As Soarin slips outside to join Rainbow Dash the rest of the train falls into an uncomfortable silence. To be perfectly honest, Twilight finds disturbing how readily the other ponies comply after the assault and ‘capture’ of the Crystal Guards. The Equestrians she can understand; after all, three of their Princesses are aboard and did not stop the violence, or even outright condoned the usage of ‘dark magic’. But the Crystal Ponies? Not a peep, just bowed heads and furtive glances, trying to appear docile and beneath notice. A relic of King Sombra’s rule, or would Equestrians accept bit and bridle as easily?

Or is their lack of defiance because of the perceived futility of their actions? After all, any who spoke up would be dealt with, perhaps harshly and painfully. Applejack did attempt to link their actions to a reasonable facsimile of the mad king. Should she encourage the deception and go as all-out with over-the-top acting as Pinkie Pie? Or should she conduct their testing in a professional and detached manner?

Well, she knows which she would prefer if Doug et al planned some sort of elaborate prank or pulled a surprise party on her. But explaining and apologizing for frightening the Crystal Ponies wouldn’t give them terribly realistic results, either. It gnaws at her, treating her fellow equines so callously, but that’s what King Sombra did and would do, given the chance. And that’s not something she will allow.

Twilight nudges Pinkie Pie, looks pointedly at the roll of green stickers, and flicks her head at the huddled passengers.

Pinkie Pie takes her mission, as she probably should have expected, a touch too enthusiastically, reminding her of when Princess Luna attempted to reshape Nightmare Night and was thwarted by Nightmare Moon (played by Trixie).

“Alright, everypony, listen up!”

Pinkie Pie struts back and forth, occasionally disappearing only to reappear from impossible angles, staring straight into the eyes of those afraid to look in her general direction until they have no choice but to follow her around. Cheese Sandwich looms behind her, though with considerably less dimensional hopping, with an expression that would be far more dire if not for the #2 stamped rubber chicken flopping off his black bowler hat.

“Outside those pink walls,” Pinkie Pie foretells with a direness reserved for tales of Nightmare Moon, “lurks an evil so black, so vile, so despicable that foals quiver in fear at just the thought of his name! Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is simple: to make sure no foal, no pony, no creature at all is ever terrorized by such a villain again! Now, can you do that by cowering behind those walls, by relying on other ponies to protect you?”

“Y-yes?” comes the tepid reply.

“No!” Pinkie Pie stamps the floor, releasing a cloud of confetti around her. “Because if you think that will work, you will be forever suspicious of shadows, dreading what lies behind the next darkened corner! You can live in fear, or you can be fearsome! Will becoming strong make the shadows go away? No, it will not.” She shakes her head, dejected, before perking right back up and again getting in everypony’s face. “But being weak means the shadows will consume you! Will horrible atrocities be committed against all of Ponykind, only to be forgiven after the slightest of apologies and swept under the rug? Yes, because that’s who we are! Now, do we want to cause said horrible atrocities, or do we want to stop them?”

“Um,” one of the crystal ponies in front meekly speaks. “S-stop them?”

Pinkie Pie points precisely, prompting the packed ponies to perk up. “Exactly!” She stretches her hooves behind her head and whips out a squat blue party cannon, slamming it on the floor.

“This,” she announces with a satisfied pat on the top of the cannon, “is a basic Z&R party cannon. I never leave home without it, and neither should you! It comes equipped with a water resistant fuse, three pounds of confetti capacity, and the most adorable flower prints on the wheels. Options also include hearts, balloons, or skulls. I have five of these for the first five ponies to raise their hooves!”

Pinkie Pie raises five hooves, each one pointing to the five crystal ponies that raise their hooves.

“Excellent choice!” Pinkie Pie goes to the closest window by one of the volunteers, banging on it until the glass drops down. She crams a package of confetti down the barrel, then slots the cannon so the barrel mostly sticks outside. The low windows make this barely possible by placing the cannon on the pony’s seat.

“Where did you get all these cannons?” Twilight asks, as Pinkie Pie clearly didn’t carry them on board.

“Everypony in class finished making their own cannons,” Pinkie Pie explains, though Twilight thinks the explanation is worse than being uninformed, at least in this case. In Pinkie’s defense, she did say that was what she was going to do in her Conversations with Cannons class. “So I had a whole bunch of loaners left over!”

This doesn’t really answer Twilight’s original question, but she doubts she’ll get a satisfactory answer even if she asks in a slightly different manner.

Not to be outdone, Cheese Sandwich rolls in on a treaded red tank with a rotating blue cannon on top. “This,” he announces in the exact same voice as Pinkie Pie, giving it an appreciative tap from his seat on top, “is a Cannonball Surprise X-S, though extra small is the last thing anypony will say about it. It can deliver a fully packaged party up to one hundred and fifty yards away, two hundred with a good tailwind. Who wants one?”

Every hoof shoots up this time. Even Pinkie Pie’s.

