What Didn't Happen

by Zeg

First published 17th of March, 2013

Chasing a mystery into the past, Twilight finds an Equestria that is different from what she remembers. Will she be able to set history back on track by fixing what didn't happen, or is this Equestria destined to take a different path?

How would things be different if Twilight had never made it to Ponyville? Twilight Sparkle finds out just how different things could be when she is forced to travel to her own past while chasing down a mystery; a plot to erase Princess Twilight Sparkle from history.

Landing in a time just weeks after the one thousandth Summer Sun Celebration, she finds a world shrouded in an eternal night, where the Elements of Harmony were never recovered. Can she fix the things that should have, but didn't happen? Or is this Equestria destined to head down a different path?

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Chinese Translation by Hell Organist

A Friend From the Future

A clear nighttime sky containing the brightness of a full moon and a countless number of stars illuminated the land below well enough for the two pegasi who were strolling through the streets of Ponyville. Their vibrant pastel coat and mane colors seemed dulled under the moonlight, but Fluttershy's bright yellow and pink still stood out easily among the rest of the darkened surroundings, as did Rainbow Dash's unique multicolored mane. The pair made their way through the streets, happening by other ponies along their way but only exchanging quick glances with a simple smile or nod before wordlessly moving on to their destination.

“Thanks again,” Fluttershy said quietly, breaking the pattern of their hoof steps clacking against the cobble path.

“Yeah, don't mention it Flutters. There's no way you could have carried all this stuff back on your own,” Rainbow said as she nodded her head at the loaded saddlebags strapped across their backs. “And I don't blame ya for not wanting to run around out here on your own now a days.”

“I'm just lucky you stopped by today. I don't know what I would have done. All the little animals staying with me have been getting so anxious, and I was starting to run out of things.”

“I'll check on you every few days... how's that sound?” Rainbow offered.

“Oh, thank you. You're such a good friend Rainbow,” Fluttershy said with a warm smile, one returned by her friend.

They continued on toward the cottage just beyond the edge of Ponyville that Fluttershy and her woodland friends called home. Despite being a usually inviting scene, the moonlight hues along with the sight of the Everfree Forest looming just off in the distance behind the home made for a rather eerie sight. Fluttershy seemed to tense a bit as she approached the gloomy looking bridge in front of her home.

“You gonna be okay?” Rainbow asked as she noticed her companion’s unease.

“I... yes... I think so,” Fluttershy weakly responded, kicking her front hoof against the ground.

“If you need me too, I can stay for a bit.”

“Um... well, that might be nice... but,” Fluttershy trailed off as she glanced up the dark path to her home, a visible sigh escaping from her.

“But?” Rainbow prompted.

“I can't stay scared forever. Not now. I mean... things are always going to be like this now, right?” Fluttershy said as she gestured around herself with a hoof.

“Well... maybe. But maybe things will change. Maybe things will get back to normal.”

“Normal,” Fluttershy repeated the word, noting just how strange it actually sounded. “How could that ever happen? We need help, but there's nopony left who can help.” Glancing up to the star filled sky, Fluttershy silently traced the stars one by one with her eyes, almost as if she were searching for an answer. “I just wish there was somepony that could help us. I want things to be like they used to be.”

Rainbow didn't know what to say. She didn't consider herself to be very good at offering advice for one's problems, so she offered the only support she could think of by simply being there for her friend and listening. After all, Fluttershy had always seemed to value the companionship more than any kind of solution to her worries.

Looking up to the sky herself, Rainbow stood there along side her silent companion and took in the sight. If it weren't for what this view had come to represent, she could have easily considered it to be beautiful, but found it impossible to appreciate it. The night sky and full moon simply stood as an imposing symbol, reminding all ponies everywhere of what they had lost and would never have again.

The sky looked like a living painting. The moon and stars stood dead still against the impossibly deep blackness of the sky, with only a slight change in brightness from the stars as they twinkled, noticeable only to those with good enough eyes to catch it. Nothing else moved, not even a cloud in the sky as there were none. But there was one speck that seemed a bit more lively than the rest in the inky darkness. It seemed to change color from a bright white to a more orangish, and it twinkled much more rapidly than the rest of the stars. And if one was watching it close enough, it looked like it was moving slightly in relation to the rest of the heavenly bodies.

“Hey, do you see that?” Rainbow squinted at the unusual star, trying to focus on it. Fluttershy took notice of the direction her friend was looking, and tried to spot what had been noticed for herself. It didn't take long for her sight to pick up on the odd movement of the star against the others.

“A... shooting star?” Fluttershy nearly whispered.

“Iduno. Don't they usually move a lot faster?” Rainbow said as she glanced to her side at her friend shortly before continuing to track the strange object in the sky.

“Well... normally,” Fluttershy said as she continued to gaze at the object.

The longer the pair watched the odd star in the sky, the more it appeared that it was twinkling much brighter than the rest. It also seemed that it was slowly picking up speed, moving against the rest of the sky that seemed frozen in place. And it also appeared that it was growing.

The area around the two pegasi began to brighten as the star suddenly started to get much bigger. It didn't take much longer for them to realize that this thing wasn't just moving across the sky, it was headed right at them, and fast. Fluttershy began to backpedal away as she realized the star was falling toward her, but found herself being suddenly pinned to the ground as Rainbow threw herself protectively over her friend. The sky grew brighter than day momentarily, and the air was filled with a roaring sound of fire as the star quickly passed just overhead. After harmlessly flying by, it continued on its trajectory toward the Everfree Forest. A few bright flashes of light and the sound of something crashing off in the distance was followed closely by ground tremors and a sudden rush of wind.

“What... what was that!?” Fluttershy squeaked as she remained huddled under Rainbow's protective stance.

“Not sure, but it went down close.” Rainbow stood and took a few cautious steps in the direction that the strange object had fallen toward. There was no light left now nor any sounds, just a slight breeze that seemed to linger from the impact. She hummed to herself as she rubbed at her chin with the tip of a forehoof. Fluttershy managed to walk up next to her friend, although she seemed like she was ready to bolt to a hiding spot at a moments notice the way she crouched low to the ground.

“It's not safe out here,” Fluttershy hissed quietly, trying to break Rainbow's attention away from the forest's edge.

“Still, we should check that out, don't you think?” Rainbow asked as she glanced back to Fluttershy.

“C-check... check it out!?” Fluttershy squeaked again. “B-but, it's off limits! We could get in big trouble!”

“And if that thing catches the entire forest on fire, Ponyville could be in big trouble,” Rainbow argued. She noticed the reluctance in her friend and quickly decided take care of the matter on her own. Giving the saddlebags on her back a quick tug, she slid them off to the ground.

“I won't be long,” Rainbow said as she spread her wings to prepare for flight. “I'll just do a quick flyover, you won't even know I was gone.” Rainbow crouched down, getting ready to propel herself into the air.

“Wait!” Fluttershy squeaked. Rainbow Dash nearly stumbled to the ground as she caught herself at the least second before flying off. She glanced over to her friend, and noticed the terrified look in Fluttershy's eyes.

“Don't worry, it'll be fine.”

“Y-you shouldn't go alone! You could get attacked by some sort of moon-monster or something!” Fluttershy rambled on as her imagination started dreaming up possible horrors that the ball of light could have been. “N-no! I can't let you go alone out there! You could get hurt. I'm going too!”

The shaking in Fluttershy's voice and legs didn't seem to match up to the words she was saying, causing Rainbow to give her a confused look. “Are you... sure about that? You don't have to force yourself you know—”

“I'm going!” Fluttershy still shook where she was standing, despite her best efforts to look determined.

Rainbow wasn't quite sure if Fluttershy was attempting to face her fears or was just afraid of being left behind in the darkness. Either way, she didn't mind the company. She shrugged her shoulders and turned back toward the Everfree, readying herself for flight a second time. “Alright, together then. We'll just fly over real quick, make sure everything looks okay, then get back here. Easy breezy.” With a quick thrust from her legs and wings, Rainbow took off into the night sky. Fluttershy followed suit a few seconds later after slipping out from under her saddlebags, a quiet 'meep' sound escaping from her as she took off.

The two pegasi climbed into the night sky, Rainbow pausing to hover for a few seconds here and there to allow Fluttershy to catch up to her as they made their way toward the Everfree. The trees below them began to grow more dense and odd shaped as they continued over the border of the forest. Up ahead, an area that looked to be carved out of the otherwise dense forest canopy could be seen. Rainbow began to soar in a lazy circle above the scar in the forest as she scanned the area below for any signs of a budding forest fire. The light of the full moon provided barely enough illumination for her pegasus sight to make out details down below, barely enough to notice something she hadn't expected to see.

“Hey! You see that?” Rainbow called out as she pointed to a spec of color on the ground below. Fluttershy squinted and focused her sight on the ground, and after a few seconds spotted what was out of place. There was a bright color that stood out among the otherwise dark hues of the forest.

Without waiting for an answer, Rainbow banked and began to descend toward the spec. Fluttershy cringed, fighting down a surge of anxiety before she followed. Once on the ground, Rainbow trotted up next to the edge of the scar on the land. She looked back down the length of the trench, noticing numerous trees that had been snapped and splintered when the object had passed through them as it entered the forest. Glancing down the other direction she could see the bright color she had spotted from the sky, and her suspicion was confirmed. The color was somepony laying in the trench.

“Rainbow!” Fluttershy quietly called out as she landed behind her. “We're not supposed to be here,” she said as her eyes darted back and forth like a child worried that her parents might find out she was sneaking around where she shouldn't be.

“I think that thing hit somepony,” Rainbow said as she pointed toward the end of the trench. “What if they got hurt by that thing? We have to make sure they're alright.”

“I... well, yes, you're right,” Fluttershy agreed. “But we can't stay here long.”

“I know, lets go check and then we can get the hay outta here.” Rainbow trotted over to the edge of the trench, stopping for a second to test the ground with a hoof before fully stepping in. It was slightly warm to the touch, but nothing near what she had been expecting from a giant fireball.

As the two pegasi approached the pony laying at the end of the trench, they were able to get a better look. The mare laying there had a violet color theme to her, her coat being a lighter shade of purple than her mane and tail. A couple lighter streaks trailed through to the tip of her mane and tail, one of which was closer to a magenta color. She seemed to be wearing some sort of jewelry around her neck and on a couple of her hooves, but the jewelry hadn't fared well from the impact and was misshapen. One of her wings was visible, the other likely pinned under her body and buried in the dirt as she laid there on her side. Rainbow mentally tried to place a name with this pegasus but was unable to come up with one. Even the magenta star cutie-mark surrounded by five white stars didn't spark any memory. She realized she hadn't seen this pegasus before.

“Wait...,” Rainbow said as she glanced back down the trench at the landing path the fireball had taken. She looked back and forth, tracing the trench with her eyes back to the mare a few times. “I don't think she was hit. I think... she crashed.”

Fluttershy blinked a couple times as she looked at the mare laying before them. “She was the falling star?”

“Well, I mean it doesn't look like anything landed on her, does it?” Rainbow's reasoning seemed sound, as there was no object other than the mare half buried at the end of the trench. When Fluttershy didn't immediately answer, Rainbow reached out to the mystery mare to try to gently dig her out of the ground. She scooped some of the dirt away from around the mare's face, and began to try to prop her head up.

“Careful, she might be badly hurt,” Fluttershy cautioned as she watched Rainbow gently work at unearthing the mare. Then there was a sharp gasp from Rainbow as she jerked her hooves away, letting the mystery mare's head plop back down into the loose soil. “W-what happened?” Fluttershy asked.

“Look! Her head!” Rainbow said pointing at the mare's face. Fluttershy wasn't immediately sure she wanted to look, since she didn't do well at all with blood. She instinctively clenched her eyes closed for a second before she forced herself to peek with one eye at what her friend was trying to show her. Then she opened both eyes wide as she locked her gaze on what she saw.

The mare laying in the dirt had a unicorn horn. A horn and wings.

“She's... she's an alicorn,” Fluttershy said quietly as she gazed at the mare wide eyed.

Just then, a loud sound escaped from the mare and caused Fluttershy to yelp before she dashed behind her friend. The mystery mare coughed and gagged on dirt that she had inadvertently inhaled when she had sucked in a breath of air. Struggling to push herself up off the ground, she managed to free herself from the trench that she had been partially imbedded in, and continued to try to spit the grit from her mouth. “Pplaaagh, oh that's disgusting,” she grumbled.

“Hey, you okay?” Rainbow asked cautiously. The mystery mare stopped suddenly and snapped her attention toward Rainbow when she realized she wasn't alone, causing Rainbow Dash to flinch. She stared at Rainbow for a good long while, her eyes twitching quickly around as she looked the pegasus over.

“...Rainbow...?” The mare asked almost in a whisper. Rainbow couldn't help but blink back as she pulled a hoof up to her chest and leaned away. “Is... no, that can't be right. It can't be....” The mare seemed to incoherently bumble around with her thoughts as she tried to make sense of her surroundings, then she took notice of the light yellow pegasus huddling behind Rainbow Dash. The pattern of a long stare repeated again, and then the mare quietly mumbled, “Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy ducked her head lower behind Rainbow and whispered, “How does she know our names?”

“Uuuuh, okay,” Rainbow said as she scrunched her face up in thought and scratched at her mane with a hoof. “I guess... you're not hurt then?”

The mystery mare stared back at Rainbow Dash for a moment longer, and then looked down at herself, seeming to take notice for the first time that she had just crashed into the ground. She turned her front hooves over as she looked at them, then shook her wings a bit to get some of the dirt to fall out from her feathers before she folded them to her side as she seemed to take inventory of her body parts. “Well, other than eating a bunch of dirt I think I'll be okay, but I'm still trying to figure out what's going on.”

“Well you kinda fell out of the sky,” Rainbow said as she pointed up into the air. “Like, you must have been really booking it too. There was a huge fireball and... I think you went through all those trees.”

The mystery mare glanced around the two pegasi in front of her and took a good look at the trench that she had dug with her face when she had 'landed', as well as the trees that had been unfortunate enough to be in her path. “Good thing I had that barrier up,” she mumbled to nopony in particular.

“Did you hear my wish?” a quiet voice asked. The mystery mare focused back to Fluttershy, who was cautiously stepping out from behind her friend.

“...Your wish?”

Fluttershy nodded. “Right before we saw you falling from the sky, I had made a wish that somepony would help us.”

“Oh...,” the mystery mare said as she thought for a moment. She looked back and forth between the two pegasi that she knew she recognized, but had realized fairly quickly that they didn't seem to recognize her. That fact alone was causing her mind to race as it tried to come up with a plausible explanation. And, she still wasn’t entirely sure of where she had ended up. “Say,” she started as she stood up, “Where are we?”

Rainbow stood up as well, sensing that they would soon be leaving. “We're in the Everfree Forest, just near Ponyville,” she said.

“Really...,” the mystery mare responded thoughtfully.

“And we're not supposed to be here,” Fluttershy added as she glanced over her shoulder, as if she was keeping an eye out for somepony.

“We're not?”

Rainbow took a few steps back in the direction of the forest's edge and looked back. “Yeah, it's against the rules or something. We just wanted to make sure there wasn't a fire or anything. Then we found you.”

“I-I see,” the mystery mare mumbled as she seemed to once again lose herself in thought for a moment, then she looked up and noticed the two pegasi waiting on her. “Oh, right, I guess you two want to get out of here.”

“That'd be nice uh... say, what do we call you?” Rainbow asked.

The mystery mare seemed to think about how to respond to the question. She absentmindedly reached a hoof up to straighten something on her head, but then noticed it wasn't there. Letting go a quick gasp, she immediately turned around and began to dig around in the dirt that she had just been laying in.

Rainbow trotted up behind the mare, arching her neck to try and look over and see exactly what she was digging for. “What are you doing?” she asked as her eyebrows raised at the odd behavior.

“I lost it! I lost my crown!” the mare said frantically.

“Oh so, you're a princess?” Rainbow asked as she took a few steps back and watched the mare sprint up the trench. Though she had never seen this particular princess, everypony knew that the princesses of Equestria were also alicorns.

“Ohhh, where is it!” The 'Princess' didn't seem to be interested in anything other than finding her crown at the moment as she darted around, hoofing at the ground here and there in hopes of unearthing something. The two pegasi watched the strange scene unfold in front of them, unsure if they should be helping or if they should just keep out of the way. Fluttershy happened to glance around at the broken trees that were scattered along side the trench and then caught a glimpse of something. There dangling from one of the branches was something that was reflecting the full moon's light to her eyes.

“Um... maybe,” Fluttershy mumbled.

The Princess dashed by to the right. “I can't leave without it, it's far too important to leave here.”

“Well... it could be,” Fluttershy mumbled again.

The Princess dashed back to the left. “I can't believe this. I can’t just lose it in the dirt somewhere!”

“I think....” Fluttershy watched the Princess start to dash by again. The expression on her face suddenly grew more determined and she stepped out in the Princess's path, stopping her cold. She stared back for a moment before her stance seemed to wither and she shrunk back a step. “Um... it might be nothing, but I saw something in the trees,” she mumbled as she averted her gaze to the ground.

“Oh! Well, why didn't you say so?” the Princess said as she began to glance around at the tree branches above. Before Fluttershy could comment any further, the Princess took flight, leaving a small cloud of dust off her wings that caused Fluttershy to squint her eyes and back away.

The Princess came to a hover just below the tree branches. “Sorry!” she called back down to the ground, and then turned her attention to searching through the broken limbs. It didn't take very long for her sight to catch a glimpse of the same thing Fluttershy had seen. There was a glint in the trees near where the trench started. A few more wing strokes and the Princess was near the source of the reflection; a golden crown that had a magenta star-burst gem set in the front center. Letting go a sigh of relief, her magenta colored magic grasped the crown, and lifted it from the tangled limbs before returning it to its rightful place atop her head. The crown seemed to be in surprisingly pristine shape compared to the rest of her regalia.

The two pegasi trotted up to where the Princess glided down to the forest floor. “Thanks for waiting, I really couldn't leave this behind,” she said as she nodded her head up at the crown.

“Not to be rude, since you're a princess and all, but...,” Rainbow took a few trots toward the edge of the forest once again.

The Princess nodded quickly. “Right, right, we really shouldn't be standing around in the Everfree anyway, it's not safe here.”

“Yeah, that too,” Rainbow said as she glanced back at the trench behind them. She then happened to notice something in her peripherals, and quickly glanced up at the broken canopy above. Drawing in a quick gasp, she managed to say one word before she dashed toward some thick brush. “Hide!” Fluttershy was only a split second behind her.

“Wha?” The Princess glanced back over her shoulder to see what sort of monster Rainbow had noticed, but didn't see anything at first. Then her sight picked up on a shadow moving through the sky above. What ever it was, she wasn't interested in finding out if it was friendly or not, so she quickly ducked into the brush along with the two pegasi. As an extra precaution, she cast a magical veil over the three of them that caused them to shimmer and vanish from sight.

The sound of hooves landing on the forest floor echoed through the trees. It was hard to make out any details in the darkness, but it was obvious from the silhouettes that these 'monsters' were actually just ponies. Most likely they had come to investigate just like Rainbow and Fluttershy had. The Princess let go a breath of air she hadn't realized she had been holding, and she started to stand up from the brush that she was crouching behind. However, Rainbow quickly grabbed her with a hoof across her withers and pushed her back down. The Princess gave Rainbow a hard look, but then noticed the panicked look in her eyes. She decided that it might be best to remain hidden.

“I don't see anything,” a stallion's voice rang out through the forest.

“Yeah, it's too dark. Even with night sight, there's hardly enough moonlight here,” a mare's voice called back.

“Wait, got something,” the stallion's voice sounded back again. The two silhouettes moved closer together, and one of them appeared to have something on the end of its hoof that the pale moonlight glinted off of.

“...Is that a shoe?” the mare’s voice asked.

“Don't know. Should probably take it back with us,” the stallion’s voice reasoned.

“That's mine,” the Princess hissed quietly in protest as she squinted her eyes at the offending pony, to which she felt the pressure of Rainbow's grasp on her withers increase slightly.

The mare’s voice echoed through the woods again. “Well, if there was anything or... anypony here... it isn't here now. You think something dragged it off?”

“Who knows,” the stallion’s voice answered back. “Lets get out of here, this place is giving me the creeps.” The two silhouettes sprung up into the air and flew out of sight through the open canopy. The Princess and two pegasi that had been hiding near by remained hidden for a moment longer. Rainbow finally let go a calming breath as she let the pressure she had been putting on the Princess relax.

“Sorry about that,” Rainbow said as she stood up. “I thought you were about to give us away.”

The Princess stood and let the invisibility veil fade out. “Well, I was... I guess. They were ponies, right?”

“Nightguard,” Rainbow said matter-of-fact like.

The Princess thought about this for a moment, then asked, “Why are we hiding from the Nightguard?”

The Princess might as well had asked why grass was green. The expression that crept onto Rainbow's face seemed to ask why anypony would ask such a dumb question as she furrowed her brow. “Are you serious?”

Now it was the Princess's turn to return the disapproving look. “Yes, I'm serious. Why are we hiding from the Nightguard? We should have asked them for help.”

“Look, obviously there's some things happening you don't know about,” Rainbow said as she began to walk past the Princess. “But for now, we need to get out of here. Like for real this time.”

The Princess let go a frustrated sigh but seemed to comply. She fell in just beside Rainbow, and the two of them were followed closely by Fluttershy, who had remained silent ever since the close call. The Princess glanced back to her, noticing her unease. “Are you alright, Fluttershy?” she asked with a look of concern playing on her face.

“U-um... well,” Fluttershy seemed a bit taken off guard once again, having nearly forgotten in all of the unwanted excitement that this mystery princess somehow knew her name. “Yes... I mean I will be, when we get back home.”

“Yeah, sorry about all this. I really didn't mean to cause you two any problems. Seems I may have really messed things up somehow.”

The group stayed mostly silent the rest of the trip through the forest and kept to the ground to avoid any unwanted attention. Eventually the trees thinned and gave way to the open meadows and fields that surrounded the town of Ponyville. And just a short distance away, the dark silhouette of Fluttershy's cottage was a very welcome sight for the group. It wasn't much longer before they had made it to the bridge just outside the cottage. After gathering the saddlebags that had been discarded there, the pegasi lead the Princess into the safety of the home.

“Wow...,” the Princess commented as she glanced around at the interior of the cottage, seeming to be in awe of her surroundings.

“Oh, it's really not anything impressive,” Fluttershy said with an embarrassed smile. The Princess smiled back to her warmly before she continued to look around, taking all the sights in. The home was beautifully decorated, and had an almost outdoors like feel. Scattered around the room were small cubby hole homes for the animals that lived with Fluttershy, and here and there some animals were scurrying about, mostly circling around Fluttershy's hooves.

“I bought some things back for you little guys,” Fluttershy said with a motherly tone as she trotted over to the saddlebags that had been placed on the floor near the door. She lifted the flap of one of the saddlebags with a hoof, and then smiled as a squirrel scurried up and stuck its head into the bag. After a moment, the small animal came back up with a few various nuts in its arms and quickly scurried away. Fluttershy smiled warmly as the rest of the animals began to gather around the saddlebags and help themselves to the contents in turn.

Rainbow Dash had been watching as Fluttershy tended to her woodland friends. She then turned her attention to her side when she heard the Princess speak up next to her. “I can't believe I'm really back here.”

Rainbow perked up an eyebrow at the odd statement. “What do you mean? You've been here before?” The Princess stopped gazing at her surroundings at the question and focused her attention fully on Rainbow. “And you still haven't told us your name. I mean, you do have a name other than Princess right? And how the hay did you know our names?”

The sudden barrage of questions seemed to make the Princess tense up. She glanced back and forth between the two pegasi that stared back at her expecting some sort of explanation for the very odd behavior they had seen tonight. She knew that she wouldn't be able to explain away how she knew their names and definitely didn't want to lie to them, but she was still unsure how much she should be revealing. There was at least one piece of information that she was going to need first to gauge the situation with.

“Before I say anything more, I need to know what day it is,” the Princess said simply.

“Er... it's Tuesday,” Rainbow said as she shrugged her shoulders.

“No I mean, the date. The exact date... even the year.”

Both of the pegasi looked to each other, a bit confused by the inquiry. Rainbow shrugged her shoulders again and decided it was an easy enough question to answer. “Well, it's July the seventh, one thousand.”

The Princess balked at the answer. It didn't make sense, if it were true then something was horribly wrong. “Are you sure?” she asked hoping that it may have just been some sort of mistake. When she saw the disapproving look reappear on Rainbow's face again she raised a hoof quickly. “Okay okay, I get it. You want answers. I guess... well I guess I owe you that much. And if this really is the thousandth year of the Summer Sun Celebration....” The Princess's gaze hardened as she began to realize the gravity of the situation she was in.

“So you do know about Nightmare Moon then? Why didn't you know about her Nightguard though?” Rainbow questioned.

“I... do know about Nightmare Moon, but my memory of her is probably different than yours,” the Princess said as she seemed to stare off into the space ahead of her, almost like she was peering into the past. “You see, where I come from, Nightmare Moon was defeated over two hundred and fifty years ago. I had a hoof in it and... well this is going to sound crazy but, so did you two.”

“...Say what?” Rainbow asked as she jerked her head back. Fluttershy blinked her eyes a few times as she tried to take in the confusing information.

“I guess what I'm saying is, I'm not from now. I'm from over two hundred and fifty years from now. It wasn't really intentional, mind you. I was following somepony, but I lost them along the way and kind of fell out of the time spell I was following them through. I'm just amazed that I landed here of all times.”

The Princess sat back on her haunches and let go a heavy sigh before she continued. “But, it appears things have changed. You see, you should have met a young unicorn that looks just like me here in Ponyville on the day right before the Summer Sun Celebration, about two weeks ago.”

The Princess sat up straight, looking to the two pegasi in front of her. “My name is Twilight Sparkle, and you two were both very good friends of mine.”

Finding Friends Again

Twilight knew that her revelation that she was a 'friend from the future' was going to spur an avalanche of questions, but she felt she couldn't leave her friends completely in the dark since something was obviously wrong with this past. She had managed to fend off answering any more questions right away by using her current state of cleanliness, or rather lack there of, as an excuse to escape and buy some time to think.

Fluttershy had kindly offered Twilight the use of her shower, to which Twilight graciously accepted. Her coat, mane, tail, and wings felt like they still had buckets of dirt imbedded in them. She stood there in the tub, the shower pouring warm water over her back as her magic absentmindedly worked a scrub brush through her coat to purge the grit, but her mind was completely focused elsewhere.

The entire situation was a really big problem. She mentally recounted the facts that she had been able to collect so far. First, her past self was not where she should be. Second, because her past self was no where to be found, nopony had discovered the Elements of Harmony; therefore, there was nopony to challenge Nightmare Moon. Third, the Everfree Forest had been marked as 'off limits' and her friends seemed to be terrified of the Nightguard, which meant that Nightmare Moon must have already established her power in Celestia's absence. Twilight then flinched at a stray thought that made it into her mind. In the past she remembered, Nightmare Moon had reversed the imprisonment spell that held her in the moon and used it against Celestia, but this past had a different history. What if Nightmare Moon had done something other than imprisoning Celestia?

Twilight scrunched her nose, shaking her head at the thought and shoved it aside. She had no facts on Celestia's whereabouts in this past and pondering on what sort of horrible things could have happened without any tangible proof would do no good. No, she needed to focus on the facts, and the one fact that was really throwing a wrench into Twilight's thought patterns was that her own past had obviously been altered, but yet her memories of what should have happened were still unaltered.

“This... goes completely against all my theories,” she mumbled to herself as her eyes wandered around in thought. There was no precedent for how time travel could change history, at least not real time travel like what she had just done. She had once used a modified teleportation spell created by Starswirl that allowed a quick jump to another location at a time in the past, but that spell still kept the caster linked to their original location and time and only lasted half a minute, which would limit just how much a pony could change things. And since the spell was only a modified teleportation spell and not real time magic, there was no proof that it could be used as an example of the consequences of changes brought on by mucking with the fabrics of reality.

The magic that Twilight had developed over the years to actually travel through time was many orders of magnitude more complicated than Starswirl's attempt at time travel. Her magic actually allowed a pony to sever their connection to reality in order to move themselves relative to time and space in a direction and speed other than the normal, allowing a pony to permanently travel to a different time and location with no annoying whiplash effect yanking oneself back. However, her spell had never been used. She honestly had no proof that the spell would work at all, until now. And so all of those possible consequences of using the spell were theoretical, and it was looking like at least some of her theories were wrong.

Twilight's thoughts were jarred back to reality, finding herself standing under the running shower. The light knock at the door that had grabbed her attention was followed by a muffled voice that she couldn't quite understand.

“Is somepony there?” Twilight asked as her ears swiveled to the closed doorway.

Fluttershy's small voice came through the doorway clearly the second time. “Oh um... I was just making sure you're okay. You were taking a while. I'll leave you alone.”

Twilight blinked, and then seemed to fully realize that she was still standing in the tub. She wasn't sure but it was quite possible that she had just been standing there scrubbing at a single spot on her side for the last five minutes while her mind had been busy. “Sorry! I'll be done soon,” Twilight said as her ears swiveled back against her head and she grinned sheepishly at the closed door.

“Oh, no rush. Take your time,” Fluttershy called back. The door went quiet after that, leaving Twilight alone with her thoughts once again. She scrunched her nose up in thought as she simultaneously grabbed a bottle of liquid soap with her magic and squeezed the contents onto the scrub brush.

“Why would she do something to the past though,” Twilight said to herself as her thoughts once again returned to trying to solve the plethora of problems that were laid out before her. That particular one stuck out as the most bizarre of all of them, that she couldn't figure out a reason for why her past had been targeted. She shuttered when her mind considered some of the possibilities as to how the change had been accomplished.

Having finished the much needed shower and gotten some time to think things over, Twilight was feeling a bit more at ease. However, as she finished toweling off and prepared to make her way into the living room, she knew that she was in for quite a strange conversation with her old friends. She still wasn't sure just how much she should reveal to them. Did the rule of 'don't say anything about the future' apply in a past where things had already been changed? Since things didn’t seem to be matching up to her previous theories, she wondered if that rule had ever applied at all. And what if fixing things depended on revealing the future? She knew that was going to be the likely case, that she was going to have to tell them something if there was to be any hope of returning things to what they should be.

Twilight had opted to leave behind the remnants of her ruined regalia on a table in Fluttershy's bedroom, planning on dealing with them later. She wore only her crown perched upon her head as she made her way to the table that the two pegasi had been idly chatting at while they waited on her to return. Rainbow Dash was the first one to speak up as Twilight approached and sat down at the table.

“Leave any hot water for the rest of Ponyville, Princess?” Rainbow asked with a grin.

“Just Twilight, please. And sorry, had lots of dirt to take care of,” Twilight said as her ears pressed back against her head.

Rainbow waved her hoof dismissively, her grin shifting to more of a smile. “I'm only joking with ya. I'm sure if I had taken a dirt bath like that I'd been scrubbing myself for hours to get it all out too.”

“Hours? Was I really in there that long?” Twilight asked. While this exchange was going on, Fluttershy had left the table briefly to return with a cup and saucer delicately clasped in her teeth that she sat down on the table just in front of Twilight. A small wisp of steam rolled and curled up from the cup from a gentle breeze as Fluttershy sat back down at the table.

“You were only in there about an hour I think,” Fluttershy said as she glanced toward the clock on the wall, which read some time near three. Twilight took notice of the clock as well, and her subconscious immediately noted that it must have been incredibly late at night.

“Wow, I really didn't mean to be keeping you two up all night. I didn't realize it was this late.”

“Huh?” Rainbow said as she glanced over at the wall clock. “Oh, no it's not late. It's midday now, not that anypony can really tell by looking outside,” she said as she pointed her hoof out a nearby window at the moonlit night.

Twilight gave Rainbow an incredulous look for a second before understanding sunk in. “Oh right, Nightmare Moon.” Of course it was night during the middle of the day.

“Yeah,” Rainbow said as she brought a cup of warm tea up to her lips to take a sip.

“Yes... I think we're going to have to try to do something about that,” Twilight said as she gazed down to the tea cup sitting before her, tapping her hooves against the cup's sides. The thought had crossed her mind while in the shower that Nightmare Moon could prove to be an obstacle toward getting anything solved. She needed some very specific answers, and the best place to find them was probably also one of the last places Nightmare Moon would allow an unknown alicorn into.

Rainbow put her tea cup back down quickly causing the saucer it sat on to rattle a bit. “Okay before we get into any 'lets save the world' stuff, I got more questions.”

Twilight looked to Rainbow, and let go a sigh as she put on a smile. “Right, of course you guys do. I can't just ask you to go do something dangerous and crazy sounding without explaining some things. I'll try to answer what I can.”

Rainbow wasted no time getting right to the questions. “So you're really from the future?” she asked as if to really confirm what she had been told earlier.

“Yes.”

“And you know us from the future?”

“No no, that's not how it happened,” Twilight said as she shook her head. “My past self should have met you two here in Ponyville over two weeks ago.”

“Oh right, you did say that,” Rainbow said as she scratched her mane with a hoof. “But that obviously didn't happen.”

“Right, it didn't happen, which means the past has been changed.”

“...Wait, really? I don't remember it changing.” Rainbow was already thoroughly lost.

Twilight quietly lifted the tea cup in front of her with her magic, and took a sip before gently placing it back down, which her two friends watched as they waited for some sort of response. Twilight seemed to strain her thoughts as she furrowed her brow for a moment, then she nodded once. “Okay, let me see if I can make this make some sense,” she said as she collected her thoughts. “As I mentioned earlier, I came here by a spell that let me travel through time. I was following somepony through the spell, but on the way here I ended up falling out of the spell early.”

“Who were you following?” Rainbow interjected.

“That's... actually not important, and would probably only make this sound even more crazy.” Twilight noticed the disapproving look playing on Rainbow's face again. “Rainbow, I can't explain every little detail. Doing so could be very dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” Fluttershy quietly asked from the other side of the table.

“Well, the danger being that the more I say, the more I could change history. It's obvious things have already changed some but I could do more harm than good if I'm not careful about what I reveal.”

“Soo...,” Rainbow drawled out as she pondered on her next question. “You mean you wouldn't be able to tell me if I become a Wonderbolt in the future?” she asked with an innocent looking smile.

Twilight raised her eyebrow at the not so innocent question. “Most certainly not.”

“Drat,” Rainbow said as she clunked her hooves together just in front of her face, partially hiding her brooding at the disappointing answer.

“Rainbow, we need to take this seriously,” Twilight said as she leaned an elbow on the table, propping her chin up on a hoof.

“Alright alright, fine.”

Twilight glanced down at her tea cup again. The honest truth was that she wanted to tell them everything. She wanted them to fulfill their dreams like she remembered, and she was a bit worried that with the changes that this past was already seeing that those dreams may not come true. For a moment she considered going back on her 'no telling' stance, but then reined that desire back in. She had to focus on the one major problem sitting right before her now, and then she could worry about the smaller ones later.

Twilight took one more sip from her tea before continuing. “What I can tell you is that we were all supposed to work together to defeat Nightmare Moon and return Celestia back to Equestria.”

“Just us? Against her?” Fluttershy said as she shrunk down at her seat, seeming to hide herself behind her small tea cup.

Twilight turned to face Fluttershy. “Actually no, not just us. There are three more ponies here in Ponyville that are supposed to help.”

Twilight sat up straight as she began to recount the other three mares missing from their group. “There's Applejack, from Sweet Apple Acres.”

“Oh... I know her,” Fluttershy said as she sat up from her hiding spot. “I buy things from the Apple Family's stall in the market square for the little animals all the time.”

Twilight nodded with a smile and continued. “There's Rarity, the owner of Carousel Boutique.”

“...Who?” Rainbow said as she scrunched her nose up.

Fluttershy tapped at her chin with a hoof in through for a second before speaking up again. “I think she's the white pony that makes those pretty dresses. I've seen her before at Lotus and Aloe's spa when I go there.” She beamed a smile when Twilight nodded an affirmative to her.

“Right. And there's Pinkie Pie.”

“Whoa... whoa whoa wait,” Rainbow Dash said as she suddenly pushed herself up standing with her hooves planted on the table. “That crazy pony is going to help us save the world?”

Fluttershy shot a scowl across the table in a fashion normally only a skilled mother could manage. “Rainbow, that's not nice,” she scolded with her quiet voice.

Twilight chuckled lightly. “Believe it or not, yes, Pinkie is part of this group. I know she does some off the wall things now and then—”

“Meaning always,” Rainbow grumbled as she crossed her fore-hooves.

“—But, she is one of the bearers of the Elements.”

Rainbow's ears twitched at that little piece of information. “Bearers of the Elements?” she questioned as her eyebrows slowly climbed.

Twilight mentally cursed her slip up as she grit her teeth. She hadn't quite been ready to reveal that yet, hoping first to gather the entire group. “Yes... that... that is actually something we need everypony here for before I go into it.”

“Oh come on!” Rainbow cried out as she threw her forehooves above her head before letting them flop to her sides. “There you go with more secret stuff! This is really going to get on my nerves.”

“Rainbow, please. This is something the entire group needs to hear, and we're missing the other three.” Twilight could see that her excuse wasn't really cutting it and didn't want to leave her friend fuming. She considered what she could tell her friend, and came up with an answer. “Tell you what, I'll tell you something. Something that's just for you, okay?”

Rainbow's ears perked up at this. “Like what?”

“Your Element, the one that you represent. It's Loyalty. And it fits you perfectly.” Twilight turned herself in her seat so she could look straight on at Rainbow and continued. “I always knew that no matter what happened, and no matter how bad things might get, you of all ponies in the world would never abandon your friends.” Twilight paused for a second to let the words sink in, watching as Rainbow silently sat there thinking. “Right now, your friends really need you and they don't even know it yet. All of Equestria is going to need you. Most of all, I just really need you to trust me for now.”

Rainbow shifted in her chair, seeming to be suddenly uncomfortable in her own skin. “Wow... when you put it like that I guess I really can't complain.”

“I know that the 'not knowing' is driving you up the wall. It would me too if things were reversed, I'm sure. But if you can just put up with me for a while, I promise all this will start to make sense.”

Rainbow grinned and scratched at her mane as she leaned back in her chair. “Alright, you've made your point. Patience, right?”

“Right,” Twilight said with a smile. She then turned and glance at the other end of the table that Fluttershy was quietly sitting at. “Fluttershy, you're being awfully quiet, which I know is normal but still, I'm sure there's something you want to ask.”

“Oh... well... I wouldn't want to bother you with more questions.”

“Nonsense,” Twilight said as she waved a hoof. “I told Rainbow Dash something, I can tell you something. Just ask and if it's something I can tell, I'll tell.”

Fluttershy shyly traced the edge of her tea cup with her hoof, her nervous behavior betraying that she definitely had something she wanted to ask. She glanced up to and away from Twilight a few times before she finally began to meander around her question. “Well... you said you can't really tell us much about our future.”

“Most things I probably shouldn't, but if it's something that's pretty vague I might be able to give you a hint, maybe a yes or no.”

“Oh... hm,” Fluttershy seemed to ponder on this for a moment as she continued to trace the edge of her mostly empty tea cup. “Well... I was wondering... I mean...,” she mumbled as her voice quietly trailed off.

Twilight raised an eyebrow as she leaned closer to her friend. Across the table Rainbow leaned in as well and asked, “What was that?”

“Um,” Fluttershy shuttered a bit and lowered herself so her chin was resting on the table. “I was wondering... if someday... if I have a family... in the future,” she nearly whispered.

Twilight blinked in surprise. She hadn't seen that one coming. Next to her, Rainbow's jaw seemed to be dangling half way to the table.

“Y-you don't have to answer!” Fluttershy whispered in a small panic as she hid her face under her pink mane.

Twilight closed her eyes and smiled as she sat back in her chair. Of course she knew the answer to that, and the way the question had been asked was rather harmless. She thought about the question for a few more seconds and then opened her eyes again to peer over to her friend. Fluttershy was peeking out from her safe haven at Twilight, the look in her eyes seeming to be begging for an answer even though her shyness was punishing her for asking. Drawing in a breath, Twilight simply said one word in response.

“Yes.”

Fluttershy's eyes grew incredibly wide, and then disappeared as she drew back under her pink mane.

“Whoa! Way to go Flutters!” Rainbow cheered across the table. “As shy as you are, I never thought you'd get yourself a coltfriend.”

The only response from the pegasus hiding under her pink mane was a slight reddening of her yellow coat and a pitiful sounding groan.

“Come'on, give me one hint,” Rainbow said as she walked along side Fluttershy under the moonlit day.

“Nooo,” Fluttershy moaned back as she continued walking along the path with Rainbow and Twilight.

The three of them were currently on their way to seek out the first of the three missing mares, traveling toward Sweet Apple Acres. Before they had ventured outdoors, Twilight had requested something she could use to cover her wings as to not broadcast to all of Ponyville that an alicorn had suddenly appeared. Fluttershy had offered something of hers to wear, and so Twilight now wore a single color knitted sweater that came fairly close to matching her natural coat color, her wings safely tucked underneath out of view. Her crown no longer appeared on top of her head, having been taken care of with a simple translucency spell that she had cast on it to hide its presence there.

“Is it somepony in Ponyville?” Rainbow asked, continuing her badgering questions.

Fluttershy didn't answer to this one, instead just making a frustrated groan.

“Not a no, so must be a yes. A pegasus?” Rainbow asked trying to narrow down her guessing options.

“No, stop it.”

“Unicorn?”

“Nooooo.”

“Earth pony then,” Rainbow nodded. “I guess you would be the type to go for an earth pony.”

“Rainbooooow,” Fluttershy whined as her face sunk behind her mane. Fortunately, her annoying friend quit asking questions for the time being when Rainbow began mentally considering the earth pony colts that she knew and how they would match up to her shy friend.

The walk to the Apple family farm wasn't a long one. Like Fluttershy's cottage, it was also along the edge of Ponyville somewhat near the border of the Everfree Forest, and so the three had been able to skirt along the edge of town. It wasn't that they were intending on avoiding all contact with other ponies, but Twilight had made the point that the less attention they drew to themselves for now, the better off they would likely be in the long run. After all, they still had an advantage in that Nightmare Moon likely had no clue that they were planning anything at all, and that was an advantage that Twilight would like to keep for as long as she could.

The darkened silhouette of the sign hanging from the archway that marked the entrance to Sweet Apple Acres appeared on the path ahead of the three mares. Rainbow Dash still seemed to be going over her mental check list, quietly mumbling to herself as she discarded names that she knew obviously wouldn't be a match for her shy friend. She glanced up and happened to look at the sign up ahead, and then it clicked as if she had suddenly realized what she should have known all along. “I've got it!” she said as she whirled around to face Fluttershy head on, to which the latter flinched back a step with a quiet yelp. “He's perfect!”

“W-what?” Fluttershy said shuttering.

“That big red stallion at the market! The one that runs the Apple Acres stand and never says a word other than 'Yep'?”

Fluttershy simply froze in place, not even taking a breath.

“BINGO!” Rainbow Dash called out triumphantly.

“Twiliiiight! Make her stop!” Fluttershy whined as she scampered over to Twilight’s other side, hiding herself.

Twilight couldn't help but let go a laugh, but knew that this little interrogation had probably gone more than long enough. “Alright, Dash, I think you've had your fun.”

Rainbow walked up next to Twilight, tilting her head with a confused look. “What do you mean? I'm trying to help.”

Twilight raised one eyebrow. “Does it look like you're helping to you? Because to me, it kinda looks like torture.”

“Ah come'on. If you really know Fluttershy, then you know she's going to need some help speaking up or this coltfriend thing isn't ever going to happen.”

“Rainbow,” Twilight said as she placed a hoof on her friend’s shoulder, “things happen as they happen. Rushing things to happen before their time would probably be a bad idea.”

Rainbow let out a long groaning sigh as she rolled her eyes. “Yeah yeah... patience.” Twilight nodded approvingly and patted Rainbow on the shoulder before turning to head up the path to the farm house, leaving behind a flustered Fluttershy staring down a Rainbow Dash that flashed back a cheshire grin.

After passing just beyond the archway marking the entrance to the farm, Twilight took a moment to glance about at the surroundings. A lot can change in two and a half centuries of time, and Ponyville was no exception to that. Seeing Sweet Apple Acres as she remembered it long ago was a bit shocking. But even more so was what she saw under the moonlight near an empty wagon just outside of the bright red barn.

Applejack was wrestling one of the wheels of the wagon, slamming a forehoof against it here and there as she worked it back onto the axle. The wagon itself was propped up with a barrel under one end to keep the axle raised off the ground, and a discarded broken wheel laid in the dirt just near by. Twilight trotted up, and then just stood near by watching as if amazed. She felt that same feeling of a shiver through her spine that she had noticed when she first saw Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy in the forest. Seeing a pony that she never thought she would see again was proving to be a very strange emotion to deal with, and she wasn't entirely sure she liked the sensation.

The farm mare grumbled something unintelligible as she turned around and slammed her back hoof against the hub of the wheel hard, causing the entire wagon to rattle at the blow. “Dag-NABBIT,” she bit at the air loudly in front of her, but then caught herself when she noticed somepony was there. “Oh, I apologize. This here wheel is just givin’ me all kinds of fits.”

