The dull light of the moon cast a glow over the Badland plains. Occasionally the harsh winds picked up and sped across the flat ground, creating large dust devils that reached high up into the sky before destroying themselves. Amidst the red colored dust and rocks, a figure stood alone, watching the empty skies, waiting for something.

That something came in the form of a black dot growing in the distance, accompanied by a loud buzzing noise that echoed across the area. The dot moved sporadically over the black sky, dipping low as it flew towards the figure. The figure who watched didn't even flinch when the dot went into a dive straight for it, landing on the ground a few metres and tumbling head over heels towards the figure, stopping right in front of the figure's hooves

"You're late." The figure chastised the creature, not even bothering to look down at it.

"Forgive me, Queen Chrysalis." The creature spoke in a male tone with a distinct hiss, picking himself off the ground and bowing respectfully to his queen. "But it was no small feat getting back here from Canterlot."

"Nonsense, you are one of my greatest spies. You've been inside that foolish city since the day after those ponies..." She didn't finish her sentence but she said 'ponies' with particular venom. "You've always been able to take care of yourself."

"Not this time, my Queen." The Changeling shook his head adamantly. It was at that point that Chrysalis finally noticed that the spy seemed to be covered in various burn marks and bruises and was trembling not only from fear, but from pain.

"My solider." Chrysalis started, her tone switching to a more caring one. She suddenly felt the air around them become still, the mood changing from normal to serious. "What exactly happened back there?"

The changeling looked like he couldn't answer. He almost seemed embarrassed. "I-I can't say, I'm not very sure what happened myself." He managed a malicious grin though. "But when you find out..."

Chrysalis looked down at him, more curious than ever. "And I will. Now, hold still."

Her jagged horn shone a sickly green and the Changeling Queen knelt down in front of the soldier. She touched her glowing horn to the Changeling's own and he went ridged, his eyes glowing with a bright light. Slowly, the light moved from the Changeling's eyes, up his horn, down Chrysalis's horn and into her. She stood up and the light started to dim until the only light was the pale moon again. Chrysalis stood still, eyes closed. She was silent for what seemed like an eternity for the solider until she finally made a noise. It started as a deep rumbling, somewhere in her chest, before it erupted from the Queen's fanged mouth in a shower of loud, uproarious laughter that echoed for miles around.

"That is the most hilarious thing I have ever seen!" She guffawed loudly. She had to sit down before she accidently fell over from laughing too much. "Of all the things to befall my enemies..." She wiped a tear from her eyes. The Changeling had finally come out of the effects of the mind reader spell and groggily listened to his Queen's words.

"My-my lady...?"

Chrysalis was laughing so hard she pounded the ground, causing it to shake. "A love potion! Made by one of her closest subject no less!" She looked down at the soldier and snickered. "And you were affected as well!"

"Uh, yes your highness." He nodded sheepishly. "I'm still not really sure what happened. I remember I was hiding as a royal guard, and then there was a lot of pink mist, and then I was brought before some mint colored unicorn and then..." He paused and grabbed his head, his thoughts seemingly causing extreme distress. "I can't remember. When I came to, I was surrounded by medical ponies and he castle was in ruins! I was hospitalized for a week before I finally escaped through the sewers."

"Yes." Chrysalis fought the sudden wave of nausea that came from that memory and fanned away the stench. "I noticed." Her mind still searched through the stolen thoughts. "It's amazing, they tear each other apart, all in the name of love, every single one of them overflowing with the emotion..."

Her eyes widened at a sudden thought. The soldier noticed that she was licking her lips. "Yes...all of that love and emotion...It's delicious, haha!" She stamped the ground in realization. "Yes! This is it, the chance to get back all that we've lost."

The soldier didn't understand. "Your Highness?"

"The ultimate revenge plan!" She continued, pointing at her head. "And it's all in here!" Her eyes went up to the moon above; the soldier could sense that she was going to monologue. "It's the perfect plan and I didn't even need to think of it. Soon, I will return to Canterlot, my army in tow, and not only will those ponies bow at my hooves, but they will do it willingly! And then we will control all of Equestria!"

