They say flying with the Wonderbolts is an honor. Personally, I found it exhausting.

Spitfire and her squad kept up a pace just short of grueling-- by the time we finally got to Daydream Valley, my wings ached to a wince-inducing degree. The sun had set, and the moon was full,* making it easy to see the winding path of the railway from above.

*Contrary to more royalist accounts, a princess is not required to raise the sun every morning, nor the moon every night. Once set in motion, the celestial bodies keep moving under their own momentum for quite some period of time. The 'raising of the sun' ritual is, in fact, more akin to a course correction as the raiser in question makes small adjustments to the orbit of the sun in order to provide optimal climate conditions. For further reading on the subject, I recommend Clopernicus' “On the Revolutions of Celestia's Spheres.”

Some of the Wonderbolts rounded up a cloud for us to perch on, and I let out a relieved sigh as I put my weight upon its fluffy surface. If the long and strenuous flight had tired any of the Wonderbolts, they didn't show it. I liked to think I was in good physical condition, but each and every member of the Wonderbolts was a perfect physical specimen when it came to flying. Which I would have appreciated more if it weren't for the iminent doom and all.

“Lieutenant!” Spitfire barked, and I snapped to attention by reflex. She glared at me with an officer's practiced malice, and waved me closer. “Over here!”

My hooves trotted me over closer without me even thinking about it. “Commander.” I said, and saluted snappily for good measure.

“Can the spit-shine, Lieutenant. This isn't a parade cloud.” Spitfire turned away from me and looked down into the valley below. “You've fought the bugs before-- what do we need to know?”

“Well, ah.” I wracked my brain for something useful. “They're shapeshifters?”

“I know that already.”

“Right, of course. But they will probably try to use that against us. Sow confusion and all that.”

“Got it.” Spitfire nodded. “We'll all have to look out for each other, make sure the bugs don't get the chance to replace any of us.”

In the distance, the train rounded a bend and chugged into the valley, shining a cone of sodium-yellow light onto the tracks ahead.

“Oh!” I said, actually remembering my earlier exploits without wanting to suddenly start trembling. “One more thing-- Changelings fly, but they don't have weather magic like we do. All we've got to do is get a few thunderheads together, and we can blast them to smithereens. Easy.”

“I like the way you think, Lieutenant, but that's a no-go.” Spitfire said, ruefully. “I'd love to drop a tornado on them as much as you would, but we can't risk cloud artillery when the Princesses' lives are at stake. One misplaced lightning bolt ... “ she trailed off, and shook her head. “No, we're gonna have to do this the old fashioned way. We'll come in fast and hard, Three-Delta formation. Hit the engine first, and then work our way backwards, car to car, until we secure the objective.”

“Three-Delta whatnow?” I said. “I'm sorry, Commander-- I'm a Royal Guard, not a Wonderbolt. I haven't had the privilege of flying with you until now.” And then, in a glorious, glorious epiphany, it hit me. I kept myself from grinning, and even put on a grim, disappointed expression in what was probably my greatest feat of acting to that date. “And I hate to say it, but my inexperience is a liability. It'd be an honor to be your wingpony, Commander ... but the simple fact of the matter is, I'd only get in your way. I know how these things go-- one feather out of place, and the whole formation could collapse. I simply can't have your lives on my conscience, just because I wanted another go at the bugs. I'll ... I'll just have to stay behind as a rearguard. Make sure you don't get flanked.” For the piece de resistance, I smiled, but in a sort of melancholy way. “Tell Princess Celestia hello for me, will you?”

Spitfire absorbed my award-worthy (and entirely improvised) monolgue, and finally shook her head. “I wish I had a dozen like you, Lieutenant.”

“I'm afraid I'm one of a kind.” I said, allowing myself a roguish little smirk.

“Unfortunately. Do you know just how much posturing I have to put up with in this squad? I swear, every single recruit I get thinks they've invented flying, so they should be at the center of every formation. Takes months to beat that out of them. If more of my recruits could stop thinking with their wings and actually acknowledge their limitations, it'd make my job a whole lot easier.”

“I imagine there's a lot of things that would make both our jobs easier, Commander.” I looked out towards the train-- still some miles away, but steadily approaching nonetheless.

“You don't know the half of it.” Commander Spitfire said. “But since you're probably the weakest flyer here, we'll just put you in the front.”

