Placeholder coughed as he pulled himself out from under the rubble that lay atop him. His suit torn and covered in dust was beyond saving and he didn't dare try to find a mirror to inspect his mane.
He could hear moans of pain from around him, instead of moving to help them he was drawn outside the destroyed exhibit he was in and onto the streets of Canterlot.
As he blinked and looked around he could see his was not the only place to be damaged in whatever it was that had seemingly destroyed half of the city.
The last thing he remembered before being knocked out was a shout from outside, a green flash and a whole lot of pain.
Placeholder trotted around and behind his now ruined gallery house and looked towards the palace.
He couldn't believe what his eyes were showing him; maybe what he was seeing was a combination of a bad case of wine and some aged cheese.
Canterlot castle was on fire.
Parts of the castle were destroyed, other parts crumbling and smoking but most were ablaze. Periodically, in the sky above the castle came explosions and energy beams of various colours.
As he watched the horrible light show, Placeholder saw several green beams combine on a single point that triggered an explosion so large it blocked out the moon.
The explosion stayed for several seconds and out of it came a small shadow growing larger as it approached with startling speed.
Placeholder threw himself sideways as the shadow impacted into the street near him.
The road exploded and cracked, street lamps nearby bent and twisted, some went out with a small explosion, and others fell over completely and smashed or just outright stopped working.
One lamp however stayed lit but flickered on and off with a metronome level of certainty.
It took a minute before Placeholder was able to bring himself to move, too entranced by the regularity of the flickering light. It took him several more minutes to inch closer to the crater in the street. And as he approached, with the backdrop of the flickering light, he gave possibly the first ever prayer to cross his lips.
"Oh please, Celestia. Don't let this thing eat me." he whimpered.
He climbed the rubble surrounding the crater ever so slowly and as he reached enough height to see what lay inside the hole the, flickering light went out completely and he was in darkness.
His breathing picked up, his heartbeat matched it with alarming precision and as he was about to light his horn an explosion nearby lit the area with a pale light.
"Oh Goddesses!" Placeholder muttered.
At the centre of the impact crater, covered in scars, dirt and street rubble, curled in a tight ball was the Princess of the night.
“Oh no.” Placeholder said shaking his head, "Oh, no no no no no." He hadn't even noticed that the street lamp had come back on; the light it shone was dimmer but didn't flicker any longer.
"P-princess?" Placeholder stuttered, "Are- Are you okay?"
No response came.
Despite the street lamp, despite the full moon and despite the steady rhythm of explosions, buzzing and the lights from the stars, the night seemed a lot darker to Placeholder.
Wait, buzzing?
Tearing his eyes from the former mare in the moon, Placeholder looked around. The buzzing was soft but it was there, slowly growing in volume and intensity. Coming closer to his position.
He wanted to flee, he wanted to scream for help, he even considered jumping into the crater and trying to wake the dark alicorn.
He knew that noise, he was years younger than he was now when he had first heard that noise. The nightmares had been enough to cement that sound deep into his brain.
Before he even had the notion to escape he saw them. Coming towards him from way of the castle, several flying, more on hoof, their glowing blue eyes, their black bodies, and holes in their hooves that dampened the sound of their movements, the changelings had returned to Canterlot.
The creatures that haunted his nights for several years were coming for him.
Wait, he turned to look in the crater beside him, no, they were coming for her.
If he could get away before they got close enough maybe they would only hurt the princess and leave him be.
He took a few steps away from the crater before he stopped himself. No, he should protect his princess, he was never a brave pony but he had a duty to protect his city from invaders and his princess from harm. He may not be a soldier, he wasn't a guard or even a fighter in nature, he was just the owner of a, truth being told, slightly crappy art gallery, but he knew that he should die for his princess.
A bright yellow light erupted behind him and he felt stronger, his resolve concrete and he let out a battle cry as he charged the nearest changeling.
He forgot about his magic, he forgot the ten to one odds, he even forgot the small trail of urine he left as he ran at the black beasts. He swivelled his body as he got within bucking range of a very surprised changeling.
