~A week later~

Cadence and Shining Armour woke up to the sound of a loud, frantic banging on their bedroom door. "Whom is it?" Shining mumbled from his pillow.

Cadence got out the bed and went to the door. But as soon as she undid the lock, the door quickly burst opened. A certain purple alicorn ran in and quickly slammed the door, locking it and casting several spells on it.

"Twilight! Sunshine suns-" Cadence started the usual greeting they do but Twilight interrupted her.

"Can you all hide me please! I need to escape from this creature." she said frantically.

"Hide from whom?" Shining Armour asked, now curious and slightly worried for his sister. Twilight had black circles under her eyes, a sign that she had not slept much. Her mane and tail was messy and had dirt trapped in places.

Her cutie mark started to glow with that all too familiar pulse. "Oh no, He knows where I am. Please tell me he can't get in." Twilight said frantically. She began looking around their bedroom for possible escape routes. Shining Armour now was in protect-my-little-sis mode and he casted his strongest shield around the room. Cadence also prepared a stasis spell. Both Prince and Princess of the Crystal Empire all waited to intercept whatever that was troubling their sister/niece.

The first indication of something that happening was when Shining Armour suddenly felt a huge magical strain on his shield spell. He tried to maintain the spell but whatever that was attacking the shield had a huge magical ability. The shield shattered and the magical feedback hit Shining Armour for a loop, stunning him. Next, an amber glow started to engulf the doors. Twilight's enchantments could be seen quickly fizzing out as they failed to stop whomever that was trying to open the door. The door's locking mechanism could be heard clicking open and they opened to reveal Preston Garvey.

Cadence quickly fired off the stasis spell. The spell connected with the intruder and for a second it looks like it would work. But an amber transparent aura appeared around the intruder and the beam of energy Cadence fired was reflected back to her. The Princess of Love was struck by it and became frozen in place, just as the spell was designed to do. Twilight saw both her brother and her older sister were disabled and began to retreat towards the corner of the room.

"Princess Twilight, there's a friendship problem at a town near the city of Fillydelphia. Here, I'll mark it on your map back at the castle..." He started, looking at Twilight.

"No. No. Please, no more." Twilight begged.

"Now, now princess. You're the Princess of Friendship right. Don't you think that you would be best suited to tackle the problems the other ponies face?" He focused briefly and both the frighten Twilight and Preston Garvey disappeared in a flash of light.

......

Shining Armour was the first to recover from the magic feedback. He blinked for a few second before looking around. "Twilight?" He called out, still disoriented. Looking around the room, he saw Cadence whom was frozen with a look of surprise on her face. The sound of hoofsteps could be heard coming down the hall leading to the bedroom. Two alicorns walked into the room, one with a dismayed look and the other worry.

"Tis seems that we have came too late to stop ty' creature from the tree." Luna observed.

"Princess Luna and Princess Celestia! You know what is bothering my sister?" Shining Armour asked.

"Yes. It's was freed by your sister about a week ago. From what little we could hear and discover, it seems as she had taken a shard from the Tree of Harmony and somehow it transformed into that... unusual creature." Luna finished as she glanced at Celestia whom was trying to break the spell on Cadence.

"We tried to stop it once. But it managed to overpower us, by a margin much larger than Discord. So far that being seems to not be malignant but it might change." Celestia said as she broke the stasis spell on Cadence, she whom upon being freed from her stationary pose fell backwards.

"Is there any way for us to stop that thing?" Shining Armour asked as he helped his wife up. "My Twily looked so afraid of him."

"We aren't sure. Direct magical attacks on it is pointless. Even Discord couldn't do anything to him, saying something bout that 'hum-an' being nothing but pure harmony magic." Celestia answered with an annoyed tone.

"Well, we could try other ways instead of relying on raw magical strength." Cadence suggested.

"Believe me my niece, we tried everything we could think of" Luna quickly answered with a tone of frustration...

~3 days ago~

Earlier on that day, it was a normal day as usual. Nobels bickering in court over some trival things or to try and win favours with the princess. She envied Luna whom spent the day sleeping while she had to get headaches everyday from the nobles. What would I give for something new to happen she sighed to herself.

Well, apprently luck or fate decided to help her and a light-greyish unicorn came running into the throne room. "Princess! We need your help badly!" the

"Who is this commoner? Might I ask why is she doing here when we are in the middle of our discussion. Where are the guards!" One nobel shouted.