“Right,” I nodded-- only to feel my mouth go suddenly desert-dry when Spitfire's words actually sunk in. “In front?” I said, stunned.

“Yep.” Spitfire said. “The rest of us will form up behind you. We'll be flying so fast that our combined wingpower will push you forward. All you've got to do is keep your wings out and steer. The bugs won't know what hit 'em!” Spitfire clapped me on the shoulder, and then turned around to bark at her squad.

“Goggles down, and form up, Wonderbolts! We're gonna go in hard and fast-- Three Delta formation. Sentry's on point! Last one to take out a changeling owes me a drink! You numbskulls got that?”

“HOO-RAH!” The Wonderbolts grunted in what I can only assume was the affirmative.

Spitfire yanked her own goggles into place, and gave me a dashingly heroic grin, much like one of my own. Only, you know, genuine. “Looks like you're gonna get to say hi to Princess Celestia before I do after all.”

And then Spitfire shoved me off the cloud.

Over the years, I've survived more brawls, battles, routes, retreats, charges and campaigns than I can remember. The fiasco in Daydream valley, however, was the only one that anypony's written a poem about.**

*Sentry is, of course, referring to Tenneighson's famed“The Charge of the Flight Brigade.”

And to be honest, things started well. At least as well as things can when you've got the strongest fliers in all of Equestria pushing you forward like an equine battering ram. Wind whipped and stung at my face as we swooped downward, closer and closer to the oncoming train. We were almost to the engine itself when the doors to all the boxcars opened in unison, and a black cloud of angry, chittering monsters boiled out to meet us.

I'm not much for poetry, but I will admit the poet at least got one thing right: there were changelings to the left of us, changelings to the right of us, and changelings in about every other direction you could think of besides. As I watched the changeling swarm billow out ahead of us, I wondered, for the briefest of moments, if this was all a trap, or if the changelings had simply placed as much security as they could muster on the cocooned princesses.

It didn't matter, as the changelings were all too eager to eat me either way.

I snapped off a bolt from my crossbow, earning a dismayed screech from deeper within the horde-- one down, only a thousand or so to go. There was no time to reload before our formation smashed into the swarm. I splayed my wings out to control my flight as best as I could, but even then I bounced off of at least three or four changelings on the way down. Chitin crunched beneath my hooves as I flailed wildly at the seething mass of black-coated monsters.

Still propelled by the Wonderbolts' formation, I smashed straight through a narrow window of a dining car. The changeling I was grappling with took the worst of the impact, but I didn't make it out entirely unscathed. A razor-sharp shard of glass slashed a thin, clean cut up one of my front legs, and I squealed in pain. Thankfully, the incessant buzzing and hissing of the changeling horde drowned out my entirely justified whimpering.

I chanced a glance over my shoulder and saw the Wonderbolts twisting and turning in the air, accounting themselves in a most heroic (but ultimately futile) fashion. For all their skill, the Wonderbolts were outnumbered to an exponential degree. Screams and battle cries echoed through the night, flaring up and cutting out with stomach-turning suddenness.

“Lieutenant!” Spitfire twisted impossibly through the air and sank the tip of her lance into a changeling's torso. “You've got to free the princesses! It's our only hope!” Having barked that, Spitfire ducked out of sight, pursued by a trio of slime-spitting changelings.

It was that moment I realized I was the only pony who had made it onto the train itself-- the rest of the Wonderbolts were too busy with the fighting in the air outside. If anypony was going to rescue the princesses, it would be me. In turn, I knew that the only way I'd make it out of this debacle alive was if I had help.

A lot of help.

“Throw the sun at you” kind of help.

And so, I dashed through the dining car, ducking changeling spittle the whole while. I upended tables and chairs in my wake, slowing my pursuers down by fractions of seconds-- but every little bit helped.

I burst into the dining car's kitchenette, and there was a changeling waiting for me, drool streaming from his (its?) mandibles. I swore in alarm, and punched it in the face. When it didn't go down, I yanked a chef's knife from a conveniently placed wood block and slammed the blade between two plates of the insect monster's carapace. Its (his?) blue eyes went wide in shock, and the changeling collapsed to the floor. Were I a better pony, the sudden act of instinctive, effective violence would have been horrifying. But, as I hope I've impressed to the reader by this point, I am assuredly not a good pony.

