Brightspawn

Shining Armor was surrounded by light. The walls, the floor, and the ceiling all glowed with a pure white brilliance. Shielding his eyes from the brightness, he managed to make out a hallway and stepped forward. The sound of his hoof touching the ground resonated throughout the halls, disturbing the perfect silence. It looked as if stealth would not be an option here. He continued forward.

No Solemn Guards set out to stop him. There were no traps and no alarms. Security was surprisingly lax for the Solemn Guard base. Shining Armor kept moving forward, looking for a door, a staircase, anything. There was nothing. No abnormalities in the shining stone, no current of air through any opening. In fact, he couldn’t even tell where he had come from.

Shining Armor’s ears perked up as a gentle voice passed him like a ripple, disturbing the perfect silence. Had it been his imagination? No, it was Tranquility’s voice, too faint to understand, but definitely recognizable as hers. He followed the voice, coming to a dead end. Pressing his ear against the wall, he could hear a conversation.

“Crystal Lance,” A feminine voice, presumably Tranquility’s, called out. “What power could they have had to oppose my light?”

“It is the power of love, milady.” Crystal Lance replied.

“Love? Why have I never experienced a power so strong? Bring me this ‘love’, Crystal Lance,” Tranquility said.

“All of us love you very much, Milady,” Crystal Lance said.

“Our love for you is undying, Your Majesty,” three more voices could be heard. So there were at least five in the room.

“Crystal Lance, what did I create you for? Please remind me,” Tranquility asked.

“I was created to assist in spreading your cleansing light across the world. I was created to fulfill any order, no matter what,” Crystal Lance replied.

“And now you are failing me more and more,” Tranquility replied. “Perhaps it is time for your reward. You may now rest.”

“Milady,” Crystal Lance said. The walls of the castle dimmed.

“Now’s my chance,” Shining Armor thought to himself, blasting a hole in the wall with an expanding force field and rushing in.

He was in a room full of light, even brighter than the rest of the castle. Three Solemn Guards, completely emotionless, stood in a corner. Tranquility was floating in the air, but her wings stayed motionless. Crystal Lance was on the ground, rapidly fading away into nothing.

Shining Armor took a deep breath and fired the most powerful force field he could muster, aimed straight at Tranquility’s head. “Canterlot will not bow down and disappear!” he shouted as the blast rocketed straight towards the alicorn.

The force field stopped just before it made contact with Tranquility’s head. She turned calmly to study it and blinked. The blast disappeared. “And who are you, my lost little pony?” She asked in a hauntingly calm voice.

“That is Shining Armor, Captain of the Canterlot Royal Guards,” replied a Solemn Guard in the corner. Something seemed familiar about him. Shining Armor quickly realized the face of the one Royal Guard who had been kidnapped by Crystal Lance.

“Aegisbright! Snap out of it!” Shining Armor called. “Remember your allegiance to Canterlot!” The Solemn Guard blinked, a little dazed, and then returned to his glassy composure.

“I follow the light now,” he said, firing a blast of white light from his spear and knocking Shining Armor down.

Back in Canterlot, Twilight Sparkle was pacing rapidly back and forth. “He’s been gone for far too long. It’s been hours already! I mean, even if he beats her, how is he going to get out? What if the Castle crashes?”

Fluttershy comforted her with a blanket. “I know you’re worried, but it’s already nighttime. Shouldn’t you be getting some sleep with the other ponies?”

“There’s no way I can sleep with my brother in there,” Twilight said, staring back at the castle that shone like a star in the middle of the night.

“Wait, something’s coming down! Look! It’s Shining Armor!” Applejack said. “He must’ve won! I knew your brother wouldn’t let us down!”

Twilight Sparkle looked up to see the silhouette of her brother, dark against the Castle’s radiance, descending towards the ground on a floating slab of marble. As he came closer, Twilight’s feelings changed from relief to horror. “That’s not my brother,” she whispered, blinking slowly. The moonlight passed over Shining Armor’s form, revealing a unicorn of pure white with the cutie mark of a shield, barely visible beneath the symbol of a glowing winged horseshoe.

Celestia flew down and landed next to Twilight. “Are the Elements ready?” Twilight glanced at her friends and nodded. She then went to Princess Cadence, who was watching with horror as her husband approached the force field. “Stay strong, Cadence. He’s not Shining Armor anymore.”

The gates of the flying castle opened and Tranquility descended, landing next to Shining Armor. “What did you do to my brother you monster?!” Twilight shouted. Tranquility did not respond, instead nodding towards Shining Armor. He charged up his horn and fired at the force field surrounding Canterlot.

The force field shook and a loud cracking noise could be heard throughout Canterlot. Cadence struggled to keep it up, her horn nearly overloading with magic. Another blast was fired, but the force field held strong. Whatever guards were left were rallying by the Princess, ready to defend her should the need arise.

