Don't forget to vote on the two topics on my profile. The winner will get it's own chapter. The loser will be... Well, if I were to tell you what would happen to the loser, this story would lose it's T rating. ;)
The Royal Protector
Chapter 6
J and Isabel looked around in awe. They were both in a garden of some sort. It was incredibly beautiful and contained many different things. Beyond the garden stood a castle. It was different from what J had been used to seeing. The architecture on it was foreign to him, it was different from any kind of style he had seen. J looked down back to Celestia and Luna to find them walking away. He quickly gained his wits about him and walked after them.
They were walking for a good five minutes before Isabel spoke.
"How did you know about us being in the forest?" Said Isabel, her curiosity peaked.
"Well, to start off, you were kind of hard to miss."
"What do you mean?" Asked Isabel.
Celestia cleared her throat and spoke. "Late last night, there was an anomaly in the night sky. It appeared that two stars were falling to Equestria. At first it was thought that they were just stars but further inspection by my sister and myself showed that it was two creatures of immense power instead of two stars. The next morning we sent our guard to investigate that part of the forest. They returned with reports of two craters radiating with unknown magic and a huge sword was found at one of the craters. The discovery of both of these things caused my sister and myself to got into the forest ourselves. We were surprised to find another Alicorn as well as a creature we've never seen before."
Celestia ended her long winded explanation with another question.
"What are you exactly?" She asked looking at J.
J shook his head slowly. "I will tell you when we have we have everyone with us."
J then continued with his own question. "Why exactly is is Isabel so important to you two."
Celestia perked up at the mention at this subject. "She is an Alicorn like my sister and myself. Alicorns are extremely rare in Equestria, so rare that there are only four of us. Me, Luna, my niece Cadance and Isabel. The reason we wanted her so badly is that us Alicorns are very powerful. If somepony were to corrupt an Alicorn, that Alicorn would be a threat to the world as we know it."
"So when you saw Isabel with me, you thought that I had captured her and was trying to corrupt her?"
"Well, you were completely covered by that cloak of your and to be honest, you looked like you were going to do something to her." Said Celestia.
J was about to speak but was interrupted by Luna. "How do thou cover thine face with darkness?"
"It's an enchantment I put into my cloak so that every time I cover my head with my cloak, it is hidden from the view of the world."
Luna looked at J confused. "Wouldn't thou want thine opponent to know who they fight?"
J laughed lightly, "Honestly, I've lived long enough to learn that if that opponent intends to kill, they don't deserve the honor of seeing my face before they die."
Celestia flinched at these word while Luna looked even more confused. "What does thou mean by lived too long, thou looks very young."
"Sometime looks can be deceiving. I might look young but I am actually around 2000 years old."
Isabel spoke up loudly. "Your 2392 years old"
"Thank you Isabel, I am 2392 years old."
Celestia was dumbstruck, "How did you acquire immortality!" She yelled.
"It's a long story, maybe I'll tell you someday." Said J as he brushed off Celestia's question.
"If you are truthful in your words then I have finally met somepony beside my sister and niece that understands the pains of immortality." spoke Celestia softly.
"You're immortal as well?" Asked J as he slowed his walk down.
"Because of the immense amounts of magic that we store inside our bodies, Alicorns are practically immortal." Celestia spoke with stinging sorrow in her voice. "I find it hard to go on living when I watch all of my friends and faithful subjects grow old and die while I stay the same." Celestia lowered her head closer to the ground and a look of sorrow covered her eyes.
J reached over to Celestia and put his hand on the back of her neck.
"I know first hand what you are you talking about. When I first became immortal, I didn't know what to do. I had lost so many friends and even loved ones to both the sword and to time itself. However, I found something that kept me going. Do you know what that is?"
Celestia slowly shook her head.
"Look to your side." J said quietly.
Celestia looked to the side opposite of J and saw Isabel smiling at her with a huge mirthful smile.
