After a long day of studies, there were few things that brought a greater feeling of contentment to Twilight than to curl up under the covers of her bed and get herself a good night's rest. And right now, that was exactly what she was experiencing, with the calm night-time of Ponyville having set in a while back, the young unicorn was lying in her bed, a smile upon her face as she rested herself after the day's activities. Things were going well for her, as she tossed and turned in her sleep, though never once looking like she was troubled or without rest as she did so. Sure, every once in a while, she'd crack open an eye, but she always managed to get back to sleep soon afterwards. However, there came a time when, during one of these brief wakes, that her eyes stayed open, and a look of confusion crossed her face, as she finally broke the silence of the night by speaking to herself.

"Huh..."

The cause of this utterance was as she took a look at the nearby curtains of her room, which, oddly enough, seemed to have a slight orange glow about them, albeit a very faint one. Though she at first tried to still any concerns she had, her mind would not let up, and soon, she lit up her horn and levitated her glasses over from their resting spot on the table beside her bed. After leaning up and placing said glasses over her eyes, she squinted at the window, realising that she had indeed seen what she'd seen.

"It...it can’t be morning already, can it?"

She turned, looking upon the clock, which was also sitting on that small table, and seeing that it was only two in the morning. Something was wrong, and as such, after looking once more to the window, she slowly hopped out of bed, beginning to approach it. But, as she did so, she could hear something. Voices in the distance. Concern began to take root in her heart, and when she'd finally reached that window, she pulled back the curtains, leading to a gasp of shock.

"No!"

She could see the source of the orange glow; a fire, which could be seen even from THIS distance. Smoke billowed out into the clear night sky, and in the streets there were already ponies gathering and talking to one another in a fearful-looking way. But, what truly concerned Twilight was the fact that, given the direction of those flames, there was only one place it could be coming from.

"The Embassy!"

Instantly, she spun around, charging out of her bedroom door and racing for the stairs. But as she did this, she halted as she saw Spike emerge from his own room, rubbing some dust from his eyes as he finally saw her.

"Wha...what's going on, Mom?" he asked.

Twilight, looking to him, knelt down, placed a hoof on his shoulder, and spoke to him with utter seriousness in her tone.

"Spike! I need you to stay here! Lock the door after I've left and don't open it for anypony until I get back! Okay?"

Though clearly distressed at what his Mother had just said, the young drake did as told, nodding dutifully just in time to see her once more resume her run downstairs. At that pace, it took little time for Twilight to reach the bottom floor, after which she practically leapt out of the door, stopping just to make sure she'd closed it behind her, before charging down the street as fast as her hooves could take her. She passed by many of her neighbours in that street on the way, none of whom seemed eager to get closer to this problem, but she had no time to dwell on that. For after turning a few corners, she halted, her eyes widening with pure horror.

"By Celestia!"

It was a truly terrible sight, as it appeared that almost a quarter of the Embassy building was in flames. Every Lunar guard she could see was busy going to every single place where there was fire, organizing water teams and doing everything in their power to put the flames out. It was chaos, though to their credit, the Lunars appeared to be maintaining their discipline and composure throughout the ordeal, even as the nearby Ponyville citizens seemed too fearful to get any closer than they were. Eventually, however, Twilight saw a familiar figure beside the Embassy, spurring her into charging forward once more.

"Captain Dash!"

Sure enough, the Lunar Captain stopped what she was doing, turned around, and looked on with surprise as Twilight ran towards her.

"Twilight?"

Finally reaching her, the unicorn mare panted slightly after her exertions, before finally asking the obvious question.

"What happened?!"

Hearing that, Aurora frowned, pointing a hoof at Twilight in an accusing manner.

"What happened is that we were just attacked...by Equestrians!"

Naturally, Twilight was aghast at hearing this, to the point of even taking a step backwards from her Lunar colleague, shaking her head.

"No...no! That's...that's not..."

But Aurora carried on.

