Token Evil IC

Broken didn't protest being lead away; After all he had played the part of the arrogant pen pusher and sometimes there were consequences to ones actions. Besides, his plan required that they were far enough away from the vault to not alert the guardian as to what had happened.

He was still paranoid of the metal changeling's loyalty, but she didn't seem inclined to rat him out so he had no reason to turn on her either... In fact, if the guards were looking forwards they wouldn't expect the attack from behind.

Iota watches the bloody spectacle silently, evaporating what few flecks of blood that make it between its armor plates. Eventually it goes and and grabs the jackals, holding them back as it rasps, "Indulge later. Two guards still inside. Time... is of essence."

It then looks sternly at the kobold. "Not... your servant. Kill... when necessary."

Saying that, the suit of armor rattles up to the door, and braces itself against it. "Opening door... on count of three..."

Krix glares back at the armour, already irritated at being shoved away by one of the twins. "There's nothing necessary of a survivor who'd wake up, retreat, and raise alarm?" he shrills, "I only asked armour pony to do it because it was armour pony's kill to have. Now you've lost it to dogs who didn't do anything. I'll keep in mind you aren't interested." He lets Iota lead the way...

"I appreciate your concern, but I have faith in the abilities of my paladins. Unless they're up against a truly overwhelming force, I doubt they would succumb so easily--"

Argent's words are cut off by the doors slowly grinding open.

Into the hallway steps a blood-flecked suit of hollow armor, with a burning core with demonic magic.

Then the bloody kobold comes into view, and the jackals, and finally the singed looking ex-paladin.

Argent regards them silently, while a sneeze can be heard from the back of the hallway.

I smelled that too. Blood, demons, puppies. I'm just getting more and more toys today, aren't I?"

Recon puts on her changeling-queen appearance as the door creaks open, then leans in to whisper as Little Walker, "I have to stop being your friend now. Nothing personal." Once Argent gets a good look at the rest of the team, Recon speaks up, this time using her changeling voice.

"It looks to me like they've succumbed, little paladin, and quite messily at that." She uses a hoof to turn Argent's muzzle to make eye contact with her. "It must be from pretending to be one of you ponies all morning, but I'm feeling uncharacteristically generous. I'm willing to have my associates stand down and let you and your little paladin friend leave this place intact and alive. Or you can throw yourselves to their tender mercies and be just as pointlessly and painfully butchered as your compatriots outside were. I'd recommend that you make your choice quickly, though. They won't be patient for very long."

As the doors leading to the hallway of the vault opened and reveled the slaughter that had taken place, Broken glanced over at the two paladins that he was with and was about to make his move when the Metal Changeling beat him to it and attempted to take control of the situation herself.

Those paladins needed to die; They had seen and heard to much and even if he was to remove his appearance from their memories he couldn't afford a chance sighting by one of them to screw him over in the end. Looking at Tender, Broken decided that he could at least appear to be going along with the changeling bitch for the moment. A magical aura was so so dark blue that it could have been mistaken for black appeared around his horn... and around Tender, small little portals of the same color started to form. Nightmarish looking tendrils started to form out of the portals, intent on wrapping around and restraining the paladin if she was smart enough not to fight back.

After all, fighting back now would mean she would be fighting to the death.

Actions:

"You've seen better days," Brightheart notes, eyeing the changeling queen robot thing. "Then again, so have I..."

Looking at Argent, Brightheart tilts his head, and an unseen smirk forms under his helmet. "You know, I always dreaded this during my service - capture, I mean - but I never expected I would be on the other side of the situation."

He looks around at the others. "So, my comrades - do we leave this good sir here or do we do away with him before going on our merry way? Personally I'd like to challenge him to honorable combat but it seems you aren't so fond of it."

"Wait, how did you get here before us?" complains Krix to the reacquainted robot. "What are you even doing here? Why should we spare these ponies? Who the !#$* is this?"

Recon deadpans her answers in time with the kobold's questions.

"Infiltration skill specialist. Infiltrating. 'Generosity'. Question for later."

Sensing that the rest of the party might need more convincing, Recon drapes a foreleg over Argent.

