2 years after the Tirek Event (10 years Before Cadence’s Death)

        June 3 

        “After the defeat of Tirek, some ponies of Equestria waited for the next big bad entity to come, but it never did – well, until a few months ago. There's talk and rumors amongst Canterlot elite and our top spies that there was going to be another attack from the Changeling Empire.  From there, it reached word to Twilight. To say she got paranoid would be an understatement, but she did manage to create a new spell. The spell allows unicorns to scan underneath a pony's skin to check if a pony was a changeling or not. The guards used this spell to scan ponies during events, and the public became even more paranoid as a side effect. This is Luna log on Changeling Scare, over and out,” Luna recorded, clicking the cassette player and replacing the current the tape with a new one.

        She looked up at the night sky. There was a chance that she was biased, but she'd always found the stars in the night sky beautiful even as a little filly. She was the one that helped out astronomers in the early days of her rule with her sister. She smiled at the fact. Luna then sighed as her top Lunar guard, a bat pony, entered the room.

        “My princess,” she greeted as she bowed.

        “We talked about this Osiris; bat ponies don't need bow to me. You are one of my children and I will treat you as such,” the alicorn stated, “and call me Luna, please.”

        “Right sorry,” Osiris apologized, blushing in embarrassment.

        “It's alright,” the princess assured.

        “Well Luna as you requested my cousin, Echo Gliese, and Star Pinch have been relocated to spy on the Changeling Empire along with Sidereal and Brightlight.”

        “Good. Now return to your post please.”

        “Yes, ma’am.” Osiris saluted and left Luna's company.

        1 month later…

        The spies had been reporting the changeling training and had been successful on their reports.  The changelings had been running drills and weren organized into ranks. All the princesses were waiting on the guards through a private radio broadcast, but nothing came; just silence. Celestia suggested waiting a day, but still nothing came of it. Celestia, Twilight, and Cadence got paranoid and upped security in every public building. Luna then sent some of her guard ponies to the Empire during the night and they returned in the morning just before Luna was going to bed.

        “Luna,” one of them called, almost of breath, “You need to see this…”

        Luna took the chariot with Osiris and was yawning the entire way, but when she eventually got to the scene she was wide awake because what she saw was horrifying. “Oh my…” she said, trying not to throw up. The spies that were sent to the empire had had their hooves cut off. “I want more spies, a detective, and my sister here right way.”

        “Yes, ma’am,” the female guard replied.

        As Luna and her guards walked to the empire and through it, some of them threw up or fainted, but neither Luna nor Osiris could blame them. They saw that changeling bodies were either sliced in half, heads were cut off, or both. The cocoons made even more of a mess of the place, being sliced opened with dead changeling infants or squashed from falling through a hole above.  After a little while the detective, Night Light, and spies got the scene.

        “Where is my sister?” Luna asked her guard.

        “She couldn't make it. She was in a meeting with the new prime minster,” the guards informed her.

        Luna went back to looking around the mess that was the Changeling Empire as Night Light was taking pictures and inspecting the bodies. The bodies are either sliced in half or heads were sliced clean off, Luna thought.

        Osiris came to the princess. “Luna, I went looking around, and there is no body or any hint of Chrysalis,” she informed, “She's just gone.”

        “I see,” Luna said and went to Night Light, “What's the cause of death?”

        “I can't tell if it was magical without taking one of these back to my lab, but I can tell it wasn't by a blunt instrument of any kind; it's all too clean of a slice,” he explained.

        “I see,” Luna said, “You may proceed.”

        Night lifted a changeling a body and took to the chariot. Luna ventured further into the hive to investigate, eventually making her way to the second floor. When she got there, she noticed some of the cocoons were intact and arranged in a pattern. She ran back to Night. “My I borrow your camera?” she asked.

        “Sure,” he said handing her over the camera.

        She teleported back to the spot she'd been previously and took several pictures of it and teleported back to Night. “Give me those pictures as soon as you can get them developed,” she ordered.

        “I will Luna,” he said.

        They all left the scene two hours later.

        24 hours later…

        Night Light approached Luna’s throne and noticed she had books and desks around the throne room along with her many spies. “What's this all about?” he asked.

        “I decided that I'm going take the matter of the changeling army’s extermination into my own hooves because my sister has been very busy as of late, plus this would be a good way to pass the time for me,” she said with a smile, “and I told my sister about it.”

        “So that's why I saw it in the newspaper this morning,” Night said.

        “Yes, do have the pictures?” Luna asked.

        “Yes.” He levitated them to the princess after pulling them out with his magic.

        Luna took the pictures with her magic put them on a portable chalkboard and began looking through some books. After a short time, she spoke. “Ah-ha I got it!” she announced proudly.

        “What?” he asked.

        “These cocoons were arranged in a pattern,” Luna informed, “In binary code.”

        “Don't you think you're overthinking this?” Night asked.

        “Nay, for I saw that all the cocoons were smashed except for these. I inspected it and consulted a few other ponies including Osiris, and realized it was patterned in binary.”

        As they decoded the message and matched each cocoon with an assigned letter. Luna asked about the bodies and if Night was able to find a cause of death yet, he said no. After a little the message was decoded, and read one single sentence:

        “So this Master character is the one behind the extermination of both the spies and an entire hive,” Night thought out loud.

        “Detective, I want you to put anything you're currently working on off the side. This is your main project now because this is a villain that is truly dangerous and you’ll help me bring them down,” the night princess ordered.

        “Right away,” Night assured before taking his leave.

        Luna grabbed her cassette tape and started to record something new. “This is Luna on June 4. It seems we have a new enemy rising, and they go by the name of ‘The Master’. The entity exterminated all changelings and spies Celestia and I sent, and if there is any sort of silver lining, it's that there won't be a war with the changelings anytime soon. I don't know whether to praise it or to be in fear of it. I’ll dub this project as Project Hidden Enemy and will investigate this Master and if it's a new enemy or old one. I don't know why, but I'm hoping it's a new threat. Luna out.”

Next Chapter: Chapter 7 Estimated time remaining: 39 Minutes