The Adventures of Silent Shot (or, 014 Reporting for Duty)

by Bronze Statue

Chapter 1: The Hooded Pony

The Adventures of Silent Shot (or, 014 Reporting for Duty)
By: Bronze Statue and lordvad3r95
Chapter 1: The Hooded Pony

Shining Armor sighed. It had been two weeks since his wife officially became the Empress of the Crystal Empire, and it was time for him to formally resign as captain of the Royal Guard and turn in all papers associated with the post. He still felt loyal to Equestria of course, but his duty was to the Crystal Empire now. Glancing at the clock tower, he noticed that his little detour through the park had caused him to be late for his scheduled meeting with the Princess.

“Dammit! That stupid ‘shortcut’ made me late. If I don’t hurry, I’ll have to wait until Monday to file that paperwork.”

Unbeknownst to the captain, however, someone had other plans for those papers. A hooded stallion was watching Shining from within a large oak tree. Watching his target pass under that tree, the mysterious stallion mentally counted to ten, then silently swooped down and landed behind Shining. Lighting up his horn, the assassin unsheathed two hidden blades. Shining Armor stopped at the noise and whirled around, preparing to surprise his attacker with a quick spell. Before he could fire up the spell or call for help, however, the hooded unicorn quickly stabbed him twice in the foreleg. Shining Armor tumbled, barely letting out a cry of pain. The hooded unicorn then spun around and bucked the captain in the ribs. Just to make sure that Shining Armor couldn’t escape, the hooded unicorn held a rag to Shining’s face. Shining Armor struggled for a few short seconds, then collapsed unconscious. The hooded unicorn wasted no time and immediately began rummaging through the captain’s saddlebags. Among pictures of Shining’s family -Hm, so his sister really is one of the other targets, and not just an alternate means to get to him, the hooded unicorn thought- and various letters of correspondence to the Equestria Games Committee, he found what he was looking for; a single scroll with a wax seal that said “TOP SECRET” on it.

“Well, that was easy,” the hooded unicorn said to himself in an Istallian accent, chuckling as he did so. He loomed over Shining Armor’s unconscious body and raised a foreleg to snap his neck. Just as he was about to finish the job, however, he heard somepony shouting.

“In the name of Princess Celestia: HALT, criminal scum! Man, I’ve always wanted to say that.” The Royal Guard had finally arrived on the scene. Since he had what he came for, the would-be assassin decided to leave instead of facing a small company of guardsponies; large numbers are much harder to cover up. He spread his wings and flew off into the night, leaving the guards that had gotten closer to the scene of the crime to stare in bewilderment; they could have sworn that the criminal was a unicorn.

---

Nothing ever happens around here anymore, thought Clean Forceps, the surgeon on call during the graveyard shift at Canterlot Emergency hospital. Maybe I should move to Detrot. At least my talents won’t be going to waste. Maybe I’ll just take a nap. He was just closing his eyes when the doors to the hospital burst open. Probably some rich colt fell and got a scrape, I’ll let somepony else handle it, Forceps thought, until he heard the commotion.

“I saw the pony who attacked the captain use magic, Princess! He was a unicorn!” one of the two guards, a pegasus, shouted as he saluted the Princess.

“No he wasn’t, you dolt! He flew off, so he must have been a pegasus!” the other guard, a unicorn, countered.

One of the Princesses is here? And the Captain of the Royal guard is injured?! “I know I shouldn’t be this excited about an injured pony, but I’m finally going to actually do what I signed up for!” Dr. Forceps jumped up and rushed to the waiting room. He carefully opened the door, and was instantly hit with the sound of two royal guards arguing more loudly than he had ever heard anypony argue, and he was from Bucklyn! I’ll just wait until they’re done to ask what the problem is. I don’t want to lose my hearing. Clean Forceps quickly closed the door, making the cacophony more manageable.

“Unicorn!”

“Pegasus!”

“Unicorn!”

“Pegasus!”

“Unicorn!”

“PEGASUS!”

“UNICORN!”

“PEGASUS!”

“Both of you, please be quiet. Your bickering is hurting my head. He’s probably like my wife; a winged unicorn,” the injured captain muttered from the stretcher.

The guards stopped arguing, and immediately felt sheepish. Princess Celestia’s expression darkened.

“Are you absolutely certain that the stallion that attacked you was a winged unicorn?” Celestia asked.

“I couldn’t see his wings, since he wore a hooded cloak. But it would make sense, wouldn’t it? Princess? I know I’m not one to talk, but are you okay?”

The princess’ normally calm demeanor had shifted. Her eyes widened, and she started looking around as if expecting somepony to jump out and attack at any moment. “Guards, contact Night Watcher. We have a situation that requires the Agency.”

“A-are you sure that’s necessary, Your Majesty?” the second guard asked, suddenly feeling very timid; nopony felt comfortable approaching Night Watcher.

“Yes. If this would-be assassin is who I think he is, then the situation is very dire and time is of the essence,” Celestia said. When neither of the guards moved, she urged, “Get going!” The two guards snapped to attention, and ran out of the hospital.

“You can come in now, doctor,” Celestia said. Clean Forceps jumped a bit from behind the door, then chided himself. Of course Princess Celestia saw me. He steeled himself, then opened the door to the waiting room.

“Doctor Clean Forceps at you service, Your Highness,” he said with a bow. “What seems to be the” -he looked up and saw the battered body of Shining Armor- “problem?” Forceps began assessing the battered captain’s condition. Even though it had been nearly a decade since he last had to actually identify anything besides a scraped knee or fractured leg, he was able to identify the wounds and damage as if he saw such things every day; diagnosis was, after all, his special talent. After a very short time, Dr. Forceps turned and faced Princess Celestia. “From what I can see, Captain Shining Armor has sustained multiple instances of proximal puncture trauma to the left anterior leg, possibly resulting in arteriolysis, severe blunt force trauma resulting in costripsy to right ribs three through nine.” For some reason, Dr. Forceps couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d heard of a similar case earlier in his career.

