An Otherworldly Adventure

Today marked Adam’s first day as being an extra source of security for the royal wedding that will finally take place tomorrow. At the moment though Adam was mostly just patrolling the halls of the castle, passing by ponies making final preparations, and touch ups for the whole shebang to happen, as well as talking to others about what they’ll be doing throughout the wedding. While Adam was making his rounds around the castle the same pegasus mare and unicorn stallion that he had his sparring match with, and a few more afterwards, joined him on his patrol and helped guide him through the castle.

“So any pony can use these shen gong wu, regardless of who they are?” the stallion who called himself Gilded Plate, or Gil for short, asked Adam as the trio continued to patrol the western area of the castle.

“Pretty much.” Adam simply stated. “But using them can be tricky especially if you don’t know what the shen gong wu does, or know how to actually handle it.”

“Well you seem to be able to use yours pretty effectively.” The pegasus mare named Star Wing remarked as she looked at Adam’s harness wrapped around his waist, and the shen gong wu that it held.

“Not by much.” Adam retorted as the trio entered a larger hallway where a bunch of maids were just putting the final touches to the decorations in the hall. “At best I know how to use them without blowing my hands off.”

The trio continued to make their way through the hall they eventually came upon a larger chamber, where they found the soon to be bride to the captain talking with Pinkie Pie, or more accurately Pinkie was doing all of the talking while Adam noticed that Cadence looked incredibly uninterested. The young man also took notice of Twilight, who was just a foot off to the left side of Cadence, and looked to be more upset or at least not pleased by how Cadence was acting. Adam and the two guards proceeded to continue their patrol of the castle, leaving the mares alone to deliberate on whatever it is they were discussing. But as soon as the three of them were out of the chamber Adam looked down to the two guards before speaking.

“Is it just me or does the princess looked a little, annoyed about whatever it was they were doing in there.”

“No I felt it to.” Star remarked as she stopped and turned to look from where they came from. “Princess Cadence really did seem like she was either annoyed, or just not as invested in what Ms. Pie was saying to her.”

“Same with Twilight. She looked incredibly incredulous to Princess Cadence’s attitude.” Gil further commented while the they all passed by a duo of patrolling guards. “Hopefully, everything will clear up once the wedding is over with.”

“By the way, how is the captain taking all of this?” Adam asked his new guard friends, who both seemed quite unsure about how to answer the young man’s question.

“Honestly whenever somepony brings the wedding up to him he gets this really, tired, expression and looks like he’s spacing out.” Gil said as he stared down at the ground as the trio walked on.

“I think he’s trying to hide his exhaustion and stress as best he can, but I think that he’s starting to crack under the pressure.”

“That tends to be the case no matter what kind of wedding is going on.” Star commented as she looked up to the ceiling of the hall. the mare then turned to look at Adam.

“Hey Adam, how are human weddings held?”

“I’m not sure. I’ve only been to two weddings, and they were both when I was a kid, so I don’t really remember much about them. I’ve just been to busy with my college classes and work to really be with my family…” Adam then developed a forlorn look on his face as he stops in his tracks, causing Star and Gil to look at him with slightly worried looks.

“Actually I can’t even remember the last time I even spoke to my parents, or anyone else from my family.”

“Really?” Star asked Adam, sounding a little sad as she does so. “Were you not close with them?”

“Not in a ‘ill-blood’ sort of way, or we had a falling out.” Adam commented as he looked out of one of the windows lining the hallway’s right side.

“Most members of my family are pretty bad workaholics, and focus on their careers most. I grew up not really knowing my mom or dad, or anyone else aside from my grandparents. And when I started college I just got to focus on my studies and my part time job.” A snicker then left Adam which then evolved into a more heartier chuckle, which seemed to startle Gil and Star.

“Now that I think about it, aside from some of my friends I’ve made on campus in the last two years that I meet on occasion, this is the longest I’ve actually spent time around people without my studies, or work, make me stay locked up in my room buried under books or just flat out exhausted.”

“But aren’t you sad that you’d never see them again?” Gil asked as he fully faced Adam who turned to look at him.