"It's true! A bunch of masked Equestrians showed up a few minutes ago, threw a bunch of flaming bricks at our site, and before we could retaliate, we had this mess to deal with!"

Twilight looked to the still-burning building, utterly flabbergasted at what she'd just heard. Equestrians outright attacking the Lunar Embassy? It was too terrible a thought to consider. And yet, she knew just from looking that, if this fire was a deliberate act on somepony's part, that malicious intent was indeed behind it. However, before she could ask further, before she could even open her mouth, she was stopped by the sound of a familiar voice calling to her from behind.

"Twily!"

Both she and Aurora turned to see that it was her brother, Shining, galloping fast towards them with a pair of his own troops flanking him on either side. Once he'd reached them, he looked from her, to the fire and back again, before finally addressing her.

"What...?"

But this time, it was Twilight's turn to do the interrupting.

"We'll explain later! Right now, we need to get this fire under control before it spreads!"

Hearing that, Aurora looked to Twilight with a sense of indignation.

"After what's just happened, we don't need some Equestrians coming in here and..."

But Twilight spun around, looked her angrily in the eye, and just spoke as directly as possible.

"THE EMBASSY IS ON FIRE!!!"

Of course, everypony there was taken aback by how forward and aggressive Twilight had been just now, especially when she'd spent so much of her recent time in Ponyville trying to keep things cool with the Lunar ponies. Nopony was more shocked at this display than Aurora herself, and while the brash pegasus was usually the most confident and self-assured of anypony there, in this one moment, she faltered a bit. She could hear the sounds of the fire still raging behind her, and she could see the earnest desire to help in Twilight’s expression. After grappling with what had to be a great deal of pride, the Lunar Captain slowly turned to Shining, narrowing her eyes.

"...We need water...and a lot of it."

Shining, perhaps not wanting to also be on the receiving end of his sister's bad mood, immediately turned to one of his subordinates.

"Get the local weather pegasi organized! NOW!!!"

His response was swift, as both ponies saluted before darting off as past as possible. Meanwhile, Twilight was focusing on something else entirely. As she began to turn her head from her brother to look at the fire again, she stopped for a moment just as something caught her attention in the corner of her eye. She squinted through the increasingly smoke-filled environment to see that, to her shock, there was a pony of some sort sticking their head out of a nearby alleyway. And, remembering what Aurora had told her, Twilight's eyes widened when she realised that this figure was clad in a black mask. As soon as this fact sank in, she frowned, before running forward yet again, ready to chase this individual down. Shining, seeing her go off, only had a few moments before he realised what was happening.

"Twilight! No!"

But she was already off, with her brother close behind her. The figure in the alleyway soon noticed the approaching unicorns, and instantly started to run off. But Twilight was hot on their heels, following them further and further into said alleyway, through all the twists, turns and corners that pony tried to use to escape. Eventually, after turning one particular corner, Twilight noted that the figure was about to run straight past a pair of trash cans, and so lit up her horn. Mere moments later, the cans tipped over as a result of her magic, and the masked figure, perhaps not paying attention, tripped over them. This gave Twilight and Shining ample opportunity to catch up, and Shining in particular leapt forward, pinning the attacker down and, with his own magic, yanked off the mask.

"Okay, punk! Let's see who..."

But his face soon turned to one of disbelief.

"...No!"

Twilight, confused by this, walked around her brother to get a better look at who it really was under that mask. And as soon as she'd done this, she let out a gasp.

"Y...you?!"

She recognised the figure immediately. It was a pegasus stallion, white in his fur, who, until recently, had been assigned to the Guard contingent here in Ponyville. The very same Guard who had began the tavern brawl with one of the Lunar soldiers some months ago, and had subsequently been removed from his position as a result. She hadn’t seen him since, and wasn’t expecting to see him ever again, as a matter of fact. But, here he was, and with the way he looked to her, with utter vitriol, Twilight spoke softly.

"...Why?"

The stallion seethed at her question, spitting at the ground beside her hooves before giving the only answer he was willing to give.

"You're not getting anything out of me...traitor!"

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