The Royal Princess Guard

"Velcome to fighting one-oh-one" Said the slim Unicorn stallion, pacing in front of the six white ponies he was teaching. "In zis class you vill be learning how to defeat any and all opponents, is zis understood?" He looked between each pony individually

They were all sitting there with heavy bags under their eyes, for the past two weeks they had been doing nothing but PT, they had gone to the top of the mountain and back so many times it was more familiar to them than their own beds. The exhaustion was just another test that they all had to struggle through. But at least now they were more clued up, they had each been given a definitive schedule for their weeks now and everything was falling in to place as the routine started to kick in.

The heavily accented instructor continued. "I am from one of the Realms many secret organizationz, you vill not be privy to ze full information until you are full Guards, however until zen you are mine to mould. For now you may call me, Herschell" He suddenly stopped and stared directly at Crush, and looking him right in the eye asked. "VAT do you know about combat?"

Crush shuffled nervously under his gaze before answering, "That you should identify your strengths, and the enemy’s weakness and use them to your advantage" He answered

"WRONG, ALL WRONG." shouted the instructor "Zis is gud for an opponent you know better than yourself, however zis will never vork for vat you vill be doing." He pointed a hoof towards Flourish "I Vas told you are best combatant out ov your class, yes? Vell come up here and show me."

The other ponies all gave a smile, the instructor from Basic had done exactly the same thing on the first day, and had been hit by a truck of Flourish, they were sure this was going to be interesting.

Flourish stood up and walked in front of the instructor. Taking a low fighting stance, she braced herself for the first strike, hind legs coiled, ready to pounce. Herschell took a tiny step back and waited. Flourish pounced forward at the instructor, flicking her right legs out at the last moment to cause her to spin around ready to strike Herschell's legs from under him.

He calmly stepped sideways, and with a smooth motion caught Flourishes hoof in mid-air, spinning her around and causing her to crash into the floor with a resounding thud, winding her heavily.

"Fight eez over. Now I see ze problem," He turned to face the sitting ponies while Flourish recovered. "Over ze course of this claz you vill learn to forget what you 'ave been told."

He paused as Flourish regained her footing and staggered back to where she was sitting.

"You are all too focused on ze techniques you ave been taught, forget zem, vat matters is finishing ze fight. All opponents will use techniques to counter ze moves that you are meant to do, to counter zis you do not follow a technique, you vill make the fight flow around you, you will shape ze fight to your advantage and end it swiftly."

He looked at Crush for a second "I suppose zey taught you zat there is a point at vich size can counter all technique?" They all nodded slowly

"pffftt, anover mistake, you come up here." He motioned to crush who slowly stood up and moved to the front of Herschell, he took a different stance to Flourish, not letting on to what he was about to do.

Herschell smiled "Good, you are alveady learning, this vont take as long as I ad thought zen. Go on zen attack me." Crush slowly edged towards Herschell making sure that his own momentum couldn't be used against him, when the giant pegasus was but metres from the slim unicorn he moved with a surprising speed. However Herschell was faster, carrying out a series of jabs that couldn't be followed by the untrained eye.  These left Crush frozen in position, unable to move any part of him except his eyes.

Herschell just as quickly did another series of jabs that unstuck the pegasus, followed by him saying

"Through the course of zese classes I vill teach you all I know, and by ze end you vill surpass me." He slowly looked over the ponies and selected his next victim. "You" He eventually said pointing to Diamond shield. Who gulped as he stood up and walked over to the fighting floor.

The Mare that stood in front of them had an air of unnatural beauty surrounding her. She was a tall very slim Mare ho was taking them for their weapons training. She had a heavy Western accent and was wearing a large Stetson that covered most of her hair.

"So y'all wanna learn 'bout them there weapons then?" she asked rhetorically "Well then best get started with the basics."

Behind her was a weapon rack upon which stood hundreds of weapons from the Guards basic spear to some sort of strange black sphere with a rope sticking out of it. They were in the ranges of the base and had the entirety of the place to themselves.