“Yeah of course. I mean I’m just now realizing how isolationist I was, and distant to people. Actually I’m a little pissed that I can’t patch things up with my family and friends.” Adam then slouched a little as he let out a disheartened sigh. “Now I have to live with that for the rest of my life…never being able to amend it.”

As Adam stood there in the middle of the hall, fully taking in the weight of past regrets that he won’t be able to rectify, he then felt something brush up against his leg, and when he looked down he found Star brushing against him like a cat, before she looked up to him with a small smile and a caring expression. The young man then saw Gil trot to his side, and give the back of his waist a few gentle pats while giving Adam his own reassuring smile. Silently thanking the two guards, Adam returned their smiles while patting their helmets. A moment later the group continued on with their patrol through the castle, and while he does feel better about his state in life now, Adam still feels a little a small bout of sadness deep down. If only he could go back in time, or did something different, sadly he was just going to have to live with the course that his life has taken.

~~~~~

After going over the final preparations for the events before, during, and after the wedding, for the last three hours and finally getting away from Twilight Sparkle’s judgmental and scrupulous glaring, Chrysalis was now free to trot about the castle. It felt so good to finally be rid of that annoying unicorn’s disapproving glare, like she had a right to cast judgment on her. But the disguised queen will deal with the annoying little mare later, right now she was going to enjoy her little alone time. As the queen of the changelings was trotting about the castle something of interest caught her attention, which was hearing a few of the patrolling guards talk about some strange artifacts. Artifacts that seem to have some kind of connection to the strange bipedal creature named Adam, who she has yet to actually meet because of her soon-to-be husband has not yet arranged a meeting.

But right now the princess was a bit more curious about these magical relics that are connected to said creature. So she politely asked the guards about what these artifacts were, and where are they so that she could have a look at them, which led the princess now making her way to the treasury vault so that she can witness these artifacts first hoof. Upon reaching the vault Chrysalis dismissed the two guards standing watch and preceded into the vault, once inside the queen started to weave through the mountains of bits, crown jewels and other treasures littered about.

“It would be so easy to rob these ponies and leave them financially deprived.” Chrysalis muttered to herself as she levitated a large ruby from a pile of jewels and simply looked it over in her magical aura, before tossing it back into the pile.

“All in due time. First I enslave that dimwitted stallion, use my position as royalty to de-throne Celestia and her sister, and take their positions as leader of this country to establish my own reign.”

The disguised queen continued to look through the vault of treasures in her search for those artifacts, and her search seemed to have come to an end when she reached the far left side of the vault, where she found hundreds of empty shelves just standing there. But the queens eyes were more drawn towards the few shelves that actually held something. The queen then thought that she found the artifacts she was looking for. Chrysalis then approached the shelves and started to study the items some of them held, all of which looked not very interesting on first glance but upon further examination the queen noticed something, each of the objects had varying degrees of a magical force they all held. However Chrysalis wasn’t able to tell much about what these artifacts could possibly do by their magical aura, and there didn’t seem to be any kind of ledger, or anything that would explain what these items do.

“These artifacts don’t seem to be all that impressive.” Chrysalis said as she placed the statue of an eagle back on its shelf. The disguised queen then looked towards the relic that was placed on one of the more higher shelves, and this one actually did have something written on its rack. Flying up to the shelf in question the queen saw what was written.

“Do not touch under any circumstances. Incredibly dangerous.” The queen read aloud as she looked at the object, which just appeared to be a dull looking coiled up black snake in a glass case.

“What’s so special about this trinket.”

“For one thing princess it’s a dangerous weapon.” The queen nearly fell out of the air when the sudden voice said out of nowhere. Looking down to the ground the queen spotted Adam and two royal guards, both of whom looked a little surprised while Adam had a more suspicious look on his flatter face.

“So I’d advise not touching it.” the biped said as Chrysalis made her way down.

“And who are you to think you can tell me what to do.” Chrysalis said as she brushed a bit of her mane back behind her neck.

