"I think I recognize those ponies, with the exception of the really dark one over there," Lance remarked, standing in a marbled hallway adorned with a red carpet. He eyed a stained glass mural depicting six ponies firing a multi-directional beam of energy at a seventh, larger dark blue pony with a pair of imposing wings spread wide. The mural’s coloring featured a predominant purple, highlighted with azure. The six firing the beam stood on a floor of a similar blue shade.

"What?" Shining Armor asked, stopping before trotting up to the mural in question. He flashed a smile at the picture before it fell into a stoic pursing of the lips as the cloaked pegasus turned to him.

"You know something I don't?" Lance asked, a brow raised.

"Well, given the barrier kept the worlds apart until... what, three days ago, you could say I know a lot about Mythos that you don't. By that same token, you know much more about Fantasia then I could ever hope to learn," Shining retorted in a blunt tone. He watched as the pegasus's red-eyed visage flicked between several emotions before settling on a frown.

"You do have a point," Lance conceded, turning around as the his compatriots and the rest of the guards caught up. He held up a hoof, signaling for the rest of the Fantasians to stop, and when they halted he directed that same hoof to the stained glass depiction. "Any of those ponies look the least bit familiar?" he asked.

"Hold the radio," Natalie interjected, eyeballing the mural with a narrow-eyed gaze of suspicion and a brow shooting up. "I think I'd recognize that poofy mane of bright pink anywhere."

"And that curly one of violet," Anna added.

"Wait up, how are the non-unicorns firing lasers from their heads, exactly?" Katie piped up, jerking her head a bit before raising a hoof to point at the glass artwork accusingly.

"That's a damn good question," Matt conceded, his gaze falling on the dark pony in the mural. "And who is that one? I don't think I've seen any relics or pictures depicting a unisus before."

"Unisus?" a guard piped up, looking at the half-Clydesdale with a set of brows shooting up.

"A pony with the wings of a pegasus and the horn of a unicorn. What, you have a different name for those kinds of ponies?" Sarah questioned, frowning as the lot of guards that still accompanied her and her companions shared wide-eyed looks.

"We call them alicorns around here," Shining answered in a voice laced with disbelief.

"Doesn't that term refer to a unicorn's horn, though?" Alexander interjected, his inquiry causing the guards to exchange another series of glances.

"Er, yes... but around here, it's just used to refer to what you called a, um, ‘unisus’ nowadays," Shining replied, one of his back legs fidgeting ever so slightly.

"Erm, do you consider 'unisus' an insult? If not, then why're you fidgeting right now?" Katie inquired, getting a look from the guards' captain.

"... Me, no. But, I'm... I'm married to an alicorn, and she might," he answered in an uneasy tone.

"Stop right there this instant," Fenrir growled, sending Shining a wide-eyed look. "Captain Armor, I am highly skeptical and disbelieving of your claim. Thusly, I present unto you a simple challenge: prove that your supposed wife is a unisus, or an alicorn, or whatever you care to call her. If you are able to do just that, and she doesn't have a false horn or pair of wings, then I shall perform one deed to make up for my skepticism. Do we have ourselves a deal?"

Shining's brows shot up. "One deed?" he asked.

"Anything you wish, so long as it is within reasonable boundaries," Fenrir replied, his face setting into an expressionless look as he nodded his head. "I am an ambassador of sorts, not a slave. Thus, I should be allowed to retain a reasonable shred of my dignity."

Shining donned the faintest of smirks. "Fair enough. I shall find my wife right away. Guards, escort the Fantasians to the throne room, if the Princesses are still inside it. If not, find out where they're at and reroute the ambassadors there," he commanded, and bounded off before any of the guards could have a chance to object to his order.

"Oh boy," Armin groaned, taking a moment to sit on his rump and fling his front legs into the air. "Looks like Shining's lost it."

"Let's hope he's not performing an act of cowardice on us," Lance sighed, shaking his head.

"You, with the mask, standing next to the hippogryph," a guard began, staring pointedly at Armin, "are you a changeling? I think I've caught a glimpse of blue ribs."