"Just think of this fellow," she says. "This is a High Paladin of Princess Celestia's most elite guard, in whom Princess Celestia herself has placed her undying faith and trust to protect the entrance to the vault holding her most treasured keepsakes." She moves on to stroking Argent with her hoof as she continues. "It would be much more devastating for him if he were the one to explain his own failure to her. To look into his highest superior's eyes and feel his poor little heart sink and wither under the disappointment in her eyes, even as her words forgive him. To feel the little twinge of survivor's guilt every time he sees the names of the paladins he left to die outside on the memorial walls of the palace."

She lets silence pass a moment, then releases Argent and turns away.

"Of course, he would have to decide if that's worth living with, and you'd have to decide to let him live with it. I have no personal stake in either decision."

The twins, initially snarling and fighting to keep at their meal, finally begin to calm- the bestial look in their eyes softening as they regain control over their base instincts. Once calm again, Gallows speaks first. "That's... that's cold, and evil... we shouldn't kill him we already won, even if it does mean he suffers more because of it..." Her tone is sincere, despite the blood still staining her muzzle. Hallows remains silent, eyes to the floor.

"Can leave... here... bound and contained. Will not cause harm until we leave." Iota rasps. "Not... necessary for death."

Krix just looks around confused. "Has everyone gone soft and dumb? Killing these pony is necessary, they've seen us, they've seen jolly pony. I don't want the entire land on the lookout for us, with two vengeful guards leading the charge. Where you see sad pony survivors, I see determination and bloodlust. We leave no loose ends. We still have a lot of work to do."

Recon rolls her eyes, strides over to Krix, and lowers her head to whisper to him.

"I'm trying to infiltrate Princess Celestia's ranks as one of her agents so she'll divert her guards' attention away from us and onto our competitors. I've already got her convinced I'm working for her. I'm pushing to let these two go to convince her minions. If these two have any hard feelings after this, I'll be back later to give a 'mission report' to the Princess; I can tie up the loose end then."

"At least... information." Iota gestures towards the end of the hallway. "What... beyond door. Could... be danger."

While Argent stares warily at the group, unwilling to make the first move, Tender seems to test her restraints for a brief moment before slumping when she realizes that she's completely trapped.

Satisfied with the fact that at least -one- of the paladins was restrained and not going anywhere in a hurry, he decided to take a moment to do what he should have done from the start; Figure out what the enchantments on the medallions both himself and said paladins wore actually did. Everyone else was too busy arguing over what to do anyway so he doubted that they would have minded him getting them a bit more information.

Dice rolls.:

（reposting for posterity's sake)
"The medallion is magically treated to constantly emit a signal of some sort, like a label or a tag that is immediately identifiable. It's likely used both for identification, and for tracking purposes."

"Of course," Recon says aloud, "there's also danger out in the palace. I was blindsided earlier today by changelings disguised as Royal Guards, and the one I spoke with when I regained consciousness made it clear they were after Celestia's treasures as well. None of them mine, unfortunately."

She leans closer to Argent. "Sad to say I'm not much for protracted combat. However, I could serve as a diversion to draw the changelings and the other villains away."

In the next beat, there were two Argent Lights standing next to each other. The one that used to be a roboticized changeling queen continued speaking.

"We could use the High Paladin's assistance with that endeavour. If he agrees to work with me, he and I can spread word that the treasures had already been taken by an imposter disguised as him. The changelings would divide their forces to chase after us instead of concentrating on the vault, and the other villains will call off their attempts to storm the palace. We'd buy you some time to do what you need to."

Recon leans closer to the real Argent and adds in a whisper, "I'm gonna answer to the Princess for this right along with you, and I'm pretty sure she's not done with me over the Project Recon incident. I need all the brownie points I can get with Her Highness right now, so do me the favor and please work with me on this."

Brightheart stays silent for a while before suddenly brandishing his sword and putting it up against Tender's neck. "In that case, here's a chance to prove yourself useful immediately. I wasn't privy to whatever's inside during my service, but you're probably high ranked enough to have some idea."

