The Story of a Royal Guard: A Shield Contingency [OUTDATED/CANCELLED]

We arrived in the Crystal Empire as the sun neared the edge of the horizon. I hauled Summer’s large suitcase out of the train, and a moment later half a dozen Royal Guards came to my assistance and took the load off my back while Summer gleefully looked around and immediately took out her camera to begin taking pictures.

“Welcome back to the Crystal Empire, Lieutenant Shield,” said one of the guards. “Is there anything we can help you with?”

I nodded. “Yes, please tell Shining Armor and Princess Cadance that I've arrived with a friend and am looking for accommodations for both of us.”

“Yes, Sir. My stallions will also safely bring your luggage to the castle.”

“Thank you, we’ll be at the castle shortly.”

The guards trotted off and I walked up behind Summer who was busy taking pictures of the castle, buildings and tourist stands. She looked at me with a smile then back to the castle.

“It’s more beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen before,” she said. “The pictures don’t do it justice.”

I looked up at the castle, taking in its full size and magnificence while shaking my head. “No they don’t. You know, every time I’ve come here it’s always been for help or my job. Never to just relax and appreciate the beauty of everything.”

I just hoped my cousin wouldn’t do anything rash to stop that from happening.

“Well now seems like a great time for that. Here, stand right there, I wanna get a picture of you with the castle.”

I walked over to the spot she pointed out. “Alright. Should I strike a pose or something? Maybe a formal salute, like this?” I stood up straight and held my right hoof at salute.

Summer laughed. “That’s perfect, hold still for a minute.”

“I’ve held still for hours, it’s practically my job.”

She chuckled and snapped a couple pictures. “Alright, let’s go see the inside now.”

I nodded. “Okay, follow me. Shining Armor and Cadance are probably waiting for us.”

We made our way to the castle, where the Royal Guards were waiting with Summer’s suitcase, safe and sound. We went into the castle and up the stairways with them slowly following behind. Shining Armor and Cadance were waiting for us at the end of the stairs.

“Hey, Swordulan! We weren’t expecting you to come back so soon,” said Shining Armor. ”Good to see you again.”

Cadance looked at Summer with a smile. “I assume you’re Summer Dawn?”

Summer nodded sheepishly and bowed. “It’s an honor to meet you both.”

“It’s our pleasure to have you here. Is this your first time visiting the Crystal Empire?”

Summer nodded again.

“That’s great! How about I show you around, and we can find you a room to stay? It’s been awhile since we’ve had company.”

“Sounds divine!” Summer followed Cadance off into the castle, enthusiastically asking questions about the castle and Empire along the way.

Shining Armor came up next to me and gave me a nudge. “She’s quite the catch. Seems you’ve got everything worked out nicely.”

“I guess so,” I said with a half-hearted shrug. “I’m still shaking off the shock of it all.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I remember feeling like that with Cadance. So how long are you planning to stay?”

“Just two nights. I’ve got work next week and there’ll be a lot of new recruits to train. And, uh, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

“What? You’re not worried things will go wrong, are you?” He nudged me again. “Come on, you’re a Lieutenant, you’ve got this in the bag.”

“No, it’s not that, it’s Stonehenge.”

His eyes went wide and he took a step back. “Stonehenge? What are you talking about? I thought he disappeared.”

I nodded with a frown. “So did I, but my cousin Katana came to me this morning and said she knew he was here, and that he was in trouble. I don’t know anything else about it though, but I’m worried… about both of them. Katana’s bound to do something stupid, and Stonehenge might be in even more trouble.”

Shining Armor nodded. “I’ll have the Guard be on the lookout for both of them and do everything in my power to make sure they’re okay, don’t worry about anything. This is your time to relax and have fun.”

I sighed in relief. “Thanks, Shining. So, how’s the stadium coming?”

“We’ve just finished setting up the big torch. Everything’s set, there’s just some safety tests and maintenance left to do. It’s gonna be a great Games. But I’ll show you that later, you should catch up with Cadance, I have to make sure dinner’s coming along nicely. You’ll be joining us, right?”

“Wouldn’t miss it. See you then.”

I went down the hall and up some stairs (with the Guards carrying our luggage following of course) and found Summer and Cadance going down a row of spare guest rooms.

“Whichever one you’d like!” said Cadance.

“Oh my,” said Summer. “These rooms are just too beautiful. Um, I’ll take this one.”

