Twilight Sparkle Memory Lose

Chapters

Prologue
Chapter 1 - healing wounds
Chapter 2 - Princesses take action
Chapter 3 - Who am I ?
Chapter 4 - Twilight, who is Twilight

Prologue

...

Location - heart of everfree forest

...

It is getting darker as Celestia's sun slowly sets down behind the horizon leaving a place for Luna's moon. The sky is full of dark clouds as bad omen before a disaster or just because none Pegasus would dare to clear them out in the middle of everfree forest.

It is so quiet that anypony would hear wind slowly floating around trees leafs, like the silence before the storm.

For a place full of dangerous monsters, no noise from Timber Wolves, Manticores, or even normal animals would be odd for every explorer who would dare to go so far into the everfree forest,

But instead of a brave explorer seeking danger, fame and treasures, there was a purple excuse of a pony crawling on the ground, a view of a pony what would make everyone sick by just looking at her, some think you would not wish such a horror on your worst enemy, the very view of her would make everyone rush to help her or put her out of misery.

On the ground was indeed a purple unicorn with stars as her cutie mark, but her purple fur was ragged with injuries and caked in blood. Her legs lay on the ground refusing to move on her masters command as they were broken, her body in no better shape, and a big injury on her head as if something heavy was smashed into her.

Pain was nothing new to the purple mare, as she experienced it in the past when she tried to research Pinkie Sense, but even after all her 'ACCIDENTS', even after anvil fell on her head, even after heavy cargo crushed her entire body, she could get back up like it was more of an annoyance than a real injury, many would even question how a unicorn librarian could be so durable.

This time it was different, whatever happened to her, whatever hit her in the head, it would probably make cargo dropped by Derpy look as harmless as pillows. No, whatever happened to her, whatever hit her in the head, it managed to break bones in her so very durable body, whatever happened to her, it left cuts in her so hard skin, whatever happened was a good question indeed, because this was a question what was in the head of purple unicorn as she crawled on the ground in her beaten state.

By just looking at the poor unicorn's face everypony would easily see a lot of pain, as she tried to move her broken body, unlike her legs, her forelegs were heavy damaged but not broken so she could still move, thought it was not pleasant as she had to fight a lot of pain with every step she made.

Why she was moving she did not knew as well, she was probably escaping from somepony who put her in this mutilated state. If moving forward with a speed of a turtle can even be called escaping, but she felt that she had to move, like even smallest distance may decide her fate between life and death.

' it huuuuuurts, it hurts so badly ' Twilight thought to herself as she made another step with her forelegs, her back legs refused to work, ' why...., why I am even trying to move, why do I put so much effort and experience so much pain just to move, why I m even hurt so badly ? ' thought Twilight as she started to analyse her situation despite her pain.

By moving slowly her injured head around, all she saw were trees, her ears did not hear anything else than wind moving leafs, it was very quiet, part of her mind was begging her to stop, to not move, to not damage her body even more than it already is, but other part was screaming to move, that whatever hurt her so badly may be coming for her.

' Why, why can't I remember anything! Who am I? What am I? Why am I here? Why I am hurt?' Twilight asked herself trying to keep from thinking about the immense pain radiating throughout her body.

' WHY AM I STILL MOVING!, all I want is this pain to disappear, I just want this pain to go away' plead Twilight in her mind,

" I ccc... can't ...... mmm... move any longer, this ..... this pain, this pain is toooooo muuuuch " Twilight stopped moving her sore forelegs and fell to the ground completely, her eyes shed tears of pain before she closed them.

' I can't take it any longer, I don't know who I am, I don't know who did this to me, and I don't care if he comes and eats me, I just want it to end' unable to fight any longer, Twilight fell unconscious.

Whatever happened to her was so traumatic that her brain cut off all her memories, and now the pain was to much for her to keep fighting whatever fate was awaiting her.

Twilight was unconscious for half an hour until a few black figures found her from the air landed close to her the moment they noticed her from the sky.

' You Highness, we found the target, and we can feel some minor emotions from her, it seems she somehow survived, what should we do? ' asked one of the changeling in hive mind, as he waited for his Queen's command.

' Incredible, I would never expect anypony to survive this, but on the other hoof, a pony who managed to ruin my invasion must be special indeed ' replied Chrysalis with zealous amount satisfaction and surprise in her thoughts.

' It is such a pity that we will need to take the life of such a special pony, a pony who sealed Discord and defeated Nightmare Moon, the bearer of magic herself, when her brother is the one who really deserved this painful death, however if it was not for her, this cursed Shinning Armor and Cadence would never cast the spell in the first place. Hundreds of my subjects died form injuries and starvation, and hundreds more will die overtime, but they will be avenged, and since Shinning Armor did fall into my trap, his sister will have to do for now' said Chrysalis to her subjects, as she focused to deliver orders to those changelings who now stand above Twilight Sparkle.

' She suffered enough, KILL HER, put the poor thing out of her misery ' ordered Queen, as one of changeling started to charge his horn, aiming it on Twilight's neck.

He was ready to give a finishing blow, it would be quick and painless unlike the trap they set up before, original plan was to provoke Equestria guards and Shinning Armor to investigate, this trap was meant for him, but they did not expect that in his stead, Twilight Sparkle and her friends would come. Unfortunately for her she took her brother's place in they plan of revenge and now, she would pay the price.

Before the changeling could deliver the killing blow, he was knocked away by a green projectile. The other changelings now alert looked into the dark forest in hopes of finding their attacker, ' what was that ' thought one of them as he look around, " SHOW YOURSELF ! " changeling screamed, as he and his team took battle position, aiming in the direction where they started to feel some emotions, but something was odd, this felling was different than a pony or forest creature, it was like he was sensing another changeling, but could not link with him in Hive mind.

And than from behind a tree, two dark figures stepped out, " You ..... you are not Queen Chrysalis subjects, who are you ? " asked one of changelings, as the other hissed at the two intruders.

" Funny, we were about to ask you the same question, who are you, and what are you doing on Queen Rubyred's TERRITORY " the rather calm questioning quickly turning into hostility, as four changelings finally understood what was happening.

They were on other hive territory, and the two changelings in front them were determined to kick out the unwanted invaders. "We are here under Queen Chrysalis orders to kill this unicorn, give us a moment to finish her, and we will move away from your territory right away " reply changeling as he tried to negotiate, he had mission to accomplish and no time for a pointless fight.

" I'm afraid we can't let you do this " said other changeling with venom laced in his voice, " every creature and pony who take a step on Queen Rubyred's territory belongs to her, same goes for this unicorn, now scram".

The other changelings were confused. The way this changeling said it was a threat indeed, but his emotions were different and more calm, it is like he said one thing but thought another, " this unicorn death is very important to our Queen, if you will not let us kill her, our swarm will wipe you and your Queen out of existence " said changeling trying to be as intimidating as possible.

But it just make two changelings smirk, " We will take that risk " said changeling as he and his partner started to charge their horns with their green aura.

Normally 4 changelings under Chrysalis command would not fear 2 changelings from another hive, but those two were different, they were a bit bigger and the love they just charged their horns with was very potent, it was very easy to notice that they had far bigger love reserves, and they bodies were developed to be stronger and store much more love. Normally only the Queen was very big because her body was developed to store huge amount of love and use it for powerful spells, but normal drones were focusing on numbers since they size and love reserves were rather low, especially now when the famine continues.

The fact that those two changelings were bigger was proof that they weren't normal drones, they had an exponential amount of love and so their bodies developed into much stronger forms. It was like 4 normal drones were about to fight 2 high rank changeling officers, ' my Queen, it seems that we are in other hive territory, a Hive under Queen Rubyred's command, and they refused to let us kill our target, what's more, they seems to be high rank officers because of they size and love they have. what should we do your majesty? ' asked panicked changeling to his Queen.

' Kill the target and run, ignore them. Just kill the target, fast, give your live if you must ' Queen ordered, ' reinforcements are on the way '.

Changelings quickly charged they horns and turned to Twilight Sparkle, but the moment they jumped on they target, a green flame wall intercepted their charge, pushing them away, and the moment changelings regrouped themselves, two hostile changelings were already between them and they target, the one who used his power to create wall of green flame was charging his horn again, and the other one shot magic projectiles.

4 Chrysalis drones quickly flew into air evading green bolts of magic and returned fire with magic of their own.

However none of the protectives hit Twilight as they hit two changelings who blocked their path, barely scratching them, since they opponents size and natural armor was more than enough to withstand such an attack.

Rubyred's changelings fired they own green flame protectives, aiming to defeat the invaders since they couldn't dodge without leaving purple Unicorn open to enemy attack, but this time their opponents flew in their direction, they horns surrounded in green aura. It was the same attack the changelings used when they bombed Canterlot, it was actually less of a offensive spell to do damage, and more a defensive aura to protect user from impact, thanks to this spell changeling could hit target with high velocities without damaging the user. In this case the aura was going to be used to reflect the magic flames hurtling towards them, but before they could reach they target, two of Chrysalis's changelings were knocked out by direct hit.

Other two quickly charged with their horns lowered in Twilight's direction were about to hit her, but were hit from behind by the larger changelings, it was not enough to knock them out since it hit their natural armor on they back, but it was enough to slow and daze them.

Recovering, the two changelings tried to attack Twilight once again since they were very close to her, but were surrounded by two small green flame walls, unable to attack Twilight, they turned into enemy direction hoping to catch them off guard.

" I would suggest you to faint now " said one of Rubyred's changelings with small laugh, as the remaining two drones attacked them.

BUMP

A pair of hole filled hooves were the last thing both drones saw before they fallen on the ground unconscious. " You should have listen to me " said the same changeling with happy tone.

As all 4 Chrysalis's drones lied on the ground unconscious, both changelings turned they gaze upon poor unicorn. They walked in her direction and started to examine her injuries.

' Poor thing ' thought one of two changelings in his hive mind, ' she looks devastated. It would be a miracle if she's still alive '.

' My Queen, this purple unicorn mare is still alive despite her heavy injuries, I can still sense a spark of emotions coming from her, but she wont last long without medical assistance ....... yes, my Queen, your will is my command ' thought changeling in hive mind as he gaze at his partner and spoke.

" DonutJoe, you go search for healing herbs, we will need as many as possible, but do not take too long, I will take her to the hive and try to keep her alive until you get back " said one of the changeling as he very carefully put Twilight on his back. Flying with injured unicorn on his back would probably result in breaking more of her bones, but leaving her here now when Chrysalis troops were on the way was not an option.

" How many times do I have to tell you, even if the shield what repelled the invasion on Canterlot did not worked on our hive, I still had to leave when unicorn guards started to scan for changeling activity, my life as DonutJoe is over, just call me drone number 54 " reply slightly annoyed changeling who rushed to search for herb before receiving a reply.

" Nah, for me you will always be DonutJoe, even if you can no longer be him " he said knowing full well that his partner already left. Turning his gaze to unicorn what was on his back " as for you, please don't die on me, we just got Chrysalis and her army on our heads just to save, please little pony, do not let it be for nothing " said changeling with calm and soft voice before he flew back to his hive carefully trying his best not to drop unicorn on his back.

...

After half hour of careful flying, Twilight was finaly in Queen Rubyred's hive. It was a very well camouflaged area in the middle of everfree forest which was exactly why none other hives could find it for generations.

The hive was located in underground tunnels that were left by Diamond Dogs in the past as they could not find any gems in this area any longer.

Tunnels were like mix of rock, dirt and organic structure, where every changeling had they own small home, some of them being just small caves with a cocoon and some grass on it, while others were contained beds and goods that were used in everypony's house.

At this very moment a badly injuried Twilight Sparkle was laying on very soft hospital bed with some apparatus monitoring the unicorn's condition. "Why were you stealing from the hospital they asked, we have healing cocons for injuried Changelings they said, we will never have injuried pony in our hive they said, and who is right now, huh " said to himself changeling as he watched purple unicorn encased in gauze laying on the hospital bed, it's not the same as if she was in a pony hospital, but it was good enough.

" You can count yourself lucky pony, once in my life I was disguised as doctor in one of Canterlot hospitals, so I have quite alot of experience with healing ponies like you, whats more, I also stole this bed and some basic medical equipment before I left after the search for changelings started, as for why I stolen them, I could not leave it behind. On this very bed I healed so many ponies, so many memories from my pass life, it had a sentimental value to me, but I would never expect that I would heal anypony here in my hive instead of hospital in Canterlot " said Changeling as his voice slowly turned into sorrow.

" Please .... whoever you are ...., just don't die " said Changeling in sad tone as his memories of living as doctor were returning to him.

It was only 4 months ago when he and other changelings from his hive had to evacuate Canterlot, Ponyvile and Appleosia after a search for changelings began. Unlike Chrysalis's hive where her drones temporary replaced ponies to feed on they loved ones, Queen Rubyred changelings created their own pony disquise as they tried to get into pony population and gather positive emotions. Positive emotions are far weaker than love and could not sustain a large hive, but every changeling was able to feed themselves and send small part of it to the Queen. As result every changeling in hive was bigger and more powerful than changelings in other hives, in exchange their numbers were few when compared to Chrysalis's 5000 subjects under her command, while Queen Rubyred had merely 100. Now that they had to abandon their only source of food, they numbers would drop in time until extinction.

For a changeling who was disguised as pony doctor his entire live, healing ponies become second nature, and so he did what he could to heal purple unicorn. Now he could only wait for his friend to return with the herbs so he could prepare medicine and save this pony's life. Whatever happens afterwards, whether Chrysalis finds their hive or not, it did not matter, his Queen would decide on how to act and he would follow. For now what mattered was a patient barely clinging to life, and as a doctor, it was his duty to see that she is survives.

Chapter 1 - healing wounds

Chapter 2 - healing wounds

...

