Patriots of Equestria, Part 1

Racing to the Crystal Empire, all Starlight Glimmer could do was count her blessings and hope for the best. For she had a very strong hunch that Sunburst, the only foalhood friend she had ever known, was in mortal danger if these Changelings would do anything in the Crystal Empire. No sooner did they all arrive at the train station that chaos was already in place.

"What's going on?" cried Starlight as they ran off the train and were met by a heavy security prescense on the platform. "Are they going to let us off?"

"I don't know," remarked Trixie. "It seems like they aren't going to be taking this very lightly."

Instead of getting off the train, the guardsponies on the platform boarded the train and turned their attention towards the passengers on board. Instant Justice rose to his feet and trotted over towards them.

"Instant Justice," said one of the guardsponies, saluting him. "We have a situation on our hooves. A taxi cab has been taken hostage not far from here."

"As if they aren't desperate enough," muttered Instant Justice, considering what he had just heard and looked back towards Starlight Glimmer and her friends. "So far, you have been telling us the truth, young mares. Let's hope it stays that way."

Assessing the situation, Instant Justice sighed and turned back towards the guardsponies.

"Where is the situation?" asked Instant Justice.

"About a mile east of here," answered the guardspony. "Not far from the castle."

"Lock down the entire empire," he ordered, causing gasps from Starlight and the others. "Tell anypony that you see to take shelter in their home. We cannot let these two Changelings escape nor allow anypony here to become involved as a hostage, no matter what. Is that clear?"

"Yes, my lord justice," answered the guardspony. "We shall do so at once!"

Doing as they were told, the guardsponies hastily ran off the train and back onto the platform while Instant Justice followed. Starlight and her friends all got off the train as well, where several guardsponies handed them several vests.

"These are anti-magic vests," explained Instant Justice. "They will protect you from any dangerous magic that the Changelings will throw at you."

"Well, I have my own kind of anti-magic protection," said Discord, dressed in a brown jumpsuit with a picture of Fluttershy on his chest and armed with a spray gun along with a tank attached onto his back. "I've got a powerful spray that I am not afraid to use."

"Don't be such an idiot, you fool!" remarked Instant Justice as Starlight and her friends put on their anti-magic vests. "No weapons you have will protect you from these monsters for they have powers that are greater than any of your so called chaos magic!"

Discord rolled his eyes, thinking that what Instant Justice was saying was all lies and it was nothing but to instill fear and make him fall back on helping out in the hunt.

"Haven't you forgotten that I am centuries old, my friend?" asked Discord, glaring over at Instant Justice while he put on his own anti-magic vest. "For I have powers that not even you can comprehend and all with a snap of my claws."

Instant Justice didn't reply to this and turned his back on Discord looking towards the heavily armed guardsponies.

"All right, let's move!" cried Instant Justice and they all made their way towards the hostage situation.

…

A few moments later, they arrived at the scene of the hostage crisis and saw the disguised Thumper holding a knife to the back of the cab pony's head while the disguised Hopper held a magic aura at the guardsponies surrounding them.

"One move from any of you and he becomes a martyr!" cried Hopper, seething with anger. "A mere sacrifice for our Queen!"

All the guardsponies could do was to stand their ground and Instant Justice realized that they weren't going to go down easily.

"There is nowhere left for you to run," cried Instant Justice, addressing the two disguised Changelings. "Surrender to us now and we will spare your lives!"

"Over our dead bodies!" cried Hopper, the sickly green magic aura building up inside of him through the unicorn horn. "Your leaders are dead and all you can do is pledge our loyalty to Chrysalis!"

Hopper then took notice of Starlight Glimmer and turned his aim away from the guards and towards her.

"You!" he seethed with fury. "You, Starlight Glimmer, are the cause for all of this! Had you not interfered with the plans of our queen…"

"Keep back," cried Instant Justice, attempting to push Starlight back from Hopper's aim. "There's no telling what he will do."

"You can't hide from what you did to us," shouted Hopper. "Sooner or later, you will pay for what you have done!"

Upon hearing these words, Starlight bravely got in front of the murderous Changeling and stood steadfast.

"End… this… now," she cried, much to the horror and shock of her friends. "Don't you realize of how many ponies are hurt because of you? Queen Chrysalis is not the leader you want to have. She lied to you, she brainwashed you with her ideologies…"

"SHUT UP!" screamed Hopper, almost firing the green magic at Starlight. "JUST SHUT UP! You are the one who ruined our way of life, Starlight Glimmer! We have lost our way of life thanks to your pathetic interference of you and your friends! What good do we have now with a leader like that traitorous Thorax?!"

"That 'traitorous leader' learned to share love instead of taking it," cried Starlight, taking several steps towards Hopper in an attempt to get him to lower his ground. "Why can't you learn both learn the same thing? Can't you see that Chrysalis is gone and is never coming back? End this now before any more ponies get hurt!"

Hopper remained defiant to his ideals and was not going to listen to this any longer. In his mind, Starlight was trying to get him to accept what was happening around him.

"Why should we listen to a mewling grub like you?" snapped Hopper, who was now beginning to lose his patience with Starlight.

"Because everypony needs to accept certain facts of life," answered Starlight in a calm voice, knowing that she was now in a similar situation that she was in with Chrysalis. "I was once like both of you, unwilling to accept any change and wanting to do things my own way. But, I was wrong! Sometimes change is for the good and change is for the best. You don't have to live your lives starving all the time if you just accept change."

As Starlight spoke, Thumper was beginning to realize that maybe she was right. In his mind, both he and Hopper were doing more harm than good.

"Listen to her, brother!" he called, much to Hopper's frustration. "She's telling the truth…"

"SHUT YOUR MOUTH!" interrupted Hopper, furiously facing towards his young brother. "Just keep holding that knife to that pony's head, all right?!"

"But she does have a point," cried Thumper removing the knife from the cab pony's head as Instant Justice motioned for several guardsponies to retrieve the hostage. "Why should we be doing this? It's clear that our Queen is never going to be found! We need to surrender and own up to what we did!"

Hopper then noticed that the hostage was being taken away and was not happy about it.

"YOU IDIOT!" he screamed, pointing his raging green aura at him. "You're letting our hostage get away!"

Unable to control his emotions any further, Hopper let out a loud roar and fired a blast of green magic at Thumper, hitting him square in the chest and throwing him out of the cab as he screamed loudly.

"I don't need you!" he cried, as the guardsponies readied themselves to fight. "I will finish what we set out to do myself!"

With another loud battle cry, Hopper opened fire with his stored green aura and the magic firefight of the Crystal Empire between him and the royal guardsponies was on…