Chapter eighteen

After letting the two mares be to themselves. Shining and Flash take a stroll around the castle, checking the usual in terms of his duty. All the while talking to the sentry before him as the guard bites his lips nervously to the point that blood can be tasted in his mouth. Even though it’s more of a lecture then anything that Flash listens to, as Shining Armor tells him what he expects.

“My sister has always been able to take care of herself, even if a particular older brother would still look out over her,” he trails off as they walk down the corridors, getting passed by a few guards saluting the two higher ups. “Although from here you can imagine that is rather hard to do. So Celestia has thought it needed to have another pony look over her faithful student, and it’s thanks to my loving wife that you have been brought to that position…”

So far Flash has remained silently listening to the rambling of the older brother, and with every little word spoken. The Pegasus feels the fire underneath him growing larger and larger from the captain slowly cooking him as he draws to the inevitable conclusion that Shining will have his head if anything happens between Twilight and himself.

However that guillotine never comes, and is swept aside by the sound of a single chuckle from the white stallion, “I never said that was a bad thing, Flash,” Shining assures him, “I haven’t seen Twily act the way she does around another colt the way she does with you. Which is honestly something I never thought I’d see her doing period, on that note though,” he stops for a second and puts a single hoof around Flashes shoulder and whispers in his ear to drive the next point home, “Twilight is my baby sister, no matter what she may think. On top of that it seems she has a crush on you, and if you break her heart, I’ll send the entire royal army after your ass,” he says with a scary, almost sociopathic smile with no trace of remorse or guilt in those words.

Although he is shaking in his chest and can almost feel the ribs clatter against one another, Flash knows that Shining is looking out for his younger sister, he has come off as the protective brother already. “Understood, Shining Armor… I don’t intend on hurting your sister,” Armor raises a brow, taking note that he didn’t say sir like he told him not to. “I have taken a liking to Princess Twilight, I will admit that, and would be lying if I said I didn’t,” Flash continues standing his ground, and not letting the brother intimidate him… too much, “Though I haven’t told her that. So until then…I only intend on doing what the young Princess asks of me, and being there for her as such.”

“Hmm… just as dependable and reliable from when you worked under me,” Shining says to him, taking the hoof from around his shoulder as they continue to walk, “keep that up, than as far as I’m concerned, you get my approval…in more ways than one,” he leaves off with Sentry stopping mid stride as he tries to process what that means.

“Umm… Shining Armor… does that mean?”

“What do you think? Just don’t buck that one up,” the Captain stops for a second to give him a sneer as he gestures them on down the hall.

The chat between them has changed to something more casual once the matter of the Princess has gotten out of the way. Shining tells him how he managed to work his way through the ranks of the royal guards and up to the position of Captain, even giving some insight on Twilight and how she made it to be Celestia’s student. Afterwards though, Shining asks about Flash and his past, getting to be a guard.

“Well I’m sorry to hear about your parents,” Shining says almost feeling guilty that he asked.

“It’s quite alright,” Flash reassures him, “having nothing to really back to did make it easier to leave all that I ‘had’,”

“Good point,” Shining says before asking something else of the guard, “how did you get introduced to the guard? You said you saw them while younger, but I know they can be rather choosy of who joins their ranks.”

Flash scratches the back of his head, a little embarrassed by the fact of how he did. Considering this part he didn’t tell Twilight, she didn’t ask after all. “Funny story how that turned out… I ah,” he stalls, “got in a bar fight with a few of the guards after trying to talk to them to learn more when I was younger. Turned out that I did pretty well for somepony half their size and in no armor against multiple attackers. Their lieutenant was there and gave me a recommendation.”

Shining starts to crack up over the sheer coincidence of this matter, “seems fate played in your part.”

‘Fate…’ Flash repeats in his head. That seems to be playing a lot in all that’s going on here in his life lately. “It really does,” he says almost speechless as he thinks back to it all over the years.

“Who was the lieutenant?” Armor asks curious.

“Hmm if my memory serves me right, Lt. Broadhead.”

“Ha!” Shining blurts out at the other coincidence of this all, “He was my mentor years back when I was just starting to get in,” the two colts laugh a bit as the tension with Flash talking to the Capt. Is relieved the more the two banter with one another casually.

