking. He immediately worried he might have upset Thorax with his little outburst. Thankfully, the Changeling King looked more confused than hurt.

“… Sorry,” Shining said sheepishly. “I guess I’m just a little on edge.”

Thorax gave the prince a reassuring smile. “Shining, half of your family is missing, you’re ruling one of the largest kingdoms in the world, and you’re walking through the sewers at night. It would be strange if you weren’t on edge.”

Shining felt himself begin to smile. While Thorax’s words hadn’t made him any less anxious, it was nice to hear that he wasn’t going insane. Shining sometimes forgot that somepony else in his situation might have cracked from the stress a long time ago. Really, when you thought about it, everything about this was perfectly normal.

The two continued on along the path that would take them to their destination. The walk was largely boring and uneventful. Both Shining and Thorax kept conversation to a minimum. The only noises were the sound of water slowly flowing through the canals, and the deep, beautiful crooning of the many alligators that lived in the sewers.

Eventually, Thorax and Shining had to come to a stop when they reached a t-intersection. The walkway they were on made a sharp turn to the right. Meanwhile, on the other side of the canal, the walkway opposite them went off towards the left. A small bridge connected the two walkways.

Shining checked his blueprints to see which direction they needed to go in. Then he double-checked it. Shining looked up from the blueprints and looked at the two diverging paths in front of them, as if to make sure he wasn’t making some sort of mistake.

But there was no mistake. When Shining looked back at the blueprints, the t-intersection they were standing at weren’t marked down at all. The walkway was supposed to continue straight ahead. In real life, however, there was a giant wall in front of them where an open path should have been.

“What in the hey-hey is going on around here?” Shining asked.

When Thorax approached to see what the matter was, Shining showed his friend the blueprints. Thorax looked back and forth between the plans and the branching path before them. Ultimately, he was just as stumped as Shining.

“Are the blueprints out of date?” Thorax asked.

Shining, still studying the prints in confusion, shook his head. “These are the most up-to-date plans for the sewers they had at the store. I don’t know what’s going on here.”

“Which way do we go now?” Thorax asked.

Shining looked up at the brick wall that stood in the direction they needed to go. There were two signs on the wall, each one pointing down one of the two paths. The signs read:

<-- THIS WAY: GALLOP STREET
THIS WAY: THE SLIMEY ZONE!!! -->

“’The Slimey Zone?’” Shining read out loud. “There’s no street in Canterlot called the Slimey Zone. There’s nothing in Canterlot called the Slimey Zone.”

“Why not?” Thorax asked worriedly. “What’s wrong with slime? Changelings love slime. It’s great.”

Shining very rudely ignored Thorax’s slime opinions and shook his head.

“Gallop Street isn’t where we need to go,” he sighed. “We’re going to have to take a detour towards the… the Slimey Zone.”

Shining looked over his shoulder at Thorax. The Changeling was visibly trying not to look excited about visiting a place called ‘The Slimey Zone’. Despite his best efforts, though, it looked like Thorax would break out into a huge, childlike smile at any moment. Shining found it a little endearing, and it made heading to the Slimey Zone feel just a little less awful.

Trying his best to remain positive, Shining Armor rounded the corner and began walking in the direction of the zone of slime. Thorax hurried to follow after him, and the sound their hooves trotting along the stone walkway echoed off the metallic pipes in the sewers.

---

The blueprints Shining Armor had brought with him became increasingly useless as he and Thorax trekked through Canterlot’s sewer system. The dimly-lit canals and their walkways continuously contradicted what had been put down on the official plans. There were detours where the path should have been straight, and spaces that should have been blocked off by walls were just out in the open. If it weren’t for the signs on the walls corresponding to the streets above, Shining and Thorax would have been completely lost.

The signs indicating where the Slimey Zone was could be found at every juncture. The signs appeared to be guiding Shining and Thorax to the area in the sewers where the spell had been cast. This was a little too convenient for Shining to dismiss it as a mere coincidence. Shining was too distracted trying to navigate the awful sewers to really think about what it could mean, though.

Each new sign had additional exclamation marks added on to its end. After just two or three of them, Shining counted eleven of the punctuation marks tacked onto the signs. Shining was starting to suspect these signs hadn’t been made by city officials.

“You know,” Shining said as he and Thorax rounded a corner, “I’m starting to suspect these signs haven’t been made by city officials.”

