Chapter 13: The Glowing One

(\PoV: Blackshell./)

Even just looking at the décor of the station itself, I can see that the firsthoof descriptions of the capital city of Equestria hold true. It looks as though the station was designed more for comfort and eye-candy, as it were. Heh, they couldn't have been that much more obvious about their pockets, eh? Oh look, somepony finally managed to get rid of the distortion. "Hey, Black," I look over to Sugarplum, who looks somewhat concerned. "You sure you wanna go around Canterlot looking like a-"

"By Celestia, a Changeling! Guards!" Oh draaf. …Should have seen that coming. Within seconds, most of the ponies in the station have either evacuated or prepared to fight what they perceived as a major threat. Oh, and then there's the sudden wall of gold, white, and grey. With swords… and spears... Oh calm yourself, joor, it's not as though you couldn't just shift into a dov… Right? Not that simple, and I'm not that powerful. Now kindly stow it while I think of a way to get out of this without having a great deal more holes than one of Chrysalis' changelings!

"Ahhh…"

"Stand down, colts. He's not a threat." Who… I turn to see none other than Fleur as the voice of my salvation.

Some of the guards turn to Fleur in surprise. One, a grey stallion in the standard Canterlot gold armor, speaks up. "Lieutenant Dis Le! R-right away ma'm." He seems to be this squad's leader. "Alright, you heard the mare. Let the bug be." Well that's rather rude. The guard circle around me slowly breaks, and the guards return to their posts.

All the same, I owe Fleur for this one. I let out a breath that I wasn't fully aware I was holding. "Thank you, Ma'm. If you hadn't been there," I glance at Sugarplum who has just began calming herself and was struggling to keep her wings, and aforementioned wingblades, against her sides. "Then there likely would have been a very grave misunderstanding."

Fleur looks over at Sugarplum, and actually gains a look of worry. "Oh…" She looks to the grey stallion. "Sergeant, a word, if you please." The guardstallion walks up to her, and she begins speaking in hushed tones, and eventually motions to Sugarplum. He looks over to her and visibly pales.

I look over at Plum. I suppose I must apologize. "Plum, I-"

SMACK!

"Ow!"

"That was for bein' stupid and not disguising yourself until we were at the castle! You knew that we were goin' into Canterlot, and didn't even bother! And here I thought you were supposed to be the smart one!" Y'know, joor, she has a- Yes, she has a point. Do I want to hear this from you as well? No. So please be silent!

I sigh. "You're right, Plum. It was foolish of me to do so, especially here." Unsaid, what amount of trouble would I've caused if I'd been caught under disguise at the castle gates? The fic may never say. Wait, what? Oh, nothing.

Plum looks at me with an upturned eyebrow. "Ya think?" She shakes her head. "Well, now what? Cause I'm pretty sure any hope of comin' in quietly is out."

The sergeant steps forward carefully, and Fleur looks on cautiously. "Private," He says, though he sounds at the very least unnerved, "My squad and I will accompany you to the palace under the Lieutenant's orders." He seems to pause a moment. "I don't know what you've gotten yourself into this time, but…"

Plum waves him off. "Yeah yeah, I know, 'Be Careful'. Seriously, I know I'm reckless and aggressive, but I'm not stupid." She turns to him. "Although thanks, wasn't quite sure what I was gonna do to get through Canterlot without Blackshell here under disguise."

He just shakes his head. "To think if you actually got a position as a leader anywhere in Equestria..." Oh you poor, uninformed guard. I look to Plum to see her giving an absolutely horseapples-eating grin… He notices. "…You're kidding me, right?"

Plum and I look at each other. She looks back to the sergeant. "What happens in Ponyville…"

He actually facehoofs at this and shakes his head. "We try not to question. Do I even want to know the details?"

I look at Plum and just shake my head. She sees and decides to quit tormenting him. "Probably not."

He sighs. "Well, come on then. No use wasting the Princess's daylight."

With that we begin the long walk up to Canterlot Castle.

(\PoV: Sugarplum/)

Uhg, why couldn't you have just shifted into Shadow, Black? Now we're gonna have a hay-load of eyes on us and my wing!

We walk out of the station with more than a few confused nobles who actually had a pair following our group as we exited. Out in the streets wasn't much better, as just as I thought there's a standard detention carriage waiting for him, as well as two guards. And another bucking crowd. Oh, and whaddya know, the media's here. Bucking excellent.

The guards at the carriage move to apprehend Blackshell. Like hay I'll let that happen! I move next to him. "Situation's under control. The princesses said they wanted to see him immediately."

Immediately, they stop. The one to my left sighs. "Do I even want to know, private?"

Sergeant Quickstrike just shakes his head. "She's not exactly a Private anymore, apparently." The two guardstallions coming from the carriage look incredulously at each other first, then at me.

