A few hours later in Ponyville

Twilight Sparkle was not having a great afternoon.

Worn out and sporting heavy bags under her eyes from a late-night reading session, the young alicorn had floated through most of her day’s duties as the Princess of Friendship, which had so far included:

One domestic dispute between a husband and wife over the positioning of their toilet seat, three crop-share families from the nearby fields asking for extra rain this month, and five random citizens from about town with minor complaints ranging from trampled flowers, to-

Her mental list was interrupted as a guardsmare ran into the throne room. Rubbing a hoof over one eye Twilight groaned inwardly, waiting to hear about another asinine incident that probably didn’t even tangentially require her friendship-making skills. At least the domestic toilet dispute could be argued to host a kernel… she pulled the e-brake on her train of thought as she caught a line from the guardsmare.

Twilight cleared her throat. “Dear guard, would you please repeat what you just said?”

The Guard, Dew Melody, if Twilight remembered correctly (and she usually did), nodded slightly. “Certainly your Majesty, as I said, we’ve received numerous reports from across Equestria. The sun for this time of day is off course by a significant amount and the Equestrian Solar Society agrees with this assessment. The last time such an incident occurred-”

Twilight finished Melody’s statement for her. “The princesses had been foal-napped!”

Twilight flew up out of her chair, taking as regal a posture as she could she shouted in her unpracticed Canterlot voice, “Guards, TO ME!”

The crystal palace shook as her voice reverberated across Ponyville’s town center. Twilight's eyes locked on Dew Melody, who was still the closest guard out of the gathered group. “Tell every other guard you see I need the other elements of harmony to meet me in the town square, then I want you to prepare a strike force for immediate combat teleportation. GO!”

Melody quickly bowed before running out of the main hall, stopping only briefly each time she passed a guard to fill them in. Soon Ponyville proper was bustling with guards and townsponies running to and fro.

Twilight Sparkle was having a terrible afternoon.

Arriving at the center of ponyville after stopping and talking to dozens of guards, Twilight finally came to a stop near the old fountain, yawning from exhaustion as the adrenaline from earlier had faded. She cast a quick wakeup spell. Just like a magical cup of coffee, she thought to herself. Well, more correctly it's a realignment of my load-bearing mana leylines, allowing me to- her thoughts faded as Spike leaned into her, helping her keep her balance. She smiled earnestly at him as he gave her a halfhearted thumbs up. They were both too worried to speak so instead they just kept each other’s company while they waited.

A hyperactive pink pony was the first to arrive. Bouncing in place, the element of laughter lived up to her title as she sing-songed her plans to beat back the meanies that had foal-napped their beloved leaders, at least until an orange earth pony shoved a hoof into her mouth.

Applejack also couldn’t hide her exhaustion, yawning loudly she removed her hoof from Pinkie’s mouth. No doubt the stubborn mare had been apple-bucking in her orchard to the last minute. The farm mare approached Twilight before asking, “So what’s all this here hubbub about, sugarcube?”

Twilight smiled weakly at Applejack. “l’ll fill you girls in once we’ve assembled, I promise.” Applejack shrugged nonchalantly and walked off to the side. She rested her hat over her eyes as she sat near the fountain and drifted into a shallow nap.

Fluttershy was the next to arrive not fifteen minutes later. The butter-yellow pegasus quietly hovered into position next to her friends before gently saying, “Sorry it took me so long to get her, I… had to finish feeding the animals… and… the guards… may have scared me… just a bit.” Fluttershy blushed, while Applejack, still resting near the fountain, rolled her eyes under her hat, a small smile on her muzzle.

Twilight looked appreciatively at Fluttershy before reassuring her. “Don’t worry Fluttershy, you beat Rainbow and Rarity here, so you’re certainly not late by any means.”

“Yay!” Fluttershy quietly yayed.

