A Journey Unthought Of: Revival of Chaos

by Hustlin Tom

Chapter 3

Shining Armor had taken his orders to secure Canterlot to the best of his ability very seriously. After what had happened to his fiancé, in what he and many others believed to be an assassination attempt on Princess Cadence, he was ready to take Canterlot directly into Siege Mode. He had been assured, however, that this was not necessary, but that did not stop him from conjuring up a city wide shield that proved theoretically impervious to all aerial assault, making a Griffon attack impossible. The towers of Canterlot had been hastily electro-plated by the Royal Science Division with a substance that they had taken to calling ‘Arcanium’, an element that their metallurgists had fabricated many years ago to conduct magical energy for experimental purposes. The magenta colored shield had been holding steadily for the past two weeks now, but it required continuous charging by Shining Armor, who was now beginning to have frequent migraines as a result of his continued subconscious exertion. The migraines had started about the same time that he had begun to experience strange thoughts, thoughts that spoke in a sweet but malevolent voice to lower the shield. He of course ignored those strange impulses. Perhaps, he thought to himself, the strain of keeping the shield raised was started to cause him to have hallucinations. He didn’t like the sound of that, but he told no one about this development.

He had just sent out two small detachments of Royal Guardsponies to their posts, when he heard a familiar voice calling out from the courtyard below him, “I’ve got something to say to you, mister!”

The voice was highly agitated, but it was unmistakable; it was his sister, Twilight Sparkle. Some of the more inexperienced or eager guardsponies lowered their pikes to the lavender unicorn, but he silently order them to stand down.

“Twily!” Shining Armor said as he quickly made his way down a nearby staircase to greet his little sister, “Aw, I’ve missed you, kid! How was the train ride? I-“

Twilight irately stopped him right in his tracks, “How dare you not tell me in person that you were getting married? I’m your sister, for pony’s sake!”

Shining Armor was stunned a little by the realization that he had indeed forgotten to do just that, but he quickly recovered his thought process, “It’s not my fault! Princess Celestia has requested a major increase in security. Didn’t you see all the guards at the train station?”

“Yeah! There’s a big wedding coming up. Maybe you heard about it?” replied Twilight in frustration as he trotted away from her brother to look down into a small pool of water nearby.

“It has nothing to do with the wedding,” Shining Armor said as he came over to stand in front of his disgruntled sister, “A threat has been made against Canterlot.”

This grabbed Twilight’s attention rather quickly, “A threat? What kind of threat? By who?”

Shining Armor shook his head, “What little we do know, I can’t say. I can tell you this much; we don’t ultimately know who’s responsible for it, but Princess Celestia asked that I offer additional protection.” He realized it was now about time to offer his energies to the shield for the day. “This, you need to see.” he said to Twilight, who now gave him her full attention.

Shining Armor prepared his stance, and after a few moments of concentration, a magenta light pulsated off of his horn. Twilight covered her eyes as the spell became brighter and brighter. After he was sure he had received enough energy from his magical reserves, he fired a pulse of pure energy into the sky. The packet of energy hit the large spherical shield, causing it to momentarily ripple as it received its recharge for the next twenty four hours. His task complete, Shining Armor dissipated the spell from his horn. A lightning burst of pain hit across his sinuses and brain, and he had to momentarily rub the sides of his head to dull the awful sensation back to manageable levels.

“Shiny, are you okay?” Twilight asked with an edge of concern in her voice.

He shook his head, “Yeah. I’m fine.” He slowly began to walk back up to the balcony at which he had originally been standing, and Twilight followed, lengthening her pace so that she would be right beside him. He sighed deeply as he looked to Twilight, “The burden of keeping Canterlot safe and secure rests squarely on my shoulders. Staying focused on the task at hand has been my top priority.”

Twilight slowed her pace a little as she felt momentarily guilty for what she had said, but after realizing her brother had continued on to begin the climb to one of the overlooking tower outposts, she quickly caught pace with him once again. As they approached the center of the bridge that the nearest guard tower joined to an adjacent tower, Twilight’s feelings of guilt came out as a sigh.

