Day: 1

Dear Princess Twilight,

It brings me no joy to bear this news, especially on the eve of your coronation. There is no easy way to say this, but the changlings have returned. My reaction to this first news probably mirrors your own.

It startled me into alarm, but I remained assured by the close proximity of the elements. Our ultimate defense stands at the ready as does our entire guard. More importantly, and unlike last time, we know they’re coming. We’ve taken your previous work on identification spells and dispersed them to the guard to stop any infiltration. There is talk of enforcing curfews and your coronation's planned date has become tentatic..

I know this must sound excessive, and at first I was not afraid. I wanted your coronation to be the experience you deserve so I took some extra precautions. Then some disturbing reports came in from the edges of our empire and I've come to learn that any preparation we can make will not be enough. The changlings we fought were simple creatures, drones with the talent to take the shape of anything they saw in front of them. Now, there are reports that they’ve begun to take on the talents and abilities of those they copy. Beyond possessing the limited physical capabilities of who they copy, now they wield the magics, talents, and abilities of who they copy in addition to their full physical ability.

We are currently close to creating a device that prevents the wear from being copied as an army of myself, you or Luna would surely spell catastrophe. While I would like to believe that this would be our greatest fear extinguished, the reports would suggest otherwise.

You and your friends will be briefed as soon as you arrive in Canterlot.

Sincerely,

Celestia

Twilight could feel the air's thickness swell up in her throat. The sun shone, but the birds didn’t chirp. Some said that animals had an extra “sixth sense” for disasters and migrated en masse away from earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. True to myth, she remembered seeing an unusually large flock of birds flying north back on the train. Fluttershy hadn’t said anything, but none of them were talking much anyway.

Even Pinkie was quiet and that was saying something.

Now, the clanking armor of the guards who escorted them filled the silence, only broken up by the occasional cough or throat clearing. In a way, this it didn’t feel any less quiet. It felt more quiet.

Twilight noticed a family walking the other direction. The children looked on with worried curiosity while the parents just looked worried. She wasn't sure what the common pony knew of the situation or what rumours were going around, but the appearance of all six elements in one place followed by a platoon of guards probably didn’t inspire confidence.

There was probably a good reason, but Celestia should have known the type of scene this would make. Ponies would get scared. The price of protecting the kingdom's greatest weapon was everyone thinking that the kingdom's greatest weapon needed protecting.

Soon the clops of their hooves began to echo in the grand marble halls of Canterlot Castle. The silence had given way to the banter of anxious-sounding groups of officials who passed by on either side of them. Each esteemed pony who passed them glanced them with looks varying from expecting to having already given up on the elements.

Celestia was at the center of it all, ponies approaching her from every which direction. She had three quills in her levitation all signing different documents while seemingly speaking with two ponies at the same time.

She had lost all her regality over what Twilight guessed was three days without sleep. She slumped a bit and held a desperate, bored look in her bloodshot eyes.

Upon seeing Twilight, the quills pulled back and she held a hoof up. All the ponies around her looked backwards at them.

“Princess Twilight, I’m glad you’ve come,” said Celestia, a small, but genuine smile forming on her lips.

“We’re here to help.”

“And not a moment too soon.”

Celestia muttered a few things to the ponies around her, then patted the shoulder a stallion whose face went from determined and driven, to horrified. The rest of the officials looked between her and him with looks of disbelief before mobbing upon him with questions. Celestia approached the six of them, and with a gesture of her hoof dismissed the escorting guards.

“Please,” she said. “If you’ll come with me, we have things to discuss.”

They began down one of the halls leading off from the throne room.

“Princess, you look exhausted,” said Twilight.

The rest of them shared looks of concern and agreement. Celestia nodded absentmindedly.

“Things have been hectic. The reports keep coming in and some of them have been verified. Tonight, a state of emergency will be announced.”

Rarity was the first to make herself heard aside from Twilight.

“A state of emergency?! Princess Celestia, if I may ask, what have ponies been reporting? Twilight showed us your letter and I have yet to imagine something worse than what you suggested,” said Rarity. “We’ve faced a legion of Pinkie Pies before, but a legion of Princess Celestias would be a whole other story.”

“Death...” she said. “Slaughter. Genocide. They don’t seek love anymore. They don’t take prisoners. They leave only one survivor, a messenger, to make sure we know they’re coming.”

“How come no one seems to know about this?” asked Twilight. “If it’s as bad as you say, then, I don’t know, shouldn’t more ponies know?”