"Alright y'all, let’s start with the basics, this here's the spear y'all be familiar with, no point mentioning anything 'bout that as y'all already know it, this here's called a shuriken, good for throwing at things," She continued through all of the weapons hung on the rack, until she had reached the end when she said.

"Good y'all been paying attention," she said as she finished and looked at the ponies faces "my name's Carel," she gave a sly wink when she said that before continuing "And in these classes y'all be learning how to handle and use all these weapons as best as ya can. Any questions?"

The three unicorns were separated from the pegasi of their group in this particular class, which was combat magic, where they were being taught by a small stallion that was shrouded in a hood and cloak.

"Combat magic should never be taken lightly." His voice was raspy and distant, as though he was only half there. "You should only use it when there are no other options as it is the most destructive force available to you. You will have been taught basic combat magic. BAH" He said waving his arm

"Magic for colts and pretend soldiers, the magic I will teach you is known by very few, and practiced by even fewer."

Diamond, Shield and Flourish all sat there enthralled, they had been told that the only combat magic that existed was being taught to them at Basic and they couldn't believe there was anything more destructive.

"Magic is not something to be taken lightly and only very few can do well at it, however I have dallied enough, and you are eager to learn so you have a good chance of succeeding, we shall begin immediately."

At the same time as the Unicorns were being taught combat magic, the Pegasi were in the sky with Sergeant Hale. They were thankful that for once what they had been taught before was all still applicable, however there was only so much that a Pegasus could do, and the only thing they could do was practice, which meant a lot of repetition in their future.

"Espionage" The handsome Unicorn Stallion announced to the six eager ponies in a posh accent. He was wearing a tuxedo and bow tie that fitted him perfectly. "That is what we will cover in this class, you will learn to forget yourself and take on the role of another pony entirely, and I will teach you how to change your very appearance. Through magic or otherwise, you will be able to serve your princess as any role after I'm done with you. Any Questions?"

The next two months the ponies spent honing their skills and learning new ones, they became adept at all forms of combat, warfare, and espionage. They learnt new languages, and customs, and they forgot old habits. They were taught everything from the intricacies of Equestrian politics to how the weather is made at a microscopic level. They were taught how to survive in all climates with no help or resources and they were taught how to treat a pony with wounds that many hospitals would struggle with.

They were making the summit of the mountain in full ceremonial gear, they could fight their instructors to standstills in all of their classes, and they knew the inside out of almost every resource that the Princesses had available to them. In short they had become pretty badass.

Yet when it came to their first exercise they were still far from prepared.

The six were flown in a blacked out carriage for what seemed like hours, this was one of the rare times that they got to really sit down and talk, and they had yet to have a leave from training and there wasn't any other time they really got to talk. The training had done a decent job of leaving them totally shattered all the time and if it wasn't necessary they tried to avoid doing it.

"So many memories of Basic." groaned Spear as she slumped in the carriage

"Well at least you can look forward to the new memories after we finish this." said Flourish cheerfully "Then we can get all nostalgic about Basic, and how easy it was."

"Do you inject rainbows into your veins or something?" asked Dive Bomb sarcastically "I don't see how else you could be so happy all the time."

"Oh come on Dive, she's just making the best of the situation." piped in Shield

"I think this training's great" said Crush cheerfully "I've never been so fit in all my life."

"Yeah the ladies sure do go for this look." said Dive flexing slightly and earning a punch from each of the mares in the carriage. "See, can't get their hooves off of me." Another round of punches came for him before they continued chatting.

The entire journey followed this sort of routine until they got a five minute warning and Sergeant Hale opened the door and flew into the carriage and gave them a briefing. With brief being the imperative.

"Alright you lot, Here's what’s happening." As they had improved the Sergeant had greatly warmed to them and he was much less insulting of them. "Get back to the base without being found. Any Questions?"

"Who's searching for us?" Asked Shield

Sergeant Hale gave a quick smile at this. "Everypony effectively, but mostly it'll be the Luna trainees."

They all smiled at that point, over the course of the last two months they had been getting into more and more contact with the six ponies being trained to Guard Luna. Whereas the six in  the carriage all had pristine white coats at most times. The Luna Guards had dark grey coats, and much to Dive Bombs dismay they got to have their wings and ears magically changed to be representative of a bat.