"Yes, he's a changeling, under my command, and I'm having him wear the cloak and mask. And no, he's not stripping those, thank you. You've already seen our other changeling's face, and I think you don't need something else to gawk at," Lance snapped, stepping in front of the male changeling defensively. The guards exchanged looks before turning to the red-eyed pegasus stallion and nodding in understanding.

"So, er... are there any alicorns in Fantasia?" a unicorn guard asked, ears falling flat on his head.

"There haven't been any. If anything, pegacorn ponies are bedtime stories back home," Sarah piped up, rubbing her shoulder with a claw. "In ancient legends, yes. In the flesh, no."

The guards broke formation and formed a tight circle amongst themselves, forelegs latching onto withers of their fellow guardsponies and heads all bowed low in the center. They whispered fervently, though their murmurs were so rampant and overlapping that whatever it had been that they chatted about eluded the otherworldly group. Not even Alexander or Fenrir could make out the tumbling words uttered in hushed tones, because once they tried to sneak near the guards, the whole group moved away from them as if one lifeform that mimicked the walking mannerisms of an ocean crab.

Maria hopped from Alexander's back and approached the guards on all fours, before rising onto her back legs to place her talons on the posterior of one of the armored unicorns. The unicorn in question jumped and craned his neck to look at the filly, sighing deeply as a bit of a blush came onto his face. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"I-I-well," the guard spluttered, ears falling flat against his cranium. His blush deepened, and his eyes nearly bugged out from their sockets as the little hippogryph rose a talon up and grabbed him by the dock of his tail. A green magical aura grabbed the foal and forced her to relinquish her hold, prior to dragging her back.

"Apologies for the surprise molesting—she doesn't know any better. I'll have a talk with her about that," Anna stated in a dark tone, her horn glowing as the filly had stopped in front of her tan-beige hooves. She grabbed Maria and hefted her up with her hooves, standing up and turning around whilst bringing foal to eye level.

The archer donned a hard glare and she spoke in a very reprimanding tone of voice, "Listen, can we not put our little talons on the tails and butts of random ponies? It's bad, and if you put your claws on an equally bad pony or gryphon or whatever, they might really hurt you."

"B-but everygryph back home did it! Th-they told me it was a game!" Maria exclaimed, fidgeting in Anna's grasp wildly. "E-even the colts did it! But daddy wouldn't let me play that game!"

Anna's glare melted into a wide-eyed look of horror tinged with a shade of deep azure. She took a few moments just to regain her composure, and another few to attempt to form a response, yet she had gone silent even as her mouth began moving in an a vain effort to form words. For another moment or so, all she could do was little more than splutter incoherently until Natalie trotted to the archer and slapped her across the back of her head with a hoof.

The green-maned unicorn shook her head before sending Natalie a small grin and returning her attention to the filly in her hooves. "You don't play that game with anypony, anygryph, or whatever unless you find somepony or gryph that you really like, and they really like you, and you're both sure you want to play that game. If you want to, but the other doesn't, then it just makes you as bad as that big bearded... meanie who put his claws on you and scratched you with them. And you don't want to be like that meanie, right?" Anna asked.

"I-I don't w-wanna be like him," Maria whimpered, her bout of flailing ceasing on the spot. She shivered, and her ears fell back on her head.

"Good. Now, go tell that guard that you're sorry for touching him," Anna scolded, setting the filly down before trotting behind her and giving her an encouraging nudge with her muzzle. The child approached the unicorn she molested with a reluctant gait in her step, frail form shivering as she moved.

"I-I'm sorry for touching you," the filly whimpered, and the guard sent her a small grin before ruffling her mane with his hoof.

"I forgive you, little one," he answered in a serene tone, though there seemed to be a faint glimmer in his eyes.

Lance caught that glimmer, and he spoke up, "I take it you're offended that a foreign child pretty much sexually assaulted you without warning?"

The guard turned to him and his grin fell as he silently nodded. "And... well, she did say..." he trailed off.

"She was with a bunch of hippogryphs in a town surrounded by ice and snow who taught her bad things and deliberately kept her uneducated," Alexander interjected, shaking his head with a firm frown set into his visage. "They even abused her and her family simply because she wanted a cutie mark."

