It was shaping up to be a beautiful summer morning in Ponyville. The sun was just cresting the horizon causing the morning dew to sparkle ever so slightly. The birds were waking up for the day and chirping to themselves as they devoured countless worms. Even the weather wasn't too hot as Celestia's sun had yet to fully rise and bake the air with its angry, skin-cancer-inducing heat waves. Of course, any pony who happened to be up this early would be hard pressed to admire the wonders of nature this morning.

They would more than likely be focused on the army emerging from the Everfree forest and marching into town. Now, the army itself was hardly threatening as it was composed entirely of ponies, none of which looked to be armed. Rather, any bystanders would probably be focused on the strangeness of the group as every single pony looked the same. That is unheard of for ponies. Normally, each pony is unique in both color and cutie mark.

Thankfully for any witness's sanity and for the group of ponies, only the birds were there to watch them walking into town. Once they were inside, the Lyras moved throughout the town and tried their best to blend in while waiting for their moment to strike. As the sun came up further, the ponies began to stir from their ancient slumbers. One by one they exited their homes and began their daily routines, blissfully unaware of how many Lyras there were.

As always, Pinkie Pie was up early and was already hopping around town saying 'hi' to any pony she saw. "Hi Lyra! Hi Lyra! Hi Lyra! Hi Lyra! Hi Lyra!" Pretty much the only ponies up that early were all the Lyras, but she was unperturbed by this and continued on. Her determination to greet everyone was truly admirable.

It was a different story for Bon-bon. She knew Lyra quite well as they had been roommates for several years. She even considered Lyra to be one of her best friends. Of course, everything changed when they had Paul over for dinner. She still didn't fully comprehend what happened that night. Suddenly the other pony that was staying with them just transformed and him and Paul had a brief fight. That wasn't nearly as strange as what happened next as Lyra somehow shape shifted multiple times and then jumped out the window. She hadn't seen Lyra since then.

Being the always rational earth pony that she is, Bon-bon simply couldn't wrap her mind around what happened. In fact she pretty much went crazy. She constantly had strange dreams of that night and she couldn't stop thinking of Lyra transforming into things. For some reason she started to become obsessed with the idea that Lyra could be any of the other ponies that she talked to during the day. It was enough to drive her to seek mental help and she'd been visiting a shrink for the past few days.

She had gotten up pretty early this morning after having a dream where Lyra turned into some monster with multiple rotating heads and chased her around the house for several hours. It left her on edge and she constantly looked around to make sure the monster wasn't going to pop out randomly. Still a little shaky from just waking up, she filled herself up a cup of coffee and sat in her kitchen for a while just drinking alone. It was fun and all, but eventually she felt the need to get her mind off of the topic of Lyra. She quickly decided that she could use some fresh air and headed out the front door with coffee mug still in hoof.

She got outside and closed the door behind her before turning around to a strange sight. Well, not so much strange as horrifying. So horrifying, in fact, that it took her brain a few moments to register the scene before her. Lyras... Lyras everywhere! She dropped the coffee mug out of her magical hoof-grip and it shattered on the cobblestone street as her pupils shrunk to pinpricks.

Everything seemed to slow down as she looked straight ahead. There, just across the street, a group of Lyras was talking to each other. Her eyes shifted to the right where she saw another Lyra walking by, minding its own business. Her eyes quickly darted to a pair of Lyras that were walking together in the other direction towards yet another group of Lyras. Then she looked back to her left where she saw Pinkie Pie hopping down the street in slow motion.

"Hiiiiii Lyyyyyyraaaaaaa! Hiiiiii Lyyyyyyraaaaaaa! Hiiiiii Lyyyyyyraaaaaaa!" She said in a deep voice.

Her rational mind decided that that was a good time to take a vacation leaving her gasping in shock as her heart began to beat at a dangerously high rate. With the rational part of her mind gone, the rest of her brain decided to do its best to make sense of the situation. Alas, there were simply too many Lyras for her brain to comprehend. There was an audible 'snap' as her brain seemed to collapse in on itself and she fell to the ground, dead in a pool of her own coffee.

Twilight had her own reasons for getting up early. For one, today was her list day where she would make check lists for the next month. It was a process that would take her and Spike all day so she had to get up early for that. Well, she was going to do that today, until Spike spat up a letter from the princess.

The letter asked for her to get all the ponies in town to evacuate by midday. Apparently Celestia thought that Paul would stoop so low as to attack the undefended town instead of attacking Canterlot directly. She was slightly upset that she wouldn't be able to make literally a ton of lists, but she followed her mentor's orders anyways.

Walking outside she instantly noticed that something was wrong. It isn't hard to guess what. The streets were literally crawling with Lyras. Twilight looked to her left and saw a group of the teal unicorns crawling down the street on their bellies. Without saying anything she turned around and walked back into the library.

"Spike! Are you up yet!" She called out.

After a few moments Spike appeared at the top of the stairs while rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. "Yeah, I'm up. I thought we weren't writing all the lists today because of what Celestia said."

Twilight rolled her eyes. "We aren't. I need you to write a letter to Celestia for me."

