We'll Always Have Canterlot

Chapters

Not All Who Wander Are Lost
Life is Bristling With Thorns
Strange Bedfellows
The Truth of Things
Friends Like These
The Sum of its Parts
All the Modes of Distress
Gifts
Through a Mirror Darkly
Learning Curve
The Best Laid Plans
Once Upon a Midnight Dreary

Not All Who Wander Are Lost

We’ll Always Have Canterlot

Disclaimer: Repeat after me, I’m not Hasbro, I don’t own My Little Pony

Chapter Two: Not All Who Wander Are Lost

Twilight Sparkle blinked herself awake as the light of the morning sun struck her eyes. She yawned and stretched with particular vigor since it felt like she’d slept only a few hours on solid rock. She opened her eyes and rolled over expecting to see the view of Ponyville out her window at the library. Instead as last night came crashing back to her she realized that she had only slept for a few hours on solid rock.

Finding a place to sleep in near darkness wasn’t much fun, but eventually they had located what wasn’t quite a cave. Rather it was a niche in a large rock that had enough space for two ponies and a baby dragon to sleep in relative comfort, relative being very much the most important word. She was sore all over, and her head pounded like she’d drank an entire barrel of cider in one go, but she hadn’t had any cider in weeks except for that wonderful dream she’d been having before this all started.

“You okay little sis?” Despite being a few years older than her, Shining Armor seemed to have handled the night of roughing it considerably better than she had. A fact that left her slightly jealous of him.

“Yeah,” she pushed herself to her hooves. “A long distance teleport spell for three with no preparation going into it will kind of take it out of you.”

That sounded plausible enough, and as she thought it through it did strike her as rather likely. Certainly it was a better answer than admitting that her brother was used to spending time away from civilization as a guard while she’d lived the softest of soft lives as Celestia’s apprentice.

“You definitely got the long distance part down.” Shining Armor took in the dry landscape around them. “Where exactly in Equestria are we?”

“At the very edge of Equestria. Welcome to Appleloosa big brother. It’s a small earth pony town on the frontier. My friends and I helped Applejack deliver an apple tree to some of her relatives out here, and let me tell you Canterlot is a very long way from here. Hopefully that means Cadance or whatever she’s become is a very long way from here. And if we can find them we might be able to get some help from Applejack’s family like food, water, and maybe some information.”

“Wait,” Spike waved his claws to get her attention, “you mean angry buffalo tribe Appleloosa?”

“I’ve talked to Applejack since we came back.” Twilight said. “And since they came to an agreement things have been quite peaceful between the settlers and the buffalo. Besides, I’m not planning on putting down roots here. All we need is something to keep us going for awhile and a clue to put us on the right track. And speaking of the right track, I wonder if we’re on the wrong track completely Shining Armor?”

“What do you mean?” Her brother looked quite confused.

“Well, we’ve been talking about Cadance all this time, but when you said she’d been acting like Chrysalis it got me thinking that maybe we are dealing with Chrysalis and the changelings again. I mean we know she can make ponies act pretty infatuated with her when she’s draining their love, and if she drained enough love from enough ponies she could definitely be a match for the princesses. Plus she’s got a pretty good reason to want to try to take over Equestria again.”

“I thought about all that last night.” Shining Armor looked rather uncomfortable discussing the topic. “When I escaped from Canterlot, right before I got out, Cadance caught up with me and I tried using that spell you used at the wedding to blast a changeling’s disguise off of them. Nothing, Cadance just laughed at me. I don’t know if it’s just that I’m not nearly as good at that spell as you are, and that Chrysalis is probably much better than your average Changeling at holding a disguise, or if that means it really is Cadance and she somehow turned evil without anyone noticing. I really, really hope that I’m just lousy with that spell.”

“Never thought I’d see the day where you wanted to be bad at something.” Twilight laughed a humorless laugh. “But I know what you mean. Cadance was always the nicest, most caring pony around. I can’t imagine what would make her do something like this.”

“Hey, I just thought of something.” Spike sounded as if he was being deliberately cheery in contrast to the two morose ponies around him. “Since the sun came up that means that Celestia and Luna have to be fine, and if they’re okay then I can send letters to them, so why don’t we just send them a letter asking them where they are, Twilight can teleport us there, and we’ll have their help to solve all this!”

Both Twilight Sparkle and Shining Armor frantically shook their heads. “It’s a good idea but it won’t work.” Twilight spoke first. “If Cadance, or Chrysalis, or whoever she is, has taken Celestia and Luna’s place it wouldn’t be hard for her to make the letters go to her. And Celestia once told me that it wasn’t particularly hard to figure out where I was when I sent the letter. Something about being able to ride the magic connecting both points back to where it started. The point is, we might get Celestia or Luna, but if Cadance has been planning this, and I think she has, then we’d be far more likely to send a letter to Celestia and get Cadance coming down on us with half the royal guard following her.”