"I wish he was making that up," Sarah added, crossing her front legs. "And those very same hippogryphs wanted my hide because look what I got," she stated, rising up onto a standing stance and spreading her wings to show the guards her cutie mark.

"Uh, wasn't there a harp somewhere in the equation?" Katie piped up, slipping off Matt's back before trotting to the upright mare and gesturing to the cutie mark. The rest of the Fantasians turned to the wraith and followed her clothed hoof.

"Now it's just a halberd and what looks like a gust of wind surrounding it. A change in one’s talent markings is something I've not heard of before, let alone witnessed in the flesh," Fenrir said in an impassive tone.

Sarah eyed the mark for a moment and reverted to all fours, her wings snapping shut at her sides. "I-I don't kn-know," she stuttered, her eyes widening. "This... this ha-hasn't happened b-before."

"This is peculiar. There's nothing we can do about it now, though. Still..." Lance trailed off, sighing heavily as he turned to the assembled guards. "Alright, we've dilly-dallied enough. Let's meet these 'Princesses' and get it over with."

The guard who'd been accosted by Maria nodded again. "Just stick with us; we'd rather you didn't get lost," he replied.

"Just lead the way, and we'll follow. It's not like we have much choice anyway," Natalie conceded, her horn glowing. She embraced Maria with her magic and lifted the filly high into the air before gently lowering her onto her back.

Katie clambered onto Lance's backside, wincing as she felt a feather or two poke at the holes in her legs even through the three layers of cloth his back and the additional one draped on her limbs. "I think I scraped a leg bone on your wings. Apologies," she whispered.

Lance rolled his eyes and simply nodded as if in resignation. "It happens," he whispered back.

The two groups trotted on down the halls in silence that felt like it lasted for hours on end, though the Fantasians occasionally stopped to marvel at some more stained glass murals. Some depicted two pegacorn ponies, usually accompanied by both the sun and the moon, flying in circles or walking on clouds. Some depicted the average pony, usually flying, casting a spell from a grimoire, or tilling a field. More murals still depicted a strange chimerical creature with the head of a goat and a body sporting limbs so mismatched it looked more akin to something haphazardly stitched together.

This same creature, in almost every single instance it cropped up in a mural, tormented ponies using puppet crosses, tugging at their strings to achieve a plethora of agonized expressions from said ponies it antagonized. Another, though, had the entire band of impromptu ambassadors gaping; this one had the same six ponies firing off a multi-directional beam at the chimera, with half of its colorful body turned a rocky grey in hue.

"They have petrification in their arsenal. Now I find myself not wanting to earn their ire," Fenrir whimpered as he continued to gaze at the mural. A shiver ran down his body at the mere thought of being turned to a slab of stone, and by six ponies that could somehow fire a beam in unison despite only two having unicorn horns, no less.

"What's petrification?" Maria inquired, earning a look from Anna.

The archer had begun sweating again, and although there was a smile on her muzzle, it shook as her jaw trembled with the rest of her body. "It means you get turned into a rock," she answered in a nervous tone. "It isn't exactly pleasant."

"So it's bad?" the filly asked.

"I've heard little of the whole petrification process, but what I know of it is... it's terrible," Alexander sighed, raising a claw to pat the child's head.

Another few moments or so were spent trotting down the hall, and the group and their escorts paused at a grand set of double doors that'd been flung wide open, revealing an empty room with a throne beyond. This throne had been hewn of gold that looked more orange in color as the last vestiges of daylight faded. Cushions surrounded it on raised bronze ledges, and adorning the walls were more stained glass depictions, though they only had one main color instead of two per piece.

"It appears that the Princesses aren't in the throne chamber," a guard noted, earning a glare from the Fantasian pegasus.

"Thank you Captain Obvious, now please show us where they are at," Lance groaned, flinging a hoof up to wave it as though for emphasis.