The two groups had become increasingly competitive over the past two months and had taken to doing anything they could to show up each other. They had even being summiting against each other at points, leading to records being made, and then broken again almost instantly.

This was the perfect chance for the six to show up the other trainees then, however as usual Hale was withholding information.

"What do you mean everypony?" asked Diamond

"I mean that the Luna's get to have access to any resource they can blag to find you, you win as soon as you step back onto the base."

The six looked at each other with more concern at that, the odds were heavily stacked against them, along with the fact that Luna's Guards had as much training as they did, as well as extra night training, this wasn't going to be easy.

"THIRTY SECONDS!!" shouted the driver

"Alright you lot, good luck." said Hale flying out of the carriage back to his position next to the driver.

The carriage slowly started to descend at a steep angle, it hit the ground running slowing down gradually over rough ground, with the six trainees in the back being chucked around the place, causing a few bruises to everyone. When the carriage came to a halt the door was swung open by the sergeant and the six dismounted, forming a circle for all around defence.

What lay before them was a massive expanse of nothing but sand and rocks, heat causing the air above to shimmer and bend the light above it slightly, there was not a single living thing to be seen anywhere. The carriage took off as quickly as it had left the two pegasus pulling it dressed in Guard uniform With the sergeant and driver sitting on top of it. The six waited until the carriage had all but disappeared before starting to properly scan the area.

There were no visible waypoints at all, it was completely flat; the blazing sun was at its apex for the day so they couldn't even tell the direction of anywhere. For all intensive purposes they had been dropped in neck deep with nothing to dig themselves out with.

Dive Bomb summed up all their feelings by saying "Well, F-"

The six ponies had been walking for hours, they had managed to gain their bearings after five minutes thanks to Dive Bomb flying as high as he could and just about being able to make out the mountain that Canterlot was attached to, which was great because they knew exactly where they were going. The bad news however was on a separate level entirely.

They were stuck in the middle of what was affectionately called the 'Wild West' of Equestria, they had no knowledge of the local area, no food, no water and most importantly no way of knowing who would be on the lookout for them. They had at least a hundred miles to move before they would even be out of the bleak landscape of the desert and in all of that time any pegasus could spot them from miles away.

Their only option was a forced march, the sooner they got into the better covered area of Equestria surrounding Canterlot they could use the terrain to more of an advantage, however until that time, they couldn't even risk stopping at night for rest. The morale was low, as it was always the case on marches like these, the three pegasi had given up flying long ago in favour of walking, trying to reduce the heat that they created.

Sweat dripped off of every pony, they were bathed in it, they hadn't drunk in nearly two days and this was beginning to show, every single pony had their head hanging low, the pegasus at least had wings they could use to their advantage, stretching them out over their heads to provide shade and get the blood flowing through them to cool them down, however even this wasn't helping them fair much better than the unicorns.

They had all but given up hope when suddenly Spear shouted "HEY LOOK, A TOWN!"

They all looked up and followed the direction of her hoof, she was correct, on the horizon was the faint shimmer of wooden buildings, a cloud of steam was rising up from behind one of them, marking a train that was in station. The entire party gained a new glimmer of hope at the sighting of civilisation. However the hope was tempered by the nagging feeling that they were in more danger than they had ever been before.

"Alright everypony lets, formulate a plan." said Diamond beckoning to the rest of the group to gather round. "Alright, while we're still far enough outside of the town to be safe from prying eyes we need to get disguises on and figure out what we're doing." He pointed to Crush "Sorry mate but you're going to have to sit this one out, somepony of your size is bound to attract unwanted attention."

He gave a thoughtful rub of his chin as he thought how best to hide crush before Shield suggested "How about an invisibility spell? As long as nopony nearby is scanning for the magic he should be fine to just stay by the station waiting, and one of us will take him supplies when we get them."

Diamond nodded at the idea "Good one, the rest of us will go through the town getting what supplies we can, I'll hit up the local watering hole and see about any news that might help us. Flourish, Dive Bomb, see if you can grab us some food and provisions, Shield, Spear, how about acquiring tickets for that train, It'll be a damn sight nicer than walking the rest of the way." As he gave each pony their job he pointed at each of them in turn, getting nods of acknowledgment from each of them.