The one to our right looks like he figured it out, and facehoofs. "It's another Ponyville case, isn't it?" Bingo. After all, with all the crazy flank horseapples that go on there, even mentioning Ponyville in relation to an assignment is unofficial code for "It's likely true, don't think too much about it."

I smile. "Yeah, it is. So if ya don't mind getting that hunka wood and iron outa the way, that'd be nice."

They both look at each other before just shaking their heads and telling the carriage to move. The media, on the other hoof…

I turn to look at Blackshell and the guards… No pegasi, damn. "So, wanna deal with those shutterbugs over there or can Black and I takeoff?" For guards, there is little worse than media duty. The worst being dealing with Blueballs, but that's beside the point. Stupid brain.

"By all means, ma'm. Up and away at will."

I look at Blackshell. "I'd be more than happy to not answer the media's undoubtedly biased questions until after the Princesses', thank you."

And with that done and done, we takeoff for the castle. Following the detention carriage to avoid being stopped.

(\PoV: Blackshell/)

As we fly above Canterlot, I can't help but think that I've been here before… It's nothing, surely. It may just be the architecture.

We pass above multiple lavish houses and estates, all while undoubtedly confusing the nobles below… Now hold on, what's this?

I stop a moment to get a better look at the strange… thing. It appears to be a bipedal… thing that glows blue. It seems to have… Four? Yes four small upper arms shaped much like a club or baton coming out of a ring-shaped torso that happens to have a glowing blue orb in it's center. How strange… Indeed, Kriidiil, indeed.

Suddenly, as though it new we were observing it on it's rooftop, it moves it's apparent head to look at us. It's face is completely featureless, with the exception of two squinting blue eyes. Such a strange thing… I wonder why- "Black! C'mon, what's the holdup?"

Oh damn it, I forgot about Plum! I look to her and notice that I'm a bit far behind. I race to catch up.

Once I reach Plum, she looks at me with a somewhat annoyed expression. "Y'mind giving a warning before you bolt off and decide to play "Tempt the Archers"?" She has a point… Don't. Just… Don't.

"I'm sorry, Plum. I won't do so again if you're that worried." She first looks at me with a "really?" face before realizing exactly what that last part could insinuate. I completely understood what I was saying at the time… Oh give it a rest, lovercolt. Wh-Hey! Where're you pulling that from? Shut up, you're supposed to be hearing Sugarplum muttering right now!

"…don't know why I like him…"

(\PoV: ?/)

The flight-capable organics identified as pegasi and changeling pass overhead, the solid black insectoid-equine hybrid paused to examine me. Curious. He was called back by the female who seemed to just barely be able to fly with rhythm as her greatly crippled wing was very heavily reinforced by her subspecies particular brand of excelsior energy. Perhaps she is his mate?

Strange. A changeling would normally be on the inside of the primitive prisoner transport vehicle, instead of being allowed to fly freely, much less be allowed to mate with an … In the brief moment that our optics met, I scanned him to find abnormalities in his excelsior conduits. While a normal changeling would have had excelsior collectors/generators near the mouth and heart, this had extra generators finely tuned for specific actions near the mouth and organic optics. It seems a mirror to Onesimus's report over… The very same female pegasus that called it over. Fascinating… This requires proper documentation in the Data Megacomplex at Pelerandia.

[Oculyst Spark, this is the RTB signal. All scout Oculysts are to return to the Rift for debrief and maintenance… The very same signal that you've been ignoring for three days now!] Ah. And here is the unfortunate interruption.

[I suppose that my excelsior power converter is beginning to skip cycles. Initializing teleportation codestream… See you soon, Tangent.] And with that, the molecular transdimensionalizer activates…

(/\)

You see what looks like a large underground chamber with an arena in the center. Both the walls of the arena and the walls of the chamber. You see Hunter sitting on an what appears to be a melted cage and Shadow gnawing on what appears to be a scorched staff.

Hello, readers. My apologies for being terribly late. As you can see, I was quite busy rounding up a group a pet duelers.

Hunter cringes.

Pet duelers, so inhumane. Now racers such as Shadow and myself…

Shadow rolls his eyes. Apparently he's heard this speech multiple times over.

I mean, if anything we racers pamper our pets and simply ask that they try their hardest in simple races! I mean…

As Hunter continues to ramble, Shadow pulls a sign out of… Nowhere. It reads: "Alright, the IRL reason for the very unplanned hiatus is one, school. Two, unforeseen events. We're trying not to become that author who eventually just leaves everypony hanging. By the by, if you haven't guessed Hunter and me are based off of the RL Hunter's Wizard 101 account. Also, this new faction is an OC submission from the Imprisoned of Hell. Yes, he's perfectly willing to do this sort of thing. Keep in mind though, we're not going to be seeing much more of Spark and Tangent until much later on. Say about in another 4-5 chapters. So long as we don't end up swamped in OC requests or absolutely ridiculous OCs there will be no end or block to the amount of OCs. As a sidenote, how do you think about how the fic's going so far?"

The scene fades to black…