“Huh? What?” Thorax, clearly distracted by thoughts of slime, asked. “Sorry, I kind of spaced out.”

Shining continued trotting on ahead, squinting his eyes to try and see through the stinky darkness. The illumination from his horn helped a little, but Shining still couldn’t see very far ahead of him. Every now and then he’d try to amplify his horn’s brightness, but it wouldn’t amount to much of a difference.

This time, however, when Shining increased the magical glow from his horn, he saw something. In the canal beside them, brushing up against the walkway, a small shape was slowly drifting by on the sewer water below.

Shining stopped, and Thorax followed suit. As the object in the water drifted closer, Shining leaned forward a bit to try and get a better view. Gradually, the object came further into the light generated by Shining’s horn. When it was finally close enough, Shining could see that it was a small toy boat.

Confused, Shining used his magic to pick the boat up out of the water. He brought it closer to study it, trying to ignore how badly the boat smelled of corn. It was a very high-quality toy; the kind valued more by adult enthusiasts than by foals. What was something this nice doing in the sewers, the home of filth?

“Uh… Shining?”

The fear in Thorax’s voice snapped Shining out of his deep boat-contemplation. Shining looked over his shoulder at his traveling companion to see what the problem was. Thorax was trembling, a single hoof raised and pointing at something far ahead of them.

Shining turned to look and instantly saw what had Thorax so afraid. In the distance, barely noticeable in the darkness, a figure was slowly approaching them. It moved like a pony, but Shining couldn’t make out anything except a bulky silhouette hidden in the shadows. His light did little to reveal any details as the figure drew ever-closer.

“Who’s there?” Shining called out warningly. “Are you the kidnapper? Or a sewer-man?”

If the figure could speak, it didn’t reply to Shining’s question. Instead, it began to move faster. It was practically galloping towards Shining and Thorax, moving closer at an incredible speed.

Shining pointed his horn at the shadow and prepared to put up a shield to stop it from getting any nearer. The figure slowed down a great deal when it saw Shining’s horn aimed at it, eventually coming to a very hesitant stop.

Now that it was closer, Shining could see that it was a pony; a stallion, probably. Its body language was nervous and uncertain. Did it take Shining pointing his horn as some sort of threat? Had it forgotten how to walk? Those were definitely the only two options.

“Whoever you are, identify yourself,” Shining said warningly. He kept his horn aimed at the shadow, not wanting to give it an opening. “We don’t intend to hurt you if you’re not an enemy.”

The shadow was silent. It seemed to look from Shining to Thorax, who had calmed down a great deal. Finally, after what felt like forever, the shrouded figure spoke.

“Oh, thank goodness you’re here, Armor!” Blueblood said as he stepped out of the shadows. “You’ve got to help me get out of this sewer-dungeon! I can only assume there are poor people nearby!”

Shining blinked. And stared. And balked at what he was seeing. He could feel his mouth moving, as if he was trying to speak, but Shining didn’t know what to say. Where to even start? He felt like he wanted to say a billion different things, but the words were all jumbled together and useless in his mind. All he could do was stand there dumbly while Blueblood looked at him expectantly.

After a few seconds of dumbfounded silence, Blueblood’s eyes traveled to the toy boat that Shining Armor was holding with his magic.

“Oh, there’s my boat!” Blueblood reached out and took the boat into his hooves. Shining Armor was too baffled to offer any resistance. “Ah, it seems none the worse for wear… Smells like corn, though. I’ll have to have my manservant give it a good scrubbing.”

“Why?” Shining asked, completely unable to keep the frustration he was feeling out of his voice. “Just… why?”

Blueblood scoffed. “Well, because it’s been in the sewers, obviously. I can’t put this on display if it’s all dirty!”

“Why are you in the sewers?!” Shining practically snapped.

Apparently oblivious to Shining Armor’s outrage, Prince Blueblood chuckled.

“Oh, that. Well, it’s a funny story. I was sitting in my diamond-encrusted ivory bathtub, testing my new toy boat’s buoyancy. I’m happy to say it remained afloat marvelously; tended to list a bit to the side, though. I imagine there’s some sort of weight discrepancy in the design, but I’ll need to take it apart to know for sure.”

“Get to the point, Blueblood,” Shining warned. He did not like all of the words that Blueblood’s mouth was creating.