The two continue to walk down the hallway as they chat back and forth about past experiences. Coming across the royal bedroom, and the same guard that was there when Cadance came back from Pony Ville and Canterlot, on watch. Considering that this was his previous duty station before his reassignment, Flash knows a lot of the guards around there and is always ready to say Hi to a friend. “After noon, Bronze Smith” he says to the guard in passing, “how is the wife and foal?”

“Oh the wife? Same old same old, though our little Filly is just great,” the guard answers as Flash with Shining walk away. It take a few seconds for those words to register, but then something clicks in Sentries head, slowly turning around to look at the guard at his post.

“Smith…” he calls out raising a hoof at the guard in question, “what’s your foal’s name?”

The watch doesn’t move, all he does is stand there at first with his eyes forward, avoiding the colt’s glare before he mutters, “ahh…”

Once though he sees that Flash starts to walk closer and closer to him. It doesn’t take long for the guard to realize that the performance is up and takes off down the hall. Shining has no clue what is going on at the moment, even though Flash takes off down the hall after the guard. After seeing the bright orange coat, fly down the hall, literally. He charges off, running as well to try and find out what’s up.

The guard that ran uses his own wings to gallop even harder down the narrow halls that he is still learning, never taking to the sky for fear that he would crash and end up helpless from there. Although Flash knows the halls and passageways like the back of his hoof. The guard in front looks behind him to see where his pursuer is, nearly running head long in to a maid carrying a stack of blankets as a result, the guard leaps over top of her and hits the ground running even faster.

Flash meanwhile is left in the air above as he dive bombs after him. Barely missing the same maid, he falls and uses his weight to tackle the guard down to the ground, pinning him with both hooves. “The gig is up, show yourself!” he screams at the guard. The captive doesn’t respond, only struggles underneath his weight to break free, before Flash hears a voice off to the side.

“Flash! what are you doing!?”

He turns to see Twilight and Cadance standing there as the books hit the ground. As they do though, a single hoof from the sentry on the ground is wiggled free as it’s brought up in to Flash’s face, knocking the helmet clean off to the floor and the guard with it as one of Flash’s nostrils start to bleed. The hit though gives the room needed for the chase to carry on when the lead guard fights to his feet and bolts off.

Twilight’s guard gets his footing in time for Shining to finally catch up to him as they both gallop down the hall towards their target, Flash not even wasting time to put his headdress back on, or give an explanation to the mares.

“What the hay was that all about?” Shining asks as he is neck and neck with the guard.

“I know Bronze Smith, sir” Flash calls back formally as they sprint down the hall, “his foal isn’t a young Filly, but a young Colt… and considering before I left the strange sightings of double ponies and the term changeling being tossed about, I knew something was up.”

Shining makes a mental note to get to know his guards more personally, before picking up some added speed, “Well let’s go get him then!” Shining yells as he passes by Flash, who now uses his wings to put a little more pep in his step.

The guilty sentinel makes a mad dash down the hallways, looking for an out of the maze of a castle. Kicking himself almost at the fact that he didn’t take the time to look over the map and learn it for a quick escape if needed, considering now he needs one more than ever. Even more so regretting that he didn’t take more time at home to learn more of his character than he should have. How could he even make the mistake of calling ‘his’ son a daughter?! He yells at himself. It’s not like the family is ever around now…

Getting out of the halls and in to the main corridor of the castle. He finally manages to get somewhat of an idea where he is. Looking around and seeing the many halls that make up the whole palace. Although it doesn’t take long for the heavy trotting of the two colts in pursuit to catch up to the corridor and try to run him down as they emerge in to the clearing as well. Shining casts a spell from his horn that sends an ice spike hurtling towards the false guard. ‘There’s no point in hiding it now,’ the guard thinks as he changes in to his true form to block the attack with his own magical aura. The ice crystals shatter against the hard green outer shield, as the changeling underneath is reviled to those around.

The Swiss cheese like legs hold up the equally grotesque form of a changeling that has been at this for far too long out of his normal form. The wings have to stretch before he can use them as they were folded up inside the disguise, while his eyes adjust to the light when the vision changed as well. Cracking his neck, the changeling pulls out the sword from its sheath on his side to fight until he fully recovers. The creature stands there and flashes his fangs out as he growls at his opponents, small trickles of saliva running down the sharped edges.

“Come on,” he taunts, tapping the sword on the ground, “I’m ready… how about you?” both Shining and Flash look at one another for but a second before a silent nod between them sets the ball rolling.

