The coronation had been over for about thirty minutes, most of the guests had already left and those who still remained in the castle were finishing their errands before leaving. Flash Magnus gathered the entire royal guard in the barracks courtyard to bring the day to a close.

The process was simple, he would call the pre-assigned representative of each team to give him a simple report on the day, and after he had finished he would release the team if no irregularities had occurred.

While he was receiving the reports, Flash noticed that a certain pair of soldiers was not present at the scene. 'I can't believe it, they're late again?' He thought a little irritated, the morning's delay was justifiable because of Deep's sleep problems, but there was nothing to justify their tardiness now.

Unlike the duo, he took his job seriously and couldn't go after them to reprimand them now, but he would take care of that as soon as he released the entire day guard. Most of the reports didn't show anything unusual, and a few reported small fights that had taken place around the city during the day, but nothing serious that his soldiers couldn't handle themselves.

Most of the guard had already been released, with only two more teams to go, but before he could call the next representative, a bat pony member of the night guard landed at his side. "Sergeant instructor Magnus, I need you to come with me immediately," said the guard with a tone of urgency in his voice.

Flash looked confusedly at the guard, what was so important that a member of the night guard needed him so urgently? "What happened? What's so important that you report to me and not to the captain of the night guard?" Flash was visibly tired, he had spent the day helping with the coronation, but the guard didn't hesitate and continued. "Sir, the statue, it's gone!" the news made Flash go blank for a moment. "What!? How!?" The soldier was startled by the drill sergeant's reaction.

After recovering from his shock he explained what he knew, apparently a pair of soldiers from the night guard had gone to the garden to take on the duty of defending the statue, but when they arrived they only found a pair of unconscious soldiers on the ground. Flash turned pale, was that why Auric and Deep weren't there? But what happened? how had the statue been stolen without anyone seeing a thing? Flash's mind was flooded with questions.

"Some guard officers are already in the garden, sir, they are requesting your presence on site as soon as possible" Flash nodded and prepared to take off, but stopped when he remembered that he still needed to receive the last two reports. "Listen, both teams are dismissed, give me the report tomorrow!" he shouted and the guards nodded.

He and the night watchman took off and set off quickly towards the garden and it wasn't long before they arrived. The first thing he noticed when he arrived was the obvious absence of the huge statue, he already knew it was gone, but he had to see it to believe it; the second thing was the small group of castle nurses tending to the pair of unconscious soldiers lying on stretchers; and the third was the heated discussion the officers were having about the statue's disappearance, apparently they weren't accepting each other's theories about what had happened, and putting this together with the seriousness of the situation resulted in an argument.

Flash decided to ignore the discussion for the time being, heading straight for the group of nurses. "What is the situation ?" The leader of the castle's infirmary team noticed Flash's presence and stood up straight holding a clipboard. "Well, they don't have any visible injuries and there's no sign that they got into a fight" the head nurse said as he read his notes. "So it was magic?" he asked and the nurse confirmed it. "Well, from what we've seen they're just sleeping, so far it seems likely that magic was used to make them sleep, and the fact that the statue wasn't dragged makes this theory quite plausible."

Flash thanked him for the information and turned to look at the unconscious pair. After some time thinking about what might have happened, he headed towards the other officers.

"I knew we shouldn't have left that damn statue in such an unprotected place" said one of the night guard officers.

"What will the princesses think? Should we report this to her highness or to the royal sisters?" An officer of the day guard asked shortly afterwards.

"Do you really want to be fired? We have to sort this out before the royals find out!" replied another officer.

And one by one the guards spoke up, at this point they weren't even arguing anymore, they were just expressing their indignation, and that was understandable, after all the blame would fall on them one day or another. But there was one thing Flash agreed on, they needed to sort this out before any of the princesses found out, it had barely been an hour since Twilight had been crowned, and she definitely didn't deserve to have to deal with this.

"All right, soldiers, let's sort this out before anyone notices that the statue is gone and then we'll pretend that nothing happened," Flash said, mixing a serious tone with a bit of humor to try to calm the soldiers down, which apparently worked. "Tell me what you've found out so far so we can start somewhere"

///

Far from Canterlot, far from any inhabited part of Equestria, a huge underground courtyard was illuminated by the glow of five horns and a staff, the six ponies surrounding the statue as they performed a spell together to undo the petrification.