He looked at her skeptically. "What for?"

"Just go get some paper!" She waved him off impatiently with a hoof as he returned to the writing desk in her room. He soon emerged with a quil and scroll. "Alright. Dear princess Celestia. I walked outside my house this morning and there were literally dozens of Lyras. Lyra is a random unicorn that disappeared from town a few days ago. What do I do? This is not a joke. Sincerely, Twilight Sparkle. Now send it!"

He looked at her like she was crazy for a few seconds before shrugging and blowing his magical green fire all over the paper. The smoke formed up into a ball and flew off, out a window, and towards the castle. "Are there really a bunch of Lyras out there?"

"Yes." She stated while sitting down on her flank and crossing her forelegs. "I'm not crazy."

It sounded more like she was trying to convince herself that Spike, but he didn't notice that. He was too busy walking over to a window to take a look around. Sure enough, there were Lyras everywhere. "Woah. At least now more than one pony believes in humans. Ca-raaaazy!" He joked to himself.

"Buck you, Spike. Humans are real!" She yelled before putting a hoof over her mouth.

Spike looked taken aback by her uncharacteristic outburst and confession to believing in humans. "Wha-what?" He sputtered out.

She quickly avoided eye contact and put on a big, innocent smile. "Hehe, I was joking of course. Humans... Pshhh... That's crazy talk."

Spike continued to stare at her for a few moments. "Oooookay..." He stated plainly before coming down with a sudden wheezing fit. He looked like a cat trying to rid itself of a hair ball as he hacked out a thin stream of fire that coalesced into a scroll.

Twilight quickly grabbed it up in her magic, happy to change the subject while reading over it. After a few moments Spike started to get curious.

"What does it say?"

"Celestia says that it's likely the changelings planning another attack, though very poorly. She said to do the evacuation and ignore them for now. Once we get to Canterlot we'll deal with them."

"Ch-changelings! Here?" Spike shivered in place for a moment. "You don't think they'll attack us, do you?"

"Calm down Spike. They'll probably try to blend in like they usually do. Besides, if they attack I'll just gut them with my magic."

Spike didn't seem very reassured by her violent threats and hid himself in a corner away from any windows. Twilight just sighed and decided that she'd deal with him later. "Alright, I'm going to town hall to get everypony evacuated. I'll come back later."

I sat in a tall tree looking at Ponyville with my super sex raptor eyes. Dance Blaster was sitting next to me with a pair of binoculars. I watched as our glorious army of Lyras infiltrated the town and easily blended in with the locals. None of the ponies seemed to be paying any mind to them and just went about their morning routines as though nothing strange was going on at all. It went on like that for a while until all the ponies, including the Lyras, started to gather by the town hall.

"What are they doing now?" Asked Dance Blaster. "You think they're on to us?"

I squinted and after a moment I was able to recognize none other than Twilight Sparkle on the podium at the front of the crowd. She seemed to be giving the ponies instructions, but none of the locals looked like they were suddenly weary of the Lyras. "Nope. Looks like she's giving them directions."

"Directions for what?"

I looked back at the crowd to see if I could glean anymore information from them but it was futile. "I don't know. I guess we'll wait and see." Oh well, if they attack the spy crabs they'll be able to defend themselves. They have their knifes even though they are disguised to look as though they don't. Besides, I could easily jump into the fight if it comes down to that. I've been wanting some revenge on purple guy after she betrayed me.

I'd just shoot her from here with my syringe rifle, but I don't think I'd be able to hit her from so far away. At least not on my first try. It would be better not to take the change and accidently give ourselves away. No, once Equestria is in ashes, then she has my permission to die!

I was brought out of my mental quoting of Bane as all the ponies in town departed to their respective homes. "What are they doing now?"

"It looks like they're going home."

"Well that's disappointing, when should we make the spy crabs strike?"

I looked back out at the town and thought about it. "You know, we probably should have told them to attack while all the ponies were grouped together. That way they could have killed them all in one fell swoop."

"Yeah..." Replied Dance Blaster. "That was klnda' a fail..."

At least we didn't have to wait long as the ponies soon returned to the town square with bags on their backs. "What are they doing now?"

"I don't know. You can see them as clearly as I can!" It was kinda' annoying how he kept asking me.

"Well, should we make them attack?"

"Hmmm, no. I want to see what they're up to."

After about twenty minutes of watching, the several thousand ponies headed off down the road that went towards Canterlot. The Lyras followed them, blending in perfectly with the crowd. "Oh. It looks like they're evacuating the town." I said in a calm voice.

Then I realized what this meant. I jumped up and nearly fell out of the tree while shouting. "Wooo! Ponyville is mine! Victory for me!" Luckily the ponies were too far away to hear my outburst. "Hey yo Dance Blaster, go get some spy crabs. We're looting the shit out of this town!"

"What about the Lyras?"

"They're doing a good job fitting in so far, perhaps we can use them to infiltrate Canterlot."

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Next time! Paul loots the shit out of Ponyville! Won't it be fun?!

I guarantee it will.

Wooo just hit 100k words on this story... Damn this is getting long... (That's what she said!)