The three unicorns then started to cast the necessary spells needed for the plan to work, with Shield focusing on turning the giant pegasus invisible, nearly collapsing at the effort, Diamond and Flourish giving the other five each a new colour scheme, Flourish a rich Magenta, Diamond a light Cyan, Shield and Spear both gaining a dark orange and Dive Bomb a Jet Black.

Dive Bomb opened his mouth, about to make one of his trademark comments however before he could manage he was cut off by Flourish "I swear to Celestia that if you say anything I will turn you Pink." This accompanied by the evil glare she was giving him caused him to pause.

Flourish, confident that she had halted any future silliness went to turn away, at which point Dive Bomb took the opportunity to blurt out. "Always knew I looked good in Black." He flew towards the town cackling as Flourish ran after him, horn glowing with a magical aura.

The other four just stood there staring at the two with exasperated looks on their faces, Diamond sighed and put a hoof to his face. "Alright guys, let's stay professional here, we all know what we've got to do, you guys come find us when you've got our ride." He pointed at the twins with his final comment and then turned toward the town.

With that the four trotted off, the twins heading to the other end of the town, Diamond and Crush trotting together, Crush occasionally tripping over as he tried to walk without any way to coordinate, eventually they reached the rear of the train station where Diamond left Crush and started to trot around looking for the local Bar.

Flourish eventually caught up with the jet Black pegasus between two buildings in the town, looking angrily at the Stallion she slowly released the magic from her horn, not willing to risk anypony seeing the sudden change of coat colour, she made do with a punch to Dive's shoulder which he took with ease.

They started their search around the town, looking for any sort of convenience store that they could find, when they came across one they were disappointed to find out that the bins round back had been emptied recently and there was nothing salvageable. Grumpily they went back round the front, only for Dive Bomb to bump into a strange cream coloured earth pony with a large cherry red mane set in a bun atop her head and wearing a ribbon around her neck. Her cutie mark was of two cherries.

"I'm terribly sorry ma'am," gasped Flourish, putting on a western accent "My cousin here's a bit clumsy." She said helping up the poor mare.

"Why that's quite alright." she said Brushing herself off, "Not that I'm complaining about bumping into a handsome young Stallion."

This caused DB's cheeks to flare red, much to Flourish's amusement, however before she could press on with the embarrassment of him here stomach rumbled loudly.

Suppressing a blush she said. "Excuse me, ah haven’t eaten in a while."

"Never mind that dear, how about I make up our little scuffle by getting you some lunch." said the new mare cheerfully

"Ah'm afraid we don't have anything to pay you with." said Flourish apologetically

"Nevermind that, Ah'm owner of the biggest cherry orchard in the entire West, Ah think ah'll get by." she beckoned them to follow and started trotting off down the street.

"Excuse me ma'am, terribly sorry for having to ask, but wat's your name?" said Dive picking up the same accent that Flourish had put on.

"Why ah'm Cherry Jubilee, boss o' Cherry Hill Ranch. Pleasure to make your acquaintance..." she gestured to the two ponies trotting next to her.

"Ma names Apple, and this here's mah brother Pear, we're just passing through on our way to Canterlot." said Flourish, seeding the lie with a hint of the truth.

"Pleasure to meet you two," she winked at the pegasus then "It's always fine meeting young good looking ponies such as yourselves."

Flourish tried to suppress her giggles while Dive just looked at the ground, cheeks a deep red from embarrassment. They had slowed down now and Cherry had stepped up to a house directly next to the train station, entering it she called,

"Come on in dears, it's quite alright."

The two ponies trotted in to the house after the Mare detecting a subtle whiff of cherry pie, granting their hoofs renewed vigour as they could almost taste the food they could smell.

Diamond was sitting at the bar of the Suns Rise, having found the local Watering hole he had ordered a glass of water and started listening to the strangers that were frequenting the place, he had so far learned that they were at Dodge Junction, which he was happy about as it meant they were closer to the Central area of Equestria than he had anticipated, he had also learnt that the Guard around the entirety of Canterlot had been increased by at least three-fold, this wasn't such good news. It meant that the Luna's knew what they were doing and had kept their area of influence as tight as possible so they wouldn't be overstretched.