"The guards are 'trapped' at the moment but that is not important. Princess Twilight and I need your help!" she continued.

"Did you say Twilight?" Celestia asked. When Starlight nodded in response, she looked at the group of nobles. "Today's court is adjourned. We will continue this tomorrow."

"But your majesty. I must protest! We are just getting to the important details!" someone protested.

"I said Court is adjourned. Unless you would prefer it to be held during my sister Luna's court?" she asked. The nobles upon hearing that, began to shift nervously. Taking part in Luna's court was dicey business, if they were 'utterly boring and naively bickering over 'trivial things' 'according to her, she would respond by throwing them out the window or the door. Keeping their 'valuable' discussions to Celestia's day court was a much successful and painless route.

Celestia watched the nobles exit her throne room. She turned her attention to the unicorn. "So, who are you? And what trouble is Twilight Sparkle facing?"

"My name is Starlight Glimmer. Twilight and I were trying to study how the table map back at her castle worked. We found some kind of shard in the middle of the table and extracted it." Starlight hesitated for a moment. "After that, Twilight told me to go out the room as she wanted to try a spell to try and communicate with the shard to see if it had a conscious. The next thing I knew was there was a huge wave of energy unique to the tree that came from her map room. I went in and saw a creature materialising from the shard. It was bipedal and carried some weird object in his fore-limbs. It called itself Preston Garvey and started doing that table-cutie mark magic thing before waltzing out the door."

"So how is that creature causing trouble? It sounds to be harmless." Celestia asked puzzled.

"Well we thought so too and Twilight went over to the location marked on the table map to solve some friendship problem? But when she returned, that creature started to mark even more locations on the map. This has been going on for the past few days and Twilight isn't able to get any rest. Every time she fixes the problem at a place, there will be another new one, some even taking place at the same previous locations! It's been going out of control and that creature even managed to do the same things to the other element bearers."

"Can't Twilight just simply stop doing these quests given by the creature? It's not like it threatens them if they don't do it. Right?" Celestia pointed out.

"Well you are correct in that manner but whenever they are summoned, their cutie marks won't stop pulsing till they go to the location and to make matters worse. If they try to hide, that creature would simply find them before forcibly teleporting them back to the castle. Even Twilight's friend, Pinkie Pie couldn't get away from him for more than a day." Starlight mumbled

"That actually sounds a little worrisome. Could you tell me where could that creature be?" Celestia got off her throne and walked down the platform it was on.

"I'm not sure, but before I left. I saw that Twilight was to be heading to the edge of the forests near Vanhoover." Starlight Glimmer offered helpfully.

"Climb on me." Celestia said. "We are teleporting there."

Starlight obeyed and Celestia began charging for the long distance teleport. A flash of light later, they were both above the forests near Vanhoover. Celestia began a fly-by of the forest to look for her student. She spotted a small settlement on the edge and decided to ask them if they had seen her.

Upon landing, the small number of ponies living in the settlement whom noticed the solar princess landing immediately bowed. " You may rise. I like to seek any sightings of Princess Twilight if you had seen her?"

"Oh. Princess Twilight visited earlier and helped us overcome a minor problem." One of the settlers helpfully replied. "She left a while ago."

Celestia thanked the settler and teleported again. This time reappearing infront of Twilight's castle. Both the Solar princess and Starlight Glimmer walked into the main hall. They heard a familiar voice

"Could you please stop sending me on these quests? I haven't slept since yesterday! This is getting boring and repetitive !" A familiar voice shouted.

"I know princess, but those ponies need your help. If the Princess of Friendship couldn't do it, then who can?" A unfamiliar voice replied.

"That's the creature Twilight accidentally summoned." Starlight whispered to Celestia.

"I'll try to have a word with it. See if I could reason with it." Celestia said before she flew forward towards the map room. When she opened the door, she had her first look at the creature bothering Twilight. The clothes it wore reminded here of the clothes her subjects wore years before the Industrial Revolution occurred. It had a long slender object that vaguely reminded her of the basic muskets the minotaurs and griffons used. Except it had various electronics parts instead of a hollow metal rod. The bipedal creature stop it's interactions with Twilight to look at the newcomer. 'Hello Princess Celestia. My name is Preston Garvey, former general of the minutemen and the last minutemen from the Commonwealth. "

How does it even know who I am? Celestia wondered. She looked at Preston, trying to recall if she had met him before. "Have I met you before?" she asked.