Queen Chrysalis and her subjects were searching everfree forest in the last location where she found her 4 subjects laying on the ground unconscious, it was actually a surprise that her subjects were still alive, in any other situations if her drones would cross into other changeling hive territory, changelings from the other hive would force them to leave they territory, kill as example, or capture and than exchange as last warning not to enter they territory.

But this situation was different, her changelings said that they will leave they territory after they kill unicorn, in normal situation changelings from other territory would let them do this and go away without a fight, but if what her drones said in Hive mind was true, those two changelings did not care to much about territory, instead they defended this unicorn and fought her childrens even with risk of provoking a war with other hive, it never happened before, and the fact that her children's were spared did not made sense, if Queen Rubyred wanted to show her strength by defying her, why would she spare lives of enemy soldiers ? it was like they goal was to safe this purple unicorn,.

' Even if they wanted to safe pony just to use her as food source, it is not worth the risk of getting into hostile relationships with other hive, do it was act of war, or maybe Queen Rubyred know about my failure in Canterlot and it is her way to send me message that I am not worth to be feared and respected, hmn....., it seems that my failure in Canterlot not only cost me hundreds of my subjects, but also my reputation ' thought Chrysalis as she was scanning the area, it would not be long before Celestia and Luna with they armies would come to search for Twilight Sparkle and destroy everything that gets in they way considering what just happened hours ago, there would not be much place for mercy and this time there would be no element of surprise in her advantage.

' My Queen, we tried our best to locate them but it seems that traces split up like they both went into two different directions, we tried to follow one of them but the traces cut off in this area ' reported changeling in mind hive to his Queen.

' The traces are getting weaker, but we should track second changeling at this rate ' reported changeling in different area as he with some other drones tried to locate second changeling.

' Split up all squads to search bigger area since we do not have much time to waste, but keep squads in at last one minute flying time close to one another, if one of you manage to find him, try to slow him down and call other squads for reinforcements ' ordered the Queen, everfree forest was not safe place and soon she would have Equestria army in here as well, no matter how much she wanted to avenge her subjects, as Queen she would not risk her subjects life's in battle they can not win.

...

Not too far from searched area, DonutJoe or rather changeling with code number 54 flew as fast as he could until he found a waterfall, he did not bother to cover traces behind him as his partner did, time was on the essence after all, his hive rarely need healing herbs since changelings regeneration is based on love they gathered, and it was supported by healing cocoons, so they never bothered to keep any of those herbs in hive.

Usually his partner came to this area to gather those herbs to make some very strong medicines, after all those herbs were extremely powerful and rare, they were gowning in the middle of everfree forest, a place no pony would dare to visit, and those herbs were important components of very powerful healing potions stronger than the most powerful healing magic spells unicorns could learn, he of course send them into hospital he worked in as anonymous gift, and it will not be the first time when they will save a pony live.

Slowly DonutJoe entered a cave hidden behind waterfall, it was a best way to clear some traces without losing much time

" it seems that I wont need to take a bath today, how convenient " said DonutJoe as he wipe water off his body and flew forward inside the cave, " lucky for me we have many camouflaged tunnels in this part of everfree forest, how else we would avoided detection from other hives for so long " said changeling with happy tone, as he knew that his Hive is safe.

Compared to Queen Chrysalis Hive, his hive was strong but greatly outnumbered, they would easy lose any open territory war, so to avoid it, they choices location avoided by both ponies and changelings, and focused on making it impossible to detect, there was no way Chrysalis would find his hive in normal search, the only way they would find it would be to follow him, and he was not going to let this happen.

' I am almost there, how is the unicorn felling ' asked DonutJoe in hive mind, as he tried to contact his partner.

...

Meanwhile in Queen Rubyred hive

...

' Sleeping like a filly ' reply changeling in a joking tone,

' Her condition is stable and I did all I could, the good news is that she will not die from injuries, but the bad news is that she may die from lack of water or food, and her body is no condition to accept it, what's more I am unable to heal most of her injuries and broken bones, those healing herbs are her only chance, so yea, no pressure at all ' answered changeling as he watched her patient in front of him.

In his life as pony doctor, life's and well being of many ponies were often in his full of holes hooves, and changelings who live as pony for very long get empathy sickness and stop thinking of ponies and other species as merely a food, so as most doctors he found out that best way to keep stress, fear and many negative emotions at bay is to laugh and joke about it, he did not mean it in ill will to his patients and he really care about them, it was just a way to not freak out under his responsibility, and old habits die hard.

As another hour passed and his partner was on the way back with herbs, many changelings from the hive visited this rather odd patient, all they knew was that the unicorn could be someone from Ponyvile or Canterlot and that she was important enough for Queen of other hive to kill for some reasons, but with all the bandages and injuries it was hard for them to identification the mare.

However as changelings who around 4 months ago were living a live of a pony in Ponyvile or Canterlot, they felt very concerned that a pony what they would know was in so terrible stage.

After more time passed instead of visiting changeling, armoured drone entered this room, considering his smaller size, he was a guard drone, and those never leave hive and as result not get extra size and power buff, but are instead well trained in fight " Doctor Scalpel, her majesty Rubyred is asking for your presence in throne room, please follow me " said drone in professional tone.

Scalpel took a look on his patient once again, her condition seems to be stable, he was actually surprised how strong her body was, any other unicorn would already be dead in her place, " this unicorn seems stable at the moment, but i do not fell like leaving her alobe, maybe someone should .. " said Scalpel but another guard cut him off, " this is already taken care off, two guards outside and two guards inside, if something happen, we will report immediately ".

On those words of assurance, Doctor Scalpel made his way to Queen throne room, making Queen wait or leaving his patient for to long would not be wise so he decided to fly instead of walking, he did not flew to fast to not crash into a wall in those tunnels, but still he made guard drone follow him instead of other way around.

Finally both Doctor Scalpel and guard drone was in front of the throne room, in front of them was rather medium sized door made of metal and with some rubies as decoration, it was faaaar smaller than big doors in front of Princesses throne room, but it was still bigger than average door.

" Doctor Scalpel is here by her Majesty orders " said guard drone as two guards in front of throne room nod and opened the door, letting them in.

It is true that changelings could talk in hive mind, but it was not really to private talk, and was rather used for long range emergency communication, so most changelings, and Queen Rubyred herself prefer to talk directly with her subjects than with hive mind if she could help it.

As guard drone and Doctor Scalpel entered throne room, Scalpel walked slowly looking around, throne room itself was very small compared to the one in Canterlot, there were no windows since Rubyred hideout was underground, however it was not a problem since they could easy produce illuminate saliva or just use some gems and magic to make it shine in those dark caves, Rubyred hive usually mixed both they natural abilities and naturally made materials with metal, gems and magic, after all most of changeings were disguised as ponies in most of they lives, so they could mix technology, magic and organic material whenever they wanted.

On left and right side there were many pillows what played a role of chairs for changelings in case Queen would want to talk with them for a long time and keep them comfortable.

In front of them Doctor Scalpel saw throne made from organic materials and rubies, as well as many decorations in throne room, Queen name Rubyred was not without reasons after all, when last Queen found those caves left by Diamond Dogs, she found out that most popular gems in here were rubies, and so she named her daughter Ruby, once old Queen died from old age and princess Ruby took her place, she decided to add red into her name since red colour and red rubies were her favourite, well, Queen do what she wants.

On the throne was sitting rather big changeling, not as big as Chrysalis or Celestia, she was actually in the size of princess Cadance, and the reason for it was simple, as her hive was small and it could not gather much love for they queen, queen herself was smaller and weaker, but still she was very powerful and small size and power did not mean she lack of experience, she was Queen for over 350 years so far, for a changeling Queen she was young, but 350 years of experience is still a lot experience.

Queen Rubyred like every changeling Queen had a small crown think on her head as a symbol of being a royalty, however she was wearing some jewel made of red rubies, shoes made of red rubies, and her natural armor was pained into red colour, not that there was much of a fashion in changeling hive, Queen just liked rubies and red colour.

" Your Majesty, you called " said Scalpel as he bowed in front of his Queen trying to look as small as possible, as most of changelings in the hive, he was just little smaller from his Queen, but when it came to raw power and love reserves, there was always a big difference, and no matter the size, she was always respected.

" Thank you for coming my dear Scalpel, you can stand " said Queen with calm and motherly voice, " oh my, you really grown a lot the last time I saw you my dear Scalpel, I still remember you as a little cute drone when your parents came to me for my blessing " said Queen with amusing smile, as it made Doctor Scalpel blush, and red colour on dark changeling skin was very visible, and covering it with hoofs with holes in it was not really best way to hide it.

" My Queen, please " said Scalpel a little embarrassed, it did not matter do a changeling was born from egg made by Queen herself or was born from two changelings or even changeling and unaware male pony, they were always like a children's to her, and she often treat them as fillies..

" Oh, please do not be shy, when I hear that you became a hard working doctor and that you spent your free time to collect herbs to safe ponies even if you would not gain any extra love from it, you really made me proud, so much understanding for a species who would banish us for who we are is really something " said Queen with cheerful tone, also blushing a little, in a hive what was hardly 100 changelings in number, young Queen had no problem to care about every of her subjects on personal level.

But very soon after she said it, the mood darkened, and happiness turned into awkward silent, as Queen felt sad emotions coming from her subject, " oh, I am sorry, I did not mean it " said Queen but was cut off.

" Please your majesty, do not fell bad about it, your order to evacuate in advance and leave our lives behind was wise decision, it would not take long for guards to find us, and I am not sure do banishment out of Equestria would be always the way to deal with us after what happened in Canterlot " said Doctor Scalpel, it is true that he missed his live, but he would never blame his Queen for losing it, if someone was to blame, it was Chrysalis, her invasion not only showed existence of changelings, but also created a fear and hostility between ponies and changelings, and Rubyred hive was hurt the most by it.

" I am deeply sorry my Queen for my rudeness, but I fear of leaving my patient for to long without proper care, so with all due respect, I would like to ask for the reason you called me your Highness " said Doctor Scalpel with worry in his voice, as he bowed, even thought Queen Rubyred never made any tension between herself and her subjects, asking Queen to speed up is not something to be taken lightly.

" Oh right, I am really sorry my little Scalpel, I almost forgot about that pony and not considered that I was wasting your time, I will get to the point than " said Queen with apologetic tone, Queen was indeed still young and rather innocent, she would never be mad at her subjects even if they would be rude to her, but she also sometime forget priority.

" As you know, after my scouts have reported other hive activity near our territory, I send some spy's in disguise as royal guards to gather some informations in Ponyvile, and from data spy's and scouts gathered, it was clear that Chrysalis forces were provoking or even hypnotizing some creatures in everfree forest, it was like they wanted to provoke ponies to act " said Rubyred with calm but serious regal tone, now very serious on the matter.

" Before I continue, I would like to ask, did you or any other of my subjects found out the name or any informations about the pony you saved " asked Queen still with serious tone, but Scalpel could easy fell worry and concern in her emotions.

" No my queen, as it pains me to say it, poor pony was massacred, and after my healing attempts, it is to hard to recognize her under all those bandages, and all I figured out was that she was a mare, her fur had purple colour and her cutie mark was star or something like that " reply doctor with respect in his voice.

" Poor mare, do she will make it ? " asked Queen, her voice was still regal and neutral, but her emotions betrayed her feelings of pity, sadness and concern.

" Yes your Highness, right now her condition is stable and should not get worse any time soon, however I can not proceed with healing her until DonutJoe will come back with healing herbs, and once he will get back, healing this mare will be just a mater of time " said Doctor Scalpel as he tried to reassure his Queen that there is nothing to worry about.

" That's relief " said Queen closing her eyes for moment and letting out small sigh, " I am counting on you Doctor Scalpel, as our fate may rest in this mare hooves, once I found out that Chrysalis was preparing a trap for whoever was coming from Equestra to investigate everfree forest, I send some of my smaller children's to spy on her, as I expected Chrysalis was to busy with ambush preparation to notice a few more changelings who were not connected to her Hive mind, and I also send teams choice by me to take position around our territory " explained Queen as she tried to fill her subject with more information, Doctor Scalpel was rather stunned and shocked after what he hear, she knew that this mission may be important, but not that fate of the swarm depend on it.

" Sadly my spy's did not gather any information about the trap itself and who was the target, so I ordered them to sabotage it once targeted ponies will arrive, it turns out that changelings targeted small group of ponies, they had to be really important if Chrysalis made so much effort to kill them, however thanks to my children sabotage those ponies managed to escape this trap and run into my territory, sadly not everything went according to plan, in the end changelings cached up with them, I fear the worse about what happened with other ponies, but in the end only one mare your team rescued managed to get into our territory. "

Doctor Scalpel was listening very carefully, none of teams send by Queen Rubyred were informed about Queen plan, they were just ordered to do what they were told, and they did, for questions and answers was time after the mission, but why was this mare so important, that was question what was floating inside Scalpel head.

Queen could easy fell curiosity coming from Doctor so she continued " The goal of this mission was to interfere with Chrysalis plans and rescue as many ponies as possible since they had to be important if Queen Chrysalis targeted them personally, rescued ponies would become our bargaining chip, by interfering with Chrysalis plans and returning important ponies safely to Equestria, we would get favour in princesses eyes, we would negotiate with them, ask them to cease changeling hunting program, ask for protection for my subjects or anything what would improve our situation " explained the Queen as Doctor could once again fell sadness in her.

" All I can hope is that this one mare you rescued is important enough for a bargaining chip, so we wont be turned away with a laugh or that they will at last let us speak with them, that is why I hope you can heal her and find out who she is, now go my dear Scalpel, I believe in your skills to heal this mare, and do not hesitate to share what I just told you with your partner and whoever will be interested, and once there will be improvement in mare health or if you find out who she is, fell free to report to me directly, you are dismissed " Doctor Scalpel just bowed with respect and went on his way, usually he would like to spend more time with Queen or at last say proper good bye, but he did not wanted to make his patient wait for him.

