Shining Armor sat in his office, yet again struggling to get through the endless stream of reports. His mood was dour, but he pressed on. Apparently, recruitment had started to pick up again, so that was some good news. Other than that, he was buried in odd little reports. A changeling detector spell going off here but no changelings were detected, some guards got sick from eating spoiled cabbage, a couple were late to their posts and so on. Nothing made his job any easier, no matter which way he looked at it. His primary view was this was all to protect his dear wife and her aunts, but even then it just seemed like too much work.

A slight knock on his door caught his attention and he looked up. Nopony was scheduled to see him today, so he narrowed his eyes, suspicious. "Come in," he commanded in his best authoritative voice. While the door opened, he mentally went over three separate telekinesis spells and braced himself to fight off an intruder. While he was probably getting worked up over nothing, he still had the lingering thought in the back of his mind that Chrysalis would return eventually to either force him to love her or to stage another, and probably more successful, coup. When the door swung open to reveal an normal orange pegasus, Shining gave a brief sigh and relaxed. At least his changeling spell didn't go off.

"Oh, hello Comet," Shining said in a somewhat friendly voice, "This is a little unexpected. What do you need?"

Comet seemed to stand there for a second before walking in and saluting. "Shining Armor, sir, requesting permission to speak."

"Granted," Shining responded, "Now, what can I do you for?"

"Sir, I would like to volunteer to be a guard at the Grand Galloping Gala, sir," Comet stated plainly.

Shining tilted his head at Comet and responded, "But you're already supposed to guard Philomena that day. Why do you want to guard the gala as well?"

"Sir, I want to protect Princess Celestia, Luna and Cadance as well, sir," Comet replied tonelessly.

"Is there a reason you feel you have to guard them?" Shining asked suspiciously. It was odd for a normal soldier to come and request a specific assignment unless there was an ulterior motive. Requesting to help with the protection of all three princesses was especially odd. Shining darkly suspected Comet was here for one of two things; to either get close to the princesses or to prevent something from happening to them. With Shining already being on edge, this wasn't helping to relieve him.

"Sir, I wish to become better than a Private, so I would like the chance to prove myself," Comet stated nonchalantly.

Shining sat there in a discomforting silence before sighing. "Comet," he started with a tone of concern, "I've been a soldier for a while now. I've had to deal with a lot of threats directed towards the princesses and keep them quiet. I can tell something is upsetting you and I want you to tell me," He paused, narrowing his eyes at the orange pegasus, "What is the real reason you want to protect them?"

Comet stared directly forward, looking at a blank spot on the wall before blinking three times in quick succession. "Sir, I..." he started before stopping again and blinking twice. Shining leaned forward, slightly concerned before Comet spoke again with more force than before. "Sir, I believe there will be an attack at the Gala." Shining stood up in concern and before he could say anything, Comet cut him off. "I do not believe it top be a big enough threat to merit cancelling the Gala, sir. I believe all that is required to stop it is just a larger guard presence and I am here to volunteer myself to increase the guard's number."

Shining spent the next few minutes trying to pry more information out of Comet, but the orange pegasus remained stalwart in keeping the perpetrators identities in the dark.

"Comet, as your commanding officer and captain of the Guard, I demand you tell me who has made this threat. I promise you they will not retaliate against you or your loved ones," Shining almost shouted in his best commandeing voice, mimicking Princess Luna's Royal Canterlot voice.

Comet blinked six times quickly and finally spoke in a sheepish voice, "Sir, it is... a rebel group who wish to overthrow all three princesses, sir. I overheard them while I was on my way to my patrol. They have obtained disguises as Canterlot nobility and plan on entering the Gala that way."

After giving Shining some more information, Shining thanked Comet and assigned him to watch Princess Celestia. His job would be to help Celestia find the impersonators and to be her guardian all night. Should everything go well, he would be promoted to Celestia's personal corps, known as the Solar Guard. Comet thanked Shining and left his office as the captain teleported to Celestia's chambers to inform her of the threat.

Comet marched through the halls of the castle, gazing at nothing as he passed guard checkpoints, being cleared of being a changeling, before entering a room in a remote part of the castle not too far from Shining's chambers. Inside, several ponies lay unconscious while several clones of them scurried about, each emitting an odd green magic. At the far end of the room, an amorphous black blob swirled against the wall. Comet moved swiftly between the ponies and approached the black blob when a green glow surrounded his red eyes. Two large green ones glowing slightly less than Comet's opened on in the dark void and a toothy evil grin spread wide across the face pulling itself out of the shadow. A long mane of sickly bluish green fell all around the eyes as Gorgon pulled herself out of the amorphous black shape and reached out a hoof, lifting Comet's face to her.

"Ah, how did my newest and best actor do?" Gorgon cooed while her horn glowed a villainous green.

"I did exactly as you said, my princess," Comet replied tonelessly.