Twilight realized that her mouth had been hanging open slightly, and she clasped it back closed as she put a smile on. “I didn't mean to bother you in the middle of your work.”

“Ah I need to take a break anywho,” Applejack said as she swiped a hoof at the stubborn wheel. Reaching up to her hat hanging on the wagon's back corner, she tipped the hat with her hoof and allowed it to fall down, catching it atop her head. “Name's Applejack, and this here is the Sweet Apple Acres farm. What can I do ya fer?”

“Well, I'm Twilight Sparkle, and I was hoping that I might convince you to help me and my friends out with a little problem.” Twilight realized that she was grossly understating the 'little problem' part, but coming right out and asking somepony to help save the world would likely not cause a favorable answer. She only hoped the mare that represented Honesty would forgive the half-truth later.

“Ah see,” Applejack nodded to the request as she noticed the other two mares that were approaching. “They the ones with ya?”

“Oh, yes. They're actually from Ponyville. I'm... visiting after having been away for a while,” Twilight said, deftly dancing around the truth with her words.

“Oh I recognize them,” Applejack said as she took a few steps past Twilight to the other two mares. “Say, didn't you two just stop by the market stall today?”

Fluttershy shrunk back a bit at the sudden question, and Rainbow Dash stepped forward to take the lead to answer. “Oh yeah, we did. Fluttershy here just about cleaned you guys out didn't she?” Fluttershy scowled a little at her friend's recount of the day's earlier events.

“Oh right, you bought up almost all the rest of what we had. I appreciate all the business though. Things been kinda unsteady these last couple weeks if ya know what I'm sayin’.”

“Oh yeah I hear ya,” Rainbow said with knowing nod. “By the way, I'm Rainbow Dash, the weather pony around here. And like I said, the shy one here is Fluttershy.”

“I knew I'd seen you around these parts somewhere else before. So you take care of the weather eh? How's that been goin lately?”

Rainbow Dash hummed a sigh. “Dark, boring. The Queen wants all the skies clear all the time so everypony can see her stupid moon.”

“Yeah, kinda figured.”

Once the idle conversation died back a bit, Twilight tried to jump back to her earlier request. “So...,” she started.

Applejack's attention snapped back to the 'unicorn'. “Oh right. Sorry didn't mean to ignore ya. You ladies need some help with somethin’, right?”

Twilight nodded. “Yes, do you have time to come with us to the library this evening?”

“What's at the library,” both Applejack and Rainbow asked nearly in union, which caused them to glance at each other with equally confused expressions.

Twilight let a nervous laugh out as she tried to remain convincing. “Well, I'll let you all know when... we get there?” The statement hadn’t come out sounding nearly as convincing as she had hoped. How was somepony supposed to ask for help for something without going into any details on what the something was?

The farm mare gave a blinking stare to Twilight for a few seconds, and then shrugged. “I suppose I could tag along. But if it ends up bein’ somethin’ I can't help with I'll have to decline. Don't wanna fib and say I'll help if I ain't able.”

“Oh, I'm sure you'll be able to, AJ,” Twilight said with a relieved smile. “Oh er, you don't mind me calling you AJ, do you?”

The farm mare shook her head. “Don't mind at all. 'Sides, lots of my family and friends call me that anywho, and you seem nice enough. Oh! Right that reminds me, hang on a sec.” Applejack quickly trotted over to the side door on the barn, which had the top half open. She draped her forehooves over the half-door and drew in a breath before yelling, “Hey, Mac!” inside. Stepping back down from the door, she looked back to the group of mares. “Gonna make sure my brother can take care of that dang wagon first. Can't leave it busted like that.”

“Yeeep?” A large red stallion's voice drawled out as his head appeared at the doorway. Rainbow Dash noticed the sudden fidget in Fluttershy's wings at the appearance of the stallion, and couldn't help but grin as she hummed an 'ah ha' to herself.

“These here ladies need me to help out with somethin’, but I haven't gotten the wagon done yet. Would ya mind takin’ care of it?” Applejack asked as she pointed over to the stubborn wheel.

Without any additional prompting, 'Mac' pushed the lower half of the door out of the way and walked out to take a look at the wagon wheel. He eyed the hub for a few seconds as he swiveled the loose wheel on the axle a little, then turned around and slammed his back hoof against it sharply. The wagon creaked at the sudden hit and tilted away, letting the barrel roll out from under it before the wheel settled on the ground, snugly secured to the axle.

Applejack deadpan stared at the wagon for a short moment before she huffed and walked past her older brother to the group of mares. “Ya dang show off,” she muttered under her breath.

“Ya'll need any help with anything else?” Mac asked, seeming to be unfazed by his sister's complaint. At this, Rainbow decided to prod Fluttershy's side to see if she could get her shy friend to speak up, but was only rewarded with a sudden sting of yellow wing feathers swatting her nose. Rainbow muttered a quiet 'ow' as she clasped a hoof against her stinging muzzle. Fluttershy narrowed her eyes at Rainbow in a silent warning.

“I think we're good,” Twilight said keeping a practiced smile on her face, hoping to escape before the pegasi caused a scene.

Mac nodded and began to make his way back to the barn. “Alright. Ya'll take care then.”

As the group of four mares were making their way back toward the farm's entrance, Rainbow decided to strike up a little conversation with their new recruit. “So... that was your brother?”

Applejack nodded in response to the question. “Yeah, that's Big McIntosh. He ain't much for words but that don't mean he don't care, he's one of the hardest workin’ ponies you'll ever find. Don't let his looks fool ya either, he's gentle as a puppy and about as friendly, even if he is strong enough to buck a tree in two.”

“He seems cool,” Rainbow said with a sagely nod. She then turned her attention to Fluttershy as a side grin crept onto her face. “What did you think about him?”

The stare that Fluttershy returned seemed to warn Rainbow that she was going to receive some sort of retribution for her continued meddling later. However, Fluttershy's expression softened and she managed to respond. “He seemed... nice.”

Applejack's brows perked up. “Cool and nice? Don't think I've ever heard of Mac bein’ called that, but alright.”

With one stop completed and the group one step closer to having been reassembled, Twilight decided that Sugarcube Corner was the next logical location to visit. The hanging bell above the shop's door jingled to announce the arrival of the group of mares. From behind the cash register, a stallion perked up with a smile at the sight of customers visiting his shop. “Welcome to Sugarcube Corner!” he greeted merrily.

“Good evening, sir!” Twilight greeted in return as she felt a rush of nostalgia at the sight of the shop's owner, Mr. Carrot Cake. “I was hoping that we might find Pinkie here. Is she working today?”

“Oh, you girls are friends of Pinkie's? Wait here for just a minute, I'll see if I can track her down for you.” Mr. Cake turned to trot up the stairs in the back that lead to the loft that Pinkie called home. His voice sounded from the stairway as he disappeared around the corner. “Pinkie? You have guests!”

Twilight decided to take in her surroundings while she waited, trotting over to the display case of sweets at the cash register and looking over the various confectioner creations that the Cakes had for sale. She realized that she had nearly forgotten this place over the years. The sweet smells, the colorful sights, the bright... pinkness...?

Twilight blinked at something bright pink that she had spotted in the display case, or rather reflected in it. She turned around just in time to come nearly nose to nose with a bright pink pony staring back at her wearing one of the widest grins in Equestria. She couldn't help but suck in a gasp at Pinkie Pie's sudden appearance.

“Pinkie!” Twilight said, slightly startled. “Oh, you scared me.”

Now it was Pinkie’s turn to gasp. “You... you know me?” she seemed utterly shocked by having met another pony who knew her, but she did not yet know herself.

“Ah... hm... well,” Twilight stumbled on her words as she tried to invent an excuse. “I've... heard of you! Everypony in Ponyville knows who Pinkie is because Pinkie knows everypony, right?”

“Right!” Pinkie chirped back. “Buuuuut, I don't know you yet, so hi! I'm Pinkie Pie!” Pinkie offered a hoof to Twilight, her wide grin returning to her face.

Twilight hooked her fetlock with Pinkie’s extended hoof and gave her a hoofshake. “I'm Twilight Sparkle. I just got here.”

“Oh! Goodie, there hasn't been any new ponies in Ponyville for a while. And that reminds me... I have something I need to go setup! See you soon!” Pinkie began to dash off toward the shop doorway in a hurry.

“Wait!” Twilight called out, causing Pinkie to freeze with her forehoof outstretched to the shop's door. Her head swiveled back to look at Twilight with a slight tilt, an inquisitive look playing on her face. “Uh, would the something be a... welcoming party?” Twilight asked.

Pinkie blinked a couple times, her mouth slowly falling agape. She then looked back and forth, as if checking to see if anypony had noticed (paying no mind to the audience of three mares in the shop that had been watching this strangeness play out) before she 'stealthy' crept back over to Twilight's side. Her eyes darting back and forth once more, she leaned in toward Twilight's ear raising a hoof up next to her muzzle, and in a whispering voice loud enough to carry to everypony's ears in the room she asked, “Are you from the future?”

A loud snicker-snort sound escaped Rainbow Dash from across the room before she could cover her muzzle. Applejack glanced at her with furrowed brows, obviously not seeing what was so funny.

Twilight let a nervous laugh escape. If only Pinkie knew just how right her playful guess had been. However, the future-princess-in-hiding decided that playing along may actually work to her advantage as she thought of a way to easily get Pinkie to where she needed to be. She lowered her voice to an equal whisper to let Pinkie in on the 'secret'. “Shhh, don't tell anypony, but I come from a future where there's this awesome welcoming party at the library.”

“Oooh, you like libraries?” Pinkie asked, the secretive sounding voice having been discarded.

“Oh yes, I lived in one for a while.”

“I see! Then I better make sure that future me gets this future party setup at the library for future you!” Pinkie happily bounded off to the shop door again.

“Oh wait, one more thing!” Twilight called, catching Pinkie just as she was walking out the door. Pinkie paused again, the same inquisitive tilted glance looking back. “I'll bring the guests,” Twilight said.

Pinkie tapped a hoof to her chin in thought, then smiled slowly. “Oh. Ooooh you're good,” she said as the sly smile spread across her face. “Future you already knows who's going to be there. I gotcha,” she said with a quick wink. She skipped out the doorway, humming a cheerful tune. The shop fell dead silent for a moment after the doorway closed.

“Wow,” Rainbow said, breaking the silence. “You handled that like a pro.”

“Yeah, it's like she didn't even faze ya,” Applejack added as she gave Twilight a thoughtful stare. “You sure you and Pinkie never met before?”

Twilight's nervous laugh returned again, but before she would have to try and explain her strange behavior, Mr. Cake entered the room again from the stairway. Twilight silently thanked him for the rescue.

Mr. Cake let go a light sigh as he walked back up behind the display case. “Well I'm sorry, but I think she's out somewhere at the moment.”

“Actually she was just here,” Twilight said, and then pointed toward the door and added, “and already left.”

“Oh! Well, that filly. I can hardly keep track of her. Were you able to get what you needed from her?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Good good, well if there's anything else I can do for you girls...,” Mr. Cake trailed off, a hopeful smile on his face as he leaned over the display case slightly.

Twilight looked between Mr. Cake and the display of sweets, her gaze lingering on the sugary goodies for a moment. She glanced over her shoulder to the other three mares with an embarrassed grin. “You guys wouldn't happen to have a few bits I could borrow, would you?”

“Thanks girls. I would have felt bad walking out without buying anything.” Twilight now had a small white box in her possession that she kept balanced on her back as the group of four made their way through the streets of Ponyville to their next stop.

Applejack hummed an 'uh huh'. “I know whatcha mean. Chattin’ with customers is nice an' all, but it's always nice to get a sell too. Kind words and gossip don't spend well.”

“Left your bits at home?” Rainbow asked casting a sly grin in Twilight's direction.

Twilight raised an eyebrow as she side glanced to her friend. “Yeaaah, you could say that,” she said with a hint of a smirk turning up the corners of her mouth.

Their final stop before reaching the library was coming up. Twilight traced her eyes across Carousel Boutique, its circular windows lit from within doing a fine job of illuminating the exterior décor. Walking up to the shop's door, Twilight reach out a hoof, seeming to hesitate for a short second before she tapped on the door.

“It's open,” a golden voice sung from inside the shop. Twilight couldn't help but smile at the sound of the voice that she hadn't heard in nearly two centuries time. Taking hold of the door's latch with her magic, she pushed the doorway and entered.

Another place she hadn't seen in over a lifetime greeted her eyes. She lost herself in the surroundings, the sights causing old memories to come flooding back to her. She took a moment to set the white box she had been carrying on a table near the entrance, not wanting to chance a mishap with baked goods around Rarity's finely crafted garments. Then she spotted the mare coming out of the work room in the back of the shop, pristine white coat and styled violet mane, red frame glasses perched on her muzzle and a tape measure dangling across her withers.

“Goodness, so many guests!” Rarity said as she trotted up to the group of mares. “Welcome to Carousel Boutique ladies. I'm the shop's owner and fashion designer, Rarity. I do hope you all find something here to your liking, and if not, just let me know! I may be able to work in a special order just for you.”

Rainbow Dash had already made her way over to a rack of dresses, and was rifling through them with a hoof. “Uh... have something that's not quite so... sooo...,” she struggled to find the right word.

“Froufrouy?” Applejack offered her description of what she saw around her, her expression showing just how much she didn't agree with the surroundings.

“Yeah... that,” Rainbow agreed with a nod.

Rarity seemed to take the comments in stride as she walked up to Rainbow and looked her over quickly with her discerning eye. “Well you do have a rather athletic build, I suppose something more sleek would be to your liking.”

“Sounds cool.”

Twilight cleared her throat, trying to politely find a way to interrupt. Rainbow noticed and silently mouthed an 'oh' before she tried to shift the conversation. “Actually, Twilight here is the pony you should be talking too. She came here looking for you.”

“Oh? You wanted to see me specifically?” Rarity asked as she turned toward the 'unicorn'.

Twilight put on her best smile, and calling on her years of experience in doling out greetings she prepared to introduce herself properly, making a mental note to leave her title out. “Yes. I am Twilight Sparkle, and I have a favor that I would like to ask of you.” She tipped one of her front hooves on its side, giving a slight courtesy as she spoke. She was sure Rarity would appreciate the gesture.

“Goodness me! What an honor this is,” Rarity spoke as she returned the polite greeting with a courtesy of her own. “What favor would you... like... tooo,” her brow furrowed as her gaze locked on the... thing... that was wrapped around Twilight's barrel. “Oh, darling no, this... this doesn't work for you.”

“Huh?” Twilight blink-blinked at the sudden change in behavior. She then noticed the hard stare that the fashionista was giving the sweater that she was wearing. A sudden wave of panic struck as she realized her disguise had just become a target. She tried to find a way to deflect the sudden interest that Rarity had taken in what she was wearing. “Oh this? I was just feeling a bit... chilly?”

“I would imagine so, since we haven't seen the sun in weeks, but we can do better than this!” Rarity exclaimed as she trotted around eying the offending garment. “Look at this, it even has wing holes. This is designed for a pegasus, dear.”

“Actually, I borrowed it from Fluttershy,” Twilight mentioned as she motioned to her friend across the room. Fluttershy ducked down at the mention of her name, a shy smile gracing her muzzle.

“I see,” Rarity said as she eyed the pegasus over the top of her red framed eyewear. “Well she is definitely a pegasus who would look wonderful in sweaters, but it does not work for you!” Rarity turned her attention back to Twilight, and lit her horn. Before she knew what was happening, Twilight felt the sweater shift up her barrel as a light blue aura took hold and pulled.

Rarity released her hold only a second later, taking in a surprised gasp as she stepped back, raising a hoof against her chest. The sound of shock had drawn the attention of everypony in the room to Twilight, and the sweater that was now hiked up on her barrel far enough for the tips of her wings to be visible. Twilight pressed her eyes closed, letting out a defeated sigh. The room remained otherwise silent, until Rainbow finally muttered an 'oops' that echoed through the room.

Applejack frowned, her stare never leaving the feathers jutting out from under the sweater. “What the hay is this about?”

Rarity seemed to make a face that looked somewhat like a goldfish as she searched for her voice. “Y-you... you're an alicorn?” she questioned as she looked straight to Twilight's still closed eyes.

“We already knew,” Rainbow mentioned to the side as she casually pointed a hoof between herself and Fluttershy.

Twilight slowly opened her eyes, setting back on her haunches. Magic lit from her horn, and it took hold of the sweater and fully removed it, exposing her wings fully. As she removed her disguise, something else glittered in her aura, and eventually took a physical form as she placed it back on her head. The appearance of the crown seemed to make Rarity relapse into her fish-face state.

“You're a princess!?” Rarity nearly screeched.

“I am,” Twilight nodded.

“Knew that too,” Rainbow said coolly. This garnered her a wide-eyed look of confusion from Applejack next to her.

Rarity seemed to stare off into space directly in front of Twilight. She began to quietly mumble something to herself, repeating it slightly louder the second time. “There's a princess... in my shop.” After saying it twice, it suddenly seemed to make sense to her. “There's a princess in my shop!” she exclaimed as she took off at a gallop, working her levitation magic to begin straightening anything that appeared to be even a fraction of an inch out of place. “I will be with you in just one minute!”

Twilight's face became pained with worry as she watched her friend sprint off to perform a whirlwind cleaning session. “Er, Rarity you don't—”

“Just one minute!” Rarity's stressed voice called back. Twilight facehoofed with a light groan, rubbing her forehead at the slight headache she could feel coming on. She then noticed a presence next to her, and glanced to her side to see Applejack giving her a hard look.

“Mind tellin’ me what's goin’ on?”

Twilight sat up straight, turning herself to look Applejack directly in the eyes. “AJ, I promise you, I only hid this because right now isn't the best time in Equestria to be flaunting to the world that one is a princess. I was intending on telling all of you about this at the library.”

Applejack seemed to think on the words for a moment as her eyes shifted around and her mouth worked back and forth. “I suppose I can see that bein’ a good reason. But I'm gettin’ the notion that the 'little problem' you need help with might not be so little.” Twilight's head drooped toward the floor as she looked away, the guilty look saying all that needed to be said. Applejack regarded Twilight silently for a moment before blowing a breath of air through her bangs. “Ah said I'd hear ya out, and I ain't a pony that goes back on her word. But try to be straight with me from here on out, alright?”

Twilight looked back up, locking her eyes with her friend’s. “I promise.”

“There!” Rarity said in a pant as she stopped beside Twilight, her impromptu cleaning session completed. She had discarded her glasses and tape measure at some point during the cleaning, and now put her best smile on for the Princess that was visiting her shop. “Now, this favor you were asking for. Of course I would be most honored to serve as your personal designer. You have no idea what this means to me, you taking time to seek me out personally.”

“Rarity,” Twilight silenced her by placing a hoof on her shoulder. “The favor I need to ask has nothing to do with clothes, but it is something only you can do for me.”

Rarity was getting really good at her fish-face impression. She gawked for a few seconds before she caught herself, realizing how silly she must look. Forcing the smile back to her muzzle, she tried to think of something to say in response. “I... honestly don't know what to say, Princess. I-I'm afraid you have taken me a bit off guard.”

“Please Rarity, just call me Twilight.”

Rarity raised her eyebrows high on her forehead. “Oh, but I couldn't. Your title is so important, and I'm but a normal pony.”

“I insist,” Twilight said as she gave Rarity's shoulder a light shake.

“Well, if you insist then I suppose I have no right to deny you that wish.”

Twilight smiled warmly. “It's not a command, Rarity. I ask because I want you to treat me like a friend.” Looking over her shoulder to the other mares in the room, she added, “All of you.”

“Well, I never imagined a day would come when a princess would walk up to me and ask to be my friend. I-I'm very grateful.” Rarity glanced to her side, noticing the discarded sweater on the floor. “In fact, there is something I would like to do for you, Twilight, to show you just how much.” Rarity quickly trotted over to a rack of garments that appeared to mostly be vests, jackets, and cloaks. She began to work her magical aura through the clothing as she deftly shuffled through them, speaking as she searched. “I do apologize for exposing you like I did, I'm sure that wasn't pleasant. But worry not, your secret is more than safe with me.” Finally stopping at one of the jackets on the rack, Rarity removed it and brought it back over, passing it from her magical aura to Twilight's. “A gift, from one friend to another. I think this one will suit your purposes very well.”

The jacket had a velvety look to its outer surface that seemed to change shades from midnight blue to dark violet depending on how the light reflected from it. The collar was trimmed with down feathers that were a slightly lighter shade of the same colors. Three large silver snap buttons lined the upper front edge, leaving the bottom edges of the jacket open to flare out. Twilight sat back on her haunches to put her forelegs through the jacket sleeves, wrapping it around herself and snapping it closed. She then stood and took a few steps to a nearby vanity mirror to get a better look. Turning to her side, she could see how the jacket flared open to just barely cover part of her cutie-mark, and the sides of the jacket swooped down just past her hocks fully hiding her wings from view.

Twilight smiled and turned back to her friend. “It's beautiful. I love it, Rarity.”

“It looks fabulous on you, darling,” Rarity cheerfully spoke as she tugged at the collar and sleeve cuffs with her aura to straighten them. “Now... this favor that you were asking about....”

“Right,” Twilight nodded. “I have something that I need to show all of you at the library that will help explain everything. That is, if you have the time.”

Rarity let a giddy smile grace her muzzle shortly before she cleared her throat to regain her composure. A princess had just asked her if she had time to spare. “Well, you do have me intrigued. Allow me to close up shop and we can be on our way.”

A short time later, Rarity was closing the door to her darkened shop. With the latch secured, she turned and nodded to the rest of the group just outside, and they began on their way to their final destination. Twilight found herself pleased at how well things were going so far, but realized that gathering her old friends together was just a small hurdle that came before the real challenge; convincing them all that they are the saviors of Equestria.

Into the Everfree

“You know, I could have carried that, Rarity.” Twilight eyed the white box that was floating in her friend’s levitation aura as they walked side by side. Along with the other three mares with their group, they had nearly made it to the final stop that she had been leading them too.

Rarity shook her head. “I'm afraid I can not allow it. Frosting would not go well with your new jacket.”

“Aha, so you're only worried about the jacket? I see,” Twilight playfully chided.

Fweeeeeet!

The group froze rigidly at the startling sound of a party horn, just outside the front door of the Golden Oak Library. A few popping sounds accompanied by confetti and streamers flying through the night air followed shortly after. Rarity held the white box only an inch off the ground with her magic, having very nearly dropped it.

“Surprise!” a voice called out from the direction of the library door. All eyes darted to the door way, or rather at the pony who was perched in the hedge that lined the top of the door's arch. Pinkie had managed to hide herself there thanks to the darkness. “Were you all surprised? I hope you were, because when I was setting things up earlier I started thinking to myself, 'Hey Self, they already know I'm setting up a party so it won't be much of a surprise, but what if I surprise them before the party!' So, did it work?”

Rainbow gently pried a terrified Fluttershy off her back leg. “Uh, yeah, I think it worked, Pinkie.”

Applejack's frustrated voice spoke up next. “I think I could have done without my heart skipin’ a beat, if I'm to be honest.”

Rarity looked to Twilight next to her, lowering her voice to a whisper. “I didn't realize we were heading to a party.”

Twilight put on an apologetic smile. “Well, think of it as more of a friendly get together than a party.”

Pinkie effortlessly performed a forward flip from her perch, landing on all fours just in front of the library door. “Everypony come inside! The party is just starting!”

The assembled group stepped inside, finding a library decorated with a rainbow of paper streamers and balloons all around, and a table that had a large punch bowl surrounded by trays of bite sized wheat crackers piled up with all kinds of different veggie snack foods. Pinkie had managed to snatch the white box away from Rarity at some point, and balanced it on her head as she pranced over to the table to place it there next to the rest of the party food. Twilight spotted a bottle of hot sauce there next to the punch glasses and snacks, and raised an eyebrow at it. Not this time, she thought to herself before turning her attention to the rest of the room. It seemed that every inch of the library had been decorated in some way. She even spotted the pin the tail on the pony game that Pinkie had always seemed to be so fond of tacked to one of the walls. It was definitely of the caliber of Pinkie Pie parties that she remembered.

Pinkie landed from a hop right next to Twilight. “So! What do you want to do first, Twilight? We have some games, some snacks, and lots and lots of books, because this is a library party!”

Twilight glanced around at the bookcases, recognizing some books on the shelves that in her own time were long gone. She felt the desire to bury herself in her old vice, wanting to lock herself away in the library's loft and just read. Of course she knew there wasn't any time for that, but the quick day dream had still brought a smile to her muzzle.

Humming a little sigh, she forced herself to put the day dream aside to focus on the important issue ahead. “I didn't just gather all of you here today for a party, there's actually another very important reason.” Twilight walked over to one of the library shelves hoping to see what she knew should be there. She smiled when she noticed the binding of the red book on the shelf, and used her magic to draw it from the bookcase. “The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide,” she said as she turn to display the book's cover to the rest of the mares.

Applejack eyed the book. “This the thing that you were needin’ help with, a book?”

“No, but it will help explain,” Twilight said as she used her magic to open the book, mentally flipping it to the page she remembered the legend being on. Once she found it, she nodded and turned the open book toward the other mares and began to recite the contents of the page from memory. “There are six Elements of Harmony, but only five are known: Kindness, Laughter, Generosity, Honesty, and Loyalty. The sixth is a complete mystery. It is said, the last known location of the five elements was in the ancient castle of the royal pony sisters. It is located in what is now the Everfree Forest.”

A lingering silence hung in the room for a moment afterward, until it was broken by Pinkie. “Guys, this is amazing. Twilight... can read books without looking at them!”

Twilight laughed. “Actually no, I read this book a long time ago, many times... and this page has a lot of meaning for me.” She sat back on her haunches, closing the book with her magic and bringing it close to herself, hugging it to her chest with her forelegs. “I have a lot to explain.”

The room was silent, and painfully so. Around the room, each of the six mares had found somewhere to be comfortable while Twilight had told them what she could about herself, about the Elements of Harmony, and about what she hoped they would be willing to help her with. Twilight laid on one of the velvet pillows that were scattered about the library room, her jacket folded and placed to the side along with her crown laying just on top of it. She had tried her best to make her claim that she was a princess that had descended from the night sky in a magical fire ball from the future sound at least somewhat plausible, but her explanation had obviously been so lacking that it left everypony either confused or unwilling to believe since none of them seemed to have anything to say in response. “Somepony, please say something?” she asked as she nervously tapped a hoof against the floor in front of her.

Rainbow Dash noticed the concerned strain in Twilight's voice, and decided to speak up. “Well, I'll vouch for ya. I mean, both Fluttershy and I saw you fall out of the sky and there's a huge dirt hole to prove that, and you already knew our names without us telling you. So, of course we believe you, right?” Fluttershy nodded in agreement when Rainbow looked to her.

“I was right!” Pinkie playfully sung from where she was sitting at near the snack table, her head bobbing back and forth a bit. She was casually laying her chin on her forelegs that rested on the table's edge. “I mean, I didn't really know. I was just playing, but I was still right.”

Applejack leaned back against the wall that she had been sitting by while she had listened to the story, letting a long breath pass through her lips. “Well, it ain't that I don't believe what yer claimin’ about bein’ from the future, Twilight, as far out there as it sounds. Since yer a princess and all, I imagine you can do a lot of things that wouldn't make a lick of sense to me. What I'm havin’ problems with is... well, why us? I mean it all seems so random. Princess from the future comes fallin’ out of the sky and asks me to go help save Celestia from the Evil Queen. It isn’t that I don’t wanna help, I just don't see how I fit into that.”

Twilight was afraid of that; the possibility that some of her friends may not take to the idea that they were somehow destined to take the fight to Nightmare Moon. If even one of them didn't have the will to stand with her, then it wouldn't matter what she or the rest of them tried to do. The power that the Elements had would only work if they had all six, and even though there was the possibility that Twilight could face Nightmare Moon herself if need be, not even an alicorn would have the strength to break the prison that likely held Celestia captive on her own. For that, she needed the Bearers of the Elements. She knew that she had to keep trying. “I know it seems random, but it really isn't. Each one of you really does have a link with one of the Elements.”

Applejack nodded. “Yeah I got that, and mine's supposed to be Honesty. But I guess I'm still havin’ problems seein’ how that connection even happened, seein’ as I'm just a farm pony. Ain't nothin’ super magical about me.”

Twilight hummed at this as she thought. She knew about the bond that they had shared over their lifetime, but at this moment in time her friends had just been drawn together only hours ago. She needed something to tie this all together, to show them that their bond was something stronger and deeper than the short span of time they had spent together in this room. Something that would go further back than just a few hours.

“That's it,” Twilight said as her memories came across her answer. “You want to know how we're all connected? It actually almost slipped my mind it's been so long, but now I remember.”

Twilight shifted her glance over to her side toward Rainbow Dash, who was laying nearby. “Rainbow Dash, when you were a young filly, you were able to perform a Sonic Rainboom during a race in Cloudsdale.” It was more of a statement than a question, but Rainbow slowly nodded all the same to confirm it. “On that same day, Fluttershy discovered a whole different world beneath the clouds, Rarity's magic discovered a giant geode full of gems for the first time, Applejack was in Manehatten with her Aunt and Uncle Orange, and Pinkie had been working with her family at the rock fields. And all of you saw the same rainbow explode in the sky over Ponyville. Dash's rainbow.”

A quiet hush lingered in the air as the mares all glanced around at one another. “How...?” Rarity asked quietly.

Twilight continued her story. “How do I know all that? I know because I saw it too, and it helped me discover a part of who I was meant to be, just as it did for the rest of you. If that one thing hadn't happened, if we hadn't all experienced that same moment in time, none of us would be the mare that we are today.”

Applejack tapped a hoof against her muzzle as she thought on the story. “So because we all share that one thing, that's how it all connects,” she mumbled to herself.

The group fell silent again for some time. Twilight had definitely given them all a lot to think about, but she hoped that she had tipped the scales in her favor. She decided to try and drive the point home. “I'm not looking for a way to force you all into venturing into the creepy forest of doom. If need be, I'll go on my own to retrieve the Elements, but using the Elements is another thing entirely. We can only each use the Element that we are bound too, and they only work when all used together and only if we truly believe in each other. We already have my Element here, but without the rest of you, it really isn't much more than a pretty crown.”

Applejack nodded in understanding. “So what yer sayin’ is there really ain't no gettin’ off the hook for this one. Even if we didn't feel up to it, we're the only ponies who can do this.”

Twilight's ears fell. “I... no that's not—”

“I'll do it, Twi,” Applejack said with a smile. “Somepony has to, and from the sounds of it we're the only ponies for the job. Besides, you say you've seen us all do this once before, that means we can do it again, am I right?”

A chorus of agreement echoed around the room from the rest of the group.

“Right.”

Twilight smiled, feeling the weight of doubt being lifted off her shoulders.

Twilight had considered resting at her old home that evening, until she found that the loft had never been prepared for her arrival. Instead of finding a bed and her old belongings in the library loft that had been transported from Canterlot, she had found nothing but an empty and dusty storage room. This had caused her another fit of puzzled thought. It seemed Celestia had never arranged for Twilight to be in Ponyville. It was another small clue toward finding out what had happened that hadn't offered much of a conclusion, only serving to prompt more questions. Questions such as just how far did the change go back into the past? Had she ever been Celestia's student, or ever lived in Canterlot? Had she ever even existed? The thoughts were more than a little troubling to her.

Rarity had come to Twilight's rescue, bringing the future princess out of her deep thoughts and offering the use of Carousel Boutique's guest room. She wasn't going to leave a princess to 'sleep in the dirt', as she had put it, if she were able to do anything about that. Of course Twilight had accepted the offer, and actually found a pleasant night's sleep knowing that she had the support of her old friends once again. She wouldn't have to face her problems alone.

The 'night' had come and gone, giving way to the 'morning', though no change in the moon and starlit sky marked the passing of either. However, the group of mares still managed to meet at the library again at an arranged time shortly after breakfast, prepared to make their way into the Everfree in search of the Elements. They arrived with various essentials for the trip ahead of them, though what they each considered 'essential' varied from pony to pony. Twilight had donned her 'I'm just a unicorn' disguise, wearing her new velvet jacket and magically shrouding the Element of Magic from view on her head, and had thought to also bring a pair of saddlebags containing a couple reference books she had plucked from the library shelves that might prove useful. She had also brought a current map of the Everfree Forest, as current as one could get anyway. Applejack had brought some lengths of rope with her, Fluttershy had packed blankets in case anypony got cold, Rarity had chosen to bring her sun hat of all things, and Pinkie had decided to bring a box of chocolate chip cookies. Rainbow Dash had brought herself, which she claimed was all she needed to bring.

None of this bothered Twilight in the slightest as they had set off into the forest. She was grateful that they had chosen to come with her at all. The only problem was the forest and how it managed to change so much over time, making any memory she had of it rather useless and even the map only marginally so. After leading her friends through the gloom of the forest for a couple hours, she was now staring at the map hovering just in front of her face, glancing over it at the gorge that was clearly not on the map, but had blocked them from getting to their destination all the same.

Rainbow happened to be staring at the map too, looking just over Twilight's shoulder. “You know what I see?” she asked.

“What do you see?” Twilight asked, continuing to study the map.

Rainbow leaned forward, placing one hoof on Twilight's shoulder as she pointed the other at what she saw at various spots on the map. “Trees... trees... trees, trees, trees aaaaand... trees.”

“Ha ha,” Twilight mock laughed as the corners of her mouth turned up.

Rainbow stepped back a step, planting her hooves back on the ground. “Seriously, how do you see anything on this map, it's all trees. We're lost, aren't we?”

“We're lost?” Fluttershy asked with an edge of panic on her voice nearby as her ears perked up.

Twilight shot a glare at Rainbow. “No, we're not lost. We just have to go around. And it's not all trees, there's a creek nearby.”

“Oh, hey everypony! Twilight found a spec of water in the middle of all the trees!” Rainbow mock cheered. “You know, if you would just let me scout ahead—”

“No, Rainbow,” Twilight said as she rolled her eyes at the same time her magic rolled up the map. Stuffing the map back into her saddlebags, she began to walk along the edge of the gorge. “If there are any Nightguard patrols, they might see you. Besides, if we head this direction to the creek, there is a spot where we can all cross and then it's just an easy trip north east from there.”

“Easy, as in how it has been easy so far?” Rarity asked as she pursed her lips.

Twilight sighed. “Okay, I know. This place isn't very easy to walk through. We can take a break when we get to the creek.”

Other than the minor back-track, the trip had actually gone well without any incidents so far. Twilight knew better than to push her luck by saying such, and so just stuck with trying to encourage the rest of the group to keep going. As promised, they took a moment to rest and gather their strength once they reached the creek where the gorge ended. Pinkie had found this moment to be the best use of her supplies, and had doled out the chocolate chip cookie rations to the group.

“So all we got left is a jaunt over that a way?” Applejack asked as she finished up her snack and pointed off in a direction just over the creek.

“That's right. We should see the ruins pretty soon actually, it's right next—” Twilight suddenly trailed off as she looked around, her ears snapping erect and swiveling quickly.

“Next to what?” Applejack prompted when Twilight didn't finish.

Twilight raised a hoof, indicating that she wanted quiet as she strained her ears to try to pick up on something. Glancing back over her shoulder to the rest of the group, she quietly asked, “Do you hear that?”

The rest of the group listened for the sound that Twilight had noticed, but there didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary. In fact the forest was dead silent other than the sound of water trickling through the creek.

“I don't hear a thing,” Rarity said as she looked back to Twilight confused.

“Yeah, the crickets quit chirping,” Twilight mentioned as she glanced around slowly. The way she had said that statement made the rest of the mares feel a chill, and suddenly all of them were noticeably more alert.

A low growling noise echoed around the group, causing many of them to feel the hackles on their back raise. Applejack looked around quickly as her ears tried to pick out the source of the noise. “Alright, tell me that sound was one of you girls just wantin’ another cookie.”

“Not it,” Rainbow Dash claimed. The rest of the mares shook their heads to indicate that the sound hadn't come from them either.

“Shoot.”

The growling sound came from around the group again, causing them to huddle together.

“Stay close,” Twilight said as she kept a watchful eye on the trees. Just along the edge of where the tree line blended into the darkness of the forest, green slits of light could be seen darting between the tree trunks. What ever they belonged too seemed to be coming from all directions at once, circling to the left and right just out of view.

“Giiiirls,” Fluttershy's shaky voice whispered. She pressed herself against the rest of the group, pointing a hoof at the trees just in front of her. A wolf shaped head made up of sticks, twigs, and bark hovered there just at the edge of the darkness. It slowly crept forward, revealing its wooden front paws and legs. The low growling noise echoed from its maw as its glowing green eye sockets remained focused on them.

“Stay... close...,” Twilight repeated, her attention circling slowly around the group. All around them she could see the wolf pack emerging from the darkness cautiously, slowly moving in but not yet attacking. She picked out one that appeared to be the most aggressive of the group, the one that was inching forward slightly ahead of the rest directly in front of her. She considered that particular one to likely be their pack leader the way the rest of the wolves seemed to be following its lead. She stared back at it, not giving a single inch of ground up or showing any visible fear at its approach, for to show any signs of weakness would likely cause it to attack. For what felt like a very long moment, the staring contest between her and the alpha wolf lingered as it growled at her defiance. Finally, the stare down broke when the wolf made a lunge for her, signaling the rest of the pack that started to move in at the same time.

“BACK OFF!”

Twilight's voice came out like a clap of thunder, the force of which caused a concussive shock-wave that blew the alpha wolf back against a tree, causing it to splinter into pieces and a puff of glowing green smoke. The smoke hovered in the air for a second before it settled back into the pile of tree parts that had once been the wolf's body, and then began to pull its wooden body back together quickly as it struggled to scamper off. At the same time, the rest of the pack had immediately backed away from the sudden shout, and when they noticed their pack leader retreating they all followed suit, turning tail to disappear back into the woods they had come from.

The mares remained huddled tightly together for a minute after the wolves had left, slowly growing more calmed as they all realized they weren't about to become chew toys any longer. When Twilight was satisfied that the threat had passed, she let her focus on the surrounding forest wane and decided to check on her friends. “Is everyone okay?”

“Mostly,” Rainbow said as she rubbed one of her ears with a hoof. “I still can't hear anything but a ringing sound out of this ear.”

Twilight's eyes took on an apologetic look as she turned to face the rest of the group. “Sorry. I probably should have told you all to cover your ears.”

Applejack let a little whistle go between her teeth. “Ah still can't believe that sound came outta you. I think you got us all pretty good, Twi, but specially them timberwolves. Where'd you learn to do somethin’ like that?”

Twilight smiled humbly. “Oh, that was just a little trick I picked up over the years.”

Twilight cautiously picked her way through the brush around the gnarled roots of the trees. “Everyone be careful up here. There's a cliff just up ahead, but if memory serves me right we should find a bridge where we can cross.”

Rainbow Dash stopped as she blew a raspberry and rolled her eyes. “Who needs a bridge?”

Applejack elbowed the pegasus in the side as she walked past. “You do realize half of us don't have wings, right?”

“Minor detail. We can make it work,” Rainbow said with a dismissive wave of her hoof.

The tree line thinned right before a sheer drop off that the group walked up on. Glancing cautiously over the edge, they found that the bottom of the drop wasn't visible thanks to the fog hanging in the air below. Just across from the group, the other side of the cliff was barely visible through the haze in the air, but settled on the other cliff was something very large casting a looming shadow. Twilight squinted her eyes hard at the strange looking silhouette, and then quickly pulled her map open, glancing back and forth between the two. By what she remembered, and what the map was trying to tell her, this should have been the ruins that she was looking at, but this shadow was much larger than the ruins she remember.

Pinkie sat near the edge of the cliff craning her neck back as she took in the full size of the dark object ahead of them. “Oh wow, that must be the hive thingy. Didn't think it would be that big.”

Twilight glanced over at Pinkie Pie, confusion twisting on her face as she tried to understand what she had just heard. She glanced again at her map and then at the 'hive thingy'. “That thing is right on top of the ruins.”

“Oh dang, serious?” Applejack said as she trotted up to look at the map too, not that it made much sense when she glanced at it. It really did look like nothing but a drawing full of trees, just like Rainbow had said.

Twilight's magic suddenly scrunched the map together in frustration. She knew full well what this 'hive thingy' must be, and it was yet another thing that didn't make sense. She had seen one before, but never before in Equestria’s borders. “Why in Equestria is that thing here!?”

Everypony seemed suddenly shocked at Twilight's outburst. After a moment of silence, Rainbow spoke up to try and offer an explanation. “Er... well I think it's always been here.”

Twilight stared back at her friend. “Always?”

“I wouldn't say always,” Rarity began as she looked out at the hive, “however, it has been here for a time, since when I was still a little foal myself.”

Applejack nodded and hummed an 'uh huh'. “Yeah that sounds about right. Was probably around ten years ago or so that Celestia allowed them to settle down here. I've never come out here to see it for myself though. Not really a reason to.”

Twilight glanced around frantically at her friends that seemed to be unaware of the danger sitting right in front of them. “That is a changeling hive!” she screeched as she pointed a hoof toward the looming shadow.

The group was silenced for a moment once again. “...Uh... yeah?” Rainbow said as she shrugged her shoulders.

Twilight stared back for a moment in disbelief at how none of her friends seemed to care about this. Shaking her head, she tried to explain further. “Changelings are horrible creatures!”

Applejack took a cautious step forward and laid a hoof on her frustrated friend’s shoulder, trying to bring some calm to her. “Now come on, Twi. They ain't ever bugged anypony since they moved in here.”

A light snicker noise escaped from Rainbow Dash. “Heh... you said 'bugged'.” Her comment only got her eye rolls and head shakes from many of the other mares, except from Pinkie who giggled at it.

Twilight brushed Applejack’s touch back, stamping her hoof on the ground. “Guys! This is serious. I'm not joking when I say that thing should not be here. There was never a changeling hive in Equestria's borders.”

Rainbow suddenly dropped her joking demeanor. “Wait, so... is this another one of those crazy 'history got changed' things?”

Twilight turned to look out at the hive. She tried to think about how this connected with the other change she knew of; her past self possibly missing. Though she had no real way of proving a connection between the two, there were some frightening possibilities. However, anything she could think of at this moment would be mere speculation.

Twilight tried to calm herself as she let a huff of air out through her nostrils. “I don't know what you have all been told about changelings, but they are extremely dangerous. They have the ability to completely replace another pony, copying everything. Your looks, your memories, everything about you they can steal.”

“Why would they do that?” Fluttershy quietly asked.

Twilight spun around, looking directly to Fluttershy. “Because, it's how they hunt. They work their way into towns and cities unnoticed, and then when they have enough of a presence they strike all at once. The ponies they capture become their food, so to speak.”

Fluttershy made a face that seemed both terrified and disgusted at the same time as she drew her forelegs up against her chest. “They... eat ponies?” she squeaked.

Twilight shook her head. “Not exactly, no, though what they do isn't much better. It's more like they feed off of a pony's emotional energy. I've heard of some pretty bad things that go on in the hives, venom being used to put a pony into a state of euphoria so they can continue to drain them of as much emotional energy as possible, but that's just what we were able to learn from the changelings we managed to capture in my time. Nopony really knows for sure what happens in the hives because there isn't anypony crazy enough to try to go in one, but it can't be good.”

“That sounds horrible,” Rarity said as a shiver worked its way through her spine. “But why would Princess Celestia allow such creatures to be here? She seemed rather confident in allowing them to settle in the Everfree from what I remember. And I don't recall any mention of them ever being hostile.”

Twilight turned to glance out at the looming hive again, giving it a hard stare. “I don't know. Maybe they fooled her, or maybe she just didn't know yet what they are capable of. In the history I remember, the changelings never even tried to be peaceful. Instead, they just tried to invade Canterlot. They failed of course, and after that we made sure they were not allowed within Equestria ever again.

“But now they have a hive right here, practically on Canterlot's doorstep. This is... this is another really big problem. There is no telling how many ponies have already been replaced without anypony noticing.” Add another one to the list, Twilight thought to herself as she stared out at the hive. Nightmare Moon, and now changelings too; her list of threats to Equestria's history was starting to look a bit daunting.

Twilight closed her eyes, letting a frustrated groan escape from her throat. She then turned and began to walk away from the cliff side. “I need to think about this for a minute.”

However, Twilight wouldn't get her minute of thought. A shadow passed through the tree tops, hitting the ground right in front of her. Many more quickly followed, thudding to the ground and surrounding the group in an instant. Twilight quickly thought to charge up a very specific spell for this situation, lighting her horn.

“This area is off limits to civilians,” a mare's voice loudly proclaimed from the shadow just in front of Twilight. This caused her to pause in her spell casting. The shadow approached a couple more steps, revealing a bat winged pegasus mare with a charcoal gray coat staring back at her with cat-like golden eyes. She wore violet metallic armor that bore the unmistakable slit-eye shaped emblem of the Nightguard on her chest. Not what Twilight had expected to see, but not much better. She disabled the spell that she had been preparing and lowered her guard. She and her friends had been caught, but the Nightguard had no reason to suspect them of any sort of 'wrong doing' yet. Maybe this situation could still be salvaged, she thought. Her mind began to work over possible excuses that she could try to use.

“Twilight,” Fluttershy's weak voice called out, grabbing her attention.

