Commander Twilight Sparkle trotted alongside one of the houses of Ponyville, her mind racing. It had become clear to the military mare that something was wrong with her “friends” just based on their reactions to things she said, the doctor seemed fine or was better at controlling himself then the others. Either way it was clear something was seriously wrong. She theorizes that she was dealing with Changelings but if that was the case then they would have been better at impersonating her friends.

No this was something else and the faster she got to her office in the basement of Golden Oaks Library and made contact with the EDF the faster she could get to the bottom of this. If this was some sort of prank she was going to be very pissed off.

The mare stopped when she reached the edge of the house and peeked down the alleyway, it was clear so she slipped inside. Escaping the hospital room had been simple enough, her cybernetics easily absorbed the impact of the three story drop and they were nice enough to leave her uniform and sidearm with her, she did scan it for tracking bugs just to be safe. Whoever these people were they were really bad at….whatever it was they were doing with her, if this was a kidnapping then they failed the most basic rules of kidnaping someone, namely restrain them and don’t leave their gun within arm’s reach.

But still till she knew more of what was going on it was best if she avoided contact with everyone till she reached the base. She looked out of the alleyway, there were a couple of civvies walking down the street but they were facing away from her position and the other way was clear. Wasting no time the unicorn darted across the street to the far alleyway.

It was then she caught sight of the Royal Carriage descending from the sky outside of town along with one of the Royal Guard chariots. Why was the Princess coming here now? No matter Twilight had bigger things to worry about, if the town had hostiles in it then the Princess would be in danger and she couldn’t allow that.

Twilight changed her destination from the library to get to the Princess and warn her of the impostors. She was moving as quickly as she could while still maintaining some stealth as it wouldn’t do any good to be held up by a fight and alert whoever was impersonating her friends where she was.

“Hi Twilight what are you doing?” A voice said behind the mare and she nearly jumped out of her skin, she did jump and spin around drawing her sidearm and aiming it at empty air. She blinked and looked down and saw three fillies she knew well sanding behind her staring at her.

“Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo don’t sneak up on ponies, its rude.” She said with some annoyance as she holstered her side arm, the three fillies were only dangerous when they were crusading, and Twilight had read the reports of what they got up to, even the EDF couldn’t seem to handle the three of them. Twilight saw a bright future as an EDF demolitions team in their future if they joined up. Equestria’s enemies would never stand a chance.

“We were going to the clubhouse when we saw you sneaking around in those funny clothes and were wondering what you were doing.” Scootaloo said.

“Yeah what are you doin’” Applebloom asked.

“Yes the clubhouse, you three should go there.” Twilight said, she needed to get these three both away from her and to safety, she didn’t know if whoever was after the Commander would use the three fillies as hostages or not but better safe than sorry.

“But what are you doing?” Sweetie asked.

“Uh….oh you know, just….sneaking around as I uh…want to find a quiet place to read and don’t want to be bothered.” The military mare said. Being caught off guard like this and still a bit disoriented from whatever drugs her “captors” had put in her system made her mind a bit sluggish on the lie.

Still seemed to work though. “Oh alright then, we will leave you alone. “Sweetie said and the three of them started to move off. “Bye Princess.” She called back and they waved.

“Princess? The fuck is that about?” Twilight said as she turned and came face to face with a Royal Guard earth pony. The mare jumped back. “Gah, don’t fucking do that.” She said with annoyance, she really couldn’t wait till her head was clear, a Royal Guard blatantly walking up to her and she not noticing was just embarrassing. The guard looked at her inquisitively. “Anyways I am glad you’re here, we need to get the Princess out of here as there ar—“

“I found her over here.”” The guar said turning to look up the street.

“Shh you dumb ass, I’m trying to tell you there are enemies in the town and we need to get the Princess to safety.” Twilight said with annoyance, this is why she did not like the Royal Guard; they failed to read the most basic situations, such as the leader of the army sneaking around.

Three more guard came around the corner and they moved to surround the mare who narrowed her eyes behind her sunglasses. “What the hell is going on?” She demanded.

“Remain calm, we just need you to come with us, you won’t be harmed.” The first guard said.