Her husband was strong and knew more about force fields than she did, but Cadence had been through worse. She had experienced the lowest of the lowest despairs, knowing on her wedding day that she had lost her true love to a pretender who kept her alive only to torment her, planning to dispose of her lifeless corpse when she had finished. Love had gotten her through this. She took a deep breath and let it go, slowly raising her head.

It was then that she made the mistake of making eye contact with Shining Armor. “What has she done to you?” Cadence whispered, a tear falling down her cheek. The force field cracked.

“Stay focused, Cadence! All of Canterlot depends on you!” Celestia ordered. But Cadence was quickly losing her will. Sections of force field fell down as she slumped to the ground, burying her head in her hooves, crushed by the cruelty of the world.

“I’m sorry,” Cadence said, completely drained of magic. “I’m just so tired.”

Tranquility glanced at Canterlot’s destroyed defenses and smiled. “You have done well, my new Guard.” She patted Shining Armor on the shoulder. “I may still have use for you. Recover your strength.” Shining Armor nodded and stood to the side.

Princess Celestia flew down, landing between Tranquility and Canterlot. “That’s as far as you go,” she said with narrowed eyes, wings flared. Tranquility paid her no mind, firing a beam of light from her horn and striking the princess.

A flood of light overwhelmed Celestia. Her ghostly, multicolored mane became a pure white, and a glowing winged horseshoe covered her Cutie Mark. “You won’t control me so easily,” she said, legs buckling with pain. Despite the direct hit, she seemed to still retain her will. “NOW!”

Twilight and her friends, who had been sneaking behind Tranquility glowed brightly, lifted into the air by the power of the Elements of Harmony. The Royal Guards cheered as a wave of bright rainbow light coursed over Tranquility, making her take a step back.

Tranquility’s eyes narrowed as the wave of light ended. She was completely unharmed. “Such silly little lambs, to harm a being of Harmony with Harmonious magic,” she said. “You have nothing left, so please surrender yourselves and avoid this needless quarrel.”

“Oh, is that so?” A storm of forks and knives flew out of a nearby tent, dive-bombing Tranquility. They disintegrated before they could reach her.

“The draconequus,” Tranquility turned. Her calm disposition had been cracked, ever so slightly. She was starting to look annoyed.

“The one and only,” Discord, still encased in stone, rode out of the tent on a bed of silverware. “Sic her,” he said, pointing at Tranquility.

Two dining tables that had been lying on the battlefield sprang into action, barking like wild dogs and pinning Tranquility to the ground. Several teapots emptied their piping hot contents on the whole mess.

“Enough already!” Tranquility wore a mask of pure rage, letting loose a pulse of radiance that destroyed all of Discord’s minions. “Time for you all to accept the light!” She flew into the air, firing pulse after pulse of radiant energy. Ponies were struck left and right, losing the color of their coats and manes, branded by a glowing winged horseshoe.

“All is lost,” Celestia said, looking at the destruction around her before a stray blast of light hit her, knocking her unconscious as she resisted it with all of her will.

“You will stop destroying our kingdom at once!” a resonating voice came from the heavens as Princess Luna descended from the moon in a chariot of black, surrounded by a small army of bat ponies.

“It’s the nightguard! We have a chance!” One of the Royal Guards shouted. The forty or so remaining guards flew up to the Princess as a barrage of bat ponies swamped Tranquility.

“Be careful Princess, you’re the only one left. Celestia’s down for the count and Discord is powerless. The Elements had no effect on our enemy, and she seems to possess a very strong mind control. What are your orders?” The cloud of bat ponies around Tranquility was already thinning as dozens fell to the ground, branded by that dreaded mark. Luna noticed, among other things, Twilight Sparkle being hit by a blast of light and falling to the ground, dropping a familiar looking book out of her saddlebag.

“We need to cut our losses. I have a plan, but you have to trust me. I need all the time I can get, and you may not make it out of here,” Princess Luna said, analyzing the situation.

“Then the Royal Guards will buy you all the time we can,” the Royal Guards took off, joining the swarm of bat ponies in a cyclone of black and white.

Luna flew downwards, snatching up the converted Shining Armor in her hooves, taking him next to Cadence and Discord. “Tranquility did not order this,” he said in monotone, but put up no resistance, mindlessly staring into the night sky.

Luna turned her head to where Twilight Sparkle and her friends were, but the swarm of Guards wasn’t going to hold back Tranquility any longer. She had no time to save them. Levitating Twilight’s book over to her, she flipped through rapidly until she arrived at the teleportation spell Twilight had used to send Shining Armor into the castle. “That’s two I owe you, Starswirl,” she muttered, as she welled up her power.

Tranquility dispatched the last of the guards covering her only to find that the mysterious blue alicorn that had challenged her had vanished. She landed gently on the ground, joined by several hundred of her newly converted guards, and approached Twilight Sparkle. “I understand you’re proficient at teleportation.” She said, smiling sweetly.