Twilight woke up the next morning feeling very refreshed. She climbed out of the bed that Cadence had provided her and, after making sure her mane was presentable, made her way out of the bedroom to see who else was awake.

The sitting room had become their go to place to meet up since the throne room had been destroyed. She must have still been half asleep, because she bumped right into the pegasus guard from yesterday as she approached the door.

"Oh, sorry," she looked up at him sheepishly from the place she had fallen down.

"Are you ok, princess." Flash Sentry offered her a hoof.

Twilight blushed as she took it, "is everypony else inside?"

"They are," he responded stalwartly. "You're the last to arrive."

Twilight opened the door and stepped inside, but not before sneaking one last peek at the cute guard.

As she looked around the room, she saw everyone was up to their own activities. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were playing a game of checkers, and Fluttershy was still staying beside Spectrum, who still looked like Twilight's twin. Pinkie was playing some kind of game with Onyx involving a ball and some string, and Rarity was preening in front of a small mirror she had found.

"Twilight," said Cadence as she walked up to her. "I was wondering if you were ever going to wake up. It's almost noon."

"I must've been more tired than I thought," said Twilight as she looked around, noticing someone was missing. "Where's BBBFF, I don't see him this morning?"

"Shining Armor?" Cadence questioned with a tilt of her head. "Oh, I insisted he stay in bed today. After everything he went through yesterday, he seemed to be really worn out."

Twilight looked over to the colt playing with Pinkie Pie, noticing the blue streak going through his mane that wasn't there the day before. "So what's the story with Onyx?"

"Hmmm?" Cadence looked over to where Twilight was looking. "Oh, his name is Obsidian Rose now. Apparently he lost his all his memories from before Sombra possessed him. Clover gave him a different name and said he's going to be leaving with him. Plans to raise him in Ponyville."

"Isn't he originally from the Crystal Empire though?" Twilight questioned.

"That's the problem," Cadence sighed. "He looks too much like the pony that enslaved the nation even if he doesn't remember it. We're hoping Ponyville will give him a fresh start."

"That makes sense," said Twilight as she looked around the rest of the room. "I don't see the other Princesses or Clover anywhere."

"Oh, they're over there," Cadence pointed to a dark corner of the room where all three of them were in a deep trance with a tether of magic linking the three of them together. Next to them, placing steaming cups on the table, was also...

"Spike!" Twilight called out.

Spike turned and waved to her before running over, "Twilight!" He gave her a big hug. "You slept for a really long time."

"What are you doing here?" She asked.

"Well," he started. "I just wanted to let you all know that Big Mac woke up yesterday. That and with the princess summit coming up tomorrow, I figured you'd want your number one assistant with you." He wove his claws together and looked up at her with puppy dog eyes.

"The princess summit?" Twilight's eyes went wide. "That's tomorrow?! With everything else going on I completely forgot about it. Spike, what would I do without you?"

Spike puffed out his chest as he stood there with a smug grin on his face.

"We all agreed to still go ahead with the summit," Cadence informed her. "All the princesses are already up here anyway and we're just taking today to rest up. I think we could all use it."

Suddenly they heard the sound of something banging against a table, followed by the sound of rattling teacups.

Twilight and Cadence looked over to the source of the noise to see the three ponies at the table with their eyes open, and Clover banging his head on the table.

"You've got to be kidding me," she heard him say as she walked up.

"Unfortunately, it looks that way ," Luna said regretfully.

"Who could've done this though," Celestia wondered.

"What happened? What's wrong?" Asked a concerned Twilight.

"Morning Twilight," said Clover from the place he rested his chin on the table. "Sleep well? How are your wings feeling?"

"I slept fine. Also my wings are feeling a bit better, thanks for asking," she said. "So what's the problem over here?"

Clover gave a very deep sigh, "remember how I told you that Celestia interfered when I was fighting Sombra a thousand years ago?"

"Yes?..." Twilight hesitantly said, not sure where he was going with this.

Celestia chimed in, "Sombra said something similar to me yesterday when he was...courting me. The problem is that I have no memory of doing so."

"We have two major points in a state of contradiction regarding this conflict," stated Luna. "So together we've been walking through our memories from a thousand years ago to try and make sense of it."

"And did you find anything?" Twilight asked curiously.

"As far as we can tell," Clover resigned the information. "Sombra and I did see Celestia interfere with out fight."

"But when we look at my memories of the same time," continued Celestia. "I was stuck in the middle of a really boring meeting hundreds of miles away."

"So which memories are real and why does this matter now?" Cadence inquired.

"They're both real," Luna stated. "Both events are true to the best of their knowledge and nothing in their minds shows that their memories may have been tampered with."

"And I'm even more annoyed because if what I saw was a falsehood of any kind," said Clover with some regret. "I may have taken a different approach to resolving the issue other than going behind everypony's back since the bulk of my actions were driven by my mistrust of Celestia."

"The worst part is that we can think of no other way to discern the truth of the situation," Celestia resigned. "It's going to have to just remain an unsolved mystery which doesn't sit well with any of us."

"You mentioned you knew divination before, didn't you?" Twilight asked.