Twilight glanced back at her friends, seeing their frightened faces looking back to her for help. She put a reassuring smile on for them. “Let me handle this,” she said quietly to the rest of the group before turning to face the Nightguard before her. “My companions and I came to investigate the ruins here. Is that a problem?” She hoped that maybe feigning ignorance of the royal decree to stay out of the Everfree would work.

The Nightguard stared hard at Twilight as if searching for something. Her mouth worked back and forth as she stared, and then she finally responded. “Not for me to say. Our orders are to bring anypony suspicious back to camp. I would say a group of civilians taking a waltz through the Everfree Forest fits that description. You and your companions will come with us. That is not a request.”

Without giving Twilight a chance to answer, the Nightguard turned around while calling out to the rest of her fellow guards. “We're bringing them in. Keep a close eye on them.”

The group of guards that had been standing just at the edges of the shadows moved in and made a tight circle around Twilight and her friends and began leading them back into the forest. Twilight could see the worried look on her friend's faces, and tried to offer what support she could. “It will be okay. Once we get there just let me explain everything. You guys just let me take care of it, alright?” Her friends remained quiet, only nodding in response.

The escort ended at a camp setup not too far from the cliff side, hidden just on the edge of the tree line. There appeared to be a large number of Nightguard present, some of them standing watch around the perimeter, others busily moving between tents as they attended to their given tasks. Twilight took notice of a few that were in an area that appeared to be for practicing with weapons and spells. This was a war camp, and it was very close to the changeling hive. It appeared that Nightmare Moon didn't agree with the changelings' presence within Equestria's borders.

The group finally stopped just in front of a large command tent pitched near the center of the camp ground. The lead Nightguard turned her head back toward Twilight, simply giving a command to 'wait here' before she entered the tent. A long moment passed as the group waited, nervousness growing as they noticed other Nightguard around the camp looking toward them curiously. Finally, the flap to the tent flew open, and the Nightguard mare walked back outside, stepping just to the side.

A slender black foreleg with a hoof clad in pale blue metallic armor came into view first, followed closely by the rest of the dark mare that it belonged too. Her ethereal mane spilled out around her as she exited the tent, hanging in an unfelt breeze. The moonlight glinted off of her pale blue helmet, and complimented the eerie glow of the crescent moon symbol on her chest armor. Nightmare Moon stared down at the group of ponies that had been brought before her with her greenish, cat-like eyes, the frown on her muzzle seeming to show only how displeased she was with their presence. Her eyes narrowed slightly as she spoke. “Which one of you is the leader of this group of... explorers.”

Enemies of My Enemies

Queen Nightmare Moon gazed harshly at the group of mares gathered before her. She arched an eyebrow when an answer to her question did not immediately come forth. “Well?”

Twilight did the only thing she could possibly think of to protect her friends at that moment. Bringing her muzzle low to the ground, she bowed before Equestria’s Queen and answered her question. “I am, your Majesty.” The rest of her friends looked somewhat shocked, but all reluctantly followed her motion shortly after, bending their knees to the monarch.

The Queen's cat-like eyes locked on to the 'unicorn' mare in front of her, studying her closely. “You may rise,” she commanded calmly. “Tell us your name.”

Twilight raised herself from the ground, looking up to meet the Queen's eyes. “Twilight Sparkle.”

“Twilight... Sparkle.” The Queen's eyes slowly traced over the mare standing before her as she spoke the name, as if she were studying every facet of her being. “We have been told that you are leading an expedition to the ruins of the ancient castle.”

“Yes, your Majesty.”

“Suspicious,” the Queen said as her eyes narrowed. “Our guards come across a group of mares not but a stone's throw away from the Everfree Hive. And we are to believe that you are all merely explorers? At best, this group appears like a foalish bunch of mares that bumbled their way into the forest by accident.”

Twilight thought over her options quickly, and decided to try a gamble. She almost considered it to be too crazy, but if she played this situation correctly there was a chance that she could turn two insurmountable problems into a single solution. “Actually, my friends and I did come prepared, your Majesty.”

The Queen stared back silently for a moment. “Oh?”

Twilight had hooked Nightmare Moon's interest as she had hoped, and was now ready to make her play. “Yes. I have studied changelings for a time, and have devised spells that can successfully counter them.”

“Have you....” The Queen suddenly seemed genuinely interested in what Twilight had to say.

“Yes, and in my studies, I found that they can be extremely dangerous. Enough so that they shouldn't have ever been allowed into Equestria.”

“On that point, we can both agree,” The Queen said as she thought on Twilight's claim. She then looked to her side at the Nightguard that had been silently waiting there. “Sergeant, send her inside.” The Nightguard bowed her head as the Queen returned to her tent.

Rainbow stepped up next to Twilight, leaning toward her ear. Through clenched teeth she asked, “Twilight, what are you doing?”

“Fixing this,” Twilight quietly said back. She then turned to face her friends and clearly spoke, “Just wait here, I'll be back soon.” She could tell that her friends were not comfortable with this situation, but hoped they would continue to quietly trust her until a time when she could explain her plan to them. Turning toward the command tent, Twilight approached the Sergeant Nightguard, who swept the tent flap open with her wing. She allowed Twilight to enter and then let the flap fall close.

The inside of the tent was lit with lanterns that hung from the two rows of support beams that held up the tarp, each one containing a small blue flame that seemed to hover inside. Just to the right inside the tent, a unicorn mare dressed in armor very similar to the rest of the guards met Twilight with a silent stare at the entry way. Her armor did appear to have some unique differences that set it apart from the others. Straight across from the tent's entrance was a low wooden table that appeared to have a map laid out on it, and also had many small colored markers laid out across the map. Just on the opposite side of the table, the Queen took a seat on a large velvet pillow, glancing down at the map shortly before looking up to her guest.

Just as Twilight began to take a step further inside, the tent flap abruptly flew open again behind her. All attention turned back to see a pegasus stallion clad in guard armor there. The unicorn guard turned her full attention to the stallion, stepping to the entrance of the tent and lending her ear to hear what he had to say. After the report had been given, the stallion was given a simple 'carry on' command to send him on his way.

“What is it, Moondancer?” the Queen asked from her seat across the room as she casually studied the map before her. Twilight blinked at the name, her eyes wandering over to the guard as 'Moondancer' stepped back to her post inside the tent. She wondered if this Moondancer was the same one she remembered from her younger life in Canterlot. The armor would make it nearly impossible to tell for certain, since it covered her cutie-mark and changed her outward appearance to conform to the standard grays of the Nightguard. Twilight had never heard of the Moondancer she remembered joining the Equestrian Royal Guard, but given what she had seen in this past so far, anything seemed possible now.

Moondancer glanced at Twilight briefly before turning her full attention to the Queen and giving the report. “Another three scouts are overdue. No sign of them has been seen.”

Nightmare Moon let go an exasperated sigh as one of her heavy armored hooves clunked onto the table in front of her. “Why does this not surprise us?” Hardening her gaze on Moondancer, she continued. “We are starting to lose faith in your scouts, Captain. It seems that for the last few days they have only been adept at having the most horrible luck known to ponydom.” Captain Moondancer didn't respond directly to this, likely not wanting to chance angering the Queen any further.

Nightmare Moon turned her attention toward Twilight. “As you can see, we have been experiencing issues. These changelings are obviously proving to be more than these guards can handle so shortly after their inclusion into our Nightguard. A countermeasure would be welcome, if you do indeed have one.”

Twilight had to fight down the urge to smile at the request. This was exactly the chance that she had hoped for. She called on her many years of experience in political bargaining, making her face the very image of practiced professionalism as she prepared to present the aid that she could offer to the Queen. “Yes, well, one of the spells I know is a modified shielding spell that can be used to send out a pulse to detect a changeling's presence. If enough power is applied to it, it can even be used to stun them, force them back, or create a protective dome over an area that can keep them in or out, and it has no effect on any other living beings or creatures that touch it. Everything but changelings can safely pass through.”

The Queen made a face that seemed to indicate that she was mildly impressed, with a slight nod and her brows raising a bit, but Twilight knew that wasn't going to be good enough. She had to make Nightmare Moon desperately want her help, and so she offered up another one of her abilities. “I have also devised a spell that can reveal a changeling's true form.”

“Your Majesty,” Moondancer spoke up suddenly. “Can we really trust these wild claims? These explorers may very well may be changelings themselves.”

“I assure you, we are not changelings,” Twilight said as she tried to maintain the foothold she had gained. She wasn't about to let this guard derail her.

However, Captain Moondancer pressed the issue, stepping up and nearly pressing her chest against Twilight's as she glared back. “That is exactly what a changeling would say.”

“SILENCE! Both of you.” The Queen's voice caused an echo through the nearby woods as she stared down at both of them from across the table. Turning her attention to the Captain, she asked, “Do you consider us to be an idiot?” Moondancer shrunk away a step from the Queen's icy cold stare, but Nightmare Moon refused to relent. “Of course they could be changelings, we suspected as much the very moment they were made known to us. However, if this unicorn's claims are indeed true, we may very well gain the upper hoof that we have been needing. That is not a possibility that should be carelessly tossed aside!” She punctuated the last word by slamming her hoof against the wooden table, causing the Captain to flinch at the sudden cracking sound of the wood.

Nightmare Moon stared hard at her guard captain for a moment longer until she was satisfied that her glare had stared Moondancer into silence. Turning her attention back to her guest, she continued her conversation with Twilight. “Now, about this ability of yours to reveal changelings....”

Twilight nodded and began to pick up where she had left off. “It's actually quite simple. Changelings don't actually make use of illusion magic, it's more of a physical transformation, a type of metamorphic magic. Once that is understood—”

“We know how changelings shape shift, Miss Sparkle,” the Queen interrupted. “This isn't our first dealing with the creatures. They are a very old enemy, old enough that most ponies have forgotten over the ages that they even exist, or what they are capable of... including Celestia, obviously.” The way she had grit her teeth as she said the previous monarch's name appeared as if saying it left her with an awful taste in her mouth.

Twilight's thought process hit a hitch as she realized she had just learned something she didn't already know. She never remembered changelings as being an 'old enemy'. She had always thought that Equestria's first dealings with the creatures was when they had attempted to invade Canterlot, an event that in this time period hadn't even happened yet. No knowledge about the changelings existing before the invasion had ever been mentioned to her by Celestia or Luna. Twilight mentally tucked that confusing puzzle piece aside for now so she could continue to focus on her bargaining.

Moondancer dared to speak up once again, although somewhat more timidly than before. “If I may, your Majesty. If what this unicorn claims is actually true, she should be able to reveal the prisoner that we have. If not, then obviously she has been lying to cover up her true intentions here.”

Nightmare Moon silently regarded the two unicorns before her, glancing back and forth between them. She hummed a sigh in thought, standing from her position behind the table and began to walk to the center of the tent. She stopped just in front of Twilight, towering over the shorter mare. “A test then. We would like to see a demonstration of this ability you claim to have. We do indeed have a captive who has been very uncooperative and insists on keeping the face of one of our Nightguard to hide itself behind. Captain Moondancer dragged the foul thing out of the woods herself days ago.”

Twilight glanced at the Captain shortly before turning her gaze back to the Queen. “I would be happy to demonstrate for you, your Majesty.”

“Good. Doing so will not only prove useful in the interrogation, but would be satisfactory in proving that you are not one of these things yourself, would it not?” The Queen looked to Moondancer, who nodded in response. “Very well then. Captain, escort us to the prisoner.”

Twilight followed the Queen and her guard captain out of the tent. Just outside, she found her friends there waiting. They all seemed to look somewhat hopeful, if not surprised when Twilight had safely returned from inside.

“Your Majesty?” Twilight quickly called to the Queen, causing her to pause.

“What is it?”

“I would like my companions to see this.”

The Queen seemed to hesitate at this request at first, glancing to the rest of the mares. Turning to continue on her way to the prison, she simply said, “Very well, we see no reason not to allow this.” Moondancer made a quick motion with one hoof, silently commanding a few of the guards that had been watching over the mares to follow them as well.

The group made their way through the camp with the escort of Nightguard, eventually coming to a makeshift prison. This prison was actually no more than just two wooden posts driven into the ground, serving to support chains that were cuffed to the forelegs of a light blue earth pony stallion. The chains kept his forehooves lifted off the ground nearly to shoulder height. The fur around where the cuffs shackled near his fetlocks was darkened with dried blood where they had chafed. His head hung limply toward the ground and one of his back legs rested rather uncomfortably looking on one knee as he dangled there between the posts.

The Queen approached the prisoner, and he visibly shook when he noticed the dark mare's hooves stopping just in front of his field of view. Her ethereal mane wrapped around and grasped his muzzle, pulling his gaze up to meet hers, causing him to let go a groan before she tightened her grip around his muzzle to silence him. “No. You were given your chance to speak, and now you will remain silent as we strip away your mask.” The Queen harshly tossed his muzzle back down, causing the stallion's back legs to scramble about as he struggled to remain upright.

Turning toward Twilight, the Queen gave her command. “Reveal the changeling.”

Twilight faced the captive as he weakly pulled his head up barely high enough to side glance at her with one eye. She could see confusion mostly, a little fear, and exhaustion from his glance, however something else seemed very off about this prisoner. If this changeling had actually intended to copy the looks of a Nightguard in an attempt to infiltrate, then he wouldn't look like a regular pony, he would look like a guard. She knew well how the enchantment on the Equestrian guard armor worked, by casting an illusion that gave any pony wearing it the same appearance as other guards issued the same uniform. She also knew changelings could only change their looks to mimic what they could see, and that the armor enchantment didn't work for them. This meant that either this changeling caught a guard out of uniform out in the middle of the woods and mimicked him, or had chosen to strip a guard of his uniform before mimicking him, either of which would make it a dead giveaway when it would try to return to the camp. Neither of those scenarios made any sense, which meant the only remaining possibility that did make sense was....

Twilight snapped her gaze to Captain Moondancer, who returned the glance with a look that told Twilight everything she needed to know. It was a fleeting look that the Captain had quickly tried to hide, but it was there. Twilight acted swiftly, using her telekinetic magic to grasp the Captain and force her to the ground on her back. Before anypony in the camp could react, Twilight charged a spell from her horn that projected a wide beam of light across Moondancer's body. As the beam traced down her body, it stripped away the 'pony' and revealed a changeling in its place. The changeling screamed and thrashed in the telekinetic grip as its disguise was stripped away.

Twilight narrowed her eyes at the creature she had revealed. “There's your changeling.”

Nightmare Moon seemed unable to find her voice for a moment as she stared in wide-eyed disbelief at what she had thought only moments ago was her Captain of the Guard. She finally gathered her wits as she bellowed out a command. “GUARDS! Chain that thing!”

The nearby Nightguard quickly descended on the creature, allowing Twilight to release her hold and step away. The Queen silently stared at the scene before her, a range of emotions from betrayal to anger playing on her face. Glancing to the side, she took notice of the chained stallion still hanging there helplessly. “And what of this one?” she asked.

Twilight took a moment to concentrate as she charged another spell. It began as a single pinprick of light at the tip of her horn, glowing bright white. She put a measured amount of power behind it, and then let it go, causing a sphere of white light to expand from the point around herself and through everything in the camp. As the sphere of light expanded and passed over the changeling, it screamed as small trails of electricity skittered across its body and then seemed to fall limp, its chest heaving as it gasped for breath. The spell had no effect on anything else.

“That is the only one,” Twilight said as she nodded to the changeling that the guards were now attaching shackles too.

Nightmare Moon turned her attention to the chained stallion and furrowed her brow as she closed her eyes. “Somepony get him out of these chains, and see to his wounds,” she solemnly commanded, and then turned to begin swiftly walking away. She stopped only momentarily to look over her shoulder. “Twilight Sparkle, we would have a word with you. See us in our command tent.” The Queen continued on her way through the camp, leaving her guards to attend to the situation.

Twilight noticed her friends huddled closely to each other nearby, still watching the scene unfold before them. She approached them, deciding that she could safely speak to them for a quick moment while the guards were preoccupied. “Are you all alright?”

“What just happened?” Pinkie asked, her usual smile and cheerful nature no where to be found.

Twilight glanced to the creature that the Nightguard were shackling to the posts nearby. “I know you guys probably don't like what you just saw, but you needed to know what we're up against here.”

“What exactly are we doing here?” Rainbow asked.

“I'll explain it all when I can, but right now I have to go speak with Nightmare Moon again.” Twilight could see that Rainbow wanted to protest, but quickly silenced her before she could say anything further. “Later, Rainbow, please.”

“Whatever,” Rainbow huffed, sitting back on her haunches as she crossed her forelegs.

Twilight's voice took on an apologetic tone. “I know you guys are scared, but just stick together and stay calm, okay? I'm going to make this work somehow.”

Applejack nodded back. “You go do whatcha need to, Twi.”

Twilight was reluctant to leave her friends alone at that moment, and lingered there silently nearby for a short while longer before she finally decided to go seek out the Queen. Once Twilight had made her way back to the command tent, she was met there by the Sergeant, who nodded and held the tent flap open with her wing to allow Twilight to pass. Just inside the tent, Twilight found Nightmare Moon sitting at the other side of the table, her jaw firmly set with a frown as she stared at the map laying open before her. Twilight silently waited for some sort of acknowledgment of her presence.

“For days now...,” Nightmare Moon quietly started as she glowered at the map laid out before her. “For days I have been feeding the enemy information.” Suddenly, she slammed her foreleg against the table, raking it across the map and sending the small colored markings scattering about the tent. An uneasy silence hung in the tent for a moment before Nightmare Moon spoke again. “It's no wonder my scouts have been falling into their traps left and right. And we still know next to nothing about what we face.”

Twilight noticed how the Queen had dropped her use of the royal plural, and was now just venting her frustration. She had not only been fooled by a changeling infiltrator, but had been fooled into harming one of her own. Twilight saw this as an opportunity to use herself to fill the gap in the Queen's broken circle of trust, and so she made her next play.

“Changelings are known for trying to imitate those we trust the most. I'm sorry that this was revealed the way it was, but I felt something had to be done.”

Nightmare Moon glanced up, her fuming seeming to bleed off as she did so. Setting herself back upon her velvet seat, she shook her head. “No... you should not apologize, for you did the right thing, though this does mean I am now out one Captain of the Guard. Just my luck. I have to wonder if this entire mess is some sort of sick gift that Celestia left behind to entertain me with.”

Twilight felt the need to protest well up inside her, but knew better and chained her personal feelings on the matter. Instead, she continued to make what she hoped was the final move in her gambit. “I don't want to be too presumptuous, your Majesty, but if you could use my aid, I am willing to lend it to you.”

The Queen regarded the unicorn before her. “How is it...,” she began, stopping to think for a moment before she continued. “How is it that you were able to so easily discern that my guard captain was a changeling?”

“It was in her eyes,” Twilight said simply. “I had a suspicion that the prisoner wasn't actually a changeling. The only other likely scenario would have been if the Captain was the actual changeling, since you did say she had been the one that brought the prisoner back. It would make sense then why she allowed me to try my spell, because if I had tried it on the prisoner, it would have failed and would have proven her claim right, allowing her to keep her hidden identity and making me appear like I was one of them.

“But, when you look into somepony's eyes, you can see things that they don't want you to see. When I looked at hers, I saw that she was afraid. Why would she be afraid unless she had a reason to be? She knew that I had figured her out, and her eyes told me everything.”

Nightmare Moon raised her eyebrows as she listened to Twilight's explanation. “You are much more than you appear to be, Twilight Sparkle. We would dare say that our meeting is no accident.” She rose from her seat behind the table to her full royal stature to make her request. “Would you be capable of teaching these spells that you know to the spell casters among our Nightguard?”

“Teaching them the basics should be simple enough. Also, I may have some thoughts on how we could proceed with the hive.”

The Queen nodded. “We will consider your offer of council. For now, we will make arrangements for you and your companions to remain here so you may begin the training. Sergeant!” The Sergeant entered the tent as she was called, quickly bending her knee to the Queen. “Miss Sparkle and her companions will be staying with us. See to it that they receive a tent and proper provisions.”

“By your will,” the Sergeant said before she quickly left.

The Queen stepped out from behind the table, moving herself to stand just before Twilight. “We look forward to hearing some good news in the near future. Succeed, and you will be rewarded.”

Hours had passed since Twilight's friends found themselves ushered to a tent by one of the guards, being told that they were staying at the camp for the foreseeable future. They had been provided with a single tent large enough for their entire group, the ground having half a dozen bed rolls laid out in two equal rows of three on either side of the center. At the center of the tent, Rainbow was roaming back and forth, her gaze glancing to the tent's entrance each time she passed by it.

Applejack laid on one of the bedrolls near the entrance, and was following Rainbow Dash with her eyes as she traced her back and forth path. “Sugarcube, I think yer about to wear out the ground.”

“I can't help it!” Rainbow only paused for a short second before she continued to pace.

Rarity tried to offer some calming words of her own from the other side of the tent. “I'm sure Twilight was just held up, she seemed to have things well in hoof.”

Rainbow spun around to glare back at Rarity. “Well in hoof!? You call what we saw well in hoof?”

Just then, the tent flap flipped open, and Twilight peered in. A relieved smile seemed to cross her muzzle at the sight of her friends as she stepped into the tent. However, she jerked her neck back when a rainbow blur nearly ran face first into her. Staring back hard at her, Rainbow Dash opened her mouth to let Twilight know exactly what she thought about this situation, but was silenced when Twilight quickly pushed her hoof against Rainbow's muzzle.

“Wait, they'll hear you,” Twilight said quietly, fearful that her friend was about to let go a major frustration venting. Rainbow glared back over the hoof, but remained silent. Twilight lit her horn, casting a spell that seemed to cause the outline of the tent to shimmer, and then a light snapping sound was heard. Lowering her hoof, she nodded as the magical aura on her horn died out. “Okay, we can talk now. Nopony outside can hear a word we say in here.”

“So we don't have to whisper or anything?” Rainbow asked.

“Right, we can talk openly about this.”

“Alright,” Rainbow said, and then took a deep calming breath in through her nostrils as she closed her eyes. However, instead of calming her nerves, her eyes shot back open and glared back at Twilight angrily. “Just what the hay do you think you're doing!?”

“Dash,” Twilight said with a cautioned tone.

“You said they can't hear us!”

“Well they can't! But there's no reason to yell in my face. I'm standing right here.”

Applejack stood from her spot nearby, walking toward the two arguing ponies and putting herself somewhat between them. “Ah think what Dash is tryin’ to say, Twi, is that we're all kinda wonderin’ why we're just hangin’ out here with the Queen and the Nightguard. Seems kinda backwards from what we were plannin’ earlier today.”

Twilight let go an exhausted sigh as she walked over to one of the vacant bed rolls in the back corner of the tent, taking a moment to lay herself down to rest her tired legs. All of her friend's eyes were on her, waiting for some sort of answer. “I know, I really haven't been keeping you guys in the loop. I wasn't trying to leave you guys out in the cold on this, but I couldn't really stop in the middle of it all and explain what I was planning with guards staring at us. I mean, just this morning, I figured that we could just start retracing the same hoofsteps that I remembered us going through before, and that somehow all of this would start to make some sense. There was only supposed to be an empty castle out here and maybe an Everfree Forest monster or two. To be honest, I would have welcomed having to deal with a hydra instead of this mess.

“But things have changed....” Twilight lingered on that thought for a moment, seeming to gaze off at nothing ahead of herself. She then focused back on her friends. “I'm trying to do the best I can here, but I don't want to drag any of you into this mess with me, so maybe I can talk with Nightmare Moon again. I could see if she could get you guys safe passage back to Ponyville.”

Rainbow's wings flared open as she stomped at the ground. “What are you talking about!? So now because things aren't going the way you like you're just going to shoo us off?”

Twilight raised her forehooves slightly in front of herself, waving them defensively. “No, I-I just don't want to put any of you in danger.”

“But what about you, darling?” Rarity asked. “If you were left all to yourself here, how would that make anything less dangerous for you? Wouldn't that just be more dangerous?”

“Yeah!” Pinkie spoke up as she sat up quickly. “We can't just let you do this all alone! That would be boring, and scary, and sad. And besides, even a princess needs somepony to watch her back, right?”

“I don't really like it out here,” Fluttershy began, quietly speaking from where she was laying at the opposite back corner of the tent. “But, I don't think I could live with myself if we just left you out here by yourself.”

“You got that right,” Applejack said with a nod to Fluttershy. “I recon none of us would feel right about just leavin’ Twi here to take care of this all by her lonesome.”

Rainbow Dash sat back and stared at Twilight, her forelegs crossed across her chest. “You dragged us out here. You ain't getting rid of us that easy.” She maintained her frowning stare at Twilight for a moment longer, until Twilight finally cracked a smile with a small laugh. At the same time, Rainbow grinned back.

“Thanks, I needed that,” Twilight said as she pushed herself to sit up. “I don't know what I was thinking. Of course I really don't want to do this alone. I guess I just got so use to taking care of problems on my own over the years, I forgot what it was like to rely on somepony.”

Applejack nodded. “Well, so long as yer here, you should rely on us a bit more.”

“Yeah, so what's the big plan then?” Rainbow said as she approached and sat down right in front of Twilight. “I mean, you do have a plan, right?” The rest of the mares huddled in a bit closer to hear about this big master plan.

“To be honest, I'm kind of making this up as I go along.” Twilight saw the expressions on her friend's faces fall a bit. Not wanting to disappoint them, she tried to give them something reassuring. “I'm sure I can think of something to get us into the hive safely, I just haven't thought of it yet.”

Rarity batted her eyelashes and tilted her head in thought. “Didn't you say earlier that a pony would have to be crazy to want to go in one of those things?”

“I... did say that didn't I?” Twilight admitted.

“Well, alright,” Applejack said as she shrugged her shoulders. “Why are we thinkin about doin something crazy then?”

“Because, that's where the Elements should be,” Twilight said, matter-of-fact like.

“And we need those so we can take on Queen Meany!” Pinkie said in a cheer.

“Well, yes that's one possibility. I mean, we definitely don't want Nightmare Moon to have the Elements, since they are the one thing that could help us free Princess Celestia. You see, Nightmare Moon was defeated by the Elements one thousand years ago, when Celestia chose to wield them all at once against her. She used the power of the Elements to construct a prison spell that could hold a very powerful alicorn. Unfortunately, Nightmare Moon found a way to escape from it, and reverse it so it would trap Celestia within the sun instead.”

Pinkie's eyes went wide as she tried to comprehend what being trapped in the sun would be like. “She's trapped in the sun? That must be really warm.”

Twilight gave a light laugh before she continued to explain. “Yes, well, that's how I remember it happening. Just as Nightmare Moon was trapped within the moon all this time, Celestia would be trapped within the sun now. The only thing that we had that was powerful enough to actually break the prison was the magic that created the prison in the first place.”

Applejack hummed to herself in thought. “So what yer sayin’, is we might be able to just break out Princess Celestia, if we can get our hooves on the Elements?”

“That's really been the ultimate goal all along. I could really use her help right now,” Twilight said simply.

Rainbow cocked one eyebrow as she gave Twilight a questioning glance. “What do you mean? I thought we were going after 'Queen Meany'.”

“Well, Celestia might know something about the changes that are happening or at least be able to help me search for answers, but I won't know for sure until I can talk to her. At the very least, it would make it a lot easier to search for possible answers if I could make use of the history books in the Canterlot Archives, but as long as Nightmare Moon is in control I doubt that is going to be an option. I don't think she would let a stranger just walk into the palace and start going through books to find a glitch in history.”

Rainbow nodded. “Alright, I gotcha. Nightmare Moon is just kinda in the way. Okay, so... lets say we get Princess Celestia back somehow and you princesses put your royal heads together and figure out what's different. Can you fix it?”

There was a long pause as Twilight stared back at the group of mares. “I don't know,” Twilight said as she cast her glance down at the ground. “This is the first time anything like this has ever happened, as far as I know. I'm not sure if there is a way to fix this.” She remained silent for a moment longer, considering the possibility that what she was attempting to do might be completely futile. “I just know I can't leave things as they are. Even if it turns out to be impossible to put things back the way they were, I want to protect Equestria somehow.”

“So no matter what, looks like we're goin in that hive,” Applejack said as she looked around to the other mares.

Twilight nodded once. “That's why I'm teaching my spells to the Nightguard.”

“Ooooh, so we're going to team up with Team Meany?” Pinkie asked.

“Yes, we are. I know it probably doesn't sound like the greatest idea, but the Royal Guard are probably the best group of ponies we could have helping us.”

Rainbow scoffed at that statement. “Sure, except for the fact that they work for Nightmare Moon now.”

“I'm sure you have something in mind that will get us to the Elements first,” Rarity said, raising another point about the plan.

“Actually, I do,” Twilight said with a smile. “You.”

Rarity tilted her head a bit. “Me?”

“Can you use your gem finding spell really quick?”

Rarity blink-blinked at the sudden request. “Oh. Well, of course, but I doubt I'll find anything here.” She took a few seconds to concentrate, and her horn began to glow with a light blue aura. “Wait, there is something here! It's,” Rarity stood, walking toward where she sensed the pull coming from. She walked right up to Twilight, looking right into her eyes, seeming a bit confused at what she was sensing. “It's you! But how can that be?”

Twilight grinned as she pointed a hoof up to the top of her head where she kept the Element of Magic magically hidden from view. Rarity's muzzle formed into an 'Oh' as she understood.

“So Rares can find the Elements with her magic,” Applejack said. “That's nifty.”

“I have a question,” Fluttershy spoke up softly. “If we do go inside, and we find changelings while we are in there... or they find us... what will happen to them?”

Leave it to Fluttershy to ask the hard question. Twilight thought for a moment as she tried to think of the best way she could put this, knowing full well that there really wasn't a good way. “I'm not going to ask anypony to do something that she isn't comfortable with. We're not here to fight changelings, we're here for the Elements. However, I won't hesitate to use my magic to stop the changelings from hurting us. It won't kill them, it will just stun them and leave them vulnerable. But, I can't say for sure what the Nightguard will do with my magic once I teach it to them.”

Fluttershy fidgeted with the corner of her bedroll as she stared down at it. “I don't think I like that.”

“I know, but I really don't have a choice. The hive could have thousands of drones in it. My spell alone wouldn't be enough to protect us against that, so we need as many casters as we can get that know the protection spell. I wish the six of us could just walk up and ask them for the Elements, but I already heard of guards getting ambushed and disappearing in the woods so I doubt we can reason with them, and I don't want to chance it. I think it would be safer to go with as many Nightguard as possible. Once the Nightguard get us inside, we'll just need to try to get to the Elements first, and then get out.”

“Get out? Why not blast the Queen right then?” Rainbow asked as she shrugged her shoulders.

“Because, she'll probably be surrounded by her guards, and we can't very well just blast them too. We might also have changelings all over us if things get hectic. I think our best bet will be to get the Elements and escape as fast as possible, hopefully before anypony realizes what we're up too.”

“I'd say that sound like a plan then,” Applejack said with a confident nod.

“We could be here awhile,” Twilight said as she thought about the setup that this plan would entail. “It will probably be at least a few days before we can do much of anything. I still have to train the guards, and I need to think of something to tell Nightmare Moon. I told her earlier that I would help her figure out a plan to deal with the hive. And we need a way to learn as much as we can about what is inside before we go inside ourselves.”

“Well all of this planning has made me come up with a plan,” Pinkie said as she hopped to her hooves and started walking toward the tent entrance. “I plan to find something to eat. I'm starving!”

Twilight smiled as she too stood and began walking toward the entrance. “Now that is a good plan.”

“What do you think Team Meany has for dinner?” Pinkie asked as she stopped just inside the tent entrance, glancing back at the rest of the group.

Applejack worked her jaw back and forth as she thought about the question. “Probably guard rations of some sort,” she said with a nod.

“Oh! Is that anything like the radishes that you grow on your farm?” Pinkie seemed a bit excited at the possibility.

The farm mare shook her head. “Eh, no. I said rations, not radishes.”

Pinkie seemed a bit disappointed at the answer. “Darn, I like radishes.”

Heart of the Hive

Ouch...

Twilight was suddenly stirred from her sleep by something sharp jabbing her side. She leaned away from the pain and pushed the bedroll's covers up high enough to get a glance at the offending thing. A glint of something metallic shined back at her, and a second later her sleepy mind realized that she had rolled over on top of the Element of Magic that she had been hiding there. After a few seconds more, she fully remembered why she was hiding it there. The translucency cloak that she maintained to hide the crown was easy enough for a spell caster of her ability to manage while she was awake or asleep with very little effort. However, her sleeping subconscious mind had been fully occupied with maintaining control over her dream states lately, for she couldn't risk a stray dream giving herself away to Nightmare Moon. Still feeling the need for more sleep, she pulled the edges of the bedroll's covers back tight over her back and tucked them around under her chin.

“Not much of a morning pony, are ya?”

Twilight's eyes had no more than just slid shut when she heard Rainbow's voice. She considered ignoring it for a brief moment, but then thought better of herself. Turning her head toward where the voice had come from, she blinked her eyes as she glanced to see Rainbow Dash laying near the tent's entryway, who was grinning back with a waving a hoof. “Morning,” she said.

Twilight pushed herself to sit up, trying to respond back with the same greeting but only managing something that was more of a tired groan when her mouth refused to cooperate. She glanced around the inside of the tent, noticing that the rest of the mares were nowhere to be found.

“Where is everyone?” Twilight asked as she rubbed at the stiffness in the side of her neck.

“They got up a couple hours ago.”

Twilight found it hard to believe it was already morning, as she still wasn't used to the lack of a sunrise. Her mind was still trying to convince herself that she should at least have another hour or two of sleep left to go. “Well, guess I should get up then.”

“Yeah, Sergeant Fussyfeathers was here earlier looking for ya, like five times. I finally told her that you were busy and to quit bothering me about it.” Rainbow made a 'shoo, go away' motion with a hoof as she explained her earlier encounters with the guard.

Twilight tilted her head, pondering the nickname that Rainbow had given to Gale, the Sergeant Nightguard that had found their group in the forest days ago. “Gale was here? You shouldn't be hard on her, Dash. She's just doing her job.”

Rainbow clucked her tongue in response. “Yeah well, she 'does her job' too much, it's annoying.”

“I should probably see what she needs,” Twilight said, the end of her sentence tapering off in a yawn. She shook her head, trying to fully shake the sleepy state from her mind. “Do you see anypony close by?”

Rainbow leaned her head a bit toward the tent's entrance, pulling the flap back just slightly to glance outside. “Nah, looks clear.”

Twilight tossed the bed sheet aside and allowed her wings to fully stretch out before tucking them back to her sides. She methodically prepared herself for the day, donning her velvet jacket and perching her crown on her head before her magic made it fade from view. She wondered for a moment how much longer she would have to keep up the unicorn act, and if she was pushing her luck. So far it seemed nopony was even remotely suspicious, but she had worried that somepony might see a stray feather come loose and drop out of her jacket. Luckily there were plenty of pegasus guards around, and finding a colorful feather laying around the camp wasn't anything for them to raise alarm about. However, the urgency to find a solution to getting the Elements within the hooves of her friends was still there. Every day that passed without success was another day they risked being found out. So far, they had successfully made it through three.

“Oh yeah, Fluttershy left you some breakfast there,” Rainbow said as she pointed to something wrapped in a cloth.

Twilight narrowed her eyes at the wrapped block of foodstuff, seeming to hesitate. She had come to associate that shape with something unpleasant in the last few days. “Goodie, more rations that taste like old boot?”

Rainbow snerked at the remark. “Yeah, probably.”

Twilight sighed as she took up and unwrapped the compressed veggie brick and then took a nip from it. It wasn't that it was the most terrible thing to eat in the world, it was just dry and bland. “You know, I think one of the first things I should do when I get back to my own time is check out the guard rations. If they're anything like this then I'll have to get that changed. How can they keep their morale up with this stuff?”

“Who knows,” Rainbow said with a shrug.

Twilight managed to finish off the tasteless veggie brick and then stood to leave. “Thanks for keeping an eye out again. I'm going to go check in with Gale,” she said as she made her way out of the tent.

“Sergeant Gale? You were looking for me?” Twilight trotted up to a group of Nightguard, one of which was the Sergeant. Gale shifted her glance toward Twilight shortly before giving the rest of the guards a quick 'dismissed' order, causing them to disperse.

“I was beginning to wonder if you were going to be busy sleeping through the entire day,” Gale said as she gave Twilight her full attention.

Twilight stopped just in front of Gale, giving her a polite nod. “I'm sorry if Rainbow Dash came across a bit short with you this morning. I mentioned to her that I was feeling exhausted from the training last night.”

“I have heard that the training is going well, so I suppose you do deserve some leniency there. And, I keep having to remind myself that you and your friends are civilians, so the rules of the guard don't really apply to you.” Gale motioned for Twilight to follow her as she began walking toward the perimeter of the camp. “Since you're up now, and since you've become our resident changeling expert here, I wanted to ask your opinion on some strange hive activity.”

“What activity did you notice that was strange?” Twilight asked as she walked along side the Sergeant.

Gale stopped just at the edge of the camp, looking out through the tree line at the moonlit shadow of the hive. Twilight stopped there with her, glancing out at the hive as well. “That there isn't any,” Gale finally answered, causing Twilight's attention to be drawn back to her. “Ever since you revealed the one that took the Captain's place, we haven't seen a single one of them. Before that, we would see at least a few around the hive from a distance almost constantly.”

Twilight tapped a hoof on the ground for a moment as she thought about the strange behavior. “So, they pulled back into the hive?”

“We don't know for sure, because we haven't risked sending anypony in that thing, and I really don't feel comfortable ordering someone on a suicide mission. The ambushes have stopped all together though, so they don't appear to be coming out of the hive anymore. It's possible they all just left, but I don't know if that kind of behavior is normal.”

Twilight shook her head. “I've never heard of a hive suddenly going silent or being abandoned. Have you asked our prisoner about it?”

“We haven't gotten a single thing out if it,” Gale said through a sigh. “The Queen is starting to get desperate for some information. I was actually given the go ahead to get one of our more talented casters to try a reading on it just this morning—”

“No!” Twilight's eyes were wide and somewhat fearful. “Don't do that, it's far too dangerous.”

Gale stared back silently for a moment. Frowning, she asked, “Care to elaborate?”

“Yes, well, changelings communicate with each other with something that is like telepathic magic, but on an enormous scale. It's like they're all telepathically connected to each other all at once, even though something like that would be impossible to do with a magic spell as far as we know. I call it the 'hive mind' effect.

“Since we know so little about how it works, we don't know how to correctly guard ourselves against its effects. Trying to do a reading on the changeling would connect the caster with the hive mind through it, and the assault they could carry out on the caster's mind would be devastating. And, should the hive queen be present... well, lets just say that her suggestions are very compelling. Her thoughts override any sort of individual will that the drones might have and can have a very similar effect on anypony else.”

“So, if this bug queen were to telepathically tell our prisoner not to give us any information...,” Gale started to ask.

Twilight completed the thought for the Sergeant. “Then she wouldn't, even if it meant her death. She simply wouldn't have the choice.”

Gale let go a groaning sigh as she hung her head. “Well, that doesn't make it very useful, does it? Makes me wonder why we're even bothering to keep the thing.”

Twilight silently pondered some possibilities as she stared back out at the hive along with the Sergeant. After a moment of silence between the two, she suddenly came across a possible idea. “We could let her go.”

“Let it go, you mean?” Gale said as she gave Twilight a confused look. “And why would we do that anyway?”

“Two reasons, actually,” Twilight said. “Anything that gets overheard becomes something else that the hive knows, so technically we still have a changeling spy eavesdropping for the hive sitting right here in the camp. The other reason is while the changelings may not be giving us information willingly, there are other methods of getting information magically without any of them even knowing. All it would take is the right set of scrying enchantments discreetly placed on our captive. I happen to know a few.”

“And so their spy becomes our spy,” Gale said as she nodded at the idea. “I think I should have talked to you about this days ago. Well, it sounds like you have a plan in mind, which is more than what I have. We should probably discuss this with her Majesty, since it does involve letting our captive go.”

Convincing Nightmare Moon of the merits of her plan had proven to be very easy for Twilight. At first the Queen had seemed a little hesitant at the notion of letting the prisoner go free, but when she was told that they would in effect be using the changelings’ own spy against them, she had found herself unable to resist the chance. Twilight had even noticed a mischievous grin showing briefly on the Queen’s muzzle, a feature that had reminded her of Princess Luna. For a brief moment, Twilight found herself wondering just how much of Luna was there just under the surface of the Queen’s psyche, and if it were at all possible to reach her without the use of the Elements. It was a fleeting thought that she had quickly put aside.

Twilight had made one final attempt to question the captive drone, but her questions had only been met with silence as she had expected. Afterwards, a group of five guards had accompanied Twilight and Sergeant Gale as they escorted the prisoner in chains to the nearby cliff side. The drone had made no attempts to resist as it was guided to the edge of the cliff. After reaching the edge, it was turned around by the guards to face Twilight and Gale, its back to the long drop below.

Twilight looked into the deep blue compound eyes that stared back at her, noticing a complete lack of emotion looking back. She felt pity for the drone, knowing that it couldn’t fully control its own actions even to attempt to save its own life. “So, you really have nothing that you want to say?” she asked once more.

“Just do what you brought me here to do,” the drone said in response, its voice carrying an almost buzzing resonance as it spoke. It didn't beg, and didn't seem afraid. Instead, it appeared that the drone had accepted what ever its fate may be.

“Very well,” Twilight said with a nod. While her magic worked to undo the chains that held the drone prisoner, a secondary spell came off the tip of her horn like a tiny, nearly transparent blue ribbon. It circled and looped through the air after it left her horn like it was riding a light breeze, and came to rest unseen nor felt behind the drone's ear. Once the shackles were undone and had fallen to the ground, the drone stood there looking at the bindings lying around it, eventually glancing up at Twilight with a questioning glance.

“Leave, before I change my mind,” Twilight said. The drone glanced warily at the other guards to its sides as it backed away a step, and then finally spun around and leaped from the cliff side into the air. Its wings rapidly buzzed as it took off as fast as it could toward the hive. Twilight turned away and began to walk back toward the camp. “I got the spell off unnoticed. We should get a good look at the inside now.”

Twilight's horn glowed with a faint magenta aura as she kept her focus on the map of the Everfree Forest laid out before her. She sat just across the table from Nightmare Moon, who was also focused on the map as she watched Twilight's scrying spell taking shape. Gale watched from her post just inside the entryway of the Queen's command tent.

At the center of the map, a light blue see-through structure was taking shape as a tiny blue dot of light flickered just above the part of the map that depicted the perimeter of the hive. As the small dot moved, more of the air around it filled in with details of the hive's internal structure, revealing a spiral ramp that traced counterclockwise at a slight incline around the central core of the hive. The inside of the hive was many times the height of the ancient ruins of the castle, and encompassed them completely. The hive became smaller in width the higher the dot climbed as it tapered off to the dome on top, and there appeared to be something large suspended inside at the center just above the ruins.

“That's strange,” Twilight commented. “The scrying spell is obviously working, but one of the traits that I worked into the spell should be showing us other changelings that this one sees. Either that part isn't working or there isn't any other changelings.”

“Are you saying that the hive might really be abandoned?” Gale asked.

Just then, the blue dot that had been climbing in altitude made it to the top of the hive, filling in the view of the platform that made up the room just under the hive’s upper dome. There near it, a second blue dot flickered into view.

“Ah, there's one,” Twilight said as she pointed the tip of her hoof at the new dot. The drone’s dot continued to move toward the large object suspended at the center of the hive until it stopped just short of it, and after a moment both of the small blue dots of light vanished leaving only the glowing blue structure of the interior behind.

Gale blinked and squinted from where she was standing. “What happened?”

“I-I'm not sure,” Twilight said as she strained to check the spell's integrity.

The Queen narrowed her eyes at the scrying spell. “Did they disable the spell?”

Twilight quickly shook her head. “No, the spell is still active.” If there had been any form of tampering with the spell, Twilight would have felt it the very moment anything attempted to remove it. The only other option that remained was that her scrying target was somehow no longer in range of the map that the spell had been attuned to. “I think the drone just isn't there any more.”

Gale stepped from her post, coming up beside Twilight as she looked hard at the image floating above the table. “So, are you saying it just vanished?”

Twilight shook her head again as she continued to study the transparent model of the hive's interior. “No, I think it left the area somehow. We just saw the drone deliberately climb all the way to the top of the hive without stopping and go straight to the tip of this,” Twilight said as she pointed to the top of the large structure suspended in the hive. “There has to be some significance to that.”

“It appears to be a crystal,” Nightmare Moon commented as she eyed the structure in the center of the hive. “A rather large crystal at that. There is a rather dangerous form of magic that involves channeling spells through a focusing crystal to amplify them, though I have never heard of such a thing being attempted with one so large. However, in olden times, teleportation magic was known to be used with such methods to increase the range of the spell, but the method was not very often used. It is tedious to prepare, as another focusing crystal charged with equal power is required at the destination to receive the spell. It was never commonly used since one small mistake in the spell's casting could very easily mean the death of the one being teleported. And, it is also impossible for the caster to teleport themselves through the link, since they have to remain focused on channeling the spell into the crystal for it to work.”