" I wont fail you my Queen " said Doctor Scalpel as he was outside of throne room when guards started to close door.

' I am sure you wont my dear child, as for now I better continue to work on plan B just in case ' thought Queen Rubyred to herself as she went into her personal library, she still had love reserves to keep her subjects alive for some years at best, but if negotiations with Equestria would fall, she had to have more than just one plan to save her subjects, and best if this plan did not involve the same action what Chrysalis took.

...

Some hours later

...

Many hours passed as DonutJoe finally got back back with healing herbs, and as it was expected, Chrysalis drones were not even close in finding the hive, and with no more traces it would take them years of searching to do so, far to much effort only to get one pony.

Doctor Scalpel used those herbs to create medicines to start healing poor mare, and shared what Queen told him with his partner and other changelings involved in the operation.

Even so powerful medicine could not heal Twilight broken bones and heavy wounds right away, but helped to start a road into recovery.

The first effect was a fast recovery of worst wounds, healing potion of that calibre did wonders to outside wounds, the next magic effect of healing herbs was a strong magical aura what kept unicorn body stable for a limited time, long enough for Doctor Scalpel to make his operations on broken bones, that was exactly why those herbs were so extremely special, you could basically cut a pony in half and magic of those herbs would keep her working like she was not cut at all, not even fell any pain from it, same was in this case, Doctor could just make holes in unicorn, relocate broken bones, put part of bones back where they belong, surgical operations were far more easy, as magic aura kept unicorn body work like she was not operated at all, and it was a really strong painkiller too, sadly as powerful, this herb was very rare and limited.

The final step was just using standard magic potions to boots natural healing of this unicorn, close wounds with bandages, and leave body to recover itself.

After hours of operations, unicorn was finally on it is way to recovery with all broken bones back in place, and mare did not even fell any pain from the operation at all, if she could fell pain while being unconscious that is.

" Yaaaawwwwwwwww...... "

" Are you sleepy or just tired " asked DonutJoe as the last peace of bandage was in place.

" I guess both " reply Doctor Scalpel with little enthusiasm he had left after a long but successful surgical operation, or rather many surgical operations on many different parts, even if he did not had to be slow and careful in it thanks to healing aura of magical herb, there was so much to fix, that it end up to be multiple operations in many body parts at the same time.

" I think that next time I will see my Queen, I will ask her for a complete memory clean from this operation, because if I will see a bone or some inner organs again, I will faint in 10 seconds flat " reply Doctor Scalpel with tired joking tone as he remembered of DonutJoe telling him story about a blue pegasus who sometime bought some donut's from him and apparently was often saying that she can do stuff in 10 seconds flat.

" If I would get a hug worth love from a pony every-time you say something like that, I would already have more power than Queen Rubyred herself " DonutJoe reply with joke on his own, laughing a little, " even cutie mark on disguise you choice was scalpel, remember, when you was little changeling, you could watch insides of dead animals without blinking your eye, that is why you went into medicine, changeling, animal, even pony insides were fascinating to you ".

" Yaww.... even I can not go on watching it for 8 hours in a row, give me break, I am going to sleep " said Doctor Scalpel with annoyed tone as he went to sleep on a ground.

" You got a point, anyway I am going to sleep too, I will inform guards to take night shift and watch over the unicorn condition on the night, also you better get a bed or at last some grass tomorrow since your bed is already taken, good night " said DonutJoe as he waved good night to his friend and went to sleep in his own room.

Chapter 2 - Princesses take action

Chaper 2 - Princesses take action

...

Canterlot

...

Canterlot was on high alert the moment Spike sent message about what happened in the Everfree Forest.

It had only been 2 months since Twilight, her friends and Spike saved the Crystal Empire. Cadence became the ruler of the Crystal empire but her husband still had duty as Captain of the royal guards until he find suitable replacement for his position.

Shinning Armor returned to Canterlot just a week ago, and it was exactly one week ago when monsters in everfree forest started to act weirdly.

Back then no one noticed that those events could be connected, so princess Celestia decided to send Twilight and her friends to investigate, thinking that this small investigation would be a good experience for her student. She could not have been more wrong in her entire life, unless you count the time when she did not notice that Luna was in a mental crisis from loneliness and jealousy, the result being her turning into Nightmare Moon, Needless to say, Celestia didn’t want to make that sort of mistake again.

Right now, all she knew is that it was a trap set up by Queen Chrysalis and her army, and her student’s life could be in danger, she may be captured by the enemy or even dead, but Celestia quickly washed away those thoughts.

"Your Highness, on your command all captains have mobilized their regiments and are coming here to receive further instructions, Princess Luna was informed about the situation as well and is on her way here too." reported one of the guards as he bowed in front of princess Celestia.

"Very good, now join your squad and prepare yourself to move out, we have a rescue operation to perform and little time to waste." Celestia replied with serious tone, her expression neutral and no smile on her face. Princess Celestia often acted regal, but most of the time she was smiling and had a very calm motherly tone, but now by just looking at her, all the guards could see that the situation is indeed serious and no one would dare to disappoint the Sun Goddess, if only from fear that she would drop her flames of fury on them.

"Y...y…yes your H…h…highness..., right away your highness... ", said stressed guard as he made another bow and then quickly ran out of throne room, as two unicorn guards opened the doors at the last moment, just before he could crash into them, but before they managed to close it, princess Luna ran into throne room.

"Is what we hear is true, did thy faithful student Twilight Sparkle fall into thou enemies’ grasp?" said Luna as she was still running to Celestia, her voice loud and full of worry.

" I do not know sister, but we have no time to waste, I’m trying to organize our army for a full scale search and rescue, and we should be prepared for battle, for probably battle Chrysalis’s forces again, but without my connection to the Sun I won’t be at full power, so I’ll need to take some forces with me " answered Celestia with cold tone, " Night is your domain sister and I know you are a master at hiding in it, and your guards has been enhanced with those charms as well, so I would like to ask you to teleport to Everfree Forest where ... ", Celestia said with haste, but Luna cut her off.

"Teleport to Everfree Forest where there is changeling army waiting for us? Please calm thineself down sister, thou are acting too rashly, it will only lead to mistakes." Luna assured her, trying to calm her sister down. In past 3 years since the element bearers healed her, never had she seen her sister acting so coldly, and it worried her a lot.

"Mistake? Mistake?" Celestia murmured coldly. "MISTAKE!?" she yelled with Royal Canterlot Voice.

"I already made my mistake when I ignored you when you needed me, when I let you to turn into Nightmare Moon. I made my mistake when I turned myself away from Twilight Sparkle when she tried to convince us that there was something wrong with Cadence, and now I send my dear faithful student into a death trap? She may be dead, tortured or hiding at this very moment! No Luna, waiting any second longer is a mistake!" Celestia exclaimed with serious tone. Luna always knew that Twilight was very important to her, but now when Twilight’s life was in danger she realized just how important. She was not only an element bearer who kept Equestria safe from larger threats, not only a student of which every teacher could be proud, but she was almost like daughter to her, and just 8 hours ago she sent her to what may be her doom.

"But…" Luna tried to calm her sister, but she could not find any words to speak with.

The guards already informed her about what happened that Twilight Sparkle may be dead or in danger. Princess Luna did not know Twilight all that well, but she remembered her as the one who saved her from Nightmare Moon, giving her a new start after her long banishment, and she was the only one who did not fear her during Nightmare Night, doing everything to help her in her time of need.

While this was so, she could not think of her as a mere subject, and her sister spoke very highly of her, about how she and her friends defeated Discord, how she freed princess Cadence leading to stopping the changeling invasion, about the friendship letters, and even when Luna was afraid that sending Twilight to deal with King Sombra without her help was a big mistake, Twilight and her friends still managed to turn a possible war into peaceful victory, and when she found out that Twilight was fascinated with the night sky and stars, Luna could only regret that she did not spend more time with Twilight when she had the chance.

Even if princess Celestia showed on the outside that she did not care much about Twilight’s safety, sending her into dangers and tests all the time, without much support, information or equipment, it was all because of her confidence, Celestia trusted in Twilight’s abilities so much that it never crossed her mind that she could fail no matter how dangerous the mission was. Luna always thought of this as stupid faith, to blindly expect so much from normal ponies to accomplish what would be a challenge even for powerful Alicorns like herself, but now she saw how much her sister regretted it.

"Luna, I do not expect you to go in there and fight Chrysalis and her army alone, I would never ask you to do that, especially after what happened not 8 hours ago, but unlike you, Twilight cannot hide in the night and does not have so much power to defend herself, all I want you to do is to search for Twilight from the shadows. Please sister, you are the only one who can look for her now without alerting the enemy, please!" Celestia plead to her sister. It was indeed a very strange experience, her sister just throwing away all her pride so quickly, something Luna would never expect to see in her very long life.

"Very well sister, we shall do it. If Twilight Sparkle is hiding somewhere, we will find her, but we shall not attack Chrysalis’s forces until you arrive." replied Luna with a now serious tone, watching the eyes of her sister, as she charged her horn. "Do not make me wait for you too long, Celly.”

"I promise I won’t, just please, search for Twilight, we will deal with the changelings once I arrive there with full force," replied Celestia with worry in her voice. She wanted to help her student before it was too late, but she did not want to risk losing her sister as well.

Luna just nodded her head and was gone, taking only two of her night guards with her, who managed to run to her before she teleported. Meanwhile, captain Shining Armor and all the other captains and generals entered the room. It was true that Shinning Armor was still Captain of the royal guards, but only the royal guards, those in Canterlot. There were still generals and capitans who lead forces in other locations, and also captain of the night guards. But considering that Equestria was a peaceful nation most of the time, royal guards were not really active until Changelings invaded Canterlot, and in past 4 months more forces were mobilized both for defence and a changeling hunting program.

"Your Highness, all forces are in position and ready to move out, it should take us at most 2 hours of flying to get to the Everfree Forest for Pegasus forces, and as you ordered, Unicorn royal guards will guard Canterlot until we return," reported Shinning Armor as he made a bow, the other captains doing the same.

Princess Celestia could easily see worry and a lack of patience in Shinning Armor behind the mask of a professional and loyal captain, she knew exactly how he felt, because she felt the same, "Very good, we are moving out right now," Celestia quickly replied as she took to the air and joined her army. It made the castle staff and guards very nervous to see their princess acting that way.

After everypony left the throne room, one of the guards guarding the throne looked into eyes of guard next to him, and he did the same. After moment of awkward silence one of them spoke:" Um..... Is end of the world coming?" holding hoof on behind his neck sheepishly.

"Highly possible," replied other guard with thoughtful expression, holding his hoof on his chin," Princesses running around the castle, Celestia giving up her pride and rushing into action, mobilizing the entire military for war, yea. It’s a pretty bad omen.”

"The moment I get some time off, I’m spending more time with my family and playing with my filly, or maybe even taking my wife for a date, who knows? It may be the last time I see them." The guard nodded and started to watch floor under his hoofs, wondering how much time they had left.

...

2 hours later, Everfree Forest

...

Princess Luna and her guards were carefully searching the Everfree Forest, using the cloak of night and dark magic to evade changeling detection for over 2 hours now. But just like the changelings, she had no success in finding Twilight Sparkle or any traces from her, however, it filled her with hope that changelings were searching for her as well, it meant that Twilight may be alive, hiding somewhere.

"Your Majesty, it seems that the changelings are retreating " one of night guards reported to Luna, as Princess Celestia and her army were just minutes away from here.

"We must say it does not surprise us the she retreats from a lost fight, how disappointing that I do not know where Queen Chrysalis’s hideout is. The best course of action would be slowing her down until Celestia and her army arrives to help capture her. On the other hoof, capturing one or two drones should give us enough information," replied Luna to her guard with sly smile on her face.

As changelings retreated, no one noticed that two of those who were behind disappeared without a trace, sealed away from any way to contact others for help, and even if they did ask for assistance using the hive mind, they would still not receive help since Princess Celestia and her army were just minutes behind.

After 15 minutes Princess Celestia and her army were already in the area where the changelings set up the trap. They split up to start a full scale search, but to her disappointment the changelings were gone, as much as she would usually avoid a situation where her subjects would be hurt, today she was not her usual self and she hoped to give Chrysalis a piece of her mind.

"Your Highness," said Night Guard as he bowed in front of princess Celestia, "I wish to make my report.”

"Proceed," said princess Celestia with her unusual serious tone, Shinning Armor standing next to her, very interested about his sister’s well being.

"We and Princess Luna were searching this area for 3 hours, just as the changelings were, but it seems that they were as unsuccessful as we were, meaning that Twilight Sparkle may still be alive. Princess Luna captured two changelings when they were on the retreat and ordered us to deliver them to you," reported the Night Guard with a strong resolve as he pointed his hoof in prisoners’ direction.

Two captured changelings were struggling and hissing as they tried to escape, but were held in place. Celestia narrowed her eyes, and Shinning Armor walked over to them.

"Where is my sister? Speak all you know if you wish to live!" said Shinning Armor in a threatening tone as he pushed one of changeling prisoners to the ground. "SPEAK!".

Changeling was silent for a moment. There was a special ring on his horn not only making it impossible for him to use magic, but also blocking his connection to his hive. He was not sure how much he could say that would not hurt his hive and compromise his Queen’s plans, he was ready to die for his Queen. So of course being threatened would not make him talk.

But before Shinning Armor could hit changeling again, the other changeling prisoner started to laugh. This got his attention. "What’s so funny?" asked Shinning Armor with a lot anger and menace in his voice.

"Oh, nothing much, it’s just that you’re asking a question to which you already know the answer!" the changeling mocked him, with a sly smile that just made him even angrier.

"That’s enough " said Celestia as she spread her wings. Everypony went silent. "So she really escaped you all?" asked Celestia with hostile voice, but the changelings could taste relief in her.

