[Blueblood's POV]

While I had been hoping that Miss Rarity would have either forgotten or forgiven what happened at the gala by now, (it had been months after all!) it seemed she was still holding a grudge. I am not a petty man, regardless of what others may say, but I am a prince! Even national heroes should respect that my lifestyle wasn't all fancy parties and fine wine, I had responsibilities! I couldn't just allow mares to throw themselves at me for fun! ...Though based on past experience, Miss Rarity seemed to be somewhat shallow, so maybe she did think that it was meant as an insult to her specifically...

Anyway, the only way to respond without looking like an ass, (no offence meant to our proud, hard working friends and neighbors) was to simply reply "Yes, it is me." to Miss Rarity before turning to Miss Sparkle "Do you mind if I come in? There is something important to discuss with you." I noticed Miss Rarity trying to leave up some stairs, so before she could move out of range I added "All of you, even you Miss Rarity."

Miss Rarity gave a very undignified huff (with a bit of tossed mane for flavor) but did come back down to talk. The others all started moving around all at once, Miss Sparkle trying to walk beside me while speaking to me (something about asking where Auntie Celestia was and if she was okay), Miss Pie bouncing into the kitchen saying something about sweets, Miss Applejack moving over a chair (that he assumed she wanted him to sit on, since she was pushing it towards him) and Miss Dash was pushing a chair for one of her friends seeing as she was pushing into the corner currently occupied by a slightly quivering Miss Fluttershy. That or she was building a wall around her, though whether it was to protect her or me I didn't know.

Once everypony was seated, calmly or otherwise, there was a moment of silence before Miss Sparkle decided to speak up.

"So, I really am glad to see you again Blueblood," Miss Rarity supplied a well timed snort to which Miss Pie giggled, both hooves covering her snout, "but I need to know, the Princess is okay right? The Overlord didn't try anything, did he?"

While I had nothing against Miss Sparkle, she and I were actually quite good friends especially now that she could rip her muzzle out of whatever book she had at the moment, her devotion to Auntie was somewhat aggravating. I mean really, if she wasn't then would I be here talking to her instead of heading to the Domain to get Auntie back?

"Yes, Auntie is fine. Actually she asked me to come tell all of you something, she would tell you herself but Auntie is rather busy right now with matters of state."

elsewhere

Celestia huffed from behind the muzzle, she had given up struggling against her bonds half an hour ago. Enchanted Steel was, while very rare due to being hard to make, just strong enough to hold an allicorn, if only for a short while. Just because she had said 'not now' didn't mean she would put it off forever, Luna could have waited until she could write a letter to her favorite student.

"I don't need one that badly..."

Her masseuse had resorted to using a sledgehammer on the muscles between her wings and around her shoulders as his hooves were neither hard enough to withstand the force needed, or able to provide said force in the first place.

It was actually quite relaxing, she had to admit.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming!

"So what is it? Some new bad guy? The Overlord gonna try a sneak attack? We gonna have to go help him do something or is it something else?" Miss Dash casually asked while leaning back mid air.

"Something like that," I said with a light smirk, "She was somewhat vague and I'm afraid the conversation happened so quickly that I won't be able to repeat it verbatim, but it was something about something or someone, or both, having 'come back' up north. Apparently she has already sent both prince Shining Armor and Princess Cadenza ahead, alone, to 'secure the area' for some reason."

"Wait, my brother and Cadence are already there?" Miss Sparkle asked, surprised. "Then we need to go and help them, right now!"

I waved Miss Sparkle down as she was trying to stand, telling her "Now now, I understand the urge to rush to the aid of one's family members, believe me I do, but the Princess was insistent that you wait for your plus one."

"Plus One?"

"Yes. You see, as an attempt to bring our two countries closer together, Princess Celestia has asked The Overlord To assist you in this matter."

"What!? We don't need his help! We can handle this just fine by ourselves!" Miss Dash angrily protested.

"I'm sure that you can, your record speaks for itself after all, but that is neither here nor there at this point. Whether or not you accept it, he is going to be going with you this time."

"Okay," Miss Sparkle began, trying (and succeeding) to distract her blue friend, "How badly does Equestria need this?"

So, She isn't completely inept at politics. Well, that's good to know. "The truth is we don't know. So far the Overlord has kept to his word regarding matters of military and border expansion, but due to how cold he is to us we just don't know how we really stand with him."

"So, to be clear, this is to both get in his good graces and to evaluate his combat ability in case he proves to be a threat to Equestria?"

"Publicly? No. Privately? Yes. This is a state secret, so Miss Applejack will just have to avoid talking about it and the rest of you will have to keep quiet or we will deny the whole thing, obviously."

"Obviously." Miss Twilight said with a semi vacant stare. I couldn't help but wonder what exactly she was thinking about, but it was basically irrelevant as she quickly refocused on me.

"Then of course we will happily work with our neighbor to the south, in the hopes of maintaining and strengthening the bonds of friendship between our two peoples."

