I found Sunset laying on her side next to Tempest, both of them completely out of it. I quickly rushed up to her and checked her for injuries. Other than bruises and a split lip, I couldn’t see anything.

“Hey… Sunny… time to wake up…” I said and touched my horn gently to hers, channeling a bit of magic.

Her eyes fluttered open and she gasped before blinking, “W-wha… buck!” she cursed and rolled to surge onto her hooves, I just barely managing to pull back to avoid being head butted.

“It’s fine, it’s fine!” I quickly said, “It’s over.”

She looked around with wide eyes, “What… what happened.”

“Cast a sleeping spell with both Luna and me powering it, Well… I cast it, she poured an oiltanker worth of power into it,” I explained and moved close to her again, touching my horn to hers, “turns out, couldn’t really aim it. It hit everypony in town.”

Sunset sighed softly, leaning against me in turn, favoring her left rear leg a bit, “Twi? Luna?”

I forced a small smile and gave her a small kiss, “Both fine. Luna is waking Celestia, Sparky is still asleep.”

That got a nod from her, “Okay, what now?”

“Well, not sure how long it’ll last,” I admitted, “We better wake as many ponies as possible before they start to do so. Get as many enemies in shackles as possible.”

Sunset nodded and rubbed her eyes, “Yeah… normal wake up spell work?”

“Should,” I agreed and sighed, “Twilight and Midnight first? They might have an idea how to speed things up.”

Sunset quickly nodded and looked around, rushing over to wake Twi up as soon as she located her marefriend.

I looked out across the square turned into a battlefield.

Well, on a scale of one to ten, I’d rate the wedding a solid two out of ten, narrowly beating out Cadence and Shining Armor.

Cadence!

Jumping over the still sleeping Tempest, ignoring her for now other than renewing the sleep spell with a more focused one, I put out the ring of fire on the way to check on Cadence. She had not moved from where the spell had hit her, the obsidian statue unhurt by the damage.

“Cadence?” I asked as I got closer, “You in there, Pinky?”

Putting my hoof against her chest, I listened by her muzzle. No breathing.

I took a quick step back as I looked at her before I swallowed and moved up, touching her with my horn as I focused my magic.

...There. I could feel her in there. She wasn’t actually dead. Just turned to stone and held in some sort of… suspended animation.

Alive, but silent. Her minds and dreams stopped where they were when she was hit. Frozen like the rest of her.

Looking to Shining Armor, I debated letting him sleep for a second because if he saw her like this, he might panic. But we needed the shield back up.

So I stepped over and hit him with the wake up spell.

He blinked awake and then quickly rolled onto his hooves, “Page.”

“Your wife is fine,” I said before he could spot her, “She is just trapped, we’ll find a way to release her,” I explained before he could spot her.

He blinked at me before finding her, “Cadence!”

I forcefully pulled his attention back to me by grabbing his horn with my magic and wrenching him back to look at me, “She’s fine. We need the shield back up now if she is to remain like that! Get to it, soldier!”

Shining Armor shook his head free from my magic before he nodded, “...Yes. Yes, of course,” he said and closed his eyes, magic rippling across his horn before he shot a beam up into the air, the shield starting to reform over Canterlot.

As it formed, I left them there, starting towards Skitter, hitting any guard unicorn I could see on my way to her, giving them the briefest explanation I could about what had happened.

As I approached the sleeping Changeling Princess, I glanced over towards her mother trapped in the black stone.

That should have been me. She tackled me out of the way, taking the spell for me. Why would she do that? A Changeling I could buy doing that, trying their best to keep me safe on Skitter's orders, but what could possibly have compelled Chrysalis to do that?

It didn’t make sense.