Cross

Princess Celestia tapped on her chair with her finger in a cascaded rhythm on the arm of her throne. The flowing multi-colored hair danced lazily as her head rested upon her other hand. Her gaze was set firmly on the guard before her. His fiery red head matched with the gold sack coat he wore. The guard stood before the princess in the position of attention. His body cocked straight and his palms facing outward. He kept his face as still as stone, but in his head it was a different story.

'Shit. Shit. Shit .Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.' was all his brain could process. He knew he was in deep trouble. However, maybe this was a good thing. One could only keep a secret for so long.

"So," Princess Celestia said. "How long have you known Cross?"

Crimson Blaze gulped before answering. "Since I was eight, Your Highness."

"Mhmm." was all the princess said. She was silent for a long time before asking, "So, you knew him all of your life. And it never occurred to you that you should tell 'someone' about him?"

"He wasn't really relevant to anything." the guard said flatly.

The sun goddess perked her eyebrows at that. "Nothing?" she said. "He wasn't relevant to 'anything' at all'?" an annoyed smile spread across her face.

"No, Your Highness." Blaze stood firm. "He was irrelevant."

That annoyed smile stuck to the princess' face. "You do know he is a changeling, right?"

"Well, of course, princess." the solar guards tone made it sound like the answer was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Then why is it that you see him as irrelevant?" The sun goddess asked coyly.

"Well, Your Highness, Cross is a bounty hunter." Crimson Blaze said to state the obvious first so his mind could catch up. "He drifts from town to town looking for people to bring in for cash. He doesn't have anything to do with anything outside of himself."

"So, what your saying is that because he is so far under the radar that one would just miss him entirely?" The princess inquired.

Princess Celestia's question was barbed and drenched in poison. Crimson Blaze knew that if he answered wrong, he would be looked at as a traitor, or a conspirator, on the account that he had someone like Cross hidden away. So, he did the only thing he could think of.

"Your Majesty, what is it that you're thinking?" He knew that the only way to win was to play the same game Cross played to get information out of people in his interrogations. Mental Chess.

"Why are you asking me such a question?" the royal asked with a little venom.

"Because, Your Highness, I have reason to believe that you think I'm some sort of traitor." The outburst made him lose his rook, but he knew what was going to happen.

"That seems rather strange that you would say that." the shimmering haired woman chimed. "Because I might have reason to believe that you are." The royal came forward a bit in her chair and propped herself on both her arms on the rests of her throne.

"So, what you're saying is that the whole time I have been enlisted in your 'personal' guard, that I have been in contact with a changeling, and even after the attack on Canterlot, I hid it so well that it took me to reveal myself for you to realize that?" The raised eyebrows he received told him he struck the blow perfectly. Knight takes Bishop.

"You're playing a very dangerous game, I hope you know that." As she spoke, Princess Celestia rose from her sitting position. Her looming presence made the room, and as a result, all of Equestria grow a little darker.

"And I hope you know that I've played this game thirty-eight times." His boasting only earned him a pawn, but that pawn opened a door.

"Oh, really now?." the flowing mane of multi-neon-color no longer swayed happily in the breezeless room, but hung down in a firm, iced over waterfall. "Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but I've been playing this game for over one thousand and half years!"

"So, you're telling me that with that much experience under your belt that you couldn't detect that one of your own guardsman had a relationship with a member of your most hated enemy?" Queen takes Queen which set it all up. This move was strategic as it revealed the end of Princess Celestia's rope. The royal fists clenched tightly and her teeth were now grinding steadily in her mouth. Her magenta eyes burned with fires that put her pet phoenix's to shame. However, Crimson Blaze would now have to deal with the other player after they had flipped the table. The crystals that were embedded into Princess Celestia's hands, which gave her the power of magic, glowed steadily brighter as her rage mounted. She was about to send a barrage of lightning that would devastate the pegasusborn man before her, but the sound of clapping made her halt all movement. Next to her, Princess Luna smiled gently and clapped her hands together in a congratulatory fashion.

"What do you find so amusing, sister?" older sibling interrogated.

