The throng of alicorns, nobles, and guards stood around a large oak table, all with grim expressions of varying degrees etched across their faces. The candlelight splayed their shadows across the room, which was just a few shades from black. Luna rose from the somber group first, glaring coldly at the pure white candlesticks.
"Twilight, if you would?" the Princess asked quietly with just a hint of suspicion in her voice. The much younger alicorn cast a spell from her horn, and with but a minimal twitch in her facial expression, scanned the candles and papers upon the table for the interloper. When her spell detected nothing, Twilight Sparkle nodded to Princess Luna. "Thank thou, Miss Sparkle."
"Now, as thou mayst know, which We would assume thou do, an infiltrator hast taken its home within Canterlot Castle." Luna shifted her gaze from one pony to another, passing over nobles and guards alike. Many of these ponies now grew annoyed or worried expressions at the mention of the enemy.
Celestia stood on her hooves next, choosing to carry her sister's speech to the rest of the gathered group. "This infiltrator, to our knowledge, is no changeling, pony, griffon, zebra, or minotaur. Simply put, it is nothing we have ever encountered before. However, it has proven itself to be adept in the arts of escape, sleight of hoof, and disguise."
"For six days now it has tormented this castle and all of us who dwell here. Nine of my personal cooking staff quit when a cake threw itself into Luna's room and then mysteriously disappeared. Three Night Guards retired from their duties early when one of their own spears beat two of my guards into submission. Prince Blueblood is distressed due to the vanishing of his precious family heirloom."
The sad, fetal form of Prince Blueblood sat in a dark corner of the room, blowing his mucus into tissues. As soon as he heard of his priceless gold egg, which had been in his family's possession for nearly a century, he burst into inconsolable bawling once again.
"He still has not recovered," Celestia noted sadly. Slamming her hooves upon the table, Princess Celestia stared down all of her most trusted guards and nobleponies. "We will catch this shapeshifter, I swear it. By my title of Princess, with this crown upon my head, I hereby decree war with the Prop!"
Instead of staring directly into her face, everypony was gazing at the top of her head. Celestia went stock still, and Blueblood opened his mouth with a shocked stare.
"Auntie Celestia..."
Celestia slowly looked up, and as she did she swore she heard music.
There, on top of her temple, was her crown, spinning about in a calm manner. Nopony dared move, lest the Prop dart off. Twilight in particular wanted to seize the form-changing nuisance the most out of anypony in the room. With this goal in mind, and with a burst of magic from her horn, Twilight teleported directly above Celestia.
"Hyaaa!"
The crown was off like a shot, landing on the table before bursting away across it. Twilight untangled herself from her mentor and extended a hoof at the offending headpiece.
"Catch it!" Twilight screamed from atop Princess Celestia. The guards and nobleponies, emboldened and shocked out of their stupor, immediately lunged for the Prop. With a slew of angry ponies darting out to meet it, the Prop quickly formulated a half-baked plan within its panicked mind.
The Prop quickly changed directions and sped toward Twilight and Celestia, leaving a pile of raging ponies behind it. Luna lit her horn in an attempt to cage the fiend, only for the Prop to swerve in and out of her complex magical constructs, causing the Princess no small amount of insensate anger.
The music, in response to the ponies' desperate attempts to capture the Prop, grew even louder, drowning out the absurd shouts and warcries within the room. The Prop dodged around magical blasts and thrown projectiles with ease, further inflaming the ponies around it.
With a final taunt of "ATATATATATATATATA" that slowly faded into the background as the Prop sped out of the room and into the halls, it lost its pursuers in exhaustion and fury.
All of its pursuers sans Princess Twilight Sparkle. With a determined roar, she leapt over the piles of her fallen pony comrades and burst out into the hall to prolong the chase against the Prop. Instead, she found something rather puzzling.
A chalkboard with two columns, one labeled 'Prop' and the other 'Chumps', sat dead center in the bright, gilded hall. Under the word 'Prop' were eighty seven tally marks. Under the word 'Chump', zero. Twilight narrowed her eyes at this chart, already filing away the information away in her mind to be used against the Prop.
"So it is aware of the situation," Twilight Sparkle said aloud to herself. The Prop had just proven it was capable of written language, and it considered the hunt posed against it as some trivial game. The fact that it called royalty 'chumps' was just an insult to all of Equestria.