I motioned to the guards and they speedily brought her luggage in.

“I’ll take the next one,” I said.

“Wonderful!” said Cadance. “So what will you two be doing while you’re here? I could recommend you a few places if you’d like.”

“We had planned to take a tour of the castle and city, and maybe go to the northern crystal caverns. Those still have expeditions, don’t they?”

“Of course, in fact they started a new one recently for one of the older caves. I haven’t seen it myself yet, but you should try it so you can tell us about it when you get back. Shining Armor won’t be busy tomorrow, so he can tour you around the place. I’d say he knows the castle and city better than anypony.”

“That sounds excellent,” said Summer. “I can’t wait to get pictures of all the best places. Oh, uh, excuse me, have to use the little filly’s room.”

She disappeared into her room.

“Well, I’ll leave you two to get settled,” said Cadance, walking towards the stairs. “Dinner will be ready in a few minutes, so come down whenever you feel.”

I nodded. “Thanks.”

I went into my room, crystal walls, closest, dresser, soft bed, bathroom. My curiosity got the best of my and I walked over to the dresser and opened a few drawers. I figured. There was a suit worthy of the Grand Galloping Gala inside one of them, red and white with a black tie.

“Even the bathrooms are huge!” echoed Summer’s voice.

I chuckled and closed the drawers, and instead jumped onto the bed and scooped up a clump of the blankets. So soft. I missed this place. It was strange though, I hadn’t brought anything with me beyond some bits. No sword… no sword for the weekend. I wondered what Discord was doing with it, and hoped he wasn’t getting into any trouble.

*

Oh, hellooo! I wasn’t expecting any guests here within my subconscious. Well, come in, come in, watch your step, don’t track in any mud, make yourself at home. It’s always such a pleasant surprise to have visitors. Unfortunate that it's such a rare occurrence...

Anyhow, you must be wondering who this is. Or if you've any stretch of intelligence, you’ve already guessed. But I shall introduce myself anyway. I am Discord, Spirit of Chaos, reformed! Daunting to meet me, I know, but don’t worry, I don’t bite. At least ever since I met dearest Fluttershy.

But let’s not make this about her. You know what this is about, I know what this is about, so let’s just set the record straight. Waffles are superior to pancakes, in every way! They cook faster, they can be soft or deliciously crunchy, they hold an exquisite amount more of syrup, and you can’t get much wrong with one. No, I won’t hear it, pancakes are no good in comparison! Why anypony would prefer them is a complete mystery.

Now, completely unrelated to what’s important, I have to take a moment to talk about this sword I got from Swordulan, the dullard of a Lieutenant. It is quite fascinating, and rarely do I have the chance to say such a thing.

The thing about enchantment spells is that they can be completely unpredictable, even more so when they are used on crystals as old as these. And these crystals have certainly been through a lot. It is known that some crystals can absorb magic from the world around them as time goes by. Crystals that get to be as old as these tend to form… consciousnesses, magical entities, deep inside of their structure. Some of them have enough power to influence the pony who wields them, for good or evil. Usually evil. This is not something casually discussed among the unicorns, it’s quite controversial, ethically and otherwise. Not well understood either, except by yours truly of course.

But with these crystals in the sword, it’s a different matter. The entity, or entities, have escaped, by which means I am not really sure. The effect it has had is something I have not seen before, and I was not aware it was even possible. There is still an enchantment within the crystals, but it is… well I have no way to put it other than undead. The magical entities have left, but there is still an enchantment remaining, but it is both alive and dead at the same time. Magic is not meant to act this way, it is in all its form meant to be alive. The magic of friendship, for instance, breathes more life than any other magic I’ve known. But this undead magic is something else. Previously I could tell that there was some amount of mood in the enchantment, but now there is nothing. It is empty, yet full. There are a thousand ways I could describe it, though I’m still not sure any of them do this phenomenon justice.

Every now and then the sword will begin to glow searingly hot. Dunking it in ice water does nothing to cool it down. It burns for a short time and is then over, like nothing happened. I brought it to Celestia one day and, after enough convincing, had her use Alicorn magic on it to see if it might stop it from burning, but still nothing. It was a puzzle to us both.