Twilight considered Nightmare Moon's theory as she traced her eyes over the crystal structure suspended at the core of the image. She had spent a great deal of time conversing with Princess Luna about ancient magic over the last two and a half centuries of her life, and knew that she was very knowledgeable about the subject. It seemed reasonable to believe that Nightmare Moon would be equally versed on the subject. “That sounds like a plausible explanation for what we just saw. The large crystal must be there for some reason, and the changelings must be going somewhere. The only form of travel that could move them so quickly that the scrying spell wouldn't see it would have to be a teleportation spell. If the rest already left over the last few days, that would explain why the hive appears to be empty, though I can’t say where they might have gone.”

“Most likely fleeing like cowards. They likely know of our new capabilities,” Nightmare Moon said as she stood from her seat. “Now would be the right time to strike, before they have a chance to return. Sergeant, I want you to ready a detachment of Nightguard to enter the hive.”

Gale quickly bowed to her leader and left to attend to her task. Twilight turned her head to watch as Gale left the command tent, and then brought her attention back to the Queen. “Your Majesty, are you planning on ambushing the changelings when they return?”

“Nay, that is not our intention. The changelings may have something very important to Equestria's history in their possession that must be recovered. Since the hive appears empty, this is the most opportune time to attempt the recovery.”

“I see.” Twilight knew exactly what the ‘something very important’ must be. She had suspected from the beginning that Nightmare Moon's interest in the hive centered around it being located at the last known location of the Elements. It was a desperate move considering that the Queen had only consolidated power under her rule weeks ago, and showed just how much she feared the Elements being in somepony else’s hooves. With the Nightguard being mobilized to recover the Elements, this was going to be the only chance that Twilight would have to get her friends to the Elements first. “My companions and I could accompany Sergeant Gale to help with the search.”

A pleased smile graced the Queen’s muzzle before she spoke. “Of course, we had actually planned on asking for your aid. You and your friends have proven yourselves very capable and trustworthy, and it would be a waste to keep a spell caster of your ability here at the camp. Please, gather your companions and prepare to accompany us into the hive.”

Twilight gave the Queen a short bow before she turned to leave the tent. As she exited, she found herself wrestling with conflicting emotions. She was beginning to feel guilt over deceiving Nightmare Moon, even though she knew this was all ultimately for the better of everypony involved, including the Queen herself. Still, the occasional moments where Luna’s personality seemed to show through to the surface were not making her choices any easier.

The detachment of Nightguard that Gale had chosen to lead into the hive numbered over two dozen, with nearly half being unicorns that had been trained to make use of Twilight’s anti-changeling spells. The rest were evenly split between earth ponies and pegasi. Nightmare Moon had chosen to attend this venture into the hive herself as well.

Twilight had gathered her friends, and together with Nightmare Moon’s Nightguard they had all made their way just inside the hive’s entrance. They found a small, contained world that was unlike their own just inside. The ruins of the ancient castle laid just before them, but suspended over it was a large crystal easily three times as tall as the tallest remaining tower of the ruins, all of which was still fully enclosed by the tall dome-like structure. Instead of darkness, they found the inside of the hive to be lit with yellowish and greenish glows that came from hundreds of luminescent orbs attached to the hive walls and dangling from the above. To their right was the beginnings of the spiral ramp that lead up to flat platforms that seemed to be suspended from the ramp above, many of which connected to and encircled the large crystal in the center. The view was just as much awe inspiring as viewing the ivory spiers of the Canterlot Palace.

The group had chosen to venture into the ruins of the castle first, finding the pedestal that the Elements should have been resting on, but finding the pedestal empty. Twilight had asked Rarity to discreetly check for the location of the Elements shortly after they had arrived within the hive, and after a short burst of her gem finding magic Rarity was able to confirm that they were somewhere within the hive above them. Twilight brought out the map that she had attuned to her scrying spell earlier, drawing some gawking stares from the other ponies around her as she studied the three dimensional structure that hovered just above it.

“It’s possible that the relics were moved, so they could be more easily protected,” Twilight reasoned as she looked the map over. In her mind, she considered the most likely location to be the very top, but she didn’t volunteer that information. She wanted to give Rarity the chance to try and pinpoint the location of the Elements as they neared them, and then find a reason to split off from the main group to collect them without the Nightguard knowing. A simple plan, but simple was usually best when the option was available.

“A sound observation,” Nightmare Moon said in response. “We should check the upper levels then. Let us move quickly.”

The group moved as one, sticking together on the wide ramp since most of them were ground bound and nopony wanted to risk anypony being out of range of the protective spells. Twilight and her group of friends had clustered fairly close to each other next to the group of Nightguard as they all ascended the first length of ramp that lead up to the nearest platform. For many long minutes, the only sound was the echo of nearly three dozen sets of hooves walking through the otherwise empty hive.

“So,” Rainbow Dash said as she glanced down at the ramp. “How did they make all this?”

Twilight glanced to her side, raising an eyebrow at the question. “You really wanna know?” When her friend silently nodded back, Twilight hummed to herself for a second as she considered the best way to describe it. “Well, they use these secretions that harden—”

“Dah!” Rainbow yelped as she suddenly lifted off a few inches, hovering just above the ramp.

“Ew! Ew ew ew,” Rarity said as she danced on her hoof tips trying to touch as little of the ramp as possible.

“It’s hardened, you can’t get any of it on you,” Twilight said as she rolled her eyes and tapped a forehoof against the ramp.

“Still! Nopony mentioned anything about walking on secretions, hardened or otherwise.” Rarity let go a harumph, still trying to touch the ramp as little as possible as she balanced on one foreleg and one back leg.

“That is a lotta secretions,” Pinkie said as she looked up at the where the spiraling ramp lead.

Twilight glanced up at the winding walkway as well. “Actually, most of it is just dirt from around the area. They mix the dirt in to make a building material that can be formed into just about any shape, but it’s hard as a rock when it dries. It’s pretty amazing if you think about it.”

“It’s just like how some of the little wasps and bees make their homes,” Fluttershy said as she glanced around curiously. The usually skittish pegasus had actually seemed very interested in seeing the inside of the hive, much like she how she took interest in many things in nature.

Rarity finally relented and allowed her hooves to rest on the floor again. “Well, I suppose if you think of it that way, it doesn’t seem so bad.”

The group pressed on and made it to the first platform. This one stretched from the ramp to just under the crystal in an oval shape. As the group walked onto the platform, they could see something partially hidden in the dim shadows of the giant crystal. It seemed to move and shift slightly, and glisten from the glowing lights illuminating the area. As they approached it, its full appearance became easier to discern. It seemed to be some sort of large mass that was connected to the very bottom of the crystal. Large veins snaked across its surface and latched onto the crystal and the platform, connecting the two. It pulsed in a slow, steady rhythm. The group stopped many paces away from it, staring on with a mix of curious and disgusted expressions.

“Oooh... ew,” Rarity said as an involuntary shiver shook her entire body.

“Yep,” Applejack said with a quick nod. “I have’ta agree with Rares on this one. That is one big ball of ew.”

Gale took a few cautious steps closer to the pulsing mass. “So, what is it?” she asked with a curious glance back to Twilight.

Twilight blinked back and forth between Gale and the unidentified thing. “I have no idea,” she finally said. When she saw the frown that Gale returned on that answer she added, “Hey, this is my first time in a hive too. My best guess is it’s something we shouldn’t disturb.”

“Agreed,” Nightmare Moon said as she turned away from the sight. “Let us not dawdle here. We have doubts this has anything to do with our goal.” With that soundly decided, the group turned and made their way back to the spiral ramp to follow it up to the next platform.

As the group made their way around the ramp to the next stop, they could see that it was actually more of a suspended dome than a flat platform. It was shaped in such a way that it looked like the changelings had taken a large, wide platform and folded the edges of it up and around the crystal to create the dome, leaving an enclosure with an opening facing the ramp. They cautiously stepped just within the opening, and found a room that was like a miniature version of the hive with the same lighting hanging from the walls and rounded ceiling. It was hard to tell where the floor ended and the walls began since they gently sloped into each other, and the same could be said about where the walls and ceiling met. At the opposite end of the room, a glow from the light being refracted by the side of the crystal caused faint reflections of green and yellow light to dance through the room.

Also within the room were many cylindrical objects that laid up against the sloped walls. They each laid in a groove in the wall that seemed to be shaped perfectly for holding them. Closer inspection revealed that they appeared to move ever so slightly.

“Are these... eggs?” Rainbow asked as she hovered a hoof near one of the objects.

“Don’t touch that,” Twilight said as she reached over and pulled on Rainbow’s shoulder a bit. “I doubt they’re eggs. They’re far too big to be.”

“Cocoons,” Nightmare Moon simply said, drawing everypony’s attention to her. “What you see here is how these beings spread their curse.” Most of the ponies in the room felt a sense of dread wash over them at the realization of what the Queen had just revealed. The suffocating tension was only broken by a small giggle from the side of the room.

Pinkie poked the middle of one of the cocoons with the tip of her forehoof, and giggled when she saw it ‘poke’ back at her. She kept repeating this, her laughter getting a bit more uncontrolled each time the cocoon responded to her touch. She only stopped when she finally noticed somepony was calling out her name in a strained whisper.

“Pinkie!” Twilight said like an embarrassed mother trying to quietly scold her child in public. Pinkie hummed a questioning note as she turned her head around, and then saw the entire group of ponies staring at her. The range of looks she received were varied between the confused, the disapproving, and the just plain grossed out. Twilight slowly shook her head, her lips soundlessly forming the word ‘No’. Pinkie let go a quiet little whimper of disappointment as she hung her head and walked back over to the group.

Nightmare Moon’s eyes followed Pinkie as she plodded back over. “We should probably refrain from disturbing these as well,” she said simply as she maintained her gaze on Pinkie for a few seconds longer. She then turned away to lead the group out of the room. “Let us continue our search further into the hive.”

Most of the platforms that were suspended higher in the hive lacked anything of interest, which was to say they lacked the relics they were searching for. They pressed on until they came to a large platform that encircled the upper mid section of the crystal, the last one before the very top level. The group crossed a bridge that spanned the gap between the ramp and the circular platform, gathering at the other side.

“Um... girls.” Fluttershy pointed a hoof up as her wide eyes darted about, glancing at something above.

Rainbow quickly glanced up as well, and gasped when she saw the ceiling. “Whoa....”

Everypony’s attention was drawn upward. There above the group was a ceiling full of dangling casings. The eerie illumination inside the hive caused them to appear to have a dim greenish glow. There were dozens, perhaps even a hundred or more just hanging there.

“What are they?” one of the stallions among the group asked.

“Victims,” Twilight said simply, drawing most of the groups attention to her. “Anypony that they’ve captured is likely in one of those things.”

“Our missing scouts, and the Captain,” Gale said as she looked out at the dozens of hanging casings. “But there’s way too many.”

“I’m sure the changelings have quite a few more victims than the guards they ambushed,” Twilight said as she walked into the room.

Nightmare Moon walked up next to Gale, looking down to her. “Sergeant, check them,” she said as she nodded up toward the ceiling.

Gale quickly commanded another half dozen pegasi to join her as she took to the air. The guards began to search each of the casings, looking for anypony recognizable.

“This is one of the scouts!” one of the pegasi called out, drawing the rest of the group on the ground nearby.

“Try to loosen it at the top, but don’t crack the casing,” Twilight said as she positioned herself just below. Three of the pegasi guards flew up to the top of the casing, finding where it was attached to the ceiling. They began to work at prying the casing loose where the top thinned down to a single hardened shaft that stuck to the ceiling above. After working it back and forth, it began to peel loose from the ceiling, and after a few more swings it fully came loose with a snap. The casing dropped quickly quite a few inches before Twilight grabbed it with her levitation spell and then gently lowered it to the ground. Gale landed just next to the casing, squinting through the semi-transparent walls at a Nightguard trapped inside. “We need to be very careful when we open this,” Twilight said.

“There’s another here! I think it’s the Captain!” another pegasus called out.

Twilight quickly moved to position herself to help catch the next casing. She kept her focus on the dangling casing above her as the guards worked it loose. Like the previous one, it came loose with a snap and Twilight quickly grabbed it with her levitation spell to begin safely lowering it to the ground. However, she caught something else just barely out of her peripherals. Glancing to her side, she could see Gale placing a forehoof on the side of the other casing, and her touch was making it roll. “Hey, I said be careful!” Twilight called out, unable to otherwise act as she strained to maintain her levitation magic.

The casing suddenly shifted out from under Gale’s touch and rolled over a few times, coming to a sudden stop next to Fluttershy when it hit an uneven spot on the floor. The hardened green casing let out a cracking sound when it stopped, and a hiss of gas escaping from the inside followed a green puff of air that shot out directly into Fluttershy's face. She coughed and gagged as her lungs involuntarily constricted to try and purge the vapor that she had accidentally inhaled. She stumbled away only a few steps before she lost her balance and fell, sprawled out on her back.

Rainbow Dash was there near instantly, landing right next her and trying to prop her head up so she could get air. Fluttershy wheezed as she tried to fill her lungs with fresh air and flailed her forelegs about like somepony that was drowning. Some of the Nightguard and Fluttershy's friends had quickly gathered nearby, but none of them knew what they could do in this situation as they looked on helplessly. “She needs help!” Rainbow frantically called out.

Twilight had managed to finish handling the casing she had been levitating to the ground as quickly as she could without breaking it, and then galloped over. “Hold her up,” Twilight said as she sat down in front of Fluttershy, to which Rainbow quickly pulled her up so she had her back against Rainbow's chest. Casting a light spell from her horn, Twilight began to try to check her friend, gently placing a hoof on either side of Fluttershy's face to hold her steady. “Fluttershy? Look at me, okay? You're going to be alright, just try to breath,” she said as she tried to examine her for any symptoms.

Fluttershy drew in many wide mouth gaping breaths, her voice wheezing as she did so. “Twiliiiight,” Fluttershy weakly drawled out in a shaky voice as her wide eyes wandered around aimlessly, not focusing on anything. Despite the bright light coming from Twilight's horn, her pupils were fully dilated.

“It's okay, I'm right here. We're all right here,” Twilight said as she tried to keep her friend calm. Fluttershy’s forelegs had managed to find Twilight’s and were now holding on as if her life depended on it.

Twilight felt a light touch on her shoulder, and glanced back to see Rarity staring back looking both concerned and a bit terrified. “Is she going to be alright?” she asked.

“She'll be alright,” Twilight said as she and Rainbow continued to hold Fluttershy steady. “The vapor doesn't do any permanent harm, but it will make her hallucinate. Since she was only exposed for a second it shouldn't last too long, but she needs to rest until this wears off.”

“It's bright,” Fluttershy complained as she blinked her eyes against the bright light coming from Twilight’s horn. Twilight let her light spell fade, and helped Rainbow as they laid Fluttershy down to get her more comfortable. Her eyes wandered about as she laid there on her belly, seeming to be following something in her field of view. “Do you see that?” She slowly asked nopony in particular.

“What do you see?” Twilight asked as she gently rest one of her hooves just on top of Fluttershy’s.

Fluttershy slowly swung her head around to look up at Twilight, which in itself was a good sign. “It's pretty,” she finally said after a short moment of staring.

Rainbow Dash glanced down at her friend with a worried look for a moment before she turned her head to look over her shoulder, catching the gaze of Sergeant Gale. Her expression suddenly contorted into anger, and she began to stand but was very quickly stopped when Twilight reached out and put a hoof on her shoulder.

“Dash, what are you doing?” Twilight asked quietly, knowing full well what her friend’s intentions likely were.

“I’m going to go rip her a new one,” Rainbow growled in a whisper as she glared at the Sergeant.

Twilight kept her grip on her angry friend, shaking her shoulder to draw her attention back. Quietly, she whispered, “We don't need a fight right now. Just let me handle it.” Rainbow stared back at Twilight for a few seconds, finally jerking her shoulder away from Twilight's touch but otherwise remained there saying nothing. “Just watch over Fluttershy. She needs you right now, okay?”

“Fine,” Rainbow grumbled as she laid down next Fluttershy.

Twilight let go a sigh as she stood and walked over to Gale. The Sergeant met her halfway, still looking on where Fluttershy was laying. “Is she going to be alright?” Gale asked.

Twilight nodded. “Yes, she just needs to ride it out. The vapor just causes hallucinations. Nothing too serious.”

Gale let out a calming breath. “Well, that's a relief. The way your friend looked at me I was worried I had done something absolutely horrible to her.”

“She's... protective of her friends,” Twilight said as she glanced back over her shoulder at Rainbow Dash. She could see Rainbow saying something to Fluttershy, the former resting a foreleg over her friend’s withers. “You might want to stay clear of her until she has time to cool off,” Twilight warned, turning her glance back to Gale.

“Understood,” Gale said with a solemn nod. “I do completely understand. I was careless, and I apologize.”

“We’re all just lucky it wasn’t serious,” Twilight said, and then took a moment to reflect on the situation. She knew they had to be closing in on the location of the Elements. There wasn’t much of the hive left to search, and every time Rarity had used her magic she had always detected the Elements being further up.

Fluttershy was in no condition to be moved, and likely wouldn’t be for at least a while longer. This had happened at the worst possible moment. The only thing keeping the Nightguard from finding the Elements before them now was the impromptu rescue effort.

The group continued to search for and save the Nightguard that they could find among the hanging casings. They had began to open the casings from a safe distance, using unicorn telekinesis to break the casings open without exposing anypony else to the fumes that escaped. The rescued guards seemed to be in a comatose state, completely unresponsive to any sound, touch, or sight for quite awhile even after they had been removed from the casings. Only a few of the guards that had been freed first were even beginning to show signs of consciousness.

Nightmare Moon had made a point of having her own Nightguard prioritised in the search, claiming that the rest of the changelings’ victims could be rescued at a later time when they were more prepared to handle it. This cut down the amount of time Twilight had left to come up with a plan considerably. After all of the missing Nightguard had been successfully accounted for, Twilight gathered with her friends near where Fluttershy had been resting, and after checking to see that they were safely out of earshot she spoke to them about their next move.

“How is Fluttershy doing?” Twilight asked first.

“I’m good, I’m doing reaaaally good,” Fluttershy said as she pushed herself up with her forehooves. Rainbow quickly tried to steady her when she wobbled suddenly, nearly losing herself.

Pinkie drew in a hiss of air when she saw Fluttershy nearly go into a face plant. “You don’t look really good.”

“No no, I’m okay now,” Fluttershy declared somewhat more loudly than her normal speaking voice. “We can go find the El-”

Twilight quickly cupped a hoof over Fluttershy’s mouth, causing a muffled squeak to escape from her. “That’s our little secret, remember?” Twilight said quietly through clenched teeth.

“Oooooh yeah,” Fluttershy said as her eyes traced through the air following something. “Sorry,” she whispered quietly.

“Uh, she ain’t all there yet, is she?” Applejack asked.

“I’m all here,” Fluttershy said with a scowl as her head wobbally swung around to face Applejack, who just gave a deadpan stare back for a few seconds before her eyes shifted over to Twilight.

“Okay, new plan then,” Twilight said as she rubbed her temples with her hooves. “I think Fluttershy should rest a bit more—”

“I’m fiiiiine,” Fluttershy whined in protest.

“—and I think Rainbow should stay with her so she stays out of trouble.” Twilight lowered her voice to a whisper, leaning into the group a bit as she did. “We can’t just wait around through. Nightmare Moon will want to continue the search as soon as possible, but I think I can convince her to send the rest of us on the search instead of her guards. If we can find out exactly where the Elements are, we might be able to keep the guards from searching there long enough for Fluttershy to clear her head.”

“We’re kinda runnin’ out of hive to search though, ain’t we?” Applejack brought up a good point. There wasn’t much left to the hive that could be searched. The ramp circled up to its end at the ceiling just above them, which was the last platform.

“I know, but we still have to find them first. Things will get really complicated if the Nightguard locate them before we do.”

“Well, stop talking about it and get going,” Rainbow said as she nudged Twilight’s shoulder. “I’ll make sure Fluttershy stays put.” With that, the rest of the mares left Rainbow to care for Fluttershy in their absence.

Twilight approached Nightmare Moon along with Rarity, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie to ask for permission to continue searching the hive. She claimed that her group could scout ahead, unseen if necessary, and report back with any findings while the Nightguard focused on giving the recovering guards the attention they needed. After the short discussion with the Queen, the group of four were on their way, tasked with scouting ahead to find the lost relics.

“How close are we now, Rarity?” Twilight asked.

Rarity lit her horn, pursing her lips as she concentrated on reading the location through her spell. “Very close,” she said as she let the spell fade away. “They’re still a bit above us, but it won’t be long now and we should be there.”

“So when we get there, how we gonna get all the Elements outta here without anypony else knowin?” Applejack asked as she cocked her head in a side glance to the other mares with her. “We can’t just run out with em and leave Dash and Fluttershy here, and I’m pretty sure we ain’t got a way to hide em on us to sneak em out, unless you think we can stuff em in our manes or somethin.”

“No, I doubt that would work,” Twilight said with a shake of her head. “I’m still working on that part of the plan. I had actually thought I could shroud them like I do mine, but without Rainbow and Fluttershy here to claim theirs, that kind of makes that not possible.”

Pinkie stopped for a short second, sitting back on her haunches as she scratched at her chin in thought. She then jumped back to her hooves when an idea hit her. “Oh! We could play ‘Hide the Elements!’ Just move them somewhere where nopony would think to find them, and come back and get them later!”

“That’s... actually not a bad idea,” Twilight said as she considered the possibility. “But, there’s a good chance that Nightmare Moon won’t leave until she has the Elements. Right now most of the guards are still distracted with helping the victims, but eventually they’ll all be back to searching this place. I get the feeling that Nightmare Moon will have this entire hive torn apart to find them if necessary.”

The group quietly continued their ascent for a moment longer, each of them seeming to be buried in their own thoughts. Rarity let go a long hum before she spoke up again. “Could Fluttershy be well enough to join us before then?”

“I hope so,” Twilight said, “otherwise this is going to be nearly impossible to pull off without getting caught.”

The group rounded a final corner where the spiral ramp turned toward the center of the hive. They ascended into the circular room created by the final huge platform that stretched from wall to wall just under the hive’s top most dome. They could see the top of the enormous crystal that jutted out of the floor at the center of the platform coming into view as they walked the final steps of the ramp.

Circling in the air just above the tip of the crystal were five geodes, each one carved with a uniquely shaped likeness of a gem on its surface. “We found them,” Twilight said as a smile spread across her muzzle.

However, just as the mares made it to the top of the ramp, they all suddenly stopped when they saw something else there near the center of the room. A tall changeling stood there, her back to the group of mares as she focused on a spell that she was channeling into the crystal. Her transparent wings spread out to her sides and shifted in a light breeze along with the fine hairs of her dull blue mane and tail. As if sensing something’s presence, she allowed her spell to fade and turned to look behind herself at the group of mares that had just arrived.

“Chrysalis,” Twilight said in a quiet breath. She knew the hive would have a queen; every changeling hive did, though she had hoped with the hive being abandoned that they wouldn’t have to face one. She had learned over the years that Chrysalis wasn’t the only changeling queen, but that all others seemed to answer to her. Before Twilight and her friends stood not just the queen of this hive, but the high queen of all changelings. However, an unexpected question came forth from her.

“Why are there only four of you?”

Moonlit Memories

“There should be two others with you,” Chrysalis said as her eyes locked squarely on Twilight, who returned the glance by narrowing her own at the Changeling Queen. A tiny voice in the back of Twilight’s mind was already telling her that something about this encounter wasn’t right.

Chrysalis turned herself to look up to the five Elements that slowly circled the top of the crystal above. “This isn’t ideal, but I suppose those of you who are here can claim the Element that you each represent.” Her horn lit with a green aura, and the giant crystal gave out a single pulse of green light within the room. The Elements then descended from above the crystal, circling down to the ground to land in a neat line just before her.

“You three should find yours here,” Chrysalis said as she gestured to Twilight’s friends. “We should get the remaining two to their bearers as soon as possible.”

Twilight was fully focused on trying to read Chrysalis’s intentions. She had only ever known Chrysalis to be an enemy of Equestria, but here she was now readily giving up the Elements to a group of mares that she had never met, and should have no prior knowledge of. She had witnessed Chrysalis channeling some sort of unidentified spell on the Elements through the crystal when they had walked into the room, and then there was also the unexplained presence of the hive within Equestria’s borders, the victims within it, and the sudden complete lack of changelings the last few days. There were far too many strange things that didn’t add up to a clear answer. But the one thing that had really caused Twilight to feel alarmed was that Chrysalis seemed to know more about the Elements’ bearers than she should. Somehow, Chrysalis had known that only Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie could claim an Element from the five available. Her instincts were screaming the same three words over and over in her mind.

Don’t. Trust. Her.

“Don’t touch the Elements,” Twilight finally said, holding a foreleg out to her side to keep her friends from advancing forward. “She’s done something to them.” She had no proof of her claim, but she could feel in her gut that something was wrong. It was the same feeling as the first time she had encountered Chrysalis over two centuries ago, and she had been right then. She felt no reason not to trust her instincts now.

“Done something...?” Chrysalis seemed to stare back in shock at the accusation for a moment, before she tried to defend her actions. “What is it that I have done? Can you not see that I am trying to help?”

Twilight decided to make an attempt to drag an answer for Chrysalis’s unexplainable knowledge out in the open. “How did you know there were six of us? There are only five Elements, so there is no possible way you could have known there are six bearers.”

Chrysalis grit her teeth, her sharp fangs showing for a second before she made an attempt to answer. “I-I was told, the sixth is hidden. It will reveal itself when the other five are present.”

Twilight wasn’t done yet. She raised an eyebrow as she tossed another carefully baited question out. “Then how did you know the hidden one belonged to me?”

“Well, I merely overheard, through my informant that you revealed within the camp. I’m sure you already know I am connected with all of my drones. What they know, I also know.”

Twilight knew that Chrysalis’s claim about knowing what her drones knew was true enough, but the rest couldn’t be. Twilight set her jaw, her mouth forming a thin line on her muzzle. She had found the shred of proof she had been looking for. “Funny...,” she began as she stared Chrysalis down from across the room, “I don’t think we spoke a word about the Elements outside our tent. Nopony should have heard a thing through the sound dampening enchantment I placed on it.”

Chrysalis seemed shocked into silence by the revelation that she had been caught in a lie. Her voice cracked as she strained for a few seconds to find something she could say. “I-I can explain,” she finally said in a pleading voice.

“I’m not interested in more lies,” Twilight said plainly, causing Chrysalis to stammer. Making a quick decision, Twilight raised her voice, calling back over her shoulder toward the ramp. “I need some help up here!” It was a gamble, but she felt there was no other choice. If the Elements had somehow been tampered with, she could not risk her friends touching them, and she simply couldn’t let Chrysalis go free if she was going to find out the truth. There was a chance Chrysalis would try to reveal them to Nightmare Moon, to make a claim that she knew their true intentions for being there. However, if she did she would be revealing whatever secrets she was hiding at the same time, as she would have to come up with proof of her claim. Twilight figured that at worst, it would end up being her word against the word of a changeling, which was in her favor.

“Twi, you sure about this?” Applejack asked, glancing between Twilight and the Elements that rest across the room. “We’ll lose the Elements.”

“I know... but I can’t let you chance it,” Twilight said as she kept her gaze focused ahead. “I’m sorry, but we just can’t trust her. She’s hiding something from us.”

Chrysalis began to step forward, a flash of anger twisting her face into a scowl. “You are making a mistake!” she said hotly, her fangs glinting in the dim lighting.

“Don’t!” Twilight snapped with a stamp of her hoof, causing an echo through the room as her horn suddenly lit with a bright white pinpoint of light, causing Chrysalis to freeze mid step. “Not a single hoof closer. If you even come an inch closer to my friends you’ll be regretting it for weeks.” The stone cold stare that Twilight gave Chrysalis conveyed her intentions to make good on her threat. For her part, Chrysalis wisely decided not to advance any further.

The sound of a group of hooves galloping up the ramp began to echo from behind the four mares. Gale was the first of the Nightguard on the scene, soaring into the room just slightly off the ground. She came to a halt in the air just above the four mares, hovering there for a second as she took in the scene. She dropped to the ground quickly, landing next to Twilight with a loud clack of her hooves. As she did, she glanced back over her shoulder at the group of unicorn and earth pony guards arriving in the room, motioning with her wings to wordlessly direct them to fan out to the right and left in the room. The unicorns among the guard quickly readied their spells as they surrounded the Changeling Queen, the glow from their horns casting a starburst like shadow on the floor around Chrysalis.

“Be careful, she’s the hive queen,” Twilight announced to the Nightguard in the room.

“Have you seen any others?” Gale asked.

Twilight shook her head. “Not yet, but don’t count them out.”

“You won’t find any of my drones here,” Chrysalis said with a sneer. “I sent them away to avoid them being mercilessly slaughtered by these guards.”

“That choice will prove to be your downfall.” The voice had come from the ramp, drawing the attention of nearly everypony in the room. Nightmare Moon ascended the last few steps of the ramp, calmly walking between Twilight and Gale into the protective ring of guards that surrounded the Changeling Queen.

“It has been quite a while, hasn’t it?” Chrysalis said as she locked her eyes on Nightmare Moon. “I see the rumors of just how much you had changed were not exaggerated.”

“Silence!” Nightmare Moon barked out as her eyes flashed at the quick moment of anger. Her word echoed multiple times through the hollow interior of the hive as she continued her advance toward to Chrysalis. Her hoof steps were the only sound until she stopped when she was just a leg length away, where the five Elements rested there on the ground between the two of them. She stared intently at the five Elements resting on the floor for a moment, the prize that she had come to claim, before she looked back up to Chrysalis. “To think that Celestia would have entrusted you with the Elements,” she said, her words dripping with disgust.

Chrysalis stared back silently for a moment, her jaw working back and forth as she ground her teeth. “It bothers you, that she choose me over you... doesn’t it?” she said, a very slight hint of a smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth.

Nightmare Moon’s eyes suddenly widened at the remark. She stood still as a statue for a few seconds, until suddenly she drew in a forceful breath through her nostrils, her entire body shaking as she did so. Her wings flared out to her side suddenly, causing a sudden rush of air, and the resounding crack of her hoof connecting with the side of Chrysalis’s face caused most of the onlookers in the room to flinch. Chrysalis amazingly stayed standing after the strike, only stumbling a single step as her head and neck snapped to the side. After a few gasping breaths, she tilted her head to glare up at Nightmare Moon. “Touched a nerve, did I?”

Nightmare Moon returned the hatefilled gaze with an equal glower of her own. “After what we have seen here... the very thought of either one of you makes us sick.”

Chrysalis swallowed against the pain in her jaw. “What is it you want? You have already won.” She slowly raised her head back up to stare levelly at Nightmare Moon. “Or, were you hoping for a fight to the death? I’m sorry to disappoint you if that is the only reason why you came here. I’m not suicidal. I know you have more power than I do.”

“Then you are a fool for not fleeing when you had the chance. Surrender,” Nightmare Moon demanded.

Chrysalis closed her eyes for a few seconds, a silent sigh escaping from her. She peered down at the Elements at her hooves shortly before looking back to Nightmare Moon. “I surrender to you,” she declared with a slight bow of her head.

“Sergeant.” The word was the only one that needed to be said. Gale took the unspoken command from her queen, quickly directing most of the unicorn guards to surround Chrysalis. Nightmare Moon watched as the Nightguard began to lead the defeated Changeling Queen toward the ramp. “If she tries anything, or if a single one of her misbegotten kind shows their face...,” she lowered her voice nearly to a growl, “make her regret it.”

Twilight and her friends stood aside, allowing the Nightguard to escort Chrysalis past. As they did, the Chrysalis glanced down to Twilight. “You have no idea what you have set into motion, do you?” she asked quietly as she was escorted by. Twilight looked on following the group with her eyes until the Nightguard and Chrysalis were out of sight, the unsettling words continuing to echo through her mind.

“You five, with me,” Gale’s voice echoed through the room. Twilight turned her gaze back to the center of the large room, where Sergeant Gale was gathering together five of the earth pony guards. “Let’s get these relics secured and out of here,” she said as she directed her fellow guards to the Elements. Twilight looked on intently as the guards approached the five geodes resting on the floor. When one of them reached out to touch one of the relics, Twilight found herself letting go a breath she hadn’t realised she was holding. She had been expecting something to possibly happen, but it appeared there was no noticeable reaction to the Elements being touched. The Nightguard worked diligently to collect the relics, helping each other to secure one Element each to their back with lengths of rope.

Twilight glanced up to her side when she noticed that Nightmare Moon had walked up next to her. The Queen watched as her guards gathered the Elements, her current tranquil demeanor sharply contrasting her actions only a moment ago. “I have you to thank for this success,” she quietly said only loud enough for Twilight to hear.

Twilight didn’t particularly feel proud of her actions. A part of her was wondering if her choice had been the right one. Chrysalis hadn’t revealed anything further as she had hoped, and now she could only stand there and watch as her one possible chance to free Celestia was being taken away right before her eyes. “I only called for help, your Majesty,” Twilight said humbly, lowering her head slightly to the monarch.

“You did what was necessary to ensure Equestria’s future.” Nightmare Moon responded by bowing her head slightly in respect to the mare that had helped ensure her victory. “I have not forgotten my word. You shall be rewarded for your service to me, in time.”

Twilight had returned to Ponyville along with her friends the following day. Sergeant Gale had insisted that the Nightguard be allowed to provide an escort through the Everfree, as her way of thanking the group of mares for their help. With the protection of the guards, the trip had been an uneventful one, and also a mostly silent one. Even if their original plan had failed, they each knew that talking about it openly among Nightmare Moon’s Nightguard wouldn’t be wise.

Once they had arrived home in Ponyville, the group had given their thanks for the escort and then decided to find somewhere to talk in private. Applejack’s farm had been chosen, as it was the closest, and the group would likely find the privacy they were looking for within the large red barn on the acreage. Once they had made it there, they made themselves comfortable inside. The few days away from civilization had made them come to appreciate something as simple as a bed of soft hay to relax on.

At first, there didn’t seem to be a lot for the group to talk about. Twilight had remained mostly quiet while the rest of the mares tried to make conversation about their adventure, but the idle chatter gave way to long moments of silence again and again. Eventually, the subject of what they were to do next was brought up, which also lead into talking about the disappointing results of their attempt to recover the Elements. Rainbow Dash had proven to be the most vocal on this particular topic.

“I’m just saying, it was probably the biggest waste of time ever,” Rainbow said as she swiped her hoof through the loose hay in front of her. “I mean, we could have sat on our hooves and accomplished more.”

“Now Dash, that ain’t really true,” Applejack said. She reached over from where she was laying next to Rainbow, and prodded her shoulder. “What about all them ponies that the guards are rescuin’?”

“That isn’t why we went there!” Rainbow grumbled as she flicked Applejack’s touch aside. “I mean yeah, sure, that’s good and all, but did we really have to just hand over the Elements? I mean, I know Fluttershy couldn’t really help out and I had to stay with her, and I’m not saying it’s her fault or anything. But, why just say ‘no’ when the bug queen was trying to give them to us?”

Rarity hummed at her own thoughts, drawing the attention in the room to herself. “Well, it definitely was a sticky situation. I can see why Twilight was weary of this Chrysalis character. She seemed a bit off.”

Pinkie nodded with a quick ‘uh huh’ from where she was resting near Rarity’s side. “There was something kinda funny about her, and not in a ‘funny ha ha’ kind of way either. More like the really creepy ‘I’ve been watching you in your sleep’ kinda funny.” Pinkie lowered her muzzle to the point that she was only peaking out over the top of her forelegs, her eyes shifting back and forth suspiciously. “I mean, it was like she knew we were coming.”

“That doesn’t matter!” Rainbow said as she once again swiped her hoof in front of her, her agitation seeming to grow. “That was probably the best chance we were going to get, and now it’s gone!” Rainbow snorted, the frustrated breath of air causing loose straw to blow across the floor. Her tail flicked quickly from side to side at her agitated state, and her eyes happened to glance over to Twilight, who had spent most of the evening staring at a spot on the floor near herself. “You haven’t said two words all night. What’s the deal? Doesn’t this bug you?”

Twilight glanced up from staring at the floor, looking Rainbow Dash in the eyes for a few seconds while the room went deathly silent. Drawing in a deep breath, she let it go with a long hum as she stood from the bed of hay she had been resting on. She began walking toward the doorway, levitating her jacket over to herself and putting it on as she said, “I think I need to take a walk for a bit. I’ll be back when I can clear my head.” With that, Twilight quietly exited through the door, letting it swing shut to latch on its own.

The rest of the mares looked about at each other wordlessly, each seeming a bit shocked. Rainbow’s voice cracked as she failed to find any words to describe what she was feeling, her hoof gesturing to the doorway. When she finally found her words again, her voice climbed an octave as she asked, “What was that!?”

“Well,” Applejack started as she glanced from the doorway back to Rainbow, “you were kinda raggin’ on her pretty hard tonight, Dash.”

“I was not ‘ragging’ on her. I was just blowing off steam.”

“Sounded like raggin’ to me.”

“Oh so, now we’re going to say this is my fault, huh?”

“Girls,” Rarity interjected. “There’s no reason to fight.”

“We ain’t fightin’, we’re just discussin’ this, ain’t that right?” Applejack said as she looked to Rainbow and shrugged her shoulders.

“Yeah whatever.” Rainbow suddenly took an interest in the floor right in front of her, staring at it as she ground her hoof against the loose hay she found there. “I still think you guys should have gone for it back in the hive,” she grumbled.

“Shoulda coulda, but doesn’t matter much now.”

Rarity leaned herself toward Pinkie Pie, lowering her voice to speak quietly in her ear. “Looks like they’re going to be at this a while, doesn’t it?”

Pinkie nodded her head, letting out a ‘mhmm’ in reply. Rarity shifted on her hay bed, trying to make herself comfortable for what was likely going to be a lengthy session of ‘discussing’ between the two mares. She happened to catch something out of the corner of her eye, and glanced over to the doorway to see Fluttershy quietly making her way towards it. The pegasus rested a hoof on the door’s latch, glancing back into the room and noticing that she was being watched. She seemed to hesitate, glancing back and forth between the doorway and Rarity. Rarity didn’t need an explanation; she smiled to Fluttershy, wordlessly telling her to go on with a quick wave of her hoof. Fluttershy nodded back a silent thank you as she slipped out of the barn otherwise unnoticed.

After making her way to the dirt path just outside the front gates of Sweet Apple Acres, Fluttershy stopped to glanced around at the moonlit scene. The night-time like air was crisp, but the breeze was very light making it easily bearable. The cool air and lack of sunlight had caused a dew to build up, and Fluttershy took notice of a trail of hoof marks that left the path and cut through the grass.

Following the tracks through the dew laden blades, Fluttershy soon found herself topping a hill just on the edge of Ponyville’s park. Only a few more trots away was a park bench and table that the tracks stopped at where Twilight had found a place to be alone with her thoughts. She was sitting at the bench with her chin resting on the table, her forelegs crossed in front of her muzzle as she stared across them at the empty park. Fluttershy cautiously approached, standing off to the side to avoid disturbing Twilight incase she was in the middle of some important deep thinking.

Twilight noticeably flinched when she realized somepony else was there. Her head raised from the table as her ears and eyes snapped toward Fluttershy, but her gaze quickly softened when she noticed who it was. “You sure can be sneaky when you want to be,” she said with a small smile.

Fluttershy retreated a step, drawing a forehoof up against her chest. “Did I startle you? I didn’t mean too,” she said as her ears drooped.

“I know you didn’t mean too,” Twilight said as she tapped a hoof on the bench next to herself. “Have a seat.” Fluttershy took the offer and sat down next to Twilight, who went back to looking out at the moonlit scene. A silence lingered between the two for a short while before Twilight decided to break it. “So, how are you feeling now?”

“Oh! Well, thanks for asking, but I’m perfectly fine now. I’m not seeing butterflies everywhere any more,” Fluttershy said as she gestured at the air around her. “But um... actually I came out here to ask if you are okay. You didn’t look happy when you left. I was a bit worried.”

Twilight shook her head. “You don’t need to worry about me. After everything that I’ve dragged you through, I’m actually surprised you came looking for me.”

Fluttershy furrowed her brow at the comment. “Why would you say that? You haven’t done anything wrong.”

Twilight snorted and scoffed at the remark. “I’ve done nothing wrong, have I? You do realize that all of this is my fault, right?”

“Twilight, you can’t just blame yourself for things out of your control. It isn’t fair to you.”

“Oh, things were well within my control.” Twilight leaned forward to rest her elbows on the table, crossing her forehooves just under her chin and resting on them. She stared straight ahead across the moonlit park silently for a moment as she recalled events from long ago. “The entire reason why the time spell even exists is because of things that were within my control. I’m the Princess of Magic. My destiny has always been to create new magic that would benefit everypony all across Equestria. And at first, that is exactly what I did.

“But, that changed,” Twilight said with a heavy sigh. “I ended up twisting my destiny into a selfish desire, seeking to create magic that I never planned to share with anypony else.”

Twilight paused, taking a moment to consider whether or not she should continue. After the short hesitation, she decided she wanted to share some of her past memories with her friend, if only to lighten the load on her mind. “I already told you guys that I wasn’t always an alicorn. That came later, after we had known each other for a little while. It turns out, one of the things about becoming an alicorn is that you no longer age. Something about embodying all three forms of pony magic that just makes it stop. I’ll be coming up on my two hundred and seventy second birthday soon. I’ve never really figured out for sure how it works and the other princesses don’t have a clear answer for it either, but it sounds great, right?

“Well, it turns out it’s not necessarily the best thing ever. I knew pretty early on that it meant that someday, all of you would pass on and I would be the only one of our little group left. That’s kinda sad if you think about it, but that was just the way things were going to be, so I made the best of what time we had together. But, I don’t think it really hit me until I lost one of you. I thought I was prepared for it; fact is, I wasn’t. And it just got worse every time another one of you passed on. It was like... like a part of me was just getting hollowed out little by little.

“And then after you were all gone, I just couldn’t figure out how to move on. For some reason I couldn’t get my mind off that fact that I was going to live on thanks to all of you, but none of you got to benefit from that. It didn’t feel fair and it bothered me. I felt guilty, like I had stolen something from my own friends, and it really started to cause havoc on my daily duties. The other princesses were nice enough to give me all the time off that I wanted to try and work out my issues, but they should have just knocked some sense into me instead. It probably would have stopped this all from happening and saved a lot of wasted time.

“You see, since I had all this extra time to sit around and do nothing but obsess over something I couldn’t change, I eventually ended up getting this crazy idea,” Twilight said as she sat up, pushing away from the table. “I was the Princess of Magic, which meant if anypony could figure out a way to create new magic that could bring somepony back from the dead, I could. So that’s what I focused on for years, spending my extra free time trying to chase down the answer to resurrection so I could bring you all back.

“All I found was that it was impossible. Dead is dead. After working on my research for over a decade I had finally found conclusive evidence that resurrection through magic was completely impossible to do, so that’s it right? At that point you would think I would have finally given it up.

“But no, I didn’t.” Twilight shook her head disappointedly as she continued to reflect on her past. “I kept obsessing over it, and kept telling myself that I was overlooking a possibility somewhere. I kept digging into every scrap of magical research I could get my hooves on just to try and find some hidden, unorthodox method of magic I didn’t already know about that might help me bend the rules of the universe.

“And you know what? I found it,” Twilight said as she shifted to look directly at Fluttershy, a faint smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “The answer was actually quite simple. I couldn’t bring you all back from the dead, but I could go back to when you were all alive and see you again. All I had to do was figure out time travel, which was something that I already knew was possible because the spell already existed. I just had to make the spell work better.

“So, I poured more of my time into my research. I came up with theories on how to bypass the limitations that were placed on Starswirl’s version of the time travel spell, and by the end of it I had basically replaced everything about his spell with changes of my own, coming up with something completely new and different. Instead of teleporting to another location in time for a very short moment, I would be able to quite literally just walk through time after opening a tunnel to the other side and stay there as long as I wanted. I could go wherever I wanted too, see anypony I wanted too, and do it whenever I felt like it.

“And I was going to do it too. Oh, I knew about all the possible consequences. I made very detailed notes about my theories. About how the very act of stepping one single hoof out of the spell at the other end could be enough to cause a chain reaction of events that could end in the destruction of just about everything everypony ever held dear, but you know what?”

Twilight paused for a second, staring directly into Fluttershy’s eyes, who was still completely focused on listening to the story. “I didn’t care,” she said plainly.

“I’d completely lost sight of the reason why I had started searching for this power in the first place, which was supposed to be to find a way to bring all of you back, and to let all of you share in the gift I was given. It had instead turned into a selfish desire to cheat the universe and get more time with you all at any cost. I was so consumed with the thought of just seeing you all again that I completely threw caution into the wind and decided to go through with it. Consequences be damned, I wasn’t going to let anything keep me from it, not when I was so close to making it really happen.

“But, I did get stopped,” Twilight said as she shrugged her shoulders, letting her hooves fall to her sides. She glanced away to the table’s surface as she continued her story. “The others found out what I had been up too. They had come across my notes, including all the details on why this was really one of the most horrible ideas ever conceived, and how it would likely destroy Equestria’s history as we all knew it. Needless to say, their reaction to what I had been doing in secret for all those years wasn’t the best.