“Ah, yes.” Blueblood tucked his toy boat away and dusted his hooves off. “Well, anyway, I was sitting there, minding my own business, when… And you’re not going to believe this… The floor gave out under my tub and I fell into the sewers. I passed out shortly thereafter.”

Blueblood smiled proudly. “This all happened three hours ago. I’ve only just woken up.”

The sheer stupidity of what he’d just heard caused Shining Armor to start to dissociate. He was distantly aware of Thorax expressing concern over the fact Blueblood might have a concussion, but Shining couldn’t really focus on the actual words. He was busy trying to wrap his head around the improbable idiocy of what was going on.

Of course Blueblood had fallen into the sewers on the one night Shining and Thorax were investigating them. Of course that’s what happened. None of this was surprising when Shining Armor thought about it.

Shining closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again to glare at Blueblood.

“You are… terrible,” Shining Armor said in a hoarse whisper. “You are the worst mistake I have ever met. You are society’s greatest burden. And, worst of all, it’s almost like fate conspires to enable your idiocy. I will never truly recover from the damage you have done to my mental wellbeing, and I curse you every day for it.”

Blueblood blinked. “Okay, but… Are you going to help me get out of the sewers, or…?”

“There are ladders to the surface all over,” Shining said as he pushed past Blueblood and continued on ahead. “You can get out on your own. Act your age for once, Blueblood.”

“Shining, wait!” Thorax galloped after Shining, circling around to his front and stopping him from moving forward. “We can’t just leave him here! He hit his head! He’s clearly suffering from some sort of brain injury!”

“No, he’s just like that,” Shining assured. “Trust me, Thorax, he can get out of here on his own. We don’t have time to worry about him. This lead on the princesses is more important.”

From behind them, Blueblood raised a hoof into the air and waved it to get Shining and Thorax’s attention. “Er, I can hear you. What’s this about a lead?”

Shining rolled his eyes before turning to look at Blueblood. The other prince looked genuinely curious, but Shining was certain that Blueblood didn’t actually care about the search for the missing princesses. If Blueblood wanted Celestia to return, then it was only because being her nephew afforded him some social clout. His oblivious, haughty body language practically said as much.

“It’s none of your business, Blueblood,” Shining said dismissively. “You see, Thorax and I are hard at work right now. And I know that work doesn’t interest you at all. So why don’t you just go back up to Canterlot and crawl into one of your solid-gold mansions?”

Thorax winced and inhaled sharply through his teeth. “Shining, you’re getting a little too real for me right now.”

“I do work!” Blueblood said, sounding slightly offended. His brow was furrowed angrily in Shining’s direction. “I do all kinds of work! I do work like you wouldn’t believe!”

Shining raised an eyebrow at the prince’s claims. “Oh yeah?” He asked. “Like what?”

Blueblood’s face softened. “Um. Well… Once, I did a crossword puzzle. Crossword puzzles, as you know, are the only part of the newspaper you are legally allowed to write on.”

That was actually more than Shining Armor had expected. He was slightly impressed by Blueblood’s ability to exceed Shining’s extremely low expectations. Granted, he was nowhere near impressed enough to stop being fed up with Blueblood, but Shining was willing to give credit where credit was do.

“I’m being serious, Blueblood. Leave. You’ll only get in the way of our investigation.”

“You don’t know that!” Blueblood said with a dismissive scoff. “Maybe I’ll be a great help. Maybe I’m the world’s greatest detective! I’ve never solved a mystery, so for all I know I could be amazing at it!”

“He’s got a point,” Thorax said, leaning in to whisper to Shining.

He absolutely did not have a point. Shining began to worry that Blueblood wasn’t the only creature who’d hit their head.

“This isn’t some game, Blueblood.” Shining Armor approached Blueblood and stared him right in the eyes. “If we don’t get the princesses back, the griffons will beat all of us up. I know you don’t care that the princesses are missing, but this is kind of important! Bad things are happening in the world that exists outside of the little bubble you live in!”

Blueblood looked back at Shining, seemingly taken aback by the intensity in the other prince’s voice. For a moment, Shining worried that Blueblood somehow still wasn’t getting it. But after just a few seconds, a deeply offended expression formed on Blueblood’s idiot face.