My hooves slid on the rapidly-expanding puddle of ichor, and I careened through the door to the next car. I at least had enough presence of mind to shove my spent crossbow into the door's handle, temporarily barring it shut. Having bought myself some time, I took a moment to size up the train car I'd wound up in.

It might have been a boxcar, once, to judge by the empty space and lack of windows. This one had been particularly changeling-ified, with their sickeningly organic goop-structure coating the floor, walls, and ceiling. And, dangling from the ceiling like so many bags of potatoes, was a line of oblong green cocoons.

I lunged for the closest one, and shook it with desperate urgency. “Wake up!” I said. And from within the emerald goop, I saw a pair of glowing eyes open. The pony within began to move, and I made out more details-- a dark coat, a shimmering mane-- Princess Luna.

I laughed to myself, relieved. Princess Luna was far more terrifying than her sister-- what, with the occasional urge to plunge the world into darkness and all. But, so long as all that megalomania was pointed at the changelings (and, of course, away from Yours Truly), all the better, right? All I had to do was free her and get out of the way, and the whole fiasco would be done with.

I scrabbled at the sticky cocoon, finally tearing a hole in it. Foul-smelling green fluid poured from the hole, and Princess Luna slid out along with it in a sickening mockery of birth. Standing on trembling legs and hacking up emerald-colored slime, Princess Luna certainly didn't look like the avatar of darkness that I was really hoping for right now.

“Who ... who are you?” Princess Luna turned her eyes onto me.

“Lieutenant Flash Sentry, at your service.” I forgot to salute, but Luna didn't notice. She began to fall over, so I ducked in to drape one of her hooves over my shoulder. Changelings on the other side of the door began to bang and batter at it, forceful enough to crack the hardwood stock of the crossbow barring it. “I'm here to rescue you.”

“Rescue ... no!” Princess Luna shook her head. “I'm too weak from the changeling venom. I cannot fight. I cannot fly. You must leave me.”

“With all due respect, Princess, too many ponies have gone through too much trouble to give up now.” It's impolite to discuss a lady's weight (especially when the lady in question can juggle the stars when she gets bored), but princesses, as a rule, stand taller than most other ponies. Not to mention Luna was all muscle-- I strained my wings, but only got about a foot or so off the ground, and certainly not at a changeling-evading speed.

The pounding at the door grew louder, and the crack of the splintering crossbow made my heart skip a beat. “Quick!” I shook Princess Luna, perhaps a little too hard. “Do the Nightmare Moon thing! Plunge them into eternal darkness! Eat them! Something!”

Luna's eyes spun, and she nodded. “Thank you, Lieutenant.” She said, far too prim and proper for someone covered in goopy slime. “I have an idea. You may put me down.” I obliged, and Luna managed to stand, however shakily. “Hope is not yet lost. There is another who can help us.”

“Who?” The door cracked open, and changelings began to reach and grab with their spindly black legs. I lowered my shoulder and slammed into the door, holding it closed for a few moments longer.

“Starlight Glimmer.”

“I have no idea who that is!”

“Twilight Sparkle's Apprentice-- she's our only hope.”

“Right! Which cocoon is she in?”

“She has not been captured, not yet-- that's why she can help us. I can contact her on the dream plane-- but my body shall be vulnerable while I astrally project. You must hold the changelings off for as long as you can.”

“And then what?” My voice cracked, and another

“Then we must hope Starlight Glimmer can rescue us before the changelings drain us entirely.” Princess Luna closed her eyes, and her horn began to glow. “Thank you, Lieutenant sentry. Your deeds this day will be remembered.”

And before I could so much as yelp in protest, Princess Luna closed her eyes, and entered some kind of trance. I would've tried to shake her awake, but if I took my weight off the door, the changelings would come streaming in and start eating our brains.

I can't tell you how long I held out-- it could have been seconds, it could have been hours. Time does funny things when a whole hive of changelings is howling for your blood. I just kept my eyes locked on Princess Luna as she sat there, doing the sort of alicorn magic with a distinct lack of exploding heads or thrown meteors.

The changelings gave one more cry, and smashed into the door hard enough to knock it off its hinges. I sprawled across the floor, and a hive's worth of changelings started stampeding across my back, forcing all the air out of my lungs in a single whoosh. The last thing I saw was the changelings swarming over the still-entranced Luna, re-cocooning her with whatever vile excretions they use for that sort of thing.

Then, everything went black.