• Published 20th Jan 2013
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The Golden Armor - Comet Burst



Comet and Angel are two guard recruits who learn about life and love in Canterlot Castle.

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At the Gala (part 3)

The music played softly in the background as Princess Luna shuffled uneasily around the countless ponies who all made a point of bowing at her and commenting about how lovely the moon was tonight. All the poor princess of the night could do was graciously accept compliment after compliment as she tried to make her way over to her sister. Luna was late to the Gala, her first ever, and cursed herself for taking the back entrance through the gardens. As the midnight blue alicorn tried walking at an even pace, she soon found it fruitless to go against the tide of incoming ponies. Sighing to herself, she turned around and trotted over to the grand ballroom.

The ballroom was done in a spectacular fashion. Large tapestries bearing the Equestrian Royal Seal and images of both Princess Celestia and herself hung in a wide array around the room. The brilliant full moon she had worked on raising shone like the sun through the three story tall windows. A magnificent fountain sat in the middle of the ballroom, glittering wonderfully. Up on the stage, several ponies played a soft tune as one brilliant white unicorn sat behind them. She had on a rather large set of purple hued glasses and had the most outrageous mane Luna had ever seen. Electric blue and spikey, Luna secretly wondered if she could do the same with her own mane. However, the pony seemed more enraptured by another one onstage, a gray pony with a long black mane playing a cello. Luna couldn't tell what the white unicorn was thinking, but she somehow didn't want to know. What ponies did with their lives didn't concern her.

Upon realizing she was staring at the band, Luna quickly blushed and moved over to her table, a rather large banquet table with a squishy chair in her favorite color, onyx. As she sat in the chair, she felt her rump sink in slightly and wiggled it back and forth, making herself comfortable. Once she was, several stewards came by and offered her various things. Luna graciously accepted a moon pie, her favorite treat, and a cup of sparkling grape juice. As she munched on her treat, her magnificent sapphire eyes scanned the crowd of ponies. Several night guards strolled up and took positions around the lunar princess, staying as rigid as they could. Hazarding a try at conversation, Luna cleared her throat and spoke in the Royal Canterlot voice. "HOW IS THOU TODAY?"

Apparently, every pony in a twenty foot radius thought she was talking to them and got a jumbled response from all of them, excluding the guards she was trying to talk to. Luna smiled awkwardly and gave a nice reply before sipping on her juice again. Celestia had insisted this was how Luna could connect to their subjects more, but the princess of the night had never felt more alone. She sat at the table, munching away at her moon pie and occasionally glanced back at her only real friend, the brilliantly glowing rock behind her. However, upon returning her attention to the Gala, she thought she saw a pony she recognized. He was a light blue unicorn with wavy white hair, brown eyes, an hourglass cutie mark and a red jacket. Luna blinked twice before he disappeared, sure she knew that pony.

On the other side of the castle, right near the entrance, Princess Celestia stood gracefully, smiling and personally welcoming every pony that arrived. Her guards, a unicorn and a pegasus, stood attentive at her side, glaring at each pony walking up. Celestia had not wanted them there, but Shining Armor had insisted at least two guards be there to protect her. He had said there was a threat against herself and her sister, as well as her niece, but Celestia tried to shrug it off. She was used to threats against herself and her ponies after a thousand years of dealing with the stiff necked Gryphon Kingdom, the proud tribes of the Marengeti and even the race of horses over in Saddle Arabia. Thankfully, diplomacy from the pony who raised the sun always won out, but there were several instances she had to martial the Royal Army to be sure. Celestia shook her head slightly, bobbing her beautiful flowing mane of green, pink, indigo and blue. She kept her regal smile and continued to greet the ponies, one by one.