“Princess Cadence what our friend is trying to say is that if your not careful with these artifacts, you could hurt yourself.” The unicorn stallion of the trio said in a rushed manner.

“If she’s lucky.” The tall biped added which caused the false alicorn to look squarely up at him.

“Well then why not tell me what these artifacts do so I don’t hurt myself.” The queen goaded the tall creature while giving a small stomp of her hoof.

“Of course he will princess.” The pegasus mare said before she flew up to Adam’s head, and started to whisper something to him.

The biped then agreed to tell the queen of what each artifact, or shen gong wu as they were called, is capable of. And the queen was quite intrigued, especially the one of the bird statue that allows one to enter the dreams of others, but also see what their worst nightmares are and even bring them to life in the real world. There also the mirror . But as the creature was going over the shen gong wu on the shelves, the queen was studying the biped. It seemed to have a rather calm and complacent personality, and it’s emotions were not very lively, at least from what Chrysalis could tell with her changeling senses. Yet Chrysalis still felt a sense of annoyance emanating from him, even if he tried to hide it.

“And that’s all of them.” Adam said as he placed the decorated gold coin back in its place on the shelf.

“What about that one.” Chrysalis said as she pointed up to the black coiled snake shen gong wu. “You haven’t explained what that one does, or why its supposedly so dangerous.” The creature just looked down to Chrysalis with a small frown on his face before he responded to the queen’s question.

“Let’s just say you don’t want to have anything scrape, or rub off its black finishing because if that happens, then bad things happen.” Adam then grabbed the dragon kite shen gong wu and walked away from the shelves. “Anyway that’s all of the shen gong wu that guards have uncovered so far, and we got what we came for initially.”

The biped then strapped the kite to the stallion and started to re-explain what it capabilities were, but the disguised queen turned away from the trio and looked back at the shen gong wu, and started to wonder if she could use them in her take over of Equestria’s ruling class. Even if she has Shining Armor enslaved to her, his love for his actual fiancé may not be enough to take over. After all, Celestia is regarded as the greatest spell caster in the nation, and with her sister being an unknown entity for the most part, Chrysalis has been thinking throughout the weeks planning the wedding in how she would tackle the two princesses. But she might have found a way to handle princess Luna, thanks to this human creature’s shen gong wu, although Chrysalis still needs to find a way to overpower princess Celestia and subdue her in order to move her plans forward.

“There you are sir.” Chrysalis turned to look behind her and found a larger earth pony guard talking to Adam and the other two guards, with the unicorn stallion hovering above the ground thanks to that flying artifact he was wearing.

“Princess Celestia is looking for you, we’ve found three more of your artifacts.”

“Well then let’s not keep the princess waiting.” Adam then and the three guards then made their way out of the treasury vault to wherever Celestia and these other guards were.

“Perhaps I should follow them, and see what else kind of artifacts were discovered.” Chrysalis said to herself in a low voice as she follows after the group. “Perhaps one of these new artifacts might be useful to my plans as well.”

Chrysalis and Adam’s group continued to follow the earth pony stallion through the castles halls, where they eventually found Celestia and two guards standing in one of the open chambers of the castle. And one of the guards looked like they had been rolling around in the mud, or some kind of gunk that was covering his armor and satchel. The other pony standing off to the side of the muddy guard looked more like a rather eccentric mare, she was wearing a fancy looking coat, a pair of glasses, and strangely decorated hat. Yet the most unusual thing about the mare was the strange small round lamp, or lantern that she was wearing around her neck. Aside from the two ponies Chrysalis saw Celestia standing before the pair, where upon seeing Adam she gave a delightful smile.

“Hello Adam, sorry to suddenly summon you but we found some more of your shen gong wu.” Celestia said before she looked in Chrysalis’s direction.

“Oh, Cadence I wasn’t expecting you to be here as well.”

“Well I got curious about these shen gong wu, so I decided to have a look at them in the treasury vault. Adam even explained to me what they all do, except one.” Chrysalis said in a slightly mocking manner before continuing.

“So when the guard said that there were more, I wanted to see them as well.”

“I see. Then Adam would you mind identifying the new shen gong wu second lieutenant Blaze Trial, and Miss. Rose Author have found.”