“How dare you!” Blueblood whispered. “Of course I care that my Aunty Celestia is missing! And I probably care about those other princesses, too! I will not stand for this malicious sewer-slander, Armor!”

Instead of stepping back in the face of Blueblood’s outrage, Shining doubled down. “Oh, you sure have been acting like you care! The first thing you did when you found out the princesses were missing was try to make yourself interim ruler! Clearly, you’re so worried about your aunt!”

“Why should I be worried?!” Blueblood snapped back. “This sort of thing happens to Aunty Celestia all the time!”

“I—”

Shining stopped, caught off-guard by Blueblood’s reasoning. “… What?”

“It does!” Blueblood pointed out. “She vanished when Nightmare Moon attacked. She’s been abducted by that bug lady. Tirek sent her to jail for a while. The Storm King turned her into tasteful art. Celestia is always going missing or getting captured, and she always turns out alright! It’s happened before, and it’s happened this time! Why should I be worried? We don’t need to do anything!”

Shining Armor had a hard time deciding if what Blueblood was saying was wise or stupid. On the one hoof, he was right that bad things kept happening to Equestria and its princesses. Shining supposed there was some sense in not getting too worried about these things. On the other hoof, however, Blueblood appeared to be forgetting one critical detail.

“Blueblood…” Shining said slowly. “You realize that the only reason Celestia turns out okay when those things happen is because my sister and her friends save her, right?”

Blueblood, who was clearly still angry, looked like he didn’t have the faintest idea what Shining’s question had to do with anything.

“Of course I do!” He said.

“Okay.” Shining nodded. “Now, you’re also aware that my sister and her friends have gone missing too, right?”

Blueblood nodded. “Yes, of course.”

It appeared that Blueblood still wasn’t getting it. Shining took a deep breath and put his hooves together.

“Alright, now think about that,” Shining said, trying to remain patient. “When there’s trouble, Celestia gets recused by Twilight and her friends. Twilight and her friends are currently missing. The ponies who always save your aunt in these kinds of situations… Can’t save her. Are you starting to see why we should be worried?”

Shining watched as Blueblood struggled to do the math in his head. The blonde stallion’s face scrunched up as he thought about what Shining had just said. He looked like he was attempting to solve a particularly complicated problem on a trigonometry test. Shining could actually see Blueblood’s lips moving as he silently talked the problem over.

“So…” Blueblood said slowly. “Hang on… Princess Twilight and her minions are usually the ones who save my Aunty… But they can’t do that this time…”

“He’s starting to get it!” Thorax whispered enthusiastically.

Shining ignored him and nodded at Blueblood. “That’s right. Keep going.”

Prince Blueblood’s brow furrowed as he kept working at the problem in his head. “So… if they can’t save her… Then… She might not get saved?”

Prince Blueblood’s eyes slowly widened as he realized what everypony else in Equestria had realized three weeks ago. The full gravity of the situation had finally settled in on Canterlot’s least favorite son. The look of dawning horror on his face made Shining immensely proud. For just a moment, Shining believed that Blueblood had seen the light and would leave Thorax and Shining Armor to their search.

Instead, he just started screaming.

“Oh, good heavens!” Blueblood screeched as he began pulling at his mane in a wild panic. “Oh no! Oh no! This is terrible! This is horrible! What can we do?! What can we do?! Aunty! Aunty!”

Blueblood’s terrible voice echoed off the cavernous walls of the Canterlot sewer. No one cared about that, though. Shining Armor and Thorax both covered their ears as Blueblood’s horrible wailing increased in volume.

“Blueblood!” Shining said, trying to speak over Blueblood’s yelling. “Calm down! No one likes to hear your voice!”

This fact did not make Blueblood quiet down any. If anything, he only got louder, which was the opposite of quiet. His screaming had devolved from words to incoherent gibberish, which was much worse than normal gibberish. The prince whipped his head back and forth, looking around him frantically.

“Aunty!” Blueblood screamed. “I’m coming, Aunty!”

Before anyone could stop him, Blueblood stepped off the stone walkway and galloped into the sewer’s murky canal. The bad sewer water splashed as Blueblood ran through it, and the prince appeared to be completely unaware of the fact that he was now hoof-deep in toilet liquid. Blueblood sprinted on ahead into the darkness, quickly disappearing from sight. The sound of water splashing under Blueblood’s every step echoed back through the canal.

