I left my things at home (parents' home) and headed to the castle. It was just starting to get dark out. Other ponies could easily identify me from up close, but not from far away. I wasn't attracting much attention, in other words.

The main entrance to the castle was guarded by two members of the Royal Guard, which is common this time of night. I recognized the unicorn, but the other pony was a member of Luna's Night (or Lunar) Guard. I outrank all members of every guard (even Princess Celestia's personal guard), so unless Princess Celestia or Princess Luna had specifically ordered my entry barred from the castle, I would be allowed in. However, I can't afford to trust any nightwing ponies right now given what I've learned. I knew the other guard might be trustworthy, however, so I had a plan.

I hid at the bottom of the stairs and used my TK to toss a pebble at the guard I knew (I don't remember his name, but I had spoken with him previously). I heard him ask the nightwing pony if he wanted to investigate, but the nightwing asked the unicorn to check it out instead. This supported my theory: since the nightwing pony insisted on being stationed at the door, it seems more likely that he (and only he) is a vampony guarding the entrance.

As the guard walked down the stairs, I popped out from hiding and used TK to hold his mouth shut. I smiled and placed a hoof to my mouth to indicate the need for silence, and gestured for him to come down all the way.

"Princess Twilight!" he whispered, then bowed deeply. "It's a pleasure to see you here. Although you should know that Prince Shining Armor arrived some time ago, and he gave orders that nopony should enter the castle without his explicit consent. Also, he asked that we inform him if you showed up."

"Please do not tell him I'm here. We're setting up a surprise party of sorts, and neither my brother, nor Princess Luna, can be informed of my presence," I whispered back.

"Of course, Princess," he said. "Do you need entrance to the castle?"

I shook my head. "No. I don't want members of the Lunar Guard to know I'm in Canterlot because they may report this back to Princess Luna, and that would also spoil the surprise," I explained. I was a little worried he wasn't going to buy it. Did I mention I have a terrible poker face?

"Forgive me for asking Princess, but... is there anything wrong?" the guard asked me, whispering very quietly.

I sighed and nodded yes. "Prince Shining Armor and Princess Cadance have been taken over by a dark force, as have some of my friends. I am fairly certain it has happened to Princess Luna as well. The situation is quite dire, and both kingdoms are in terrible danger. I need to find Princess Celestia immediately."

The guard's face went pale (despite the fact that his pelt was cream-colored to begin with). "I see. I suppose that explains this," he said, and pulled a small scroll from his armor. It was addressed to me, and it had Princess Celestia's seal. "The Princess requested that I keep this secret from the other guards, and asked that I volunteer for castle duty in the evenings until she returns. Her intent was for it to reach your hooves without anypony else knowing, not even Princess Luna."

I took the scroll and breathed a huge sigh of relief. "This is excellent news. Thank you so much for your bravery and resolve," I said, and noticed the guard blush slightly. "You must know what you're up against, however. The enemy has the ability to infect ponies with some kind of vampony factor, and once infected they are driven mad with sexual urges. It's very hard to resist, but I can't provide details safely now because if you become a victim you are likely to turn against us."

The guard's eyes widened. "Princess! I would never—"

"Yes, actually, you would," I interrupted. "It's too powerful for anypony to resist it. The only reason I'm not corrupt is for various reasons I can't be affected by the bite. Anyway, watch your back carefully."

He nodded solemnly. "I need to return before the other guard becomes suspicious. Is there anything else?"

"Yes. Where did Celestia go, when did she leave, and who arrived in Shining Armor's company?"

"The Princess left for the Crystal Empire a day or two ago. Prince Shining Armor arrived with several guards: two Night Guards from Canterlot, a crystal pony, and a pegasus with orange pelt and blue hair," he said.

"Flash Sentry," I murmured, thinking. "Sorry; do go on."

"Miss Rarity came with him, and I think another of your friends, a chestnut earthen with a cowboy hat. She had earrings on, which I believe were identical to the marble ones you're wearing. Miss Rarity had stainless steel versions. Both mares had collars which matched their earrings, with a soft fur-like lining on the inside. The earth pony seemed very agitated, and in retrospect I suspect she might have been a prisoner the way she was led into the castle. Though my initial assessment was simply that she was feeling ill."

"Anypony or anything else?"

"No, that's it... although from what you mentioned about, well, sex... the chestnut mare was, well," he whispered, blushing furiously. "It were as though she were in heat, were that sort of condition possible for ponies, of course. Forgive my tone," he timidly offered.

"Guardstallion?" called out the nightwing from the doorway.

"Thank you; go and good luck," I quickly whispered, and gave him a hug which probably surprised the heck out of him. He blushed again and trotted quickly back up the stairs.

"It was a gopher digging in the gravel," he said, trotting briskly back up the steps. "Rather amusing; sorry for the delay..."

Well, I might not be a gopher, but I was digging alright... and coming up with a lot more than gravel.