When his back legs were all the way around, with eyes clamped shut, Placeholder bucked with all his might.
And missed.
The momentum of his buck threw him off balance and he crashed to the ground.
He groaned, rolled onto his back and opened his eyes to see he was surrounded by black horrors.
The changeling he had tried to buck buzzed his wings excitedly.
Placeholder knew he was about to die, maybe they would kill him outright or maybe they would keep him alive and eat him slowly, spit roasted maybe, he didn't know, but he knew his life was about to end.
The buzzing lowered in pitch as the changeling prepared to do whatever they did to ponies.
The things wings stopped moving but the low buzzing grew in intensity and before it could turn, the changeling above Placeholder disappeared with an orange blur, a load metallic thunk and a feeling of standing too close to a speeding train.
The changelings around Placeholder turned and, buzzing angrily, started after the orange blur.
Placeholder continued his earlier roll and stood unsteadily on his hooves and before he could orientate himself he was flying backwards, the orange blur having spun loops around the changelings and back around to grab hold of Placeholder and take him speeding away from them.
As quickly as his flight started it came to a jarring stop back at the crater which held Princess Luna and now another two ponies.
One, a brown and white spotted colt slightly younger than Placeholder.
"Pinto." Placeholder said, happy with himself that he was able to remember the word.
The orange blur, now an equally orange pegasus with overflowing saddlebags riding a scooter, looked at Placeholder with a disgusted astonishment.
"I think you may have taken a hit to the head." she said with her expression softening a little.
Placeholder agreed with a nod of his head that made his vision blur a little.
"Dee, she alright?" the orange mare asked.
This brought Placeholders attention to the other pony in the centre of the crater, a grey unicorn mare with her horn shining over the downed alicorn, she also had saddlebags.
"She'll be alright, we can't move her yet." the grey mare answered and looked up to the pinto colt, "I need some time to heal her, Cap."
The pinto colt nodded and turned his gaze to the angry looking changelings who had finally recovered from the roundabouts that the pegasus had taken them on. They were not happy bunnies.
"Okay, until you can heal Loony enough to move her we'll go D3." the pinto colt had a faded Trottingham accent laced with charisma and a sense of confidence that made it seem as though he'd said that a million times.
Even though it made no sense to Placeholder the two mares nodded and started moving.
The orange blur winked at Placeholder with a cocky grin as she threw a wooden sword out of her saddlebag with a wing.
The pinto colt charged past them both and grabbed the weapon out of mid air with his mouth.
The orange pegasus straightened her wings out and with the sound of an engine revving they began flapping so fast she looked like an overgrown humming bird.
Before she shot off, the mare nodded towards the unicorn, "Stay with Dee." was all she said before she flew after the colt.
Placeholder looked over to the grey mare, who had pulled several books from her saddlebags and was flipping through them rapidly.
Placeholder slid a little to the centre of the crater and was about to ask what the mare was doing when he was interrupted before he could speak.
"Don't talk, I need to concentrate." she said without looking up at Placeholder or away from her books.
A few seconds and the three books the unicorn was flipping through stopped all at once.
"Okay," she muttered, seemingly to herself, "if I combine these three it will hopefully work on Loony’s body type but..."
Placeholder felt as though he was intruding on a private moment so he turned and peered over the edge of the crater to see what had become of the other two ponies.
The pinto colt was stood slightly away from the changeling group, holding his ground against any that dared to come close. The pegasus, back to her blur form was speeding around the enemy, making them twist and turn and whenever they got too close she would twitch quickly towards them, a metal clang would sound out and the attacker would be sent reeling.
The airborne changelings, three dark and nasty flying bugs were grouped together, shooting spells at the orange blur. After several seconds of this, one of the three pointed towards the colt that was fighting off several advancing changelings.
As the three changelings went to move towards the clot he shouted, "Cud ooze sh'lls 'ite aboo' noo." through the grip on his sword.