The room was enormous, but it felt very empty at the same time, to the point that not even the statue seemed to take up any significant space; it had no decoration apart from the magical lanterns that floated around the room and illuminated it, the walls and ceiling were made of stone, there was a visible contrast between the carved and weathered parts and the simply cavernous parts; the room had something like windows in the walls, but they were all covered by the cave itself, which raised two theories: either they weren't windows and the passages had another function, or the structure wasn't originally underground.

The hall was the heart of the entire structure and therefore had several doors that led to other parts of the fortress. Another detail was that the hall had a second floor that could be accessed via a huge staircase that had been carved into one of the walls.

A few meters from where the ritual was taking place were Rainy Cloud and Blaze Sign, sitting on the huge staircase. "I bet you 10 bits they won't agree" Blaze said to Rainy. "Closed, I bet 10 they'll agree" Rainy replied and the two shook hooves.

After a few minutes the statue finally began reacting to the spell, and little by little the stone cracked and fell away, separating from the villains as if it were a shell or an extra layer of skin. Now that the spell was complete, the villains were finally free, and the three of them fell to the ground totally disoriented.

With the spell finished, Dust moved away and joined his colleagues on the stairs, lying down on the steps; he knew he would be exhausted by the time the spell was over, so he fearfully asked the Speaker to allow him to leave as soon as they had finished, which she accepted. "I'm totally exhausted, I've never used up so much magic in so little time in my life," he said as he gasped, his colleagues just looked at him and laughed a little, but soon returned their attention to the main attraction.

The four guards surrounding the perimeter of the statue moved away, giving the trio room to recompose themselves, while the Spokeswoman remained motionless in the same place. Chrysalis was the first to get up, her legs were shaking and she could barely stand. "What happened? Argh! My head is spinning!" she said, her voice a little slurred.

Tirek stood up immediately afterwards with a hand on his head. "the last thing I remember is being crushed by a... giant cookie or something, my memories are fuzzy" he seemed to be the most affected of the three, his thin, weak and skeletal form showed this, as he was not only exhausted but had also lost all "his" magic.

Next up was Cozy Glow. "Me, me..." she falls to the ground again, totally exhausted, perhaps the fact that she's only a child has taken its toll on her physically and mentally.

Cozy Glow was almost falling asleep from exhaustion. Seeing this, the Speaker approached and her staff began to glow yellow and black. Chrysalis and Tirek immediately noticed the resemblance to the magic they had seen "Grogar" use several times, but that pony in front of them was clearly not "Grogar".

The Speaker used a spell to levitate Cozy Glow onto her back. "I intended on talking now, but it looks like you're too tired for that," she taps her staff on the ground and the guards begin to approach Tirek and Chrysalis. "Let my soldiers help you to your quarters, rest as much as you wish, we'll have plenty of time to talk later" the guards began to support the pair as the Speaker led the way.

It was a strange scene to say the least, normally Tirek's anatomy didn't help when it came to being carried by something smaller than him, but as he had shrunk due to magic loss, it turned out not to be difficult. Normally none of them would allow themselves to be carried in such a pathetic way, but they simply couldn't do anything about it now.

They started walking and entered one of the many doors in the room, now passing through a very spacious yet empty corridor, there was nothing decorating the walls such as works of art, just the same magic lanterns and blocked windows as in the other room, they continued walking, periodically seeing a closed door, a staircase or other corridors, Chrysalis couldn't stop wondering where she was or what was going on, who were these ponies and why were they helping us?

After a few minutes of walking, they passed something that caught Tirek's eye, in the middle of another wide, empty corridor there was a fairly large luminous crystal emerging from one of the walls, it emanated a soft blue light that seemed to overpower the magic lanterns, but what caught Tirek's eye wasn't the crystal's luminosity, it was something else, the crystal was charged with magic, a lot of magic, he couldn't do anything about it now, but he would remember it for sure.