Rarity arrived next and the entire group rolled their eyes at what they saw. Rarity was hauling an obscene amount of luggage in her magic, making her trip to the group gruelingly slow. The sophisticated unicorn noticed the annoyed faces of her friends and her ears splayed back, she tsked. “Do tell, why are my friends giving moi such an icy reception?”

Applejack pushed her hat up onto her head before standing back on her hooves, taking a step towards Rarity she answered. “Because Rares, we’ve been waiting for almost thirty-darn minutes and whatever is going on is important! she stamped a hoof down into the dirt for emphasis. “I don’t know if your dainty peepers have noticed or not, but from what I can tell, the sun hasn’t moved this entire time which I reckon is why we’re here. Also where in the Sam Hill is Rainbow?!”

Rainbow Dash was having a wonderful afternoon.

The prismatic-maned pegasus had finished her weather duties early and had found a nice tree just near the edge of town to nap on. Despite the cooler fall weather that had started to take hold, the afternoon still provided ample sun and warmth. After a short preening of her cerulean wings, the lithe pegasus had settled down and fallen into a deep sleep.

Hours ticked by and she stirred slightly. As a Pegasus, her internal weather senses were angrily poking her subconscious reminding her that this much afternoon sun was impossible. She pushed such egg-headed thoughts back down as she basked in the warmth, smilingly contently. Her nap ended suddenly when a pegasus guard landed roughly on her perch and shouted, “Rainbow Dash! Your presence is required in the town center, by order of Princess Twilight Sparkle!”

Rainbow Dash stuck an offending primary feather out, electing a gasp from the pegasus guard. Rainbow quietly mumbled, “...My left-wing she has an emergency, prob.. jus some.. eggheaded… eggness…”

She tried to drift back into her nap, but the guard poked her with his hoof. “Rainbow Dash, this is not a request, the kingdom may be under attack and-”

He didn’t get to finish as Rainbow was already pressing her muzzle into his face. “Why didn’t you open with that you melon fudge?!”

To his credit, the guard remained stony faced. “Sorry, Ma'am, please report to the town cent-”

She was gone, leaving a rainbow contrail in her wake. He hovered down from the tree muttering to himself. “Join the Equestrian Guard they said, travel the world they said.”

The rest of the girls, still down one rainbow-maned pegasus, waited anxiously in the town square. It had been around 45 minutes since Twilight and Spike had first gathered there (Twilight’s inner clock was impeccable). Twilight was becoming fidgety by this point, her lavender wings flexing at her sides as her ears swiveled listening for a certain pegasus.

Pinkie Pie was the first to notice Twilight’s nervousness, she walked up to Twilight and put a hoof over her withers. She gave Twilight a slight squeeze and a lopsided grin. “Twilight, Twilight, relax! When she gets near my tail will a twitch a twitch cause she’s rainbow and she’s crashing, riiiight now!”

Pinkie’s tail began violently twitching as she let go and took a step back.

Twilight turned her head to ask Pinkie what in the heck she was talking about but these thoughts were violently thrown from her mind as she was bowled over by a blue missile.

As the dust from the impact faded, Rainbow shook her head to clear the stars from her eyes and slowly got up. She soon realized she was partially standing on Twilight’s flank and quickly jumped into a hover. “Uh… Sorry, Twi.” Rainbow said nervously. “I guess I got moving too quick and didn’t think about the stopping part.”

Twilight spit bits of cobblestone and some weeds from her mouth, she got up slowly; sore and angry, but otherwise unharmed. Being an alicorn certainly helps one’s constitution. she noted. She used a hoof to scrape the remaining bits of weed and dirt off her tongue; Rarity nearly vomited at the sight.

Twilight turned to Rainbow, fuming. “Moving too quickly?!” She angrily poked a hoof into Rainbow’s muzzle, “We’ve been waiting for you for over forty-five minutes, fourty-seven and a half minutes to be precise!” she poked a few more times for emphasis. “Equestria, the Princesses, EVERYTHING, could be in danger!” Twilight was practically on fire at this point.