Where Pinkie Pie gets the next four cannons, or the ten Deluxe Party Throwers, or Cheese Sandwich his full-sized Cannonball Surprise X-L that neatly clamps onto the roof with a ponyhole to access the targeting controls, nopony can rightly say. By the time they get to the station the entire train car is bristling with enough cannons to persuade even the citrusiest of ponies to become the scurviest of pirates.

“Stop pouting.” Luna rebukes her Sister from the loading port of the X-L, Pinkie Pie’s barrel of fireworks ready and waiting. She seems to derive an excessive amount of pleasure from the position. “T’is unbecoming of a Princess.”

“I am not pouting,” Celestia contests, horn aglow and staring off into the distance at a blank wall. One could make the argument that her busying herself in work at this point is because of dedication to her fellow Equestrians instead of remorse over swapping her spot on the Cannonball Surprise X-L for a basic Z&R cannon, but it would be a weak argument. “You looked so devastated after you traded your Deluxe.”

“Pah,” Luna pouts. “We hath seen her dreams of venturing to the skies and becoming a renowned buccaneer. This t’was merely the first step in her journey.”

“Maybe you should join her,” Celestia advises, aloof and a tad self-righteous. “Embark on your own journey of self discovery.”

“We neigh recall our disposition improving after our last sojourn,” Luna remarks coldly. “Perhaps thou must enlighten us. Perhaps beginning with the effects of a bucket of ice water poured over one’s head.”

“I fail to-” Celestia begins before a bucket held in a dark blue aura upends itself over her head. The ice water mats her once-flowing mane to her head, leaving her fuming through steaming strands of soggy hair. With one smooth motion she flicks her head to the side, spraying Luna with droplets as she gathers her listless mane into a dripping ponytail. “...So.”

Luna meets Celestia’s glare, her own mane sagging wherever the droplets hit. While Celestia looks pedestrian with her simple style, she just seems unkempt. “So.”

“That’s enough,” Twilight commands, stepping between the two petty alicorns before their feud can worsen. Worsen more, that is. Shining Armor is at her side while the rest of their teams - minus Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich - gather at the rear. “You two, you’re with me.”

“Where art we heading?” Luna demands.

“You heard Cadance’s letter,” Twilight explains, grinning. “To the throne room! We’re just waiting for…”

The door slams open, a tan Rainbow Dash streaking inside with Soarin close behind. She shakes a bit of snow from her feathers, shivering minutely, but otherwise appears unharmed.

“Report?” Twilight asks, glancing nervously between the frosty pegasi.

“They’ve set up clouds around the top of the Crystal Castle,” Rainbow Dash explains as she gratefully spreads her tan wings out to let Twilight’s warmth spell blow over her. “Mostly harmless cumulo, but they’ve got a few hailers mixed in.” She rubs at a small lump on the top of her head. “They hurt if you run into them. I didn’t realize we were working on a cold counterpart to the Lightning in a Box package.”

“We aren’t,” Celestia says, Shining Armor likewise shaking his head. They both look a tad worried.

Twilight frowns. “Then somecreature either managed to modify the boxes we’ve made, or they reverse engineered them and built their own versions.”

Rainbow Dash awkwardly rubs at a rubbery wing, smoothing out the paint, and trying to get feeling to return. “Yeah, well, flying into one unleashed a torrent of frost. You might be able to trigger them with a sufficiently large body; pieces of hail didn’t trigger a chain reaction from nearby clouds. Or the rest were duds, we didn’t stick around to test.” She glances up at the ceiling, tapping her hoof three quick times. “They had twenty four ice archers posted on the second and fourth quintets, each, leaving the bottom, middle, and top unguarded.”

“You counted and remember all that?” Twilight asks, somewhat incredulous. Normally the pegasus is pretty, well, scatterbrained.

Soarin takes the question as Rainbow Dash shrugs. “They put some sort of wire mesh, a blend of light and dark green, on the inside of every window on the bottom, middle, and top fifths.” He takes note of Twilight’s knowing nod. “Something to stop teleportation?”

Twilight nods. “A Maraday Cage, if they made it with the right material. It absorbs all overt magic trying to get through, though ponies should be fine. But it’s pricey; I don’t know how comfortable I am with chucking hunks of rock to break through, especially if that might bring down the entire castle.”

Rainbow Dash continues, “From the looks of it, they completely sealed off the very top of the castle, where the Crystal Heart was hidden before. The pieces of crystal that Spike ran down were still there, not that they lead anywhere.”

Twilight nods again. “Your overall impression?”

Rainbow Dash uncomfortably tosses her head back and forth. “He’s not hiding the Heart on the top; any defenses there are a bluff, I’d put a round of cider on it. The balcony that leads to the throne room looked wide open, but I suspect a trap. My bits are on the middle; it’s guarded enough to keep away any cursory looks, but not so heavily guarded that it shows all his apples are in one basket.” Soarin nods in agreement.