"Think what you want, I would be surprised if she was still alive in her condition " replied changeling, still using that mocking tone.

The changeling could not say anything more before he was hit by Shinning Armor’s hoof. "What did you do to her? Why are you monsters targeting my sister?" screamed Shinning Armor, as he could hardly hold himself from finishing the prisoner off.

"Ouch.... you really want to know? All we wanted was revenge, revenge on you after your shield threw us away from Canterlot," replied the changeling, looking Shinning Armor in the eyes without fear.

"So you wanted to get revenge on me and my sister for ruining your invasion?" asked Shinning Armor looking into the eyes of his prisoner, anger burning in his own eyes.

"Not really. Our mission was to lure you out of Canterlot to investigate the forest, the Queen did not expect the element bearers, but your sister is still just as guilty," the changeling explained.

"Wait, you wanted to get me?" asked Shinning Armor in surprise, which just made both changelings laugh.

"Really? You didn’t figure it out? Did nopony notice that creatures from the Everfree Forest started to act odd the moment you returned from the Crystal Empire? Wow, you ponies are really dumb. Is your sister the only pony with a brain the family?" teased the changeling, which just made Shinning Armor punch him again.

"Stop it captain Armor" ordered Celestia as she walked closer to changeling prisoner. "So your Queen wanted revenge on Shinning Armor for stopping monsters like you from taking over Equestria and feeding on my little ponies, and you targeted Twilight only because she came instead of him?" asked Celestia, wanting to confirm that what she heard was the true.

"You have no right to blame ponies for defending themselves, it was monsters like and your Queen who attacked, you have no right ..." Celestia lectured with anger in her voice but was cut off.

"WE HAVE NO RIGHT!?" screamed the changeling. "Yes, we have no right to feed ourselves so that we don’t die from starvation, we have no right to try to improve our lives, we have no right to go out of hiding, we have no right to avenge hundreds of dead brothers and sisters, and you have right to banish us from Equestria! YOU have the right to hunt and kill us! Griffons have right no hunt us, dragons have right to eat us, ponies have right to let us starve!" ranted the changeling with anger, pointing out the injustice he experienced himself.

"Hu... hundreds?” questioned Shinning Armor in surprise. "What do you mean? All we did was to throw you out of Equestria.”

"Yes, it was all you and that pink princess of yours did. Well, if you don’t count those changelings who were pushed into walls, or those whose wings were damaged and crashed to the ground, and those who did not get enough love to survive famine. No you fool, you and your love have the blood of hundreds of changelings on your hooves, and many more are dying. Do you really think we would invade Canterlot if it was not necessary for our survival? Revenge is the last thing left and you have no right to take it away from us. I bet you feel terrible after what happened to your sister, I can feel your anger, I can feel your desire to put justice into your own hoofs. Well we felt exactly the same after what you and your witch did mmm.... " yelled the changeling with anger, right in Shinning Armor’s face until he was shut up by nearby guards.

"Take them to Canterlot dungeon," ordered princess Celestia as guards bowed and took the prisoners away.

Both princess Celestia and Shinning Armor felt unease about the situation, not so long ago they thought of changelings as invaders who stole love from ponies, replaced them and tried to take over Equestria from greed. It never occurred to them that it was hunger that forced them to do it, and they did not think about checking on the defeated changelings. There was a lot to think about before Luna returned.

"Where is princess Luna?" Celestia asked one of the night guards as the prisoners were taken away, which made the night guard feel uneasy. "Well......., she followed retreating changelings to track down their hideout." reported the night guard, fearing that it was going to make Princess Celestia angry, not to mention that she normally would already be in a bad mood about 3 hours ago, and lack of sleep did not help the matter.

"She did WHAT? Oh no no no no no!" said Celestia with a lot of worry in her voice.

"Please wait Princess, it would do you no good if you tried to find Luna, we have no idea where to search for her and you are already very tired. We should focus on what we can do," said Shinning Armor as he tried to stop his princess from doing something pointless.

It took a few moments for Celestia to calm down. After moment of silence and deep thinking she spoke: "You are right Capitan Armor, my sister can take care of herself. Twilight needs us more at the moment.”

It was already late at night and many guards, Celestia included, started to get tired and sleepy. With fruitless searching, and it took over an hour of negotiating for other captains to convince Princess Celestia to return to Canterlot to sleep and leave the search to them, as soon Night Guards would arrive and continue the search when the main military forces stopped to rest.

...

2 hours later, Canterlot

...

After another 2 hours that Princess Celestia spent sleeping in her chariot, the guards decided to carry the Princess to her chambers so as not to break the sleeping princess out of her dreams.

As both guards walked in castle halls, carrying princess Celestia on their back, they quickly stopped as they noticed a shadow figure in front of them, and weak light in the middle of the night did not helped to identify it.

"Who goes there? Identify yourself and state your business!" said one of the guards in threatening tone, as both guards put the sleeping Princess Celestia on the floor, taking defensive positions. "We won’t repeat ourselves, identify yourself or we will use lethal force.”

Both pegasai prepared themselves to attack the intruder. Once they noticed move in their direction, they considered starting the alarm or waking up Celestia. "You have been warned, now ....... P…p…p…princess Luna!" exclaimed guard in shock as he saw who stood in front of him, but his jaw dropped once he noticed in what condition the princess was.

"W... what happened to you princess?" asked guard terrified.

In front of him was Princess Luna with many injuries upon her, blood on her wounds and numerous bruises and scratches. Her facial expression did not look worried or scared, more like she was in pain. "You are injured your majesty, we need to call…mmmm." The guard’s sentence was cut off as Princess Luna put her hoof on his mouth. "We need to speak with Celestia…" Luna said in cold, weak voice.

Right away the guards rushed to Princess Celestia and tried to wake her up, but with poor results, as none guards had enough courage to use much force. "Out of the way," said Luna coldly as both guards cleared a path for her.

Luna was now standing above her sleeping sister. Celestia was sleeping like rock, and for a good reason. After all, she was awake for half of the night without any sleep; even Luna can hardly stay awake during the day for long, no matter how much she wished to do so.

Slowly, Luna ducked and put her face close to Celestia’s ear as she whispered, "Celly, time to wake up," but with no reaction. "Celly, I have important news," Luna said putting more strength into her voice, but to no avail, after which Luna took a deep breath.

"THOU SHALT WAKETH UP AND GET OFF THINE FAT FLANK NOW IF THOU WISH NOT TO HAVE NIGHTMARES FOR MANY MOONS!" Luna yelled in the Royal Canterlot Voice, not only waking up Celestia, but blasting her away a few meters like a ball.

"Whaaaaa ..." murmured Celestia, as she started to analyse her surroundings."Is this another one of your pranks sister? How many times do I have to....? “any annoyance from such a sudden and forceful waking quickly left once Celestia saw the injuries on her sister.

"Luna! What happened to you? Who did it to you? Did Chrysalis hurt you? If she did, she will pay!" said Celestia as her surprise and fear turned into anger and then to worry. "Luna, what happened?"

"Calm down, dear sister, we are fine, we just used a lot magic and got a few injuries from battle, but it is nothing serious. We can talk about it in your chambers." replied Luna with a weak voice as she walked away. "Luna, wait!" said Celestia as she ran follow her sister, leaving the two guards behind.

After moment of standing in place, the guards decided to go to their post and ask the night guards to take their shift, after all even as really well trained Pegasai, they can’t go on for hours without sleep, it would drastically reduce their effectiveness.

...

Celestia’s chambers

...

Princess Celestia was sitting next to her big bed as she watched her injured sister. Usually she had much patience in any situation, but today was not a usual day, just some hours ago her sleep was interrupted by news that her student may be dead or in grave danger, for the past few hours she and her army were searching the Everfree Forest to find Twilight Sparkle with no results, her sister tried to follow Chrysalis and find her hive only to get back injured after some sort of battle. No, today was a day on which she could simply not wait. "Luna, tell me what happened, please, tell me everything!” asked Celestia quickly with an evident lack of patience in her voice.

Luna sighed deeply and took a breath before speaking "After We failed to locate the whereabouts of Twilight Sparkle and apparently the changelings failed too, We followed them hoping to find their hideout in the wastelands and to gather more information. However, as easy as it was to evade the changelings’ detection in the Everfree Forest under the shadows of our night, once in the open they somehow noticed me.”

"Did they attack you?" asked Celestia with worry in her voice as she once again looked upon Luna’s injuries.

"Yes they did sister, a group of them that We did not notice flew behind us when the rest of the swarm acted like they did not know I was behind them. They attacked from two sides by surprise, I tried to defend myself, and defeated at least three waves of those monsters with my dark magic, and they had trouble hitting me thanks to my shadows. It was going well until Queen Chrysalis arrived." explained Luna with her weak voice.

"The changeling Queen was indeed weakened and I had night on my side, in a normal duel I would have overpowered her easily, but with an army of changelings attacking me from all sides and the Queen attacking with full force I did not stand a chance. They used hit and run tactics for at last half of an hour and I was forced to retreat. Luckily for me even weakened and injured, escaping under the shadows of our night was not hard, and the changelings did not try to follow me.”

After listening to Luna’s story, and with the information she got from captured drones, she came to a conclusion. ‘Chrysalis and her changelings are indeed starving, not only are they less numerous and weaker, back 5 months ago Chrysalis could overpower me, and her army defeated my royal guards with ease; now ,all together, they had trouble in fight against my little sister and avoided direct confrontation’ thought Celestia as she tried to figure out what Chrysalis’s next move would be.

"They seem too weak to fight us anymore, but a hungry animal is even more dangerous. It was yet another mistake of mine when I asked you to go on such a risky mission. You need to go to the medical wing so they can tend to your injuries Luna." commanded Celestia with a sleepy and tired voice, as she tried her best to stay awake.

"No Celly, we still have duties to perform, but do not fear sister, our injuries are not of significance, and my responsibilities are small compared to yours. You are the one who need to take a solid rest." replied Luna with fake strong voice.

"But Luna, you are in no condition to..." Celestia tried to add but was cut off.

"Celly, we are fine, really. Thy did not make any mistake when thou sent me to search for Twilight; it was Us who took too much risk when We tried to follow that wretched Queen. We think thou should worry less about us and more about thoust student. We have no idea with what miracle she managed to escape Chrysalis and her army, but she is somewhere out there, hiding, terrified or even hurt, and we need to be strong for her." lectured Luna still trying to act strong despite her injuries.

"Now thee go to sleep which thou most sorely needs sister, we shall make sure to wake thee up when thou will need to raise the sun." said Luna with sly smile on her face with made Celestia take a step back.

Princess Celestia felt far too tired to argue with her sister, and she really needed some sleep. She was going a full day and half of a night already, and tomorrow not only she will have to do her usual duties but also search for her student too, not to mention explaining to the ponies in Canterlot why half of the Equestrian army was mobilized.

"You are right. Good night sister, but please, do not overdo it Lulu." answered Celestia with a very sleepy voice, as she went to her bed and closed her eyes. There was not much time to sleep left, so she had to use every moment of it.

"Good night sister and have a good sleep, you will be needing it." replied Luna with calm voice watching her sister, making sure she is already sleeping.

"Twilight Sparkle, wherever you are, please do not leave us." said Luna with sad tone as she went to the balcony and started to watch Everfree Forest, as small tear fell from Luna’s eye. "This will be sad night indeed." said Luna, watching her Moon for moment before going to continue her duty.

Chapter 3 - Who am I ?

...

3 days has passed since Twilight Sparkle went missing and princesses did all they could in search for her with no results so far.

Guards searched everfree forest in day/night shift, Canterlot was not any longer on high alert, but unicorn guards were still on the position in case of changeling invasion.

Princess Celestia continued to do her duty hardly keeping fake smile on her face, fighting urge to cry.

Luna did her share of search during the night since she still did not had much duties to do anyway, it was only 3 years and 1 or 2 months since she returned from her banishment still adjusting.

Luna also tried to search for Twilight in her dreams, she was after all princess of the night and entering ponies dreams was something she did before her banishment with easy, but like with any other spells, entering ponies dreams also had limitation and so she failed over and over to find Twilight dream.

Queen Chrysalis and her changelings did not showed up in everfree forest after they were forced to retreat and did not made any move so far.

Yet none of them knew that mare they were looking for is now sleeping peacefully in chageling hive in everfree forest and recovering from her operation, as in pass 3 days her live was on the line.

...

Heart of everfree forest, Queen Rubyred underground home.

...

In underground caves under everfree forest in a very clean room, purple mare full of bandages was resting on a hospital bad, some rather old hospital equipment monitoring her condition, for pass 3 days she was sleeping under care of changeling name Scalpel.

On the right of the bed was sitting Doctor Scalpel checking unicorn condition, to the left of the bed was bucket with some water and some bottles with healing juice and vitamins, and in front of the bed was a wooden door guarded by another changeling, although his size was smaller than Scalpel.

" Hmmm......, it seems her condition is improving fast, quite impressive considering that she was under death door just 3 days ago, I just hope so that she will wake up soon, with my current equipment it is hard to feed her as long as she is unconscious " said Doctor Scalpel with small hint of worry, Changeling guarding door just nod on this sentence.

" I need to go get some bandages, it is about time to replace old ones, can you keep an eye on her and report if something happen " asked Doctor Scalpel as he walked closer to the guard, " I think you worry to much, she is sleeping for around 3 days so far, there is no need to check on her every single minute " replied drone with bored and annoyed look on his face, with made Scalpel roll his eyes.

" In her stage it is best to monitor her all time, better safe than sorry " replied Scalpel as he walked outside his room, leaving guard and patient behind, " yea, right...... " said guard as he walked closer to Unicorn, " why does he care about you so much, you are just a pony, a food source, if it was not the fact that you will do a fine barging chip for my Queen, I would not even waste my time here " said guard to sleeping mare with boredom in his voice, and than returned to guard door.

...