So there was only one option left, enchant the crystals all over again. It was not a complicated enchantment, I easily copied the same one that the Lieutenant had used on it. Contrary to popular belief, enchanting an item all over again does not increase the power, rather it kicks the previous enchantment out and replaces it. Strangely, it still made no difference. So I gave it a more powerful enchantment. Same result. So again I increased the power. Same result. No matter how much magic I decided to jam into these crystals, it made no difference. It always resolved itself to this state of undead. I tried removing the enchantment entirely, but again it did nothing. I could not change the nature of its enchantment no matter what I did to it.

When I had nothing else to do, I spent countless hours pacing around in the dream realm thinking of what else I might attempt to discover the source of the enchantment’s issue. How could such a thing as undead magic function without being utterly destroyed? Its mere existence seemed to deny all laws of magic. Unless… it was bound to something not in this world. Something beyond it, in a parallel universe, wherever. Yes, I remember now, Swordulan had said the entity might have been in a parallel universe. If it was still bound to that entity, it would reject anything except what the entity accepted as the default state. But then, the sword should still be much more powerful than it is. Although perhaps not, since much of that power left with the entity, while the remaining power is bound to it. Hmm.

I’ll have to discuss more of this matter with Celestia. Perhaps she’ll know what to make of it. If there’s a powerful entity loose somewhere among the infinitesimal of the cosmos, it will have to be stopped sooner or later.

*

It was getting dark. I began to wish I had the keen eyes of my cousin, mine would do me no good flying above the streets. I had to keep looking though, my brother had to be around here somewhere. He had to be.

“Come on, Stone, where are you?” I muttered to myself.

A glimmer of light flashed in the corner of my eye. One of the Crystal Guards, I automatically assumed. I dropped down into an alley and waited. I didn’t want to be caught snooping around, even if it wasn’t wrong. I learned long ago that even simple questions led to trouble.

I had a clear view of the Crystal Castle from here, still sparkling from the lights that were being hung all over the empire. I bet Swordulan was inside, schmoozing away with his new special somepony.

I growled. “And not out here, helping me look for a missing family member.”

I looked around the corners of the alley, seeing nopony around, and stepped out.

“Is there anything I can help you with, Miss?” called a voice.

I nearly jumped out of my hide. I spun around, being faced with one of the Crystal Guards. I immediately put on a coy smile, but avoided direct eye contact. “No, I’m fine, thank you. Just on an evening stroll.”

The guard nodded and continued on. I should’ve expected that they weren’t the suspicious sort. I walked down the street for another minute, looked around, then jumped back into the air, only a hoof grabbed me and pulled me down. I hit the ground with an ‘oof!’, then tried to flare my wings to fight back whoever grabbed me, but I found that I couldn’t move, nor get a good look at who was assailing me. A strong pair of hooves held my mouth shut and I was quickly dragged into another empty street, until finally I was held up and forced to stare at the face of who held me, there being just enough light left to recognize him. My eyes widened. Stonehenge.

“Shh,” he said. “Don’t yell.”

He released me, and I gaped. Then whalloped him on the side of his head with a hiss, though he barely flinched. “Where the buck have you been? I’ve been looking all over the Empire for you.”

He shook his head. “I can’t explain here, not while someone might hear. I can’t trust anyone.”

“What are you talking about? You disappeared!”

He grit his teeth. “Quiet, Katana. I don’t know why you’re here, but you have to leave, you have to get as far away from here as you can. It’s not safe.”

I growled. “You expect me to leave right after I find you? No way. Swordulan’s here too, over in the castle. Tell me what’s going on, or take me somewhere you can. You owe me that much.”

He groaned. “Katana, I can’t tell you how good it is to see you again, but this is serious. I don’t want you getting wrapped up in my trouble, or Swordulan. If the ponies after me find out you’re both here, they’ll come after you to get to me.” He turned away. “I can handle this on my own. Don’t worry, don’t get involved, and don’t follow. Stay safe, sis’.”

With that he galloped away. I wasn’t going to let him get away so easily, so I chased once he rounded a corner, but by the time I turned it he was gone, no where to be seen. I sighed and shook my head.

“You featherbrained idiot. What am I supposed to do now?”

I looked to the castle.

No, not yet. But I need help. Stone needs help. I have to make sure he’ll be alright. What if Swordulan doesn’t come to help? He didn’t earlier, why should he now? Ugh! To tartarus with that conehead.

I took back to the air, heading for the nearest bed and breakfast. “I swear by Celestia, if we ever get out of this, Swordulan, I’ll bash your head in and saw your horn off.”