"What in the wide, wide, world of Equestria were you doing in such a..." asked Rarity as she worked on Shadow's suit, which consisted of black dress pants with a black leather belt, a black tailcoat, a white dress shirt, a crimson bow tie, and black dress shoes, pausing as she tried to find the right word. "...combative outfit on such an elegant occasion as this? I mean, are all those weapons really necessary? It's not like we're at war.”

"Well, I didn't have time to get into a tux before Shining Armor kicked my ass," replied Shadow.

Which SHOULDN'T have happened! said Shadow's mind.

Oh, shut up! retorted Jack's mind, before he continued speaking as Shadow. "And as for the weapons, I have a funny feeling that I'm going to be needing them before the engaged couple are declared stallion and mare."

"You really should work on your manners, you know. Language like that most certainly will not impress any of the ladies at the wedding," said Rarity as she finished up with Shadow's bow tie.

"And I would care what those stuck-up rich ponies would say because...?" asked Shadow.

Rarity gasped in shock. "'Stuck-up rich ponies?’ I'll have you know, sir, that I have many Carousel Boutiques all over Equestria, and my largest store and corporate headquarters in Ponyville rakes in over 17,000 bits a day, so don't you go referring to ponies like me as 'stuck-up!'" snapped Rarity.

"Whoa, sounds like I just hit a nerve big time," said Shadow with a smirk.

"I'll say. I could hear you two screaming all the way down in the throne room, and that makes supervising the decoré exceedingly difficult."

Shadow and Rarity looked towards the doorway to find a pink alicorn princess wearing a maroon dress, high heels, and a small golden tiara on her head.

“And… what are you, exactly? A giant porcupine?” the pink princess asked.

Shadow sighed and smacked his forehead in frustration. “Okay, that is getting really old, really fast. I’m a hedgehog, and my name is Shadow. Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Chys-” said Shadow before he gave a false cough. “Sorry about that, milady. As I was saying, pleasure to make your acquaintance, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza,” Shadow finished, giving a low bow.

Mi Amore Cadenza stared at Shadow for quite some time. “Yeah, sure, nice to meet you too, Slade, now run along and do hedgehogy things. I need to get ready for my fitting,” she said.

“As you wish, my qu-er, my princess,” said Shadow, before he climbed off of the platform and left the room, Mi Amore Cadenza watching him go with every stride.

Although the Princess’s face showed no emotion, her mind was racing. That black rat knows something about my plan… maybe this won’t be as easy as I thought… then again, I truly wished I didn’t have to do this in the first place… but, what choice do I have? Besides, the big machine can’t be stopped, as the wheels have already started to turn, thought Cadenza as a pang of guilt ran through her.

“Princess? Are you ready to begin?” asked Rarity.

“Whuh? Oh, um, yes.”

…

Later that night, Shadow, clad in his usual outfit once again, managed to sneak back up to Cadence’s room and found her not there at all. Smirking, he searched all over the castle and the city as he tried to find her, having a quite a few near misses with both the Lunar and Solar Guard.

Shadow’s search would eventually prove fruitful as he caught sight of a heavily cloaked pony ducking out of an alleyway and rushing to where he’d bet his spiky hair was the Crystal Mines.

All right, Chrysalis. Time for you and me to have a little chat about the finer points of foreign policy, thought Shadow as he began to follow her into the mines, trying to avoid the eerie green glow coming from the cloaked ponies horn as it bounced off the crystalline walls, while making sure he had a close eye on it. Thankfully, he didn’t actually need to use the light in order to see where he was going, as since he was the Ultimate Life Form, he had amazing night vision.

After many twists, turns, ups, downs, and several close shaves, the hooded figure reached its destination, and right in front of her was a very battered, weak, and tired-looking Princess Cadence… the real one.

“I brought you your dinner, Princess,” said the hooded figure in a raspy, insect-like voice as she tossed a couple of fresh apples down at Cadence’s feet.

Cadence scowled up at the hooded figure. “How do I know they’re not poisoned?” she asked her captor.

“Oh, Cadence, what could I accomplish by killing you?” Chrysalis asked.

Shadow, from his hiding spot, rolled his eyes. It was almost like Chrysalis was begging to become the newest member of the Equestrian Branch of the Stupid Villains Club. He pushed the thought from his mind as he continued to listen to the Queen of the Changelings.

“I just stopped by to give you some food. Oh, and I wanted to tell you that MY wedding is going just be picture-perfect. In two days time, your beloved fiance will be my husband, and we shall rule over the Changeling Empire and drain every last pony of their love. Oh, and we’ll have two crossbreed children, the eldest of which will ascend to my throne.”

“You won’t get away with this. Someone will find out about your plan and put an end to it,” spat Cadence.

Chrysalis frowned under her hood. Ever since that black-and-crimson creature showed up, she’d been worried about the same thing. But, he didn’t matter now. All that truly mattered was that her changelings survived, and she would ensure that they did, by any means necessary.

“Oh, please. Who could possibly figure out my plan?”

Sick of listening in on this monster, Shadow emerged from his hiding place.“Well, I certainly did,” he said, his hand wandering towards his pistol.

"So the rat shows himself," growled the Changeling Queen.

"Not a rat. I'm a hedgehog, you insect," retorted Shadow but before he could react the Changeling grabbed him in her magic and threw him into a giant crystal, shattering it.

“Oh, really? For all your big talk, you really are quite the pushover,” snarled Chrysalis, her horn glowing faintly as she stepped over the bits of crystal.

Come on, get up! You have a gun, use it! It should be no problem for a crack shot like you… just think of Chrysalis as just another buck to bag on a hunting trip with your father, said Shadow.