They finally stopped in front of a door, it was different from the others they had seen before, it looked much more recent, the wood was polished and the iron had no signs of wear, the Spokesperson stepped forward and opened the door using her magic, revealing a wide, short staircase, they climbed the steps and arrived at a circular room, its shape was similar to a dome and the decoration was no different than the rest of the structure, there was nothing there apart from the lanterns; But the room wasn't completely empty, it had a door at each cardinal point, and the staircase they were on was one of those points.

"I've prepared a room for each of you, please rest, tomorrow I'll send someone to pick you up," said the Speaker with a tired tone in her voice. "Help our guests settle in." With that said, the guards took each of them to their respective rooms. The Speaker, who still had Cozy Glow on her back, was approached by one of her guards asking if she would like him to take the girl to her room, but she refused and decided to take her herself.

She went to one of the doors and opened it. The room was well furnished, with a huge double bed, a wardrobe, a huge chest, a dressing table, a desk with a vase without flowers, and the characteristic lanterns that were all over the structure, it also had a soft pink carpet that covered the entire floor and the walls were not cavernous like the others, it was made of large soft stone bricks.

The small room was strangely cozy compared to the rest of the fortress, its architecture far removed from everything else there, some would even venture to say it was cute.

The Speaker had already noticed that Cozy Glow had been quiet throughout the walk, but she couldn't help but be surprised when she used her magic to pull the girl off her back and saw that she was asleep.

Calmly she puts Cozy in her bed and covers her with a blanket. "Have sweet dreams, little one.” With that, she uses her magic to dim the lanterns, leaving the room and slowly closing the door. Now reunited with her guards. "You two, stay here to make sure nothing happens, I'm not foolish enough to leave you alone." She assigns two of the guards to the task and leaves the room followed by the other two.

///

Rainy Cloud watched the Spokeswoman start to lead the villains somewhere, he listened to their conversation and because of that he knew he would have a little free time until something happened. Blaze and Dust realized this too and got up, Dust was tired because of the mission and the depetrification spell, so he went to rest in his room; Blaze decided to go to the cafeteria to get something to eat.

But Rainy continued to sit there, he was happy that his first real mission had been an absolute success, but something was still bothering him, it was as if he had forgotten something important, but nothing came to mind, maybe it was just anxiety.

He was so distracted that he didn't even notice the time passing. "Is something wrong Rainy?" He was a little startled when he saw the Spokeswoman standing in front of him. "N-no, I'm fine," she accepted Rainy's statement and made her way up the stairs. ‘I don't think I'll ever get used to this, man, she's really scary,’ he thought.

He went back to focusing on his thoughts and it wasn't long before a detail popped into his head, and he felt like an idiot for not thinking of it before, he took advantage of the fact that the Speaker wasn't far away and flew over to her. "Ma'am, I realized something a little silly," she stopped her walk and looked directly at Rainy, now he had her full attention. "So, I guess we forgot to collect our field stuff, our camp is still where we left it and that house in Canterlot still has our maps" Rainy thought the Spokeswoman would be shocked by the information, or at least a little alarmed, but no, she was totally apathetic and calm. "Don't worry, there's nothing in that house that could harm us in any way, it's just some scribbled maps of the city, they'll possibly link it to the robbery, but there's nothing they can use to get to us, the tents in the camp are enchanted to only be accessed using the magic crystals, when opened without them they're just empty huts" That was really reassuring, Rainy already knew all this, but hearing it from someone else really calmed him down.

But he still preferred to collect the evidence anyway, and it was then that something else popped into his head. "But what about the crystal we used to open the portal in the garden? Isn't it evidence?" he asked. "Only a temporary one, that's if they find it, unfortunately I couldn't collect its fragments as that would close the portal, but don't worry, it's designed to turn to dust as soon as the magic in it is completely exhausted, so even if they find it, it shouldn't take more than two days for it to disappear completely, but feel free to get the things from the camp if you want" Rainy nodded and decided to go and get the things.

In the end, perhaps he just wanted something to do. It was going to be a long and exhausting journey, or at least it would be if he didn't know how to circumvent the weight of the luggage he was going to pick up. It was simple, he would take another crystal to open his tent and store everything inside it, including the other tents, then just close it and that would be it, the magic of the tents served as a magic bag, so nothing inside it really weighed anything, it was a perfect plan.