"I must say Miss Sparkle, I'm glad to see that you were able to remember your diplomacy lessons even after being sent off to live out in the middle of nowhere." I said with a sarcastic smile.

"I like it out here, not as much noise as Canterlot. Great for reading." She sniped back.

"I do wish you would visit more often, the castle is so much more boring without the odd explosion here or there."

Miss Sparkle gave a bark of laughter "Two times! Two times and nopony ever let's you forget!"

Her friends all seemed surprised at how we joked around, though they all seemed quite pleased as well if both Miss Pie and Apple's grins were anything to go by.

"Well, that seems to be all for now, until the next crisis Miss Sparkle?"

"Of course Prince Blueblood, don't be a stranger!"

At the dismissal all of her friends started to get up and go about their business, Miss Dash, Apple, and Rarity all giving mild complaints about being forced to work with the Overlord while Miss Pie and Fluttershy made comments about how they looked forward to the experience. I waited until they were all gone before turning back to Miss Sparkle.

I dropped my usual upper class tone and asked "I hope I don't need to tell you to be careful on this one?"

"Thank you for the concern, but I'll be fine. I promise." She had that look in her eye, like she already had everything figured out.

"I mean it. Celestia said that whatever has come back up north was filled with so much dark magic that it might as well have been evil incarnate. She said it was torturing others for amusement when she and Luna finally arrived to kill it, and the most they could do was keep it contained and asleep. You've been lucky up until now, for whatever reason none of the monsters you've fought have actually tried to kill you, but this one will and we don't know if we can really trust the Overlord not to turn on you."

"So I'll have an enemy on two fronts, nothing I wasn't taught how to handle... I'll be careful Blueblood, I mean it."

"Good, I don't need to stand at the grave of another personal student while Celestia cries on my shoulder." I said as I walked off to head back to Canterlot.

[Twilight's POV: the next day]

My friends and I were waiting at the train station for the Overlord and his transportation. Using both Sparky (with the CMC's permission) and Scratch to send and receive letters from the Domain we had been able to work out that the Overlord would be arriving by train around ten minutes from now, which was great since it meant that I could get out my pent up anxiety and make sure the girls and Spike knew what we needed to do.

"I don't get why we don't just ditch him the moment we get to the Empire."

Especially Rainbow.

"For the third time Rainbow, it's because we will be representing all of Equestria and giving him the cold shoulder would at the least be rude and at worst cause a war. We really don't know what he's like when he's not playing host and ancient Empires don't pop back into existence every day, so this is really our only chance to see what he's like when there is new, unclaimed territory, an enemy and ally's nearby."

Rainbow just pouted in the air, mumbling something that probably went along the lines of "We could take him."

What I couldn't understand was why Rainbow thought that there was any evidence that a fight between us would end in our favor. If anything there was more evidence that the Overlord would trounce us in military might, seeing as he took out all of the arimaspi, (something that was still boggling the minds of Equestria's finest military minds, my brother included) and considering how he made a spell to literally end the universe...

Well, let's just say I hoped the Overlord wasn't a sore loser.

"Oh, it'll be fine girls. We'll go to the Empire, fight and/or befriend whatever ancient evil is/was attacking it, the Overlord will help, we'll all go home as friends and maybe never talk to one another again. Great adventure, very fun, right?" Pinke said nonchalantly while inspecting her hoof.

"Well, at least you're not concerned about all this." Spike called from where he was reading a comic book on a bench, next to Rarity's luggage.

"Umm, we'll never talk to each other, or, uh, the Overlord and us won't talk to each other?" Fluttershy asked from behind her mane, already nervous about the Overlords visit.

"The Overlord and us. I mean, we all live in the same town so it would be kinda hard to never talk to any of you, especially when I would need to throw you a party! How would I update what your favorite flavor of cake was if I couldn't ask you?"

Before anypony could respond, Scratch and Sparky came running up to the station and began hoping in place while holding a large banner that read "We <3 Overlord!" with crude representations of the different minion types all dancing around the main message. That was our cue that the Overlords train was getting close to the station, meaning that it was zero hour and the time for panic was over. Or at least it was for me, for the others it just meant that the Overlord was right about to be here.

We all saw the train as it belched black smoke and started to slow down in order to slide into station. To call it different then the normal 'Friendship Express' would be an understatement, the whole thing was almost a solid black, only broken by the dark browns of the cars and the bright green cloth that was daisy chained across the whole top of the train. It almost looked like whoever had designed it wanted the only smooth surface to be the grill on the front of it, everything else was either covered in spikes or was just at such a severe angle that it looked sharp enough to cut yourself on.

"Wow, I didn't know the Overlord let edgy teenagers design things for him, maybe I could get a part time job?" Spike snarked from under the large pile of luggage that he was about to unload in said train.

I facehoofed, now certain that this would not end well.

Author's Note

Sorry for the long wait, life has been... well anyway, I'll, uh, try to start working on the next chapter.

I blame Dwarf Fortress.