“They destroyed it all. Every last scrap of notes; all of my research that I had devoted over a decade of my life too. Only after they had eliminated the threat of me ruining Equestria’s past did they confront me about it directly. And oh, was I livid. I came so close to losing what was left of my sanity right then and there. I was seriously going to hurt them all, make them all pay for destroying the one dream I had left, but luckily they talked me down. Instead, I just choose to leave it all behind. I didn’t want anything to do with the whole princess mess or any of them any more. So, I left Canterlot and my title behind.”

Twilight paused for a few seconds, side glancing at her friend before looking back to the table’s surface. “They left me alone for awhile,” she said a bit quietly. “Well, not completely. They still checked in with me now and then... probably to make sure I wasn’t doing anything crazy. I didn’t really mind that they did at that point. It didn’t take me long to realize what I had almost done, and to be honest I felt quite ashamed of how I had abused my power. I couldn’t blame them for what they had chosen to do to stop me. They had no choice; they had to protect Equestria. I was the one who had been wrong. So my reason for staying away changed. I no longer felt I deserved to have the title of Princess of Magic.”

Twilight glanced up to the night sky above, the corners of her mouth twitching a bit as she came across a memory that seemed slightly amusing to her now. “You know, I actually earned myself a nasty little nickname back then. I don’t know who it was that started the rumors, but somehow word got out that Twilight Sparkle had gone a bit bonkers and had nearly taken Equestria with her. I started hearing the title of The Twilight Nightmare being tossed around during my exile, though nopony was ever brave enough to call me that to my face.” Twilight let go a light hearted chuckle at the mention of her old nickname.

“That’s mean,” Fluttershy said as she frowned a bit.

“It was deserved,” Twilight said glancing to her friend, her face quickly becoming serious, “which is why I just let it slide. If I hadn’t been stopped, it would have become a reality. I had come so close to becoming something so twisted and wrong, and it had all started from a single reason that I thought was good. But, even something starting with a good reason can end up becoming a disaster.”

Twilight went back to staring out across the table at the open field. She rested her forehooves on the tabletop, shifting them over one another as she let the memories of her past echo in her mind. Drawing in a deep breath through her nostrils, she let it go with a hum before she continued to share more of her past. “Well, after a few generations went by, the whole thing kinda blew over. Nopony really remembers that name anymore, and things actually got a lot better when I finally decided to return to being the Princess of Magic after my self imposed exile. Surprisingly, the other princesses asked to have me back. I guess the saying that ‘time heals all wounds’ has a bit of truth behind it. It only took me a few decades of time to stop being a nutcase, not bad right?” Twilight let a small smirk turn the corners of her mouth for a few seconds, before it faded away.

“Well, honestly I just learned to live with it. That hollow feeling had turned into more of... just a disappointing feeling. I tried to find new friends, but it just wasn’t ever quite the same for some reason. My best guess is that most of the ‘friends’ that I had over the years were ponies that primarily wanted to be friends with Princess Twilight Sparkle, not just Twilight Sparkle. Not that I could blame them really, if that’s what made them happy then who was I to deny them that happiness? So, I didn’t let it bother me. I had already wasted everypony’s time enough, and I needed to focus on being the best princess I could be to make up for lost time. Friendship became a pretty low priority once I was fully into my daily duties again. Kind of ironic, considering that’s what got me there.

“But then something really amazing happened a few years ago. After so much time, I finally met somepony who I could really call my true friend again. Her name was Crystal Charm, a young unicorn that had grown up in Canterlot. It was almost like looking in a mirror and seeing my past self. She was extremely talented in magic, and wanted to know everything she could learn about it. When she got the chance to talk to me, she didn’t ask me anything about what it was like being a princess or if I could show her around the palace, which is what I had come to expect from most of my new friends. No, she was content to just talk about magic spells and theories. She told me that I was the only pony who would take her serious and actually talk to her about these things on an advanced level.

“I decided to take her on as my first personal student, and it was amazing. She excelled in her studies far faster than I ever did. I was so proud of her, and wanted her to succeed with her dreams of perfecting advanced magical spell casting. So, I decided that I would try to get her access to one of the most restricted wings of the Canterlot Archives, the one that only a very privileged few have ever even stepped hoof into. There’s notes on magical studies in there that haven’t been read for generations from many of the greatest magical minds of the past. I still remember when I told her that I had gotten approval from the other princesses to let her into the archives. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anypony that happy.”

Twilight’s voice fell silent just as her happy expression changed over to something much more somber. Her eyes slowly closed as she relived a memory in her mind. “I had forgotten that when I was doing my research all those years ago that I had hidden a copy of my notes there. I don’t know if it was really forgetfulness, or if that part of my subconscious that had gone nuts just decided to hide it from myself so the last remaining copy of my work wouldn’t get destroyed. Either way, the notes had hidden there for nearly two hundred years, and I had completely forgotten they existed. If I had remembered, I never would have allowed her to get her hooves on them. There were things in those notes that I never intended anypony other than myself to see. Things that rightfully shouldn’t have been permitted to exist.

“I still don’t know why,” Twilight said as she looked down at the table surface again, shaking her head. “I’m sure the notes didn’t have a completed time spell in them, but there was plenty enough there for a unicorn as talented as Crystal to connect the dots and finish it. We found out too late. By the time we realised something was happening she was already gone, and all that was left... was a hole in reality that lead to some other time and place. None of us know why she did it.

“I did the only thing I could think to do at that moment; I jumped in to follow her. I knew it was dangerous, but I knew that we couldn’t just hope that she would turn around and come back without causing any irreversible harm. She was my student, and it was my spell. That made it my responsibility.

“But, something wasn’t exactly right with the spell. Instead of me just walking out at the other end it kinda... shot me out in the middle of the sky. I still don’t know for sure why it failed like that. I’m actually pretty lucky that I’m good at shielding spells, and that I happened to know a rather useless temporary self petrification spell that I had come up with one day when I was bored. If I hadn’t, I probably would have broken every bone in my body when I hit the ground in the Everfree, and we wouldn’t be sitting here talking about this.”

“So, you’re not sure where Crystal is?” Fluttershy asked.

Twilight slowly shook her head. “No, I don’t know where she went for sure, or why. I don’t even know if she survived the trip. All I know for sure is that she must have gone back further than I did. But, whatever happened when she arrived, it obviously changed a lot of things. I get the feeling that we’ve only scratched the surface, and that the whole Nightmare Moon thing isn’t even the worst of the problems.

Twilight quietly tapped her hoof on the table a few times as she stressed her mind over her student’s actions, finally letting one final loud tap go along with a huff of air. “Crystal really isn’t to blame. Ultimately, all of this really is my fault, because I could have stopped it before it ever happened if I had learned to just let go. And I am trying to make this right, but so far I’m not doing a very good job. Honestly, after hearing how much of a huge mess I’ve made, I wouldn’t be surprised if you just got up and left.”

The two sat there for a time after Twilight had finished her story as the silence returned. Finally, Fluttershy quietly raised herself from her sitting spot, taking a step back from the bench. Twilight couldn’t help but feel her heart fall a bit at that very second as her friend got up to leave the table. However, she was taken by surprise when Fluttershy hugged her from behind, resting her chin gently on Twilight’s shoulder. “You were lonely for a long time,” she quietly said.

Twilight was silent for a moment, the shock slowly melting away as she relaxed in Fluttershy’s embrace. “Yeah,” she said softly.

“It’s okay now.”

Twilight slowly shook her head. “What I did back then was wrong.”

“It’s okay.”

“I was selfish, and now it’s coming back to haunt us; to haunt you.”

“Shh, it’s okay.”

Of course Fluttershy would be forgiving, Twilight thought as a smile spread across her muzzle. Raising a single hoof and gently placing it atop Fluttershy’s, she enjoyed the moment with her friend that she had once thought would never be possible again. Sharing the buried memories dredged up by recent events had helped her relieve some of the doubt that had been weighing on her mind, and filled her with a renewed sense of purpose. Her friends deserved a bright future, even if that future wasn’t the same one she remembered.

“I’m not going to give up,” Twilight said with a confident smile as she side glanced at her friend. “I don’t really know what I’m going to do yet, but I can’t just give up because things didn’t work out like I’d planned. I just hope it doesn’t end up taking years to figure something out....” Fluttershy tilted her head slightly, raising her eyebrows a bit, to which Twilight let go a light chuckle. “Even an alicorn forgets things. I haven’t seen my old research notes in almost two centuries, and in all of the frantic panicking about the possible end of the world I didn’t think to bring a copy with me. The time spell is super complicated, so theres no way I could safely recreate something like it from memory without at least a little extra research from the sources I originally used. As long as Nightmare Moon is ruling over Equestria, I doubt I’ll be able to get access to the archives. And even if I somehow did, I still haven’t a clue how I would even use the spell to make things right, or if that’s even possible any more. I guess I thought answers would just magically start falling into place if we managed to dethrone Nightmare Moon.

“But, so much for that now, huh?” Twilight said as she swiped a hoof dismissively through the air before letting it fall to the table with a clunk. “Now she has the Elements, and there really isn’t any other obvious options left to us. Dash was probably right, that was our best chance to deal with her, but I just... couldn’t risk it. I was afraid that Chrysalis had done something to the Elements. If she had, and it ended up harming any one of you, I never would have been able to forgive myself for forcing something like that on you.”

Fluttershy let go her embrace, leaning on the bench with her forehooves next to Twilight to look around at her. “Have you thought about trying to talk to her?” she asked, tilting her head. “Um... Nightmare Moon, I mean. She didn’t seem like a horrible pony, at least not from what I saw. Maybe she gets an ency bit angry at things sometimes and comes across as being scary, but she did say she was going to rescue all of those ponies from the changelings. I guess... I guess I don’t see how she is all bad. I think there is good in her, so maybe if you talk with her and explain things, she might understand?”

“You know, it’s funny that you say that,” Twilight said as she regarded her friend. “I’ve actually been thinking about that too, but I don’t think I can risk it. She knows all of you, and she knows that you know me. If I revealed myself to her and things didn’t go well, she would come after all of you next. I’m not going to risk your safety on something like that.” She scratched at the back of her neck as she stressed her thoughts over the situation, grumbling a bit to herself. “If only there was somepony else that could help us out; somepony that would have access to the Canterlot Palace at least, but the only ones that I can think of would likely be in hiding. I doubt Princess Cadance stuck around the palace when Nightmare Moon showed up, and my brother isn’t Captain of the Royal Guard at the moment... I hope those two are okay.”

“Your brother is a Royal Guard Captain?” Fluttershy asked, her voice taking on an impressed tone.

“Well, it doesn’t look like he is now. It looks like he was replaced by Moondancer. I just hope that was because he left by his own choice.” Twilight fell silent for a moment, before she suddenly let go an annoyed growl. “Ugh, this is annoying. So far we’ve just been randomly running into everypony who’s ever been a problem for Equestria. Honestly, the way things are going I wouldn’t be surprised if Discord came walking up the street to say hello.”

“Discord, who’s that?” Fluttershy asked, her head tilting again inquisitively.

“Eh, I’m just grumbling...,” Twilight answered as she shook her head dismissively. However, she furrowed her brow as she considered her own comment. “Though, I probably shouldn’t jinx it.”

Fluttershy pushed away from the bench, taking a few steps to the side. “Well, maybe you just need to take a little break,” she said as she smiled back to Twilight. “I mean, you have been spending all of your time trying to think of ways to fix things since you got here. Sometimes, when things are starting to get frustrating, instead of trying harder and harder it’s best to step away for a while. Once you feel better, you can come back to it and things usually work out better.”

Twilight pursed her lips, tapping a hoof to them as she thought about the wisdom that her friend had offered. “That is probably some of the best advice I have heard in awhile,” she said with a smile. Standing from the bench, she walked over next to her friend to join her as the two of them began to leave the park. “Come on, lets go see if the girls are still at AJ’s.”

Twilight did her best in the following days to heed her friend’s advice. However, she had always found that the only way she could get her mind off of something was to get it on to something else. She decided to occupy her mind with studying the effects of Nightmare Moon’s eternal night, and actually found it strange that Equestria seemed to be accepting the change with no noticeable resistance. Ponies simply carried on like they had every day before the change, with the only noticeable difference being the lack of daylight. The perpetual full moon seemed to provided a tolerable level of light that even the land was beginning to adjust too. Life had found its own way to carry on it seemed, and Twilight even found herself wondering if she should just let things be on more than one occasion. There was no widespread hardship under Nightmare Moon’s rule, no specific reason for anypony to be truly unhappy. However, she could always sense the undertone of sadness when she happened to speak with other ponies. While they may have accepted the change, there was still a longing for the way things use to be.

Fluttershy had extended her advice to give things time to all of her friends, and so for now they had all returned to their day to day tasks, agreeing to stay in touch incase anything new developed. Life for the Ponyville mares returned to a semblance of normalcy rather quickly, for most of them.

For the time being, Twilight had found a place to call home thanks to Fluttershy. Her cottage proved to be the ideal place for an alicorn in hiding, since she was one of two among Twilight’s Ponyville friends that rarely received any random visitors at her house. And, since she was still passing herself off as a unicorn, she couldn’t very well make use of Rainbow Dash’s cloud home without giving away the fact that she had wings, making the cottage the only real choice.

Twilight had awoken in the cottage’s guest room, and like the previous few days she had found Fluttershy down stairs and joined her for breakfast. The two friends spent the morning sharing conversations with each other, mostly with Fluttershy doing the listening while Twilight did the speaking.

This morning, a knock came at the door, and the two friends fell silent as they glanced to the doorway. Fluttershy hurriedly made her way to the window near the door when the knocking came a second time. She brushed the curtain to the side, peaking out from the corner cautiously. A second later she quickly dropped the curtain, gritting her teeth as her forehooves rapidly danced in place. Turning toward Twilight, Fluttershy frantically motioned for her friend to hide herself, and Twilight hastily made a quick dash from the table to Fluttershy’s bedroom.

Once Twilight was fully out of view, Fluttershy turned herself back toward the doorway, hearing a third knock from the other side. She steeled herself, taking a calming breath in and letting it out slowly, before she gave one confident nod and forced a smile to her face. However, as she reached out to place her hoof on the door’s latch, the smile faded into uncertainty as she began to chew at her bottom lip.

The door pulled partially open toward Fluttershy with a click. She peered out through the gap at the visitors outside with a weak ‘good morning’ as a greeting.

The three Nightguard that had been waiting on the other side of the door looked to the meek pegasus hiding behind her cottage door. The one standing closest, a unicorn mare, seemed somewhat familiar. She was flanked by a pegasus stallion to her left and a pegasus mare to her right.

“Good morning,” the unicorn replied. “I’m Captain Moondancer. I was told I might find Twilight Sparkle here. May I come in?”

Secrets and Conspiracies

“Um... well,” Fluttershy glanced over her shoulder toward the back bedroom nervously in spite of herself. She shook her head, trying to force her nerves into a calm state. Forcing a smile to her muzzle as she looked back to Moondancer, she pulled the door open. “Sure, please come in.”

Moondancer nodded, and looked to the two Nightguard that had accompanied her. “Why don’t you two wait outside for me. I wouldn’t want her to feel like her home is being invaded.”

“No problem, Captain,” the mare guard happily said with a quick salute. The two guards decided to each take up a post on either side of the doorway, standing at attention.

As Moondancer walked inside, she used her magic to remove her guard helmet. Her coat shimmered as the helm left her head, changing from dark gray to an off white. Her trimmed mane fell from the helm down around her ears, hanging to just a bit further than chin length. She absently used a hoof to tuck her mane back over and behind each ear. Her mane’s color changed to reveal its natural color of red with a two tone highlight of violet that ran the length of one side of her mane. She rapidly blinked her eyes as they shifted from golden irises with cat-like pupils to much more normal looking violet eyes. “I didn’t catch you at a bad time did I?” she asked as she glance around at the cottage’s interior.

“Oh, not at all. It’s just that Twilight is um... busy!” Fluttershy said, maintaining her smile as she nodded quickly.

“Oh, she’s not here?”

“No, she was...,” Fluttershy strained herself to remember some sort of excuse, and then her ears perked up as she heard the sound of running water coming from the back bedroom. Her frazzled mind recalled the plan that they had come up with should anypony come asking for Twilight. “Shower! She’s in the shower,” Fluttershy said quickly.

“Oh, okay. Do you mind if I wait then?”

Just then, Fluttershy noticed a violet colored primary feather lying on the floor just behind where Moondancer was standing. Her eyes widened a bit as her grin morphed into her gritting her teeth. “Um, yes! Over there, at the table!” Fluttershy said quickly as she nudged Moondancer to the dining table. Just as she was walking past the feather, she quickly kicked it to the side with a back hoof and used the tip of her tail to sweep it away, causing it to swiftly float out of view under a nearby chair. “You just take a seat there and... I’ll get something!” Fluttershy glanced at the partially empty cups of coffee that she and Twilight had been sharing a conversation over earlier, nervously chewing at her bottom lip. “Coffee! I’ll get coffee...,” she decided as she began to scamper off toward the kitchen.

“You don’t have to trouble yourself,” Moondancer said as she rested her helmet on the floor next to her chair and took a seat at the table.

“No trouble! Just wait right there,” Fluttershy called back as she vanished through the kitchen doorway.

Moondancer looked over the back of her chair to the kitchen door that the strange, flustered pegasus had rushed off too, following her with a perplexed look. After giving a shrug, she turned her attention back to the table, and there saw a white rabbit staring back at her with its tiny arms crossed as it seemed to scowl back. “Oh... hey there little guy,” Moondancer said as she reached a hoof out to greet the small creature. However, a quick swat from one of its furry little paws caused her to jerk her hoof back quickly. She gawked back for a moment in disbelief, until the rabbit turned its nose up and hopped away, leaping off the other end of the table.

“Ooookay,” Moondancer drawled out as she watched the animal scurry off. She looked around the room noticing that most of the animals in the home seemed to be hiding, peeking out at her from little cubby holes here and there. There must have been a few dozen pairs of beady little eyes staring at her. “Must be the uniform,” she said with a sigh. She then noticed something other than one of Fluttershy’s woodland friends staring at her when she happened to look toward the bedroom doorway. Twilight had decided to show herself now that she had her disguise prepared, but she seemed hesitant to come into the room as she remained there quietly staring.

“You must be Twilight Sparkle,” Moondancer said as she put on a smile.

Twilight eyed the helmet resting on the floor. “And you’re Captain Moondancer?” Twilight asked as she looked back up, seeming a bit unsure and maintaining her distance.

Moondancer seemed a bit surprised, but came to a quick realization as to how Twilight already knew of her. “Ah, right. You met my imposter back in the camp. I promise, I’m the real one. Though you can still check if you want to be sure. I’m told you know a really mean changeling zapping spell.”

Twilight took a couple cautious steps into the room. “You probably are the real one, since you look different with the armor off. But I would like to check, if you really don’t mind.”

“Not at all, in fact I’d prefer you do.” Moondancer watched as Twilight prepared a quick spell, causing a pinpoint of bright white to form at the tip of her horn. When the spell was released, a glowing orb of white expanded from the point. It passed harmlessly over everything within the room. “So, does that mean I pass?”

“It does,” Twilight said with a smile as she walked up to the table, offering a hoof. “It’s nice to meet you, Captain Moondancer.”

Moondancer gladly took the hoofshake. “You don’t need to use my title. After all, you are the pony who saved my life.”

Twilight took a seat at the table next to Moondancer. “It was much more than just my efforts that lead to your rescue,” she commented humbly.

“I think it would be fair to say that without your help, I’d still be dangling from a ceiling,” Moondancer said though a laugh as she pointed a hoof upward. “I heard about all the help that you gave the Nightguard after you revealed the spy. Quite a few in the guard have told me just how impressive you were. You managed to train nearly every unicorn there how to use a spell they’d never seen before in just a few days. That takes some talent.”

Twilight bowed her head slightly to the lavish praise. “Thank you.”

“You deserve the compliment. And actually, that leads me to the other reason why I’m here. I came personally because I wanted to thank you, but I also may have had a hoof in making a recommendation to her Majesty on who she should choose to replace her court wizard.”

Twilight glanced over to the kitchen doorway when she noticed Fluttershy coming out before glancing back to Moondancer with a questioning look. “Are you saying you recommended me? And why does she need a new one? What happened with the previous one?”

Moondancer gave Fluttershy a quick thank you as she accepted a small coffee cup and saucer from her with her magic, taking a quick sip before setting them down on the table. “Well, not really supposed to discuss it openly, but I think letting you be privy to some information wouldn’t hurt. The last one didn’t like his favorite princess being replaced, and made it abundantly clear that he wanted nothing to do with the Queen. He was let go to avoid any potential problems, so her Majesty has actually been without a wizard for weeks.” Moondancer took notice of Twilight’s slightly troubled look at the mention of the previous wizards dismissal. “He’s fine, other than being out of a job. I hope I wasn’t being too presumptuous by recommending you, but if only a few of the things I’ve heard about you are true, I can’t think of anypony else that would fit the position any better, and the Queen seemed eager to agree when I brought up the idea. She really is impressed with you.”

“That’s great, Twilight,” Fluttershy said as she took her seat at the table. “I mean, you really like magic and you’re good at it, so something like this sounds perfect for you.”

“Yeah, I suppose it does.” It seemed the two friends were both thinking the same thing; this was a chance at moving things forward. But Twilight had a nagging feeling that there was something too coincidental about being offered such a perfect position. She also found herself wondering why this Moondancer didn’t seem to recognize her at all.

Moondancer took another sip from her coffee before setting it down again. “If you decided to take the job it would likely mean moving to Canterlot since it’s a permanent position, but I’m sure the details can be worked out later.”

“It’s... rather sudden,” Twilight said as she gave Fluttershy a worried look. “I have to admit I’m wondering what our friends might think about this.”

“Oh, I think they’ll be happy for you. After all, isn’t this just like something you’ve been hoping for?” Fluttershy maintained that encouraging smile that she got when she was trying to tell somepony to ‘go for it’. “It wouldn’t mean we would never see each other again, would it?”

Moondancer quickly waved a hoof to dismiss that thought. “Oh, of course not. That isn’t the intention here at all. I know it’s a big decision to make on a moment's notice though. Maybe I should have asked you about it first before I went to the Queen about it.”

Twilight hummed as she thought over the offer. It did reek of something too good to be true, but that only made her even more curious. And if it did turn out to really be a job offer that would practically make her Nightmare Moon’s righthoof mare, there was a lot of potential good that could come from that. “No, I’ll go with you to Canterlot, Moondancer,” she said, deciding to play along. “You’re right, Fluttershy. This is an opportunity I’ve been waiting for. I shouldn’t pass it up.”

Just then, a ferret hopped up on the table with a violet primary feather in its mouth. It ran directly toward Moondancer, and stopped just short of her to stand on its hind legs, presenting the feather with its little furry paws as if giving a peace offering.

“Oh,” Moondancer said with a bit of surprise. “Well thank you little fella,” she said as she accepted the feather with a hoof and gave the ferret a pat on the head with the other. The ferret gave a little chirp of happiness at the petting.

“Ah hah,” Fluttershy laughed nervously as her rigid smile returned to her face. “Mr. Ferret is feeling rather generous today, isn’t he,” she said as she focused a thinly masked glare at the little creature, causing him to shrink back a bit and then turn to escape off the table to avoid the stare. Fluttershy turned her attention back to Moondancer, doing her best to hide her tension. “He tends to do that, giving random things to visitors. It’s his way of making friends. You don’t have to keep that.”

“I think it’s cute, and the feather is pretty.” Moondancer levitated the feather up, and tucked it just behind her ear. “You don’t mind if I keep it, do you?”

“Um, well,” Fluttershy caught herself about to glance at Twilight as if to ask her friend if it were okay, but quickly thought better of it as she blink-blinked to keep herself from doing so. “Okay. You can keep it,” she said when she couldn’t think of anything to say to possibly recover the feather without drawing attention to its significance.

If Twilight had been at all bothered with one of her feathers being handed over to the Captain of the Nightguard, she didn’t show it. “When would we be leaving for Canterlot, Moondancer?” she asked.

“I came here by chariot, so if you would like a ride back with me we could leave right away.”

Twilight nodded and stood from her chair. “Now is as good a time as any. Shouldn’t keep her Majesty waiting, should we?” Twilight walked around the table to Fluttershy, resting a hoof on her shoulder. “You’ll tell the others for me, right?”

Fluttershy smiled up to her. “Of course. And you’ll let us know how things are going?”

“You can count on it.”

Queen Nightmare Moon had chosen to welcome Twilight at the Canterlot Palace gates personally, along with a full entourage of Nightguard. It turned out that the offer had been very true, and Nightmare Moon was eager to welcome Twilight as her new enchantress, if she would agree to taking up the title.

Twilight accepted, of course. The new position would bring her just a step away from gaining access to the Canterlot Archives, and possibly even the Elements if she could find a convincing enough reason to be allowed to study them.

However, there was a necessity for patience. As eager as Twilight was to obtain her goals as soon as possible, she couldn’t show too much sudden interest in such secretive things without arousing suspicions. For now, she would need to settle in to the new position and gain what favor she could with the Queen.

Her new quarters at the palace would be the same tower that had been vacated by the dismissed wizard, and turned out to be the same tower that she had stayed at when she was Celestia’s personal student, which made her realize something. In this altered past, it seemed she had never been Celestia’s student. This put the change back even further than she had originally thought, to a time that was at least before she had taken her entrance exam to enter Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. This made it highly likely that Celestia would have no idea who Twilight Sparkle even was, and perhaps even explained why Moondancer hasn’t recognized her. Once again, Twilight found herself wondering if she had ever even existed in this alternate history.

Moondancer had offered to show Twilight to the tower. Of course the time traveling princess knew its location, but she accepted the escort to give the impression that this was the first time she had ever been to the palace. She would have to keep up her ruse as being a simple unicorn talented in magic going for the foreseeable future, and so far everything seemed to be going perfectly well.

That was until Twilight and Moondancer entered the tower.

Twilight’s ears twitched when she heard the sound of the door’s lock clicking after Moondancer had been pulled it closed, and her eyes widened a bit as she picked up on an almost unnoticeable surge of energy at the same time. If the Princess of Magic hadn’t been as attuned to the ebb and flow of magic as she was, she could have easily missed it. She continued to calmly walk into the room, mentally reaching out to discreetly test the air around her. She picked up on a magical aura surrounding the area; a strong ward cast over the entire structure that must have become active when the door was locked. Her mind gently tugged at the magical ‘threads’ that held the spell together to test it, noting its construction. The strength of the spell indicated that it had been assembled by a group of unicorns with the specific purpose of keeping all things in or out. She didn’t sense any immediate danger as there were no offensively based enchantments, but her mind came up with only one possible answer for this setup; a trap. What was concerning about the trap wasn’t the trap itself, but that Moondancer had willingly locked herself inside.

Twilight ascended the stairway that lead up to the upper level where the bookcases were kept. She saw that the room was mostly the same as she remembered it, other than the fact that all of the books and scrolls were not at all organized to her liking. She proceeded to walk across the platform to the pony sized hourglass suspended by a golden stand and pushed it with a hoof to flip it over, watching as the sand shifted and began to slowly trickle from the upper chamber into the bottom one.

“So,” Twilight said as she glanced around behind herself as Moondancer made it to the top of the stairway. “You obviously have something you want to talk to me about.”

A few tense seconds quietly slipped by, the only sound in the room coming from the grains of sand hitting the bottom of the hourglass. “You noticed,” Moondancer finally said as she cautiously took a few more steps closer to Twilight.

“Yes, but it’s not really necessary,” Twilight said with a shrug. “If you wanted to ask me something, you can simply ask.”

“I don’t believe you would willingly give me the truth.” Moondancer began to circle around to the right side of the room toward a desk, keeping her eyes focused on Twilight as she did.

Twilight tilted her head as she watched Moondancer. “And why do you say that?”

“A mare named Twilight Sparkle suddenly shows up after having been missing for thirteen years, and instead of coming home to her family, she goes on an expedition into the Everfree Forest.” Moondancer stopped near the desk, silently staring back at Twilight for a moment before she continued. “Either you really have something against your family, or more likely, you’re not who you say you are. So who are you really?”

Moondancer had just unknowingly told Twilight something that she had been wanting to find out. She now finally knew that she did exist in this past, or at least did thirteen years ago. However, Twilight’s brow rose as she pursed her lips at the accusation against her. “Wow, so you think I’m posing as a missing pony? I never knew you to be the conspiracy theory type. When did that happen?”

Moondancer narrowed her golden eyes at Twilight. “I’ll be asking the questions, and neither of us are leaving here until I get the answers I’m looking for.”

Twilight let go an exhausted sounding sigh. “Right, lets take this somewhere more private.” Before Moondancer could respond, Twilight quickly cast a spell that caused two bright flashes where the two mares had just been standing, leaving nothing else moving in the room other than the sand shifting through the hourglass.

Two bright flashes of light lit the area within a small cavern for an instant. Twilight casually trotted to the center of the dark cave and cast a few orbs of white light from her horn. They each traveled up toward the cavern ceiling, slowly brightening until the area was completely lit. Moondancer looked around herself frantically, trying to figure out exactly where she had been taken, and how.

“You can’t do that!” she accused as she pointed a hoof at Twilight.

Twilight glanced back at Moondancer for a few seconds and then up to the ceiling, a thoughtful look on her as she tapped a forehoof to her chin. “I think I just did,” she said with a confident smile.

“But, the ward—”

“Wasn’t nearly complicated enough to hold me. It may have been strong enough, but I just went around it.” Twilight noticed Moondancer’s confused look as she tried to figure out what ‘went around it’ meant. Suggesting that such a thing was even possible probably sounded ridiculous. “Don’t worry, nopony will be able to figure out how to do that for awhile, other than me.”

Moondancer gave a stomp with a hoof. “I demand that you take us back. Now.”

“If you want to go back so badly, just teleport back yourself,” Twilight said as she dismissed the captain’s order with a wave of her hoof. She walked over to one of the many small crevices in the side of the cave where a solitary beam of moonlight cast itself on the floor. Peaking out of the crevice, she could see the tops of the spires of Canterlot Castle down below. “It’s just right below us. This is actually one of my favorite spots in Canterlot Mountain. A quiet little spot high above it all where I like to go to when I need some time to think.” Twilight seemed to enjoy the view for a moment before she turned her gaze to look over her shoulder at Moondancer, a small smirk turning up the corner of her mouth. “Of course, you probably can’t teleport yourself out. Quite a few unicorns can’t teleport at all, and those of us who can usually can’t make a jump this far in a single go. That’s why I like this spot so much, I’m one of the only ones who can reach it.”

Moondancer grited her teeth. “Act smug all you want, you’re still going to answer my questions before this is through.”

“That’s fine, but only if you answer some of mine too. Fair is fair, after all. And if you refuse, you’ll have to find your own way down the mountain,” Twilight said as she nodded toward Canterlot down below. “So, the first thing I would like to know is just how much you think you know about my disappearance. You said it happened thirteen years ago, but you didn’t say how.”

Moondancer furrowed her brows, quietly grumbling something to herself in frustration. “I don’t know how it happened. We were both only ten back then, and I just remember the teacher telling us that you had gone missing. There were rumors that you ran away from home, rumors that somepony foalnapped you and was going to ransom you for bits because your family was rich, and there was even a silly rumor that you had died in a shed near the playground and would come back to haunt the school. Pretty much every stupid story that a bunch of children would come up with. But officially, you just vanished.”

Twilight hummed at the information, and then asked, “Officially? What about unofficially?”

Moondancer responded with an incredulous look. “What do you mean? There is no unofficially. You vanished without a trace. There was never proof of a foalnapping, or a run away, or anything at all. It was like you just ceased to exist.”

Twilight obviously wasn’t satisfied with that answer, as her sides heaved to a sigh. She had only managed to unearth another unanswered question; just what had caused her to ‘vanish’ thirteen years ago. “Another question then,” Twilight said as she fully turned away from the crevice and walked back into the chamber toward Moondancer. She stopped only a few steps short of Moondancer. “Why do you even care?”

“Huh?” Moondancer said as she shook her head at the confusing question.

“Why would you care so much about figuring out what happened to me? If I recall right, we weren’t exactly what would be called the best of friends when we were young.”

Moondancer let go an exasperated sigh. “I really don’t care what happened back then. What I want to know is what you’re intending to do now.”

“And what do you think I’m intending to do?”

Moondancer seemed to grow more frustrated at the probing questions. “If I knew, I wouldn’t be trying to figure it out, would I?” she growled.

Twilight let go a little hum as she thought about the answer. “Okay, lets talk about your intentions then.”

“Lets not,” Moondancer said flatly as she narrowed her eyes at Twilight. “It’s time you start answering my questions.”

Twilight made cautioned gesture with her forehoof. “We’ll get to that. But first I need to know if you can be trusted.”

Moondancer scoffed at the remark. “Me? You’re questioning my integrity? You’re the one who’s hiding something!”

“And you’re the one who is likely guilty of treason.”

Moondancer blink-blinked as her voice caught in her throat. “What?” she said through a laugh, as if the claim was completely ridiculous.

“You heard me,” Twilight said lowly as she took a single, deliberate step toward Moondancer, to which she retreated from a single step. “Tell me how it happened. When Celestia was defeated, did you jump at the chance to replace my brother as Captain of the Guard? Or, where you approached by Nightmare Moon and asked to replace him?”

“W-what are you talking about?” Moondancer felt the hackles on her neck raise at the sudden shift in mood from the other mare. Even the air in the room suddenly felt suffocating under the imposing aura that Twilight seemed to be giving off.

Again, Twilight took another slow step toward the captain, causing Moondancer to retreat another step back. “Shining Armor. My brother. Do you know him?”

Moondancer could feel an inexplicable wave of panic welling up inside her. She tried to fight past the illogical fear she was suddenly feeling to answer the question. “Y-yes, of course I know him.”

“And you took his position from him, didn’t you.” Twilight seemed to be demanding that Moondancer answer with a yes.

“Where did you hear something like that? He never was in the guard!” Moondancer explained, her wide, fearful eyes fixed on Twilight.

Twilight halted her imposing advance, pursing her lips with a confused look. “He wasn’t?”

Moondancer relaxed slightly, letting go a calming breath as the tension in the room seemed to evaporate. “No. I became the guard captain over three years ago, after the previous captain received a promotion. Shiny has never actually been part of the guard, even though I have asked him to join before.”

Twilight blinked at the nickname. “Wait, just where do you know my brother from?”

“He’s an apprentice arcane armor smith who makes armor for the guard, he isn’t in the guard, so whoever told you he had become a guard captain, they told you wrong.” Moondancer glanced down to stare at the floor before her as she quietly spoke. “I sort of got to know him more after you disappeared. He used to always say that I reminded him of you.” She slowly glanced up and smiled faintly. “He also used to talk a lot about how he’d once had dreams to join the guard and it got me interested. I thought if I joined that he might actually follow through with it, but it ended up his heart just wasn’t in it. But, after I joined, he was the one who issued me my first set of arcane armor, and... things sort of went from there.” Moondancer paused for a short moment, glancing to the side as she kicked a forehoof against the floor. “Actually, we’ve been engaged for nearly a year now.”

Twilight stood there staring at Moondancer, her eyes steadily blinking as if she had been completely unable to understand what she had just heard. Her mouth slowly fell agape as she slowly shook her head. “What!?” she finally screeched, causing Moondancer to flinch back on her haunches. “How did something like that happen!?”

“We... went on a date?” Moondancer said as she shrugged her shoulders. When she saw the hard look she got in response, she asked, “Do you seriously want me to go into detail?”

“Ugh, no, please don’t,” Twilight said as she too rested on her haunches, bringing her forehooves up to massage her temples. “This shouldn’t be happening,” she lowly grumbled as she felt a mild headache starting to form.

“Hey!” Moondancer suddenly came to a stand as she stomped over toward Twilight. “Did you just expect life to come to a complete stop when you decided to vanish? You may not like it, but I fell in love with your brother, and he loves me back. And whatever it is that you’re planning, I’m not going to let you drag him into it!”

Twilight stared back at Moondancer with a blank look for a few seconds, her hooves slowly falling back to the floor, and then nodded with an ‘ah hah’. “I see. That’s what this is really all about isn’t it? Convincing the Queen to summon me here, the little trap that you tried to set for me... you were afraid I was posing as your fiance's little sister, and thought I might get him mixed up in something.” Twilight let go a light laugh as she pushed herself to stand up. “Well, if I haven’t proven to you yet that I am who I say I am, I’m sure I can list off a few memories from when we were both little fillies to drive the point home.”

“How about you tell me about this instead,” Moondancer said as she reached to a side satchel on her armor and flipped the flap open. Her hoof disappeared inside the satchel, and then came back out with something that sparkled and glittered in the light of Twilight’s illumination spell. “This was found in the woods by my Nightguard in a trench where something landed in the Everfree, though whatever it belonged too was already gone by the time they got there. It’s beat up pretty bad, but it’s not too hard to see that it’s a rather expensive piece of jewelry.”

Twilight eyed the mangled remains of what was once her royal hoofware. “What makes you believe I would know anything about that?” she asked as she kept her expression devoid of any readable emotion.

Moondancer smiled slightly as she set the jewelry down in front of herself before reaching back into her satchel a second time. “The same thing that makes me think that you know something about this,” she said as she pulled a violet feather from the side satchel. She gave it a flick with her hoof, causing it to float down to the floor where it landed resting against one of Twilight’s forehooves, to which Twilight glanced down at it slowly. “Primary feather’s can usually be found around the home that a pegasus lives in, but they usually match their coat color. I don’t think your friend has any violet in her, but it appears to match you perfectly, which is honestly really strange since you’re a unicorn.” Moondancer allowed a grin to spread across her muzzle as she watched Twilight slowly look back up to her. “Also, I know that you were first seen only a day after something hit the Everfree, by Sergeant Gale in the Everfree. I’m willing to bet you know what that something was, and you’re going to tell me what it is and why you were looking for it.”

Twilight silently stared back into Moondancer’s eyes. While it appeared she hadn’t fully puzzled everything together yet, she was getting close, and if she was anything like the Moondancer that she remembered, she would figure it out eventually. Twilight wasn’t a hundred percent sure she could fully trust this mare with her secrets, but it seemed to already be beyond the point of keeping her from finding out. If Twilight refused to tell her, Moondancer would continue to dig and could possibly draw a lot of unwanted attention her way, which left her with only one way to avoid that. Twilight reached her forehooves up and undid the snap buttons at the top of her jacket. She removed her disguise, allowing her crown to become visible as she spread her wings out to their full length to her sides. The grin melted off of Moondancer’s face, her mouth falling open as if she was going to say something, but nothing ever did come out.

“Well?” Twilight asked. “Not exactly what you were thinking, is it.”

Moondancer’s voice cracked as she tried to find something to say. “How... you’re a... is that even possible?”

“Long story, but I’m not telling it to you until I know you can be trusted as Captain of Equestria’s Royal Guard.” Twilight stood to her full height, pacing off to the side as she began to consider what she had learned so far. Now that Moondancer knew her secret, she was going to have to go on the offensive to ensure that it didn’t go any further. “From what I’ve heard, it seems like you chose to betray Celestia willingly, which would make you a traitor.”

Moondancer’s eyes widened a bit as she felt a wave of panic return to her. “I-I did what I had to!” she said a bit frantically.

“What you had to? Explain that one to me,” Twilight said as she turned and started pacing the other direction in front of Moondancer. “What forced you into betraying your country?”

“I didn’t betray Equestria, I saved it!”

Twilight stopped in her pacing, turning a narrow eyed gaze slowly back to her. “Really...,” she said, her tone indicating that she didn’t at all believe the claim.

“Would you rather that I had thrown the weight of the guard behind Cadenza? That would have plunged Equestria into a civil war.”

Twilight’s stare suddenly became very intense, causing Moondancer to squirm a bit. In a sudden flash, Twilight teleported across the short distance to only a single hoofwidth away from Moondancer’s face, causing her to scramble backwards in shock. “You know what happened to Princess Cadenza?” Twilight asked as she stared at the frightened captain as if she could somehow pull an answer straight out of her with her glare. Moondancer cowered away, avoiding eye contact as she shrunk toward the floor. “You do...,” Twilight said in a low whisper. Suddenly the air in the room filled with a static sensation that made Moondancer feel like every hair on her body was trying to stand on end. She dared to look up at the angered alicorn, and found herself unable to look away at the terrifying scene as Twilight’s eyes glowed a solid bright white. Her mane and tail had begun to whip around as if a strong wind had caught them, through the air in the cavern was completely still. Her voice carried an echo as she spoke. “I swear by the power that I wield, if any harm at all came to her—”

“No! She’s unharmed,” Moondancer quickly said as she cowered down as close to the ground as she could.

Twilight lowered her face to within a few inches of Moondancer’s, the brightness from the glow causing the later to squint her eyes closed as she leaned away. “You know for certain?” Twilight asked.

“Yes,” Moondancer whined as she quivered on the floor. “She’s in Canterlot.”

“Where,” Twilight asked, the single word impacting the air in the room like a sledgehammer.

“At the palace!” Moondancer cried out.

Twilight’s face twisted up in anger as she grited her teeth. “You know what I’m asking, stop being vague!” she yelled, causing Moondancer to finally scramble to her hooves and flee.

Moondancer only made it a few steps, where she found the back wall of the cavern. She had no idea why she had ran, since doing so in the confined space made no sense. It was as if her legs had suddenly decided to try to get her as far away as they could on their own. She pressed her side against the wall, slumping against it as she slid down to the floor. She could feel herself breathing heavily, and noticed the tears streaming down the side of her face. She had never known anything to instill pure fear in her like this. Before her was a mare no more physically imposing than herself, but something about the raw power the alicorn seemed to give off made her feel completely inadequate, as if her existence could be simply snuffed out with a thought and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

“She’s being held... in a cell,” Moondancer weakly croaked as she tried to control her emotions. “What else could I do? She had to be kept out of the way to avoid a possible uprising. Celestia was already gone before any of us knew what had happened, and Cadenza isn’t anywhere near powerful enough to face an ancient alicorn like Nightmare Moon. We would lose, and in the end the only thing we would accomplish would be ripping Equestria in half. Celestia wouldn’t have wanted that.”

Twilight had chosen to sit at the center of the room and quietly listen. The amazing power still radiated from her entire being, but she otherwise just silently sat there as she considered what she had been told. Finally, she decided to speak. “So, you chose to jail an innocent.”

“I had to!” Moondancer cried. “If I hadn’t, then ponies would try to rally behind her even if we didn’t! It’s the responsibility of the guard to keep Equestria safe, and this was the only way to do that.”

Twilight rose to her hooves, slowly walking over to where Moondancer was slumped against the wall. Moondancer didn’t make another attempt to flee, she only braced herself for whatever might happen next, but Twilight only sat down next to the her. “Tell me, Moondancer,” Twilight gently said as she slowly blinked her glowing eyes. “If my brother, the one who you seem to care for so much, was the one who had to be jailed to save our nation... would you do it?”

Moondancer felt a knot in her throat. She closed her eyes as she turned her head down toward the floor. “N-no....” The answer was almost a whisper, but it had been loud enough to be heard through the hollow room. “It’s not fair to ask me that.”

Twilight had gently reached out to place a hoof on top of one of Moondancer’s, which caused her to flinch as her eyes shot back open. “I can tell you’re telling me the truth, which is all I really wanted. It wasn’t an easy choice for you, was it?” she heard Twilight say. She glanced up out of the corner of her eye, and could see the bright light fading from Twilight’s eyes as the powerful aura seemed to dissipate. Moondancer answered by only silently shaking her head.

Twilight stood, and then offered her hoof. Moondancer stared warily at the hoof, but once again it was as if the mare before her had completely changed. The fear had melted away almost as quickly as it had gripped her earlier, and now there seemed to be something almost comforting about the alicorn’s presence. She reluctantly took hold of Twilight’s hoof and allowed herself to be pulled up. Twilight smiled gently back at her before speaking. “There is another way to do this, one where everypony ends up happy, but the only way it’s going to happen is if I can count on you for help. I think I can, because we have something in common.”

Moondancer seemed unsure about that claim, tilting her head away slightly. “What do we have in common?”

“We both want to protect Equestria. We just don’t agree on how to do it. But I think we can come to an understanding.” Twilight turned to walk across the room back to the crevice to glance down to the city below once again. She quietly remained there for some time letting her thoughts wander, before she glanced back to Moondancer. “About my brother... you don’t have to worry. I really don’t want to involve my family in this mess. I’ll be sure to keep Shiny out of this.”

Moondancer let go a calming sigh as she walked up to the other side of the crevice. “I doubt you’ll be able to hide the fact that you’re back. I can imagine once word gets around the palace that the new enchantress’s name is Twilight Sparkle, Shiny will be trying to track you down.” Moondancer tapped one of her forehooves idly against the floor as she looked out at the view. “He never really did give up the search for you, you know?” she said with a quick glance to Twilight.

Twilight leaned toward the crevice, hooking her forehooves over the edge and resting her chin atop them. After staring out over Canterlot in silence for a moment, she rolled her head to the side to look back at Moondancer. “You’re right, I can’t avoid all contact with my family. But, at the very least, what you’ve seen here has to stay secret, especially from them. I’d rather not take any chance of them getting mixed up in this, and simply knowing what I’ve become would be involving them.”