“Oh,” Spike went in a moment from joy at his idea to the depths of despair only utter failure can bring. “Well just forget I said anything then.”

“Hey,” Twilight grabbed him before he could turn and start moping, “just because you had an idea that didn’t work doesn’t mean it was a bad idea. And we’re all running blind about what to do here. We need all the ideas we can get if we’re going to get out of all this. Who knows, once we find Celestia and Luna a letter to Cadance might be just the thing we need to lure her into a trap.”

As the young were wont to do Spike went straight back to being as bright as the sun upon hearing that everything was going to be all right. Twilight wished she could make herself believe everything would be okay so easily. Even if they did find the princesses it was all but certain that Cadance would know almost as soon as it happened, and she’d know that any easily traceable letter that came her way was a trap. But Spike was happy again, and that was what counted. She had her hooves full, more than full actually, keeping her brother together. He might have looked fine to anyone else, but Twilight could easily see the doubt, fear, and pain gnawing away at Shining Armor from the inside.

“Come on you two.” A simple spell organized and lifted their meager belongings. “It’s a long walk to Appleloosa, and I want to have time to talk to some ponies and find out what we can before it gets dark out.”

Twilight had set them this far outside Appleloosa mostly out of the fear that she might teleport them into someone with lethal results for the poor innocent pony. She’d be lying if she said that fear of Cadance or somepony under her control waiting for them as they came out of the teleport wasn’t important in putting them in such a remote corner of Equestria. Even so, after a few hours of walking under the relentless sun Twilight was beginning to regret not putting them closer to civilization. Shining Armor had only filled a pair of canteens before fleeing Ponyville, and ground water was rare indeed in the mild west.

A quick glance around confirmed her worst fears. Both Shining Armor and Spike were taking the long walk through such trying conditions far better than her. As a royal guard her brother was in far better shape than her, and even Spike was better prepared between thick dragon scales and helping Rarity mine for gems so often. Twilight made a mental note to herself to start exercising when this was all over. With every step she took further and further into the depths of her own personal misery Twilight Sparkle became less and less charitably inclined towards her travelling companions.

“You doing okay back there Twiley?” Her brother shouted back from where he and that traitor of a dragon of hers were making this look annoyingly easy.

“Yes!” She did her best, which wasn’t very good, to sound as normal as possible. “Just keep walking; we’ve still got a long ways to go.”

“Want to take a break?” She could hear the smirk from that horrible pony who just happened to be her brother.

Twilight didn’t even bother answering the question. Instead she slumped to the ground right where she was and opened her canteen.

“Don’t drink too much.” Her brother’s shadow blocking the sun from her gained him enough good will that she would at least admit to being related to him again. “We’ve got to make the water last to Appleloosa, and you don’t want to get sick.”

Twilight grumbled several uncomplimentary things that only made that other pony chuckle and remark he’d heard far worse in the guards. She did however close her canteen and put it back in her saddlebag. Shining Armor had packed light back in Ponyville so her bags only felt like they were full of bricks instead of lead as she got back to her hooves. By that point she would have needed to be under threat of pain to admit being associated with either Spike or Shining Armor.

“Hey Twilight, you want me to carry your bags for a little while?” Oh sure, now her so-called assistant decided to assist her. Rather than choosing to help her when it might have done her some good towards not feeling utterly miserable out in this utterly forsaken corner of Equestria.

As uncharitably disposed towards the dragon travelling with her as she may have been at the moment Twilight wasted no time in transferring those accursed weights from her back to his. Pony saddlebags weren’t particularly designed to be used by dragons, whether adult or baby, and it was an awkward business settling everything. But Spike had long practice carrying such things for Twilight and in short order they were moving again towards Appleloosa.

Without her saddlebags the going was a bit easier, and Spike carrying them meant he shared enough in her misery that she might admit to knowing him, might. Even with her improved condition the sun mercilessly beat down on them as it slid towards and past noon. With the dry featureless land stretching as far around them as they could see the sun was both the only way to tell time actually passed as well as their only way to navigate.

“One hoof in front of the other Twilight, just keep putting one hoof in front of the other.” Twilight wasn’t sure when she started muttering the mantra over and over again, but it kept her moving towards Appleloosa. Next time she had to do a long distance teleport she was putting herself no more than an hour outside the nearest town, and in a place with shade.

At last, just as afternoon was heading towards evening Shining Armor stuck a hoof up and pointed to a blotch on the horizon. Their canteens were nearly empty, and Twilight was ready to roll over and let someone else save Equestria this time around.

“Oh thank goodness!” Twilight Sparkle suddenly felt much more charitably disposed towards the world. “I can see Braeburn’s orchard from here. We can rest for a bit in the shade there and then head into Appleloosa and start asking around.”

“Hey Twilight,” the unicorn in question heard a grunt behind her, “you wanna take these back now?” She turned to see Spike dragging her saddlebags, clearly a bit the worse for wear.