Unknown to either princess or their niece and her husband, Gorgon licked her lips in anticipation. She stood in line to enter the Gala, cloaked as some rich pony she had knocked out. Without them knowing, her group of changelings had successfully infiltrated the Royal Guard. They had built up enough store of love to power them through the entire attack and were now in place. This was to be her shining moment, the day she had done what her mother, Queen Chrysalis, could not. Hopefully, by taking control of the royal sisters and all of Canterlot, the changeling princess could gain her mother's approval. She danced nervously in her disguise, slightly raising and lowering her hooves. The other ponies, the snobbish lot, sniffed at her and even asked if she could hold it in. Gorgon grumbled to herself, wishing she could retaliate. However, she needed to keep her cover, at least until she was at the princess.

After what felt like hours, Gorgon was next in line to meet the princess. Her newest little pet was right where she wanted him, next to the princess. Comet, what she thought was his name, stared off blankly into space, not even making eye contact with her. The other guard, Hilgrind, pretended to check another faceless guest for weapons. Gorgon had to admit, both of her pawns looked rather stunning in their armor, Comet in particular. He had a freshly forged spear that crackled every now and then with a small arc of electricity, wore no helmet but had on a new armor piece that had a larger collar, covered his entire back and held the usual turquoise star in the front. When the pony in front of her walked in, Gorgon gulped. It was now her turn to greet the princess. Trotting slowly, Gorgon reviewed the spell she had to use to subdue Celestia in her head, making sure she could cast it quickly. Her whelp, Hilgrind, flicked his eyes up at her and gave a small nod. He was ready.

"Hello," came the almost ethereal voice of the solar princess, "Welcome to the Grand Galloping Gala, Miss DeTrostky." The beautiful princess gave her sincere and serene smile to Gorgon's disguise and the changeling princess smiled back.

"I am well received, my liege," she droned in her best sarcasm. She knelt slightly and locked eyes with the princess of the sun. She saw the princess begin to narrow her eyes and knew it was time. Drawing upon her stores of love, Gorgon gritted her teeth and a bolt of green magic struck the princess between the eyes. A small sense of satisfaction came from watching the eyes of the solar princess widen before rolling up. Gorgon had practiced that spell for weeks for this very moment. As the princess began to slump, Hilgrind jumped up and grabbed the solar princess and Gorgon shot another bolt of magic. Celestia was too powerful for a simple stunning spell to work, so she began to recover as Gorgon worked on subduing her mind. Somewhere behind her, she could hear ponies screaming and running, but her focus was containing over a thousand years worth of knowledge in the princess's mind. Every time Gorgon felt she had the advantage, Celestia would push back with some mental discipline she had learned.The princess bucked wildly, trying to throw off Hilgrind as Gorgon slowly began to gain control over her. The princess was not invincible, though. Using her full stores of Comet's love, Gorgon finally gained the leeway she was looking for and the solar princess slumped to the floor.

Gorgon breathed heavily, trying to recover her own stamina. The princess wasn't easy to subdue, several hundred times harder than the average pony. However, subduing normal ponies minds was too easy. Panting, she nodded to Hilgrind who let loose a horrible screech, silencing the ponies inside. As they looked around, the guards all nodded to each other and at once, all the guards began firing off green bolts of magic, even the pegasus guards. Ponies began to fall over, stunned, while others ran around, screaming in panic. Luna barely had time to react as her own guards turned around and shot her with the bolts of magic. With her mind suddenly blank and an inability to move her own limbs, Luna watched as several more guards rushed over and jumped up on the table, firing more bolts. Being an alicorn, Luna had a strong resistance to magic, like her sister Celestia. However, she was not impervious and after repeated blasts without one of her own in return, the lunar princess began to feel sleepy. She could faintly hear Shining Armor's voice, shouting something unintelligible before she felt herself fall asleep.