Before Placeholder could decipher exactly what the colt had said a small sparkling red object flew from the orange streak and arced gracefully into the air. As it reached its apex it fell into the midst of the changelings and exploded.
Like a firework with extra glitter the explosion knocked the changelings from the sky and away from the fight.
Placeholder swore he heard the colt laugh as the four remaining changelings were trafficked towards him by the orange blurs quick jabs.
A light shone behind Placeholder, who whipped around as fast as he could, fearing there was a changeling sneaking up behind him, instead the light shone from a rune in the sky above the princess. The rune was extremely complicated and the same colour as the grey unicorn's magic.
Placeholder just watched in awe as the rune grew in size and light with the strength of the magic pouring into it from the mare.
Any of Placeholder's most powerful spells would not even compare to this one and he stood amazed as the rune lay horizontally above the princess and, from the looks of it, was healing her.
A minute later Placeholder could see no cuts, even the dust and the feathers that stuck out the princess’s wings disappeared and straightened back into position.
"How's she doing, Dee?"
Placeholder jumped out of his skin and his skeleton felt so afraid it decided to start clattering, or maybe that was just the sound of a scooter being pulled over rubble.
The pinto colt and the pegasus with wheels were back. The pegasus had asked the question that spooked Placeholder so bad.
The light from the spell faded as did the rune above the princess, "She's all done, although I'm not sure how to wake her, Cap."
The pinto colt expertly slid down past Placeholder and trotted to Luna's side.
"I can do that, but we have to move her some place secure for me to do it."
The mares looked around for a good place to bunker down but didn't seem to find anything to their liking.
"Urm-" Placeholder started, all eyes suddenly turned to him, he thought about pretending to sneeze or cough, maybe they'd leave him alone, but he didn't want to be alone in the city so he continued, "I think my warehouse should still be intact, it's secure, only has one entrance."
The colt looked Placeholder up and down with and expression Placeholder knew well, he was being appraised.
He seemed to pass inspection as the colt nodded to him politely, looked towards the unicorn named Dee, who then levitated the princess onto the colts back. The colt then looked back at Placeholder with a determined smile.
"Lead the way."
~*~
Placeholder led the four ponies away from the destroyed street with the defeated enemies and around to the side of his gallery.
He opened the door with a small magical pulse and stepped aside for the others.
The orange pegasus was the first in, followed by the unicorn mare and then, with another grateful nod, came the pinto colt with the princess on his back.
“Do you like it dark or are you secretly a batpony?” the orange pegasus quipped.
“Sorry.” Placeholder apologised, quickly pressing a small button with his magic.
In the proper etiquette of any warehouse or storage space, the lights came on one after the other with a clunk that even the newest electromagic designs could not get rid of.
The overall effect however was ruined as Placeholder's storing space had only three lights.
What it did accomplish was to shine enough light into the room to reveal Placeholder's treasure.
A warehouse full of art. Paintings, sculptures, even large tome filled the warehouse from ceiling to floor.
Only the pegasus seemed to take notice of what lay around. Proven by a slow couple of nods and a “Cool.”.
The unicorn and the colt didn't seem to have time to compliment Placeholder on his collection as they were gently placing Luna on some old sheets that had been covering several pony statues.
After checking the princess was comfy, the two ponies, that weren't speeding around the warehouse making racing noises, turned their attention to Placeholder.
“Shut the door.” the colt ordered.
Placeholder stood a little straighter at the tone the colt used, again forgetting about his magic he quickly turned and closed the door.
“OW!”
Placeholder turned even faster at the colts exclamation of pain.
The unicorn filly was levitating a thick book and was wearing a scolding frown. The colt was rubbing his head.
“Don't be rude, just because Canterlot is burning, Loony's hurt and Shell is off doing Celestia knows what, does not give you the right to be mean to somepony who is helping us.” The mare turned to Placeholder, “Sorry about him,” the mare smiled now, “My name's Dinky, this idiot is Pipsqueak and-”
SCREECH!