“Like hell I do.” Twilight said. “You’re not part of the Guard, who are you?”

“Remain calm, all will be explained just please come with us.” The first guard said and one behind her nudged her that was a mistake. Twilight whirled around as she switched to bipedal and grabbed the “Guard’s” leg and whirled him around. She threw him into the first guard and then jumped over the both of them as she sprinted down the street.

The guards quickly gave chase as the mare ran past startled civilians but stealth was no longer an option, if they were impersonality the guard then they could get close to the Princess and either kidnap her or assassinate her, and there was no way in hell that was happening on her watch!

Twilight ran through town making a bee line for where the carriage had landed, she didn’t really care what got in her way as she either just crashed through it or jumped over it or in the case of ponies just shoved them out of the way.

It didn’t take long for her to reach where Celestia was and to her horror she saw the imposter friends with her. “Princess Celestia!” She called out getting her attention; she skidded into a salute a few meters from the Sun Princess. “Ma’am you need to get away from them they aren’t who they say they—“

She was cut off as one of the “Guards” Tackled her from behind and they went down but Twilight rolled them so she came up on top of her attacker. She deliverer two quick punched to his face, breaking his nose in the process and then rolled off of him just as another one tried to tackle her.

She needed at least one of them alive for questioning but first she had to deal with keeping her hide intact.

The second earth pony recovered and lunged at her and the military mare grabbed his out stretched hooved and swung him around, hurling him into the Pegasus guard that was trying to grab her from behind and sending them both flying. She then put up a shield just in time to stop a magical blast form the unicorn guard.

Twilight dropped the shield and ran towards the unicorn but had to stop short and dodge the Pegasus again as he flew at her. She came up and saw the earth pony charging her while the unicorn charged another spell. Not wasting the opportuning she grabbed the earth pony and dragged him in front of her letting him take the blast for her.

Not missing a beat she dropped her meat shield and lunged at the unicorn grabbing the front of his armor. “No more of that.” She said and brought her arm down on his horn, shattering it. The unicorn went down screaming as he clutched his no broken horn. That left just one still active guard but the first one with the broken nose was recovering.

The Pegasus flew at her and the soldier ducked under his tack and sent both her firsts into his gun, denting the armor and driving the air from his lung causing him to crash. Before the Pegasus could recover Twilight stomped on his out stretched wing, breaking the bone and the Pegasus crying out. “Ok that makes three.” She said turning to face the last “guard” only to find herself lifted into the air by a golden aura. “What the hell?!” She cried out and flailed her limbs trying to grab onto something or break the telekinesis she found herself in.

Looking around franticly for the Unicorn she missed as she charged a spell to break the TK grip she paused when she saw Celestia’s horn wrapped in the same glow that was around the military mare’s body.

“What the hell is going on?!” Twilight yelled as she saw her “friends” looking between the suspended mare and the guard lying on the ground whimpering in pain, the entire fight had lasted all of fifteen seconds. Her “Friends” looked at her with clear looks of horror and fear on their faces.

“Calm down my little pony, you are not in any danger.” Celestia said calmly.

“Bull shit, we have a Shadowed Situation on our hands here Ma’am, and you need to get the hell out of here.” Twilight said and the group all looked confused, even the princess.

“I’m sorry, a what?” Princess Celestia asked with the barest hint of bewilderment in her voice.

Twilight stopped her struggling and stared at the princess, eyes narrowing slightly. She spoke carefully. “Shadowed Situation means that someone has been replaced by an unknown person with an unknown intention, most likely kidnapping or assassination of key government personal.” She said. “You should know that as we went over all the codes.”

Celestia blinked and that was all the Commander needed. “Imposter!” She said and her horn flared and she sent out a magical pulse that broke the TK grip and she lunged for the face Celestia her blades shooting out, only to be gripped in a purple aura and lifted off the ground. “Oh come on seriously?! How many of you fuckers are there?!”

Twilight began to cast the same spell to break this grip; it was weaker than the fake Celestia’s so wouldn’t be too hard when she saw something that made her pause. “The fuck is that?” She said pointing at the giant crystal…tree…..thing outside of town. She berated herself for not noticing that colossal eye sore sooner as it was massive and certainly wasn’t there yesterday.