~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~

"Settle down," a feminine voice bellowed throughout a room of clamoring ponies dressed in formal attire sitting in rows and rows of pews. A white alicorn with a mane that glittered with the colors of the waking dawn nodded and opened her mouth to shout again from atop of her makeshift wooden perch, only for whatever she wanted to say to die down with the chattering before it could leave her lips. She paused with a sigh and turned to a white unicorn with a slicked-back blond mane and a tie around his neck. "Now, Blueblood, what were you saying?"

"We should send the armies to Fantasia!" the unicorn replied in a loud voice that echoed across the room, eyes narrowing to slits. "From Griffonstone to Yakyakistan, and whatever forces lie to the west, we should all send them to the sister planet and establish firm Canterlot rule! Whoever resists should be sent to a slave camp, or burned at the stake!"

A night blue alicorn who sat next to the white one shook her head. "But Blueblood, that is something we cannot do. We haven't enough airships, and I fear that whatever rules the Griffonstone and Yakyakistan forces may have could differ drastically from our own. And what good would killing and enslaving the natives do? Why, that could just spark an interplanetary war that we may be unprepared for."

"They may be uncivilized brutes, the entire Fantasian populace! For all we know, they could be adept at dark, arcane magic and excel in shady, disharmonious doings... They could be itching for our hides at any moment, waiting to rend the flesh from our bones and bathe in our blood! Such a travesty cannot, I repeat, cannot be allowed to happen!" Blueblood snapped, some bits of mane curling out of place like broken guitar strings as he ranted and raved. Murmurs from the other ponies erupted, some in agreement, and others uttering about how outlandish the stallion made things sound.

"Auntie Luna, do you not agree with my reasoning?" Blueblood asked after the murmurs hushed again.

Luna pursed her lips together for a moment before she answered, "While you do raise a point, and a very valid one at that, I'm afraid we still cannot invade Fantasia. Even if we gathered the necessary forces and accrued enough airships, if they have dark magic as you say, then they might have a deadly edge in battle. We might as well beat a dead horse at that point."

A pink alicorn with a tri-colored mane piped up, "But what if there's nothing in Fantasia? The populace might've died off in the hundreds of years or so the barrier has stood. All there'd be would be local flora and fauna; a conquest has equal chance of yielding no fruit."

"That would be true, Cadence, if not for what Twilight had found," the white alicorn conceded with a nod.

Cadence turned to the white mare and gaped. "Auntie Celestia, do you mean to tell me there are live Fantasians?" she asked.

"Yes. According to a letter she sent to me upon returning to Equestria," here, Celestia paused as her horn glowed. A golden light flashed near her form for a moment before gently dissipating, revealing a floating scroll in its place. She levitated the parchment to Cadence and proceeded to continue, "she found nearly a dozen Fantasians who were willing to come here."

Cadence took the scroll in a soft blue magic and opened it before scanning whatever details that lay within. As she read, her face paled bit by bit, turning near white when she reached the end. "Oh... I feel sorry for her," she mumbled in a hushed whisper.

"I do as well, but we cannot dwell on such things," Celestia replied in an equally hushed tone, turning to the rest of the assembled ponies as they once more started chattering amongst themselves. "Calm down, at once," she hollered again, sighing as the jabbering ceased. "Would anypony else, excluding Blueblood, have any suggestions on what to do with the situation regarding the sister world?"

"Princess, if I may," spoke another white unicorn with a blue mane, a suit, and a monocle. When the eyes of the alicorns fell upon him, he cleared his throat before deciding to further venture, "Would it be a good idea to attempt to form alliances and trade agreements with the Fantasians? They might have things we Mythonians lack, and might want to boost their economies with our own. By trading our resources across nations, we could further enrich both of us."

"A sound idea, but the only travel to and from the sister world is by airship," Luna replied, shaking her head. "Unless we can construct portals between the worlds, I don't see how that's possible."

"There are portals to Tartarus itself. Why not Fantasia?" another unicorn with a white coat interjected, this one a mare with a pink mane.

"A fair point, but there are many things that can make such a thing impossible, or at least difficult to even manage," Luna retorted, again shaking her head.

"Such as?" Blueblood hissed impatiently, tapping a hoof on the floor as though he asked the earlier question.

