After All, It Slips In The Back With No Warning
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The Cloaked Dagger is Far More Dangerous Than The Storm
After All, It Slips In The Back With No Warning
The Storm King blearily woke up, still clutching his staff to his chest.
Rubbing his head with one hand, he muttered darkly. Looking around, he jumped up when he saw that his ships were being destroyed, his soldiers being routed, and his rightful slaves rebelling.
The Storm King rose his staff, preparing to show why he was the one in charge when suddenly he found himself in a wall, unable to breath. Faint wisps of smoke rose from his chest where the magic blast had hit him.
The last thing he remembered was… shooting Tempest Shadow. Ah, yes. It was always fun abusing his subordinates. Kind of funny how many people still fell for the whole ,”Oh, yes, I’ll help you if you help me” trick. And that purple pony princess was absolutely useless.
Using the staff, he slowly rose up before he heard a posh voice say,“Going to be needing that,” before the staff was ripped from his grasp. Staring at the swinging staff confused, he barely had any time to react before it hit him square on the head, dazing him, before sweeping his legs out from underneath.
Landing on his back, the Storm King wheezed as the breath was driven from his lungs. He vaguely heard the sounds of his staff swishing through the air and a calm voice saying,”Tirek was at least intelligent enough to store the power within himself which made it much more difficult to extract. But you only put the thing in a glorified mana battery. I must thank you as it makes our job much easier.”
Still coughing, the Storm King looked up to see a pony, one of the things ruining all of his plans and holding his staff. Throwing an orb of petrification at him, he roared and leapt planning to shatter the white unicorn and his blue bowtie.
As he leapt, he vaguely noted that the unicorn wasn’t grimacing like the victims typically did. He felt something ping against his leg and… was he falling short? He was! He was… Looking down, the satyr saw that stone was crawling up his leg. His chin slammed against the marble floor of the palace.
“As I was saying, Tirek at least stored the power biologically. Extraction would have been a bit more tricky with him. This man battery only needs to be pointed at the correct magic circle to release magic. Which is incidentally, the one you just used.,” the unicorn spun the staff around slowly, checking to see if it was damaged in the act of knocking the orb aside, humming all the while,”And really? Throwing a bomb at me? At this range, it would have hit you too. Granted, that point is moot seeing as you’re the only victim, but semantics.”
The Storm King growled menacingly,”How!? How are you doing this!? You’re ruining everything!”
The unicorn pointed to himself mockingly and faked an expression of surprise,”Me? As much as I would love to take credit for all of this”- he waved a hoof showing all of the chaos-”This was a joint effort.”
The Storm King gaped as he looked out the balcony to see… to see his entire army being beaten back!And by ponies! Earth ponies bucked guardsd high into the air where they were struck by pegasi flying at sub-sonic speeds. Everywhere he looked, he saw magic blasts from unicorns filling the air. And why were there dragons? They were looting his ships! His treasure! His power! And what were those insect things dive bombing his soldiers! And gryphons? He thought he broke them a while back!
The pony tilted his head before nodding in understanding,”Oh? You actually didn’t notice the festivities? Can’t say I blame you what with the whole drunk on power thing that villains typically go through.”
“How!?” the Storm King roared, attempting to stand up, but failed as the stone crawled up to his waist,”How are you ponies doing this!? You’re just ponies! Namby pamby ponies who use friendship as a crutch and will never ever amount to anything! Why am I the one on the ground!? WHY WON’T YOU ALL JUST STAY DOWN!
The Storm King glared, waiting for an answer from the greatest enemy he had ever faced.
And the pony had the audacity to laugh. Laugh at him! The Storm King.
“Oh, that’s rich,” the pony wiped a tear from his eye, using the staff as support,”That’s bloody rich. You think you’re actually one of the biggest things we’ve ever faced. You’re not. That honor goes to Discord. You know, the embodiment of chaos? Never met him personally, but he can’t be all that bad if he’s willing to fix the interdimensional barrier between worlds. If he was here for the festival from the get go, you would have had a much harder time.”
The Storm King growled in frustration and reached out with one hand, clawing his way to this infuriating unicorn.
“And friendship? I don’t havae many friends, but the ones I do, I cherish because friends are family you choose.” the unicorn tapped his chin thoughtfully,”Or something. All I know is that having something to protect makes us stronger.”
”But fine. I’ll humor you,” the unicorn said, smiling serenely and stomping on the Storm King’s hands, shattering them,”I’ll tell you why we’re still here, unbound and unbowed, while you’re here on the ground.”