"I found that two things kept me from going over the edge into insanity. The first is as a personal protector to royalty and the second is being a teacher. The feeling I got when I saw my first student that I ever had rise to greatness or when I protected a good king from an assassination for the first time was incredible. I realized that immortality might have it's downsides but the pros severely outweight the cons. One of those pros are meeting people like Isabel. She taught me that I have to realize that the past is the past and the future in the future and the only thing that was important is the present. All you have to do is find your calling in life and then the emotional pains of immortality are almost no existence."
Celestia looked at J with a small smile. "I did not expect you to be so wise."
You'd be surprised on how many people tell me that." said J smiling.
"Thank you for your words, if I had known that you were this wise, we would have tried to be peaceful in the beginning. We could have avoided this mess all together."
J laughed again. "Remember what I said Princess, the past is the past, we must not dwell on it. Instead, let us worry about the task at hand."
Celestia nodded slowly and looked around her. They had made it to the front doors of the castle. She spotted the guards next to the door and spoke to them.
"Guards, take us to Twilight Sparkle and Shining Armor."
The guards looked from Celestia to Luna and then to J and Isabel. They looked from Celestia to J and back again.
"He is peaceful now, take us to them." said Celestia as she got a frustrated look on her face.
The guards saluted and opened the main castle doors. Inside revealed a long hallway that lead to another door at the end. J could tell that it probably lead to the throne room since it was adorned by red carpet. Instead of going though that door, the guards took the group through a door on the side. The hallway they were now in was heavily guarded. The was a guard every couple feet from each other with their backs against the wall. The door on the other side of the hallway was guarded by three more ponies.
'Shining Armor must have been a commanding officer of Celestia's guard. Other wise there would be this much security.
As the group walked down the hall, J could feel the eyes of the guards follow him in particular. He even heard a couple angry snorts but none of the guards moved from their spots. At the end of the hall that guards at the door somewhat hesitated to stand aside but ended up complying. The group walked through the door which lead to an actual room. In the middle of the room was a sign that held nothing but a red cross. Under the banner was a pony in a nurses outfit sitting behind a desk. She simply looked up, saw Celestia and pointed a hoof to a nearby door. Celestia nodded and trotted to the door.
Celestia looked at J before opening the door. J simply nodded and Celestia proceed to open the door.
Inside was two beds, one held Shining and the other held Twilight. They both looked physical fine except the fact that Twilight was asleep. Beside both beds stood five other ponies. J looked at the five ponies and saw two with wings, two with neither horn nor wings and one with a horn. The one closest one to J was a cyan winged pony with a rainbow mane. Beside that one was an orange pony with yellowish hair tied together with a rope or small string. On the other side of the bed stood the other winged pony, another pony without anything and a pure white horned pony. The other winged pony was yellow with pink hair much like the pony next to her which was all pink. The last pony was a pure white horned pony with purple hair. J then noticed the marks on their backsides as well. As he looked from pony to pony he couldn't help but laugh silently.
'Three apples, three butterflies, three gems and three balloons. Gee, I think I'm sensing a pattern.'
The only different of was the cyan pony who mark was a rain cloud that was shooting out a rainbow colored lightning bolt.
"At least that one is different." J said quietly.
Since they had entered the room, not one of the ponies noticed our presence. J was tempted to clear his throat to get their attention but it looked like Shining Armor had beaten him to it. Shining had noticed their presence in the room but his attention was immediately drawn to J. His eyes then got wide as he started to speak.
"I...i.i.i.. 's b.b.b. ." Said Shining as he brought up a shaking hoof and pointed it at J.
This caused the five other ponies to turn notice J was in the room. They all looked at him with looks of hatred.
"You did this!" yelled the cyan pony while pointing it's hoof at J.
J said nothing, he just simply nodded. This caused the cyan pony to snort and propel herself forward straight at J. She got a couple feet away from J before he moved. He simply moved to his right quickly and easily dodged the cyan pony. He had looked back as the cyan pony smacked into the door of the room. J looked back for a lovely surprise. He saw the orange pony right in front of him she way turned around and was in mid buck.