The barkeep slid his glass of water over to him, he gratefully picked it up and purposefully drank slowly from the glass, desperate to just gulp it down however controlling himself for the sake of appearances.

He noticed then that the Maiden sisters had just entered the bar and were casually walking over to him, he gestured to the bartender for more glasses of water, before turning back to the twins.

"Have we got a ride then?"asked Diamond hopefully

The twins nodded simultaneously "We persuaded the conductor to give us a few tickets." said Spear, the two twins looked wryly at each other.

Diamond interjected by asking "You tied him up didn’t you?" looking between the two of them.

The look of evil joy on their faces gave away their new elation. Diamond just sighed and decided not to scold them for the obvious mistake, It's unlikely that it would make a big difference anyway. Also it seemed that Tweedle-Di and Tweedle-Dum had entered the bar now and were walking over to them with bulging saddle bags, full bellies and looks of joy on their faces.

" 'sup" said Dive Bomb looking very pleased with himself. "We just had the best meal ever."

Flourish rolled her eyes at this and went back onto the topic at hand. "So, we all set to get out of here then?"

Diamond slowly nodded and went to finish his drink when suddenly a dark brown pony rag-dolled through the window of the bar and landed in a heap on one of the empty tables.

Crusher was content with sitting waiting for the others to get back, he wasn't annoyed at being left out, he was in fact quite happy, he got to rest in the shade, and although that didn't quench his thirst or fill his stomach he was happy for the small victories. He even started to doze off at one point, stopping himself beforehand knowing that he might be needed at any point.

Admittedly being his size had a lot of disadvantages, however the advantages usually outweighed those, case in point he was usually left out of all the lying parts of the job, which he was never comfortable doing anyway, so that suited him just fine.

Suddenly his thoughts were cut short by a sudden scream from the road, he knew that he should have stayed put. But he never could resist helping anypony, he sneaked a peek around the corner of the building, what he saw made his blood boil.

There were three stallions, armed with rifles attacking a cream coloured Mare with dark red mane. A red mist descended.

The first of the three robbers didn't have any chance to see what was coming, one moment he had one hoof on the mare’s purse, the next he was flying over the nearest building with a large pain in his flank, landing with a massive crack where his head struck a rock. His two companions just paused in astonishment as they watched their buddy sail clean across the roof of a nearby house and out of sight.

They looked astonished at where he had just been, seeing nothing but a faint shimmer in the air they quickly raised their weapons and opened fire, the shimmer moved with great speed to the side avoiding the shots as they passed. However the shots themselves caused the magic that was surrounding the pegasus to overload and fail.

The two robbers were now standing before a mountain of a pegasus, nearly twice their height and built like a brick outhouse, he was staring at them with such an intense look of hate that they knew that there was no way they were going to get out of this unharmed.

"Maybe next time," the pegasus growled "You should think about who you should choose to pick on."

He suddenly leapt over the closest bandit tackling the second to the ground rendering him immediately out of the fight. He followed this up by shifting all his weight to his front legs rearing up and kicking with all his great strength into the final bandit. This massive blow sent the brown stallion flying right across the street and through the window of the local watering hole.

Out of which all of the clientele poured including, Crush's five friends, the sight of them made him snap back into reality, looking around he realised that everypony was looking at him, he looked down and realised that he could see his own hooves. He slowly looked back up to the rest of his group who slowly moved to the back of the crowd, giving him signs to meet them at the train station.

Crush started to move off, and slowly picking up speed he galloped to the train station, ignoring the cheers from the townsfolk as he departed, he allowed himself to have a quick smile as he made his way towards his destination. Revelling in the adrenaline rush he was currently experiencing.