Wha- how do you know about about my father-son hunting trips? asked Jack.

I’m inside your head, remember? I can access your memories, and you can access mine, replied Shadow.

“You know, now that I think about it, it’s really no surprise that Shining Armor was able to beat you. You’ve got no skill. You’ve got no talent. And you have no chance of stopping me,” said Chrysalis.

“Well, then…” said Shadow, pulling himself up to his hands and knees while reaching for one of his pistols. “Let’s how you deal with this!”

On that last word Shadow turned himself around and tried to shoot Chrysalis. However, before he could get a shot off, Chrysalis used a beam from her horn to knock the weapon out of his hand.

‘You really are terrible at fighting aren’t you?’ Shadow asked Jack.

‘Oh shut up.’

“What’s the matter?  No gun?” snarled Chrysalis. “Pity… this is really going to hurt.”

“TWO GUNS, BITCH!” snarled Shadow, pulling out his second pistol, only to get hit in the chest by a beam of magic from Chrysalis.

“You really are slower than I expected.” Chrysalis said as she picked Shadow up and tossed him into a crystal hard enough to crack it… and all of a sudden rings just popped out of his body. “What in the-”

“Yeah don’t ask. I don’t know either.” Shadow said as he pulled himself out of the crater.

Chrysalis then kicked Shadow in the face, causing him to fall back into the crater, unconscious. “To think, I almost considered you a threat to my plans to take over this land,” Chrysalis muttered to herself before returning her attention to a stunned Princess Cadence. “In any case, perhaps this will serve as a lesson on why you’ll be staying put down here until after the wedding, after which you’ll be disposed of. Good night, Cadence.”

And with that, the Changeling Queen turned on her heel and left the caves, leaving the battered hedgehog and princess behind her.

…

The following morning, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza stretched as she climbed out of bed. Last night had been interesting in so many ways… it was almost a shame that it was nothing more than a trick to ensure the wellbeing of her kind. However, one needs to crack a few eggs to make an omelette.

“Speaking of... breakfast sounds good about now.” Mi Amore said to herself as she headed downstairs to the Dining Hall, where she heard the others talking and laughing together. Once she reached the door, she flung it open. “Hello every-” she started to say, but stopped short once she saw who was at the table.

“Ah, so the sleepyhead finally wakes up,” said Shadow, munching on a plate of pancakes while Mi Amore Cadenza stared at him with a stunned kind of look on her face, like she was seeing a ghost or something.

Wha… How’d he get out of those caves?! They’re nothing short of a maze! Cadenza thought to herself, and for a moment, she was worried that her plan had officially hit the fan and that the real Cadence was here somewhere, waiting to expose her for what she truly was.

“Honey? Are you okay?” asked Shining Armor, noticing the horrified look on his fiance’s face.

Regaining her composure, Mi Amore cleared her throat. “Y-yes, dear, I’m fine. Just not used to seeing a giant hedgehog sitting at the table is all,” she said, giving a nervous smile.

“Oh. Well, then come and sit down,” said Shining Armor with a smile while Shadow rolled his eyes. Cadence sat down beside Shining but was still sweating a bit as Shadow kept sitting at the table.

“S-so…. someone mind telling me what the hedgehog is doing here?”

“Well, Shining Armor invited me down for breakfast so that way he could keep a better eye on me, and also so we could discuss the security details for your wedding, what with this threat to Canterlot and all,” explained Shadow.

“O-oh… is that so? I was under the impression that my fiance's shield spell would keep out anyone who had ill intentions against Equestria,” said Mi Amore with a skeptic look at Shadow. Or, at least, as much of one as she could muster under the circumstances.

“So did I,” said Shining Armor. “But, Shadow here seems to be under the impression that the enemy may actually already be in Canterlot, waiting for the opportunity to carry out their plot.”

“And what makes him say that?”

“Call it… intuition,” Shadow said, a smirk on his face. “Now, then, where is Twilight and her crew of merry mares?”

“They should be coming here soon,” said Shining as he looked outside. “Rainbow’s a bit…. obsessive about being on time.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it started back when she was still just a recruit in the military. One time, Rainbow overslept and was over two hours late to her training station. After she got her ass chewed out by her CO, she found herself enduring some… cruel and unusual punishment.”

“And that would be…?” asked Shadow.

“Take off her clothes and do sit ups until told otherwise... she kept at it until night fall.”

“Holy hell.”

At that moment, Rainbow, Twilight, Applejack,, Fluttershy, Rarity, Spike, and Pinkie entered the breakfast room.

“Whew, made it just in time,” said Rainbow, checking her watch.

“Good. With everypony here we can start talking about plans for the wedding,” said Shining Armor.

As the ponies, dragon, and hedgehog talked about what the plan was for the wedding rehearsal later that afternoon, Mi Amore kept casting looks at Shadow, and Shadow did the same to her. Both of them knew that the other was a major threat that needed to be dealt with if either her plan or Equestria’s peace was to make it through this wedding in one piece.

I’ll have to snag him while he’s sleeping. That way, he won’t be able to stop my plans and ruin my kind’s hopes of survival, Mi Amore thought to herself.

Knowing Chrysalis, she’s probably planning to attack you in your sleep when you can’t fight back. Lucky for us, we only need to sleep one day out of the entire year. So, while everyone else is sleeping, we can work on those terrible combat skills of yours, Shadow told Jack.

Sounds good to me, was Jack’s reply.

In the end, both Mi Amore and Shadow knew that when the wedding bells started to ring, there were going to be some fireworks… and only one of them would be left standing.