“Sure,” Twilight chuckled nervously. She had conveniently forgotten that she’d dumped her saddlebags on Spike back in the desert.

Her saddlebags were as heavy as ever, but with the journey almost over she hardly noticed the extra weight as they made their way towards the wondrous shade the apple trees would provide. All three of them made the last leg of their journey with more energy in their step, and before long they were sheltered under a particularly large apple tree.

“Thanks Applejack.” Twilight muttered, fairly sure this was the tree they’d brought to Appleloosa.

“What was that?” Her brother, she was ready to admit that again, sounded like he was ready to fall asleep right there. Come to think of it, so was Twilight after spending her day trekking through the baking desert.

“Nothing,” she replied, “just remembering something. Now let’s get going before we fall asleep here and lose another day.”

They all struggled to their feet and hooves clearly wanting nothing more than to lay right back down and rest. The first step back into the harsh light of the sun was among the more difficult things Twilight Sparkle had done in her life, but once she had momentum on her side it was a simple task of moving down the well maintained road into town.

“I don’t want to drag this up.” Twilight spoke as they walked. “But before we get to town I’d like to know if anything happened to Cadance before she went all… well… evil. I mean if she went off on her own for awhile it would definitely be an opportunity for Chrysalis to have taken her and come back in her place.”

Her brother looked away in obvious thought for some time before answering. “When we got back from the Crystal Empire everything was great. We’d defeated Sombra, saved the crystal ponies, and we’d done it together. Once we got back to Canterlot for awhile though and settled into married life without a crisis going on though she started acting a bit weird. It wasn’t anything like now, but she wasn’t talking to me much, and when she did it was pretty obvious there was something she didn’t want to talk about. I tried to get her to open up about it, but she always evaded the topic or came up with some little thing that she totally overplayed. A few weeks later she started acting normally again so I figured that whatever it was she’d gotten over it. Things were fine after that, we were happy together, and Celestia was talking about sending us back up to the Crystal Empire to run things. Then Cadance just snapped, and you know what happened after that.”

“And you’re sure she didn’t disappear anywhere when she was acting weird the first time?”

“I didn’t see her every minute of every day, and she did say that when Chrysalis abducted her it was a pretty quick thing. But I just don’t know what happened to her Twilight.”

“Okay, okay.” Twilight cut her brother off before he could work himself up. “Let’s see if we can find anything here before we go jumping to any conclusions.”

Silently, the trio made their way into Appleloosa. The town had grown somewhat since Twilight had last been there, but it was still more than rustic enough to make Ponyville seem as urban as Canterlot by comparison. She did however note that the lack of a threat from the nearby buffalo made the atmosphere of the town much more pleasant.

They paused at an intersection so Twilight could quickly get her bearings. “Alright, let’s go find Sheriff Silverstar. I think you’ll like him Shining Armor, he’s a straight laced fellow like you. Once we’ve found out what we can, hopefully something useful, we’ll go find Braeburn and see what we can do about a decent night’s sleep before we head out to find the princesses.”

“Twilight, if this Silverstar can help us find Celestia and Luna, I don’t particularly care if he’s broken every law in Equestria.”

Twilight laughed. “When it turns out Silverstar ran away from some shady past back in Manehatten or somewhere like that I’m going to hold you to what you just said.”

Her brother responded with a scowl, but rather than one of anger at her it was one that said he was disappointed with himself for walking into such an obvious rejoinder. With a bit of effort Twilight fought down the smirk that wanted to take its place on her face and they continued in silence through Appleloosa.

“Hey Twilight,” Spike was busy taking in the few sights of Appleloosa, “do you think we can go visit the buffalo tribe while we’re out here. Once you got to know them they were a lot of fun.”

“I doubt it.” Twilight said, and then immediately regretted it as Spike looked rather crestfallen. “But if we still have time after talking to Sheriff Silverstar, and they’re close enough, we’ll see if we can head out there for a little while.”

Being such a small town Appleloosa was quite easy to get around in. Twilight had briefly worried that Spike might attract the attention of the locals, but she supposed that after Nightmare Moon, Discord, and the Changeling invasion of Canterlot a well behaved baby dragon wasn’t worth noting unless he started burning things down.

They were heading down the last street to the sheriff’s office when Twilight heard her name called from what could generously be called an alley between two buildings.

More curious than anything she stepped over to the small space and looked in. What she saw was quite a surprise. “Braeburn! What in Equestria are you doing in an alley?”

“In here, quick!” It was a tight squeeze to fit three ponies and a baby dragon into the small alley, and Twilight thought they were much more conspicuous like this, but at Braeburn’s insistence they somehow all crammed themselves in. “Am I glad to see you around here Twilight Sparkle. Things have been mighty strange around here the last little while, and a pony like you sure is a welcome sight.”