Minutes passed as guard was still watching unicorn as he was ordered, being bored would not get in the way of his duty,

" huh ? " said guard as he noticed that sleeping unicorn is shaking her head, " what's that, hmmm.... curiosity, fear, pain, a wave of emotions is coming from her, is she, is she going to wake up ? " said guard to himself with surprise expression on his face.

After moment of analysing emotions he was sure that this unicorn is about to wake up, so he decided to go out of the room to not scare her off, as he tried to contact Scalpel in hive mind, " Doctor Scalpel, it seems that your patient is trying to wake up, I felt a big wave of emotions from her so better get your full of holes flank here this instant " reported guard, as he was watching patient from behind door, ready to hide the moment patient would open her eyes.

...

Slowly purple unicorn opened her eyes, blinded a bit by a light inside the room, but after minute she got used to light in the room, now watching around with curiosity, ' where .... am I ' thought to herself purple mare as she analysed the room, ' the last think I remember .......... I was ..... hurt and dying ...... but I do not remember anything else '.

After moment of panic, unicorn noticed that she is to weak to move and it hurt when she tried so she decided to just lie down for now, ' the pain I felt is almost gone, so I was healed by someone ' thought mare to herself as she noticed door in front of her opening, and into this room walked a black bug like creature, ' there is a long horn think on his head, some sort of natural armor on his back, some weird creepy holes in his hooves and he is all black, wait, holes, poor think, I wonder what could hurt his hooves so badly, do it hurt ? ' thought mare to herself as she watched weird black creature in front of her, eyes very curious but too weak to show any kind of excitement.

Unicorn and Changeling watched one another for half of minute in awkward silent, ' Changeling holes, pony feathers, stupid, stupid, stupid ' thought to himself Doctor Scalpel after he realized that he literally rushed into room without disguise, ' way to go for a first impression, screaming coming in three ..... two ..... one .... '.

But the silent remained as there were no scream, " ummm....... h... hello.... " said Purple Unicorn with weak voice, as she tried to break the silent.

' What, no screaming, no fear, what the buck is going on ' thought surprised changeling, ' I do not sense fear any more, just curiosity, alot of curiosity, but how is this possible ? why is not she afraid of me ? ', " umm.... hello " reply changeling still surprised by mare reaction.

Unicorn in her bed started to look around once again before focusing her gaze upon changeling again " where ..... am I ? " asked Unicorn with weak voice.

" ....... you are in my room " replied changeling with calm tone, still hardly finding any words he could use other than answering mare questions.

" Did .... y.....ou saved me ? " asked Unicorn, not even blinking her eyes waiting for answer.

" ummmm..... yea, I did .... not alone that is, I had help " reply changeling, still stressed by awkwardness of the situation.

" Thank you " said purple Unicorn with the most happy and cheerful voice she could muster in her condition, with made Changeling blush, and red is very visible on black skin, " y...... your welcome ".

Doctor Scalpel felt embarrassed but a bit happy, he never expected a pony to thank him when he was not in his disguise, it felt very nice, and sudden rush of positive emotion coming from purple mare was his first meat from pony from the moment he had to evacuate form Canterlot, " how are you felling " asked Changeling with calm and worried voice.

Purple Unicorn did not said anything for moment as she started to watch her hooves and body full of bandages, " a little sore ..... but far better, thank you " said Unicorn with smile on her face.

" What a relief " said changeling as he walked closer to his patient, still not taking his gaze from her eyes.

" Who are you ? " asked Unicorn with curiosity, but still keep smiling.

This question took changeling by surprise, he blinked tree times before replying, " my .... my name is Scalpel, but everyone call me Doctor Scalpel and I am a changeling ".

Unicorn still smiling said gently " nice to meet you Doctor Scalpel, what is changeling ? ".

This question made Scalpel to take few steps back ' really, how is this possible, how can she not know what changeling is, I would not be surprised by that answer in the pass, but after Canterlot invasion there is probably not a single pony who does not know, even in Appleosa news and rumours arrived at last 2 months ago, what's more, why would a pony who do not know what changeling is by target of Chrysalis, it make no sense '

" Well..... um...... changeling is a race what pony shaped bug like creatures, we have wings what let us fly, we have horns what let us use magic, and we can shape shift " lectured Scalpel as purple Unicorn was listening to him carefully.

" Do ...... do I am changeling too ? " asked Unicorn with confusion on her face, with make Scalpel almost lose his balance.

" Whaat....nooo... you are a pony...a Unicorn to be exact, why by Rubyred name would you think that you are changeling ? " asked Scalpel, his expression was mixed by confusion and annoyance.

" Well..... you said changelings can shape shift, so I was wondering do maybe I am not in my true form, what is Unicorn by the way ? " asked Unicorn with adorable squeeze, if last question did not made Scalpel lose his balance, this one did, as changeling literally hit the floor.

' This pony is impossible, by all holes in the world, how, what, why, for whatever reason Chrysalis and her army would want to kill this pony, in my long carrier as doctor I never lost my sanity, but I fell that this mare can change it ' thought to himself changeling as he slowly recovered.

" Are you aright " asked Unicorn as she watched changeling trying to get back up, " fine ... I am fine ..., Unicorn is a pony with horn on it is head, unicorn can use magic, there are also other ponies like Pegasus who have wings and can fly, and those without wings and horn are called Earth Ponies and they lack of magic and flying ability they pay up with strength, durability and skills in food farming " lectured annoyed changeling, he could felt like he was teaching a filly who was listening with curiosity to his every world with her big adorable eyes penetrating his scull.

" So I can use magic .... good to know " replied Unicorn with thoughtful voice, but than her gaze focused on changeling holes, " do those hurts ? "

" What " said Scalpel as he blinked multiple times, " you mean those on my hooves " it just made Unicorn nod a little, " no, they do not hurt at all, every changeling have holes in they hooves, it is natural " lectured Scalpel.

" What for ? " asked unicorn with curiosity,

" it reduce our weight, and when we disguise ourselves, it reduce cost of love we use, the less love we have, the bigger holes, if we are well feed, our holes are smaller, but in time of starvation we can get more holes on our entire body in desperate attempt to mineralize our love reserve use " lectured changeling, he felt more and more like he was a school teacher now or maybe a biology teacher.

" Love reserves ? "

Changeling face-hoof, ' of-course, if she does not know what changeling is, of-course she do not know how we live, I better get it out of the way ' thought to himself Scalpel as he continued his lecture, " we changelings feed on love and positive emotions from other creatures, of-course we can eat other food, but it will not stop our hunger, why do you have so many questions all of the sudden, I fell like the next think you will ask me is about what is magic and how unicorns use magic " replied changeling with annoyance in his voice.

" Well ..... it crossed my mind " said Unocorn only to stop the moment changeling hit floor with his hoof.

" Enough, what is wrong with you, how can a pony know so little, how can unicorn know nothing about magic, are you making fun off me, enough is enough !" said aloud changeling with anger, " now listen here miss, you will tell me your name and where you come from right now, and I do not want to hear any more stupid questions ! ".

Doctor Scalpel was angry but quickly stopped as he felt a big rush of sadness coming from his patient, her eyes started watering ' oh no, how could I snap on her like this ' thought changeling to himself but it was to late to take it back.

" I do not remember ....... sniff .... the last think i remember is horrible pain ... sniff, shiff ..... I was in dark scary forest .... sniff... escaping from I do not know .... sniff ..... and now I am here .... sniff........ who am I ? ... sniff " said purple Unicorn half crying in every sentence, tears falling from her eyes into her bandaged hooves.

' How could I be so stupid, she did not fear me because have no idea what I am, had no idea who she was, asking tons of questions, it was so simple, how could I be so insensitive, I am one failure of a doctor ' thought to himself changeling as guilt started to consume him.

" I am sorry..... I did not knew " said Scalpel apolitically as he walked closer to his patient, wiping tears from unicorn face, making her looking into his eyes again, " it never occurred to me ....., please do not cry " said changeling as he tried to comfort his patient " shhhh..... everything will be alight, shhh ".

After minutes of comforting and crying, Unicorn finally felt better, she did not smile, but was not sad either, as pain and sadness was replaced with curiosity again.

" So ummm.... I bet you must be hungry and thirsty " said changeling as he decided to break awkward silent and start acting like a doctor.

Unicorn did not noticed it before, so confused and curious that only now she noticed emptiness of her stomach, a weird voice in her brain begging her to eat something, " Yeee.......essss.., I am starving " said Unicorn with pleading eyes with made changeling smile at the look of so adorableness.

" I thought so, for now drink those " said Scalpel as he put bottle of healing juice with straw in it to make drinking it more easy, of-course Unicorn drink it as fast as she could, trying to full her empty stomach, once she finished it, Scalpel gave her another bottle of vitamin juice and next he took some water from bucked into empty bottle and let her drink it.

" Are you felling better, you do not fell your body rejecting juice, do you ? " asked changeling worried that her body would reject it.

" Not really, it tasted good, but I still fell very hungry " replied Unicorn with smile on her face, but still pleading eyes " can I have another ? "

" Not really, this juice will increase your healing speed, but it wont full your body " said changeling as he took a bit of grass close to Unicorn face, " try to eat this, but chew it thoroughly " said changeling as his patient did what he said, and before he knew it, she was asking for another one and another one.

" Wow, you was one hungry mare, how are you felling ? "

" Full " said Unicorn proudly, " I fell stronger, I can even move my hooves now, outh " said Unicorn as she felt a bit of pain in her back legs " well, maybe not all of my hooves, but my forelegs seems fine ".

Surprised Scalpel started to analyse her forelegs, " oh right, I forgot about changing your bandages, better get to it now " said changeling as he focused his horn to gently take bandages from his patient forelegs, with made Unicorn watch a green light in mix of awe and impression.

" Remarkable " said changeling as he finished taking bandages off, " seems your forelegs healing well, I expected the injuries to last at last two more days " said changeling with impression in his voice.

" Was this magic " asked Unicorn with curiosity in her voice, " Yes it was, this one was levitation, it is the most basic unicorn spell, thought for us changelings it is one of harder to learn, but I am sure you will learn how to use it very quickly " lectured changeling, smile grown on unicorn face, as wave of happiness went out of her.

Scalpel decided to not put any bandages on unicorn forelegs it was fully healed, exchanging it only in parts what were still in bad stage, with to his surprise were rare,

" Incredible, not only you survived injuries what would kill any other Unicron, no, not just Unicorn, even Earth Pony would not survive this, and healing after all my operations should last for 2 weeks at best, and most of your body is almost healed, you are totally a special case " said Scalpel in amazement, with made unicorn blush.

" You really think I am special " asked purple mare as she tried to cover her blushing face with her hooves, in her case it worked well.

" Definitively, I would bet my licence as doctor that you are more than just ordinary unicorn, not that my licence is worth anything now ".

After some talk Scalpel decided to find a way to entertain unicorn, after all he would not always be there for her, so he walked around his room searching for something " aha " said changeling to himself as he took small book from his book shelf " I hope you like stories, because I am going to read you one ".

" Read ? " asked purple Unicorn in confusion.

" This is story about a brave pony knight who went on adventure to rescue a princess ....... " Scalped was reading the story as Unicorn listened with amusement.

...

5 minutes later

...

" Excuse me " said Unicorn as she tried to cut him off from reading the story as gently as she could, " do I can read this story just like you " asked unicorn, a wave of curiosity and excitement coming from her, ' and so fish captured the bait ' thought changeling as he hand over the book closer to Unicorn.

" This letter is A, this one is B, this one is C ............................................................ now read this part " lectured changeling as he pointed a word in the box.

" bbbraaave ... brave " said Unicorn carefully.

" Very good, now please excuse me, but I need to tell others about your recovery, can you train reading until I am back ? " asked Scalpel with gently voice, he really felt like he was teaching a filly, even if she was just grown up patient with amnesia.

" Sure " said Unicorn as she was to focused in trying to read to even look in changeling eyes.

Slowly Scalpel went out of the room and closed door quietly.

" It is about time, for a moment I thought you will never leave this filly of a pony " said guard changeling as he was sitting close to the door, with his usual bored expression on his face, " You do not need to ask, I will guard her, now go and report to the Queen, you already wasted to much time ".

" Fine fine, just do not interrupt her please, I want to leave best impression, and she deserve a break after what she experienced " said Scalpel with serious tone, with made guard drone nod, and so Doctor Scalpel was on his way to his Queen, sure, he could report her directly in hive mind, but Queen Rubyred always asked her subjects to talk to her personally if it is not emergency.

...

5 minutes later, Queen Rubyred throne room

...

Queen was analysing maps of Canterlot and Manehattan, " Doctor Scalpel is asking for your audience your highness " said changeling guard standing near throne room doors, after hearing this, Queen Rubyred put down maps on the floor to her left, " let him in " reply Queen as guard bow and did as she said.

" Oh, welcome my little Scalpel, I hear that you was taking very good care of our poor patient, so I assume your visit mean good or bad news about her, did she woke up ? " asked Queen with excited and gentle voice.

" Yes my Queen, she just woke up, and I must say that her body is recovering at remarkably high rate, she will be fully healed and in full strength very soon " reported Scalpel as he bowed and stand.

" Oh, it is a great news, did you managed to get any informations from her, like her name, rank in pony society, reason why Chrysalis tried to kill her ?, those questions need answer before she find out that she is in changeling hive instead of pony hospital " said Queen Rubyred as he tone changed from happy to serious and than worried one, but the emotions what she felt from his subject did not comfort her.

" I am afraid I have bad news your majesty, it seems that poor mare lost her memories, she does not remember anything " reported Scalpel with sad tone, his head was down as he watched floor, he could fell disappointment coming from his Queen.

" What a shame, I had so high hopes of her, but it seems that even fate is again us ...." said Queen as she started to think deeply.