The soldier gave an encoraging smile thankful that he managed to provide his Queen with something useful. "Well I'm happy I could help your highness. Now, could I please rest now, it took me five hours to get here from Canterlot."

"Nonsense!" The Queen's horn glowed again and the Changeling felt himself lifting off the ground, not of his own accord. He floated by his Queen, who spread her own wings and began to take off. "I need your memories, as well as mine, to gather all of the necessary ingredients. You will be assisting me for the rest of the night and that's an order."

He let out a sigh as they lifted up and off into the night sky. All evidence of their meeting disappearing with the blowing sands.

Spike sprinted through the long hallway as fast as he could. The hallway he was in seemed to go on forever and Spike couldn't even remember when he ended up in it. He couldn't even remember why he was running except for the extreme fear he felt when he stopped; like if something was right on his heels and could catch him at any moment. Strangely enough, the only defining feature of the hallway was the many, identical doors that lined it. Spike finally decided to stop and flung a door open.

"Hello?" He called into the darkness. Slowly, he was able to make out an image, what looked like a mint colored unicorn with its back to him. It wore what was simultaneously the most expensive and the tackiest dress Spike had ever seen. The unicorn perked up at his voice and turned quickly to face Spike.

"Spike!" The unicorn shouted happily. "This is the happiest day of my life!"

Spike screamed and slammed the door shut. He quickly ran down the hall to another door and ripped that open. Checking that the weird unicorn hadn't followed him, he looked into the new room and saw another pony, one that he recognized.

"Twilight?" He called, now hesitantly. "Is that you? What's going on, where are we?"

Unlike the other unicorn, Twilight turned, but not very fast. She talked in a low, harsh whisper.

"This day was going to be perfect..." She muttered.

Spike felt the scales on the back of his neck tighten with nervousness. "T-Twilight...?"

His sister figure whipped around suddenly and surprisingly. Her face was contorted in rage as she eyed the dragon. She shouted at him in a furious voice.

"You're mine, and nopony else's!!"

She reared back and lunged at Spike. Thinking fast, Spike quickly stepped back and flung the door closed again, pushing himself against it. The force of something slamming against the other side of the door knocked Spike to the ground but surprisingly the door held strong. Spike once again found himself sprinting down the hall, actually more confused than freaked out.

"What in Celestia's name it going on here?!" He shouted into the emptiness. He was quickly growing tired of this. He finally figured, "To Tartarus with it" and flung one last door open, opening it so fast it nearly ripped off its hinges.

"Alright whatever's in here, COME OUT AND FACE ME!"

Pinkie Pie was there to greet him. She waved happily. "Hi Spike! How ya doing?"

Spike, dumbfounded, approached the mare hesitantly. "Pinkie, what's going on here?"

"Oh it's nothing, silly. It's only a dream sequence that shows some parts of the previous story to connect them together." She giggled.

"What." Was all Spike could come up with.

"It's nothing to worry about." Pinkie admitted. "You'll wake up, and the story will start, any second now."

"What... what?!"

Pinkie waved her arms in a bizarre fashion in front of Spike, accompanied by a repetitive noise she made. "WoooooOOOOOoooooOOOOoooo..."

Spike facepalmed. "Pinkie, What in the world are you talking about...." He trailed off when he noticed that everything around Pinkie had started to ripple and wave. He rubbed his eyes to clear away whatever might have been causing the problem but it didn't stop. The rippling got progressively worse and worse before Spike's vision was completely blurred and darkness overtook him.

Spike groaned and fought the darkness as best he could but found it to be like fighting underwater; all of his movements were sluggish and weak. He discovered that his eyes were in fact closed and put all of his strength into opening them. His eyelids shot open and he looked up.

Pinkie was looking over him. She waved again. "Hi Spike!"