"Like weather, geographic location of both ends of the portal, whether or not the weather can be controlled by pegasus magic, new guard posts... there's an awful lot to consider here. I'm sure Twilight Sparkle could make a detailed list of every little thing even more effectively than the high mages could," Luna sighed, closing her eyes and raising a hoof laden with a horseshoe to run down the bridge of her muzzle.

"And how well the populace would take the existence of such a portal, let alone whether or not they might be willing to abuse it," Celestia added, donning a simple frown. "Hopefully, we can find ano—"

A single guard bustled into the room, his presence immediately getting noticed by the white alicorn as words died in her throat. "Princess Celestia, I have urgent news!" he bellowed as all eyes fell unto him.

"What is it?" Celestia inquired, her frown fading for a moment, only to reappear when the guard spoke again.

"Captain Shining Armor has found Fantasians who arrived by airship. He is having Sergeant Riverwater escort them here in his place," the guard answered as the aforementioned captain burst into the room, almost running over Blueblood in the process.

"Speak of Sombra, and he shall appear," Luna groaned as Shining muttered an apology to Blueblood. "Captain Armor, what's your report?"

The purple-clad unicorn tore his attention from Blueblood to the alicorn addressing him, and assumed a hard face. "The Fantasians who arrived in Equestria should be here shortly," Shining replied. "All of them have cloaks, and two wear masks. I have received word from Sergeant Riverwater and from the Fantasians themselves that said masked ones are changelings."

At that moment, clamor violently erupted again amidst the ponies, this time with terrified whispers.

"Fantasian changelings?"

"Are we being invaded again?"

"What will we do?"

"Are the rest changelings too?"

"Cease, at once!" Luna shrieked in her loudest strata of royal voice, her briefly-echoing tone causing the rampant mumblings to stop on the spot. "Captain Armor, do you have anything else to report?"

"From what I could glean from the otherworlders, there are no known Fantasian alicorns alive. I don't know the full details, but they only exist in ancient legends and nothing more," Shining answered, his eyes averting to Cadence. "In fact, when I mentioned that my wife is an alicorn, one of the non-ponies—a male diamond dog, to be precise—immediately became skeptical. Their reactions may not be... favorable."

"So, we might have to keep tabs on them. Already, I feel the pits of my stomach churning in protest," Luna mumbled, turning to Celestia with a brow raised.

A third guard bustled into the room, and he had an assortment of cloaked ponies and non-ponies flanking him. "Princess," he started, bringing his front quarters down to a low bow, "I have brought the Fantasian ambassadors."

Celestia eyed the assembled bunch with a critical eye, taking in the few features she could make out that hadn't been obstructed by their garments. She noted that the Fantasians stared at her, some with eyes glinting in wonder and others going stone-faced; the two with the masks proved to be the hardest of the bunch to read, as their entire bodies had been covered in cloth and their faces shielded with what looked to be ceramic. She turned to the bowing guard and nodded. "At ease, Sergeant Riverwater," she stated, and the guard rose into a standing position to nod back.

Her attention immediately went to Blueblood as he huffed his chest and marched to the Fantasians. "You brought a bunch of peasants? That mane is horrendous! Hack off the braids and clean it up. It is much too long for you!" he hissed, flinching as Matt glared at him.

"You have no say over how I treat my mane. Lay off," the half-Clydesdale hissed in a cold tone, shaking his head and easing on the glare as Blueblood stomped a hoof while spluttering incoherently for a moment.

"Which one of you is this 'Princess Celestia' I've been hearing about?" Lance asked, stepping forward with his gaze affixed onto the alicorns.

"You dare speak of my beloved Auntie like that, you red-eyed lowlife?" Blueblood snapped, turning to Lance as he spoke.

The pegasus chuckled and directed his attention to the Mythonian stallion with a wicked smirk plastering his muzzle. "You're asking me to kick you off this mountain, right?" he retorted.

Katie leaned a bit to one side, orbs alight despite the hood on her head nearly shadowing them. Blueblood shivered as he spotted the twin glowing dots of azure, and his mane stood on end as the masked mare on the pegasus's back spoke in a dead, echoing voice, "You're about to sign your very own death certificate. Are you proud of yourself?"