“Strange around here?” Twilight said more to the wall in front of her since turning her head would have been quite a feat in the cramped quarters. “The rest of Equestria has gone crazy. That’s why we came here. We were hoping to figure out what’s going on and how we can deal with it. We were going to go see if Sheriff Silverstar has heard anything.”

“Sheriff Silverstar is what’s weird around here.” Twilight was only able to see Braeburn’s face out of the corner of her eye.

“Wait,” Shining Armor had been silent up till now. “I thought you said that this Sheriff Silverstar guy was really straight laced.”

“He was,” Braeburn answered while Twilight was still fumbling her thoughts, “and I guess he still is. Look, this isn’t the place to have this conversation. Let’s go back to my place and we can talk.”

Getting the four of them out of the alley was just as complicated as getting them into the alley had been. And, Twilight thought rather smugly, as they made their way back out of Appleloosa nopony seemed to pay them any mind.

“Okay, so what’s going on here?” Twilight said as the last few houses of Appleloosa passed them by and the road ahead led only to Braeburn’s ranch.

“Like I said, things are weird here in Appleloosa.” Braeburn was setting a remarkably fast pace out of town. “Sheriff Silverstar has been… well, off. I can’t put my hoof on it exactly, but he isn’t himself. It isn’t like he’s pushing down little old mares in the street or anything, but he’s not the same. And it isn’t just getting used to being out on the frontier like this. The weirdest thing is that it just happened. One day he was his normal old self, and the next day he wasn’t. I mean there was that… well; it should wait till we’re at the ranch.”

“That sounds like it could be Chrysalis.” Twilight thought out loud. “Until she was trying to drain him of all his love at once she left Shining Armor pretty normal.”

“What’s she doing all the way out here though?” Shining Armor’s voice dripped with the hope that they’d found the cause of his woes. “I’m sure the ponies out here are good and caring, but there aren’t enough of them for her to drain a decent meals love from.”

“I don’t know anything about that.” Braeburn said. “But there’s someone at the ranch you’re gonna want to talk to.”

Twilight inquired several times who might be at the ranch she would want to talk to, but each and every time Braeburn evaded the question. Finally she simply gave up and trotted along in the increasing darkness. The sun had slipped behind the horizon by the time Braeburn’s ranch came into view. The main house was considerably smaller than Sweet Apple Acres. Though Twilight figured that made sense since it was made to house one, and was considerably newer than the Apple family’s home back in Ponyville.

“Look,” Braeburn pointed to the house, “she remembered to leave a light on. She’s new to this so I was worried she’d forget.”

Still wondering who this ‘she’ was, Twilight walked up the path to the house itself. Again it wasn’t so well maintained as Sweet Apple Acres, but with only one pony to do the upkeep she supposed it was to be expected.

“Little Strongeheart!” That answered Twilight’s question. “I’m back, and I’ve brought help!”

The door opened, and while Twilight couldn’t see her face with the light behind it the silhouette was definitely that of a buffalo.

“Twilight Sparkle!” Little Stronheart raced out of the house to the ponies approaching her. “I’m so glad to see you. Braeburn has told you what happened to the sheriff?” At Twilight’s nod she went on. “The same has happened to my father I’m afraid. He appears himself, but underneath is something that is not him. He is so respected among the others that they refuse to see it, and so I fled here until I could find a way to make them see.”

“Did they both start acting like this at the same time?” Twilight asked both Braeburn and Little Strongheart.

“She’s the one who saw it.” Braeburn pointed towards the buffalo.

“A few nights ago a figure in a black cloak appeared in our camp. I would swear it was out of nowhere, but it was dark out so I cannot be sure. I know only that it had the shape of a pony, and from the way its cloak stuck out it had a horn.”

“Did you see anything that might make you think it had wings?” Shining Armor interrupted.

“I’m sorry,” Little Strongheart shook her head, “but if the creature had wings it gave no sign. It went into a tepee with my father, and since then he has not been himself. The figure walked off into the dark, and when I went to follow the tracks simply stopped with no sign of where it might have gone. I do not know if this means it has wings and flew off. When I returned and saw how strange my father was I went into Appleloosa to ask the sheriff to help me. I arrived just in time to see the same figure leaving the sheriff’s office. It disappeared down a small street, and again its trail simply vanished.”

“Chrysalis can fly.” Shining Armor said to Twilight.

“And teleport.” Twilight agreed. The Changeling Queen certainly had a vendetta against Equestria, and the means to pull it off like this. The only question remaining was what was she doing out here on the frontier, and where were Celestia, Luna, and Cadance.

“There was one other thing.” Little Strongheart broke into the conversation. “Last night I returned to the camp to see if my father had returned to himself. I saw several ponies in gold armor, Braeburn says they are your leader’s guards, carrying a large bundle. They left it with my father and departed. I left immediately and did not see more. I am sorry.”

“That’s it!” Twilight exclaimed. “I think I know what Chrysalis is doing out here.”

“What?” Her brother’s voice nearly quivered with eagerness.