Thorax and Shining stared in the direction Blueblood had galloped down. Neither knew quite what to make of what had just happened. They both exchanged a confused, wordless glance while they listened to Blueblood’s hoofsteps begin to fade away.

But before the sound of Blueblood’s hooves in the water could completely fade, it did something else. The sound abruptly stopped. There was a loud, heavy splash.

And instead of Blueblood’s hooftseps resuming, they were replaced by the sound of dozens of hooves walking through the water. And this sound wasn’t fading away; it was getting closer.

“Something’s coming,” Shining said in a cautious whisper.

“Should we do something?” Thorax whispered back.

“Probably,” Shining said.

Thorax and Shining Armor stood there doing nothing as the hoofsteps grew closer. Then, out of the darkness, they emerged; six masked figures wearing long, scarlet cloaks. Each one of the figures had a long pair of horns extending out from under their hood and pointing up at the ceiling. They were all taller than ponies, but not quite as tall as Thorax.

The figures came to a stop a short distance away. Shining could see the unconscious body of Blueblood being carried on the back of the cloaked stranger in front. Shining could tell right away that it probably hadn’t taken much to knock Blueblood out.

For a while, nocreature said anything. The two groups stared at each other uncertainly for what felt like minutes. As the tension slowly build, Shining began to work up the nerve to speak.

Shining Armor cleared his throat. “Who are—”

“No one.” The lead figure said quickly. His voice was shockingly normal-sounding; it kind of ruined how intimidating he looked. “We’re no one.”

“Yeah,” another one of the figures said. “We’re definitely not a cult.”

“And we don’t live down here,” another one added.

“Certainly not!” The lead figure laughed. “That would be weird, right?”

Shining and Thorax exchanged another look. The Changeling leader lifted a hoof and pointed at the unconscious body of Blueblood that the group’s leader was carrying.

“What’s that about?”

None of the masked figures spoke right away.

“… What’s what about?” The lead figure asked slowly. He lifted a foreleg up and tried to block Blueblood from sight with the long sleeve of his cloak. “I don’t know what you mean.”

It was becoming fairly obvious to Shining Armor that there was something suspicious about these guys. Wearing masks and robes was definitely a red flag. They were also very clearly kidnapping Blueblood, but that wasn’t really important. What was important was finding out if they had anything to do with the princesses disappearing.

These guys were on-guard, though. Shining would need to ask the right questions if he wanted to get them to talk.

“Hey,” Shining said. “Do you have anything to do with the princesses disappearing?”

“No,” one of the figures said.

“Yeah, sorry,” the leader added. “That wasn’t us. I mean, we’re working to bring about the downfall of Equestria, but we didn’t actually have anything to do with that.”

Thorax blinked. “… You’re working to do what to Equestria?”

“THEY’RE ONTO US!” The lead figure shrieked. He lifted a robed foreleg up and pointed a hoof at Shining and Thorax. “Marcel! Danielle! Get the kidnapping sack!”

As soon as the order was given, two of the robed figures stepped forward. They carried between them a large burlap sack, much like the kind that might be used for carrying potatoes or burying a body. The two figures began to ominously approach Shining and Thorax, pointing the opening of the bag at them menacingly.

“Uh… Shining?” Thorax whispered. “Should we do something?”

“No,” Shining said. “I want to see where they’re going with this.”

Marcel and Danielle continued to slowly walk towards Shining and Thorax. They moved so slowly that if Shining Armor or Thorax actually tried at all to run away, they definitely would have been able to avoid what happened next.

But they didn’t, and so they got shoved in a burlap bag. Absolutely no one was happy about this outcome.

Comments

[Deergenerate]

This story is perfect.

[redsquirrel456]

“No,” Shining said. “I want to see where they’re going with this.”

You're not the only one, Shining. Also that is probably the best reaction to getting kidnapped I have ever seen put to paper. Screen? You know what I mean.

[Ploish]

“It does!” Blueblood pointed out. “She vanished when Nightmare Moon attacked. She’s been abducted by that bug lady. Tirek sent her to jail for a while. The Storm King turned her into tasteful art.

The time she got tangled up in vines...

[42Zombies]

9904492
The other time she got abducted by the bug lady...

[Aotrs Commander]

Canterlot!

Canterlot!

Canterlot!

...

Actually, on second thought, Canterlot is a very silly place.