Spike cried out in alarm and jumped up, Pinkie just barely getting out of the way in time. He tried to back away but found his back to a metal wall with a window.

"What's going on?" He asked, horrendously confused.

"Spike, just calm down." He looked to his left and Twilight Sparkle was sitting on a seat, a concerned look on her face. All of her, and his, friends were there was well, surprisingly enough. "You were just having a dream."

"And by the looks of it, it was a doozy." Rainbow Dash, who sat on another seat across from him, noted. Fluttershy sat next to her and was watching with the same concerned look as Twilight.

Spike finally looked around and realized that all of them were in a train car, Spike himself was standing on a train seat with an impression of his face in the cushion. He slowly sat down and was silent as he reconnected his thoughts. Everypony was silent also before Rarity, who was sitting in front of him and looking back, spoke.

"You dreamt about before didn't you, about the love potion incident?"

He was silent. Spike wracked his brain for whatever she had been talking about.

It all came back to him and he was actually surprised. He had tried to block that entire disaster from his thoughts it seemed, and he had failed. He couldn't forget how crazy it had gotten before he had finally put an end to it; Twilight going nuts with love and trying to have him for herself, Lyra the unicorn amassing an army of love-struck followers and trying to have a royal wedding with him. Sometimes he thought it had only been a messed up dream, brought up from eating a bad gem. That was obviously not the case.

He looked up and finally spoke. "Can sompony tell me what's going on again?"

Twilight nodded. "We're on a train, a new train, to Canterlot. It's the two month anniversary of the time you made that love potion and Princess Celestia cordially invited us to the unveiling of the rebuilt royal castle!"

"And we get to be the guests of honor!" Pinkie added as she hopped back to her seat next to Applejack, who was sound asleep at the moment. "Because we helped save the day!"

"Or at least that's what the Princess told everypony..." Twilight said a blush clear on her face.

Spike looked out the window and could see Canterlot looming in the distance, a brand new building scrapping the cloud line.

"It really was a disaster." He said. "Wasn't it?"

Everypony nodded at the same time. The only sound was the clattering of the train tracks and Applejack's soft snoring.

"Has it really been two months?" Fluttershy asked, her quiet voice amplified in the quiet room.

"Feels like just yesterday..." Dash replied.

"I'm worried that when we get there somepony will recognize us from the fiasco." Rarity admitted.

"I'm worried that something might happen when we get there." Twilight said truthfully. "What if another disaster happens the moment we get there?"

"Oh come on, Twilight." Pinkie laughed despite the gravity of the situation. "What could possibly go wrong?"

The city of Canterlot was once again bustling with citizens and tourists. Ever since the aftermath of the disaster, many citizens of Canterlot had taken memory wiping spells to forget the disaster and some had actually moved away from the city to other places. The streets were still packed though, no matter how many ponies left. Stores and restaurants were, of course, open and filled to the brim with customers.

Twilight and co luckily had not trouble getting through the street, a guard had met them at the, newly rebuilt, train station and provided them with a royal escort at the Princess's request. The citizens stepped aside as the group stepped through. Spike rode on Twilight's back, looking around at the ponies and feeling more than a bit anxious. He recognized more than a few faces in the crowd, the last time he had seen them they had been fawning over Lyra.

They had reached the castle in time and quickly saw the two princesses standing on the steps of the castle, a long, red ribbon hanging in front of the giant doors and huge balloons were set up around the square. Pinkie gasped at the sight of the balloons.

"Wow!" She stared in awe. "Those balloons are ginorma-huge!"

"What do you think's inside them?" Rarity asked. "They must be filled with enough helium to lift Canterlot!"

Twilight wasn't paying them any attention and started to walk towards the steps, and the princesses, calling their names.

"Princess Celestia, Princess Luna! We're here for the-Ah!"

She was stopped when a pony had run right into her, sending Twilight, and Spike, to the ground in a heap. Twilight gently pushed whatever had run into her away and stood up. Spike push himself off the ground and looked at whoever had run into them.