“Sure, and I think we’ll start with hers.” Adam said as he approach the mare first, where Chrysalis could see the mare’s emotions waft with intrigue and curiosity, and a slight hint of fear. “Miss. Rose how did you come across this item you have around your neck?”

“It was the strangest thing sir.” The mare said in a very posh and cultured voice, while using her horn to levitate her hat off her head, before removing the thing from her neck.

“While I was working one night, this barrage of glowing light soared through the night sky. I was so mesmerized by the display that I was shocked, and startled when one of them came crashing into my roof. And that’s where I found this.” The mare then levitated the object up to Adam who took it in his hand.

“I didn’t know what to make of it, so I left it in my attic. After getting my roof fixed. Then when Sir Blaze Trail came to my home town, asking if any pony had spotted any glowing lights crashing down anywhere, and that’s when he was told about two other lights crashing into the nearby bog. I met up with him when he returned and showed him the object that crashed into my roof after explaining what happened, that’s when he asked me to accompany him back to the castle to give this to you.”

“Well then Miss. Rose I appreciate you returning this to me.” Adam said thankfully.

“But what does this thing do?” Chrysalis interjected.

“This is the sun chi lantern. When the user of this wu activates it, they can harness the chi, or life energy of anyone else bathed in the lantern’s light. Giving them an increase in overall power for a limited amount of time.” Chrysalis immediately started to think of various ways she could use an artifact like this one to overpower any creature that got in her way. In fact, she thought that this artifact would be just the thing she needed to handle Celestia.

“So Blaze, what kind of shen gong wu did you find?” Chrysalis heard the unicorn stallion ask the mud covered pony.

“At first the ones I found didn’t seem like shen gong wu, as I thought they were just small animals just relaxing in the mud. But when I noticed the two big holes they were in, and the fact they looked like they were made out of metal I scooped them up.” the stallion then rustled through his satchel, and pulled out cloth-wrapped bundle. The guard then un-wrapped it and showed the two artifacts he found.

“Sweet. Looks like you found the crouching cougar, and the tunnel armadillo.” Adam said as he knelt down and grabbed both objects, which did look like animal figurines.

“And what do these two do Adam?” the pegasus mare asked as she hovered by the biped.

“Well the crouching cougar is basically an all-terrain vehicle you can ride, watch.”

Adam stepped a few feet from the group before holding out the small cat artifact. And after saying its name Chrysalis watched it glow with energy, before it was tossed a foot from the biped, and almost instantaneously transformed into a large mechanical jungle cat! The disguised queen was utterly shocked by the transformation itself, and she saw Adam climb on top of it she watched the cat start running around, and even leaping up to the top of flight of stairs, before leaping back down. After demonstrating the artifacts capabilities Adam deactivated the artifact, returning it to its small figurine state again. Once the feline artifact was deactivated, Adam then showed off the other animal-based shen gong wu which the biped explained was like the cougar, but it was more restricted to flat land transport, yet it allows its ride to dig into the ground with a powerful drill.

With the demonstration, and explanations of the new shen gong wu over with, Chrysalis started to think more on her previous though in how she’d use that lantern to best Celestia. If she can use it to absorb the energies of a large enough group of strong ponies, as well as Celestia herself, and fueled by the love energy she’d be siphoning from Shining Armor, Chrysalis could possibly defeat her and restrain her. Coupled with her idea in using that nightmare inducing shen gong wu to trap Luna in her worst nightmare, Chrysalis may be able to accelerate her plans if she can pull everything off. However there are two wild cards that could prove to be a problem. The main obstacle was Twilight Sparkle, the mare was clearly suspicious of Chrysalis being some kind of imposter, so she might try to do something to reveal Chrysalis for who she really is. Then there was Adam, even after meeting him and studying him for a bit, Chrysalis was still uncertain if Adam might have some hidden abilities about him.

“Thank you both for brining these shen gong wu to us.” Chrysalis heard Celestia say to the two ponies that brought the new artifacts to the castle.

“Not all your majesty, I was happy to be of service.” The unicorn mare said as she gave a small bow, and flourish curtsy with her hat.

“Same. But if you will excuse me, I’m going to get this gunk cleaned off.” the stallion said before trotting off down a separate hallway.

“In the mean time let’s take these to the vault.” Adam said as he carried the three artifacts to vault, with Celestia and the other two guards following him. leaving Chrysalis alone with her thoughts, and schemes.