“And I'm Scootaloo.” the orange pegasus added as she came to a sudden halt next to the others. “Or Scoots for short, like these two.” Scootaloo added with a laugh.
Placeholder didn't get the joke, the pegasus was the shortest out of the three.
“I'm, urm, Placeholder.” Placeholder replied.
“Nice to meet you, Placeholder.” Dinky said politely,” Thank you for letting us use this place for a while.”
Without offering, Placeholder was now putting these ponies up for a while, if he told them they couldn't stay he would be seen as extremely rude and if word got out he would be ruined. That mare is smart.
“Not a problem, could I ask how long you will be staying?” Placeholder asked.
The pinto colt, Pipsqueak, had led down next to the lunar princess and was closing his eyes.
“We'll be here for just as long as it takes Pip to wake Luna,” Dinky explained, “Princess Luna, I mean.”
“Dee,” Pipsqueak had moved around a little to get comfy and was now led nose to nose with the princess, his eyes still closed, “Ready.” he said.
“Excuse me.” Dinky turned from Placeholder and around to face Pipsqueak, “How long do you think you'll be?” she asked.
Pipsqueak gave a slight shrug, “Can never tell.” was his answer.
If Placeholder was confused by that, his confusion only grew when Dinky lit her horn and a rune, different from the other one the mare had summoned, appeared over the colt.
“You have about two hours before you'll wake up naturally.” Dinky informed the colt, who acknowledged the words with a nod.
The rune shone brighter and suddenly went out.
At the same time Pipsqueak's entire body relaxed and his breathing steadied and slowed.
Dinky nodded and turned to Placeholder once more, “Again, thank you for letting us stay here.” she looked sideways at the pegasus, “Scoots, recon?”
Scootaloo snapped to attention, gave a mock salute and barked, “Sir yes sir, ma'am!”
Dinky smiled and made a gesture for Placeholder to move out of the way of the door.
Placeholder did so, also opening the door with his magic, manners cost nothing for some and a smack on the head from an angry mare for others.
Scootaloo dropped her saddlebags, which made an alarmingly loud noise as they hit the floor, cocked her wings and before Placeholder could blink was out the door and up the street.
He closed the door again and turned to the only other conscious pony in the room, “I, urm, have a few questions.”
Dinky pulled another, smaller piece of fabric over Pipsqueak and Luna before levitating some antique cushions over to herself.
“I'm sure you do,” she placed a cushion in front of her next to the princess, “I will answer any questions you have to the best of my ability.”
Placeholder tried not to think about the price of those cushions as he sat on one, feeling slightly like a foal that had asked a question in class and was now in for a long explanation rather than the preferred quick answer.
When he was seated, Dinky smiled at him and asked what his question's were.
Placeholder suddenly couldn't think, the graceful nature of the unicorn, having been offered to sit on his own cushions, oh they are so expensive why did he sit on it oh goddess, and the sheer amount of questions that sprang to mind seemed to have caused him to have, as the young ponies say nowadays, a brain fart.
Start small, he thought.
“Urm,” he really hated that noise, “Urm, why...”
Placeholder looked around, possibly hoping to find a question in his warehouse, he found reneighsance art and a vase from the Romane empire before his eyes found the sleeping colt next to Dinky.
“Why did you call him 'Cap' earlier?” he asked with a motion towards Pipsqueak.
Dinky looked over to the sleeping colt and Placeholder noticed that her smile, which had seemed forced, only reached her eyes and felt completely genuine when she looked at the colt.
“That's a long story,” the unicorn mare said, “It all started with a game and a list.”
~*~
And as a bonus I'm going to be doing audio commentaries for each chapter, I'll be talking about things in the chapters and giving fun facts and my thoughts on what I'm writing and why. If you have downloaded this fic and are offline, don't worry about missing out anything from these audio logs, they are not needed to enjoy the fic, just a little fun thing for you guys.
Here - http://picosong.com/c7ad/