She nodded. “No, our first report came in at about 8:00 PM last night. By midnight we had a dozen more. When I wrote you that letter we had just received our first photographic proof of an invasion. And then…” Celestia closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

By this time, they were out of sight of the throne room, alone in one of Canterlot’s many long hallways. Celestia sank to her rump, her wings drooping to the floor.

“What?” asked Fluttershy. “What happened?”

“Then approximately twenty minutes ago, I was told the city of Vanhoover had fallen. It’s military overwhelmed, and it’s ponies murdered…”

The silence thickened the air to the point of being unbreathable.

Rainbow Dash recovered first. “How?”

The single word hung as they all waited for Celestia to address it. In a way, the conversation was moving slowly, dramatic pauses after each utterance, but given what was being said, Twilight really wished they wouldn’t go so fast. She was already feeling a little dazed.

“I— I am not sure,” said Celestia. “The evidence indicate several things. I'll show you, but don't tell anyone until tomorrow. We're formulating an official release and we don't any more panic that we're already going to have.”

She produced a few freshly developed, sleek photographs from beneath her wing.

The six of them huddled around pictures with an morbid curiosity.

On the first one, there a nighttime scene of a distant city-scape set ablaze. It was taken from an aerial viewpoint. In the center, the downtown area and skyscrapers had been hit brutally. Smoke and dust dimmed the details, but massive skyscrapers had toppled over and crushed the buildings below. Further towards the edges, fire and smoke completely concealed the suburbs.

“This was taken last night and it won’t be long before the survivors arrive in the neighboring cities and towns,” commented Celestia. “We’ve received reports from the other corners of Equestria, our northeast region being the only absent one.”

She flipped to the next picture. It was taken from the streets of what they guessed to be Vanhoover, but it was hard to tell. In it they saw the carnage. A little filly laid on the ground eviscerated. Above her stood a massive bipedal monster of metal vaguely resembling a minotaur. He had glowing blue eyes and two red-hot blades of steel jutting out from the tops of his wrists.

“This picture suggests two possibilities. They can either take the forms of machines and bring them to life, or they retain the memories of those they copy, and thus built this.”

Twilight snapped out of her fearfulness in protest of the obvious jumps in logic. “But, princess, there isn’t a pony alive who could make this. And I'm pretty sure if that thing existed here, we'd know about it. Who have they been copying?”

“We have a theory that the spell cast by Shining Armor and Cadance to evacuate them from Canterlot actually ended up satiating their hunger for love and empowered them. It makes sense since the force wave they issued was made from the concentrated essence of love. And that the force with which they rocketed off sent them to other worlds.”

Twilight raised a skeptical brow. “I'll buy the love part, but how could that send them to other worlds?”

“We aren’t working off a lot, and for the time being, the explanation isn’t important. What we need is to devise a grand, airland battle strategy. Because this...”

She flipped to the next photo. Instead of a city, this one was pointed skyward. Eclipsing the moon was a…

“Giant piece of grey pie shooting laser beams?” said Pinkie. “Princess, my confectionary skills are at your disposal. I have yet to make my cupcakes shoot lasers, but that’s only because it never occurred to me to do so.”

She smiled and almost laughed managing only a breathy chortle. “Pinkie we’re more likely going to need your more combat-oriented skills. And no, what we see here is what we believe to be battleship. Given it’s size, it's a good possibility that it may be their center of command or capital ship. It will be a main objective of our campaign.”

Next to speak was Applejack. “Uh, all due respect, princess, but do we really have an answer ta that? Ah wanna not die as much as the next pony, but Ah don’t think we’re gonna last very long in a head on engagement.”

Truly, that detail had been on all their minds. It seemed less like a briefing to discuss battle strategy as it was a slideshow of why they should surrender. As much as no one wanted to hear it, Twilight respected Applejack's strong logistical reasoning. From the looks of it they couldn't afford to overestimate their capacities.

"What kind of attitude is that?" chided Dash. "If this thing is for real, we don't any room for 'quitters'."

"Don't call me a quitter," snarled Applejack. "I ain't never quit at nothin', so shut your mouth. All I wanna know is what the princess is thinkin' far as a way to fight back."

"Well, she ain't sitting around thinking of nothing," she barked back. "Tell her, princess."

She glared at the them.

“Rainbow Dash, I know you're afraid, but don't speak to your friend like that," said Celestia. "And Applejack, I applaud your honesty, but fighting at a time like this will be our undoing."

"Sorry," said Dash.

"Didn't mean it," said Applejack.

"Don't be quick to count us out. As nation, we have more power in our hearts than we do in any weapon. In addition to that we have been blessed with a great hope,” said Celestia. “A defector of the changlings. He has given us invaluable insight into what we’re dealing with. The changling in question has almost totally forgotten he’s a changling. The memories of the form he copied is taking over and he has agreed to join our cause.”