“Excellent work out there, Dash. And Soarin.” Twilight dismisses the two pegasi; they snap a quick salute in return. “Now get out there and keep distracting them.”

“You got it!” Rainbow Dash and Soarin take one more gust of warm air before slipping out the door to the alarmed shouts of the surrounding guards.

Twilight peeks past one of the cannons to view the heavily guarded platform. Brightly sparkling and spear-armed Crystal Guards have cleared the nearby area, leaving a barren nomaresland between their train and any sort of cover. Passengers hurriedly disembark from the other cars. They huddle low, ears down and luggage left behind, dashing across in single file lines to the unheard shouts of the guards. Once across they are patted down, checked for injuries, then shuffled to a few makeshift holding pens. Twilight gasps when she thinks she sees Doug dart across and get waved past, a gray duffel bag at his side, but her concentration is disrupted by loud blasts of music.

Dueling accordions blare out a polka rendition of the Crystal Kingdom Anthem from atop the train car. Occasional flugelhorn toots mix with hooves stomping on the ceiling, creating a cacophony of sounds that might have grated if they didn’t so perfectly mirror the original composition. Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich add their voices to the racket, perfectly synced with each other as they battle back and forth.

“That’s the signal,” Twilight says, completely unnecessarily and probably unheard, as the cannons surrounding them go off.

Her compatriots in crime stream out the back, mixing in with the dozens of colorful flash parties raining down from the sky. Each parachuted party package bursts into stacks of bowtied presents, platters of mouthwatering morsels, and enough streamers to shroud Celestia’s tall form in ribboned color. Amidst the confusion Twilight, Shining Armor, Celestia, and Luna boldly stride forward, taking wing (Shining Armor on a floating shield) as soon as the cascading cakes allow.

The Crystal Empire stretching out before them hasn’t so much as transformed as doubled in density and area while maintaining the overall look and feel of before. The Crystal Castle dominates the center of the city with the Crystal Heart sheltered underneath, spinning between two pointed teal cones. Colorful houses of red and blue and purple and green sparkle in the sunlight, with the many new additions matched as closely as possible. It’s more obvious on the outskirts that concrete and steel has been used, though every effort has been made to conceal those outliers; Twilight suspects as soon as sufficient material has been mined from the nearby mountains the incongruous spots will be layered over. Ponies fill the streets, all varieties, though pegasi are notably absent from the sky and instead stick to the ground.

The pink of the shield is only noticeable on magical spectrums; otherwise the sky appears a perfect blue with the occasional wispy cloud little more than a wavy backdrop. This is less true of the castle itself: some areas appear as black as Doug, obviously where nullstone has been incorporated into the windows. Others shine with an angry intensity, promising to loose hail or lightning or fire at any unwary creature that dares venture too close. The clouds sporadically scattered around, the kind in which a pegasus might take a nap (or cover, should their intentions be malicious), appear trapped as well. She makes sure to steer clear of any and all obstructions on their route.

Their destination, the balcony that leads to the throne room, bristles with traps. From a distance Twilight cannot make out which do precisely what, except that they must be easily triggered: nopony, and nodragon, can be seen observing the hectic bustle around the train station. The rest of the many-spired castle looms sleek and unblemished, reflecting the sun’s blinding rays whenever the angle lines up just right - and, with how many surfaces there are on the castle, the angle is always right somewhere.

Twilight lands on the balcony, a shield readied and expecting to be immediately hit by half a dozen spells, but to her pleasant surprise nothing happens. Her brother touches down next to her, Celestia and Luna just behind, the Sister’s animosity briefly forgotten.

For there, sitting on the raised throne in the center of the throne room, is a silver paper crown.

The rest of the throne room is empty, as far as she can tell; her magical scans are blocked by the nullstone pervading the area. Teleportation is out, too, as well as any form of levitation. But once they enter the Maraday Cage effect their spells would work, but this time limited to inside the nullstone.

Twilight’s eyes go wide. It can’t possibly be this easy, all they need to do is cross the threshold, there must be some-

“Hey!” she exclaims as Shining Armor pushes her over in his haste to be the first to claim the crown. His horn flares; a pink glow surrounds the crown, only for Twilight’s raspberry to trip him up and send him crashing to the floor. He turns the fall into a roll, head tucking to his barrel, but before he can leap upward an obsidian orb slams into his chest.

The stone unicorn statue skids across the floor and gently bumps into the base of the throne.

“Shiny!” Twilight gets up from her spot just inside, about to gallop forward, only to skid to a stop as the tall, cackling Storm King steps out from behind the door leading to the balcony. His steel and teal armor has been polished to a mirror shine, reflecting a wide-eyed alicorn scrambling backward. His imposing visage is made all the more menacing by the second obsidian orb in his hand, crackling with green energy, and ready to throw.

Next Chapter: Ch. 146 - Careful Planning, Part Five Estimated time remaining: 8 Hours, 54 Minutes