Moondancer nodded. “I’ll keep your secret then, if only to keep him safe. But, as far as helping you goes, that depends on what you mean by ‘help’.” Moondancer steeled herself as she sat up straight on her haunches. “Use your scare tactics on me all you want, I’m not going to lead an army for you.”

Twilight’s look slowly shifted, appearing as if she was suddenly ashamed of something. She lifted her head up slightly, propping it against one of her forehooves as she leaned into it. “I’m sorry,” she said though a sigh. “I consider Cadance to be a very close friend of mine. Hearing that she’s been locked away just for being who she is set me off. I forget sometimes just how much of an effect my magic can have on those around me, and I think I overreacted a bit.”

“A bit, you think?” Moondancer dared to ask, her eyebrows having climbed a bit.

Twilight rolled her eyes, and then pushed herself to sit up straight. “Okay, a lot,” she said with a shrug. “I promise you, I’m not going to force you into anything you don’t want to do. I’m asking for your help.”

Moondancer crossed her forehooves as she leaned her shoulder back against the cavern wall. “But what can I do that doesn’t involve the rest of the Nightguard, if that’s not what you’re looking for.”

“Like I said, I want to protect Equestria just like you do,” Twilight said as she pointed her hoof to Moondancer, “and just like you, I really don’t want violence to be a part of it. However, I get the feeling that the entire world isn’t going to be thrilled about an eternal night, and though they might all be scared of Nightmare Moon right now, in time they’ll make a move against her, maybe all as one. Equestria wouldn’t survive something like that, so we’ll need to end the eternal night before that happens.”

“End it?” Moondancer said, a worried tone crossing her voice.

“Nothing violent,” Twilight reiterated. “I’m hoping that there could be a way to convince Nightmare Moon to end it herself, though I know that’s not going to be very likely.”

“So, what would be the alternative?” Moondancer asked as she shrugged her shoulders slightly.

“Haven’t decided yet. I’m keeping my options open, but mostly I need more time and information to come up with a plan. And that’s what I was hoping to rely on you for.”

Moondancer let her forehooves fall back to the ground with a clack as she narrowed her eyes at Twilight. “You want me to spy on Equestria’s ruler for you?”

“No,” Twilight said as she shook her head. “I just need you to keep putting a good word in for me. The more that Nightmare Moon trusts me, the more things she will likely be willing to trust me with. If we’re really lucky, I’ll be able to convince her to make the right choice.” Twilight stopped suddenly, staring off in front of herself when a thought struck her. She tapped one of her forehooves against the floor as she considered the idea. “Though now that I think of it, there probably is something a bit more direct that you could help me with.”

“What would that be?”

“Well, it’s probably something I shouldn’t do just yet, but eventually I want a chance to speak to Chrysalis. I think she knows something important.”

Moondancer considered the request, touching the side of one of her hooves against her bottom lip as she mulled it over. “If I took you there right away that would probably seem suspicious. What would the Queen’s new enchantress need with a prisoner, right?” she asked, to which Twilight seemed to agree with a nod. “Maybe we could come up with an excuse to let you question her after some time goes by. So far, she hasn’t really told us much of anything that we didn’t already know or found out on our own.”

“What did you find out?” Twilight asked, her curiosity piqued. “If you don’t mind me knowing.”

Moondancer hesitated for a few seconds, but then shrugged her shoulders as she decided to divulge what she knew. “You know about the rescue operation to recover the other victims from the hive, right?” Twilight nodded back silently in response. “Well, it’s been cancelled for now.”

Twilight jerked her head back slightly in surprise. A concerned look washed over her face, and she shook her head as she asked, “Why?”

Moondancer went back to leaning against the wall, raising her forelegs to fold them across her chest again. “When we started identifying the first group, we came across a shocking discovery. None of them were listed as a missing pony. That might be possible for one or two, but a dozen? It didn’t make any sense. So we started digging deeper, going through any kind of identification records we could find. Birth certificates, tax records, criminal records... and that’s where we found something unexpected.

“Every single one of them has a criminal record. A bad one.” Moondancer turned her eyes away to look out at the city below. “They’re the worst of the worst, every single one of them sentenced to life imprisonment for their crimes.”

Twilight sat there in stunned silence for a while, until she finally managed a question slightly above a whisper. “All of them?”

“All of the ones we freed, which was about a dozen,” Moondancer said as she looked back to Twilight. “We stopped after that, thinking that there’s a good chance that the trend would continue. We aren’t prepared to deal with over a hundred of the worst criminals Equestria has ever known suddenly being ‘guests’ at the palace. These ponies belong in maximum security prisons.”

Twilight let go a groan and closed her eyes as she once again leaned toward the crevice. She let her forelegs droop out over the edge, lazily letting her chin rest on them as she heaved a heavy sigh. “I can’t believe there would be that many.”

Moondancer tilted her head until it was resting against the wall right at the edge of the crevice, catching a side glance from Twilight. “It isn’t a far stretch at all. Equestria is home to millions and there’s going to be some bad apples in it. Just glancing over the last ten years worth of criminal records to identify the few that we did rescue showed me that there’s plenty out there to fill that hive with them.”

Moondancer shifted slightly, leaning forward so she could look out at the view of Canterlot. She traced her eyes over the hundreds of small lights that lit the streets and homes below. “I know that Celestia liked to avoid making unpleasant things visible to the public. She wanted everypony to feel like they lived in a perfect kingdom. So, most of the worst criminals were tried, sentenced, and then just quietly went away with no fuss. But, I don’t think any of us ever realized what she was really doing with them. We just assumed they’d all been packed away in a prison out of sight somewhere. But the papers for the ones we rescued from the hive showed that they had been transferred without any destination specified.”

Twilight’s face seemed to take on a pained look as she lifted one of her forelegs, leaning her forehead into it. A part of her wanted to defend the one she had looked up to her entire life, the one who’s hoofsteps she had aspired to follow in. She wanted to find a way to prove that the Sun Princess had nothing to do with something that seemed so... unlike her. But the simple fact was she had to have known. Every single one of the transfer documents would bear the signature of Princess Celestia; it was required by Equestrian law. “Celestia...,” Twilight said in a whisper as she glanced skyward. “What were you doing?”

Hidden Messages

The front door to Fluttershy’s cottage opened with a small creak shortly before its owner stepped out into the moonlit evening. She glanced back and forth quickly, continuing out to a mailbox adorned with her name and taking one last glance around herself before swiftly opening the lid to peek inside. She did a double take when she noticed something was actually there, and then quickly scooped the envelope out with her hoof. She glanced at the simple envelope bearing her name curiously for a moment, and then tucked it under her wing as she hastily made her way back inside.

Once securely back indoors, she made her way to her couch, dropping the letter there on the nearby reading table next to the lamp as she made herself comfortable. She looked over to the envelope, noticing that it was stamped to be delivered to Ponyville from Canterlot, and suddenly her face lit up with a smile. It had been nearly a week since she had heard anything at all from Twilight. She snatched up the envelope, breaking a small wax seal that held the flap closed before flipping it open. Catching the folded pages inside with the tips of her lips, she pulling them out and tossed the envelope back to the table before unfolding the pages in her hooves to look them over.

When she saw nothing on the two pages, she flipped them over, only to see nothing again. She separated them, casting a puzzled and slightly disappointed look between the pages that she had draped across her hooves, wondering why Twilight would send her blank paper. Resting one of the sheets on the table, she flipped the other end over end and gave it a closer look to make sure she wasn’t missing something. As she was doing so, her eyes caught something lighting up on the page, and in a dim flicker the words ‘Dear Fluttershy’ appeared at the top, causing her to let go a startled yelp as she dropped the page from her hooves. The words then vanished even quicker than they had appeared.

Fluttershy’s surprised expression slowly melted into a confused and a bit curious one. She leaned her head away from the page and grit her teeth as she reached out a hoof to the page and tapped it. When nothing happened, she touched her hoof to it longer, her eyebrows raising a bit. Slowly, the dim flicker began to happen again, causing words to appear on the page as if being written in by some unseen pen. The shock of the moment now past, Fluttershy picked up the page, and began to read from it.

Dear Fluttershy,

I do hope this letter makes it to you safely. I would have sent something sooner, but I feared I would draw attention to the letter if I sent it right away after coming to Canterlot. Just to be completely safe, I enchanted the pages within this envelope. The one you are holding only reacts to your touch, and can only be read as long as you are holding it. I included a blank page that you can use to write back with that works the same for me, so you can write about anything you want without fear of anypony else other than myself seeing it.

Fluttershy tilted her head with a quiet ‘hmm’ as she glanced to the other blank page laying on the table, and then read on.

Things are going really well since I’ve settled in here at the palace. I’ve actually gotten the chance to meet my family again, which was interesting to say the least, but I felt I simply couldn’t ignore them once my name became known in Canterlot. My parents visited for a few days before returning back home. Their home is now Manehatten, which they moved to years ago. It turns out that my brother is working in Canterlot as an arcane armor smith making armor for the guard and just happens to be engaged to Captain Moondancer. What is concerning, is that these are all things which never actually happened in the past I remember. Day by day, I discover more changes in this Equestria, and I’m still no closer to discovering the true cause.

However, seeing my family again has been wonderful. And yet, at the same time it has been rather difficult. I wish I could tell them the truth of everything, but I feel that would only confuse things needlessly, and I will not risk involving them. As far as they know, I simply don’t remember anything from the last thirteen years. I have told them that I woke up one day, not knowing where I had been or how I had learned what I know. Basically, my story is that I have a strange sort of amnesia. I know it sounds a bit like a wild story, but not nearly as much as having become a time traveling alicorn princess, right?

Fluttershy gave out a light giggle as she flipped the page over with her hooves, looking to the words forming on the back side.

Actually, it turns out I was able to befriend Moondancer, after we had a talk. Since she is close to my brother, she knew about the disappearance of this time’s Twilight Sparkle, who I am told mysteriously vanished thirteen years ago. Moondancer ended up confronting me about it, thinking at first that I was somepony posing as Twilight Sparkle, but I think I set her straight on that. I revealed my identity to her, so she now knows what I really am, though she still doesn’t know the full story of how I got here. While I doubt she would buy the story of me having amnesia, I think it would also be unlikely that she would believe I’m a time traveler, since I really have no physical proof of either. However, being a princess has certain perks, such as not having to explain yourself to anypony if you don’t wish to. I’ve simply told her that she would have to take it up with Princess Celestia if she wanted to know more about my past. Of course she didn’t really like that answer. However, Moondancer seems to be the type that takes it upon herself to investigate unknowns until she finds the truth she is looking for. I’m hoping that with time, I can guide that curiosity of hers toward something useful, and maybe even get a solid answer as to what really happened here.

I do believe Moondancer can be trusted. She holds Equestria’s continued safety above all else, and in that we found some common ground. She is loyal to Nightmare Moon, but only in so much that she is loyal to Equestria’s current ruler because she understands the importance of keeping the nation strong in Celestia’s absence. She fears a possible invasion or even a civil war if things were to become unstable, which isn’t an unfounded fear. I’m going to try to work with her to make sure Equestria stays safe, and hopefully we’ll soon find an answer to ending the eternal night.

I may end up taking your advice on having that conversation with Nightmare Moon after all. She seems much more approachable lately, and I’m holding on to hope that as her court enchantress, I can discover a compelling reason for her to raise the sun once again.

Please tell the girls how things are going for me. I send well wishes to you all, and look forward to hearing back from you soon.

Your true friend,

Twilight Sparkle

Fluttershy stared at the signature at the bottom of the page for a moment with a gentle smile on her muzzle. Her eyes eventually glanced up to the blank sheet of paper resting near the opened envelope on the reading table, and at that moment an idea found its way to her.

After gently folding Twilight’s letter and the blank page back into the envelope, Fluttershy tucked it under her wing and stood from her couch. “Angel?” she called out as she glanced around the room looking for the little white bunny. “Angel, where are you?” she called again, but then stopped when she felt a quick tug at her tail. She glanced back to see the bunny in question looking up to her expectantly.

Fluttershy smiled down to Angel, turning and kneeling on her forelegs so her own gaze was nearly the same height as his. “I’m going out for a little while to see the girls. Take care of the house while I’m out, okay?” Fluttershy smiled and patted the bunny on the head when he quickly nodded in response. She then made her way to the door and out into the evening to visit her friends.

The interior of Twilight’s tower was dark and silent. The sand had run out of the hourglass hours ago, and nopony had been around to reset it. Time seemed to stand perfectly still in this place, until a noise disrupted the silence from outside. The sound of hooves making their way up the stairs to the tower’s front door slowly grew louder as the tower’s current resident made her way home for the evening.

Twilight used a small burst of magic to signal the doorway to open, and it swung open on its own. She had taken a few liberties in refitting the tower with some useful things, mostly simple recreations of magical technology that she had grown accustomed to in her own time. She had limited access to proper materials to create some of the magical items, but she had done well with what she had managed to find in such a short time. The doorway had been fitted with an enchanted item that allowed her to control it with very simple signals instead of having to manage telekinetic magic or use her hooves to open it. The lights within the tower noticed her presence and came to life on their own as she crossed the threshold of the doorway. As the door closed itself behind her, Twilight made her way to the back of the room and then up the spiral stairway to the platform above. She approached the desk there, which was cluttered with a number of scrolls, books, and notes. A quill hovered just above an inkwell on the desk, and had done so for the many silent hours before its owner had returned home.

Twilight loosened the straps to her saddlebags and let them slide to the floor with a clunk, and then proceeded to shed her unicorn disguise. Her velvet jacket found its way to a nearby golden coat stand, and her crown flickered into view atop her head as she let the translucency spell dissipate. She groaned slightly as she let her wings stretch out from her sides, flapping them once and then folding them back as she turned her attention back to the saddlebags laying on the floor. Undoing the leather buckles holding the flaps of her saddlebags closed, she flipped them open and began to use her magic to lift the contents that she had picked up at the palace’s post office. She had used her new position to request many books and scrolls to be sent to her from various libraries all across Equestria. Sealed scrolls and wrapped books slowly floated up and out of the bags, along with something else that stood out among the rest of the items; a rectangular envelope. Twilight brought the envelope closer with a scrutinizing look and then noticed that it was from the Ponyville post office, which caused a smile to brighten her muzzle. With no doubt in her mind that it was a response to the letter she had sent two days earlier, the rest of the hovering items quickly lost their importance as Twilight absentmindedly stacked them on the floor to the side of the desk and found her way to the seat cushion. She made some extra room on the desktop for the envelope, pushing a stack of scrolls to the side and causing a few of them to roll off to the floor. Other than a quick glance at the few scrolls rolling away, she seemed to otherwise pay them no mind.

Breaking the seal on the envelope, Twilight lit her horn and lifted the blank page out, and with a content sigh she reached out to it to hold it in her hooves, causing the page to come alive with words.

Dear Twilight,

It’s good to hear from you, and I’m glad everything is working out okay. The girls and I are all here right now, and I’m going to let them each write a little something to you. I hope that’s okay.

The smile on Twilight’s muzzle only grew wider at Fluttershy’s gentle words. When the writing on the page changed suddenly, Twilight blinked in confusion for a short second before she recalled that in this time, ponies still did their own writing by unicorn magic, hoof, or even teeth. Twilight cast a quick glance to the hovering quill she had enchanted to do her writing for her by dictation, something that in her time was as commonly used by everypony as drinking water, and realized how easy it had been to forget about something so simple as unique writing styles.

Howdy Twilight, this is AJ. I have to say, when I heard that you had gone off to Canterlot, I was a bit taken by surprise, but I suppose it makes sense. I’m sure you know your way around the castle, and if anypony among us girls can figure things out it’s going to be you. You just remember to not be taking on the world on your own, you hear now? If you need help, just send word and I’ll be on the next train to Canterlot. I’m sure the same goes for the rest of the girls.

The writing style changed once again as it transitioned over to another message from one of her friends.

Hey Twilight, Rainbow here. So, I’ve got something to say to you, sister.

The smile on Twilight’s muzzle didn’t wane, even though she rolled her eyes, quietly mumbling ‘here we go’ to herself before reading on.

I know you’re a princess, and you can do whatever you want, but really, if we’re going to be a team you need to work on your team work. Running off without telling us is not cool. You hear that? Not. Cool.

Anyway, I’m sure you have your reasons, so just don’t forget about us while you’re there in Canterlot being all important.

Twilight smirked as she flipped the page over, watching as the first words began to form at the top. Just as she noticed the word ‘Surprise’ coming into view, a startling pop shot out from the letter, along with a puff of confetti and streamers. Twilight let go a yelp as she flinched, and blinked a few times as the steamers caught and hung off her horn and muzzle. The confetti that didn’t stick to her face fluttered down to the table and floor around her.

Twilight’s brow twitched slightly. “Pinkie... how... oh whatever,” she said with a laugh as she brushed the colorful pieces of paper off before continuing to read.

Surprise! Hopefully that worked! Fluttershy told me about this nifty paper that you sent her, that makes writing disappear and reappear. That’s neat! So I thought, hey, I wonder if it can make confetti disappear and reappear! I mean, if it’s magic that you made, it has to do neat stuff like that, right?

Twilight raised one eyebrow at the letter, wondering how Pinkie always arrived at conclusions that shouldn’t make sense, but then somehow ended up doing so. It was a trait the mare had that she had never been able to figure out; one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of Equestria.

Anyway! This isn’t really supposed to be a letter about confetti. Next time we meet, I want to throw you a ‘Congratulations-on-becoming-the-Queen’s-enchantress’ party! Maybe you can make the invitations, that would be nifty. Oh, I better leave some space for Rarity, so anyway, see you later!

Twilight noticed the writing transition from Pinkie’s bubbly letters to a style that looked like a carefully crafted work of art.

Dearest Twilight,

I have to say, I’m so very proud to have a friend such as yourself. Even when hiding your true identity, you have found a way to elevate yourself to such an important position so easily. It must simply come naturally to you. Should you find the need for company, please let me know. I would gladly make the time to visit you. Truth be told, I’ve always dreamed of living in Canterlot myself, and have always enjoyed spending time there.

Do take care of yourself, and stay in touch.

Once again the letters transitioned from one style to another, this one returning to Fluttershy’s gentle flowing writing.

Well, that’s everypony. It was good to hear from you, and I think everypony is feeling a lot better now knowing that things are going well for you in Canterlot. We actually talked about it a bit, and I think we would all like to visit sometime soon, if that’s okay. I know you’re busy and all, so it’s just something to think about.

Anyways, we’re all hoping for the best for you.

Take care,

From all of your friends,

Fluttershy Rarity
Rainbow Dash Applejack Pinkie Pie

Twilight found herself lingering on the signatures at the end of the page, taking in the unique characteristics of each one. She wasn’t exactly sure how long she had stared at them in the silence when her attention was brought back to reality by the sound of a knock below her.

Twilight’s ears had shot straight up at the sound, and she sat there still as a statue as she strained her hearing. Again, the knock came from down stairs; the sound of somepony rapping their hoof against her front door. Twilight quickly sent a signal to the doorway to activate another part of the magical device that controlled it, and then a blurred image began to materialize in the air just in front of her. The image shimmered and shook as it struggled to take form, and eventually reached a clarity that was enough for Twilight to recognize the pony it pictured. The face of a white stallion could be seen in the floating circular image, his multi-shade blue mane flipping from one side to another as he glance upward. He seemed to reach up toward the image with his hoof, tapping against it, the knocking sound from below matching his motions exactly.

Twilight dismissed the image, and quickly whisked her jacket from its resting place, pulling it tight over her shoulders and back as she worked to fasten the silver snaps. Her crown faded from view as she also sent a quick signal to the doorway below to get it to open up. “It’s open!” she called out as she flipped her mane out of the jacket’s collar.

She could hear hoofsteps on the lower level that hesitated after having walked into the room. “Twily?” the familiar voice of her older brother called out, echoing through the tower.

“I’m up here,” Twilight said through a smile as she sat at her desk, taking a moment to carefully place her treasured letter safely to the side. She turned her gaze to watch the stairs as she heard her bother climbing them.

Shining Armor stopped just a couple steps past the top stair, smiling back to her. “Hey,” he said through his simple, infectious smile.

“Hey, Shiny,” Twilight said as she stood from her desk, walking over to greet him with a quick hug.

Shining took notice of the pile of wrapped books and scrolls near the desk as he peered over his sister’s shoulder. Leaning back to look straight on at her, he curiously asked, “Catch you at a bad time? I don’t want to bother you if you’re busy.”

Twilight glanced over her shoulder quickly toward the mess of books, then back to her brother with a sheepish grin. “Don’t mind the mess. I just need to organize things a bit.” She turned and took a few steps back toward her desk, using her magic to nudge the pile of books and scrolls into a slightly more uniform stack instead of a random pile. “And you know I’m never too busy for my brother,” she added as she smiled back to him.

“Well, I don’t exactly have anything important to talk about. I just felt like stopping by... like every other day since I found out you were back.” There was a nervous edge to the laugh that followed as he rubbed the back of his neck with a hoof. “I’m not bothering you, am I?”

Twilight reached out with her magic, grasping a nearby pillow cushion to bring it closer to the desk. “For the last time, Shiny, no. You’re not bothering me,” she said as she took a seat at her desk, and then gestured to the other pillow cushion she had just placed on the other side. “Honestly, you worry too much,” she said as she leaned her folded forelegs on the desk’s edge.

Shining Armor accepted the seat across the desk from his sister with a quiet ‘thanks’, making himself comfortable as he rested his left foreleg against the desktop. After a short pause he let go a very audible sigh. “I can’t help it,” he said as he shrugged his shoulders. “I mean... all of this has really been like a dream come true. When Moondancer told me she had found you....”

Twilight watched as her brother went silent and seemed to blankly stare off at nothing. She reached out across the desk, cupping her hooves around his, causing him to look back to her. “I know. I’m just sorry you had to go through all that. The years of not knowing. I’m sure it would have driven me crazy. I can’t stand not knowing things.”

“Speaking of... not knowing things,” Shining said as he shifted to look straight on at Twilight, “I know you said before you don’t remember anything. Is that still the case?”

Twilight hesitated for a few seconds before she leaned back, drawing her hooves back to herself. “Yes, it is. I still don’t remember a thing.” Even though it was technically the truth that she had no memory of this history’s past thirteen years, it still felt like she was lying to her brother, and she didn’t like having to repeat it.

“Even the day it happened?”

“Sorry,” Twilight said as she barely shook her head. She watched the frustration playing out on her brother’s face as he shifted back to leaning against the desk to stare off at the back of the room again. “It bothers you that much, huh?”

Shining Armor worked his jaw back and forth as he considered how to explain what he was feeling. “I just don’t feel like I have closure, and I don’t see how you would either,” he said as he cast a glance back to his sister. “I mean, thirteen years of your life are just gone. Thirteen years that we didn’t know if you were alive or dead, and nopony has an excuse. Even your sitter was just clueless.”

Twilight's ears suddenly swiveled back, laying flat against her head. “My sitter? You mean Cadance?”

In contrast, Shining’s expression seemed to lighten a bit at the mention of the name. “I’m surprised you remember her. Well, actually, I guess that might make sense if she was one of the last things you remember,” he said as he rubbed his right hoof against his chin.

“What does Cadance have to do with it though?” It was a question that Twilight wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know the answer to, but if the other princess was somehow involved with the disappearance thirteen years ago, she had to follow up on it regardless of her personal feelings on the matter.

“Oh, well, she doesn’t really, other than that you were with her when you disappeared. She claimed she didn’t see anything though. Said you were there one second, then gone the next.”

Twilight grew very quiet, and found herself staring down at her hooves as her mind mulled over the new information. “I was out with her when it happened,” she quietly said to nopony in particular.

“Yeah. Kind of sad, really,” Shining Armor said before he shifted so he was once again looking straight on across the desk. “I mean, none of us thought she would ever intentionally do anything to you, so of course we knew she had nothing to do with it. You two were pretty inseparable, and she was devastated by the whole thing.”

“I didn’t realize I was with her the day it happened,” Twilight said as she slowly looked up to her brother. “You two used to be pretty close.”

Shining quietly stared back for a few seconds before he smiled weakly. “Yeah, you could say that, but it’s kinda hard to forgive somepony for losing your little sister.”

There it was, the reason why. The reason why another change had come to be, and once again it tied back to her past self’s disappearance. It was looking more and more like everything tied back to this one event. In time, her parents had accepted that their daughter was lost, and had moved away from Canterlot to start over elsewhere. While her brother had remained in Canterlot, he had never joined the guard, likely an indirect result of him not having a little sister to protect. And then there was the eternal night, the most noticeable change due to her absence in this past. Twilight had even theorised that her absence could have been the catalyst that had pushed Celestia toward dealing with the changelings, though she still had no definite proof of such. Still, she was learning firsthoof just how connected a single pony was to the world, and the impact that her past self’s absence was having on Equestria’s history was very troubling. And to learn that the love between her brother and Cadance had been shattered because of something outside of their control was more than just troubling for her, it was painful.

The air in the room had taken on a tense feeling as the two siblings fell into silence over the uncomfortable topic. However, the silence was broken by the sound of somepony else in the room clearing their throat. Both siblings looked over to the top of the stairs to see Moondancer standing there, fully clad in her armor.

Twilight was a bit more than surprised, since there was no way anypony should have gotten into her tower without her knowing. “Uh, Moondancer,” she said with an unsure smile. “How did you get in?”

“You left the door open,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders.

Twilight let go a disappointed groan before she closed her eyes and shook her head, clucking her tongue as she sent a quick magical signal to the door below. The sound of the tower’s door creaking and then coming to a close echoed through the room. Obviously, the door needed some adjustments if it wasn’t automatically closing all the time like it should. Moondancer let go a quiet snicker at Twilight’s frustration as she approached Shining Armor.

Shining gave a loving smile to his fiancé, standing and sharing a quick nuzzle with Moondancer that she happily returned. “Hey you,” he said softly to her.

“‘Hey you’ yourself. Pestering the Queen’s enchantress again?” she jokingly said as she playfully jabbed a hoof at the center of his chest. He responded with a deeper nuzzle aimed under her chin, just brushing against her neck. Moondancer couldn’t help but let go a ticklish laugh as she shied away. “Hey now, I’m still on duty,” she said as she struggled to keep at least a hint of her professionalism intact.

“This late?” Shining said as he tilted his head curiously.

Moondancer let go a light sigh. “A captain’s work is never done. Actually, I’m here to talk with your sister about something important.”

Shining’s expression suddenly changed as he put on a mock surprised look, glancing to his sister. “Ooo, important official royal stuff,” he said as he faked a serious nod, to which Twilight just rolled her eyes as she shook her head at his silliness. Though Moondancer couldn’t hide the grin turning up the corners of her mouth, she still managed to give the stallion a stern stare as she jabbed him in the side with her elbow. “Alright, alright, I can take a hint,” he said through a laugh as he rubbed at his side. He circled around her, making his way toward the stairway. Pausing just at the top of the stairs, he turned back to catch one more glance at her. “Catch you later tonight?”

She nodded with a loving smile back to him. “Sure, later.”

Shining’s gaze lingered on Moondancer for a moment longer, before he looked to Twilight. “Take care, sis.”

“Goodnight, big brother,” she said from her desk, her hoof giving him a small wave as he turned to depart.

Twilight silently listened as she heard her brother’s hoofsteps echo through the tower as he descended the stairs and crossed the room below. She remained quiet even after he had left, her ears barely able to pick up on the faint sounds as they faded off into the distance. Only when everything had once again gone completely silent did she fully acknowledge that Moondancer was still standing there. “So,” she started as she leaned her elbows against the desktop, resting her chin on her folded hooves. “You can be pretty stealthy when you want to be. How long were you standing there listening in on us?”

Moondancer seemed to seriously consider the question as she glanced around in though. “I think I got here somewhere around the part where you started talking about Cadenza.”

Twilight let go an annoyed grunt as she slumped slightly. “Cadance was my foalsitter for many years. Our families were very close friends before either of us were even born. Seriously, if you’re worried about her past with my brother, I think he made it rather clear that he never forgave her.”

Moondancer shook her head, quickly dismissing the thought. “I’m not that shallow, Twilight. I’m not worried about him being stolen away by a childhood sweetheart,” she said as she took a seat at the desk across from Twilight. “Anyways, I didn’t come here to talk about that.”

“Right,” Twilight said as she propped herself back up. “Important official royal stuff,” she said jokingly, mimicking her brother and managing to get a small laugh from Moondancer in response.

“Your request has been granted,” Moondancer said, bowing her head slightly. “The Queen is going to let you talk to Chrysalis. She seemed convinced that it could help your changeling research, and that it definitely wouldn’t hurt it.”

Twilight shot straight up, looking a bit shocked shortly before a smile spread across her face. “That’s great news! It’s possible that what she has to say could very well be more important than anything I could find in all of these books.”

“I have to wonder through,” Moondancer said as she tilted her head. “Why do you think she’ll answer your questions when she hasn’t been telling anypony else anything useful?”

Twilight thought about the question shortly before giving Moondancer a confident smile and simply saying, “I don’t.”

“Er....” Moondancer didn’t seem to share in Twilight’s strange sense of confidence as she furrowed her brow.

“You’ve likely been asking her direct questions about what you want to know, haven’t you?”

Shaking her head, Moondancer blinked at the odd question. “How else would you question somepony? Play a guessing game?” she said with a strong tinge of sarcasm.

Twilight’s confident smile didn’t waver. “If you are dealing with somepony who is likely to keep information from you, you shouldn’t ask them the questions that you want answers to. You’re only telling them what to hide,” she explained. “Instead, you should just get them to talk to you, in any way you can. And very often, you’ll find that if you can loosen their tongue up a bit, they’ll start telling you all kinds of things you wanted to know, and maybe even a few things you hadn’t even thought to ask about.”

Moondancer looked on at Twilight with a bit of a stunned look, letting go a ‘huh’ as she thought on the words. “You know, sometimes I wonder if you’re really a princess. You don’t always act... princessy,” she said as she gestured a hoof in a small circle.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Twilight said cheerfully. “I guess you can say I have my own way of doing things.”

Chrysalis sat upright in her cell, peering out through the bars at the two mares that had arrived to visit her. “Well... this is rather surprising,” she said as she scratched a hoof against one of the dimly glowing light-blue fetlock bands that ringed each of her legs. She had worn the magic suppressing devices since she had been captured, along with a matching band secured around the base of her horn. “To what do I owe this honor?”

Moondancer let go a harumph, pointing a hoof to her side at Twilight. “She said she wanted to talk to you.”

Chrysalis’s eyes widened a bit in surprise as she looked over toward Twilight. “Really? After how she behaved toward me in the hive, I can’t imagine what for.”

“Moondancer,” Twilight said, drawing the captain’s attention to her. “Would you mind if I talked to her alone?”

This move was actually part of a plan that Twilight had discussed with Moondancer before they had arrived. There was no doubt that Chrysalis would have reservations about answering any questions in front of the Captain of Nightmare Moon’s Nightguard. “Have it your way,” Moondancer said, acting as if she were somewhat put off by the request. She began walking away down the hall, stopping only for a short second to glance over her shoulder and add, “Just be sure to call for help if she tries anything stupid.”

Chrysalis’s eyes followed after Moondancer, watching until she had passed around a corner. Her somber expression never broke as she looked back to Twilight. “You two really don’t make a good pairing,” she said with a slight shake of her head.

Twilight sat back on her haunches in the middle of the hall, trying to make herself as comfortable as one could on the cobblestone floor. “How have they been treating you?” she said as she tried to put on a smile.

Chrysalis didn’t react to the question right away, but after staring back for a few seconds she suddenly let go a loud chuckle. She shook her head, letting out an amused sigh as she recovered from the sudden fit of laughter. “I find it hard to believe that you would be concerned for my well being,” she said as the smile on her face quickly melted off.

Twilight’s eyes closed as she let go a frustrated huff of air. She could tell Chrysalis wasn’t going to make this simple. “Okay, lets try this a different way then,” she said in all seriousness as she looked back up. “I’ve had this feeling that there was something you wanted to tell me since we last saw each other.”

Chrysalis curiously tilted her head at the statement. “Oh, so you haven’t figured much out on your own then.”

Twilight’s gaze hardened. “I’d like to think I’ve figured out a few things. For example, I know that you were getting something from Celestia.”

The corner of Chrysalis’s mouth turned up with a toothy grin as she let a curious ‘hmm’ go. “Did Moondancer come up with that one?”

Twilight didn’t waver before the dodging statements. “She has proof. Honestly, it’s a bit surprising to find out that Celestia had been just hoofing over Equestrians to you.”

“Ah, so that’s what you’re talking about,” Chrysalis said with a knowing nod. “Yes, well... what purpose would they had been serving otherwise? Occupying a cell?” she said as she gestured at the walls around herself shortly before letting her hoof fall back to the ground with a loud clack. “Being a worthless drain on Equestrian society? Heh... you may not see it the way I do, but they were given a purpose beyond what they were otherwise destined for.”

“And Celestia was just giving them to you out of the kindness of her heart,” Twilight said as she casually threw a gesture to the side with her hoof.

Chrysalis let another short laugh go, shaking her head at the claim. “Hardly. No, she needed me, and she knew it, though she only begrudgingly admitted so.”

Twilight raised her brow slightly. “So you’re the one who offered her the deal.”

Chrysalis paused momentarily. Slowly blinking her eyes, she glanced off to the side as she quietly said, “I suppose you could say that.”

“Seems like a strange deal. Your hive was practically being used as a prison, and Equestria didn’t have to give you anything else in return.”

“They served their purpose, as a way to sustain our power,” Chrysalis said as she seemed to casually admire one of her glowing anti-magic bands.

“That’s not nearly enough though, is it?” Twilight said, drawing attention back to her. “You were tasked with guarding something extremely important as well. The only reason why Celestia would have allowed you to build the hive there would be to guard the Elements. Seems like that would be worth a lot more than just a place to sleep and food to survive on.”

Chrysalis stared back silently for some time, before she finally smiled. “Why don’t you ask the question you really want to know the answer to,” she said as she stood and approached the cell bars. She reached up and hooked a single hoof on the center crossbar and leaned her forehead against one of the bars as she maintained her piercing stare at Twilight. “Why would Celestia even need the Elements to be guarded... hm?” she asked, voicing the question herself. “You see, she had managed to locate five of the six by then, but the sixth had gone missing. Time was starting to run out, and she was desperate for any alternative just to keep the youngest sister from getting her hooves on one of the most powerful set of artifacts the world has ever known.”

Twilight frowned and shook her head. “Why would she need to locate the Elements? The five were always at the castle and the sixth was hidden, likely on purpose. She already knew that.”

“Oh,” Chrysalis said, a surprised undertone to her voice. “You thought I was talking about the Elements?” She shook her head. “No no, the bearers. She could only find five bearers. The bearer of Magic had mysteriously vanished just a few years before she had identified that one. And by then, it was too late.”

Twilight’s gaze broken away, her eyes darting about as she quickly tried to process what she had just heard. “She knew who they were back then?” she asked to herself, before looking to Chrysalis. “But that was years before... how could she know?”

“You don’t understand, do you?” Chrysalis said with a slightly annoyed sigh. She rolled her eyes as she sat back on her haunches, leaning further against the bars as she hooked both of her hooves over the crossbar. “She chose the bearers herself.” Chrysalis broke into a grin when she noticed the shocked look on Twilight’s face. “Weren’t expecting to learn that, were you? Trust me when I say the Sun Princess has many secrets.”

Twilight scowled back. “You talk like you don’t have any.”

“Oh of course I do. Every girl has her secrets,” Chrysalis said as she casually waved one of her hooves. Twilight seemed to wait expectantly for more to follow the statement, but only got another toothy grin from Chrysalis instead. “Forgive me if I’m not very forthcoming with them. This environment doesn’t really bring out my sharing side.”

Twilight let an annoyed grunt slip from herself. “I still think you’re hiding something important from me, something that you don’t want me to know. I just don’t understand why yet.”

“Now what would bring you to that conclusion?” Chrysalis said, maintaining a mock innocent look for a few seconds before allowing it to shift back over to her grin. “A gut feeling, perhaps?”

She’s playing with me, Twilight thought. It was beginning to seem likely that she wouldn’t get anything else useful. “If you just want to waste my time, I do have other things I could be doing,” she said as she stood to prepare to leave.

Chrysalis let go a long ‘hmm’ as she seemed to ponder something, causing Twilight to wait for just a moment longer. “Well, I suppose I can share one of my little secrets with you, since you are so interested,” she finally said, gesturing with one of her hooves for Twilight to come a bit closer to hear this ‘secret’.

Of course Twilight hesitated, staring back with a look that told all too well just how little she trusted the Changeling Queen. Chrysalis put on as pleasant of a smile as she could as she said, “Oh come on now, I don’t bite that hard.” The glint from her sharp fangs peeking out from under her smile seemed to say otherwise.

Twilight was curious about what Chrysalis might be thinking about sharing with her. And even if it were some attempt at attacking her, there wasn’t much that the defeated queen could do through the cell bars. Twilight stepped forward until she was just out of reach, to which Chrysalis gestured once more for her to approach closer just before she raised a hoof to her muzzle, as if she wanted to quietly whisper the ‘secret’. Twilight rolled her eyes, turning her ear toward Chrysalis as she took another step closer to the bars.

Chrysalis rushed forward, pressing herself against the bars and extending a forelimb out. In less than a second, her foreleg wrapped around Twilight’s shoulders and pulled her side against the bars tightly, causing the bars to let go an echoing metallic rattle. Twilight tensed, mentally preparing herself to quickly escape at the last second if need be. She couldn’t help but shake slightly at the changeling’s touch.

Chrysalis didn’t attack; she merely held Twilight there against the bars firmly. Bringing her muzzle uncomfortably close to the side of Twilight’s face, she began to whisper quietly. “I know who you really are... Princess.” She hissed the last word through her teeth, grinning at the shuddering breath that Twilight sucked in. “I think my secrets are the least of your worries. It would be rather unfortunate if word got around to a certain Queen of the Night that her new Enchantress wasn’t exactly who she seemed to be... wouldn’t it? But so long as we respect each other’s secrets, that shouldn’t be a problem, I think.”

As Chrysalis loosened her grip, Twilight took the opportunity to pull herself away quickly. Her heartbeat drummed loudly in her ears as she stared back. Chrysalis simply maintained her innocent smile as she perched her forelegs on the cell crossbar, leaning forward to speak again. “One last little... tidbit... before you go. Your suspicions are right, the prisoners were not all that we received in return for our help.” She rested her chin on the crossbar, seeming quite content with the unnerved state she had left her guest in, simply adding, “That’s all.”

Despite her efforts to maintain her composure, Twilight’s nervousness was plainly visible. She tried to swallow down the tight knot that had formed in her throat as she turned to walk away, managing just barely to keep herself from breaking into a gallop to escape. “See you soon,” she heard as Chrysalis’s voice eerily echoed through the hall from behind her, the simple, chilling words causing the hackles on her neck and back to stand on end.

Twilight’s steps hastened as she rounded a corner in the hallway, helping to put distance between herself and the uncomfortable situation. She finally came to a stop in the hallway when she felt she was far enough away, turning to look behind herself as if to make sure she hadn’t somehow been followed.

Annoyed at how she had mishandled her emotions, she tried to force calmness to herself even as her mind was racing with questions. How does she know? She can’t know! I’ve been too careful. But she knows. Only six other’s know and they would never....

Her thoughts came to a halt as she came across an answer. There wasn’t just six others who knew about her true identity, there were seven. “Crystal,” she said in a whisper. Feeling suddenly weak, she leaned against the nearby wall for support. If it were true that Chrysalis had somehow learned this from her student, there was no telling what else the Changeling Queen might know. Twilight’s breath caught in her throat and a shiver worked its way through her body as she considered what possible, horrible fate could have befallen her student. Shaking her head, she tried to put the troubling thoughts aside for now. Right now she needed a place where she could feel safe so she could organize her thoughts instead of letting them run wild.

She hadn’t paid much attention to which direction she had left in, since she had simply wanted to be anywhere else. Glancing about to try and find something familiar to get her bearings, she happened to notice something out of place in the dingy cobblestone hallway. Laying up against the bars inside a cell only a short distance down the hall was something mostly light pink, with a hint of a few other pastels. Her curiosity caused her to take a few steps toward the pink mass to get a better look. She stopped suddenly when her hoof tapped a loose pieces of stone lying in the floor, and she cringed at the clattering noise that it made as it skipped across the floor and shattered the silence.

The figure within the cell stirred, and after shifting she glanced over her shoulder from where she was laying on the floor toward Twilight. The light blue glow from the band encircling the base of her horn was enough to light her face, revealing Cadance’s tired eyes. Twilight’s mind froze at the moment the recognition hit her, causing her to draw in a gasp.

It took Cadance a moment longer, but then her eyes suddenly went wide. Scrambling to her hooves, she stood shakily in her cell, staring back at Twilight. Her coat was matted from sleeping on the floor, and her mane and tail were a knotted mess of hair. She seemed to struggle to speak for a moment until her voice finally forced out a name. “...Twilight?”

“Shh,” Twilight hissed as she cautioned with her hoof as she glanced back down the hallway.

“I-I... Is it you?” Cadance said a bit more quietly as she blinked her eyes and shook her head a bit to make sure the pony she was seeing before her wasn’t just the remnants of some dream.

“Yes, it’s me,” Twilight gently spoke as she approached the cell.

Cadance stepped back a step, her eyes suddenly going wide. “But, no. No! You were gone. You disappeared!” she said as her voice climbed in volume.

Twilight halted her advance, sitting back to avoid frightening Cadance any further. “Cadance, please calm down,” she said as gently as she could.

“But you vanished! You can’t be here,” Cadance said as she backed down to the far wall of the cell. The fear in her voice caused her words to shake as she cowered to the floor. Her eyes darted quickly over Twilight’s form as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing, causing her to quietly ask, “...Can you?”

Twilight chanced a step forward, and when she only saw Cadance warily staring back to her she cautiously stepped up to the cell bars, hooking her forehooves on the crossbar before setting herself there. “See for yourself,” she said as she slowly reached a hoof through the bars toward Cadance.

Cadance eyed the hoof suspiciously, but eventually her curiosity won over as she timidly approached and reached her own hoof out. Twilight smiled back as Cadance gingerly touched her hoof. The fear in her eyes gradually faded, and feeling a bit more confident, she approached and reached her hoof up to touch it against Twilight’s face, taking in the kind smile that she saw. “I-It really is you.”

Twilight’s smile deepened, and she reached forward through the bars at the same moment that Cadance did to hold her. They shared the embrace quietly for awhile, the only sound around them coming from a quiet sniffle that escaped Cadance every so often. “I wouldn’t forget about the greatest foalsitter in the world,” Twilight said quietly, causing a choked laugh to escape from Cadance.

Cadance eventually backed away a step, letting her hooves slide back into the cell. She sat there behind the cell bars as she tried to dry her eyes and get her sniffles under control. “But how? How did you even get here?”

“I’m the court enchantress now.” Twilight noticed the sudden flinch when Cadance heard the statement, but tried not to let on that she had seen it. “I had heard that you were being held here.”

“You’re... working with Nightmare Moon?” Cadance asked, her voice quivering a bit.

“It’s a complicated situation,” Twilight said, sounding a bit tired. “Cadance, I know you don’t belong here. You’ve done nothing wrong, and if there is anyway to change this, I’ll find it.” Cadance’s ears swiveled back against her head, and her gaze fell downward as she realized Twilight wasn’t there to free her from her imprisonment. However, Twilight gently guided Cadance’s gaze back up by hooking her hoof just under her chin. “Hey, don’t lose hope,” she said as she tried to put on a reassuring smile.

Cadance reached up to cup Twilight’s hoof in her own. “Where have you been all these years?” she asked with a shake of her head. “What even happened to you?”

Twilight’s gaze wandered off to the side. Once again she wouldn’t be able to tell somepony she cared about the full truth. “I don’t know yet,” she simply said, hoping it would be enough.

Cadance seemed to struggle with the answer, looking back confused. “You don’t know?”

Twilight huffed a sigh as she looked back. “It doesn’t matter. I’m here now, and I’ll do everything I can to help you. You don’t deserve to be kept here.” She glanced down the hallway, realizing that she had probably overstayed her visit in this place. “I can’t stay,” she said, looking back once more. “It wouldn’t be good if anypony found out that I’ve been talking to you, so if anypony asks, you never saw me, alright?” Cadance barely nodded to acknowledge the request. Twilight could see the disappointment in her eyes, and felt horrible about having stirred the hope for freedom in her heart only to bring it crashing back down. Twilight gently reached up to touch her cheek, trying to offer her a confident smile. “Don’t lose hope,” she said again.

Cadance hooked her fetlock over Twilight’s hoof, trying her best to put forward a smile. “Alright,” she said through her shaky voice.

Twilight gently pulled herself away from the cell, allowing her touch to drift away. “We’ll see each other again, I promise.” Twilight lingered there for a moment longer before she finally turned to walk away. She cast her glance back toward the cell, watching as Cadance hung her forelegs on the cell crossbar, quietly looking after her. Twilight tried to maintain her smile as she left, but it was hard to do so.