Luna chuckled a bit first before answering. "You, of course, sister." She giggled some more before saying "You always seem to keep your composure so much better than I do in heated situations. I tend to be the angry and frustrated one, but it seems you now have taken that role." Princess Luna's mastery of the modern language was apparent, but her words were cutting deeper into her sister than anyone could have anticipated.

"Please, dear sister." Luna bade. "Calm yourself. Lest all the magic you wield won't be able to piece the poor boy back together after you've blown him to smithereens."

"YOU DIDN'T KNOW WHAT IT WAS LIKE!" The sun princess shouted in her royal Canterlot voice at her sister. "You weren't made a fool of in front of your subjects and put in a cocoon suspended above your court room! I was made an example of because of those monsters and their horrible, bitch of a queen!"

It took a while but soon, the sun princess could see her sister's eyes become moist. She had only used the royal voice once before, and when she did, it was the night she and her had the largest fight of their lives. Next to the one where she was banished. Celestia saw her sister's fear, and took a deep breath and let out the longest sigh.

"Perhaps," she said through lightly gritted teeth. "I am being a LITTLE harsh."

"If it makes you feel any better, Princess." Crimson Blaze said in a shaky voice. "Cross had nothing to do with the invasion."

Princess Celestia turned to the Guard Private and raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean he had nothing to do with it?" her voice was more inquisitive than interrogative.

"It would have been impossible for Cross to participate in the invasion here in Canterlot." Crimson Blaze explained. "If you remember, Boris the Beast was caught that same day, and it was the changeling bounty hunter in question who brought him in."

"How could you know for sure that it was Cross that caught him?" Celestia asked.

"I was standing right next him when he did." Blaze said proudly.

"And where was this, Boris the Beast?" Luna asked.

"In the Gryphon Empire." Celestia said solemnly. That was a two week trip overseas and then a ten hour train ride inland to get from the coast of the empire's mainland to Canterlot. "So, I guess Cross really didn't have anything to do with it." the royal pondered this for a while before speaking again. "But what about the hive? Surely, Cross wouldn't allow his fellow changelings to just be decimated like that and let things be."

"You'd be right if Cross HAD a hive." The guard sensed the confusion and continued. "You see, Cross, from a young age, never knew anything about what it was like to be in a hive. From birth he was molded into being a bounty hunter because he was raised by people of that profession. He actually has so little knowledge of his own people that he can't change his form for more than four minutes. Otherwise, his head starts to hurt and he becomes dizzy."

"Is that why he is passed out in my parlor?" Princess Luna asked.

"No." Crimson Blaze said begrudgingly. "That's because he tried to spin a horse in circles while moving forward. The animal got dizzy and then fell over, which resulted with Cross hitting his head on the ground."

"Oh, my." Luna said worriedly.

"Yeah, he's not terribly smart." Crimson Blaze said with a sideways smile.

While the conversation between her sister and her guard went on, Princess Celestia pondered her current status. She had a changeling in her midst that one of her guards suggested to be the marshal of a town that only had inexperienced personnel in law running things while bandit gangs roamed the countryside attacking travelers and towns folk in equal measure. She was in a precarious position and she needed to find a way to ease this problem. She looked to her sister for some sort of support.

"Sister?" Princess Celestia called to her sibling, who turned her head to acknowledge her. "Perhaps, I am being too hasty in judging this changeling. I say we invite him to dinner and see what kind of person he is. You know, evaluate him. See if he is qualified to fill the role as Ponyville's new marshal as Crimson Blaze has suggested."

"I agree, dear sister!" Luna exclaimed. "I believe having a little insight on this man would definitely prove beneficial."

"I'm glad you agree." Princess Celestia smiled happily at her sister's unusual enthusiasm. She then turned to the guard and spoke. "Retrieve Cross and have him ready for dinner by five-thirty. You are dismissed to your duty."

"Yes, Your Majesty." Crimson Blaze issued a salute and spun on his heels and toes in an about face. He then went off to revive Cross from his slumber, but not before retrieving his rifle from the guard before the door.
______________________________________________________________________________

"You poke him."

"No, you poke him."

"Quit being such a pussy, and poke him."