Unfortunately this time there wouldn't be a portal to speed up the transportation, so he just hoped he'd make it back in time to see how the Speaker's and the villains' conversation would go, but he was fast and he knew it, so he wasn't worried.

///

Tirek woke up lying in a huge and extremely comfortable bed, his head aching a little but that was to be expected considering what he had been through.

He let out a huge yawn, it was hard to tell how long he had been asleep. He sat on the edge of the bed and looked around his room, it was strange to say the least, the place had everything a normal room needed, but what caught his attention was the presence of several things he loved to use in his spare time, which meant the presence of several pieces of weight training equipment, a record player and a huge mirror.

He didn't know how his hosts knew that he liked these things, but he had to admit that they did an excellent job of making him comfortable.

He got up and walked towards the exit of the room, he would very much like to use the training equipment or look at the variety of records on the shelf next to the record player, but circumstances simply didn't allow him to do any of that right now; he slowly opened the door and peeked around the other side, but fortunately he didn't see anyone.

Relieved, he decides to leave the room, only to see a guard standing next to his door, in a place he wouldn't be able to see from inside, and they look at each other for a few moments without saying anything, then the guard decides to break the silence. "Please, just wait in your room, it's not time to leave yet," the guard says in a way that makes Tirek feel strangely uncomfortable. His voice was extremely slurred, hoarse and scratchy, in a way he never imagined a pony's voice could be.

Tirek considered trying to steal the unicorn's magic, but something inside him screamed at him not to, there was something about that guard that exuded danger, and Tirek didn't want to risk finding out, not while he was in his weakened form, there was also the fact that he was sure there were supposed to be two guards in the room, but he could only see one, and that alarmed him for some reason.

"Please, just wait in your room, it's not time to leave yet" the guard repeated in exactly the same way as the first time, Tirek said nothing and just closed the door, he already knew that someone would come for him in the future, so there was nothing to do, he would wait as instructed.

...

About thirty minutes passed, he had tried to use the weight training equipment, but failed miserably due to his visible lack of strength, so he spent most of the time analyzing the vinyl records.
While he was reading the cover of one of the disks, a female voice that he soon identified as belonging to Chrysalis began to make a fuss outside. "I demand explanations immediately!" Although the voice was muffled by the thick walls of the room, Tirek could hear everything clearly.

"Please, just wait in your room, it's not time to leave yet" was a different voice this time, possibly the other guard's, although the sentence was said in the same strange way.

"How dare you! No one holds the Queen of the Changelings captive!" Chrysalis seemed to be getting angrier and Tirek really wanted to look through the door, but the possibility of the guard's fury falling on him made him give up that idea.

'Who would have thought that I, Lord Tirek, would one day fear a mere unicorn' he thought with a little anger at himself, thinking that it was simply humiliating for someone like him to be in such a situation.

The argument outside continued, Chrysalis didn't stop shouting for a while, but for some reason there were no signs that she had tried to attack the guards, perhaps she shared the same feeling of discomfort as Tirek.

After a while the discussion stopped, as Chrysalis finally agreed to wait in the room after much insistence from the guards, for which Tirek was deeply grateful, but it didn't take more than five minutes for his peace to be disturbed again.

He heard some knocks on the door. "Lord Tirek, I've been sent by the Spokeswoman to fetch you." It wasn't a frightening voice like the guard's, in fact it was quite ordinary, which made Tirek a little more relieved.

He walked to the door and opened it, this time seeing a gray unicorn that Tirek didn't recognize. "Nice to meet you Lord Tirek, I hope you've been resting, my name is Powder Dust, I've been sent to take you and your colleague to where the Speaker is" Dust said as he bowed, Tirek noticed that the unicorn carried with him a certain air of nobility, as he knew how to bow perfectly and his voice carried a lot of politeness.
Tirek would have been able to identify these small details from when he was still a prince. 'Surely this unicorn has some connection to the nobility, perhaps it served a noble or may be one itself, but why would a noble be in a place like this? what's going on here?' Many ideas ran through Tirek's head. 'Maybe they're a group of nobles who want to overthrow Equestria's royalty?'