As Twilight rounded the corner, she came to a sudden stop, tensing when she saw somepony was standing there waiting for her. She relaxed when she realized it was Moondancer leaning against the wall, who then took a couple steps toward her. “Are you trying to get us both in trouble?” she asked.

Twilight frowned as she glanced back behind herself. “She doesn’t belong down here,” she said, before looking back to Moondancer. “It’s not right.”

“You don’t think I know that?” Moondancer grumbled as she turned to start walking down the hallway. “I’m the one who put her down here,” she said lowly.

Twilight took a few swift steps to catch up, walking along side her in the hall. She cast her glance toward Moondancer a few times, and then finally decided to ask her something. “Isn’t there a way she could be moved?” The question caused Moondancer to halt as she closed her eyes, seeming to grind her teeth. “I’m not asking for her to be freed, just for something better than... this.”

A frustrated groan echoed from Moondancer’s throat. Her eyes finally snapped open, looking directly to Twilight. “No promises!” she said quickly before she started walking down the hall again. “...I’ll see what I can do.”

Twilight smiled as she turned to follow along side Moondancer. “That’s all I ask.”

Moondancer quickly pointed an accusing hoof at Twilight. “You’re going to owe me a huge stack of favors when this is all through.”

“Yes, I’m sure I will,” Twilight said with a smile back to her companion.

Facing Harsh Reality

Moondancer walked the dim cobblestone halls, filling them with the metallic clank of her hoof armor echoing a steady, repeating pattern. Two stallions wearing the standard issue Nightguard armor had accompanied her on this journey into the prison area of Canterlot’s Grand Palace this evening. Earlier, she had received word that Chrysalis had something important she wanted to share with Nightmare Moon, and was now on her way to see to this matter herself.

As requested, the message had been delivered to Moondancer first, which meant that Nightmare Moon would still be unaware of the request. Twilight had mentioned days earlier that Chrysalis somehow knew her secret, and had asked that Moondancer help keep this information from spreading if possible. It seemed now the captive was attempting to use her leverage in some way, but why so suddenly out of the blue was a mystery.

There was no possible way that Chrysalis would know that Twilight had already shared the secret with her, Moondancer thought to herself. This opened up an opportunity, one where she may be able to get the changeling to divulge something useful, and all she would have to do is hear what the prisoner had to say. Moondancer let a smirk turn up the corners of her mouth as the thought passed through her mind, taking a moment to wonder if Twilight’s methods were somehow rubbing off on her. Get them to start talking and they may tell you things you hadn’t even thought to ask, she thought as she recalled Twilight’s wisdom.

The group of guards came to a stop just in front of Chrysalis’s cell. The captive queen lifted her head from where she had been resting on the floor, and with a light yawn and stretch she pushed herself to sit up. She blinked her tired eyes as she peered through the bars at Moondancer. “Hmm, I knew you would be the one to show,” she mused as the corners of her mouth slowly turned up into a smile.

I guess it won’t be that easy, Moondancer thought. She cleared her throat. “Anything you say to me will be reported to her Majesty directly. That’s how it works.”

“Of course,” Chrysalis said as she stood tall in her cell. “That would actually matter If I were really going to tell you anything.”

Moondancer frowned at the odd statement. She momentarily wondered if she had been duped, but thought it odd that Chrysalis would stoop to pulling silly pranks just to waste her time. However, just as she began to consider the possible reasons for Chrysalis’s sudden change of mind, she stumbled forward from a jarring blow to the back of her head that sent her helmet flying and clattering to the floor.

The stinging pain from being bluntly struck shot down the back of her neck. She nearly fell face first into the cell bars as she stumbled toward them, only catching herself just barely quick enough to spin around and see one of the two guards swinging an armor clad hoof at her face. Her head still ringing from the dizzying blow and her eyesight blurred, she failed to properly block the thrust and took another hit, this one solidly landing against the side of her head and causing her to crash into the cell bars full force. The sound of her armor clattering against the metal bars echoed through the halls as her legs scrambled to keep herself upright. She managed to focus her vision just enough in time to see an armored back hoof right before it came up under her chin. Her head snapped back from the kick and slammed against the metal bars again, causing her to let go a short gasp in pain before she slumped down to the ground against the bars into an unmoving heap.

The guard that had assailed Moondancer stood watch over her unconscious body as the other moved toward the cell door. Raising a hoof to the doorway, he pressed the flat of the hoof armor against a circular plate on the door. The plate glowed a light blue before letting go a clack, and then he slid the door to the side opening the cell wide.

Chrysalis still stood where she had quietly watched the entire spectacle, and calmly walked out of her cell after the doorway had been opened. As she stepped out into the hallway, she raised a hoof, presenting it to the guard that had freed her, and he quickly worked to remove the anti-magic band that encircled her fetlock using the same enchanted armored hoof that he had used to open the cell door.

Chrysalis looked to the guard standing over Moondancer’s body while her bindings were being removed. “I take it everything is proceeding as planned?” she asked.

“Yes, your Grace,” the guard said with a quick bow. “They should be arriving on the next train, within the hour.”

“Excellent,” Chrysalis said as she lowered her head enough for the anti-magic band encircling her horn to be removed. It opened and fell to the ground with a metallic clatter after the guard touched it. Chrysalis took in a deep breath and let it out slowly with a happy sigh. “Oh, how I’ve missed my magic,” she said as she took a few steps around toward where Moondancer was laying unconscious on the floor. “As much as I would like to enjoy this moment, we haven’t a lot of time,” she said as her horn lit with a fiery green aura. Moondancer’s helmet lifted from the ground as Chrysalis levitated it over. She propped up Moondancer’s head just enough to fit the helm back on, and the enchantment did its work to change Moondancer’s outward appearance to conform to the standard Nightguard gray. She smiled down as she held Moondancer’s unconscious form in her hooves.

The hallways flashed bright green for an instant before returning back to the dim light levels.

Nightmare Moon sat upon Canterlot’s golden throne, adorned with her onyx regalia. A dozen of her Nightguard stood at attention along the crimson carpet that lead up to the throne, which was positioned at one end of the long hall lined with stained glass windows that depicted the history of her nation. Four additional guards stood at their post beside the throne, two to each side of her. She had chosen to hold court in the same location that her sister once had since shortly after her return, hoping that the familiar surroundings would encourage ponies to attend and ease in the transition. The first couple weeks had seen very little activity at all, but lately things were beginning to show change as the nobility and politicians of Canterlot came to an acceptance of their new ruler, or at the very least had overcome their fear of her enough to bear their questions and grievances to her directly. One such group had her attention when she took notice of a disturbance out in the hall that seemed to be growing louder. She glanced up toward the doorway just as Moondancer galloped through, entering the room with two of her fellow guards close behind her. They all paused to very quickly bend their knee to the monarch before Moondancer trotted up to the throne.

“What has happened?” Nightmare Moon said as she stood from her throne, walking through and past the group of guests as they made way for her. The sudden interruption of their meeting caused a light buzzing of confused whispering to circulate about them.

Moondancer glanced at the confused ponies, carefully choosing her words. “She has escaped,” she simply said as she looked back Nightmare Moon.

As shocking as the information was, Nightmare Moon kept her calm demeanor. She turned her attention to her guests when she heard the hushed whispering coming from them increase in intensity. “We shall continue our discussion at a later time,” she said before turning her attention to one of the Nightguard posted near her throne. “See them safely out,” she commanded, to which the guard quickly nodded in response and began to quickly usher the group out of the room. She then raised her voice so all others in the room could hear her clearly. “The rest of you, lend your help in the search. Go.” Her command set loose a flurry of activity as every guard in the hall set into action, leaving their post and making their way down the hallway at a gallop.

Moondancer followed along with the gathered group of guards until she had nearly reached the grand double doors. She paused there, turning to her side and looking back down the hall toward Nightmare Moon. As she did, seven of the other Nightguard separated from the group and also stopped there next to her, lingering in the room as the rest of the ponies funneled out through the door. Once all others had left, Moondancer’s horn lit with a glowing green light, and the double doors slammed closed with a pulse that then traveled back down the length of the hallway, seeming to skitter along the walls with an electric crackling sound. The pulse ended with a loud snap when it made its way to the end of the hall behind the golden throne.

Nightmare Moon was unsure what she was sensing. The magical pulse that had just rippled its way through her throne room was not familiar to her, and she had not asked for any sort of protective spell to be cast. “What is this? We gave you a command,” she said as she glared at the group of guards that were walking back down the length of the hallway toward her.

The only sound that filled the room for a time was the steady pattern of hoof steps coming from the group of Nightguard. They closed the distance to the Queen, covering most of the length of the room at a casual pace. As they grew closer, Nightmare Moon’s visage only grew more stern and dangerous as she stared down the defiant group of guardsponies. Finally, the group stopped at the bottom of the stairs that lead up to the throne, only a few trots away from her. Moondancer responded to the glare aimed squarely at her with a sudden smile. Her mouth opened to form two simple words, “Do it.”

The other seven Nightguard sprung into action immediately, rushing toward Nightmare Moon at an alarming speed. Two pegasi among the guards took to the air, closing the distance first and both trying to simultaneously tackle her from either side. However, Nightmare Moon reacted to the assault quickly with her magic as her horn crackled to life with energy. One of the guards seemed to bounce off an unseen shield as the other was forcefully swatted away by a wave of kinetic power. “You would dare to attack your Queen!?” she yelled as her voice reached levels that threatened to shake the foundation of the palace. However, her challenging shout seemed to have absolutely no effect. The remaining five ground-bound guards had reached her, and were now attempting to force her to the ground with their superior numbers as they worked to tackle her as a team.

Moondancer had begun to calmly close the distance between herself and the remaining steps leading up to the throne as Nightmare Moon worked to stave off the attacks. She ducked her head slightly as one of the guards flew past her after Nightmare Moon had magically wretched him from her back and tossed him aside. The guard impacted one of the nearby pillars and fell to the ground with a clatter. As he did, his appearance shifted with a green shock of light, revealing an unconscious changeling clad in Nightguard armor.

Surprise was the first emotion that registered on Nightmare Moon’s face, followed very quickly by an unquestionable, building rage at the realization that changelings had managed to trick their way into her throne room. Her draconic eyes flashed brightly, and her ethereal mane and tail billowed wildly about her as she chose to use unrestrained force against the invaders. The guards were all forced back simultaneously by a wave of raw power, scattering them in all directions. A dark storm cloud formed from her mane and rose into the air within the chamber. Lightning skittered across the clouds surface as it threatened to unleash its power upon any who would dare approach.

And one did. The mare that appeared to be Moondancer had nearly covered the remaining distance to the top of the stairs, and was now only steps away from standing face to face with Nightmare Moon. Her horn was glowing a bright fire green, and even her eyes seemed to match the intensity with a green glow of their own. Nightmare Moon brought up a protective shield to guard herself against whatever magical force the imposter might be thinking of using against her, prepared to counter attack the very second the attack failed. However, the fake Captain let go a blast of green light that seemed to simply erode the shield as if it were made of nothing more than water vapor, casually blowing the shield aside like smoke being pushed aside by a light breeze. Surprised at how easily her magic had been disabled, Nightmare Moon didn’t see Moondancer’s metal clad hoof until it was too late, and took a back-hoofed hit squarely to the side of her face.

Nightmare Moon stumbled from the surprisingly strong strike, letting go a gasping cry of pain. She found it impossible to focus clearly enough to conjure anything in response, and the storm cloud she had prepared to smite her enemies with dissipated quickly. She felt her head being guided upward by a hoof under her chin, and through her blinking, watery eyes she saw something that actually caused her to feel fear. This imposter was facing down an alicorn, arguably the most powerful single alicorn in Equestria at this very moment, and seemed to be fully enjoying herself.

“Remember when I said I wasn’t powerful enough to fight you?” the mare masquerading as the Captain asked, to which Nightmare Moon’s eyes widened slightly at the realization of who this imposter truly was. ‘Moondancer’ only grinned back at the reaction as she leaned in slightly, letting go a short, amused laugh through her teeth before whispering into her ear. “I lied.”

With a flick of her hoof, the imposter lifted and tossed her guard’s helm aside, and a quick flash of green flame that rippled from the floor around her up to and over her head stripped her disguise away. Before Nightmare Moon now stood Queen Chrysalis, still clad in the remaining pieces of Moondancer’s Nightguard armor.

Nightmare Moon made a quick attempt to conjure her spells once again, but was denied when she felt a sudden searing pain that seemed to originate deep within her skull. “Ah ah...,” Chrysalis said as she raised one hoof, waggling it as she shook her head. “We’ll have none of that.” Nightmare Moon struggled under the strange power that seemed to be reaching directly into her mind and squeezing her senses mercilessly. She couldn’t properly think, and was even beginning to find it difficult to stand as her legs shook underneath her. She squeezed her eyes closed against the pain as her head hung lowly.

Chrysalis once again used a hoof to guide Nightmare Moon’s glance upward, the touch causing her to tremble. She could only manage to stare back with one eye opened as she clenched her teeth in a last ditch effort to deny the screams that her body wanted to let out. Chrysalis seemed to regard Nightmare Moon curiously as she tilted her head at the sight of her struggling under her mind magic. “This little personality disorder you have is troublesome, but I can solve it all right here,” she said in a soothing voice. As she slowly pulled her hoof away, Nightmare Moon collapsed to the floor as if it had been the only thing supporting her weight. “Now,” Chrysalis said as a wide grin spread across her muzzle, “let's dig that nasty little splinter of a personality out of your mind.”

The unimaginable pain seemed to double in an instant. The only reason why Nightmare Moon didn’t scream at the top of her lungs at that very moment was the fact that the sudden surge in power had completely stolen the wind from her. Her body reacted involuntarily as she writhed on the floor, eventually finding her way onto her side. Her mouth hung open, and after many long, painful seconds had passed, her voice finally returned to her as she let out an agonizing cry. “Don’t worry,” Chrysalis said calmly. “It will all be over soon enough, and then you can go back to being the weak, little sister.”

Twilight had left her tower, having prepared herself to meet with the Queen to discuss the ongoing study of the Everfree Hive. After her discussion with Chrysalis days ago, she had come to the conclusion that the gigantic crystal suspended within the hive must have some sort of additional importance. Chrysalis had admitted that she had received more than just prisoners from Equestria, though she had left out specifically what. The magical crystal was something that seemed very out of place given the location, and had never existed in Equestria’s true past to Twilight’s knowledge. This made it the focus of what was now over two days worth of study by a group of unicorns she had hoof picked for an expedition back to the abandoned hive. The hope was that analyzing the magical properties of the crystal would provide some answers to the tangled web of questions that had been forming ever since Twilight had arrived in this past.

However, the study had provided few results so far, and even fewer that she could actually share. The crystal itself had proven impossible to get any sort of readings on, as it was protected by a large matrix of enchantments that prevented outside interference. Twilight had probed the layers of enchantments herself the previous day, and had found that a large number of the components that made up the enchantments were very familiar to her, containing magical structures that she had developed herself. If anything, she now had enough circumstantial evidence to all but confirm that her student had somehow been involved with the changelings at some point. There was no other possible way that the magic could exist in this time.

None of this was information that Twilight could reveal to Nightmare Moon, not without raising a lot of additional questions that she couldn’t safely answer. Even so, she had returned to Canterlot to request an extension. Her group was due to return from the Nightguard camp stationed near the Everfree Hive along with the Nightguard that had been sent as protection in less than a day, and she still hadn’t uncovered the crystal’s true purpose. She needed more time to unravel the protections, as forcing her way through them would likely trigger a self-destructive enchantment that she had found buried deep under the outer layers. Whatever the secret was that was being hidden, Chrysalis was willing to destroy it before allowing anypony else to discover it. That simply made it all the more important that the truth be uncovered.

Twilight was quickly approaching the stairs to the main entryway of Canterlot’s Grand Palace, but her senses had picked up on something out of place as she had approached. She paused at the entryway, holding one hoof raised as she glanced to the sides of the stairs before her. There was no one there, and there should have been. At all times of every day, there were always two guards posted at this entryway.

Twilight quickly glanced up when she noticed a shadow flick across the ground, immediately trying to trace the angle that it would have been cast from. She blinked as her eyes scanned the skies, her pegasus sight working to pick up movement in the moonlit night. Once her eyes adjusted slightly, she noticed not just something, but many somethings moving against the stars. The shadows soared through the air quickly in circles, some of them diving back down to the palace to land at the spires, others taking to the night sky. A large number of pegasi were currently roaming the skies over the palace.

“Enchantress!” Twilight spun around to face the familiar voice that had called out to her, and then saw an armor clad pegasus descend from the sky, her hooves making a quick clanking pattern on the ground when she touched down.

“Sergeant Gale?” Twilight asked as she approached the guardsmare. “What’s going on? Has something happened in the palace?”

The Sergeant seemed slightly winded, but didn’t let it stop her from speaking. “Chrysalis has escaped,” she said. When she saw the expected shock on Twilight’s face, she moved right into to answering the obvious question. “We’re not sure how. Captain Moondancer reported it to the Queen directly and the entire guard force is searching the palace now, but the Captain locked herself inside the throne room with her Majesty for some reason. We haven’t been able to get the door open since then and we don’t know what’s going on in there.”

The shocked look on Twilight’s face changed to something more unsettling. “Are you sure it was Moondancer?” When she saw that Gale had to stop and consider the question, Twilight immediately took off at a gallop up the stairway into the palace proper, prompting the Sergeant to follow close behind her. “How long ago?” she asked as she rounded a bend in the hallway, taking the most direct route she knew to the throne room.

Gale had lept from the ground after turning the corner, and was now flying just barely higher than Twilight’s height off the floor to keep up. “Not long. Five minutes, perhaps a few more now?” she answered.

“That’s too long.”

“She wasn’t the only one. Maybe half a dozen other Nightguard were in there too.” The Sergeant knew why Twilight was suddenly so concerned about this, and mentally chastised herself for not having realized sooner. If Chrysalis had escaped, she could look like anyone.

Twilight came to a skidding stop just in front of the large double doors that barred entry into the throne room. She wasted no time charging her magic, causing a quick pulse of white light to expand from her horn in all directions around her. The few Nightguard that had been present at the doorway all backed away slightly at the unexpected spell, but there was otherwise no reaction as its white light washed over everyone there. “We have to assume anypony could be a changeling right now,” Twilight said, looking to the small group of guards. “All of you check out, but you need to stick together and confirm that everyone you come across is not a changeling in disguise. We have no idea how many there could be.”

“That might be easier said than done, Enchantress. A lot of our unicorns are away at the Everfree camp,” Gale said. Twilight visibly cringed at the realization that her expedition had left the guard force in Canterlot weakened, and the convenient timing of Chrysalis’s escape was not lost on her.

Sergeant Gale approached a Nightguard unicorn who was busy with scanning the double doors with her magic. “Have you figured anything out about this door?” she asked.

The mare ended her scanning spell, turning her full attention to her superior. “Sorry Sarge, but I haven’t been able to even figure out how this thing is working yet,” she said with a shake of her head. “I’ve never seen magic like it.”

Twilight had wasted no time beginning her own probe of the spell. She very quickly found what she thought she would, that the spell had components that matched designs of her own. This meant it would be too complicated to break it down from the outside in time, even for herself. But she did have another option.

“I’m going inside,” Twilight said as she turned from the doorway toward Gale. “We can’t safely break this down from here, but I can get past it and open it from the other side.”

Sergeant Gale glanced up at the imposing double doors, and then back to Twilight with an unsure look. “Are you sure? We have no idea what is happening in there.”

“That’s more the reason for me to get in there now. The Queen needs our help.” Twilight turned her focus back to the doorway, starting to conjure up her power as she continued to speak. “Do not try to attack this door, that would have very bad results. Just wait for me to open it.”

Even though she wasn’t a member of the Nightguard, it was clear to the Sergeant that Twilight was the one in control of this situation, and was likely the only pony among them who could solve it. “Understood,” Gale said with a quick nod of respect to the Enchantress. She caught Twilight’s gaze briefly as she looked back, and offered a quick smile adding, “Good luck.”

Twilight nodded back to the Sergeant, and then focused her attention fully on the doors as she prepared to push past the barrier using a method she had invented herself. Her studies of magic had led her to find that magical shields operated in the three dimensional world differently than most things. They nullified the natural laws that most things were bound to, such as forces of gravity. It was a byproduct of their purpose, which was to stop other things from getting through.

Twilight had also found that with proper understanding of the underlying workings of the world, one could manipulate space in such a way as to warp it. The warped space was completely undetectable by conventional means, as any light, sound, energy, or matter that passed through it would conform to it harmlessly. All things, except for shielding spells. Knowing this, Twilight could ‘push’ the warped space around and through the spell, and create a sort of ‘gap’ that was untouched by the shield that she could cast a teleport through. It took a greater amount of effort to do, as the gap had to be maintained at the same time the teleport spell was cast for it to complete. And this ward in particular had some complexities to it that were forcing her to exert extra effort just to find the gap she was looking for.

The instant she found it, she didn’t even waste one second before casting the teleport. Her senses shifted as the familiar sensation of being thrown through space rushed over her, ending in a near instant when she reappeared, this time on the other side of the door. Immediately, her ears were assaulted by the screams of Nightmare Moon, who she could see writhing around in agony on the floor just in front of the throne. Over her stood Chrysalis, who was mid cast in some sort of spell. Twilight’s next actions were almost purely reactionary. Her mind reached out for the gap she had just created in the ward and quickly located it. She focused her attention on Nightmare Moon, and then on the first safe place that came to her mind, paying no attention to the distance involved as she hadn’t any time to consider it. Her horn flared with a bright white flash and a shower of sparks as she poured her power into pressing another teleportation spell through the gap, and in that instant Nightmare Moon vanished in a flash. Her horn complained with a sharp, burning pain after the sudden exertion of power, but the spell had had the desired effect. Nightmare Moon was now safe, far away from the one who had been harming her.

Chrysalis flinched at the sudden interruption of her spell when her target vanished. She slowly turned toward the doorway, and upon seeing Twilight there, gave her a deep glower. “That... was rather annoying,” she growled as she began to walk the distance down the hallway toward Twilight. At the same time, a half dozen others in the room that appeared to be Nightguard gathered around her to follow.

Twilight realized she had little time to make a choice. She could attempt to bring down the ward, but it would likely take the majority of her focus to do so and would leave her vulnerable. She considered a retreat, but a third teleportation through the barrier could prove to be too much for her already exhausted magic, and even if it did succeed she didn’t want to give Chrysalis the chance to escape. Her only other option was to attempt to stand and fight against superior numbers with her magic reserves already greatly taxed.

None of the choices were good ones.

However, Twilight considered that she had an ace she had yet to play; her anti-changeling magic. If she could force enough of her remaining power into the spell, she could disable the entire group of changelings long enough to deal with the warding spell. She had already expended far more of her power than she had planned to when she had teleported Nightmare Moon to safety, so it was going to be an all or nothing attempt. She steeled herself, calling upon her remaining power and conjuring a white point of light at the tip of her horn. When she felt she had charged as much of her remaining magical energy as she safely could, she released the spell, filling the room with a white wave of light that rippled wall to wall against the warding and quickly expanded toward the group of changelings.

Chrysalis charged a spell of her own, matching the power that she saw and releasing something that appeared identical; a white wave of magical force that expanded from her horn to fill the room. When the two waves of white light impacted each other, they cancelled out causing a sound that was similar to that of breaking glass, leaving nothing behind.

The spell’s failure left Twilight breathless, both at the expenditure of the last of her magical reserves and the fact that it had been her last option. She blankly stared at the empty space between herself and the changelings that were still advancing toward her. Escape was no longer an option, fighting was no longer an option, even a rescue was likely not to happen since she had told the Nightguard to wait for her. She had completely underestimated her opponent, and now there was nothing left she could do.

“Hmm... weren’t expecting that to happen, were you?” Chrysalis said as she stopped only a few steps away. The guards fanned out to her sides, cutting off any sort of escape route that Twilight could possibly take into the throne room itself. Twilight backed herself away until her tail brushed against the double doors, her eyes quickly darting back and forth as she tried to keep track of the group surrounding her. Chrysalis let an amused chuckle escape from her throat. “You look utterly exhausted,” she said through a fang filled smile. She took a moment to glance to each side of herself at the guards that were eagerly waiting on their next command. She looked back to Twilight, finding the defiant glare from her cornered prey to be all the more amusing. Her voice had a tint of excitement as she gave her command. “Take her.”

The half dozen guards all rushed their target simultaneously. Twilight made one last effort to call forward what magic she could to defend herself, even pushing herself unsafely past her normal limits to find anything she could use, but she had expended her power far too quickly for it to recover in time. One of the guards received a mild shock of power that caused him to flinch and let out a yelp, but the rest easily tackled Twilight to the floor before she could do anything else.

Despite the increased strength gifted to alicorns through earth pony magic, Twilight’s physical strength alone was not enough to counter the strength of the six guards holding her against her will. She felt something come in contact with her horn and fasten around it with a hard click, and in that instant it was as if one of her senses had simply ceased to exist. The always constant connection that she had with the magical aura of the world around her had been severed. She felt something else being removed from atop her head, and was able to glance up to see one of the guards holding the Element of Magic out to Chrysalis. She struggled in vain to push herself up, but was harshly pressed back against the floor in response. She let out a wail of pain when one of the guards suddenly twisted her right foreleg back at an awkward angle.

“Stop!” Chrysalis barked out, the sudden shout causing the pain to immediately cease when the offending guard released his hold. “There’s no point in harming her needlessly,” Chrysalis growled with a harsh glare focused on the guard, causing him to cringe. After a reluctant pause, he continued to work at removing Twilight’s velvet jacket, this time much more carefully, pulling the sleeve loose from one foreleg and then the other. Another guard had been working to attach anti-magic bracelets around Twilight’s fetlocks, and she could feel her strength diminishing as each one was attached. One of the guards pulled the final restraint from a pouch on his armor; a body harness made of strong woven straps designed to restrain a pegasus’s wings. The guard worked to strap the harness around Twilight’s body after her jacket had been removed, securing it tightly and buckling it just above her shoulders to prevent her from being able to fly. The guards pulled her up to her hooves once all of the restrictive gear had been secured and checked.

Twilight knew she had been beaten. She had nothing left she could use to fight back with on her own now, so her only remaining option was to attempt to stall for time for the longshot chance that she would somehow be rescued. “You found Crystal Charm, didn’t you?” Twilight accused as she glared angrily at Chrysalis. It was something that she wanted to confirm at the very least, and if this Chrysalis was anything like the one she knew, she could probably prod her into wasting time on boasting about her victory.

“Whatever are you talking about?” Chrysalis said casually as she turned the Element of Magic over in her levitation magic, studying it closely. She seemed completely uninterested in holding the conversation.

Twilight knew she was being lied to, and was beyond the point of controlling her rage now. “Don’t play stupid with me!” She yelled back, drawing Chrysalis’s full attention to her. “I’ve seen it all over your magic. Things that I taught her.” Twilight’s voice weakened slightly as she asked the question that she needed to know the answer to, but feared the most. “What did you do to her?”

“Well then,” Chrysalis started with a slightly surprised tone. She passed the crown over to one of her guards as she said, “If you wanted to meet your precious student again so badly, why didn’t you ask me sooner?” Chrysalis closed her eyes, her horn glowing briefly as a ring of green fire lit around her hooves. The ring quickly flashed over her form, and left in her place was a young, dust gray unicorn mare. Her long, straight, sea green mane fell down to just slightly more than shoulder length, and she opened her deep emerald eyes to look directly at Twilight. “Hello, teacher,” she said in the voice that Twilight knew all too well; the voice of her student, Crystal Charm.

Twilight’s body shook with anger as she pushed herself forward, only to be restrained by two of the guards holding her back with a hoof on each shoulder. “What did you do to her!?” she screamed as tears pooled up in her eyes, threatening to overflow.

“Do to...,” Chrysalis paused for a second before she suddenly burst into a fit of laughter. It took her a moment to recover from whatever it was about Twilight’s outburst that she had found amusing. Twilight, on the otherhoof, was glaring daggers back at her.

“I-I’m sorry. I wasn’t expecting that,” Chrysalis said as she tried to get her fit of giggles under control. She wiped away tears that had formed in the corners of her eyes from the laughing fit, and then looked straight into Twilight’s eyes after she had managed to catch her breath. “You don’t get it, do you? You still haven’t figured it out,” she said as she shook her head. A light chuckle sounded deep in her throat as she prepared to reveal another one of her well kept secrets.

“It’s me, teacher. It was always me, from the very first day we met.”

A lie. That is what she wanted it to be. Twilight’s mind immediately rejected the statement, and tried to find a hole in the claim. She needed something, anything she could use to prove that Crystal Charm was real, that her student had been more than a falsified personality, but she couldn’t find it. There was nothing that Chrysalis would gain from such a lie. The more she considered it, the more it made sense that Crystal Charm had never existed in the first place. The student of Princess Twilight Sparkle would have never had a reason to change the past, but the Queen of the Changelings definitely did.

Twilight’s logical side eventually won out, and the weight of the betrayal came down on her like a ton of bricks, causing her to stumbled as if she had been physically struck. Tears overflowed and soaked the fur under her eyes. A single sob wracked her body as she fought to control her emotions, and she ended up staring down at the floor in front of herself as she clutched at her chest with a foreleg.

“Oh...,” Chrysalis quietly said, raising a hoof to her muzzle as a concerned look washed over her face. “Oh, I think I can feel your little heart breaking all the way over here.”

Twilight’s eyes squeezed closed, causing more tears to pour over. Another sob made it past her, and she opened her eyes, glaring back with a mixture of sadness and anger. Through her gritted teeth, she managed to force out a simple question. “Why?”

“Why?” Chrysalis echoed the simple question, her tone indicating that the answer should be plainly obvious. She furrowed her brow as she approached Twilight, who flinched back a step. “I spend well over a thousand year brooding over my curse and living within the shadows of society before I finally decide to do something about it, and at every turn I have been denied, thanks in no small part to your efforts....” Chrysalis maintained a silent glare, allowing some time for the words to sink in, narrowing her eyes before continuing. “You have the nerve to ask why? Is it not obvious!?”

Twilight looked away, unable to bring herself to look into the angry face that she had known to be her student for so many years. Chrysalis tisked loudly, spinning on her hooves and walking a few steps away. She hung her head low for a moment, before turning sidelong toward Twilight, still harboring the angry glare. “You show absolutely no remorse for exploiting my curse, twisting magical spells against me and my kind. I had to do something or else I was doomed to suffer these injustices from now until eternity!”

Chrysalis closed her eyes and breathed in a calming breath, slowly releasing it as she opened her eyes again. Her scowl slowly melted away, and was replaced by a much more pleasant smile as she began to slowly walk back toward Twilight. “What better way to find a solution than from the mare herself. All I had to do was convince you that I wanted to be your little pet student. And you were so desperate for affection that you fell for it!” Twilight flinched as Chrysalis’s face flashed a moment of anger.

However, Chrysalis recovered quickly, and the gentle smile returned as she delicately raised a hoof, touching it against the side of Twilight’s muzzle, to which she almost immediately pulled herself away from. “I’ll admit, we had some good times,” Chrysalis said calmly, seeming unfazed by Twilight’s reactions. “But my goal was always to learn what I could from you so I could counter your magic. But then... you showed me something so much more valuable than that. To think that you had discovered such powerful magic, and had hidden it away. I seriously doubt that you realize the full potential of what you had.”

“The time spell is dangerous!” Twilight snapped back. “You’re destroying everything!”

Chrysalis raised one eyebrow, making a quarter turn and pausing with one hoof raised. “Not the way I see things,” she said before fully turning away to walk down the crimson carpet a ways. She spun around on her hooves, raising one foreleg high as she declared, “I’m fixing them!” Her hoof dropped limply back to the floor as she stared back at Twilight. She seemed to be confused at how Twilight failed to understand something so simple. “That Equestria,” she began as she gestured one hoof to the side, “the one that we both came from... should have never happened. Something else should have happened, but you never gave it the chance.” Chrysalis walked the distance back down the carpet, stopping just in front of Twilight again. “Have you not ever wanted to go back and change something?” she asked, seeming very seriously curious of the answer.

Twilight shook her head, casting her glance down to the floor. “We’re not supposed to get second chances.”

“You honestly believe that?” Chrysalis questioned as she craned her neck low to try and look Twilight in the eyes. When their eyes meet, she shook her head slightly. “I think you’re lying. Why else would you have put effort into developing a spell to accomplish just that; to give you a second chance.”

“I was wrong,” Twilight declared firmly, raising her gaze up level. “All of this is wrong, and you know it!” she said as she jabbed an accusing hoof toward Chrysalis, causing the guards to firmly hold her back out of reach. “Just think for a moment. You’re changing your own history! What if you came across your past self, what would happen then?”

“Oh, oooh yes that,” Chrysalis said as she sat back on her haunches, suddenly seeming very lost in thought as she pressed a hoof to her muzzle. “Well, that already came to pass, and the issue was... dealt with.” She ended the last two simple words with a small smile.

Twilight felt an unease creep up within herself at the cryptic meaning of the words. She reluctantly asked, “What do you mean?”

Chrysalis rolled her eyes and let go an annoyed sigh. “If you really must know, I decided that there would only need to be one me,” she said with a simple shrug of her shoulders.

Twilight stared back wide eyed. “You’re insane,” she said as her voice quivered slightly.

Chrysalis threw her head back, letting go a loud, unrestrained laugh. Her head rolled back forward, and quickly the laugh ended in a single breath. “What’s insane is that you still don’t comprehend the true power of the magic you created.” Chrysalis raised both of her forehooves to her sides as she glanced upward. “This world is my future now. The future that I was always meant to have!”

“So that’s your answer,” Twilight said, drawing Chrysalis’s attention back to her. “Just eliminate anyone and anything in the way of what you want?” She grew quieter, and then asked, “Is that what you did to me?” Her body visibly shook as as she asked.

Chrysalis stood and took a step closer toward Twilight, once again reaching a hoof delicately up toward her muzzle, to which Twilight quickly recoiled from once again. “How could I ever senselessly bring harm to the one who taught me so much?” Chrysalis asked. She used the same, quiet little closed-mouth giggle that Twilight had always found to be one of the most endearing quirks about her student, and then turned to walk toward one of her guards. “You’ll never know the truth of it, and at this point it no longer even matters,” she said as she used her magic to take up the Element of Magic that the guard presented to her. “You see, you’ve actually saved me a lot of trouble by coming here. You’ve had something in your possession that has been quite elusive in this Equestria. I’ve spent years trying to find a way to bring the focus back into existence, but you have brought it right to me.” She stopped admiring the crown briefly as it hung in her greenish levitation aura, casting a sidelong glance at Twilight. “I really should thank you, since you are making this much simpler. To think I was planning on taking little Luna’s place for a while just to get closer to you.”

The thought of the Queen of Changelings making use of the Element of Magic left Twilight with a sickening feeling, however, she knew they were not simply a tool to be used by anyone in the world. “The Element of Magic will never accept you,” she said with a firm degree of confidence.

Chrysalis let go another amused chuckle. “Shows how little you know,” she said as she dismissed the statement with a wave of her hoof. “But,” she started with a sigh, “I can’t really blame you for that. After all, Celestia failed to tell you how they really work. I’m sure she also never even told you where they came from, did she?” She raised her eyebrows as she looked toward Twilight waiting for an answer to come forth, but when all she got back was a silent stare she smirked, simply saying, “I thought not.”

Chrysalis took another moment to admire the crown she held in her levitation spell, and then looked past it to notice the velvet jacket that one of her guards was holding draped over his foreleg. She let go a thoughtful hum as she smiled. “I just had a marvelous idea,” she said as she began to work her magic to shed the remaining pieces of Moondancer’s Nightguard armor from her body. The metallic pieces each fell to the floor with a loud clunk when she dropped them, and once she had fully removed each piece, she passed the crown back to one of her guards for safe keeping as she approached Twilight. “You’ve succeeded in disrupting my plan to take Luna’s place, which does put me in a bind.” Casting her eyes upward at the giant doorway, she continued. “Once those doors open, a swarm of Nightguard are going to storm through, looking to save their precious Queen of the Night from the evil changelings.” She looked back to Twilight, her smile shifting over to a toothy grin. “I believe this will be so much easier if I just take your place instead.”

Twilight felt a wave of panic wash over her when Chrysalis lit her horn. She felt the two guards stiffen their grip on her shoulders, and could feel the primal fear deep inside her trying to urge her to flee. The only reason why she didn’t struggle was that she knew it was pointless, but it didn’t stop her heart from racing. “I don’t normally use this,” Chrysalis said, stopping very close to Twilight’s face as her horn and eyes cast an eerie green glow over her features. “It does take a great deal of effort, but I think in this case, it will be more than worth it.”

Twilight’s entire body tensed when she felt something foreign inside her being. It was like something was reaching into her, searching her. It was probing her mind, laying it open like a book for all to see. She momentarily tried to fight back against it, to find a way to close her mind to the intruder, but the invasive feeling only intensified causing the panicked feeling deep within her to force itself closer to the surface.

“Resisting just makes it worse, and it does nothing to stop me,” Chrysalis warned, which surprisingly caused her target to relax slightly. She continued the spell, rifling through Twilight’s memories like one might skim through the pages of a book to find the interesting highlights. Once she had gone back far enough to cover the short time span that Twilight had been in this past, she stopped. “So, that’s what you have been up to. Didn’t I tell you that you and the Captain didn’t make a good pairing?” she asked as she allowed the spell to fade.

Twilight was unable to keep her body from shaking from the lingering sensation. The spell had caused no physical harm nor any sensation of pain, but it had left her feeling insecure and violated, and the adrenaline rush caused by her panicking mind had left her with a wave of nausea to deal with.

“And now for the finishing touch,” Chrysalis said as she took a couple full steps back. She conjured her power again, and the floor around her lit with a ring of green fire that rippled up and over her body. When the ring dissipated, standing where the likeness of Crystal Charm had been, was now a complete look alike for Twilight Sparkle.

Chrysalis took a moment to spread her new, violet alicorn wings out and admire them before she turned her attention to a forehoof that she raised in front of herself, turning it over as she gazed at her hoofwork. She seemed pleased with the results, and wordlessly motioned for the two guards that had been keeping Twilight’s belongings to approach her. She donned the velvet jacket, wrapping it around her form and snapping it closed as she ran a hoof over the surface to smooth it. She then took up the Element of Magic, and placed it neatly atop her head, where it slowly faded from view by way of a translucency spell.

Chrysalis glanced to Twilight, letting a sideways smirk turn up the corner of her mouth. When she only saw Twilight just quietly staring back, she asked, “Nothing? No defiant, little remark?” taunting with Twilight’s own voice.

Twilight closed her eyes, keeping her breathing steady. Anger wasn’t going to help her any longer, so instead she relied on her determination. “I promised my friends that I would make things right,” she said as she locked her gaze on the fake Twilight standing before her. “And that is exactly what I will do.”

Chrysalis’s muzzle twisted further into a full smirk, finding the claim to be amusing given the situation. “I’m afraid you’ll be breaking that promise,” she said matter-of-fact like as she approached Twilight. She stopped just slightly out of reach as she let go a playful giggle that mocked Twilight’s own. “But don’t worry, I’ll be sure to let them know for you when I meet them.”

Chrysalis’s expression shifted toward seriousness as she looked between the two guards restraining Twilight. “See to it that she is brought to the hive, and don’t be seen,” she commanded as her horn lit with a green glow. Green flames encircled Twilight and the two guards, and then encapsulated them in a semi-circle dome that began to slowly sink through the floor. Chrysalis took a couple steps forward and looked down through the dome as it melded into the floor, smiling back at Twilight. “I always thought that you would make an interesting little pet,” she said just before the dome and green flames fully vanished beneath the floor of the throne room.

Chrysalis looked around herself, taking full inventory of her surroundings. She now had four of her drones disguised as guards left at her side, and one other drone that lay unconscious near one of the pillars in the room where he had been tossed to earlier. She glanced about the hall, her gaze ending up on the large stained glass windows, focusing on one in particular that appeared to depict various phases of the moon and stars.

Taking a moment to regard the ancient glass mural, she suddenly sent out a mental pulse of energy, slamming the window with a kinetic burst that caused it to shatter into a shower of sparkling pieces. The deafening sound of thousands of glass shards falling into a pile on the floor quickly lessened, leaving only a cloud of dust billowing out from the pile and the sound of a few errant glass pieces falling to the floor as they came loose from the shattered stained glass framing.

“And now, the stage is set,” Chrysalis said as she turned her attention to the grand double doors of the Canterlot throne room, prepared to play her new role.

A Light in the Darkness

Twilight had experienced this magic once before, long ago when Chrysalis had first managed to trap her within the Crystal Caverns below Canterlot. However, it appeared that this time would be different, as she had two drones disguised as Nightguard keeping watch over her as they descended through the rock and crystal that made up the core of the mountain. It seemed Chrysalis wasn’t going to take any chances now that she had successfully swept aside any obstacles she might encounter with the Equestrian royalty.

But was this really her final goal, Twilight found herself wondering. If simply conquering Equestria was her real purpose, then what use would the Elements be to her at this point? Nightmare Moon would be the only one left who could possibly oppose her now, and it was obvious that Chrysalis had the upperhoof against her even without the power of the Elements. Chrysalis had claimed that she had been searching for the Element of Magic for some time, well before Nightmare Moon’s return. This meant that there must have been some other purpose to her seeking the Elements’ power.

Twilight’s eyes glanced down when the spell passed through the ceiling of the caverns beneath her. The crystals that lined the cavern walls reflected the green light from the spell, filling the room with a cascading effect of light beams that danced off the walls. The dome shaped spell slowly glided down until it touched the floor of the cavern, and once their hooves touched firm ground, the spell dissipated from around them, leaving Twilight and the two guards standing there with the natural low level glow of the crystals giving them just enough light to see their surroundings.

“This way,” one of the two guards simply said, as he began to walk toward an opening that lead deeper into the caverns. The other standing to her side eyed Twilight expectantly, and began to follow her closely as she followed behind the lead guard.

The echoes within the caverns were very strange. The crystallined walls echoed more than just strange sounds; echoes of light refracted multiple times through the crystal walls to cast odd images as well. Twilight caught a few glimpses of the strange images as she walked along with her keepers to whatever their destination may be. Most of them were obviously just odd angled reflections of herself and the two guards, but she could have sworn she saw other changelings just in her peripheral vision more than once, and unless her ears were playing tricks on her in this place she was also hearing more than just their own hoofsteps.

The cavern opened up to a high ceiling that stretched many stories tall into the core of the mountain. The two guards stopped, and Twilight’s eyes slowly drew upward as she took in the shear size of the crystal formation that dangled from the ceiling in the center of the chasm. Her mouth slowly hung agape as she noticed something else; a staggering number of changelings.

“This is where it leads,” Twilight quietly said to herself, only momentarily drawing the attention of her keepers. She mentally berated herself for not having considered this possibility sooner. She knew the gigantic crystal within the Everfree Hive had likely been used as a focus to perform long distance teleportations, but she had assumed the destination would connect to somewhere outside of Equestria, not the core of Canterlot Mountain. Along many of the outcroppings that surrounded the crystal, Twilight could see a mixture of changeling drones and others that appeared to look like ponies, most of which had the appearance of Nightguard, and many of which were clothed in the uniforms. Twilight hazarded a guess by what she was seeing that a large portion of the Nightguard could already be compromised, causing her to wonder momentarily how they could have possibly managed to infiltrate so quickly. But that was just an assumption, she quickly considered. She remembered that the Everfree Hive had existed for at least ten years now, so it was highly likely that the changelings had already been present here for quite some time, slowly working their way into the ranks of the Equestrian Royal Guard.

One of the changelings approached from above, descending from one of the many outcroppings. Twilight immediately noticed the unique differences in appearance as this one descended to the floor just in front of her. It had an appearance that would be a closer match for Chrysalis than any of the drones, seeming to have features that were more equine than the rest. The black chitin that formed the skin of its body had a greenish metallic shine to it, and it had a long mane and tail of straight hair that was many shades of orange. And its eyes, they were not the same single shade compound eyes that were common among the drones; they were deep emerald green irises surrounding pitch black pupils.

Twilight had seen this very rare phenomenon among changelings only a few times in the quarter millennia that she had known of their existence. It was a feature among those that seemed to hold some sort of leadership within the hive structure, but the reason for the physical differences from the drones had never been discovered. She had often called these particular changelings hybrids, based on the mixture of equine and changeling appearances. As this hybrid changeling neared the floor, it kicked up a small cloud of dust, and the rapid buzzing from its wings ceasing when it touched down. It folded its wings with a quick flitter as it approached, looking to the guard that had lead Twilight to this place.

“The link can not be used,” the Hybrid said in a voice that seemed masculine, yet still had a strange resonance. “There has been recent interference from the other side. It is not stable.”

The lead guard took a single step forward. “We have orders from our Queen—”

The Hybrid silenced the protest by quickly raising one hoof. “I know of the orders. Our Queen has cleared the skies. She is to be flown to the hive,” he said as he pointed his hoof toward Twilight. “You two will return to your posts.” The two guards didn’t argue, giving only a quick nod before they both turned to leave from the same direction they had come from. Twilight watched as they left, turning her attention back when she noticed another buzzing sound approaching. Two undisguised changeling drones swooped in to alight on either side of the Hybrid. “You will go with these two,” the Hybrid stated, his somber gaze fixed squarely on Twilight.