She was moved in the magical grip to face the group better and she saw something that made her brain short out. That being herself, horn wrapped in purple aura, and with fucking wings! “ok….that has to be the worse fucking disguise I have ever seen, if you are going to impersonate me you really should know I’m not a Celestia-damned Alicorn!” this responds got a round of gasps from the gathered ponies, even the guards paused their whimpers of pain at the Commander’s exclamation and all eyes fell on the suspended mare.

“Celestia” was the only one that did not seem to be affected as she looked on with a hint of amusement in her eyes. “Well I can certainly say I’ve never heard that before. “She said. “Commander I think some things need to be explained, I can assure you are in no danger.”

“Whatever you said not-Celestia.” The Commander said with a mock salute.

This got a glare from the gathered ponies and the Commander had to admit she was finding that amusing despite everything. “Look the situation is not what you think it is Commander, none of us have been replaced. The situation as I understand it is you were somehow brought here when my student did a long range teleport to escape danger.” Not-Celestia said. “You are not in any danger I can assure you. You are merely not where you should be.”

“Riiiiight.” The Commander said as she could she her doppelganger starting to sweat trying to hold up the Commander’s weight. She took this time to think about it. “Ok…way I see it there are a few possibilities. One, I am drunk off my ass and having a weird ass dream. Two this is all some elaborate infiltration mission with an unknown goal. Three I somehow got captured by the Feds and am being held somewhere in a manner that makes me think everything is fine. Or four you are telling the truth and do the fact it’s the stupidest explanation I have heard I’m inclined to believe the forth and no one would think that dumb explanation would be believable.”

The gathered ponies blinked at the Commander’s reasoning for believing them. “It’s the truth. “ Copylight said as she was clearly having trouble holding the commander.

“Oh will you just drop me already? I’m not going to fight, beside I already kick the Royal Guard’s ass and I’d rather not do the same to civvies.” She said. Copylight looked at not-Celestia who nodded and Copylight let Twilight down.

The mare brushed herself off, making sure to get the dirt off her uniform before she retrieved her sunglasses and hat that had been knocked off sometime during the fight with the Royal Guard. “You may want to get them medical attention.” She said gesturing to the still downed guards after she returned to standing in front of the group.

“They will be looked after. “Not-Celestia said. “Now…can you explain how you are standing like that?”

Twilight blinked and looked down at the fact she was still in biped mode, her hands behind her back. “You mean as a biped?” When the not-Princess nodded and the group focused on the unicorn she spoke. “Cybernetic augmentation.” She said.

“Is that common where you are from?” Copylight asked.

“No, just me.” Twilight replied. “Though it doesn’t stop the fact rest of the army from being able to kick ass.” She said with pride.

“Army? You mean the Royal Guard?” Not-Rarity asked.

“No I Mean the Equestrian Defense Force, not the glorified police force.” This got a round glares from the Royal Guard, except for the unicorn who was in too much pain to be aware of what was going on around him.

The Not- Princess nodded.” I see so this Equestrian Defense Force is made up of soldiers and protects Equestria.” Twilight nodded. “And what is your role in it?”

“I’m the leader of the EDF, which means they are probably losing their shit right now with me vanishing but my second in commander is probably handling things well enough.” She said and then laughed.

“What’s so funny? “Not- Rainbow asked as she hovered around the group.

“Oh just the fact this little trip got me out of a meeting with the damn Nobles I really didn’t want to go to.” Twilight said. “So I suppose I should be thankful for that. “The grouped looked at her. “I hate politics.” She said bluntly and then turned and started to walk off towards town.

“Where are you going?” Copylight asked.

“To the library of course, where else would I go in Ponyville?” The Commander answered. She didn’t see the group all share a look before they rushed to catch up while Celestia stayed behind to help tended to the Royal Guard the commander injured in the little scuffle.

Author's Notes:

well Twilight is now aware of what's happened and the Royal Guard failed to contain the Commander once more.

we also got to see a bit of how the Commander thinks during the conformation at the end.
also I have Coverart! instead of it showing up after the story I actually got it very early on so there is that.