It wasn't hard to teleport into the castle undetected, but I was still concerned about alerting any guards. I needed to find out where ponies were, to see if I could gather any more intel before deciding how to proceed. Obviously, I cracked the seal on the scroll and read it, but it was written with a cryptographic cipher. It would probably be trivial for me to crack it, but hard for anypony else. Clearly, Princess Celestia didn't want this information to fall into the wrong hooves. I peeled off most of the wax so it wasn't obvious that this message had come from the Princess. Then I wrapped it tightly in my tail, which would safely hide it as long as I didn't gallop (I'd left the saddlebags behind).

After nearly a half-hour of very careful searching, I approached the Lunar Boardroom and heard discussion coming from within. This was the smaller of two peacetime negotiation rooms that the Diarchy uses to handle tense political situations. One benefit of the Lunar Boardroom is it lies adjacent to two guest bedrooms. This is useful for hosting dignitaries in poor health, so they would not need to travel far from their rooms. As it turns out, I know the location of an adjacent closet within the bounds of the silencing enchantment (it doesn't stop all sound but it scrambles it so the words aren't recoverable). I also have the magical fortitude to teleport in quietly without tripping the alarm. It's complicated, but I've always studied espionage because it seemed so intriguing in my youth. I never knew I'd get to use these skills someday; what fortune!

Once inside, I heard four voices. Two were likely nightwings from the archaic phrasing; one was my brother; and one was Flash Sentry. Judging by the sounds there could have been more ponies present in the room, however.

"...about transforming the guard unto their new purpose," said one nightwing. (I'm glad I have this transcription spell running, or I'd be winging the dialogue and would certainly miss a lot of important clues. I did have to write about Cheerilee from memory but that situation burned itself into my brain pretty heavily.)

"I agree. We can't do it right away, but we need to get started now," said my brother. "The Captain is ours fortunately, but we need to hit the ranks directly beneath him as soon as possible. I'm having the Captain announce a training session to be held in the caverns below, and we can handle the lot of them right then and there, everypony from the First Lieutenants down to Master Sergeants. We'll do it tomorrow if possible, but it may need to be delayed. The Captain couldn't be here with us tonight due to prior commitments which would raise suspicion, were he not to attend."

Flash Sentry coughed. "Permission to speak frankly—" he began.

"You don't need permission, Flash. Under the Order we rank as equals, and it's only us in here," said my brother. Hmm. "The Order" sounds pretty ominous.

"Though as well, the cunt in the room adjoining this," said the other nightwing (I presume). I nearly panicked, but held my resolve. They couldn't be talking about me, they just couldn't. But then I heard some muffled yelling from a distance, and I realized they had a pony gagged back there.

"Oh, right, on that: can't we just finish breaking her now?" asked Flash.

"We need her for Twilight Sparkle as a just-in-case. I don't like leaving her bound like that either; AJ of all ponies deserves better than to suffer like this. But it won't be for long, and she'll agree with us that the wait was worth it. She's an amazing pony," said Brother. "I think we should sedate her for now so she won't be tortured by the lack of release, so I'll go ahead and do that after we adjourn."

I winced. Poor Applejack. I need to rescue her, but she's literally in the worst possible place she could be in, other than the throne room. Or maybe pinned beneath Cheerilee, I suppose. I'd have to make a longer-ranged teleport and I don't think I could do so quietly. Plus they probably have both rooms enchanted. I don't want to wait, but I have no choice. It's good to know she hasn't fallen, though. That mare is the most stubborn pony I know, bless her wild cowpony heart.

I'm scared to admit this, but a large part of my heart still aches for her. Do they possibly know?

"Okay. But what I wanted to say was about the nobility. They've been remarkably easy to infiltrate, but they're starting to be way too obvious. Some of our stallions are taking far too many chances," said Flash Sentry.

"It depends most prime upon whether or not these stallions are attempting deception properly, against a lack of attempt altogether," said the first nightwing pony.

"If they're not trying, they're cunts. We should have waited until we could reap them properly. We can't take risks, not now," said Shining Armor, "and most of them were going to end up mare-cunts anyway. Being sloppy is a cry for help. The ones who are already subjugated need more discipline, too, in at least a couple of cases. Yesterday, one of our company reported a stallion with his horn cut off standing on a veranda in broad daylight. I understand we don't have every cunt owned by a permanent Master yet, but they need temporaries at the least."

"The Prince Blueblood has also been difficult. He manages his property poorly, and his actions are becoming a significant liability. He may not be fit in the formal sense," said the second nightwing.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Rarity has some ideas on how to extend the badges, and that may help if only a little," said Brother. "However, she should be in Ponyville by the morning after next, and her work there is absolutely critical to our success. Princess Celestia can safely be stonewalled by Shy and our Kingdom forces, for the time being."