"Tried that already," Clover sighed. "It just turns up a big blank."

"So what happens now?" Asked Cadence.

"Now we just go on with our lives," Clover said as he stood up from the table. "Dwelling on it isn't going to help anypony. Maybe we'll stumble across an answer someday, maybe we won't. Life still goes on."

Clover walked across the room to where Fluttershy was tending to Spectrum, "how's he doing?"

Fluttershy looked up at him, "he's still very weak. He hasn't eaten anything either. I thought he was getting better last night after the spell cast over the city was broken, but now he's not even waking up."

He leaned down and placed his forehead against that of the doppelganger, making the real Twilight blush as she watched.

"He's hurt worse than I thought," he said before teleporting out of the room.

A few moments later he teleported back in holding a pink crystal. "Hold his head back and keep his mouth open."

Fluttershy did as she was instructed while Clover positioned himself to hold the gem over Spectrum's open mouth. He gave the gemstone a squeeze between his hooves, causing a pink viscous fluid to drip in his open mouth.

They held that position for a little while until Spectrum started to convulse on the couch. A few deep gasps later, his eyes flew open and he started coughing.

"There we go," said Clover as he took a step back. "Welcome back to the world of the living."

"How long was I out?" He said between hard breaths.

"A couple hours," said Fluttershy as she looked up to Clover. "What's wrong with him?"

"He was literally starving to death," he looked down and gave him a stern look. "You can't feed on love right now can you?"

"Heh, you noticed." Twilight's twin said with no small measure of embarrassment.

"What else is broken?" Clover sat there tapping a hoof impatiently.

Spectrum gave a resigned sigh, "everything. Can't feed, can't transform, the extra mental abilities are completely shot. Heck, I can't even levitate a spoon right now."

"You know what we're going to have to do, right?" Said Clover with some resignation.

"Yes, I know. I Didn't want to burden you with it though." He pouted.

*Bonk*

"Hey, what was that for?!" Spectrum held his hooves over his head where he just got smacked.

"Now who's being self sacrificing," Clover stood back up and looked to the room. "Can I count on one of you to make sure Obsidian makes it back to the library in Ponyville?"

"I can!" Pinkie offered cheerily.

"Why? Where are you going?" Asked Luna.

"Spectrum's injuries are beyond my ability to heal. I need to take him back to the hive he originally came from and they wouldn't like me bringing a young colt along for the ride, at least not without permission." Clover said sadly. "Sorry, but I can't tell anypony where I'm going. Not even you, Luna."

"You'll come back won't you?" Celestia looked at him. "I was serious about that teaching position."

"I'll be back and we can hammer out the details then" Clover said as he started to glow. The bright silhouette of his body shortened a few inches before coming back into focus, revealing Clover without his wings.

"So you plan to keep your alicorn status hidden?" Luna wondered aloud.

"For now at least," said Clover. "Last thing I want is for ponies to start calling me prince and bowing to me wherever I go." He said the last part with a roll of the eyes.

"You do have a claim to that title though," said Celestia. "The law automatically grants alicorns a royal title. We had to implement it after Cadence ascended."

"I'm sure you can find something more to my liking if you absolutely must give me a title." Clover said as he conjured up a wheelchair for Spectrum. "Now if you excuse me, we have a train to catch."

Later that evening.

"So Random was Clover the whole time?" Spike asked Twilight in wonderment as they settled into her room for the evening.

"He was," Twilight gave Spike a smirk. "Only a week ago we had a legend show up on our front doorstep and we never even knew it."

"Kinda surprising so much happened so fast," Spike pondered as he settled into his little bed on the floor. "Shame I missed the big fight though. Rainbow Dash was telling me how cool it was."

"Of course you'd say that. It looked like something out of a comic book." Twilight said sarcastically as she placed her crown on the nightstand. "It was a bloody mess though. Something I don't think a young dragon needs to be seeing."

"Yeah yeah yeah. But it's not everyday something that epic happens." Spike pouted. "Still would've liked to see it."

"Yeah, well I'm just hoping to have a couple of peace and quiet." Twilight yawned deeply. "Well, it's time to get some shuteye. We have to be at our best for the princess summit tomorrow."

"Good night Twilight," said Spike as he pulled the covers over his head.

"Good night Spike," said Twilight as she tried to get comfortable despite her aching wings.

Later that night.

In a forgotten room of the Crystal Palace sat a mirror that Princess Celestia once gave to Princess Cadence for safe keeping. For many moons this mirror had lain undisturbed.

In the dark of the night, the reflective surface of the mirror began to ripple. Only moments before a unicorn with red and yellow hair jumped through it.

As Sunset Shimmer got reacquainted with her pony body, she had only one goal in mind.

"Now where is that crown?" She said before sneaking down the nearest hallway.

Author's Note

Twilight can not catch a break.

Insert shameless EQG stinger.
Nah, it's there mostly so you all remember when this story takes place in the timeline.

But thank you all for reading my story, be sure to leave a comment below.
I'm still not done with my version of these characters if you caught the several places where I made references to nothing else you've read.

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2/12/21: Looking for OCs. Be sure to stop by if you're interested