“If she did replace Cadance again and absorb enough love from ponies to beat the princesses then she’d only have to worry about the Elements of Harmony and you finding the real Cadance and using the power of your love to beat her again. She must have sent Changelings disguised as guards to Ponyville to capture me and my friends. We wouldn’t be much of a threat to her in cocoons having our love drained.”

“But what’s she doing out here?” Her brother was clearly at the end of his rope.

“What better place to hide a captive princess?” Twilight answered. “If we hadn’t come here for our own reasons I would have never thought to look for them here, much less with the buffalo tribe. She could have had us running all over Equestria while she drained it of love, made her swarm unstoppable, and we never would have thought to look all the way out here.”

“We’ve got to save her.” Shining Armor sounded ready to storm the buffalo camp by himself right then. “Whether it’s Cadance, Luna, or Celestia. “Any one of them would be a huge help against Chrysalis.”

“We will,” Twilight immediately started trying to bring him back to his senses, “but we aren’t going to go to war against a completely innocent buffalo tribe to do it, and not tonight, we’re so exhausted we can barely stand. Braeburn, Little Strongheart, we need to get what’s in that bundle. And we need to do it preferably without anyone knowing we were ever there. Think you can help us?”

“Shoot,” Braeburn said, “if it’s for the Princesses, just tell me when and where.”

“Will this help restore my father to himself?”

“Not right away, and not in and of itself.” Twilight admitted. “But it will help us find and beat the one who made him like he is now.”

“Then I will do whatever I can.”

Life is Bristling With Thorns

We’ll Always Have Canterlot

Disclaimer: I disclaim this with the combined fury of a million white hot burning stars!

Chapter Three: Life is Bristling With Thorns

The first thing Rarity noticed when she woke was how sore she was, and how much her head hurt. She dearly hoped she hadn’t foolishly done anything un-ladylike last night like joining in one of Applejack’s and Rainbow Dash’s drinking contests. Or a drinking contest with Twilight Sparkle for that matter. The other unicorn seemed to have a hollow horn for how much she could drink without ill effect. Or maybe it was magic. Rarity had always been a thoroughly indifferent magical student, preferring to study and create fashion, but if Twilight had a spell to do away with hangovers it would be a spell worth learning.

Her bed felt like it was filled with rocks instead of the fancy down she'd had imported all the way from Baltimare. She hoped she hadn't somehow been so out of it to fall asleep on the floor. Even if she had been that out of her senses it wasn't as bad as it could have been. She’d just cleaned her floor a few days ago so it would only mean an extra two hours or so to make herself presentable rather than losing a whole day to damage control. Groaning, she decided to open her eyes and see what she’d done to herself. At least she’d drank enough to not particularly remember last night, so she assumed she’d had a good time.

Rarity opened her eyes, and screamed. She’d slept on bare filthy rock! She looked down at her once pristine coat and saw dirt and grime clinging to her legs and belly. This wasn't going to take a day to fix. She’d have to go unseen for a month while she shaved the ruined areas and used enough shampoo and conditioner to fill a small lake before this would be fixed. Desperately she tried to channel her magic to remove as much dirt as possible, magic regarding her personal appearance being one of the few areas of study she’d applied herself to, and underwent a fresh round of screaming as she found herself cut off from her magic by some ring placed on her horn.

Just as she was working herself into a full blown panic over her situation an orange hoof poked her and caused her to nearly jump through the stone roof.

“Simmer down there sugarcube.” The orange hoof belonged, unsurprisingly, to Applejack. “I just got Fluttershy to stop crying. And you starting up the waterworks isn't going to help things.”

“Applejack? What’s going on? Where are we?” Rarity perched herself on the very tips of her hooves in a desperate attempt to have as little contact as possible with the filth beneath her.

“I wish I had answers for you.” Applejack sighed as she walked back to the corner to check on the cowering Fluttershy. “I woke up last night and Winona was barking up a storm. Big Mac and I went downstairs to look outside the windows. We didn't see anything so we were just about to go back upstairs when I saw some ponies walking up to the house. Recognized them as guards, so I told Big Mac to go back upstairs and let Granny Smith and Apple Bloom know it was nothing to worry about, and that I’d be back as soon as I took care of them. The guards told me something had happened in Canterlot and that they needed all of us to head there right away. Told them I just needed to grab my hat, let my folks know where I was going, and we could be on our way. Then I saw Rainbow Dash, well I didn't see her, but I saw her do a sonic rainboom. I was wondering what the heck would make her do that in the middle of the night, and then everything went black and I woke up here.”