After minute of silent she spoke again, " For now keep her accommodated and under observation until she fully heal, meanwhile I will announce news to all my subjects about her recovery, hopefully one of my subjects will be able to recognize her once the bandages are off, until than we will need to use our disguises to not scare this pony ".

" That wont be necessary my Queen, it seems that she is not afraid of us, she not even know what changeling is " said Scalpel.

" Hmm.... and how did you found out, you used your disguise, did you ? " asked Rubyred with suspicious tone, what made Scalpel do few steps back, the emotions she felt from him were more than answer,

" Oh silly Scalpel, so focused on your patient health well being that you probably rushed into her room forgetting that you are not disguised " said Queen with happy tone, giggling with amusement at his blushing subject, she could see it over and over, as red colour appeared on his black face, trying to hide it with his hooves, holes in it not helping in this at all, she could watch her subjects blushing and never got tired of it, they were always so adorable to her.

" Now now my dear Scalpel, no need to fell embarrassed, to be honest we would need to end our charade sooner or later anyway, so it is best that we not need to hide anything from this pony anyway, now than, are there any other informations you wish to provide me with ? "

" Aside from her impressive recovery speed and durability there is nothing else to report, she should recover in around two days, however if I may ask your majesty, do you have any plans of what we will do with her after she will be back to full health ? " asked Scalpel with curiosity in his voice and emotions, so far he was so busy to make sure that his patient will survive, he did not thought about what fate will await her.

Queen did not answered right away as she thought for a moment, " I am afraid that unless her memory will recover as well, she will be useless as barging chip, my goal was to calm this unicorn fear of us and explain our situation, and than hopefully return her as prove of our good intentions or for some sort of reward, and than she would tell other ponies about us, it is much more easy for ponies to believe other pony than some bug like creatures what are masters at deceiving, but since she not remember anything, we will be blamed for taking away her memory " lectured Rubyred as she thought for a moment before continued, " in normal situation I would just send her back to Equestria and let her start her live a new, but considering our critical situation, I can not afford to be kind, I am afraid her fate will be as our love source " said Queen with sadness in her voice.

Queen Rubyred and her hive never felt ill intentions towards other nations and forgive them they hostility, what's more most of her subjects already got used to live as ponies and would not want to take love or positive emotions by force from any pony, but in hard times there is no place for hesitation, and this one pony would be enough to keep at last two of her subjects feed for many years, or slow down decrease of her love reserves at last a little, with is always a little more time for her hive to survive, more days or weeks for her to come out with solution.

" I do not really fell like talking for now my dear Scalpel, hopefully we will know more about this pony tomorrow, now please return to your duty " said Queen with sad tone, with made changeling bow and leave throne room, " as you command my Queen ".

Once room was empty once again, Queen started to think again, her spirit was low, ' if I wont find any solution soon, we will be forced to abandon our ways and take drastic measures, and as I know my subjects well, none of them will be happy ' thought Queen to herself, she fell pressure of her well being of her subject, unlike Chrysalis who had over 5000 subjects and starvation crisis on her hooves, Queen Rubyred hive was small and more easy to accommodate with love and good live, but even so small hive will run out her love reserves in close years.

The fact that her hive was small was not any comfort to her, maybe she did not had many subjects to care about, but instead she cared about her small hive on personal level, knowing every changeling very well, talking with her every subjects day after day, it was less of a big kingdom and more of a big family, but the bonds were still strong and idea of making her subjects unhappy was almost as hard as fear of letting them fell starvation.

...

Scalpel made a detour, his visit in throne room went far faster than he expected, it seems that his question about the fate of his patient upset the Queen, leaving no place for usual happy chat with her, with made him fell guilty, as much as he would not like the idea of putting his patient into cocoon, where she would be left in dream world as love and positive emotions would be drained from her everyday, he knew it was best option for hive safely.

Right now Scalpel went around hive, visiting other rooms and asking other changelings do they have any pony food or something he would use to entertain unicorn mare until she gets better, getting grass and hay was easy, but for ponies it is not even half tasty as sweets, cake, muffin or cupcake.

After his small resources gathering adventure, he was on his way back to his room with two cupcakes, three medium sized books, one small plastic ball and some sort of board game, ' I hope her body is strong enough to handle a cupcake, oh well, I will find out soon enough '.

...

Scalpel opened door to his room and levitate gathered goods left to bed Unicorn was in, apparently guard was standing inside, watching over unicorn with less boring expression than usual, instead there was a bit hint of annoyance.

in front of him was his patient in his bed, still reading book, " I brought you some small gifts, how is your reading training going ? " asked Scalpel with curiosity, as purple Unicorn put her book down and watched him, she was smiling and he could fell overload of excitement flowing from her.

" You brought me more books ? THANK YOU " said unicorn cheerfully, as she watched gifts for her.

" Not so fast my dear, one book at a time " said changeling as he waved his hoof in disagreement.

" Owwwww... but I already finished reading this book " said Unicorn with disappointment in her voice.

This answer surprised Changeling, " What, but you just started to learn how to read half hour ago, how could you finish reading this book already " asked Scalpel in surprise in his voice.

" Weellllll, I started slowly but overtime reading become easier and easier, I fell so natural, once I finished this book, I started to read it again and again " said Unicorn proudly as her happiness was back.

" WHAT, you mean you managed to read this book three times already, I mean, it is very short book, but how could you read it so fast ? " said Scalpel in amazement.

" Four times to be honest " said guarding drone who was standing close to the door, " and she was asking me about stuff like what is a dragon, what kind of materials were used to build tower where princess was held, you know what, I am out of here, have fun with her " said guard as he walked outside slamming door behind him.

' Ok, lets analyse the situation, less than hour ago this pony head was empty, and she did not even knew how to read, and now she is some sort of super book worm with endless thirst for knowledge, hmmm....., I guess losing memories did not affect her knowledge and abilities, just hide it inside her brain, she probably loved to read and so it took her mere minutes to read well again, it is not really learning but relearning what she already know, if only recovering her memories would be as easy as recovering her knowledge and skills ' thought changeling to himself, as he walked next to his patient.

" Do you remember anything now ? "

" I am afraid not, Doctor Scalpel, but I do not mind, I may not remember anything from my pass, but there is so many books to read, so many thinks to learn, so can I please read another book, pretty please " plead Unicorn watching into changeling eyes.

' She lost everything but she looks in the future instead of being sad about the pass, what a pity that she may end up closed in cocoon living in a dream world ', " Sure, read all you like, but once you will fell tired, go to sleep, your body is still recovering and so you need a lot of sleep, oh and there is no need to call me Doctor, Scalpel will do just fine " replied changeling as he levitated another book into mare hooves.

And so another hours of reading and playing a game called five hundreds questions started, this was going to be a long day.

Chapter 4 - Twilight, who is Twilight

...

After many hours of reading and talking, Purple Unicorn finally fall asleep to Doctor Scalpel relieve, as much as exciting it was in the beginning, poor changeling could not handle curiosity of his patient, as her thirst for knowledge was slowly driving him insane.

And so after a long night of sleep, another day started with a DOOR SLAM

The noise quickly woke up changeling, but Unicorn was still sleeping deeply, now in front of patient and Doctor Scalpel was standing another changeling.

" How is she felling " asked changeling as confused and captured off guard Scalpel recognized him.

" Oh, hi Donut Joe, you know, it is more polite to knock before you rush in " replied annoyed Scalpel.

" And here you call me by my pony name, I told you before, I am drone number 54, but do you ever listen nooooo " replied annoyed changeling, he got used to be called by his pony name, but it was always angering him since it remind him of live he would never have again.

" Fine, fine, Mr. number 54 never knock before enter " said Scalpel with sly look on his face, " what are you doing here ? after our mission was finished, I was appointed to take care of this mare, and you was send into reconnaissance mission ".

" I finished my mission, it was always the same every day, group of Royal Guards were searching the forest during the day, and than Night Guards came to continue search during night, day after day, they seems to be desperate to find this Unicorn, so tell me, did you found out who is she and how she is felling ? " reported Donut Joe or how he called himself drone 54, as he watched peacefully sleeping Unicorn, with most of the bandages gone from her body.

" She is very healthy, she recovered far faster than any other pony would and will be back up in 2 days, but the bad news is that she lost all of her memories and I failed to get any informations about her, why did you just not asked the royal guards who were they searching for ? after all you was disguised as royal guard yourself " asked Scalpel as Donut Joe frown with annoyance.

" Queen Rubyred gave me direct instruction to not ask them since it would be suspicious, they are very concerned about changelings, and if you thought that those guards in Canterlot were silent types, you would not believe how small they talked during the search, I failed to get any info at all, so Queen gave me some free time and appointed someone else for reckon operation " replied Donut Joe.

" Well, they should give up search sooner or later, and it would take them years to discover our hive, hopefully one of other changelings will recognize her today now that bandages are off " said Scalpel.

" Yea, whatever, anyway since I am here, how about we wake her up, I would like to learn more about Unicorn we saved " said Donut Joe as he watched Unicorn closely now with no bandages or wounds covering Unicorn body, " she seems very familiar thought, like I saw her visiting my cafe in Canterlot. ".

Doctor Scalpel quickly panicked, " Oh, nonononono, she need her rest, yesss, she need a lot of rest, we should wait until she wake up, forcing her to wake up would be very unhealthy ".

However Donut Joe easy sensed emotions from his partner from last mission, " you are hiding something " pointed Donut Joe with suspicious expression on his face, being part of changeling hive made it impossible to hide any secrets from others, they could read emotions from one another like open book.

" Ummm.... welll..... lets just say that there will be a lot of time to talk once she wake up, no need to rush " said panicked doctor, he not wanted to start another answering questions game if he could help it, ' hopefully today I will get some help, I wonder how long DonutJoe will withstand her questions assault ' thought Scalpel to himself as he levitate some books out of his book shelve next to Unicorn bed.

Some hours later

Already group of changelings were now standing in front of the door where inside was sleeping Unicorn, they were asked to wait until she wake up and so they did, lately there was not much to do in the hive, so possibility to talk to a pony who was not afraid of them was like a tourist attraction, and by any luck one of them would recognize her and make his Queen proud.

Inside of the room, two changelings were sitting not to far from the bed, since there was not much to do anyway, Scalpel took a board game and played with DonutJoe to pass some time, board games base most about luck so reading your opponent emotions did not helped at all to win, however it helped to notice if your opponent is cheating so it was a fair play do players wanted it or not.

In the pass some of Rubyred changelings in they pony disguise visited Las Pegasus and played a game called ' find a cheater ', and the one who notice more cheating situations was the winner, of-course they were to fair to use they emotions reading ability's to get easy money in the casino since Queen not wanted her subjects to use they advantages to win easy money, it would be unfair for ponies who literally feed them, but now it does not matter how fair they were since they pony life's were over.

As DonutJoe and Scalpel played they game our of boredom, they game was interrupted by long yawn coming from unicorn in bed next to them, as it took they full attention.

Both Changelings started to stare at slowly waking up Unicorn, DonutJoe was curious and excited to finally meet pony he helped to safe, Scalpel on the other hoof was a bit afraid to face memoryless Unicorn curiosity.

Unicorn wipe her eyes with her hoof and blinked a few times until she noticed two changelings in the room, they both were almost alike for her but she noticed that one of them is little bigger when other is little more muscular, " hello ".

DonutJoe stared at the Unicorn, the fact that she was not afraid of him surprised him even thought he already knew about it, so Scalpel was the one to speak first " hello, how are you felling ? I hope you slept well ".

" Yes, yes I did and I fell so much better now " replied purple Unicorn with a cheerful voice, " the pain is gone and I fell so much stronger ".

" Well I be damned " said aloud DonutJoe with a smug on his face, " you are one tough mare, and to think that when I saved you, you was nothing more than a bag of broken bones ".

" You mean when we saved her, we were on this mission together, remember " pointed out Scalpel as he poke his friends with his hoof, " but I must agree, she is one tough patient ".

On those words Unicorn blush red, " please .... stop it ...., I am nothing special, really " reply Unicorn embarrassed by this flattery, " anyway, if I may ask, who are you ? ".

" I am Dron... " he was cut off by Doctor Scalpel, " his name is Donut Joe " said Scalpel with amusement as he received a cold look from his partner.

" Hello Donut Joe, nice to meet you " said smiling unicorn, with made changeling sigh.

" Hello " reply DonutJoe with surrender in his voice, he did not fell like arguing to be called Drone 54 any more.

" So you and Scalpel saved my life, can you tell me something about yourself ? " asked purple mare with a curious and gentle tone.

" What can I say, when my partner here was a doctor, I was selling donuts in Canterlot, and even thought I gained far less love and positive emotions than my partner what made me weaker, I assume you that I was far better in kicking flanks of those who tried to harm you " said Donut Joe proudly with his head high.

" Who tried to harm me, and why ? " asked Unicorn as she lost her smile and started to worry.

" We will come to that later, but for now, surprise " said Donut Joe as he walked to the door and opened them, and group of other changelings entered the room.

Unicorn watched in confusion as a lot of bug like creatures entered this room, many of them almost identical thought some had small size difference and others had holes in different places, still at the moment she could not even recognize Scalpel and Donut Joe in all this mess, " umm.... helllllooo..... " said unicorn slowly with ensured tone, a bit surprised as well.

Other changelings watched her carefully, some of them watched like she was a tourist attraction, others tried to recognize who this pony may be, but all of them were rather excised to see pony who is not afraid of them, meanwhile Doctor Scalpel managed to get out of changeling crowd, " many changelings what live in our Hive really wanted to meet you, some of them even visited you when you was sleeping, I hope you do not mind ".

Unicorn just smiled again, " I do not mind at all " replied unicorn with happy tone, " nice to meet you every pony " said unicorn with a blush on her face, as wave of positive emotions was felt in the room, it was like a tiny snack for every changeling in the room.