Shield was just finishing removing any magical traces of her spell from Crush, they had swiftly departed the town and were making their way non-stop to Canterlot, they all relaxed for the first time on this exercise, they finally had a chance to just sit there and recuperate, plus they had a ton of cherry based produce to consume. The train car that they were in was empty apart from the six, the two twins had released the conductor from his makeshift prison. Diamond had watched curiously as they had used a combination of flying and magic to undo a complicated series of ropes that held the conductor to the ceiling while not actually being visible. It was very impressively done, it made up for the fact they had pretty much just left a witness at the town.

They had then started their, hopefully, uneventful train journey to their objective, no-one had questioned the actions of Crush, they had long ago learned that they could trust each other wholly and that there was no point in arguing over the past, the only thing that mattered was the present, and near future.

Both of which looked to be pretty peachy for the group. Settled down now after undoing all of their spells they began to chat idly, and dig into the food available.

"What was that place anyway?" asked Spear, lounging on one of the seats to the rear of the carriage, casually eating a cherry pie that was in front of her.

"That was Dodge Junction." said Diamond rummaging through the saddlebags full of food, he eventually found a tasty looking cherry fruitcake. Walking over and sitting down near Spear with his chosen food he began to dig in heartily.

At hearing the name Dodge Junction Dive Bomb's ears pricked up. "Did you say Dodge Junction?"

Diamond nodded slowly, unsure why he was prying

"And you would say we left in a hurry?" Dive Bomb continued, cocking one eyebrow up

"Yeeeeeeesssss." Diamond replied slowly, crumbs surrounding his mouth

"Well then," Dive smirked "I guess you could say we.."

He was cut off as Flourish shoved a hoof over his mouth, she then glared daggers at him and whispered threateningly. "Say what you are about to say and I swear..."

She slowly released her hoof from his mouth and went to sit down however before she could reach her seat Dive piped up

"I reckon you could say we got the HELL OUT OF DODGE!"

Flourish pounced and started wailing on the unfortunate pegasus, the other four just rolled their eyes and continued devouring their chosen foods. Spear even went back for seconds, and found some bottles of cherry cola, which they all guzzled down gratefully.

Dive Bomb's and Flourish’s fight ended when they were all about halfway through guzzling their cherry cola, they both had a few bruises to show for it, but otherwise they were fine. They were at least used to it by now. Diamond always thought that their fights were a bit like him with his sister, which made him chuckle a bit.

Dive Bomb had been volunteered by Flourish to take the first watch, so one by one the others slowly allowed the exhaustion of the past three days to take hold and one after the other closed their tired eyes and allowed themselves to dream.

It was Flourish's watch when they eventually reached the greener pastures of central Equestria, the journey had been uneventful, each pony had managed to get enough sleep to feel refreshed, however at the expense of that feeling they realised just how tired they were. Going to sleep when exhausted and then waking up still exhausted was not something that Flourish enjoyed, especially since she hadn't had a great sleep on the poorly cushioned seat she was on.

She stared out the window dreamily, allowing her thoughts to wonder while still paying attention, they had just entered a thick wood and the trees were rushing past almost hypnotically, Flourish took the time to give her eyes a rest from staring out of the window and looked at the other ponies in the carriage, all were passed out on seats, except Diamond who had managed to roll off of his seat and get jammed upside down in the small hoof space below the seat in front of his. She got up to pace up and down the carriage to stretch her legs when suddenly there was a large thump on the roof.

Flourish froze on the spot, unwilling to make a noise in case she drew the attention of whatever had just landed on roof, slowly she edged towards the window, trying to keep out of site she peeked over the edge, she caught glimpse of the very tip of a black bat wing.

She cursed silently to herself and went to wake up the others.

"There's a Luna on the roof!" she hissed quietly to Shield who was closest to her.

Slowly they moved to the others repeating the message, all the while the pegasus on the roof was making noise as it walked up and down the train. It was followed by two more large thuds as what Flourish could only assume was the other two Pegasi in their group joined them.

The ponies in the carriage stood frozen as they waited for them to make the next move, however all had turned deathly quiet as the group waited, then out of the corner of her eye Flourish caught a glimpse of three shadows flying away in a clearing of the forest. She motioned that they were safe and they all loosed a sigh of relief.

Diamond then pointed out "They must know. We have to get off of this train."