“See, told ya," said Dash.

A voice rang out.

“Your, majesty. The changling is here at your request.”

Celestia turned her head to the source of the voice and the six of them followed. An individual flanked by guards approached. He was bipedal and had a youthful appearance. He wore an orange shirt, purple shorts, and a black beanie with two white stripes. Twilight immediately noticed the signs of anxiety in him and in only so many words knew this individual was the neurotic studious-type.

He held his hand to shake. Twilight did so and noticed his grip was weak.

“Edd's the name,” he said with a nasally voice. “But you can call me Double D. I take it you’re Princess Twilight?”

She nodded.

The boy looked nervous as all eyes fell to him. “Right, well I’m not much of a fighter, but Celestia tells me that it’s helpful that I identify the changling champions depicted, provide information on their operations, most specifically weaknesses, give you dissertations on their characters, and provide scientific assistance.”

“You’re a scientist?” asked Twilight apprehensively.

“Indubitably! Those lasers you see are actually not lasers in what you’d assume, for the sake of determining defensive strategies. They don’t use radiation as an disrupter of homeostasis. They super eject plasma as a more direct means of causing structural damage.”

Twilight raised a brow. “And you’ve ran him through truth magic?” she asked to Celestia.

“Don’t be silly,” he said. “There is no such thing as magic. Magic is simply science that has yet to be put through the wonderful process of notation, measurement, and peer review! And yes, it was very long— and uncomfortable...”

He blushed when he was met with the wide-eyed stares of Twilight’s five friends, the princess and even the two guards.

Twilight smiled. Something about Edd reminded her of herself and it was endearing in that sense “This might be an instance of tomato-tomahto, but I think you and I are going to get along quite well Double D.”

Two days.

That’s how long Celestia had given them to prepare. In two days entire cities had to be evacuated. Everyone needed to be relocated to the central triangle. The land between Manehattan, Cloudsdale, and the Crystal Empire would serve as their fighting center. While it was a grim situation, morale was high. Every pony had been put to work, either constructing defenses, temporary shelters or tending new crops. Most invaluable were the earth ponies and pegasi as food was going to become a very real issue once stores ran out. They calculated that as long as rations were maintained, that particular detail looked bright.

Give their line wasn’t broken.

The scholars were put into “think-tanks” with generals, engineers, and manufacturers to determine grand strategies. It was imperative that all the most brilliant minds were put to work in developing defenses, organization systems, new magics, and methods of assault. Unfortunately, the academic unicorns of Canterlot saw things differently from the industry leading ponies as they usually did.  Heavy disagreement on logistics, theory, and efficacy of strategies soon echoed through the repurposed classrooms of Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.

Twilight and Edd sat presiding over the largest and most esteemed of the think-tanks, name “Magic” after the element. So far, five hours of arguing had led to very little results. Twilight was a little more used to such positions having been on many academic committees and panels. She sat back in her chair and and maintained a demeanor of forced interest. Edd though, she could see shaking nervous each time he had to speak.

“Given that we do employ your ludicrous strategy, do we have any sort of estimate for how long the memory process takes?” said a particularly passionate stallion.

Edd sat forward to the mic, but a sharp feedback rang out as soon as he began to speak. He bore his teeth as cries of annoyance gave way to silence.

“I c-can’t comment exactly, but I know it’s longer than a week,” he said.

“We can’t understate the magic of friendship,” replied the stallion’s opponent. “Edd is living proof that their mimicking powers can lead to alliance changes. If we infer upon them the forms of our allies, they will turn to us and their numbers become ours.”

“Whose to say they won’t change back?!” protested another. “Double D works for us now, but tomorrow, who knows?”

Shouting and arguing erupted from every pony in the room, both in support and antagonism for the boy. He frowned, and Twilight put her hoof over his hand. It was a hard lesson to learn that after reaching a certain point in importance, one would always face opposition. She felt for him, being tossed into a brand new world alone in the face of total obliteration. He wasn’t a hero. He didn’t look the part, sound the part, or act the part, but Twilight still admired him for rising to the task.

She gave him a small nod and that said enough without really needing to say anything at all.

He stood up and took the mic, determined.

“Excuse me.”

The ignored him.

“I beg you pardon!” he tried again.

He turned back to Twilight and she tightened her grip on his hand. He saw her horn light up with magic.

“Listen to me!” he commanded, his voice magically amplified enough to leave their ears ringing.

They all looked up at him, many hopeful and many more skeptical. He gulped and cleared his throat. .