" Dawwww.... " said group of changelings together, " she is so adorable " said one of the younger ones, " she looks so much better than two days ago " said another one, " she looks familiar, I think I saw her in Canterlot " another changeling mentioned, " what a nice looking mare " said another one, " her emotions taste sweet " pointed another one, " are you felling better ? " asked another one, " TWILIGHT ! " screamed another one.

It was than when entire room went silent, as every changeling in the room turned they eyes on a young small changeling who somehow managed to crawl under crowd, Scalpel and Donut Joe watched the young changeling with even higher surprise, Unicorn however just stared at him with confusion, not really understanding why everyone in the room went silent.

" Is something the matter " asked confused Unicorn as she watched the awkward silent.

" Twilight, is that really you ? " asked young changeling as he run closer to the bed room and jumped on it, now standing on unicorn stomach causing a little pain to the mare but nothing serious.

As both changeling and unicorn watched to one another eyes, unicorn asked unimpressed and confused " Twilight .... who is Twilight ? ".

Young changeling jaw dropped " who is Twilight, you are Twilight, your name is Twilight Sparkle ! " said young changeling in awe on his face.

" Really, sounds like a nice name " replied unicorn with thoughtful tone, as it made young changeling made few step back on unicorn stomach.

" You are kidding ... right ... tell me you are joking " said changeling with fear and disappointment as green aura washed around changeling, to unicorn credits she only blinked as she saw green aura disparaging, and in place of small bug like creature was now standing small orange pegasus filly, " please tell me you recognize me " said pegasus in panic.

" Wow, how did you do it, do it is that transformation ability changelings have, it looks really impressive " said Twilight with excitement.

" Answer my question " screamed pegasus in panic, with forced Twilight enthusiasm to disappear.

" I am sorry but I do not, I do not remember anything, I am sorry " said Twilight with apologetic tone.

" My name is Scootaloo, please tell me you know this name ? " asked Scootalo desperately, with Twilight reply by nodding her head left and right.

" This can not be happening, just can not " said Scootalo as she dropped two tears from her eyes.

" Please calm down " said Scalpel as he slowly levitated energetic filly to the ground, easy noticing that his patient stomach is not yet ready to me walked on, " so her name is Twilight Sparkle, can you please tell us everything you know about her and yourself " asked Doctor Scalpel, sure, many changelings could recognize one another and even knew names but even in so small hive it was impossible to know everything about other hive members, especially the young ones.

" Did you just said Twilight Sparkle " said another changeling in the crowd in female voice as other changelings made some space so she could pass, and once she managed to get in front changeling jaw dropped, " Twilight, it is you, I can not believe it ".

" Please stand here next to Scootalo " said Donut Joe as he tried to organize this mess a little, " Everyone else please calm down and stay silent " ordered Donut Joe to the crowd of murmuring changelings, and next turning his gaze to two changelings in front of him, " your pony codename's, your old home town's, ranks in the hive, story about how you meet Twilight Sparkle and full informations what you know about her, now speak " ordered Donus Joe in military style.

" Sir yes sir " replied changeling in front of him, " my pony codename is Bon Bon, I was living in Ponyvile, my current rank is high scout " ansfered Bon Bon as Donut Joe nod for her to start telling the story, Donut Joe was Elite battle drone so his rank was far higher.

" I was living in Ponyvile for 15 years so far, I learned how to make candy's so I choice candy as my cutie mark, my Mother and Father moved to Canterlot with me once I got little older and this is where I meet a mare named Lyra and we became friends, around 5 years ago we got an idea to buy a house in Ponyvile and share it as room-mates and so we did, it was not really the most easy life since Lyra was rather crazy pony in my opinion but I liked her and she feed me with a lot of positive emotions all the time, and around 4 months and 1 week ago I was ordered to evacuate, currently my status in Ponyvile is missing pony, and if I may say my personal opinion, I fell really sad about leaving Lyra like that, not just because she was a great food source, but because she must be really sad once I left and I miss her too " reported Bon Bon as she put on her pony Disguise.

" Your personal opinion is understandable, however returning to Ponyvile is now out of option " said Donut Joe with military tone as he turned his gaze to orange filly " now your turn little one, I know you may not be experienced with military procedures, so just tell me about yourself the same way High Scout Bon Bon just said about herself ".

Orange filly nod, " Y... es, my name is Scootaloo, ops, I was suppose to say it later, well, I was visiting Ponyvile for 5 years so far, my p.....arrents d...ied in a a a a...ccident so I was forced to get into pony society on my own, so far no pony know where I live and that I do not have parrents, when I was in Ponyvile I managed to make some friends 3 years ago, we formed a club called CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS " screamed filly in the end what made some of the changelings in the crowd jump back in surprise, " my friends names are Sweetie Belle and Applebloom, 4 months ago I returned here, and I already miss my friends " said Scootaloo as she started to look at the floor trying to resist urge to cry.

Donut Joe felt pity for poor young changeling, unlike other changelings what could take care of themselves and deal with the fact that they could no longer continue they life's as pony, this filly not only lost her friends but also had no parents to return to.

" That's.... that's so sad " said Twilight Sparkle from her bed, felling pity for poor little changeling, " why can not you return to your friends ? " asked Twilight from curiosity.

Scootalo wanted to reply but was cut off by Donut Joe, " for answers time will come later, for now, youngling Scootaloo, High Scout Bon Bon, I want you both together to tell how you meet Twilight Sparkle and what you know about her " asked Donut Joe with ordering tony, but not as harsh as before.

" Well..... " started Scootaloo, " my friend Applebloom have older sister name Applejack, and my friend Sweetie Bell have older sister name Rarity, and I created a fanclub of great and awesome RainbowDash, and they are all friends of Twilight, not to mention PinkiePie who always love to make parties for every new pony in town, and Flutthershy who was taking care of us and saved us in everfree forest one time, first Twilight came to Ponyvile during summer sun celebration, I saw her on Pinkie welcome party, what's more when we all waited for princess Celestia to rise sun, but instead in front of us was Luna who was Nightmare Moon and said something like ' the night will last forever ' doing a creepy laugh, from what Applebloom and Sweetie Bell told me what they hear form Applejack and Rarity, they went to everfree forest and helped to heal Luna from her corruption, and RainbowDash told us, they went to everfree forest and kicked night goodness flank " Scootaloo was telling story in rather excited tone, forgetting for moment that about why he was sad just moment ago.

Bon Bon continued " before Twilight went to Ponyvile, I hear much about her when I was in Canterlot, it seems that princess Celestia herself choice her as her personal student, 3 years and 5 months ago I was in Ponyvile and participated in Summer Sun Celebration, I can confirm that what Scootalo said was true, and from that day forward a lot of weird thinks started to happen in Ponyvile, not that they were not happening in the pass, but Ponyvile got a bit more interesting when Twilight moved in " reported Bon Bon.

" So Twilight was Celestia personal student, oh, now I remember, a dragon name Spike bought some donuts from me during Grant Galooing Gala event before Twilight with some of her friends and even princess herself entered to my Cafe, and they were also on train when that pink pony was guarding that MMM cake, I must say, as much as we changeling feed on love, I could not resist to eat my competition work after that pink pony started to........ , I digress, anyway what else do you know about her and how did she and her friends healed Luna or whatever was it ? ", ' how could I not notice, she is that pony defective I meet on the train '.

Both Scootalo and Bon Bon looked at one another for moment, and after they exchange nod they turned they gaze to Donug Joe.

" Twilight is element of magic " they both said in union leaving Donut Joe with confusion on his face.

" Element of magic, care to emplane " reply Donut Joe.

" Twilight is bearer of element of magic, and her friends have they own element, like RainbowDash is element of Loyality, together with those elements they kicked Nightmare Moon and Discord flank " said Scootaloo with excitement.

" Lyra even told me when she returned form Canterlot wedding that she was under some sort of spell, and that Twilight saved princess Cadence and compromised Chrysalis plan, but it end up with Shinning Armor and princess Cadence as heroes in the end, also from what Lyra said after grant galloping gala where she and Octawia played on stage, no one from nobility knew about element bearers accomplishments, but there were many rumours about them in Canterlot, it is actually weird if I can say it, some ponies knew about element bearers as national heroes when other ponies did not knew a think about them or just said that it was Celestia who defeated Discord and Nightmare Moon " reported Bon Bon.

It was not long before crowd started to murmur and than talk aloud, some changelings even face-hoof, thinking something like ' how could I not noticed that ', there were many rumour about Twilight Sparkle, personal student of princess Celestia, and even some rumours that she and her friends were element bearers, heroes who defeated Nightmare Moon and Discord, but on the other side they almost never saw Twilight and her friends in Canterlot, only on Grant Galloping Gala and Royal Wedding, and not every pony could attend those events, and despise rumours about those heroes, only now most of changelings in the room started to add 2 and 2 together and recognized the mare.

' Personal student of princess Celestia, hero of Equestria, element of harmony, how could I miss that ' thought Donut Joe, and he easy noticed that Scalpel and many of the changelings in the room thought exactly the same.

From every-pony in the room, the most surprised was Twilight herself, but not because she remembered anything or understood what it was all about, it was quite the opposite, she did not understand what is this commotion all about, ' student of princess Celestia, element of magic, what is this all about, who is Celestia, what is this element, why can not I remember anything ' thought to herself Twilight in annoyance, she knew that those two changelings said a lot of important thinks and she hated the fact that she not understood any of it.

" Everyone, leave this room for now, I, Scalpel, Scootaloo and Bon Bon will give our report to the princess, guards will watch over Twilight " ordered Donut Joe as changelings followed his order, still talking to one another, meanwhile Doctor Scalpel turned his attention to confused Unicorn, " we will explain you everything once we are back, but now we have important news to deliver to our Queen " said Doctor Scalpel to Twilight as he levitated book to Twilight, " I know you like reading, so please fell free to read this book for now and wait for us "

Twilight just nod as everyone left the room, only two guard drones stayed in to silently keep an eye on mare in the bed, after moment of thinking Twilight decided to just read book and wait for more detailed explanation, she knew that what was said about her must be important, but she had not enough information so there was no need to over-think for now.

Queen Rubyred throne room

It was not hard to notice high commotion in her own hive mind as many of her subjects were excited about something, it was easy for her to figure out what happened and was now waiting for someone to give her full report.

Door to throne room opened as guard drone spoke " your highness, Doctor Scalpel, Elite battle drone Donut Joe, High Scout Bon Bon and youngling Scootaloo are asking for your audience ".

" Please, let them in " replied Rubyred cheerfully, her guard drones were always so serious and respectful, but she wished that they could be less formal and more relaxed around her.

" At once " said guard changeling as he bowed and opened door, letting group of changeling enter throne room.

All 4 changelings were now standing in front of they Queen, 3 of them bowed deeply but the young one bowed quickly and started to bounce around, excited of talking to the Queen.

" Please stand my dears, you should take an example from Scootaloo, there is no need to be so formal " said Rubyred with calm voice as she pointed bouncing changeling filly with her hoof, and so they did as she said, " Ms Bon Bon, how are you felling my dear, still missing your friend from Ponyvile, don't you ? " asked Rubyred with concern in her voice with made changeling nod.

" Yes I do my Queen, but I can deal with it, I am more worried about youngling Scootaloo, she can no longer visit her friends in Ponyvile and since she is .... orphan ........ she fell lonely and bored " said Bon Bon with pity in her voice as she looked at once bouncing filly next to her.

Before Scootaloo could say somethink, she was quickly levitated in green aura by Queen Rubyred and captured in her embrace, " poor, poor dear, that's awful " said Rubyred as she was holding Scootaloo in hug, transporting small portion of love energy into her to cheer her up, " you can always fell free to visit me my dear, I will try to find some time to talk to you, cheer you up or even play with you ".

Scootaloo felt very warm and happy in this hug, and love he received made him fell better, he wanted to stay in the hug a little longer but he had more important thinks in mind at the moment, ' it is so nice....... no, no, no, no time for that, I need to tell her about Twilight, maybe she will be able to recover her memory '.

" T..... thank you my Queen, but I need to tell you something important " said Scootaloo with hesitation voice as he weakly tried to get out from her Queen embrace.

Queen Rubyred gently levitated Scootaloo back on the floor and let a sigh, now looking at her subjects with more serious look, time for friendly chat end up so fast for her, " from the commotion I noticed in hive mind, I guess you all have important report about our pony quest " said Rubyred with more serious, yet still calm tone, all changelings just nod.

" Very well, lets hear it than " said Rubyred as her subjects started to tell her the story, they told her about they life in Ponyvile or Canterlot, how how and when they meet Twilight Sparkle, what, when and where they found out who is Twilight Sparkle, about her friends, about Twilight being element of magic and her friends being other elements, about how they defeated Nightmare Moon and Discord, how Twilight freed Cadence from the caves under Canterlot, and whatever they knew about the situation.

Queen Rubyred listened to them carefully, several time her jaw drop, her face expression mixing between shock, impression and sadness, the moment all 4 changelings finished to tell they story, she started to think deeply about the situation for several minutes, other changelings were sitting in awkward silence waiting for they queen to reply.

Finally Queen Rubyred left a long sigh as she lie down on the floor, depressed and defeated, " My Queen, are you felling alight " asked Doctor Scalpel in panic as he run closer to her but stooped right away when she point her hoof at him.

" There is no need to worry by dear Scalpel, it is ..... it is just to much for me to take at once, still " said Queen Rubyred with weak, almost shy voice, " from what you said to me, none of you seems to know to much about elements themselves, would you like to listen a story my dear subjects ? ".

" Of-course your Majesty, enlighten us " said Scalpel as the rest of the group nod in union.

After everyone in throne room took comfortable position, Queen Rubyred spoke " from generation to generation of Queens, my grant mother passed her knowledge to my mother, and she passed it too me, and since elements of harmony played a very important role in our world, our Hive gathered a bit of knowledge about them ".