"Before we leave, I should call the Changeling Queen as well, would you mind waiting a moment?" Tirek was too focused on his thoughts to hear what Dust had just said, so Dust just turned and walked towards Chrysalis' room.

Tirek followed Dust, even though he hadn't heard his last statement. The unicorn knocked on the door to announce his arrival. "Queen Chrysalis, the Speaker has sent me to fetch you," he said, but there was no reply.

The two decided to wait, and Tirek realized that the two guards were standing in front of the staircase leading out of the room.

Another moment passed without an answer, so Tirek took advantage of the situation to ask a question that had been on his mind for some time. "Listen, who is this Speaker anyway? I've been alive for over a thousand years, I've met many fearsome creatures who have wreaked havoc and marked their names in history, but I guarantee I've never heard the name "Speaker" before"

"It's not surprising, I admit I don't know much about her either, but I can assure you she's a very powerful unicorn, I believe she'll answer any questions you have when you meet in a short while." Dust said, keeping his polite tone. "She'd better," Tirek replied, as the whole situation seemed to make the centaur increasingly irritated.

Chrysalis' door finally opened, briefly showing a room that resembled a changeling hive, unfortunately no one had time to look in more detail as Chrysalis left and closed the door very quickly. "Let's go, I'm tired of being stuck in this place," she said without her standard acidity, which was strange for Tirek, but at least it meant she wouldn't start an argument with Dust.

"Well, now that we're all here we can go, please follow me" they started walking, and soon Chrysalis and Tirek realized something. "Aren't you taking the little girl?" Tirek asked Dust. "If you're referring to Cozy Glow, I must inform you that she's already with the Speaker," he replied as he descended the steps from the living room.

After the three of them had descended, the pair of guards joined the group and began to accompany them from the rear, they walked along the same path they had used to come, passing the crystal, which once again caught Tirek's attention; after passing through a huge wooden door, they were once again in the huge room where they had been freed from the statue.

They climbed the huge staircase that led to the second floor, where they found a huge double metal door, which the guards accompanying them promptly opened. Now they were facing yet another corridor, but this one was much smaller, and only had another metal gate at its other end.

Dust resumed walking, Tirek and Chrysalis hesitated for a moment but then followed him when they saw the guards' gaze fixed on them.

When they were halfway through, the gate closed behind them, apparently the guards wouldn't accompany them, but that was no relief to them, as two more guards were already on guard at the next one, which was at the end of the corridor.

When they arrived at the second gate, the guards promptly opened it. Dust thanked them and continued on.

The room they were in now had a rectangular shape, its shape was very reminiscent of a ballroom, it was large, although not as large as the last one, but it was still sizeable, it had huge banners on the walls, showing a round, yellow symbol with smaller circles inside, it looked like something that could remotely resemble an eye or something like that.

The place had a huge decagonal table that took up a good part of the room, it was made of dark wood with some parts made of gold, the chairs were similar in material, they were also very large and their backs were huge, to the point that it was not possible to see if someone was sitting on one of them if the chair was backwards, in fact calling it a chair seemed like an understatement, as there were certainly several thrones.

Dust took a few steps forward and knelt on the floor. "Speaker, I have brought our guests as requested by Your Excellency," he said, keeping his head down at all times. There was something about the room that made Chrysalis and Tirek a little uncomfortable, but in a different way from the way the guards had left them before.

"Excellent, thank you Dust, you may leave now, you will soon receive new orders" Dust obeyed and left the room without saying a word, and Chrysalis noticed a satisfied smile on his face as he left. "You two" Tirek and Chrysalis stopped, the aura in the room went from merely uncomfortable to frightening in a matter of seconds. "You don't have to be so shy, you're my guests after all, come along, sit down, I'd like to discuss something with you" the pair approached slowly after the invitation, the Speaker's voice was slightly muffled due to the metal helmet she was wearing, but it was calm and even a little welcoming, which helped the pair to calm down.