"Immature little..." Twilight brought her hoof to her chest and breathed in, beginning her breathing exercise to calm her burning nerves. Closing her eyes and listening to her breathing and the slowing of her heart, Twilight began to slowly calm down. "Relax, Twilight, you'll capture it soon enough."
When she opened her eyes again, the chalkboard had moved several paces forward into her personal space.
"Ye ye ye ye ye, ha ha ha ha ha! Lolololololololololololololooooooo!"
Twilight yelped as the chalkboard made its hasty escape down the hall, reveling in its most recent victory. The newly-coronated alicorn Princess grit her teeth together violently, cursing the Prop to the bowels of Tartarus for frightening her. Letting out a frustrated sigh, she mosied back to the dark room, practically dragging her hooves across the polished marble.
"Any luck, Twilight?" Celestia asked from underneath a pile of guards and nobleponies.
Twilight Sparkle glared at the table, where the scattered files of past incidents with the Prop lay. "No, Princess, no luck at all." Picking up a file in her magical grasp, she groaned and slammed her head onto the table. "The Prop wins for now."
Author's Note
I don't know if I'll do more chapters. It really depends on the response to this pilot 'episode'. Let me know if you enjoyed it, and please leave any feedback on this chapter in the comments. Also, feel free to PM me if you do not wish your critique to be public. Do not be afraid of being too harsh or too soft, I will not be offended either way.
Thank you for taking the time to read this ludicrous crap. I'm actually amazed you did.
Another day, another hour shift within the Statue Garden. Charcoal Dust yawned and leaned into his spear, closing his draconic golden eyes while the tantalizing idea of sleep floated through his head. He didn't understand why he and the other four Night guards with him had to be stationed here. With Discord reformed, there weren't any threats capable of bursting out of the stone in the middle of the night. Dust stared out onto the city of Canterlot below, the soft twinkling lights of the sky providing a perfect atmosphere for a short, lovely nap.
But, alas, he couldn't fall asleep standing on two hooves, and so he began to seek out a better location for his evening nap. As he trudged through the Garden, he saw Tar Pit, Armored Defiance, Lunar Ivory, and Prophetic Hex standing around a fold-out table while they took turns playing games on a very expensive chess set. The set itself belonged to Prophetic, and so he never left the other guards alone with it, not even for a short bathroom break.
After taking a quick glance at his four comrades, Dust shrugged and proceeded to climb atop a stone bench, laying his spear down on the ground. After unclipping his helm and adjusting himself on the bare stone, Dust let out a tired sigh and closed his eyes, letting the gentle breeze flowing through his mane lull him to sleep.
Dust paused, running through the day within his mind. He had woken up at six in the evening, was given his meal for the night, which consisted of two biscuits, leeks, and a small packet of blood. Next, he had flirted with a maid outside of the kitchens, before being forcefully dragged away by his commanding officer. After that happened, he had thirty minutes to kill. He spent this time by reading the paper and checking out the sports section. The Baltimare Scorpions had just barely won by a few goals, and so they were to continue on to the Equestrian Soccer Tournament as semi-finalists.
Right as he had read that article, his CO had once again pulled him away and told him to get to his post. Just before Dust had thrown the article away, he took a glance through the paper at the weather forecast.
There were clear skies all night in order to give a beautiful view of Luna's stars, as per her request. Also listed on the forecast for tonight was the lack of any wind whatsoever, due to a shortage in the weather team's funding, which struck Dust as extremely odd, and had a scent of some Cloudsdale political BS written all over it.
"Wait," thought Dust. As he mulled over the fact that there were no breezes scheduled for that night, the wind blowing in his face picked up, whipping his mane about as he struggled to sleep. At that moment, he opened his eyes to witness the statues and greenery flying by his prone form. Instinctively, he clung to the rapidly moving stone bench, now fully awake due to shock.
The bench, now seemingly feeling his grip, took a tight right turn and crashed through a bush. After being ejected out of the bush, and still holding tight to the sapient bench, Dust let out a shout to alert his fellow Night guards. As soon as he did, the ponies appeared in a flash of dark purple magic.
The four of them stood, dumbfounded, while the bench attempted to buck Dust off by hopping up and down. "You guys!" Dust yelled. "It's the Prop!"
Hearing from Dust that the Prop was spotted the four of them nodded at one another and prepared their weapons and magic. Tensing their muscles and eyeing their target with a predatorial glare, the group engaged. Five members of the most ruthless guard force the world around rushed forward to meet the aggressor head-on. Seeing the coming death ahead of it, the Prop pulled to a halt and sent Dust rocketing at the other four.