"Lyra!" Twilight said.

The familiar unicorn looked at the two, she grinned wryly. "Oh yeah, you guys. How're you doing?"

"Pretty good." Twilight answered. Spike took a few steps away from the unicorn, which she noticed.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to try and get you to propose anymore." She joked.

"Lyra! Lyra!" An earth pony ran up to help Lyra off the ground but stopped when she noticed the others. "Twilight!" She gasped happily. "Spike!"

"Bon Bon." Spike replied, standing up. "You're here too?"

"Of course, somepony needs to look after this mare." She helped Lyra off the ground. "Or else she does something stupid like run off without looking where she was going."

Lyra pushed her mane out of her eyes and mumbled something unintelligible. Twilight's friends had walked up to them at that point.

"Were you two invited by the Princesses as well?" Rarity asked.

"Well I was." Bon Bon said. "Lyra is here so the princess can lift the surveillance order."

"Surveillance order?"

"Yeah..." Lyra nodded slowly, not making eye contact with anypony. "Apparently I was still considered 'a dangerous pony' and Princess Luna had a squad of secret soldiers not-so-secretly watching us every day."

Everyone stared at them in astonishment.

"Yeah."

"You'll have to excuse my sister's decision. She can be a bit paranoid with this kind of thing."

Twilight turned and gasped. "Princess Celestia!"

The Princess had walked over to the group without any of them noticing. She smiled in her usual way and looked over the group. "I would say that it's nice to see all of you today, but because of the reasons why your here..."

"It's alright." Spike spoke up. "We're all better now, right?"

"Yeah."

"Totally."

"Actually, I'm still pretty mad about the whole surveillance thing."

The sound of trumpets stopped any more talking. Celestia looked back at the guards and her sister who stood back on the steps, watching her sister and the others.

"It's time for the unveiling to start." She claimed. "If you would all follow me." She motioned for the group to follow and made her way to the steps beside her sister. The others followed and made their own spots on the steps beside each other. The many citizens and other ponies that were in the city began to fill the square, making it quite crowded.

"A very good turnout." Luna noted to her sister.

"Yes..." Celestia surveyed the enormous crowd with a wary eye. "A very big turnout."

Regardless, the unveiling began and Celestia started to announce.

"I, and my sister, thank you all for coming here for the unveiling of our new home." She said to the crowd as they applauded. "Two months after the unfortunate accident, Canterlot has finally been completely restored to its former glory!" She pointed a hoof at the group of ponies. "And here to witness the cutting of the ribbon are the heroes that put an end to the love potion disaster."

Many applauded but nopony seemed to notice that ponies kept piling into the square, or how they looked almost like copies of each other.

"...This is why we are commemorating these ponies, and dragon, for what they did that day." Celestia concluded. "For without them, we would all be hopelessly in love with each other."

"What's wrong with that?"

The crowd went silent and heads turned, looking for the pony that spoke out. Celestia found the pony, a Pegasus mare, quicker than anypony else and flapped through the air to the pony. She raised an eyebrow at the pony. "I'm sorry, my subject, I don't understand your question."

The pony grinned and spoke again. "I said; what's so wrong with being hypnotized and forced to love somepony that you might not even know?" The pony licked her lips. "I say that sounds absolutely delicious."

Without warning, the mare's eyes started to glow bright green and Celestia was pushed back by a blast of green energy. Luna quickly noticed this and shouted. "It's an attack!"

The massive balloons all around the square were encased in the same green aura at the mare's eyes and to everypony's shock and horror, they started to grow and expand, quickly reaching their breaking point.

"Um..." Pinkie looked very confused. "What's going on?"

Twilight was the first to answer, even though she really didn't want to.

"A big problem."

Spike groaned. "Not again..."

The Balloons finally burst open, a shower of familiar, pink mist spewing forth towards the ponies.

Next Chapter: Strategic retreat (running away) Estimated time remaining: 9 Minutes