"HELL'S YEAH." said Dive Bomb fist pumping to express his excitement "ROLLING DISMOUNT TIME!"

Diamond stood the door to the car that the unlucky six were in, outside were rolling fields that seemed to stretch off forever, the distant Canterlot was rushing closer with every passing moment and with it their chance to dismount was getting slimmer and slimmer. Diamond was leaning out over the edge of the tracks ready to jump when he queried

"WHY THE HAY AM I DOING THIS AGAIN?"

Shouting to be heard over the rushing wind Dive Bomb replied "BECASUE IT'S AWESOME."

Dive Bomb then grew impatient and gave Diamond a friendly push. Or as friendly a push as you could when it involved the pushed party being chucked off of a speeding train. One by one the other three unicorns followed suit, each rolling while landing to disperse the force. The pegasi then flew off of the train, one massive advantage of having wings instead of a horn.

As the six regrouped they took a bearing of their surroundings, and empty wheat field, probably in an off rotation for the moment, the only thing that grew on it at the moment was grass. The party still had plenty of distance to cover however now they had the upper hand as their hunters should have no idea where they were and they would definitely have no idea where they would move next.

What struck them all though was the large purple coloured orb surrounding Canterlot, the unicorns identified it instantly however the Pegasi had less training in that area of expertise and had no idea what it was.

"What's the orb for?" asked Crush

"It's a protection spell." said Shield "I don't know why there's one over Canterlot, if it was important we would probably have been told why."

Dismissing it as nothing hugely important the group started to move out at a direction purposefully slightly away from straight to Canterlot so as to avoid running in to any traps, the Pegasi staying grounded so as not to draw attention.

All this should have helped them get back, however they were in no such luck. They had yet to go more than a few metres when a grey coated Pegasus with black bat-like wings and ears landed in front of them heavily, this was then followed by the sound of two more Pegasus landing behind them, forming a triangle around the group. The Pegasus in front of them gave a knowing smile at the group who had all knew what it meant as soon as they had land.

"We win." said the Pegasus in front of them with a superior tone and an equally superior smile.

Diamond cursed under his breath while the Pegasus continued. "You did well though, you made it this far, however, we are just better." The group ignored the poke at them and just stood there fuming silently.

That was until the Dome around Canterlot came crashing down.

They all stared with astonishment on their faces as the Purple dome surrounding Canterlot cracked, broke and crashed down on the entire of the city, they could nearly make out tiny black dots descending on the streets, followed by explosions of green energy.

The Celestia guards looked at the Luna's, they all knew what this meant. All bets were off, they had a job to do. Diamond nodded to the Pegasus in front of them that had spoken, the nod was returned in kind, and the dark grey Pegasus took off saying.

"We'll find the rest of our group, meet at the base of the mountain near the old mines, we'll form a plan then." He then turned and flew off with the other two Pegasus.

The Celestia Guards looked at each other and wordlessly began to gallop to the rendezvous point.

The six White ponies had been galloping for about five miles over rough terrain, yet had covered the distance in at least five minutes, which was probably a record for them. Waiting for them at the base of the mountain were the six Dark grey Ponies of Luna's Guard, they stood waiting patiently for the White ponies to reach them. Giving them a few seconds to catch their breath and then looked up to the city above them.

The entire mountainside around Canterlot seemed to be a huge battleground, there were near constant bursts of green energy flying around the place, interspersed with bolts of different colours clearly from an overextended guard that could barely handle what was being thrown at it.

Once they had all taken in the view Diamond started to say "Right, we need a plan to..." However before he could finish a giant purple shockwave emanated from the Palace, sweeping all of the Black dots from the city and sending them hurtling south to the Badlands.

The most eminent emotion that the dozen ponies felt at that moment was one of disappointment. Canterlot itself had been invaded, and they had been on some silly exercise which had made them miss it. They all just stood there for a moment looking with awe at the city. Slowly they recovered from the surprise and turned to look at each other again.

"This means all bets are on again doesn't it?" asked Dive Bomb

The six of Luna's Guards all nodded in unison

"Which also means we've lost haven’t we?"

They nodded again

"Horseapples."