"Could we discuss some of the larger loose ends? You know who I mean. We have a proactive plan to handle them both before a panic ensues, but we all need to be on the same page," Flash Sentry said.

"The spectral one has been sighted here in Canterlot by two ponies, neither within the company. However, the sightings have not been confirmed. Despite this lack of direct evidence, she is likely here now," said the second nightwing.

Oh thank Celestia. Rainbow survived, and she was still dependable as a rock. I held back the tears, but only just barely.

"Shit. Well, I don't really know where to go with that. I'm not too worried about her at the moment, because she's not very good at getting ponies on her side. She's brilliant in many ways, but has unrefined social skills that provide a safe bulwark against rallying the nobility or even getting them to listen to her. The bigger question is something I am actually ashamed to admit I have considered, but... I was wondering if we should lead Twilight to believe that Rainbow perished," my brother—no, wait. There was no way this monster was my brother. I'll just say "Shining Armor" because right now I want to plant my hoof in his stomach hard enough to make him gasp for breath.

"Ugh. I don't like that," said Flash Sentry. "I really don't. That's far too hurtful."

"It would be for the good of the Order, and another temporary sacrifice," said the first nightwing.

"Well, it won't come up because I'm not convinced it would help. If she thinks that her actions actually led to the death of one of her close friends, then she might be harder to convert rather than easier. It's an escalation of commitment thing, one of her psych books went into depth on it. I used to read a lot of Twilie's study material just to keep up with her enough to have an intelligent conversation," he said, and chuckled. "Moon, how I miss her."

How can be be so like my brother, yet so unlike my brother at the same time?

Shining Armor continued, "I don't think we have to be horrible ponies this time. But we will pretend we don't know what happened to Dash, and then if she seems to go nuts over that, we can admit we know that Dash is actually okay."

"But what of planning for these two tangles?" said the first nightwing.

"I don't think our strat on that has changed," said Flash. "We'll put out a PR campaign tomorrow explaining that Dash and Twi have lost their minds, simple as that. Everypony will be on the lookout and they won't escape detection for long. And in all honesty, it's not far from the truth." There were murmurs of agreement.

At this point, I heard hoofsteps approaching the closet so I teleported out and quietly hightailed it out of the castle (with a silencing spell so my hoofbeats wouldn't be heard, though I think the teleport out might have been). Things were not looking up; but Celestia was definitely with me, Applejack was still unbroken (whatever that means), Rainbow Dash was free and on our side, I had one loyal guard to support us (if only I can remember his bucking name!), and most importantly, I knew Rarity's actions in Ponyville were in some way vital to the Order.

I got home quickly. I met Dad in the foyer. He apologized to me (it's always scary when the apology prepends the thing a pony is apologizing for) and warned me not to be alarmed, but he had read through my journal and he knew the full details of what was going on. I was pretty devastated by the fact my Dad read about my first orgasm and all the other horrid shit I've been through, but he hugged me and said it was alright and I'd done an amazing job keeping track of everything.

"When you're done with all this," he said, "that journal will be an important memento for you. As hard as these experiences have been, it's good for you to write those things down. I'm actually proud of you, Princess. For being able to, well, learn and explore your sexuality in the middle of a crisis that has a lot to do with sex, especially since we probably didn't take enough initiative to teach you these things. I regret that a lot. You're an amazing young mare, Twilight Sparkle," he said with a warm smile, and I sobbed softly in his arms yet again.

I sniffed and informed Dad about the PR campaign. "You... you don't think I'm crazy do you Daddy?" I asked, feeling very vulnerable.

"Sweetheart, Mom and I both know for a fact that you're nowhere near losing your marbles," he said, and chuckled. That seemed kind of odd, but he was just trying to cheer me up. "Be strong," he added. I smiled and headed off to the guest bedroom.

I just sent a message to Spike warning him about Rarity's return and how crucial her work in Ponyville supposedly is. That leaves me with a single scroll (not counting the ciphertext note), and I have an important plan B prepared for that. I wrote four words across the top of the spare scroll that might just save my haunches should push come to shove. I then stuffed it into the saddle bags.

These marble earrings are really bothering me. It's just the constant tugging from them. They don't hurt at all, fortunately, but I can't forget they're on and it's embarrassing knowing they're probably some kind of badging mechanism. I still have no idea what the difference is between marble, steel, copper, gold, and whatever other styles Rarity has. As much as I suspect it may simple fashion, that doesn't match what she said about the accents on my outfit. That one comment still has my wheels turning.

I'm very nervous and sleep isn't coming, so Mom made me some nice herbal tea. She was actually trying to get me to take some earlier, and I probably should have taken her up on it. I've just started drinking it now and I have to admit, it's really helping to calm me down. I'm actually super tired at the moment so I'm going to set the journal in my saddle bags and sleep. Tail feels weird. Oops I forgot scroll, ha! No brush teeth, too tired//