Twilight knew it wasn’t a request she could refute as she watched the two drones approach and stand to either side of her. The Hybrid gave an approving nod before turning aside, walking a few steps and then unfurling his wings to lift himself into the air. Twilight followed him with her eyes, watching him circle around the crystal and eventually seeing him alight on one of the outcroppings before he moved out of view.

Twilight felt a hoof prod her side, and she glanced back down to see one of the drones staring back at her. It jerked its head quickly to the side toward the other drone that had already set off toward another cave, and Twilight found herself once again being led through the Crystal Caverns as they disembarked from the chasm.

Eventually, she was lead to a small opening in the side of the mountain. Not too far to her left she could see part of the waterfall that ran along side the city, and she judged by the remaining distance below that they were somewhere just below Canterlot on the cliff side.

Twilight tensed when she felt her foreleg being grabbed, and looked to her side to see one of the two drones hooking its foreleg under hers. Met with the slight resistance, the drone narrowed its solid blue eyes at her. “If you don’t want to be dropped, you’ll cease your resistance,” it said, hissing as it spoke the s’s within its words.

Twilight didn’t answer directly, but wordlessly allowed the two drones to hoist her up so she had one foreleg draped across each of their shoulders. Crossing a foreleg each under her’s and over her back, the drones readied themselves for flight as they approached the edge of the cliff. They held tight to Twilight’s hooves as their wings began to buzz loudly, and the air around them stirred.

As they lifted off from the side of the cliff into the moonlit night, Twilight glanced back over her shoulder. She could see the lights of Canterlot as they slowly grew distant. She had hoped that they might be seen by a pegasus flying by, or someone from one of the many lit widows that dotted the cliffside, but all she could see was an empty sky above the city.

The flight across the Canterlot countryside had been at a slow pace. At first, Twilight had occupied the time with her thoughts, considering possibilities for escape, no matter how remote the chance might be. However, as the flight had dragged on, she had been unable to ignore the aching coming from her forelegs, which were becoming numb from dangling in the sky for so long.

She considered for a moment how this could be used to her advantage. Obviously, the drones were under orders to keep her unharmed. If she could convince the drones that she might lose her grip, perhaps she could get them to land so she could rest. Once on the ground, she might have a chance with only the two drones to deal with, even if only to run and pray that they would lose her.

“I-I need to rest,” Twilight began, trying to sound extra tired. Neither of the drones gave her a response, and simply continued on their course. “I can’t feel my legs,” she complained again.

“As long as you don’t struggle, you will not fall,” one of the drones simply said.

“But if I do fall....”

“You will not.”

It appeared that the drones’ minds had already been made up. Twilight couldn’t help but let out a disappointed sigh, allowing her head to hang limply as she stared at the ground passing far below them. Perhaps at the hive then, she thought to herself. If luck were on her side, the Nightguard from the nearby camp might spot them, but then there was also the chance that the guards would just be more disguised changelings. She furrowed her brow in annoyance at just how little control she had in this situation. All she could do now it seemed, was just wait for something to happen and pray it was in her favor.

Twilight blinked when she noticed a shadow move along the ground far below her. Her mind tried to calculated the size of the shadow against the tree tops below, realising very quickly that this shadow belonged to something large, many times her own size. She pulled her head back, looking behind herself to the full moon hanging in the sky to search for the shadow’s owner.

She didn’t immediately see it, but she could hear it; a steady woosh reverberating through the air from somewhere nearby about once a second. The drones must have noticed the sound as well, as they also began to look around to try and locate where the strange noise was coming from.

The owner of the shadow made itself known not to long afterward, diving through the air from above. As it sped past the group, one of the two drones screeched as it was struck by the passing creature, knocking its grip loose. Twilight found herself hanging on to the remaining drone by a single foreleg as the other spiralled away in the sky. The remaining drone’s wings buzzed loudly as it tried to stay aloft, and then it suddenly let out a screech of its own, its wide eyes seeming to be full of fear. Twilight followed its gaze, looking over her shoulder just in time to see the large creature having circled back around, coming right at them. She could see the moonlight glinting off its back, showing off its impressive wingspan, but was unable to catch any other discernible features before it closed the distance. As it made its second pass, Twilight felt a jolt when the second drone was swatted away. Her lungs drew in an involuntary gasp, and then let out a cry at the sudden weightless feeling that filled the pit of her stomach as she began to plummet to the ground.

Quickly, Twilight willed herself to resist the natural reaction to panic. She steadied herself upright in the air as best as she could without the aid of her wings, and then began to reach her forehooves up behind her withers in an attempt to loosen the buckle that held the harness tight to her body. Her hooves flicked at the metal buckle, desperately attempting to get some sort of grip on the strap, despite the fact that she knew it would be near impossible. The harness was designed to be physically impossible for a pony to remove on their own without the aid of magic. All she could manage was to barely touch the tip of a hoof to the buckle, which wouldn’t be sufficient to loosen it.

The tension in Twilight’s body went slack as she watched the tree tops quickly coming up below her, realizing that she was truly at the end of her options. She allowed her body to turn over in the air, her back facing the ground as she plummeted toward it. All she could do is stare up at the full moon, realising that her last thoughts were going to be of how horribly she had failed Equestria.

Twilight blinked against the tears welling up in her eyes when she saw the light of the moon blink out for a split second. It repeated, again and again in a steady pattern. She realized that a large wing was blocking the moon’s light as it rapidly flapped at the creature’s side. The thing that had attacked the two drones was now diving straight toward her. She felt panic try to grip her once again as it drew closer to her, seeing a clawed hand larger than her head reaching out from it. The moonlight managed to just barely highlight the violet scales that covered the hand as it struggled to reach her.

Twilight’s eyes widened, and she stretched her forelegs out toward the outstretched claws desperately trying to reach them. The clawed hand made a couple attempts at grasping her, brushing just barely against her hooves before pulling back. The large creature grunted as it trusted its wings through the air, forcing itself to jolt forward into the dive. The clawed hand extended once again, and successfully wrapped around Twilight’s form, pulling her close to the creature’s chest. Its large wings flew open to their full span, and the tree tops came up just underneath them as they managed to pull out of the dive, the leaves rustling at the strong blast of wind that rushed through them.

Twilight huddled herself against the scaled chest of the one that had rescued her. Her unsteady breathing gave way to sobs, causing her entire body to shake. She kept her face buried even as she felt her savior coming down to the ground. Once they had landed, she could feel another clawed hand gently cradle her, hugging her close.

“Twilight, I’m sorry! Are you alright?” a deep voice asked her.

She made an attempt to respond, but only managed a choked sob at first. She knew who her savior was, and knew how unlikely it was that he was there, but all that mattered to her at this moment was that he was. “Spike,” she quietly whispered as she continued to huddle against him.

“I thought you would fly away,” Spike said as he held Twilight close. “I didn’t hurt you did I? Please be okay.”

“No... no you... you didn’t hurt me. I’ll be okay... I-I’m just... I need a minute.” Twilight was finding it difficult to control the shaking in her voice and body. She knew she was safe now, but the terror from having come only seconds from losing her life didn’t want to release her so easily. Twilight pushed herself back slightly, looking up into Spike’s eyes. A part of her wondered if this was some sort of amazing hallucination, but when she saw the warm smile he gave her and felt his touch as he gently ran his clawed fingers over her back, she knew it was really him. “Thank goodness you’re here,” she said, the stress weighing heavy on her voice as she wrapped her forehooves as far as she could around his broad chest.

Spike held Twilight for a long time in the silence of the moonlit field, until he could feel that she had finally calmed down. Eventually, he shifted his hands so he was holding her under her forelegs, and gently eased her down to place her sitting on the ground just in front of himself. It was much easier to see the dragon by the moonlight that reflected off the ground around them than it had been in the blackness of the night sky. He was over three times her height; not the largest dragon by any means, but still a fair size larger than Twilight. His wings had grown in to be somewhat large given his proportions, and even when folded to his back the tips nearly touched the ground while the joint peaked slightly above his head. He leaned forward, resting one of his forearms on the ground to bring his gaze down level with her and gently cupped his other hand over her withers. “How did this happen to you?” he asked, eyeing the many restraints that were bound to Twilight’s body.

“I made a mistake,” Twilight said as she cast her gaze down at the ground in shame. “I got myself caught.”

“But, this is crazy. I was right behind you. How can this happen in just a couple hours?”

Twilight blinked and looked back up into his eyes. “You followed right behind me?”

“Of course I did!” Spike said as he quickly sat back up on his haunches. “I wasn’t about to let you do this by yourself. Luna and Celestia thought you might need the extra help anyways. I guess they were right.”

Twilight sighed. “Spike, I’ve been here for a few weeks.”

Spike cocked his head to the side. His jawline wrinkled as he grimaced at the confusing statement. “That doesn’t make any sense. You just left,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

Twilight shook her head. “The spell is extremely unstable. I came out years after the point in time that I was intended to. And it was a pretty rough landing.”

“Well you can say that again,” Spike said with a huff. “I’m still picking splinters out of my scales from doing a crash down in some trees near here. That wasn’t too long ago through, just a couple hours. I started looking for you right away when I didn’t find you nearby.” Spike reached over to Twilight and began to fiddle with the buckle on the wing harness. “How the heck did changelings get all this stuff?” he said as he worked the buckle loose. Once the tension in the straps were released enough, Twilight pushed them the rest of the way off, stepping out of the harness and chucking it to the ground in a heap at her side.

Twilight let go a long, heavy sigh, sitting back on her haunches again. “So, it ends up that it’s just dumb luck that you happened to be here,” she said, leaning her forehead into one of her hooves. “I’m lucky you came out of the spell when you did. If you had been just a few minutes earlier or later....” Twilight trailed off, a haunted look overtaking her as she stared blankly forward.

“Hey,” Spike said in a near whisper. He leaned forward, gently placing a hand across Twilight’s back. “Lets not think about what didn’t happen, alright? I’m here now, and I’m not letting anything else hurt you.”

Twilight broke away from her stare, her eyes looking up to him. “Spike...,” she began quietly.

“Mhm?” he responded, patiently waiting for her to continue.

Twilight opened her mouth to speak a couple times without success before she finally managed to force the words out. “She was never real.” Spike slowly tilted his head, his brow furrowing slightly as he looked down at her. “Crystal,” Twilight said, her voice shaking as she repeated her statement once again. “She was never real.”

Spike slowly shook his head, unable to comprehend what Twilight was trying to tell him. “What do you mean?”

“She was Chrysalis,” Twilight said. The simple statement caused Spike to flinch in surprise. “She played me for a fool. I bought her act, and I lead her right to the spell. And now...,” she paused for a second, her voice seeming to leave her for a moment. She looked up to Spike, the tears welling up in her eyes glinting from the moonlight. “Now, everything is broken,” she said quietly, clenching her eyes closed.

Spike leaned down, quickly hugging her close to his shoulder. She buried her face against his neck, quiet sobs escaping from her. “Gosh, Twilight,” Spike said as he held her, gently stroking his hand over her mane. He had spent a fair amount of time around Crystal Charm. Finding out that she had been a fake all along was shocking, but he hadn’t been nearly as close to her as Twilight had been. He couldn’t possibly imagine how much pain this must be causing her, on top of everything else that seemed to be going wrong. He struggled for a moment, feeling frustrated that he couldn’t think of any comforting words. “I wish I knew what to say.”

Twilight shook her head. “You don’t have to say anything. Just being here is enough,” she said, nuzzling into the crook of his neck. Spike did just that, silently holding her for as long as she would need it. He hoped that there weren’t any other horrible surprises that she had been put through.

“Spike...,” Twilight’s voice quietly whispered some time later. It sounded like she had finally managed to calm herself once again.

“Yeah?” Spike asked, slowly leaning back to look at her.

Twilight leaned back as well, rubbing the back of her foreleg against her eyes to dry them. “I need my magic back,” she said tiredly.

Spike eyed the glowing metallic ring encircling Twilight’s horn. “Isn’t that a null ring?”

Twilight nodded. “It is. I need you to take it off.”

Spike’s eyebrows quickly rose at the request. “Uh, I really don’t know how to remove those things. Don’t you need key stone or something to take them off?”

“Normally, yes, but I’m sure you can get it off me,” Twilight said. When she looked up to see the unsure look coming back from him, she said, “Just break it, Spike.”

“Whoa, wait,” Spike said as he suddenly sat up straight, defensively waving his hands. “These things aren’t meant to be just broken off. Won’t the enchantment backfire or something?”

“Breaking the ring will cause the anti-magic enchantment to dissipate all at once, causing a short feedback pulse.” When Twilight saw Spike tilt his head and scratch at the side of his head with one of his claws, she let out a silent sigh. “Yes, it will backfire, but I need my magic back. I’m not going to get caught without it again,” she said. She could tell Spike wasn’t liking this idea by the way he gnashed his teeth at the thought. She hooked one of her hooves over his knee, looking up into his eyes as she said, “Please, Spike.”

Spike scrunched up his jaw and let go a grunt. He hated when Twilight did that, making it impossible for him to say ‘no’ when she gave him that look. It wasn’t a helpless look, or a sad one. In fact he really wasn’t sure what it was, other than serious. But he had seen it before when she asked him for help, and she only asked for help when she knew she couldn’t manage on her own. “Well, if you really think you want to do this,” Spike said, relenting to her silent plea. When Twilight nodded, Spike leaned down next to her, saying, “Alright, come here.”

Twilight sat herself before him, and then he squinted his eyes at the small metallic loop glowing at the base of her horn. He began to reach up one of his clawed hands toward the ring, edging very close to it, but pulled his claws back when he couldn’t steady his shaking hand. The thought of doing something harmful to Twilight didn’t settle well with him at all, despite having been asked to do so.

Spike looked down at her when he noticed a touch on his other hand. She gently held a hoof to his hand, and she smiled up to him when she caught his glance. “I trust you,” she said, which seemed to be all that he needed to hear. He nodded once, and returned his attention to the ring. He held on to Twilight’s hoof with one hand as he inched the other close to the metallic ring. Using the sharp tips of his claws, he pinned the ring between two of them. He knew he would have to make this quick. Putting gradual pressure on the ring would probably only crack it, and might cause the enchantment to go unstable without actually removing the ring, which wouldn’t be good at all. It had to break clean through on the first attempt to avoid causing Twilight any more harm than necessary. He drew a breath in and held it as he prepared to snap the ring. Twilight tensed in anticipation, closing her eyes and curling her fetlock against Spike’s hand a bit tighter.

Spike pressed his sharp claws together against the ring, causing it to snap and come flying off Twilight’s horn in two clean pieces that each rung as they sailed away through the air. A surge of magical blue electricity shot between the two halves for only a split second, hitting his hand and causing him to jerk it back quickly while shaking it. Only a minor grunt from the shock escaped him, but it was drowned out by the wail that left Twilight. She buried her face against Spike’s hand, pulling it close to her with her hooves as she moaned at the pain that had shot through her horn and into her skull.

Spike gently placed his free hand across her withers as if she were a frail glass doll that might break at any moment. “I’m sorry... I’m sorry I’m so sorry,” he said, leaning in close to her. He was sure that the shock that had left his scaled fingers feeling numb had done much worse to her.

Twilight seemed to regain her composure rather quickly, the moans quieting and then ceasing altogether. She sniffed once, wiping the fresh trails of tears away from her face with the back of her foreleg. Looking up to Spike, she tried her best to put forward a smile for him, and managed a weary one. “No, i-it’s okay. I’m okay,” she said, though the quivering of her voice didn’t make the statement very convincing.

“Are you sure? You don’t sound okay,” Spike said as he stared back with concern. He couldn’t remember a time when Twilight had looked this ragged, but he did know that she had a tendency to understate her own condition.

“Yeah... I-I’ll be fine,” Twilight said, trying once more to alleviate Spike’s concerns for her.

Spike let go a low ‘hmm’ as he shook his head, a frown pulling at the edges of his mouth. “No, you need to rest. I’m gonna take you somewhere safe.” Spike began to gently reach forward to pick her up, but met a bit of resistance when she stepped back suddenly.

“Wait, Spike... wait,” she said, holding up one hoof. When she saw that he had stopped to listen, she continued. “We need to head to Ponyville.”

“Ponyville? Why there?” he asked, shrugging his shoulders.

“Do you remember the library?” Twilight smiled slightly when she saw him slowly nod. “I sent Luna there. She’s probably going to need our help.”

Spike stared back in surprise for a moment. “You sent Princess Luna to Ponyville?” he asked, just making sure he had heard right. He was a little surprised to hear that Twilight had even revealed herself to the other Princess in this time, thinking for sure that was probably on the short list of things not to do when traveling through history.

“Yes, teleported her all the way from Canterlot with just my magic,” she said, and then added, “through a shield.” When she saw Spike gawking back at her, she let go a light sigh as she cast her gaze down to the ground. “I know, I overdid it.”

“Yeah, I’d say,” Spike said. “Have you ever done a teleport that far before?”

Twilight shook her head. “No, I can honestly say it was the first, and probably last time I ever attempt something like that. I didn’t really think it through, I was in a hurry.” Twilight let go another long sigh, turning her gaze to the side to look off in the general direction of Ponyville. “I just hope she’s okay. Chrysalis had her under some sort of spell right before I sent her away.” Twilight glanced over toward Spike, looking up to him. “She was screaming, Spike. She was in pain. I’d never heard her scream like that before.”

Spike could hear the unease on the edge of Twilight’s voice once again. “Alright, we should go check on her then,” he said, glancing off in the direction that the town lie in. “Sounds like you and Princess Luna have both had a hard time of it. What about Princess Celestia? Is she alright?”

“She isn’t here right now, which is actually probably a good thing, for her sake.” Spike looked back to Twilight with a questioning look. Twilight knew she had a lot to explain to him, she just hoped that what she was about to tell him didn’t change his mind. “Nightmare Moon was never defeated. This is the thousandth year of the Summer Sun Celebration, and the sun hasn’t risen in a month.”

Spike blinked his eyes, slowly opening his mouth to speak. “Wait... so... when you say you sent Luna to Ponyville... you really meant that you sent her.”

Twilight quickly approached him, taking one of his hands in her hooves. “I know what you’re thinking, but she is Luna, and she needs our help now. Things aren’t as simple as her being ‘bad’ and us being ‘good’. If anything, I think I’ve learned that we never really understood much about her at all, and we really need all the help we can get right now.”

“Alright,” Spike said, closing his eyes as he lifted one of his hands to pinch the bridge of his nose. It seemed the more he learned about what was happening, the more it didn’t make any sense. Now two of the ‘bad guys’ were fighting each other, and somehow Twilight was caught in the middle of it. And they were going to side with Nightmare Moon of all ponies? That definitely wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. “Hey,” Spike said when another thought suddenly occurred to him. “Does this mean that the others are here too?”

“They are,” Twilight said with a small nod, smiling back to him.

Finally some good news, he thought to himself. It had been nearly two hundred years since he had seen the other five mares that he had grown up with in Ponyville. “Wow...,” he said in a quiet breath.

“I know,” Twilight said in an equally quiet whisper. “I already feel like I’ve been dragging them into this more than I should, but I think we’ll need their help too.”

Spike let out a low hum in thought. The original Element bearers together again, along with Nightmare Moon, setting off on a quest to defeat the changelings. It sounded crazy, but he knew whatever his Princess had planned would eventually work out. “Well, lets get going,” Spike said as he leaned down, opening his hands toward Twilight.

Twilight eyed the opened hands and then looked up to him, giving him a sideways smirk. “Spike, you don’t have to carry me,” she said, fluttering her wings.

Spike would have none of it. He shook his head before insisting that he be allowed to carry her to Ponyville. “You need to rest as much as you can. After what you just went through, I’m honestly surprised that you aren’t passed out.”

Twilight’s wings drooped at her sides, and she let go a light sigh in defeat. He was right, she was really feeling exhausted right now, and as much as she didn’t like being a burden, it was probably for the best if she allowed herself to rest as much as she possibly could. Folding her wings back to her sides, she stepped up to him, setting back and lifting her forelegs up toward him. He knelt down and gently picked her up, wrapping one of his strong arms around her barrel. He nestled her back securely against his chest, and unfolded his wings, causing a woosh to fill the air around them.

“Spike?” Twilight quietly called to him, turning her gaze to look up over her shoulder to his eyes. When she saw him look back down to her, she smiled and said, “Thanks.”

Spike grinned back down to her. “You bet,” he said as he turned his gaze back up to the star filled sky. His powerful wings forcefully came down as he pushed off from the ground, causing a rushing gust of air to billow through the grass around them. The two of them slowly climbed into the night sky to make their way to Ponyville together.

A Darkness within the Light

Moondancer walked at a steady, brisk pace to her destination, lacking anything resembling a uniform. She only wore a determined look and a large square patch of white bandaging taped to the left side of her head, concealing the welt that she had received earlier.

She had been trying to ignore two headaches as she made her way toward the Canterlot Palace throne room, one from being bucked in the head and the other that was currently chasing her on four legs. This auburn toned unicorn stallion had been following her for quite a distance now, ever since she took it upon her own initiative to excuse herself from the medical infirmary shortly after she regained consciousness there and could see straight enough to walk. She had gotten confusing reports about other ponies seeing her near the throne room that clashed with the fact that she had been brought to the infirmary upon being found passed out near Chrysalis’s empty prison cell. Obviously, she wasn’t in the throne room, so she intended to find out exactly who was, and already had a good idea of who it would be.

Despite Moondancer’s quick stride, the stallion had managed to keep up with her and had continued to insist that she return to the infirmary. Moondancer found herself wondering how he had managed not to tangle his hooves in his white doctor lab coat as he cantered along side her.

“Captain Moondancer!” he shouted when he finally grew impatient enough from being completely ignored. She stopped and shot an angry glare in his direction, which caused him to flinch back a step. An uneasy silence lingered for a few seconds before he cleared his throat. “I did not give you permission to leave the infirmary.”

“I heard you the first dozen times. I have a job to do, Doctor Heart,” Moondancer said flatly before sidestepping him. Moondancer knew that the palace’s head physician, Noble Heart, was only doing his job as well, but at this moment she considered hers to take priority over his.

“As do I!” he said in protest as he once again trotted along side her. “Head injuries are nothing to simply shrug off. I don’t think you realize just how serious—”

“Doctor!” Moondancer snapped as she came to a sudden halt, drilling him with her gaze. “‘Serious’ doesn’t begin to explain the situation we are in at this moment.” She momentarily squinted her eyes closed, raising a hoof to the side of her head when it throbbed in protest at her raising temper. Letting go a hiss of air through her teeth, she slowly opened her blinking eyes when the pain receded a bit, noticing the disapproving scowl on the Doctor’s face. “Look,” Moondancer started in a much shallower tone, “just let me appraise the situation at least. I promise I won't go starting a hooffight with some changeling or anything like that. I just want to make sure things are being handled and clear up the confusion.”

Doctor Heart slowly closed his eyes as he shook his head, letting go a long sigh. “Fine,” he said as he looked back to her. “But, once you’re satisfied, I want to see you back in the infirmary. Doctor’s orders,” he said as he pointed an accusing hoof at her.

“Yes sir,” Moondancer begrudgingly said as she gave him a slightly exaggerated mocking salute before carrying on her way.

Moondancer didn’t have much further to go, and soon found herself coming up on her destination, noticing a group of Nightguard standing just outside the doors of the throne room. Gale noticed her approach first, and when she recognized the captain’s natural appearance out of her uniform, she quickly trotted up. “Captain!?” she asked, sounding both surprised and a bit confused. She had expected that the Moondancer that had locked herself in the throne room wasn’t the real one, but she had obviously not expected to see the sorry state that Moondancer was in. “What happened?” she asked, eyeing the bandage taped to the side of her head.

“Got bucked in the face and robbed,” Moondancer said flatly as she continued on her path to the door. “Tell me what’s going on here.”

Gale quickly fell in beside her superior officer, walking with her back to the double doors. “Well, somepony who looks like you came to the throne room and reported Chrysalis’s escape, but obviously it wasn’t you.”

Moondancer stopped when she reached the doors, glancing up at them with a hard look for a few seconds before looking back to her Sergeant. “Why is this door closed?”

“Right after her Majesty gave the order to search the palace, somepony sealed it from the other side. The other you and some guards were still in the room when it closed.”

Moondancer looked up to the door once again, looking it over as if searching for something. “Is there a reason why aren’t we tearing this thing off its hinges?”

“It’s shielded. The entire room is. Twilight Sparkle is inside right now, trying to undo the shield from the other side. She was able to get around it somehow, and told us to wait for her.”

Moondancer remembered all too well about Twilight’s ability to teleport past shielding and warding spells, so that little piece of information alone told her that the Twilight they had seen was likely the real one, which brought some relief to her mind. “How long ago?” she asked.

“Ten... maybe close to fifteen minutes now.”

Fifteen minutes. The words echoed in Moondancer’s mind as she considered the number. She had felt the power that radiated from Twilight once before, literally felt it, and that was when she had merely let her temper slip. If she were serious, there was no way anything should have been able to survive against her for fifteen full minutes, unless something was very wrong. “No, that’s far too long,” Moondancer said. “I want as many unicorns as we can get at this door now. I don’t care if we’re supposed to wait, we’re bringing this thing down.”

“Quite a few of our casters are away,” Gale noted.

“I know that, Sergeant. That doesn’t change my orders.”

Gale nodded with a quick salute, and spread her wings as she crouched to the floor. However, just before she took off, she stopped in place when the sound of the double doors clicking and then slowly creaking open filled the halls. The sound’s pitch lowered as the doors slowly swung open until they finally came to a stop. The few Nightguard that had been waiting stared into the throne room with a varying degree of shocked and surprised looks.

Twilight Sparkle stood just on the other side of the door. Far behind her in the hall, a group of Nightguard were placing some restraints on an unconscious changeling, and even further toward the back of the hall a beam of moonlight spilled in through a shattered window, glinting off of the pile of glass shards that littered the floor below. And nowhere was their Queen nor Chrysalis to be seen.

Moondancer quickly approached Twilight, frantically looking about the room. “Where are they?” she asked as her eyes ended up looking to Twilight.

“Outside now, through that window,” Twilight said as she turned to point back toward the shattered window frame. “I didn’t see which way they went.”

Moondancer’s gaze followed Twilight’s hoof toward the shattered window. She cantered down the red carpet, stopping once she had made it to the center of the throne room. From her vantage point, the only thing she could see outside the window was a small patch of the star filled sky. “Gale, I need the skies searched,” Moondancer started as she turned and began to canter back to the room’s entrance.

“Wait!” Twilight’s voice rung out through the room, drawing the attention of every guard toward her. “There were some changelings mixed in among the guards,” she explained as she pointed at the unconscious drone that was being secured nearby. “We have no idea who we can trust and who we can’t right now. Sending the Nightguard out without making sure who is who could cause mass confusion, which is exactly what they would want.”

The four Nightguard that had been within the room with Twilight hoisted the bound drone up, and tossed its limp form over the back of one. Everypony else watched as the four left the throne room, taking the prisoner with them. Moondancer let go a heavy sigh, touching a hoof to her injury. The annoying situation was causing it to throb again. “So, what do you recommend?” she asked, looking back to Twilight.

“The entire Nightguard force needs to be checked. There’s no other way to be sure.”

As much as she hated to admit it, Moondancer knew that Twilight was right. Sending Nightguard to aid the Queen was a gamble that could cost her life if they turned out to be changelings. “Gale,” Moondancer said tiredly, causing the Sergeant to cantered up next to her. “Get the word out. All available Nightguard are to drop what they are doing and report to the barracks immediately. No exceptions.”

“Yes ma’am,” Gale said with a salute, and then spun around on her hooves. She quickly made her way out of the throne room, raising her voice to the rest of the Nightguard standing nearby. “You heard the Captain, spread the word!” she commanded, setting the other Nightguard into action.

Moondancer remained behind in the throne room, alone with Twilight. She felt that she should be out there with the rest of the Nightguard, but the pounding headache was reminding her that she had promised to return to the infirmary once she had gotten the situation under control. “I’m trusting your judgment call on this,” Moondancer said, looking to her side. “We can’t charge in blindly with enemies right under our hooves, but every second we delay the search for our Queen is another second she’s in very real danger.” Moondancer grunted, touching her hoof to her bandages by reflex.

Twilight looked back, her eyes tracing over the bandages. “Are you alright?” she asked.

“For somepony that got bucked in the head, yeah I’m just fine,” Moondancer said with a heavy layer of sarcasm. “I really don’t have time to be injured. Somepony needs to be taking care of this so our guards can get out there and start the search asap.” Moondancer glanced about the throne room, noticing her armor setting on the floor nearby. She considered putting it on for a moment, but the throbbing in her head was giving her second thoughts.

Twilight stepped up to Moondancer’s side, gently hooking one of her hooves just on her shoulder. “Why don’t you head to the infirmary and let me handle organizing things at the barracks,” she offered.

“That’s... a good idea. I’ll take you up on it,” Moondancer said through a sigh. Standing had proven to take a bit more out of her than she thought it would, and the injury was making itself well known with the headache that steadily pulsed in her skull. She knew she wouldn’t be any use if she forced herself to pass out. “I want to know right away if the situation changes any at all,” she said as she began to make her way to the throne room doors.

“Of course,” Twilight replied back. She walked out of the throne room herself slightly behind Moondancer, watching her as she walked down the hall. A small smile graced the enchantress’s muzzle as she watched Moondancer leave before she turned to walk in the opposite direction.

Chrysalis had kept the word that she had given to the Nightguard Captain, and had taken to organizing the scanning of the Nightguard at the barracks. Not only did she need to keep up the facade that she had going for a while longer, but drawing the entire Nightguard force back was necessary. She needed only a few well timed minutes of clear skies to make sure her drones that were now carrying the true Twilight Sparkle away would not be seen.

There were dozens of Nightguard to be checked, and the unicorns that knew the detection spell well enough to use it were directed to check each Nightguard individually, using low levels of the spell as to not exhaust themselves too quickly. Unicorns were assigned to rotations so they would be able to rest after having cleared as many guards as they were able.

Chrysalis wasn’t about to allow any of her drones to be found among the guards. Those who had been part of her swarm had already received orders to pull back when the order to gather at the barracks had been sent out, and were now waiting within the caves beneath the city. She knew that the lack of turnout at the barracks wouldn’t go unnoticed, but by the time the rest of the Nightguard figured out what was really happening, they would already be too late to put a stop to it. All she needed to do now was misdirect them just long enough to buy the time that she needed.

Only six of the Nightguard present in the barracks were actually hers. They were necessary for the next step of her plan, and now she needed to get them cleared without anypony noticing what they really were, which would be easy enough for her to accomplish. All she needed to do was choose the right unicorn for the job. She considered her possibilities as she looked to each unicorn, watching them closely as they used the spell. She took notice of one young stallion whose armor markings indicated his ranking as a cadet. When she noticed him having difficulty, her mouth twitched in a slight smile for a short second before she approached.

After straining to charge the spell, the cadet managed to release a small white pulse from his horn. The pulse washed over the guard in front of him in a small wave of white light, to no effect. “You’re clear,” he said in a tired voice, motioning for the guard to stand off to the side. He took a moment to close his eyes and catch his breath, opening them slightly as he looked down at the floor. Noticing the pair of violet hooves standing in front of him, he furrowed his brow before looking up to the next pony in line. He froze when he came eye to eye with the Queen’s enchantress staring back at him.

“Having problems?” Chrysalis asked.

The cadet stared back dumbly for a few seconds longer before finally shaking his head. “Oh, um. No ma’am, I-I mean, Enchantress. I’m fine,” he said. “Wow, I didn’t expect you to actually come talk to me personally. I’ve heard a lot about you. You’re the one who rescued the Nightguard from the Everfree Hive, right?”

Admiration, Chrysalis found herself thinking. A powerful emotion closely related to love that she could potentially draw power from, and it practically radiated from this stallion. She felt the urge to just bask within the energy he gave off, but quickly put her cravings aside. She had an important task to perform, and the timing would be equally important. She reached out a hoof, placing it upon the cadet’s shoulder to pull him aside. “Come here, I think you should rest for a minute,” she said as she led him over to the side of the room, away from any prying eyes.

“Oh! But, I’ve only cleared two so far,” the cadet said, seeming a bit ashamed. “I-I’m sure I can do more. I just need to get used to the spell. I’ve actually been trying to practice it, but I learned it secondhoof from one of the other unicorns that you taught it to. Here, maybe you can tell me what I’m doing wrong.”

Before Chrysalis could protest, the cadet managed to cast another quick burst of light from his horn. She raised her hoof, guarding her face from the power that crackled over her foreleg. She sucked in a sudden hiss of air at the stinging electricity that skittered over her foreleg as the spell reacted to her hidden form. The irritating sting of the spell was something she was familiar with, and even though she had been caught unaware by the sudden casting, it wouldn’t leave her with anything more than a numb feeling where it touched her. The real concern was that the cadet had just seen the spell’s reaction.

The cadet’s eyes went wide when he saw the telltale signs that the spell had just detected a changeling. His mouth opened to call out to the rest of the guards to warn them, but no sound ever came out. Instead, he only stared back quietly at the enchantress with his mouth agape as the white’s of his eyes began to glow a dim green color.

Chrysalis’s horn was also glowing a very dim green as she focused her stare deep into the cadet’s eyes. “Is there a problem?” she asked quietly, raising her brow slightly.

The cadet seemed to struggle for a moment, his body shaking and his mouth moving, but only a few quiet strangled sounds ever made it past his lips. Eventually, he seemed to give in to the strange power causing the tension in his body to slowly fade away. “I-I... no, there’s... no problem at all,” he said as he seemed to stare off into a blank space in front of himself.

“And what about these guards?” Chrysalis asked. Her six guards approached just behind her, and the cadet’s eyes wandered over to look at them. “Are they clear for duty?”

The cadet slowly nodded. “O-Of course.”

Chrysalis smiled slowly, and allowed her spell to fade out. As it did, the cadet’s eyelids fluttered, and he shook his head as he came out from under the spell’s effects. He looked up to the enchantress when she placed a hoof on his shoulder again, seeing her gentle smile. “You’re doing a good job, and you’ll get better with the spell in time. Just don’t over do it,” she said as a friendly warning.

The cadet puffed his chest up a bit at the praise, and couldn’t help but smile himself. “Thank you, Enchantress. That means a lot to me.”

Moondancer had found her way back to the infirmary, and had eventually found herself resting on a rather uncomfortable examination table in a quiet little room. Doctor Heart had decided he would rather be cautious, insisting that she rest for now where she could be watched. Between the thoughts of just how uncomfortable the thin padding of the table was, she had also been thinking about how the situation had unfolded, and the more she went over it in her mind the more she began to notice that something didn’t seem to add up. As usual for her, it had started as an uneasy feeling that she couldn’t quite pin a detail to, but she knew something was wrong and her mind wanted to solve it.

When Sergeant Gale decided to report to the infirmary looking for her, Moondancer had used it as her chance to get herself excused from the infirmary again. Reluctantly, Doctor Heart had agreed to it, but only so long as Gale remained with Moondancer and returned her immediately if she showed any sudden signs that her injury was causing her pain.

“Thanks for coming to my rescue,” Moondancer said as the two of them left the infirmary, walking into the empty halls of the Canterlot Palace. It was odd to see them deserted, but was necessary given the situation. The palace personnel had been ordered to their own quarters until further notice, and all guests were now being kept in safe areas until the crisis was properly handled.

“That isn’t exactly why I came, Captain,” Gale said. “The Nightguard that have been cleared have returned to searching the palace grounds, but we have another problem.”

Moondancer let go a disgusted groan, stopping in her tracks. She brought a hoof up to rub at the bridge of her nose, already feeling the headache returning, but tried to ignore it as she slid her hoof down her muzzle and let it fall to the floor with a loud clack. “What now?” she asked.

“We’re short on guards, by a considerable amount.”

Moondancer shook her head. “I already knew that. The guards we sent to the Everfree will be returning in less than a day. Nothing we can do about it.” Moondancer began walking down the hall again as she added, “That isn’t a problem as much as it’s just bad timing.”

“That’s not what I mean, Captain,” Gale said as she quickly cantered up beside Moondancer, causing her to stop suddenly. “A third of our remaining force just vanished when the call was made to report to the barracks.”

Moondancer stared blankly at her sergeant. “A third...,” she nearly whispered in response. She hoped she had just misheard.

“Yes. And there’s been no sign of a single changeling or our Queen anywhere within the palace so far. The only one we’ve been able to confirm was the one that we captured in the throne room, but it’s missing now and I can’t track down the guards that took it away.”

Moondancer felt a chill overtake her entire body. The implications of what she was being told were devastating. The Nightguard had been compromised, and no one had even noticed. She thought back once again to the throne room, and what she had noticed there. Suddenly, the details that she had been pondering over earlier didn’t seem so strange. “Gale... tell me something,” Moondancer started calmly as she stared down at the floor. “Did anything seem out of place about the throne room?”

“Frankly speaking, Captain, nothing is making a damn bit of sense right now. We had pegasi in the sky, at least one of them should have noticed if her Majesty suddenly came crashing through the throne room window, but nopony reported seeing anything at all.”

Moondancer slowly nodded, looking up toward Gale. “They were in there for a while, and I can’t imagine they were having a chat over tea. But, one broken window is all there is to show for it.” Moondancer looked off down the distance of the empty hallway before them, her mind pondering over another detail she hadn’t really noticed until just now. “And somehow, Chrysalis found enough time to take off my gear and stack it in a nice neat pile on the floor in the middle of a fight before she went flying out the window? I’m not sure I believe that.”

“So, what are you thinking?”

Moondancer looked back to her sergeant. “I’m thinking that we need to find the one pony who knows exactly what happened in that throne room.”

“They left together?” Moondancer asked a young cadet. She and Gale had found their way to the barracks, hoping to quickly track down Twilight to get some answers. However, all they had found were a few of the unicorn guards that were still recovering from having performed the scans.

“Yes ma’am!” the cadet answered back, holding a stiff salute far longer than necessary. He hadn’t recognized his superior officer right away without her uniform, and the young stallion seemed a bit on edge after having been caught off guard.

Moondancer arched an eyebrow at the cadet. “I did say at ease, so... relax.” The cadet reluctantly lowered his hoof, but still stood rigidly at attention in front of Moondancer. She rolled her eyes and let go a sigh. “Do I have to make it an order?”

“No ma’am!” the cadet said, his hoof flinching a bit as he almost did another salute, but caught himself.

Moondancer ground her teeth a bit as her eyes rolled around again. “Just... start over from the beginning, okay? You saw the enchantress here and she approached you. Then what?”

“Yes, well, I was having some problems with the spell. I think she noticed, so she pulled me to the side to help me with it.”

“Pulled you to the side?”

“It was only for a minute. I showed her the spell so she could see how I was casting it, and... then she....” The cadet just trailed off to silence. He frowned as he stared forward at nothing, as if he was mentally searching for something but simply couldn’t find it.

“She... what?” Moondancer asked, verbally prodding the cadet.

“Oh, um.” The cadet seemed a bit embarrassed at his slip, and quickly tried to come up with some sort of answer. “I’m sure she showed me the proper way to cast it.”

“You’re sure she showed you?” That’s an odd way to put it, Moondancer thought.

“Yes. Um, it’s a little hazy. I think I’m just a little tired.” The cadet’s mannerisms seemed to be even more nervous than they had been just a minute earlier. Moondancer picked up on one of his back hooves tapping quickly against the floor, and she caught his gaze quickly darting about.

“Uh huh,” Moondancer said. “And the guards that were with her?”

“I cleared them,” the cadet said rather confidently.

Moondancer tilted her head slightly. “All of them?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“...All at once?”

“Uh... well no,” the cadet said, slightly taken aback. “I don’t think so.” He furrowed his brow as the frown returned to his muzzle. Once again he seemed to be struggling with something. “I-I did clear them, Captain. I swear.”

“I never said you didn’t, I’m just making sure I know all the details. Is there anything else?”

The cadet seemed to relax slightly, and then began to nod. “Uh yes, actually. She mentioned that if anypony came looking for her that she would be headed to the train station. After that, she left with the guards.”

“I see.” Moondancer silently considered the details for a short moment, before looking back up to the cadet. She approached him, and reached out a hoof to his shoulder to give him a pat. “Get some more rest. And thank you.”

“Yes ma’am!” the cadet responded, giving her a quick salute.

Gale and Moondancer left the barracks soon afterwards, walking back out onto the palace grounds. Moondancer stopped when she noticed that Gale had stopped following her a few steps back. “What was that?” Gale asked.

Moondancer let go a heavy sigh, and then glanced up toward the star filled sky. “Yeah... what was that. I don’t think he was trying to lie, but you could tell he didn’t even trust his own words.”

“I’m guessing you didn’t assign any guards to Enchantress Twilight.”

Moondancer nodded, looking back to Gale. “You’re guessing right, and I never asked her to go to the train station either. I asked her to organize things here at the barracks, that’s it. As far as I know, she had no reason to leave the palace.”

Gale started back toward Moondancer for a moment in silence, and then just shook her head. “What’s going on here?”

“I can’t say for sure yet, but I’m not liking the idea that I’m getting,” Moondancer said. She had a lot of loose pieces before her now that didn’t quite fit together, with Twilight’s behavior standing out as the strangest thing among them. “There’s something I need to go take look at in the throne room. Gale, I need you to do something else for me in the meantime.”

“Anything, Captain.”

“You have a signal flare on you?” Moondancer nodded approvingly when she saw her sergeant lift her wing and touch a hoof to the pouch attached to the side of her armor. “Good. I want you to find Twilight and those guards and tail them. Don’t approach, just watch.”

There was only a slight second of hesitation before Gale nodded in response. “Understood.”

“If you see anything that indicates they might not be who they appear to be, you use that flare. Got it? And keep this to yourself for now. I don’t want to broadcast to the rest of the guard that we’re watching her. That would probably just tip her off somehow.”

Gale knew that there was only one reason why she would be asked to follow Twilight. “Captain, do you really think she’s one of those things?”

That was exactly the idea that Moondancer was getting. She simply didn’t know how to prove it yet, nor could she explain where their Queen or the real Twilight could have possibly gone, but if a third of the Nightguard could just vanish into thin air, making two more ponies disappear wouldn’t be too much more of a stretch. “We don’t know for sure who or what came out of that throne room yet,” she said as she took off toward the palace.

Gale had taken up a position on a rooftop a safe distance away from the train station. She peered out over the edge of the roof, her forehooves hooked over the peak as she laid there. She had kept her sight focused on Twilight Sparkle, who was standing among a multitude of other ponies as they waited for the next scheduled train. Her other targets, the six guards that she had been told were with Twilight, had been nowhere to be seen. She wondered if there was any significance to that, or if the cadet could have simply been mistaken. Either way, she had decided to keep her sights on Twilight for now and not rush to any hasty conclusions.

Taken by itself, seeing somepony waiting on the train to arrive wouldn’t be odd. However, if Twilight were traveling somewhere, there were chariots that she had access to, so there was no need for her to be waiting to board a train. If she were waiting on someone to arrive, that also wouldn’t seem odd except for the timing. They were in the middle of a crisis, and being who she was, the Queen’s enchantress should have been focusing on the search for the Queen as her number one priority.

Gale’s attention snapped to her side quickly when she heard something land on the shingles near her. She had been so completely focused on watching Twilight that she hadn’t noticed another pegasus approaching. He was a fellow guard, a private based on his armor markings. “Get down,” she quietly hissed, causing him to duck down low to the rooftop. He pushed himself along the roof top in a belly crawl, working his way over until he was beside Gale looking over the roof’s peak as well.

Gale had already returned her attention back to the station down below, keen to keep her focus on her mission. Twilight still hadn’t moved from her spot. The private glanced down to the station as well before leaning in close to Gale.

“Sarge,” the private said. “I was sent with an urgent message from the Captain.”

Gale grimaced. There was no possible way anything urgent could be good. “What is it?” she said, keeping her eyes focused down below.

“Captain wants you back at the palace asap. Said it’s important.”

Gale broke her gaze from watching her target for only a second to shoot a confused look at the private. “She wants me back there now? What’s it about?”

“Didn’t say, other than it as for your ears only.”

Gale glanced back down below. She wasn’t sure what her captain would have to say that would be for her ears only, unless she had been worried about information getting into the wrong hooves. “I’m kind of in the middle of something else right now that I probably shouldn’t just abandon,” she said, still undecided on which of the conflicting orders she should ignore.

The private’s eyes darted down to the station below, then back toward Gale. “I’m supposed to relieve you so you can head back. I’ll keep an eye on things here.”

That would decide it. “Alright, you know what to do here then?” Gale asked as she looked to her side.

“Yes ma’am, I’ll take it from here,” the private said, responding with a quick salute before looking down to the station below.

Gale hesitated for only a second before pushing herself back away from the roof peak. She slid down the shingles until her hooves left the roof, and then opened her wings to catch herself. She stayed low, flying just above the street between the buildings for a ways before pulling up into the night sky to mask her exit.

The private had watched her leave, and once he saw that she was far enough away, he glanced back over the peak down to the station below. His eyes came in contact with the enchantress, who was staring right back up to him.

She smiled, and slowly gave him a single nod to silently thank him. The private nodded back to her, and then slipped out of view.