The princess nodded and said, “That’s very nice. Now, could you be so kind as to tell me what happened to him?”

If anypony other than Princess Celestia had asked him that, he would have rolled his eyes at them. As it was, he simply sighed and said in a monotone voice, “He was stabbed multiple times in the left foreleg near the joint. This may have severed an artery. He was also either hit with a blunt object or kicked in the ribs, which shattered more than half of his right ribs.” The doctor paused, realizing exactly what those injuries reminded him of. He gulped then said, “If I may ask, Your Highness, what was he doing? These wounds look similar to the ones Doctor Natural Causes discovered during her autopsy of Marelyn Maneroe twelve years ago!”

The princess leaned over to Clean Forceps. “I trust that you won’t repeat anything that you hear tonight,” Princess Celestia whispered.

“Of course.”

“It was an assassination attempt by the same pony that murdered Miss Maneroe,” Celestia said.

Clean Forceps gasped sharply. “Does that mean that-”

“Yes; Unless his methods have changed since he was last active, you’ll find traces of resiniferatoxin in the stab wounds, so time is of the essence. The Crown will pay you for your services, of course,” the Princess said.

“I’ll get right to it, Your Highness,” Dr. Forceps said. Celestia thanked him and left. The doctor grabbed his pager. “IV Drip! Test Results! Help me move this patient; we’ve got a surgery to perform!”

Comments

[Bronze Statue]

What, you say? Author gets first comment? . Now, commence to start clarifications.
In this story, there is an important difference between a winged unicorn and an alicorn. An alicorn cannot die of old age. They have the strength and endurance of Earth Ponies, the flight ability of Pegasi, and the magic of Unicorns. They are extremely hard to wound, but can be killed. A winged unicorn, however, is just a Unicorn with wings. They can fly and cloud-walk, but they can’t actually manipulate the weather. They also don't have the innate strength and endurance of Earth Ponies. The only two alicorns in the story are Celestia and Luna, and there will be no Twilicorn in this story, despite references to her transformation in this chapter. (I may change my mind later in the story/in a possible sequel. I don't know yet.) Winged unicorns are also rare, but not quite as rare as alicorns are.
I took "keter" from the SCP creepypastas. Yes, I know that it's actually Hebrew for "crown." Both meanings apply (they are the "crowns" of their organization, and they are ridiculously dangerous. It just isn't apparent yet.)

[Invisible Cadance]

This review is brought to you on behalf of the group: Authors Helping Authors

The Adventures of Silent Shot (or, 014 Reporting for Duty)

Grammar: 7

Pros:
Interesting dialogue.

A good mix between show and tell.

A very interesting and intriguing start on the story.

Cons:
Words that should be capitalised aren't.

Lack of explanation on some important things. The Winged Unicorns for example need more of an explanation, especially since they're not a part of the show.

The narrative mode is confusing at times.

Notes: The story seems to be built upon a third person limited narrative, but at the start of the story is where this becomes confusing. It switches from limited to universal omniscient and then back to limited again. This is only an issue at first, but it can be enoug to put off a reader.

I'm also a bit confused with the hooded pony flying away. With the way winged animal works, the guard pony who saw the hooded should have seen the wings when the hooded one took flight.

Despite that, the story is off to an interesting start. You have a quite good grammatical sense which benefits the story a lot. Keep the work up with future chapters and this can go nowhere but forward.

That's it for my poor review. Hope you liked it. If you don't mind I could use a review on Forgotten Kingdom.

[Bronze Statue]

2466963 Thank you very much for the review . Thankfully since so few people have seen this fic, vad3r and I can probably tweak it a bit.

[Invisible Cadance]

2466984
You're welcome. I was a bit surprised to see how little notice this story had gotten when I found it in the folder. Thought I might as well leave a review. It's what the group is for after all. To help people with their writing. Goes both ways.

[Flutterkip]

This review is brought to you on behalf of the group: Authors Helping Authors

Name of Story: The Adventures of Silent Shot (or, 014 Reporting for Duty)
Grammar: 8
Pros:
The Dialogue between characters is done really well
The story moved at a nice pace
The story overall had me hooked from the start
Cons:
Some elements needed a little more explaining, for example, What is a Winged Unicorn?
Some things need to be capitalized that aren't (Princess near the end)
Explain the Surroundings a little more.

Notes: Overall this story has me interested and has earned a Favourite and Like from me and I hope that the rest of the story goes well.

I rather enjoyed the 'Doctor Forceps' character and the personality he had. I don't know if it was because of his sassy nature or if his way of thinking is mainly my way of thinking, but something about him just makes me want to see more of him.

The Hooded Assassin could of been explained more in the story, and this may just be me being an idiot, but what's the Equestria Games Committee? I've never heard of it before :/

I hope this review was helpful to you and I can't wait to see more of this story. Also, if you don't mind, could you check out my story The Three Hardest Words? I've had pretty much even likes and dislikes on it and I'd like to know what I need to improve upon.

[Bronze Statue]

2502527
The Equestria Games Committee is that thing that was mentioned in Season 3 when the Mane 6 went back to the Crystal Empire to help Cadance with stuff. Miss Harshwhinny was from it, remember?
Also, I received a suggestion from Invisible Cadance as to how to explain the Winged Unicorn thing.
Thank you very much for the review