The Dead City

Part 11: CHOICES

I am Shining Armor.

He is Shining Armor.

Two Shining Armors.

“Twilight…”

“SHUT UP!” she yells, and I cringe at my sister’s rage. She stares at me with the most hateful of looks.

“I know you are not my brother. I know you are a Changeling. How dare you think you can walk in here and pretend to be him! He’s twice the pony you’ll ever be, and you’re not even a pony, you miserable pile of filth!”

She spits at me. I am in tears.

“Twilight…it’s me…it’s your brother…”

“False,” the other Shining Armor sneers. “You are a Changeling and we are going to kill you.”

“I’m no Changeling!” I yell. “I’ve been stuck in Manehattan for a month! I lost you…on the Bucklyn Bridge…”

“Lies, Twilight,” the other Shining Armor says. “All lies. You know I was with you the entire time.”

Twilight looks at both of us, and I see the quickest flicker of uncertainty dash across her eyes. I look at her.

“Twili…I’m the real Shining Armor!”

“Nonsense!” the other Shining Armor yells. “He’s lying to you, Twilight!”

“Yeah…”

But I can hear her doubt. I struggle and gasp.

“Twili, it’s me! I got out of the city, I tried so hard to find you! Why are you doing this?”

“Shut the buck up!” Rainbow Dash suddenly yells. “Or I’ll get Big Macintosh to beat you senseless!”

“Eyup,” says the giant red stallion. Tears fall from my eyes. I don’t know what to feel anymore. Twilight isn’t looking at me or the other Shining Armor.

“Twilight, please! Please!”

“Shut up!” the other Shining Armor yells. “Twilight, we need to kill this…thing. It knows our camp! It’s probably an agent of Chrysalis!”

What?!

“Chrysalis?! Are you nuts?! You’re the Changeling! I’m the real Shining Armor!”

“No, I’m the real Shining Armor!”

“SHUT UP, BOTH OF YOU!”

I cringe at Twilight’s roar, as does my doppelganger. She breathes and spits on the ground.

“So one of you is Shining Armor, and the other is a Changeling. Perhaps I was a little too quick to see who’s who.”

I nod excitedly, my spirits lifting. “Yes, Twili, yes!”

“Twilight…” said the other Shining Armor. “You can’t be serious.”

“I’m buckin’ serious. Now shut up, both of you. I’ll find a way to tell who’s who.”

She walks up to me. “If you’re really my brother, I take back all those things I said. If you’re not, then I’m going to make sure you die a very painful death.”

Her voice cracks, and I realize that nothing I can do will convince her. She turns her back on me.

Then I get an idea, a crazy, stupid idea. It was the kind of idea that could make or break a situation, and this idea would either kill me or kill the other imposter Changeling.

I clear my throat.

“You stupid whore.”

Everypony gasps. Twilight stops and slowly turns around. I speak again.

“You mangy whore pony. You shitfaced little mare. You’re dirt. No, you’re LOWER than dirt! You’re a bucking disgrace!!”

“See?!” the other Shining Armor yells. “This is proof! He has given up his charade! Kill him, Twilight Sparkle! Kill him!”

“You’re nothing! You never were anything to our family!” I continue to scream, even though my heart is breaking as I do it. “You’re shit! Everypony knows it! I hate you! I HATE YOU!”

Soon only my doppelganger and I are shouting, and Twilight, her eyes full of tears, reaches for a deadly looking blade in her pocket. I continue to spout vile things, but tears are falling from my eyes as well, and I can’t hold them back.

“Dad hated you! Mom hated you even more! You were a freak! A disgrace of a daughter! Even Cadence hated you!”

I feel like throwing up, and soon my eyes are waterfalls. Twilight holds the blade up to my neck. She finally speaks.

“Go on.”

Her voice is shaky, but out of fear for my life I continue.

“You…you never did anything…right…Mom and Dad…”

I can’t do it anymore. I am destroying my sister in hopes that she doesn’t destroy me, but I may very well be driving the final nail into my coffin. She presses the blade against my neck.

“Yes, yes, kill him!” the other Shining Armor yells. “Kill him! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! He is not your brother! He is nothing but a—”

SCHING!

Thunk!

“Gaaagh…”

It takes me a moment to realize that my eyes are closed, and when I open them I see no knife sticking out of my body, no blood. Twilight is looking down at what used to be the other Shining Armor, who now is black, necrotic, and anything but ponylike, and with a knife in his throat.

A Changeling.

Tears fall from her eyes as she approaches me without saying a word. Already phlegm is gathering in the back of my throat as I hiccup with tears in my eyes and aching pains in my stomach. She cuts me free, and I collapse to the ground, my muscles stiff. I catch a glimpse of Rainbow Dash and the big red pony, looking confused and shocked. Rainbow Dash steps forward.

“Shining Armor?”

I look up and see my sister’s stricken face, pinched from exhaustion and worry. I can not imagine what she is thinking at this moment. Her brother had been, for the past month, an imposter bent on…on what? Assassination? Sabotage? There is still so much I don’t know. But then Twilight wraps her arms around me and cries into my shoulder, and I cry with her. We cry throughout the night as the dead Changeling festers, and nopony says anything more. This is not a time for words. This is a time for tears.

Check.

I thought you would do this.

Of course you did.

She made a choice, did she not? Choices always tickle my fancy.

Genocide would more likely tickle your fancy, I think.

The same could be said of you.

It would be an untruth to say otherwise.

My turn at last.

Yes.

What of the Variable?

It is in place. He killed it on the rooftop.

That should be very interesting for him, to see it back.

Indeed.

Let’s see. The pieces are scattered and warped. To bring them back would be a great mistake.

A boon for me, and doom for you.

Quite right. So…to keep them apart…

Send them back to the start.