"I don't want to be murdered by a changeling."

"I don't want to hear it! I've been in longer than you!"

"By like, twenty days!"

"That's still a good bit!"

As the two guards in the room argued in whispers, Cross issued a large set of snoring to his sleep. Both of them froze when they were reminded that a dangerous changeling, with four handguns and plenty of ammo by him, was not ten feet from the pair. His hat covered his face slightly as he lazed on the couch enjoying a nap.

"*Snore* Huh? Twenty percent of my bounty being taxed? *Snore* How 'bout FORTY percent of my foot in your ass?! *Snore*" The changeling, to the surprise of the two in the room, talked in his sleep. They both figured that he was negotiating a slaver for the slaves he brought back. They both recoiled in horror at the thought of both of them chained together and being beaten and flogged by coal-skinned shape shifters. Since they were both female, their blood ran cold when the thought of rape came into it.

"I don't know if we want to wake him up?" one of the guards stated. "He might try to change into one of us, and then we might have to choose which one to shoot. And if we choose wrong, the other might end up dead too."

"What are we going to do?" the other guard asked in a shaky tone.

"I don't know!" the first guard cried. "We're supposed to be waking him up, but we're both too scared."

"Okay, I have an idea." the second guard said. "We BOTH go over there and wake him up. We have a better chance if both of us are against him."

"Okay, I like that plan." On the three, both guards moved forward in unison to the other side of the room where the changeling still happily slept. He muttered some curse words as he continued to talk in his sleep. The pair of militants gave a look to the other and nodded, then said as one, "Mister Cross. It's time to get up, Mister Cross."

The bounty hunter stirred a little but then his eye lids, like heavy doors, slowly cracked open. The amount of light in the room, blocked by the shadow overcast by the two female in Lunar Guard attire, gave Cross a small glimpse of the people who spoke. Even with his vision slightly blurred, he recognized their uniforms. "I already paid the front desk! Go away!" he said as he turned over and lazily waved his arm to swat away the annoying fly that those two were. Within seconds, Cross was once again drifting in his dream lands.

"Great!" one guard said. "We did our jobs so poorly, the changeling thinks we're bellhops."

"Oh, quit with the cynicism!" the other guard shot. "And quit tapping your foot! You know it annoys me."

The first guard looked at the other in a confused way. "I'm not tapping my foot."

Both guards jumped when a clearing of the throat was heard from behind them. In his dress gold attire and brown low quarters stood Crimson Blaze. Both females not only respected the pegasusborn soldier, but actually had a huge crush on him. Coupled with their fear of the changeling, the nervousness of having their man crush before them in his best dress was a little over their normal capacity.

"Might I ask why Cross isn't up yet?" the Royal Guard inquired.

Both lunar soldiers gulped loudly before the first spoke. "Sir, we um . . . we . . ."

"Are both incapable of waking an aged changeling from his slumber because you're both too scared?" Crimson Blaze's assessment of the two was so accurate that they both flushed red with embarrassment at the same time. The soldier sighed and stepped past both of them.

Crimson Blaze shook his head and said. "Let me show you how to manage these sorts of things in the most proper manner." He stepped passed both rooky guards and placed himself at Cross' feet. With a snap of his leg, Crimson Blaze sent the side of his shoe into Cross' boot heal.

"Uh-I wasn't drinkin'!" Was the first thing that Cross uttered when he shot up from the sudden impact. He did a take around the room and snapped his head to his younger counterpart. "What was that for?" he questioned. "And what's with the get up?"

"You and I" The private explained. "are to attend this evening's supper with the ruling sisters. I came to make you presentable."

"So, uh" Cross stammered as his brain caught up. He rubbed his face with one hand and muttered. "We're going to spend the
evening with two of the most powerful women in Equestria?"

"That's right." Blaze affirmed. "Now get up and follow me to the washroom. I'm not going to have you stink to high heaven while at the same table as those two."

"Lead the way." Cross said as he stood up and stretched. "Ladies." Cross took off his hat and bowed slightly as he passed them both.

The lunar guards couldn't help but lean on their carbines as they tried to process the event that just occurred before them.