Rainbow sheepishly rubbed the back of her neck with her hoof, her voice cracked slightly as she spoke. “Uh… sorry again everypony. So like, what’s the deal? How do we save the world this time?”

Twilight took a deep breath, calming herself before turning back to the group. “Right, so here’s what’s going on. Or at least the working theory.”

All the mares and spike gathered closer as Twilight explained the situation. “Over one hour ago the sun stopped moving in the sky, it should now be apparent to anyone in Equestria, that the sun has remained stationary in the mid-afternoon position, despite the fact that it should be nearing late afternoon and early sunset at this point given the time of year.”

She looked at the group, worry plain on their faces, she paused for a moment, eyebrow raised as she noticed Pinkie offering Spike some popcorn, she shook her head and continued. “The last time something like this occurred, Celestia and Luna had been captured by Discord, and the sun and moon remained locked in place in the sky. I believe that we may be facing a similar scenario, though I don’t think Discord would be to blame…”

She left a pregnant pause, waiting for the inconvenient draconequus to make an appearance. Instead, she noticed a nearby sign sticking out of the ground that hadn’t been there before, it read:

“Tormenting blue-fast and the ‘Order of the Heraldic Dorks’ on the dark-side, don’t wait up.”

-Disco King

Twilight shook her head in annoyance but crossed out Discord on her mental list of "Potential Problem Ponies" (title was a work in progress). She turned back to the group. “In the event something like this were to ever occur again, Candance and I came up with a new spell, designed to pinpoint Alicorn magic anywhere on Equus, it takes an incredible amount of focus and the leyline manipulation requires significant mana accumulation to corre-”

Rainbow Dash cut her off. “Yadda, yadda, Twi, you’ve got like the big alicorn horn now and the most magical magic this side of Tartarus! If anyone could cast the spell, no sweat, it’d be you!”

Twilight blushed, taking the (compliment?) as praise of her magical prowess. “Why thank you Rainbow, I think?” Twilight made an adorkable face while she pondered causing Pinkie Pie to giggle.

“Anyway, I think that with this spell, I should be able to find at least one of the Princesses and teleport us and a squad of guards directly to their position. We’ll use the element of surprise and grab the princesses, the guards will distract the foal-nappers and then we can all teleport or, failing that, blast our way out.”

A large, heavily armored pegasus landed nearby while the girls continued to huddle, he stopped just outside of the circle of friends and waited for Twilight to finish before he spoke, “Your majesty,” he bowed slightly causing his gleaming silver armor to clatter, the noise finally drawing the attention of the mane 6 and spike. Once he had their attention, he continued. “As per your orders, we’ve gathered a pony combat squad. I will be the squad leader; I’m captain Silver Bar, at your service." he smartly saluted.

“At ease Silver Bar.” Twilight said, returning his salute with a gesture of greeting. “Have the soldiers gather nearby and tell the unicorns in the group to begin drawing a shared teleportation circle with a quick return rune. I don’t know what's going to hit us once we get inside.”

Silver Bar gulped, the creeping realization that they may have agreed to a one way trip formed in his mind, but he squashed it down, as loyal soldiers of the throne, they would all see it through! He marched back to the waiting collection of soldiers to inform them of their orders.

Twilight turned away from Silver Bar and looked back to her friends. She noticed Spike was fidgeting a bit and she smiled as she thought to herself, he’s already caught on to what I’m going to say next, the clever dragon.

She continued to look at Spike, a gentle smile never leaving her face. “Fine!” Spike suddenly blurted out, “I get it, I’ll head back to the castle, but Twilight?” he rubbed his claws nervously, “you’ll all come back safe, won’t you?”

Author's Note

I've snuck a few references into this chapter and a few others to probably my favorite story/series on this site, see if you can figure out which one it is!

I promise, clop is coming (or should I say cumming? No I shouldn't, even I won't stoop that low).