Gorgon grinned happily as she peered into Comet's eyes. Her newest toy was certainly turning out much better than expected. After the events of the rec room last night, Gorgon had sent a changeling to impersonate this newest acquisition so nopony, in particular his little fillyfriends, would get suspicious. While that happened, Gorgon had spent most of the night feeding off of Comet, satiating her gnawing hunger by impersonating that odd little bat pony guard she had beaten. While she had wanted to get her fill of some more primal desires, Comet had adamantly refused, stating he wasn't going to do that to a pony as special as Angel, whoever that was.

Now, Gorgon was impersonating Princess Luna as she stared at Comet. When a changeling had a pony under a spell, they didn't need to modify their exterior appearence, as Gorgon learned after trying to sap emotions from some particular ponies brought back to the hive. She had spent several days being attacked by her own kind until her mother embarrassed her by ripping away her disguise and publicly chastizing her. Chrysalis was always a terrible mother to Gorgon, being very cold and distant from her protoge, but she was under a lot of stress trying to keep the hive alive when there was almost no love to feed on.

At least, that's what Gorgon reasoned.

Gorgon's tongue hung out hungrily as she moved closer to Comet, wanting to eat again. She had never been so satiated before and her colt toy was still oozing affection for those two whelps Gorgon was going to enslave anyway. It was just instictual, but Gorgon's eyes flicked over to the rest of her group, which was staring at her orange pegasus and drooling as well. "Get back to work, whelps!" Gorgon snarled, "You have plenty of soldiers to feed on!" Returning her attention to Comet, a greedy and almost lustful look entered her eyes as she began siphoning off emotions from the Royal Guard again. He didn't protest since Gorgon had put him into a trance right before feeding. Her hunger and greed overwhelmed by the sheer rush of emotions, Gorgon gasped and panted after breaking away, savoring all the sweet flavors of his emotions. Squeeing slightly, Gorgon reached out and grabbed Comet, yanking him through the black portal before it collapsed.

The other changeling grumbled to themselves after that display. "Jussst like her mother," one commented.

In another tower, Angel the bat pony and Valyrie the gryffon sat around in the royal gardens, hoping to catch some wind of Comet. The stallion had disappeared this morning and Angel was getting worried. "Oh no," she moaned unhappily, "What if he got hurt? Or what if he's upset again?"

"Just calm down there," Valyrie said cooly, "We don't know anything yet. For all we know, he could be on a special assignment for Shining or out on a trip for Princess Luna." Secretly, she was worried as well. If Angel couldn't find him, that was usually because he was with herself. If both of them couldn't find him, something was wrong. Steeling herself from a worried squeak, Valyrie told herself the pegasus was fine. Angel, though, was sitting on the bench unhappily and mentioned about checking the castle again.

"I wanna check Philomena's tower again," she whined, "I wanna know where he is!"

From then until sunset, Comet was trapped in Gorgon's clutches. The changeling princess had discovered that the pegasus's relationship with the gryffon, a species her kind hardly ever imitated, was much more physical than the bat pony's. While he gushed life sustaining emotions from the sight of the bat pony, he allowed more physical contact with the gryffon and, since Gorgon was still young, she monopolized on the contact. She siphoned off his weaker, but still strong, affection for the gryffon by getting more heated with him until she was on top of him, preparing to get very intimate with him. They only stopped because Comet's affections for the bat pony prevented the session from going any farther. Still, since he so radically switched between the two females, Gorgon simply switched tactics and continued to feed on his feelings.

When she felt she was overstuffed with his affections for both mares, she put him to sleep and had one of her whelps take him to his room. Gorgon stayed on the floor, enyoting the sensation of having her hunger sated. If all of this went as planned, she would definitely keep that orange stallion as her own feeding vessel, that is, if her mom didn't take him. But still, if this attack worked, Gorgon would be queen, not her mother Chrysalis. By taking control of the city of Canterlot, Gorgon would have the food source on her side, giving the hive a better reason to follow her than her mother. She would also have pulled off a successful invasion, something her mother couldn't do. As Gorgon's mind raced with the ideas of usurping her mother, she smiled wickedly and realized she would also have the princess of love, along with her little stallion, under her control as well. Her mother had been stuck on losing that stallion more than failing the coup.

For once, Gorgon felt content. She had an endless food source, power, a swarm at her command and the ability to become queen. If this invasion was successful, which she would ensure it was, she would become the most powerful changeling queen since their race's first and only empire. It was a long story, but the first changelings had successfully attacked and took over another pony kingdom far away and the queen became almost as powerful as Celestia or Luna. The only way she fell was when the legendary first alicorn overthrew her.

'Still,' Gorgon thought to herself, 'That was mellenia ago. The only two who can stop me now are no more powerful than they were against my mother, and they will soon be under my control as well.' The grin spread wider across her face and a chuckle from deep within her chest started to escape her lips. Everything was going better than she had thought possible.