Listening to Applejack seemed to jog Rarity's memory from the fog it had been in. “The security spells I’d put on the boutique went off last night. I ran down in a panic, ready to tear the ruffians attacking my work limb from limb. Instead I found a few guards at the door. I suppose that perhaps I could have made the wards a bit less sensitive if it took so little to set them off. They told me more or less what they told you. Of course I needed to bring a number of accessories to make myself presentable in front of the princesses, and I needed to figure out how to turn off the alarm they’d set off before it dragged half of Ponyville to my door. I don’t think I noticed Rainbow Dash doing any sonic rainbooms, but then I had my nose buried in dresses I could stand to be seen in in Canterlot. Then there was a huge flash of light, I think it was just about the color of Twilight’s magic, and all the windows in the boutique blew out. It was a miracle that none of it cut me. Do you know how much effort it takes to get blood out of a white coat? I found out more than I ever wanted to know when I was learning how to sew. Anyways, that’s the last thing I remember. I must have blacked out somehow, and then I woke up in this miserable, filthy, completely un-ladylike place.”

Applejack hardly seemed to notice the filth all about them as she sat down to think over what Rarity had said. “Fluttershy, that about match up with what you remember from last night?”

A squeak and a nod were all they could get from the near catatonic pegasus, but between the three of them the could start filling in the gaps needed to puzzle out some sort of picture of what had gone on last night.

“Someone clearly set out to ponynap us.” Rarity said.

“Yeah,” Applejack agreed, “but were the guards trying to stop it, or were they the ones there to do it?”

“That hardly seems relevant at this point. Whoever wanted us obviously succeeded, or we wouldn't be in here,” Rarity’s gesture encompassed the cell, “and I wouldn't have this on my head.”

Applejack looked at the golden ring encircling Rarity’s horn. “There’s an awful lot of little squiggles on this thing. Think you could take down the door if I could get this thing off?”

“They’re runes to block my magic.” Rarity said as she walked over to the door. “I’m honestly not sure if I could bring this down. I’m hardly one of those poor unicorns who can barely feel any magic, but I’m a long way from Twilight Sparkle. Apparently our captor seems to think I could do some damage with my magic, or I wouldn’t have this on. And if they have any sense one of these runes will make it very difficult for anyone except the pony who put this thing on to take it off.”

“Darn,” Applejack swiped at the dust beneath them.

“It’s not so bad as that darling.” Rarity braved moving through the filth to put a comforting hoof on Applejack’s shoulder, and to take the opportunity to wipe the dirt off her hoof. “If Rainbow Dash managed to pull off a sonic rainboom then she certainly left whoever came for her in her dust. Twilight blew out half the windows in Ponyville so she clearly managed to start using her magic, and we know nopony this side of Celestia or Luna is a match for her once she gets going. And I don’t see Pinkie Pie anywhere here, do you?”

“I guess half of us getting away is better than none of us.” Applejack ventured a smile. “Still pretty embarrassing to get ponynapped so easily, If she did get away Rainbow Dash isn't gonna let me live this down for a long time.”

“Indeed,” Rarity agreed sagely. “I think when this is over I’ll take Twilight Sparkle up on her offer to teach me some more advanced magic. I shudder at how much time it will take and how many works of fashion mastery I won’t be able to make as a result. But if it keeps us out of another situation like this then I suppose it will have been worth it.”

Hoping against hope they tried to see if Applejack could remove the ring from Rarity’s horn, she couldn't. That failing, they spent awhile poking around the cell looking for any weak spots they might be able to escape through. Finding nothing they settled down to conserve their strength for any opportunity that presented itself.

Some while later, without a window she could only guess how much time had really passed, Rarity was verging on falling back to sleep. Though since it would involve lying down on that horrible filthy floor she tried desperately to avoid it. So intent was she to avoid that terrible fate that she failed to notice the sounds of approaching ponies down the hall, and was only shaken back to wakefulness when the heavy lock in the door slid back and it began to open.

She and Applejack immediately sprang to their hooves ready to take the opportunity to fight their way out. Fluttershy on the other hoof crawled even further into her corner and covered her eyes to avoid the forthcoming violence.

However, when the door opened instead of leaping forward to attack their captors Rarity and Applejack instead felt their jaws fall halfway to the ground, and even Fluttershy leapt to her hooves.

“Princess Cadance!” They all shouted, each of them feeling the first stirrings of hope since waking up in such a dismal place.

“I’m so sorry this happened girls.” Cadance walked into the dirty cell with no regard for what it would do to her coat. “The guards are all still on pins and needles after the Changeling invasion, and when things started to go wrong in Ponyville they just overreacted.”

“That’s quite all right.” Rarity took the lead in responding since she’d developed something of a rapport with the princess while re-making her wedding dress after they’d defeated Chrysalis. “There’s been no lasting harm, except to my poor coat, and now that you’re here we can set this all to right.”

“Indeed,” Cadance smiled. “It will be so wonderful to have you all here with me.”

Applejack and Rarity passed a look between each other before Rarity spoke up again. “About that your highness, do you happen to know where our friends are? We haven’t seen them since last night, and like you said there was that little fracas in Ponyville.”