Flash draws his sword from its holster, and Shining charges up another attack as the changeling goes on the defense. Using his own magic to counter the brother’s while parrying Flash’s attacks at the same time and rendering most of them useless. Whoever this changeling is, he certainly isn’t a ‘bottom feeder’ like Chrysalis implied with the survival of the fittest logic amongst them. Which makes sense, the queen wouldn’t want such a task as eavesdropping on a royal family to fall in to a subject so low on the totem pole. Flash brings his blade just past the head of the changeling, slicing in to his hear while the creature manages to clip him in the exposed face along his cheek after his helmet was knocked off earlier.

A few drops of red blood for Flash and Green for the creature drip down their wounds before the meager cuts clot up quickly. Though with a healthy roundhouse kick, Sentry is struck in the shoulder and sent spinning, giving a window for the other stallion to take a shot at him. Shining springs up after the changeling back peddles to short and tackles him to the ground, knocking the blade from his grasp, and bringing a hoof up in to his gut at the same time, forcefully discharging the wind out of him. The two go at it for a moment, locking each other’s hooves before releasing and the foe grabs Armor’s head on both sides and head butts him. The action draws the desired response and knocks the Captain off of him. Shining recovers quick, and fires off another ice bolt, freezing the changelings hoof in midair to prevent any attempt to grab his own blade. Though this does stop him at that, it does give him another tool, much to the dismay of another guard.

Using the nearly solid ice block, he sucker punches Flash in the side as he tries to attack once more. Using his now freed hoof to hurtle the sword at Shining, causing it to imbed itself in the ground before him after a quick dodge by some fancy hoof work. Sentry gasps for a quick breath after getting the wind knocked out of him and is kicked off to the side, sliding over to Shining.

“Well this isn’t going as well as I would have thought,” Flash says getting up and taking ahold of his blade.

“Didn’t see him using a pair of ice knuckles, sorry about that one,” Shining says to Flash before breaking out a new trick from his hat.

Bring out a few crystals from the ground below him, and even the changelings sword as well, he hurtles the barrage at the creature. Lining them up like a machine gun. The changeling goes wide eyed as he didn’t see this one coming. Trying to do his best, he uses his own hooves to block a few of the spikes by almost slapping them out of the air to change their trajectory and his own magic to bring out smaller shields left and right to block individual projectiles. All of them missing him by only a few inches as he narrowly scrapes by, well, almost.

A single crystal spike imbeds itself in to the leg of the creature. As a small yelp comes out of his throat, but is quickly suppressed, seeing as this isn’t the time or place to be focusing on it at the moment. Not with two pissed off colts still there.

By the time he comes to and shakes his head violently to try and forget about the pain, the changeling manages to pull the oversized splinter out. However, a few other guards have reached them along with both Princesses as they look on to see what exactly is going on. Seeing their captain fighting with such a creature, the guards immediately jump in to surround him and help however they can, closing the gap to make any attempt the escape on foot pointless. The wounded leg won’t carry him anywhere very fast anyway. Seeing that the short battle is going to go sour here quickly though.

The impersonator jumps out of the circle and stretches his wings out, thanking the time that it had to ready itself for a flight, taking to the air as much as he can to get over them and out to safety. The breeze of the open doors to the palace beckon him to push forward with every flap of his wings as sweet success, on survival at least, is starting to encroach itself on his tongue.

Though he didn’t count on Shining’s wife have such aim…

A single shot of blue magic with a frost shade to it flies through the air as a trail of snowflakes trail behind. The ice sickle hits him square in the wing, splattering across it, and freezing it solid as he loses his flight and falls to the ground.

Cadance stands off to the side as Twilight looks at her seeing the glow in her horn before the crystal princess blows on the tip, “I still got it,” she mutters as they both trot off to see what happened to the changeling and how this all started out in the first place.

The changeling in question lies on the ground in a daze at first before he starts to look at his injuries, weighing out his options. A broken leg from the fall and on top of that a shattered transparent wing that is accustom to their race, but still alive. As the small crowd closes the distance though, the changeling looks up from the ground and sees them. There’s no way out of this, and although the ponies seem cute and weak, he knows they mean business when it comes to protecting their own.

“My queen… forgive me,” he mutters under his breath.