Shining Armor gritted his teeth as he looked around. None of his guards were responding to his commands and he had no idea what was going on. Surrounding himself with a magical shield, he ran off to find the princesses before the situation got any worse. Upon reaching the front door, his already pearly white coat paled even further as he saw a pony erupt into green flames, shedding its disguise along with a guard. When the flames vanished, a changeling queen along with a worker stood there, grinning at each other as they walked over to the unconscious form of Princess Celestia. Feeling a couple of pings from behind, Shining turned to see a horde of changelings, each wearing the golden armor of the Royal Guard, charging at him. "No way!" was all he managed to shout before the horde descended upon him. Without releasing the shield, Shining fought back the changelings. He wasn't Captain of the Guard for nothing. He delivered several swift hoofs to the faces of the changelings, which had run through his shield. It was meant to deflect magic, not actual beings, so it was almost useless now. Drawing upon his store of magic, Shining felt himself float for a couple of seconds before landing in the ballroom. Luckily, his magical wards would not prevent teleportation spells, something he had in place in case of emergencies like this.

"Princess Luna! We have to go! Now!" he shouted anxiously, running over to the table to find her. He had cast a spell which allowed him to locate the princesses easily long ago, but to his horror he found her in the center of a circle of buzzing changelings, each in the Night Guard's armor. Cursing to himself, he charged the changelings, attempting to break their circle. Instead, more changelings seemed to pour out of nowhere, each trying to hit him with magic. Deterred by the sheer number of changelings, Shining backed away and shouted, "Cadance! Where are you?!"

A soft voice responded from over the loud buzzing and screaming. "AH! Shining, help me!"

Spinning around, he saw his beautiful pink wife backed against a corner while she tried to fend off the changeling's magic with the same shield Shining was using himself. Cowering behind her were several ponies, each too terrified to do anything. Reacting instinctively, Shining ran to his wife, determined to protect her. "Get the buck away from my wife!" he shouted with a voice that shook the room. The changelings spun around and frowned as he charged. The first few ducked out of his way, but he didn't part the crowd like he had hoped to. Instead, one rather clever one stood its ground and braced itself. By a stroke of luck or cosmic bodies aligning, the changeling shot a bolt of magic at Shining the split second its horn passed through his shield. The green bolt of magic flew forward and struck the captain in his chest, causing him to stumble and let go of the magic keeping his spell up.

"Shining!" Cadance screamed as he slid forward and the entire changeling crowd jumped on him. She watched in horror as her husband was mercilessly shot by bolt after bolt of magic, just like her aunt. Turtling behind her shield, a couple of tears fell from her big purple eyes as she watched them slowly form a circle around him, keeping him in a trance, just like Luna. The rest growled angrily as they shot a couple of bolts at her, but they bounced uselessly against the shield.

As Gorgon strode into the Gala, she noted all the unconscious ponies, as well as her soldiers saluting her. Her pet, Comet, followed behind her, lost in a trance with his eyes glowing green. Slowly, she began to laugh to herself as the full gravity of what she had done hit her. She and her whelps had surprised Canterlot castle, overpowered the princesses and now were feeding off of countless ponies, restoring their used up caches of food. Her laugh got louder and soon became a cackle as she stood near the glorious golden fountain. Her changelings buzzed in approval as four dragged in Princess Celestia by her mane and tail, eventually depositing her next to her precious sister, Luna.

"The time of Celestia and Luna is over," she mused to herself, "Now, the age of Chrysalis and Gorgon will begin." Turning to Comet, she extended a hoof and raised his chin to meet her face. "And it wouldn't be possible without you, my dear. You gave me so much food to defeat Celestia, I will reward you. You will be my pet, forever." The changeling princess slowly leaned over to kiss him and just before she did, a new voice rang out.

"I swear to Celestia, I will KILL you if you touch him again!" came an unfamiliar voice. Comet's eyes began to focus as Gorgon pulled away, searching for the voice.

"Angel..." he moaned softly.

Much to Gorgon's horror, a large group of ponies stood at the entryway, all glaring furiously at the horde of changelings. A bat pony in full armor stared directly at her, along with a rather angry looking gryffon. The loud cry of a phoenix echoed into the hall as the normally beautiful bird was literally on fire, staring dead at Gorgon. The tension in the room built to a breaking point in several quick seconds, just as the bat pony yelled one word.

"Charge!"

Author's Note:

This may feel slightly rushed, but it's how I envisioned this chapter.