“It’s because of friendship,” the unicorn continued through the Storm King’s screams of pain,”Actually, it’s more than that. It’s because of loyalty to our friends and family. It’s because of our ability to laugh off anything and everything life throws at us. It’s the kindness of others that helps the fallen get back up again. The generosity that is done when one helps another. And our honesty to ourselves that makes us true to ourselves and true to each other. Friendship is not just magic here. It’s something more.”
The unicorn dared turned his back to the Storm King to look at the ongoing battle, remarking,“I barely had to promise anything to any of the species helping us today. Even the dragons, they barely needed the promise of your ships’ treasures to come. The changelings came as soon as their king heard they needed help. The yaks and buffalo came stampeding in without me needing to even contact them. They almost blew this whole thing before we were truly ready. It’s truly nice to know that our friends will help us as we’ve helped them.”
“That doesn’t prove anything,” the Storm King spat,”That only proves you have powerful allies! What about your selves! You’re weak! Each and every one of you! You’re too cowardly to dare rebel against your superiors!”
“And yet your only hope of taking down the Princesses was surprising them with a weapon they’ve never seen before,” the unicorn refuted calmly,”And even if our allies didn’t come, ponies would have rebelled. You only conquered Canterlot, you idiot. There’s still San Fransiscolt, Fillydelphia, Dodge Junction, Ponyville, Hollow Shades, and more places! Did you really think that just by freezing the Princesses, we would have rolled over like Diamond Dogs in the face of the alpha? We aren’t stupid animals. All it takes is one pony to start charging and the others will follow along because we aren’t the kind of species to let one of our own go on our own. We’re a herd.”
“Who do you think I am!?” the satyr convulsed as his arms lost feeling,”I am the Storm King! I am the conqueror of lands far and wide! Ruler of the skies!”
“You’re what I could’ve been. Full of greed and arrogance. You haven’t even asked who I am yet. Shocked. No manners whatsoever. It’s to be expected though.”the unicorn monologued, indulging a bit when an enemy was helpless.”You are an idiotic invader. Don’t you want to know who you’re talking to?”
The satyr gnashed his teeth.
“I had an excellent introduction and everything,” the unicorn shook his head sadly,”Oh well, I suppose it’s time to continue your education.”
Turning to face the broken king, the unicorn glared at the almost petrified goat, “This is what friendship is. Where you help others and they help you.”- he pointed to the group of mares standing outside comforting Tempest Shadow-” Where you can fail because you know your friends will help you succeed in the end. Where dreamers need not fear the nightmares and we do the impossible. And you, for all your power that you stole, your army you controlled with fear and greed, have no friends. You’re alone. Alone and powerful. Or rather alone now.”
The unicorn stared down at the satyr emotionlessly. “Want to know what I see now that the power is stripped away? I see a lonely goat that just fell down from its castle built on the bones of others. No one will help you. I am not being cruel or callous. No one and I do mean no one will help you. You had one chance with that one unicorn you had, and I hesitate to say it, befriend with a false promise. You tossed her aside.”
Looking out the door where the Bearers of Harmony were gathering on the balcony to help the broken unicorn, Tempest Shadow, the unicorn closed his eyes and smiled, finding comfort that the unspoken seventh value of harmony, forgiveness, was still alive and well.
Turning back to glare down at the false king,”And just to spite you, I’m doing everything in my power to make sure she doesn’t turn into you. Friendship will never fail, so long as there’s idiots like those six who are willing to forgive everything. In fact, I think I’m going to steal your entire army for Equestria.”
“I will come back!” the satyr spat back as the stone crawled up neck, “If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll come back and destroy you. All of you!”
Rolling his eye, the good Prince raised a single hoof above the face of the Storm King’s face and sighed,”Notice how I said there are idiots who forgive anything? Well, I’m not one of them. You did three unforgivable things. Attacking Equestria, attacking my family, and above all, almost blowing my cover. Have a lovely day. In whatever afterlife you end up in.”
The hoof descended on the one remaining unpetrified eye.
Wiping his hoof against the ground, the Prince Blueblood gazed around the growing chaos that was Canterlot.
Three days. It was hard to believe that only a scant three days has passed being underneath that idiot’s rule. Shaking his head, the good Prince chuckled as a he snuck to the door and peeked to see that… ah, yes, Princess Twilight Sparkle and her friends was befriending the powerful former commander of the Storm King’s army.
Leaving the staff of the former Storm king at the side of the door for Princess Twilight Sparkle to , he softly popped out of existence, dismissing the silence spell he had casted, leaving no trace of his small, unimportant part in the day.
It wouldn’t do for Equestria’s First Diplomat and Spymaster to be caught, correct?
Author's Note
I'm actually proud of this one.
It's going to remain that. A One Shot. I may expand on the idea of Blueblood being a secret agent more, but all in all, I think I like this one.
Thoughts, comments, questions are always appreciated and WILL BE ANSWERED!