As they got closer to the table, they noticed that they weren't alone with the Speaker, Cozy Glow was sitting right next to her, just staring at the pair with a smug face, holding back from commenting on how pathetic they looked in their current state. Further away from the table was a dark blue pegasus, lying on his seat with both hooves under the table, and unlike Cozy he looked quite bored, when his eyes met those of the visitors, he straightened his posture and sat down properly.

Tirek and Chrysalis sat down at the table. "I know you must have a lot of questions, so feel free to ask as many as you like before we get into the main subject, but avoid trivia if possible." They did indeed have a lot of questions, but none of them had the courage to ask.

"No questions? interesting, so let's go straight to..."

"What's going on here!? Where are we!? Who are you!?" Chrysalis shouted, interrupting the Speaker in the middle of her sentence after she had plucked up the courage to speak, trying to impose some authority. The Speaker took a deep breath and kept her cool. "Ah, so you have questions, I'll answer everything with great pleasure, just don't interrupt me like that again," her single yellow eye seemed to glow more vibrantly for a moment, making Chrysalis and Tirek swallow.

"About your first question, let's just say I'm returning the favor you did for me a while ago." The pair looked at each other, both confused by what she meant. "Favor? What favor? I'm pretty sure I've never seen you before in my life," Chrysalis said confusedly.

"Do you remember that little object that Discord took to the lair while he was still pretending to be Grogar? That little medallion was the last of the relics that kept me imprisoned in this fortress, and you destroyed it without a second thought when you betrayed Grogar." The Spokeswoman said, making the pair finally understand what she was talking about.

"Wait, how do you know all this? You said yourself that you were imprisoned" Tirek asked, suspicious of the Spokeswoman's explanation. "I was able to stay aware of everything using a spell I developed while I was imprisoned, and also through my subordinates," she replied once again, now clarifying Tirek's doubt.

"I sent a team to bring you to me when Discord gathered you together pretending to be Grogar, it was the perfect opportunity since you were all together, but I decided to keep watching once I realized that you would inevitably betray him, I was curious to know what would happen, and it was very convenient that that annoying draconequus chose that exact medallion to be the replacement for the bell" Tirek and Chrysalis were dumbfounded, they were being monitored all this time and didn't know it, and because of them that scary pony was free.

"Well, I just intended to bring you to me eventually, but you ended up being petrified, so it all turned into a... let's say, rescue mission, thank Rainy Cloud if you like, he was responsible for leading the team that orchestrated the theft of the statue"

"Rainy who?" Tirek asked. "Me, and you’re welcome for saving you" the blue pegasus who had been silent until now raised one of his hooves and pointed at himself. "hm, right, but why did you want to meet us?" Chrysalis said, showing total disinterest in Rainy.

"That will be answered when we get to the main subject, now, about your second question, you are currently in the Eyelid fortress, my home." The Spokesperson closed her eyes and raised her hooves, as if she were greeting the place. It was a scene that annoyed the pair, because in doing so she lifted her cloak, revealing her completely bandaged body, and as nothing could be seen under her metal helmet apart from her glowing eye, closing her eyes made it look as if there was nothing under her helmet.

Cozy Glow watched the pair's every reaction with a smile on her face, she was certainly enjoying seeing how they reacted to each thing said, as she had already spoken to the Spokeswoman previously, she already knew everything that was going to be said and everything that had been explained so far.

"But where exactly are we?" Chrysalis asked, a little frustrated by the spokeswoman's answer. "I'm afraid I can't tell you that, I'm sorry, it's my duty to keep the exact location of this place a secret." Chrysalis was disappointed, to say the least, but it was understandable that the location of this place was secret.

"Now, your third question, as you already know, I am the Speaker, the voice of the Yellow King, currently responsible for leading my group in the King's absence and the one who will bring him back! (cough)" Her presentation was abruptly interrupted by a loud cough that felt like it was going to tear her throat out. "I'm sorry about that, I suffer from an ailment that's been afflicting my body for centuries, as you can see I'm not on my best days, but to sum it up, you don't have to refer to me as 'Speaker', as you're my guests, I'd like you to just call me by my name (cough)" once again the cough interrupted her.

"You may call me Iron Singer"

Author's Note

artist tik tok: leemonateblood