Focusing all his magic he can offer. The changeling charges his horn up one last time, causing it to glow brighter and brighter. Until the climax of the spell causes the energy to back fire in to his own body and fry the inside of his organs for a few seconds. The single shaded eyes burn inside their own sockets, and smoke can even be seen seeping from his mouth and ears as the pain causes him to bite down on his tongue to the point that there would be blood, if it wasn’t clotted by the heat first. The ponies draw close in time to see the smoking pile of flesh hit the ground, now nothing more than a useless piece of trash to be buried.

Shining, Flash and the two Princesses. Along with the other on lookers now gather around the creature. Armor taps the side of the body with his hoof to make sure that it really is dead, as a few mutters and side talk can be heard in the crowd while they all try to find out what exactly happened. Now Twilight looks it over, seeing the remains of the creature that her guard had to deal with not too long ago, before leaning to Flash.

“This is the second incident with a changeling in nearly a week now,” she whispers as he nods in agreement to stay quiet.

Although to her dismay, it’s not as discreet as she thought as Cadance’s hawk like ears pick up on it. “Wait…you mean to tell me that you had something like this happen not too long ago?” she asks. Not even needing an answer from the Princess, or her guard. The look on both their faces says it all as the two ponies’ present grin away from one another with a guilty conscience.

“Well, you recall when I said would tell you why I had an interest in the Changeling spell?” Twilight says rolling her eyes as innocently as she can do at this moment, “well you see…”

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The whole time though that the little fight had taken place, no pony takes notice of the king hiding in the shadows. Following their little plan in term of trying to locate the Tree of Harmony. Sombra has taken the task of searching the Crystal Empire, and relaying the information to the other soldiers under Chrysalis so they can look as well. The king makes his rounds first while the queen stays in the cave, so there is at least one authoritative figure there.

After searching through the castle in his shadow form, he was in the very room that the spy was guarding. Going through the couples drawers to look for any clue that would help, until he heard the Princess’s guard question the watch. That’s when everything went south, and as soon as Shining cleared the door. Sombra went out above them, sticking to the darkness to watch the event unfold. After seeing the fight in the spy, he was a little disappointed to see him commit suicide in order to protect any secrets that Chrysalis has.

‘He was a spry soldier,’ Sombra whispers in his mind, ‘oh well… easy come easy go,’ the king takes his solid form as he tip toes away from the scene.

Turning around a corner and slamming in to a royal guard.

Both the king and guard take a few seconds to realize what happened. Before stumbling to their feet, the more experienced of the two is the first to react, King Sombra takes off his shield and bashes it in to the guards face once more. Knocking a few teeth out in the process while bright red blood dribbles out the side of the guard’s mouth. In a surge of adrenaline though, the pony that just took the hit, bucks the shield off to the side and draws his sword delivering a quick thrust to the king. While Sombra brings out his own blade and slices in to the side of the guard in return.

The only thing the guard can do is take the cut as he feels the blade dig deeper and deeper in to his soft tissue and pullout, ripping all the way. The warm sensation of his life liquid running down his side is ignored as the hormonal drive of the guard enables him to go all out against his attacker. Cleaving his blade left and right at the once ruler of the kingdom that he now tries to protect, the king though has been at this for far longer than the guard will come to know, and manages to dodge back and forth. Using his magic to even make a field around the blade of the guard and rip it from his hooves, the king holds it in midair and thrusting it back at the user.

The smooth blade slides easily down in to the chest cavity, between the neck and shoulder plate. Hitting both the heart and lungs in the same go and causing the guard to collapse to the ground instantly and blood to spurt out over the floor. The look on his face falling as the eyes glass over and remain open only with the expression of a pony that had the life snuffed out of him. Sombra looks down at the opponent that he killed, chuckling at the look on his face and by the fact that he has been killed by his own sword. Although that laugh is short lived when he puts the full weight down on his fore hoof and feels a sharp stabbing pain.

Looking down at his hoof, what he originally thought was the blood of the fallen. Actually comes from the first attack that the guard managed, piercing between the armor plates on his leg and striking deep in to his flesh. The king is surprised that he never noticed the injury, although at the same time not so much seeing that the thrill of the small encounter was enough to get the heart rate going and put him in some sort of war rage where he didn’t notice a sword going through his foot.

“This little, twat,” Sombra scolds the carcass next to him while it just lies there, kicking it for a second with his good hoof, “how dare he strike at the king.”

Tearing a piece off from the guard’s belt, seeing as he won’t be using it any time soon. He puts a tourniquet on his leg to cut off some of the blood spilled, as he changes back in to his shadow form to get to the caves and inform Queen Chrysalis… the spies have been found out.