“Well I need your help, even if the guards could have gone about asking for it a bit better.” Cadance’s laugh was airy but sent chills down the spines of all three ponies just the same. “I was having the most wonderful talk in the world with Pinkie Pie about how you can help me when I heard about you three down here. Of course you shouldn't be in a place like this so I came right away. You don't need to worry anymore though. I’m fixing everything so you’ll all be together soon, and then we'll fix everything.”

Rarity quirked an expertly plucked eyebrow. They knew where Pinkie Pie was, but beyond that tidbit Cadance's answer had been one of the better evasions she’d seen lately.

Nor was the evasion lost on Applejack as she tried another track to get Cadance to give them some information. “That’s good to hear your highness, but where exactly is here?”

“Somewhere that hasn't been used in awhile.” Cadance gestured to the dust still on the floor just waiting to infect Rarity’s coat with its dirtiness. “But what are we doing still standing around here? It’s been so long since I've seen you, and we shouldn't be wasting it down here.”

“It hasn't been that long at all.” Rarity was beginning to feel nervous for some reason she couldn’t put her hoof on, and by their looks Applejack and Fluttershy were feeling the same. “It’s only been a few weeks since we all saw each other in the Crystal Empire.”

“Oh but it’s been more than a few weeks since we’ve seen each other.” Cadance smiled a terrifying smile, blinked, and opened her eyes to reveal a gaze most certainly not that of Princess Cadance.

This time, when Rarity began to scream Applejack did nothing to stop her.

Spread out below her the buffalo camp might as well have been the moon as far as Twilight Sparkle was concerned. It was right there in front of her, but she could see no way to get there. And to pour salt in the metaphorical wound she could even see exactly where she needed to go. The tent near the very middle of the camp was of obvious Equestrian manufacture in stark contrast to the simply made buffalo dwellings. More telling were the dozen buffalo standing around the tent to keep any unwelcome interlopers, precisely what Twilight and her friends would be, from going inside.

“We’ve got one thing going for us.” Shining Armor muttered more to himself than the others.

“Really?” Twilight said. “Because I don’t see it.”

Shining Armor seemed a bit surprised anyone had heard him, but answered all the same. “Look at the guards, they clearly aren't expecting any trouble. They’re bored, they’re talking with each other, and we can make that work for us.”

“Why are we even worried about the guards?” Asked Spike. “We know where the tent is. Can’t Twilight just teleport in, grab the princess, and teleport back out?”

“We can and will teleport out, but going in isn't going to work.” Twilight could feel herself starting to work up a lecture and forced herself to keep the answer short. “If I teleport into someone, like say a princess, it would end really badly for them. As in they’d be lucky if they just lost a leg bad. That’s why I try to never teleport farther than I can see, and why I put us out in the middle of nowhere when we got here in the first place. If I came into the wrong place in that tent… well let’s just say that none of us want that.”

“Then how are we going to get in?” Spike pointed down at the camp below. “There’s no cover for a mile out from that place. Even if we come in the middle of the night they’ll know we’re coming long before we get there.”

“My people customarily build our camps in such a place.” Little Strongheart noted. “If a threat approaches the camp it gives us time to form a stampede against it. I am sure you are well aware of how formidable that can be.”

“Hmmm.” Twilight pondered for awhile. “Actually teleporting in could work. Not all the way in, but look at that little ravine about a hundred yards away from the camp. The buffalo wouldn't have cared because like you said we’d be spotted long before then, but if we start from there in the middle of the night.”

“Good thinking Twiley.” Shining Armor smiled at her. “It’s almost like you’re my little sister or something.”

“Thank Spike.” Twilight pointed at the dragon. “I was all set to have us walking right up to them before he got me thinking.”

“That’s great and all, but what do we do about the guards?” Braeburn had been quiet up till then. “Y’all will just poof out of here with the princess, but I’d rather not have a war on our hooves back here.”

“Depending on what shape the princess is in we might not have to worry about that.” Shining Armor said. “But we aren't going to hurt anyone we don’t have to, and then not any more than we have to. Equestria is a peaceful place, so guards are trained much more to incapacitate anyone we have to before really hurting them.”

“I hope you understand how much I want us to not hurt anyone at all.” Little Strongheart was starting to sound very plaintive about the whole enterprise.

“Relax,” Twilight said as comfortingly as possible. “When we say incapacitate we’re talking putting them to sleep for a few hours. We know that everyone Chrysalis has put under her control, even indirectly, is completely innocent in all this. I’ll only start throwing around serious magic if I see buffalo turning into Changelings.”

“And take it from experience.” Shining Armor looked very serious as he spoke. “If Chrysalis is controlling them, knocking them around will be doing them a favor.”

“We should still try to have as little conflict as possible.” Little Strongheart sounded a bit less vehement.

“We’ll be moving too fast to get into much conflict if things go even remotely to plan.” Shining Armor looked back down at the camp. “Chrysalis really wants me and Twilight , so she’s probably laced the whole camp and everywhere else she doesn't want us going with spells to let her know if we’re getting anywhere near foiling her plan. We have to assume she’ll be on her way as soon as we’re in there, so every time we have to stop to put someone to sleep is burning time we don’t have.”