"No. But I know you from the constant surveying of your kingdom. That's how I am able to know which of your citizens are in need of help." Garvey replied.

"I see." Celestia based for a moment. "Well, could you lessen the amount of the quests you are sending the bearers on? I've heard it was becoming rather taxing for them."

"Yes, but isn't it better for your citizens if they can live in perfect harmony? Some of you ponies still have troubles getting along, particularly in the major cities. What better way to spread the magic of friendship and harmony than with the physical embodiment of friendship. This is helping your citizens out as well isn't it. They would be able to live in perfect harmony." he pointed out.

"Well yes but you can't just simply keep making the bearers do all the work! They are ponies too, they too need have lives. You can't just simply work them to exhaustion." Celestia replied, taking a step forward. She was starting to go into her motherly mode after realising that the thing did not realise how he was wearing out Twilight and her friends.

"I have an objective to achieve. Ensure harmony throughout the lands. My old world was destroyed because people were fighting among each other. I do not wish to see the world relapse back to those times." Preston replied.

Realising that he can't be reasoned with, Celestia fired a beam at him. The beam of energy collided with the intended target but somehow Preston Garvey showed no reaction to it as if the beam did not hurt him. "Oh, so you want to do this huh." Preston said as he grabbed the laser musket hanging on his back. Garvey started to crank the handle at the back of the gun. Celestia in response quickly fired another beam of magic this time with even more energy. But like the last one, it had no effect on him. By now Preston Garvey had cranked the handle six times already, the glass cylinder in front of the crank emitting a bright red glow. He took aim and pressed the trigger.

An intense beam of red light came out of the end of the musket with a loud twang. Celestia ducked, the laser beam zipping over her head. She could feel the intense heat behind the beam. Although she was the solar Princess and couldn't get easily burnt by fire, she realised that the laser beam would leave a nasty scorch mark on her if it hit her directly. The laser beam hit the crystal walls of the tree castle, dissipating into the walls as it broke up into several smaller beams.

Celestia tried to cast another spell. But it again fizzled out when it hit Preston. The last minuteman in response said: "I think we are done fighting, this does not help me at all." He raised his left hand, the hand glowing with an amber aura. With a brief gesture, he teleported Celestia back to Canterlot Castle while she was in mid charge.

Celestia ended up crashing into the walls of her bedroom after she was teleported. Feeling a little disoriented from the headbutt with the wall, she got up. No matter what, she was going to try to stop that creature

A few minutes later, she was in front of her sister's bedroom. Ignoring the 2 lunar guards posted at the doors, she opened the door and entered Luna's room. Luna had the curtains drawn and sleeping peacefully. A sound-proof bubble encased the bed. Luna always casted this spell as she was a light sleeper. This had it downsides though when the changelings invaded.

"Luna, wake up. I need your help." Celestia started as soon as she entered the bubble.

'Ebh... wha." Luna mumbled. "Go away unless it's something importan... zzZ"

"Luna, Twilight Sparkle needs our help." Celestia simply said.

That got the night princess up. "Did you say Twilight Sparkle?" she asked, still sleepy. What happened?"

"There this creature that she had accidentally released from the Tree of Harmony. It has been working Twilight and her friends to exhaustion if we don't stop him!"

"Oh my. This sounds serious." Luna was wide awake now. "Where is that creature now? We shall defeat it and ensure it will never bother anypony else!" she exclaimed.

"I hope we could." Celestia mumbled.

......

Both Celestia and Luna collasped onto the floor as soon as they returned to their castle. They were tired from straining themselves magically and some parts of their coat was singed from laser beams

"Tis is impossible! What kind of creature could resist all the spells we threw at him? What is he even?" Luna moaned as she materalised some ice to sooth the areas where she was hit by the laser beam.

"I don't know. I felt that he had lots of magical energy at his disposal." Celestia said with worry. "I don't want to think of it it there may be no way to stop it."

Author's Note

Some things I expected.
1.) You just made Preston Garvey OP. What a deus ex machina.
Preston Garvey is the Tree of Harmony.
Tree of Harmony overpowers Discord, who is stronger than both Celestia and Luna before they found the elements. Celestial and Luna control celestial bodies which Twilight and Cadence can't do. I'll let that sink in...
As to why he is the tree? Wait for the next chap. I promise you it will be mind-blowing