"Shit." said J as he received a buck to the stomach. This caused him to fall over in pain.
"Why do you ponies always hit me in the stomach." groaned J as he clutched his stomach. Isabel couldn't help but laugh at J. He looked up at her and groaned again before getting up slowly. He then saw both the cyan and orange pony running/flying at him. He readied himself to dodge and counter their attacks. However, they were stopped by Celestia.
"Rainbow Dash, Applejack, stop this foolishness at once!"
Rainbow Dash looked at the Celestia confused. "But Princess, you know what it did to Twilight and Shining!"
"Yes Rainbow Dash I am well aware at what he has done to them but he is here to help not to cause trouble."
Rainbow Dash looked at Celestia and then to J. J could sense the hostility and decided to introduce himself.
"I think I should introduce myself." J then walked closer to Rainbow Dash and stuck his hand out for a hand/hoof shake.
"My name is J, it is a pleasure to meet you Rainbow Dash."
Rainbow Dash didn't grab his hand in response. Instead, she grunted and turned away. As she walked away, her tail had flick J in the face. J balled his open hand into a fist and stood up. He looked at Celestia and cleared his throat.
"May I start?" he asked.
Celestia nodded and J turned to Isabel and motioned her to walk with him. They both made their way over to the beds and J examined both of them before turning back to Celestia.
"It appears that the illusion I cast on them is still faintly there. Shining is okay and will be easily cured of the illusion. Twilight however, has slipped into a coma like state due to the nature of the spell. Her mind couldn't handle what it was seeing and shut itself away from the world. Both can be released from the illusions side-effects but Twilight will require more work."
Celestia simply nodded and J began. He went up to Shining who was staring at him with big eyes and cowering in fear. J put his hand to the pony's head as his hand began to glow. Shining shut his eyes and reopened them. He looked at J and jumped back from the bed he was laying in. He charged his magic up but stopped when he felt a hoof touch his back. He looked back to see Celestia shaking her hand slowly. Shining seemed to get the message and watched J as he did the same thing to Twilight. However she didn't wake up.
Isabel looked at J, "What do you intend to do about the coma like state?"
"It isn't technically a coma." explained J, "It's just that her mind has shut itself away from everyone else. All she requires is a little...incentive."
Isabel looked at weirdly. "What is this incentive?"
J didn't answer, instead, he let his actions speak for him. He pulled his hand back and slapped Twilight as hard as he could across her face. All the ponies in the room gasped when he hit her. The only thing that stopped the ponies from attacking him was the fact that Twilight started to wake up. Twilight opened her eyes and looked at J and then to Celestia.
"Ok, I'll bite, who shaved this diamond dog and convinced it to slap me?" asked Twilight as she looked around the room.
J laughed loudly at Twilight's antics. "Maybe this will help you remember me."
J pulled his hood over his head and the enchantment started to cover his face with shadows. Twilight jumped back a little bit but then calmed down.
"Why are you helping me if you were our enemy only hour ago?" Asked Twilight.
"Well, we realized that all of this was a big misunderstanding and we made an agreement of peace." Said J as he pulled his hood back down.
J walked away and to the door. He took his place by the door and waited for Celestia to start talking. Celestia looked over the ponies in the room before speaking.
"When you all are ready, come meet us in the throne room, we have much to discuss."
Every pony in the room nodded slowly as Celestia, Luna, Isabel and J walked out of the room.
Twilight sat in her bed watching Celestia, Luna, Isabel and J leave the room. After they were gone Twilight sighed loudly.
"This has been a very interesting day to say the least." Twilight said as she slid out of her bed and walked over to her friends.
Poor J, he's going to have a fear of ponies punching him in the stomach before this story is done with.
The poll for the side story chapter is a close one. remember that the poll closes Monday night so get your vote in before then.
Feel free to leave a comment or review. Please point out a mistake you see or just tell me a part you liked OR you could do both.
See everypony Monday
Also, Happy one day late Halloween everypony.