The group screeched to a halt while Prophetic teleported ahead and continued the chase. The Prop, disguised as the stone bench, showed that it had retained its speed even when taking the form of such a heavy object. The Prop weaved in and out of the hedges, trying desperately to throw the unicorn off its trail.
Shifting left, the runaway bench narrowly avoided being vaporized by a violet streak of light. In doing so, the bench broke straight through the leaves of a hedge, making its way through to the inner Gardens, where the statues lay in the Sculpture Garden.
Prophetic jumped through the bench-shaped hole in the foliage and immediately powered his horn with a destructive spell. All around him were gray statues, placed in varying poses and holding differing items based on who they were in life. Victory with her flag, standing proudly while she looked into the sunlight. Friendship, which was embodied in three young ponies standing atop one another in playful joy. Truth, with her scroll and closed eyes representing the serenity of sound knowledge. Victory, with...
Prophetic spun about and shot at the statue, which exploded into thousands of chunks, pebbles, and chips of broken stone. Prophetic smiled as his team came up behind him, staring around at the shattered Prop. "Wow," commented Tar. "You gave that sneaky jerk the D."
The rest of the guards nodded and agreed. Prophetic turned about and let his smile turn into an arrogant smirk. "Yeah, it was a pretty good shot if I do say so myself. I'll let the Princesses know who took the Prop out, thank you very much." The other guards watched him trot to the Sculpture Garden's exit, mumbling and grumbling to each other with sour looks on their faces.
Just then, a song started playing, making Prophetic stop dead in his tracks, his left ear twitching uncontrollably. He silently turned around, staring out at the Garden with a blank look on his face. His horn lit up with a swirling, dark energy, and his draconic eyes narrowed. "The Prop will die tonight."
"Oh, snap."
The Victory statue darted from their sight and slipped further into the Garden, the four guards pursuing it relentlessly. Lunar Ivory took to the skies on her leathery wings, giving her comrades a bird's eye view. "The Prop took a left at the fountain," she informed them. Following her direction, the four took a tight left and had the Prop in view once again. Teleporting forward slightly, Prophetic let loose a blast of magic, which missed the fleeing statue by a mile.
Tar Pit followed up, disappearing into the grand within a pool of shadows before emerging in front of the Prop. The unicorn glared at the statue and let loose a tendril of murky magic, attempting to lasso the Prop. Reacting quickly, the Prop switched forms with a small fern and managed to avoid the tendril above it.
Unable to halt in time, the hulking Defiance crashed into Tar Pit, sending the two to the floor while Prophetic and Dust leapt over them.
"Prophetic, teleport to the Prop's left. When you do, I'll cut him off on the right and put the spear in front of him. Hopefully Ivory will see what we're doing and swoop in for the kill. You ready?" asked Dust. Prophetic glanced at Dust, and then upwards at Ivory. A grin spread across the unicorn's face and he looked ahead at the fern.
"Tartarus yeah, I am. Let's get this thing." Prophetic's horn lit up and he disappeared in a blink of the eye. He soon reappeared next to the fern and stomped his hooves just in front of the Prop, causing it to bank right. As it did so, Dust slammed his back hooves down on its left and thrust his spear in front of it.
The plan worked just as Dust hoped as the Prop backpedaled away from the duo. Ivory swooped down like a hawk, her eyes narrowed and her fangs bared as she went in for the finishing blow. "Got him!"
Instead of continuing into her path, the Prop screeched to a halt and let Ivory impact the dirt with an underwhelming flop. Before she could raise her head from the grass, Defiance and Tar Pit barreled into her, carrying all three of them over the Prop and into the bewildered unicorn and earth pony Night guards.
The Prop taunted the five and made its way out of their sight, which would have infuriated them had they been conscious.
Half an hour later, the five guards bashfully explained how they had lost the Prop to their Commanding Officer, who promptly chewed them out for their uselessness. When the higher ranked Night guard caught sight of the chess game that was set up, he launched into a brand new rant against the team, swearing considerably. In his anger, he confiscated the set, leaving Prophetic in a daze as his pricey chess set was carried away.
As his eyes were glued to the set, with the pieces magnetically stuck to the board, an extra Princess piece began to rotate slowly. While the five guards stared slack jawed and wordlessly at the set, the Prop mentally tallied another win onto its growing list of victories.