" More than 1800 years ago our hive was living long way to the south, back then we took disquise as Zebra and tried to gather positive emotions by joining Zebra society, but overtime group of strong shamans managed to discover our existence and took measures to keep us away, unable to keep ourself feed we tried to find a new culture we would assimilate with, this is when we discovered a country formed by ponies, and from history we gathered about them, they created this kingdom from what was left of 3 tribes where most ponies frozen to death because of Windigows, but in the end Windigows were defeated since they could no longer feed on hate and distrust, it is a cruel irony, those Windigows feed on other creatures hate and distrust, they reduce temperature and spread cold to increase hate and distrust, force a fight for food and it made ponies blame one another, but in the end they kill they food source, in the end Windigoes would disappear anyway by leaving nothing to feed on ".

Group of changelings knew the story about 3 tribes, but it never occured to tham that that not many ponies would survive so a cold temperature, they were after all celebrating not only creation of Equestria, but also death of those who did not survived Windigows attack, it was really good think that Windigows were defeated in the end.

" From emotions I felt from you I assume you had to hear about this story when you were living as pony, I assure you, the princesses hide some facts from you what I am about to show up ".

All 3 Changelings frozen, they curiosity increased, leaving Queen Rubyred amused, she shared many secret informations with higher rank changelings like DonutJoe, but she was keeping this knowledge from most of her subjects until she decided they were ready for it.

" Windigoes were not realy defeated by ponies, as group of survivers arrived in those new lands, Windigows unable to gather any more negative emotions followed tham, they could not feed to much since group of ponies were at peace, but they still had alot of negative emotions left in tham, and so they tryed to cause havoc in they range of power, at last until Discord showed up, my grant grant mother had a theory that Discord was messing in Crystal ponies empire but then got bored and in his place he left a gift for King Sombra, a gift of immortality and insanity, and than Discord ventured to play with ponies, ofcourse he did not liked Windogows for killing his playtools so he faced tham, did he destroyed Windigows or sealed tham away i do not know, but he saved ponies and decided to lay low for some time, ofcourse when our Hive arrived there, we did not knew about Windigows and Discord, we just tryed to live a pony life to gain positive emotions from it, at last until Discord made his move, he thought it would be a fun joke to increase power of love potion, royality were to busy to lead they country, and this is when Discord started his regin of chaos, our ancestors also were victims of his schemes, many changelings died from famine back than ".

After a moment of sillent Queen Rubyred continued.

" At last until two Alicorns, Celestia and Luna arrived on the scene, from what my mother told me, those two Alicorns were disquised as normal ponies the whole time, as changelings our ancestors easy reqognized that they were wearing disquises, but they decided to not interfere, soon two Alicorns returned, this time in they true form, they formed army again Discord, but they were weaker and younger than they are now and even with army help they were no match for Discord, and as much as Discord not wanted to kill his play tools, he kill some ponies by accident, even he could not control his chaotic power good enoght to avoid many accidents, all hope was lost until those Alicorns returned again many years later, this time with 6 powerful artifacts called Elements of Charmony ".

" Celestia powered up 3 elements with her Kindness, Faith and Generousity, when Luna powered another 3 with her Honesty, Loyality and Laughter, together they used all 6 elements and sealed Discord in stone for 1500 years, and it was not long before they became new rulers, and so our Hive and other changelings Hives in those areas could once again life with ponies, because our Hive was the most interested in Harmony what saved us from Discord, some of tham even advanced in ranks to get closer to princesses, sadly princesses were very secretive about from elements come from "

With a bit dissapointed expresion on her face Queen Rubyred continued, " Sadly soon thinks started to go down from here, Dragons invaded Equestria in search for easy food, than Griffons declarate a war again Equestria, and than Crystal Empire as well, it seems that after Discord was turned into stone, Sombra was no longer insame, but he was still immortal, full of chaos energy inside him, and his fear and coruption made him seek power of darkness so he could rule by iron hoof, and after 300 years he decided to declarate war again Equestria what was weakened by other wars and crisises, ofcourse Equestria managed to survive thanks to hard work between ponies and princesses leadership, normaly they would easy defeat a mad Unicorn King, but Sombra was nothink like normal Unicorn, discord gift and power of darkness made him unbelivably powerful and immortal, he was not match for Celestia and Luna ofcourse, but they could not kill him or cure him, so they sealed him instead, sadly he cursed Crystal empire and it dissapeared the moment Sombra was sealed "

Now even more sad Rubyred continued " to make matters worse, when Luna was busy on the frontline to fight again enemy armies and in the night protecting ponies, Celestia was more of social type as she was speaking with ponies and nobles during the day, now I do not tell that Celestia was doing less than Luna, they both worked hard to help Equestria, however Luna was alwais the inteligent and fightful one, alwais full of emotions, focusing to fight alongside army or creating laws and taxes behind the scene, negotiating with Dragons, Griffons and other creatures what ponies would call monsters, Celestia was very social, talking to her subjects and working alongside tham, after hundreds of years the distance between Alicorn sisters grown, when Celestia was carying alot about her ponies and they loved her deeply, praised her, Luna started to fell lonely during the night, ponies feared her, loneliness and jeliousity started to corupt Luna when Celestia proved to be very bad in dealing with family problems, when it comes to play diplomat, lead her ponies or motivate tham, she was best for the job, but when it comes to deal with her sister felling or noticing that somethink is wrong, it was when she failed, from what our ancestors noticed, Luna elements started to weaken, loyality to country what not care about her was weakening, laughter was no longer on her face, and she could not find a courage to be honest with her sister any more about her fellings, this is when Luna turned into Nightmare Moon around 1004 years ago, and belive me, there is nothink true about stories where Nightmare Moon wanted to bring eternal Night to the world to destroy it, Luna only wanted to cut her sister off her power source, the Sun, she wanted to prove her sister and her subjects that she is not a mere shadow of Celestia, and showing beauty of her night was just one of reason, not main reason she did it, nor Luna, nor Nightmare Moon wanted to harm any of her subjects even if she felt betrayed, at first Nightmare Moon won and started to cast spell to increase power from Moon to keep her subjects and corps alive until she would find and defeat her sister, but Celestia returned with elements of charmony, she wanted to cure her sister, thinking she was corupted, but Celestia with only 3 strong elements inside her could not do more than just banish her sister, and the side efect was elements turning into stones, and element of Fath dissapearing complitly "

Scalpel, Bon Bon and Scootaloo jaws droped, as they thought carefully on what they just hear, the story Queen just told tham was so diferent from rummors or books with any informations about pass, why so many informations were hiden from tham.

" You are probably wondering why so many informations in history books are so diferent from the truth " said Queen Rubyred like she was reading in her subjects mind, what she actualy could do with easy, " after princess Celestia banished her sister, it hurt her greatly, it hurt her so greatly that she lost Faith in her subjects and Kingdom, she was still fullfiling her duty but with alot less enthusiasm, she was even making mistakes like seting sun on the horisont to early or to late, controling moon was also very hard for her and many of nights were complitly dark with no moon or starts on the sky, guilt and doubt was hunting her, overtime she decided that for the sake of her Kingdom and subjects she would need to repress her fellings, trying to forget about her sister, as result she did not noticed that her ponies put many innacurate informations in history books like that Luna betrayed her sister, that she was corupted or that she was the evil one in the family, and in the end it all turned into a fairy tale of Luna bying jelious that no pony want to watch her night, they made a Celebration called Nightmare Night out of it, one day group of very wise unicorns got more interested in the fairy tale and they predicted that stars will be able to aid Nightmare Moon escape exacly 1000 years after her banishment, but it was ignored and became part of fairy tale, and before you all ask me where did my mother and grant mother gained so much detailed informations, all i can say is that in the pass our Hive was more numbered and took very high positions in Equestria society, only 500 years ago our Hive started to lose ground to other Hive, it was when Chrysalis Hive what was stealing love by impersonating loved ponies started to grown in numbers, forcing us to reduce our influence only to Canterlot and Ponyvile and Appleosa " lectured Queen Rubyred when DonutJoe raised his voice.

" With all respect my Queen, but may I ask, why is 6 th element called Magic now and why our report made you so sad " asked Donut Joe with serious profesional tone,

" Magic, hahaha, now that you mention it, it sounds realy cute, I quess that when Twilight unlocked the last element she knew nothink about, element what was forgotten by everypony, she just named it by her special talent, but it was not her raw magic power what was very big if Celestia decided to choice her as personal student, it was her faith that she will safe Equestria in unwinable battle, Faith in her new made friends, it was the reason 6 th element appeared, as for the reason why your reports made me sad " said Rubyred as her tone droped into more serious, with nute of sadness in it.

" We just lost a perfect opportunity to safe our Hive with peaceful solution, just imagine, student of princess Celestia, hero of Equestria, element of Faith or how ponies call it, magic, saved by peaceful changeling Hive, if Twilight Sparkle would remember everythink, sure, she would be very hostile to us, but we would have all time in the world to teach her about us, about our history, convince her that we are not a threat and that we seek peace, but since Twilight do not rememeber anythink " Rubyred head droped even lower, " this solution is out of option ".

" Why " asked confused Bon Bon, " we still saved Twilight from her death, if we return her and explain " Bon Bon stoped talking as the realization hit her and her head droped in sadness.

" You start to realize it my dear, first they will blame us for capturing her, next they will think one of us is impersonating Twilight to trick tham, once they find out that she is real pony but she does not remember anythnk they will blame us for clearing her memory, ponies and even princesses thamself know very little if nothink about changelings, and even if princesses had expereince with some in the pass, it was probably forgotten, on the wedding Queen Chrysalis used mind control spell on Shinning Armor and your friend Lyra, what will stop ponies from thinking that all changelings can mess up with ponies minds, that we can clear memorys at will, and as much as it is true that mind magic is our strong point, we can just errase small moments or replace it with false memory, even I would need many years to fully clear mind of one pony from all her memories, and it would cost love what would keep our Hive alive for month " said Rubyred with serious tone.

" Umm..... but you can fix it, you can fix her memory, can you ? " asked Scootaloo with pleading eyes, Rubyred could see alot hope comming from young changeling, it was sad that she was forced to dissapoint him.

" I can alter memory in small moments, I can not give it back, after Chrysalis and her Army tryed to hunt Twilight and her friends in everfree forest, Twilight Sparkle nobly sacreficed her own safely to teleport her friends to Ponyvile what drained her complitly, whatever happened after she teleported into wrong direction I do not know, but her memory shut down complitly after the trauma she experienced, if she would spend time in Ponyvile with her friends or with her mentor, there would be chance for her memory to return to her, but in here, in sush unknown enviroment it will never happen no matter our efforts " lectured Queen in calmply, as she expected Scootaloo felt very dissapointed, her hope crushed.

" So, what should we do now my Queen, do she will be imprisoned in cocon in dream world and serve as food source for our Hive " asked Scalpel with alot worry in his voice.

" NO " said Rubyred with serious and commanding tone, what made all changelings do a few step back, rarely they saw Queen saying somethink so aloud.

" Twilight Sparkle is a proud bearer of element of Faith, and together with her friends they healed Nightmare Moon, they gave Luna a new chance to start life with her subjects respecting her, Twilight and her friends stood again Discord who would destroy lifes of many ponies and changelings and other living creatures around the land, I can not say that compromising Queen Chrysalis plans did us any good as it leed many changelings to they death, but she did what she did to protect what she belvied was right, and in the end she bravely ventured to safe Crystal Empire from King Sombra, ofcourse Celestia and Luna would be able to deal with him on they own, but it does not make acomplishment of element bearers any smaller, Twilight Sparkle deserve our respect, she will be healed, and once she will wish so, she will be secretly escorted to ponyvile " said Queen Rubyred proudly with alot confidence in her voice, Elements of Charmony and what they represented were alwais a example for all Queens from they hive from time when Discord was defeated by tham, she would never dear to treat element bearer as a mere food source, even if her love reserves were dissapearing every day.

All of the changeling did not reply, they just nod and bowed in agreement.

" Now my dear subjects, my dear childrens, I can fell that you wish to help Twilight as much as I do, so go and take good care of her, I need to return to my dutys, oh, and Scootaloo, tomorow I will have more time, so fell free to visit me any time you want ".

4 changelings in throne room made a deep bow, even Scootaloo, and than they walked out of throne room, they were dissapointed but also relievew at the same time, and so door closed after they walked out of throne room.

As throne room was empty, Queen Rybyred smile faded as she started to sob quietly, her hed lying low, her eyes focused on the floor, ' mommy often told me a story about how evil meany god of chaos was sealed by princesses thanks to Elements of Charmony, how live started to go back to normal, how poor hungry changelings could once again live normal life in pony disquise, gathering positive emotions from other ponies ' thought Queen to herslef in her sadness,

' And the moment I was informed about elements finding new bearers, I imagined tham as a brave pony knights in shinning armor, I started to idolize tham, I wondered how it would be to meet tham personaly, and her leader of the bearers, Twilight Sparkel, is now in my Hive under my subjects care, she would safe us all, she was our chance to peace, and in the bigest slash of irony, Chrysalis succed to kill element of Faith, and now as number of options is going down, love reserves are running out, I will one day be forced to be just like the Queen who ruined everythink ' thought Rubyred deeply.

After moment of left pity, Rubyred smiled, ' on the bright side, meaby bearer of element of Faith is not dead yet, meaby I and my subjects succed in doing somethink worthwhile, meaby once we return Twilight to her home and friends they will help her regain her memory, and meaby one day she will be the one to oppouse me and compromise my desperate plan to safe my race ............., I should not worry about this at the moment thought, there is still time left, now all I can hope is that memoryless mare will take well the news about bying hero of Equestria, I m sure having sush past is somethink to be proud off ' thought Queen Rubyred with a bit of happiness as she decided to go to her chamber and take a small rest, she had alot to think about now, but unicorn name Twilight Sparkle will have even more thinking to do.