“My identity as a changling is irrelevant. I had a life before them: friends, family, and dreams. After they targeted my world, that was taken away. I watched my two best friends die in front of me, I never got to say goodbye to my family, and I’m certain my school was burned down. Maybe I’ll have something to live for after this, but not if we let them succeed.”

“After taking the forms of others, I’ve never seen any of them turn back into their base form. I refuse to think I will. I’ll help you in whatever way you can, but these changlings must be stopped no matter what. If that means ending my life to do so, I sincerely ask you to do that whenever it is most advantageous to you.”

The silence that followed was heavy, but short-lived. A few ponies began to applaud, but it didn’t catch. One pony bellowed a protest. Another began a passionate refutation, and the room rolicked to life again. He sat back down, his hands shaking violently. It looked like this was the last place in the world he’d like to be and Twilight couldn’t blame him. Edd began to choke up and fell instinctively to her shoulder.

Rainbow Dash scoured the ground from her vantage point in Cloudsdale. She and the other Wonderbolts were on point for look out. It had been something of a dream coming true to be assigned to the same battle group as her lifelong heroes, but it carried a heavy price.

The Wonderbolts were by their code, Equestria’s first responders. First to charge and first to fight, and more often than not first to fall. Soarin’, Spitfire, and Fleetfoot were the trained, cold-hardened commanders they always were, but the rest of them hadn’t seen real action before. It was an unfortunate consequence of living in near-perpetual peace to have most of the military never having any real combat experience.

“We got movement,” said Dash. “Permission to issue P.I.D.”

“Permission granted,” said Spitfire.

Dash darted out from the clouds only fast enough to not break the sound barrier. It was advised against since such a stunt would break the nerves of the ponies working far below.

Less than three seconds later, Dash was back.

“Report,” said Spitfire, almost boredly.

“It’s clear. Bunny rabbit.”

“Stay frosty.”

Dash steeled herself, not faltering from her duty for a second. Despite the situation, it was still incredibly cool to have Spitfire ordering her around, relying on her even. In the distance she saw something else move.

“Permission granted,” said Spitfire preemptively.

Dash went out and returned with a massive rainbow shockwave trailing her. The boom echoed against the mountain of Canterlot. Everyone in her squad was looking at her wide-eyed.

“What the hell, Dash?” said Spitfire, ripping her sunglasses off. “You trying to start a panic?!”

“Gimme the book. Gimme the book!” replied Dash, frantically reaching for the guide issued by Double D. She flipped through it, spending less than a tenth of a second on each page.

In it were all the possible adversaries he knew the changlings to have in their command. They were categorized by threat level with half-hearted descriptions for a combat response that left a lot to be desired. They were told that a better book would be issued as soon as they had time to spend on making one.

If they lasted that long.

“What?! Are you telling me we have contact?” chided Spitfire, looking over Dash’s shoulder.

“Here he is,” said Dash, finally reaching the page. “The Cook. He’s a county class threat. Only notes says to ‘get his helmet off’.”

“What does that even mean, country class?” asked Soarin’.

“There are five danger levels: barony, county, duchy, kingdom, and empire,” explained Spitfire. “They’re categorized by the size of land that the threat in question could destroy in one day uncontested. Geez, did you even read the handout?”

Soarin’ smiled a toothy smile and rubbed the back of his head. “Heh, that’s what you’re here for.”

“Well buddy, you just earned yourself point for our first operation,” said Spitfire. “Here’s the plan, Soarin’ is in first to knock him off balance. Surprise I want in second for a smoke screen. Fleetfoot and I will draft Dash’s rainboom, and slingshot a strike on him. We exit on Surprise’s smoke.”

“Yes, ma’am,” they all said.

“I want this clean, Soarin’, good calls, got it? We aren’t losing anyone today. Don’t oversell us and don’t be afraid of calling it off. We do have an army behind us.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Soarin’.

They saluted and looked back out to the horizon...

“Wait, where did he go…?” said Dash.

At that, everyone scoured the horizon with eyes sharper than a hawk. As hard as the searched, everything was still. The pits in all their stomachs dropped.

“What do we do? What do we do?!” chattered Dash.

“Keep it together, he couldn’t have gone far…” said Spitfire.

It was then that an extremely nasally voice whispered right into their ears.

“What befalls you isn’t your average darkness…” he said.

Next to her, Soarin’ choked, blood coughing out onto his lips. Dash tried to keep her cool until she saw a yellow hand digging a spatula into Soarin’s side out of her peripheral. She could feel the cool glass of the cook's helmet rub against her cheek.

He spoke again, the vibrations of his words felt on her cheek.

“This is advanced darkness…”