About two years had passed since Minuette had spoken with Moondancer. She had spoken to her other friends about what Moondancer had told her, and they had gone to her house several times to talk to her about it, but now she just ignored them. Eventually, they had given up. Minuette, Lemon Hearts, and Twinkleshine had travelled to Ponyville to meet up with Lyra Heartstrings - they hadn’t seen her in a while, and with the royal wedding coming up it was the perfect opportunity to catch up. They sat at a table at a cafe that Lyra had recommended. Lyra had also brought along another friend.

  “Everypony, I’d like to introduce you to Bonbon!”

Bonbon put on a grin and shrunk a little into her seat. Meeting so many ponies at once was kind of overwhelming.

  “Hi, Bonbon!” Lemon Hearts greeted, “How long have you been friends with Lyra?”

  “Uh… I don’t remember. Do you know, Lyra?” Bonbon replied.

  “Geez, I don’t know either. It’s been so long… Maybe about a year and a half? It was pretty soon after I left canterlot,” Lyra said.

Lyra’s old friends nodded.

  “So, do you two always come here?” Twinkleshine asked.

The five ponies continued like this, asking questions back and forth, making small talk until it was time to get ready to leave for Canterlot. The princess of the Crystal Empire, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, more commonly known as Princess Cadance, was being married to Shining Armor, a knight at Canterlot. Only Minuette, Twinkleshine, and Lyra knew anything about Princess Cadance or the Crystal Empire, but they all had to go anyway.

  “Oh, I forgot to ask! Is it true that you, Lyra, and Twinkleshine are going to be the bridesmaids for Princess Cadance?” Bonbon asked Minuette.

  “Yes! I didn’t really want to, but duty calls, I suppose,” Minuette replied.

  “That’s so cool! The bridesmaids for royalty…” Lemon Hearts trailed off.

  “Well, we’d better go. The wedding starts soon,” Twinkleshine reminded them.

The five ponies went back to Lyra’s house, where they got into their dresses for the wedding.

It wasn’t long before they were in Canterlot and sitting in the chairs at Princess Cadance’s wedding. Bonbon watched as Princess Cadance and Shining Armor said their vows. At one point, there was a lull in the ceremony, and Bonbon took this opportunity to turn to Lyra and ask her something. When she turned, though, there was nopony there. Bonbon frowned and looked to her other side. Lemon Hearts was sitting right next to her, and she was looking to her right at the other empty seats next to her with a confused expression on her face. Out of the five friends, only Bonbon and Lemon Hearts still remained.

  “Psst! Lemon Hearts! Where are the others?” Bonbon whispered.

  “I don’t know… they were here a second ago, but they just…” Lemon Hearts whispered back.

Bonbon turned around and faced the colt sitting behind her.

  “Excuse me, did you see--” she tried. She was interrupted by the colt shushing her.

  “They’re about to become husband and wife! Have some respect!” the colt scolded. Bonbon blushed and turned around to watch the ceremony.

  “Princess Cadance and Shining Armor, it is my great pleasure to pronounce you--”

  “Stop!” a voice yelled from the back of the hall.

Lemon Hearts wheeled around and suddenly went pale. Standing at the doors of the ceremony was Twilight Sparkle. Lemon Hearts never thought she would see Twilight again! And here she was, breaking up these two ponies marriage?

  “Ugh! Why does she have to be so possessive of her…” Princess Cadance said. She was still speaking, but it all faded away and became simply noise. Lemon Hearts watched as Twilight Sparkle stood before what seemed to be a copy of Princess Cadance. She didn’t care about that. She only cared about the fact that she was seeing Twilight again after such a long time. She heard the Cadance that was standing next to Twilight explaining that the one getting married to Shining Armor was a fake, a ‘changeling’, but she didn’t listen. She was simply stunned. Suddenly, there was a bright green light, and Lemon Hearts was blinded for a second. She saw Princess Celestia falling and hitting the ground, and heard Twilight shout her name in shock. Suddenly, ponies were running around everywhere, Lemon Hearts thought she saw more copies of ponies, and suddenly she was being dragged by Bonbon, being pleaded to run. She sprinted towards the doors, and felt the wind on her as Twilight Sparkle bolted past her. She opened her mouth to speak but Twilight was already too far away to hear. She hadn’t even noticed her.

Lemon Hearts and Bonbon collapsed together in a heap just outside of Ponyville, breathless. They had run all the way from Canterlot, and now they were completely exhausted. Panting, Lemon turned to see Lyra Heartstrings running towards them.

  “There you are, Lyra! Where were you at the wedding?” Lemon asked.

  “I… don’t remember. The last thing I saw was a bright green light, and… anyway, that doesn’t matter. Is… Is Bonbon okay, or...?” Lyra replied, looking to Bonbon, who was still lying on the ground, taking unnaturally deep breaths, and coughing occasionally.

  “I’m... fine… Just a little… out of shape, I guess…” Bonbon attempted, with massive breathes in between.

  “Lyra, while you were running, did you see…?” Lemon trailed off. She wanted to ask about Twilight, but her disbelief stopped her from being able to finish her sentence.

  “Yeah… While I was running, I saw her fighting those weird bug-looking things. I think they were calling them Changelings? She was fighting those, and then some of them turned into direct copies of her, so she was fighting herself… it was all really confusing, honestly.”

The two friends were interrupted by a shrieking voice coming from behind them, accompanied by the loud sound of running from behind them.

  “Giiiirrrls!” Minuette called, tripping as she got closer to her friends and diving through them like bowling balls.

  “Ouch, Minuette. That hurt…” Lemon mumbled, rubbing her head and squinting.

  “Sorry!” Minuette apologised. “Twinkleshine! It was them!” she called. The four ponies turned to see Twinkleshine sprinting towards them.

  “Did you see all that? That was crazy! Ponies were fighting each other, and there were horn-lazers, and Twilight was… wait a minute--” Twinkleshine exclaimed, suddenly realising what she had just seen.

  “Yeah, that was definitely Twilight. I can’t believe she ruined the royal wedding like that!” Lemon Hearts said.

  “Weren’t you listening? Or watching? The Princess Cadance that was getting married wasn’t actually Princess Cadance, she was Queen Chrysalis - a changeling. She had taken Princess Cadance's place without anypony knowing, not even her to-be husband. Twilight had shown up and saved the wedding, rescuing the real Cadance,” Bonbon lectured.

  “...Oh.” Lemon replied.

  “So… what do we do now?” Minuette asked, calming down.

  “Well, we just saw Twilight, and in very… strange circumstances. I imagine that Canterlot won’t be very safe anymore for a while, so until we can go back, we should probably stay in Ponyville for a while. When it’s safe, Twilight will probably come back, and we can ask her what’s going on,” Lyra replied.

  “Yeah, that makes sense. Where should we stay?”

  “Ooh! You can all… stay at my house, if you… bah… want…” Bonbon offered, still struggling to recover from running all that way.

  “Squeee! It’ll be like a sleepover!” Lyra exclaimed, beaming.

  “Hey, what are… friends… for, right? Ugh…” Next Chapter: 05 - Dry Cereal Estimated time remaining: 43 Minutes