She looked to her brother, “Okay, okay, I get it. You’ve got a really important job of protecting all of Canterlot with a force field only you can conjure up!” She then looked down to the passing squad of guardsponies trotting below, “But still, how could you not tell me about something as big as your wedding?” Twilight looked up to her brother with eyes that showed how emotionally hurtful his absentmindedness had made her feel. “Am I not that important to you anymore?” she asked with eyes full of sadness; was she being shoved out of his life in favor of this new mare?

“Hey,” Shining Armor replied without skipping a beat as he placed his hoof on her shoulder, “you’re my little sister. Of course you’re important to me!” A mischievous smile suddenly began to grow across his face, “Buuut, I’d understand if,” he momentarily paused, “you didn’t want to be my best mare now.” He looked expectantly at his sister with a goofy smile.

Twilight realized what her brother was asking of her, “You want me to be your best mare?”

Shining Armor scoffed to himself a little as Twilight caught his meaning, “Well, yeah!” and he smiled.

Twilight smiled happily as she took a little bow while holding her left hoof over her chest, “I’d be honored!” The two siblings then gave each other a small but meaningful embrace. The hug was broken when Twilight shoved Shining Armor in the chest, “But I’m still pretty ticked that you’re marrying somepony I don’t even know! When did you even meet this ‘Princess Mi Amore Cadenza’?!”

---

Queen Chrysalis, still disguised as the lovely Princess Cadence, had seen the flash of light that signified that the shield around Canterlot had been recharged. She was not pleased with this turn of events. She had of course known that the security would escalate after the body of the dead Griffon assassin was found in her room. She had not anticipated such a heavy handed response by her delicious little Shining Armor. Day and night she had been draining him of his love while simultaneously brainwashing him to lower the force field, but he had not succumbed. It was a mixed blessing; Shining Armor obviously had so much love for dear Cadence that he would not do anything that could even indirectly lead to her harm, so even though she had enough love to distribute to her Changelings to feed each of them for a month, they were not able to breach the shield at all. Her only allies in all of Canterlot were Pupa, disguised as Fancy Pants, and Larva, who had been spiking Princess Celestia’s food with her royal jelly for the past few weeks. Should battle take place between herself and this Sun Princess, she had every confidence she would win.

Having just reached the top of the stairs to the tower, the imposter Princess Cadence almost ran into a lavender unicorn mare who had been conversing with her ‘fiancé’ until the strange pony had nearly jumped right into her face.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything important,” the pink and purple alicorn said with a mild tone of accusation.

The lavender unicorn, overjoyed to see her, began to do a bizarre set of moves to a nonsensical rhyme, “Sunshine, Sunshine. Ladybugs, awake! Clap your hooves and do a little shake!”

Confused by this previously unmentioned custom of greeting, Princess Cadence asked, “What are you doing?”

The strange unicorn was slightly startled by her reaction, which was than replaced by a smile, “Cadence, it’s me; Twilight!”

“Ahuh,” she replied as she walked past the unusual ‘Twilight’ to join her husband to be.

Unaware of his fiance’s uncharacteristically rude behavior, Shining Armor wrapped a foreleg around Princess Cadence as he smiled at his sister, “I’ve got to get back to my station. But Cadence will be checking in with all of you to see how things are going. I think I speak for the both of us when I say; we couldn’t be more excited to have you here.” He then looked to his fiancé, “Right dear?”

Princess Cadence smiled at Twilight in a way that screamed ‘He’s mine now. Back off.’ “Absolutely!”

Twilight was surprised to an even greater degree than she had been before, and her confusion was growing likewise.

Still oblivious to the subtle change in Princess Cadence’s attitude, he smiled and offered, “Well, we’ll let you get to it!” as he and his wife to be turned to the doorway of one of the towers to exit downward to the street below.

As they made their way down the staircase, Princess Cadence suddenly forced Shining Armor against the wall.

Alarmed, Shining Armor asked in bewilderment, “Cadence, what are you doing?”

He was cut off of any further complaints that he might have had by his fiancé’s eerily green spell. Princess Cadence’s eyes flashed green as her hypnotic power seized the Captain of the Royal Guard. She chuckled to herself, “I’m draining you dry, my love. Now, let’s talk about your work; you look very stressed!”

Comments

[Hustlin Tom]

2325306
Oh no! Please don't die. I would be very sadface if you did.