His horn glows, and a burst of fire and lightning explodes outwards, though curiously it doesn't burn - instead it forms a ring about 40 feet in diameter. Those within it feel compelled to speak the truth - those who don't find themselves burnt by the fires of truth. "Don't lie, or rather, you can't lie. So answer me: What is inside that door? Please don't make this difficult."

Zone of Truth:

"The most valuable and most dangerous treasures collected by her Majesty over the centuries," Argent says eventually, eyeing Tender (and the sword to her throat) warily. "They're all stored inside the vault. There's enough bit's worth of treasure in there to buy the entirety of Equestria, and then some."

He hesitates, glances at Tender again, and continues. "It defended by a legendary Guardian, chosen by Celestia herself centuries ago. She has stood guard over this treasure ever since, and no one has managed to steal anything from this vault with her in charge."

You flatter me, The Guardian speaks up suddenly.

"I'm not exactly sure what she is, but I've heard that she might be a dragon..." Argent says, before closing his mouth, apparently unwilling to say any more on the topic. Instead he turns to look at Recon.

"...Fine. It's not like I have much choice in the matter anyway."

As one of the knights started casting a spell in order to force those under the influence of it to speak the truth, Broken felt the energies wash over him and knew then and there that he would need to use caution; Granted being truthful did not mean that one was necessarily honest, but not being able to lie can be rather inconvenient. Removing the medallion from his neck and throwing it back down the hallway leading towards the vault, he decided to not only provide the mooks with a bit of enlightenment of his own, but also to try and take some measure of control over the situation in order to get what they wanted.

"From what I saw earlier, Dragon is a strong contender, though there are a couple of other possibilities. She could also possibly be an Ursa or a Hydra... through considering that Hydras are known to have multiply heads and we've only ever heard one speaker the latter is somewhat doubtful. But that is not what is important right now..." Grinning a little as he turned to speak down the hallway towards the vault to ensure that the Vault Guardian could hear him properly, Broken could already feel the wind start to blow beneath his future wings "What matters is that you have something that we desire and we have something you in turn."

Taking a moment to chuckle in a slightly amused fashion, Broken quickly explained "Oh, I'm well aware of the fact that you almost certainly don't give two bucks what happens to these two. After all they are just two more faceless guard ponies in a long line of faceless guard ponies to you. However, while you might not care about their fate... Celestia would." He let that linger in the air for just a moment, levitating the metaphysical sword above the Guardian's head in their own mind. "Love her or hate her for it, Celestia does care so deeply about each and every one of her little ponies and would do just about anything to protect them from harm. I'm sure she wouldn't be mad that one of her closest friends made the decision to let two of her little ponies die in agony in order to protect a minor trinket... Knowing her, she'll just be disappointed." There are some words which when spoken aloud in the right circumstances almost demand a flash of lightning or an icy chill to crawl up your spine. Broken was trying his best to ensure that this was one of them.

"Of course, if you're truly that confident that your friendship with her is that strong that it can survive the strain of this betrayal of her precious ponies then I admire your courageous conviction. " Now all that needed to happen was to be silent. Let the Guardian's imagination do some of the work in order to get her in the right state of mind to make a deal.

Recon returns the High Paladin's decision with a satisfied smile. "Very good. We'll just need your subordinate to go ahead of us and..."

She looks at Tender. Right about that time is when Broken starts talking to the maybe-dragon in the vault.

"We'll need both paladins free for this diversion plan to work, Pen Pusher."

"If its a monster, then I bet its a dragon, too." Gallows speaks up. The up-til-now silent twins seem to have settled, standing away from the mess that was their meal but well inside the circle of light. "They're big, powerful, scary, and they love hoards. So if Celestia convinced the dragon that it was essentially protecting its own hoard, then it would conceivably have no problem guarding it for her.... right?"

"Mmm." Brightheart nods to the jackal's claim, while resolutely ignoring the political power-play between the changeling queen and the crippled unicorn.

"Are any guards on their way to the vault this moment?" Brightheart then asks the paladin. Better safe than sorry. "If there are I reckon we should pick up the pace on this heist."

"Oh, and - how much of a grudge do you hold against us, actually?"