"Upon activation by any Tier 2 personnel: (1)Code OVERWATCH is in effect. (2)Any and all GUARDIAN operatives within the designated AO are authorized to use any means necessary to ensure successful defense and/or extraction of HVA and threat neutralization. (3)Upon successful defense and/or extraction of HVA, assume ORANGE status until OVERWATCH is lifted." - Addendum 1, Protocol #23, Special Operations Procedures Codex

"Engage."

Simultaneously, the four of us opened fire.

Green blood hit the floor as the Queen took a smattering of rounds and collapsed. Unfortunately, she must have diverted the energy she had built up in her horn, because as soon as she hit the ground a magical shield sprung up around her, causing our bullets to ricochet across the room.

With our primary target out of action for the moment, we shifted our fire to the other changelings scattered throughout the room. The fact that nobody had a clue as to what was going on made things easier. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.

*click*

My rifle went dry, so I ejected the empty magazine, put it in my dump pouch, and pulled out a fresh one.

"Boss!"

I turned my head towards Echo as he pointed towards one of the large windows.

Shit

Drones were swarming through the shattered windows faster than we could put them down.

"Fall back!" I yelled as I quickly slapped the fresh magazine into my rifle and deactivated my cloaking. Reaching down, I grabbed Celestia around her midsection and hefted her onto my shoulder. I saw Epsilon doing the same with Cadance, although she was putting up more of a fight. "Fighting retreat to Beta's position!"

As one, we began running towards the exit, Echo and Romeo staying behind to cover our retreat.

"Romeo, get the door!"

As we neared the large wooden doors, I saw the yellow outline of Romeo sprint ahead of us and lower his shoulder. In the blink of an eye, his cloaking deactivated and he smashed into the door, reducing it to toothpicks.

Taking care to avoid any leftover pieces of the door, I ran through the doorway and turned down the hallway, Epsilon close on my heels with a kicking and screaming princess over his shoulder.

I pulled up a map of the castle onto my HUD to double check the route I was going to take. I really didn't need to, as we had memorized each nook and cranny of the castle the day it was built, but a mistake right now would be disastrous. Not to mention completely and utterly unacceptable.

Echo took point as we ran through the hallways. Luckily, they were all clear, everyone having either taken cover or been captured. As a result, it didn't take long to reach the stairs to Luna's tower.

Normally, for the average pony, the trek up the 853 stairs to get to Luna's quarters took somewhere around two hours, on a good day.

We made it in twenty minutes.

As we neared the top, I quickly checked on Celestia, only to discover that she was still catatonic. Cadance had stopped thrashing about on Epsilon's shoulder and was looking rather green. Being forced to run in circles up a spiral staircase at breakneck speeds for twenty minutes straight will do that to you.

My radio crackled to life. "Welcome mat's been rolled out. You have one-zero seconds."

"Roger, ten seconds" I replied.

Putting on a burst of speed, we sprinted up the remaining stairs and down the short hallway to the open door at the end. The two night guards guarding said door were slumped against the wall, knocked out cold.

We slowed to a jog as we passed through the door, and as soon as the last man was inside the room, the door swung shut, thanks to my pack mate.

Luna's quarters were rather spacious, and, as one would expect, was painted in hues of purple and dark blue. She had various knick-knacks and baubles scattered throughout the room, as well as a fully stocked bookshelf full of everything from Daring Do to Tax Codes. Her most prized possession, however, was her telescope, which sat just inside the open door to the balcony.

Taking care to not pull out any hair or feathers, I spun Celestia around until she was laying on her back in my arms. I then walked over to the large bed in the middle of the room and carefully placed her next to the midnight blue form of her sleeping sister.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Epsilon placing Cadence in one of the beanbag chairs by the bookshelf, where she was more than happy to quickly doze off after her trip on the "merry-go-round from hell".

Being freed of our charges, we quickly reengaged our cloaking, just as the sound of metal scraping across stone was heard from the balcony and the opposite side of the door we had just come through.

"Looks like they're awake."

I turned to the large orange outline that was my second in command. "Anything to report, Beta?"

The eight foot tall behemoth nodded towards the balcony. "Whatever you did down there, it made the bugs clear out. They've been trickling out of the city for the past ten minutes." I walked over to the balcony and poked my head out. Sure enough, the small black forms of the changelings were slowly leaving the city. "At the rate they're going, they'll be long gone by the time Luna wakes up."

I nodded in approval. "Good. Anything else?"

When I turned back to my number two, I saw a slight shake in his left hand. It was barely noticeable, but it was there.

He was nervous.

This was a man that had single-handedly taken down an entire Archimedes class heavy-frigate with nothing but a trench knife, two grenades, and a roll of duct tape.

However, there was one thing, and only one thing, in the known universe that was able to make him nervous.

And that was me.

"Echo, Romeo, watch the doors." As they were moving to cover their assigned areas, I walked over to Beta and opened a private COM channel. "Is there something you want to discuss?"

...

...

"Was this really necessary?"

That made me pause.
Beta never questioned orders.

"I understand the need for action, but we've been hidden for the past 1200 years. Why reveal ourselves now? Wasn't there any other way?"

I replayed the entire encounter over in my mind, analyzing every detail, trying to think of anything that I could've missed or done differently.

There was nothing.

"She overloaded Citadel's magic, the Eagles were out of action, and none of the civilians were going to intervene. Feel free to check the logs, but she forced our hand."

Beta nodded. "Understood."

Ending the conversation with Beta, I switched over to the squad-wide frequency and took up a position by the balcony door. Glancing outside, I could see the small, black forms of the changelings slowly trickling out of the city.

"Gentlemen, RED status has been lifted. Switch to ORANGE at this time."

As one, Epsilon, Beta, and myself took up positions beside our respective charges while Romeo moved to cover the position by the balcony door. Echo remained by the main door.

I glanced down at the prone form of Celestia and saw that she was no longer catatonic and was slowly looking around the room as if trying to figure out how she got there.

"Beta, how much time is left on the sedative?"

"One hour, twenty seven minutes."

A small timer appeared in the corner of my HUD and began counting down.

Author's Note

It's about time, right?

I apologize for the wait, things have been hectic lately.

Not quite as long as last chapter, but I decided to split the different POVs (Guardian vs. Pony) into two separate chapters.

This was written over the course of however long it was since the first chapter (duh), so if it seems a bit wonky, that's why. If you want, leave a suggestion about how to fix whatever wonkiness you find in the comments, and I may or may not do something. Maybe.