"Cease the hostilities. Blueblood, step as far away from the Fantasians as you are able. You three, with the mask and the red and blond manes, we reserve the right to deport you. I'd much prefer it if we kept things to a diplomatic level," said Celestia, holding one leg over the shoulder of a far more aggressive-seeming Luna.

"We'd rather be diplomatic too," Natalie replied before gesturing to the retreating Blueblood with a hoof. "It seems that some ponies don't want to remain that way."

Luna looked over at Celestia and the hoof on her shoulder, and then sighed. "Pardon Blueblood. He's been this way since the barrier broke. The parliament's been hotly debating on what to do with Fantasia."

"Might I have a suggestion for this parliament, if I am permitted to speak?" Sarah interjected, raising a talon as she stepped forward.

"Well, what is it? We're all ears," Luna answered, eyeing the hippogryph and tilting her head.

"It's a relatively simple one: don't send anypony to Fantasia. The goings-on in my home planet are... less than satisfactory," Sarah answered in a disturbingly calm tone, her suggestion once more the cause for another uproar amidst the entire parliament.

The alicorns exchanged glances, and whispered amongst themselves for a moment before another voice drew their attention. "Hey, why's that masked one's mask holes glowing?" a brown-coated stallion asked, gesturing to the wraith.

"Please don't make her take her coverings off, please don't make her take her coverings off..." Matt chanted to himself, ears falling flat against his skull.

“Hey!” shouted one of the ponies from the pews nearest to the group, standing upright on his back legs as if he wanted the otherworlders to see him. “Take off that mask!”

"No," Katie hissed, turning to the stallion and giving him no more recognition than a simple huff from her concealed nostrils.

"If you won't remove that hideous porcelain mimicry of a pony's face," Blueblood declared, his horn glowing as his magic embraced the wraith and lifted her into the air like a sack of potatoes when it took hold of the mask, "then I shall do it for you!"

"Unhand her, at once!" Fenrir barked, making to lunge forward, only to be stopped by dual magic auras of blue and green.

"No, Blueblood, don't take off her mask!" Shining cried, but by then it was already too late; Blueblood's magic managed to remove the mask and threw both that and the wraith to the floor. The action gave way to a thick, tense silence that blanketed the room. Not even the shuffling mare's hooves could hope to break it as she made to stand back up.

The blond-maned Mythonian stallion smirked triumphantly as his magic continued to work still, undoing the bindings on her legs. His grin fell as he eyed the wide holes in the limbs, and further descended into a gape accompanied by widening eyes and shrunken irises as the wraith grabbed the base of her cloak with her mouth and violently cast it off of her withered form. Once the garment landed in a messy heap at her side, she angled her body as if to show off her grotesque grandeur, her split-mouthed face affixed in his direction all the while.

Blueblood stepped back, his legs shaking as he continued to stare at the thin, pale changeling. "What part of the two-lettered word 'no' did you fail to comprehend?" Katie snapped in a cold, ghastly tone, her burning azure orbs dimming to meager pinpricks. Her ears shot straight up and her wings flared wide as she shook her head and added, "You brought this upon yourself. I hope you're happy."

Sarah waited for the parliament to erupt in clamor. When it failed to do so after a few moments, she took the chance to speak, using a claw to gesture to Katie as her loud voice filled the room, "Yeah, she's kinda in very bad shape. That's just one example out of the many I could possibly give over why Fantasia is less than satisfactory. In fact, seven Mythonians came by three days ago, and one of them has already gone loco."

The alicorns exchanged glances as, yet again, the assembled Mythonians started bickering en masse. One voice caught their attention, as well as that of the assembled unicorns and ambassadors, when it echoed and hushed the ongoing gossip. "Cease! This could be a bad case of starvation and torture going on here; I do believe this pale changeling may just be an isolated case!" Shining bellowed, a hoof pointing at the wraith as he spoke.

"Isolated case?" Lance interjected, visage hardening as all eyes in the room shifted to him. "I'm afraid this is no isolated incident. This isn’t rare at all."

"And how would you know?" Shining asked, turning to the pegasus as he too began casting off his cloak.