“So when do we do this?” Braeburn asked.

“Tonight.” Twilight responded. “With any luck the guards will be sleepy, and most of the buffaloes will be asleep where they’re not in danger of getting hurt. Like Shining Armor said, we want to be in and out as fast as possible. We should all try to get as much rest as possible while we can. It’s going to be a long night.”

Later, as the sun was going down, everyone but Twilight Sparkle and Shining Armor was asleep. Despite knowing what lay ahead the siblings had too much on their minds to sleep.

“You did pretty good with the others little sis.” Shining Armor flopped down beside Twilight in the dimming light.

“Did I? I always feel like I’m just completely making it up as I go along and everyone just acts like I know exactly what I’m talking about. I think I’m just lucky I've never gotten anyone hurt, or worse.”

“Hey,” Shining Armor made sure she was looking him in the eyes before he went on, “you did a good job back there. It’s a good plan, and they all think it will work, so do I. Stick with me little sis, I’ll make a decent guard out of you yet!”

“Yeah right.” Twilight scoffed. “What are you guys, down on your recruiting quota or something?”

“Just glad to spend some time with my little sister. Even if I wish the circumstances were better. I guess I’m just feeling better knowing that it wasn't Cadance doing all that. Chrysalis will be tough to beat, but we can fight her. And besides, I need some way to feel better about myself after spending the last time she attacked as her all you can eat buffet.”

“Not your best moment.” Twilight said with a hint of a smile in her voice.

“Yeah,” Shining Armor chuckled. “Anyways, we need to figure out what we’re going to do once we get whoever is in that camp down there. If Celestia or Luna knows where your friends are we should go get them as soon as we can and use the Elements of Harmony. There’s no telling how strong Chrysalis has gotten feeding on everyone’s love for Cadance. We should use our strongest weapon right away so she can’t hit us back.”

“If the princesses know exactly where they all are then it’s a good idea. But otherwise I think we have to stick to finding whichever princess or princesses aren’t in there. We need five other ponies to use the Elements of Harmony, and that’s much longer for Chrysalis to catch us, but if we catch Chrysalis by surprise then the two of us plus Celestia or Luna could take her out right away.”

“At least we know they’re okay.” Twilight pointed to the slowly rising moon.

“Yeah, it’s a start.”

Strange Bedfellows

We’ll Always Have Canterlot

Disclaimer: I asked a Magic 8 Ball if I would ever own My Little Pony. It said signs point to no.

Chapter Four: Strange Bedfellows

After the sun had gone down they’d made a sparse dinner and eaten in near silence. After that they’d settled in for the long wait until the buffalo camp became sleepy and quiet enough for them to break in. For Twilight Sparkle and her brother, that meant going back to perch on the ledge overlooking the camp.

“Twilight,” her brother rarely used her full name so it got her attention. “I’m scared. What do we do if it is Cadance behind all this? I mean what if we open up that tent, find Luna or Celestia, and they say that Cadance has gone bad like King Sombra or something.”

That was something Twilight had been thinking about herself, and a question she’d dearly hoped her brother wouldn’t ask. “I’m not sure there’s a right answer, or even any good ones for that matter. But I guess that if we do get to that point then we do what we have to. Celestia sent her own sister to the moon for a thousand years to keep Equestria safe. I’m not saying we’ll have to do that, I’m not even saying I think Cadance is behind this. With everything we’ve seen I think you’re right to put your bits on Queen Chrysalis coming back to take over Equestria. But you’re a captain of the royal guard, and I’m Princess Celestia’s apprentice, our first duty is to Equestria and all the ponies counting on us to save them.”

“I was worried you’d say that.” Shining Armor smiled mirthlessly. “You’re right, I know. But it’s one thing to say that my first duty is to Equestria. It’s another thing to think that might mean banishing my wife to the moon for a thousand years, or wherever she’d go.”

“We’re not banishing anyone anywhere if we don’t have to. Things will get better once we rescue the princess down there. And hey, if it’s Cadance, the real Cadance, down there then we can just teleport you two into Canterlot, let you do your love fuelled shield spell, and problem solved. It would actually be easy for a change, well relatively speaking.”

“There you go. You just jinxed it.” Twilight was glad to see her brother making an attempt at humor. Even if it wasn’t what she’d call a good attempt.

“I think we’ll survive.” Twilight tried to keep her tone deliberately light. “Pinkie Pie would have a whole song and dance routine ready about how to keep from jinxing something, or not worrying that you did jinx it, but we’ll just have to make do with good planning and talent. It’s gotten us this far, so I’m going to keep rolling with it.”

“I don’t know, that was a pretty impressive musical show she had going after the wedding. Think she could pull those speakers and turntables out here?” Twilight started to tell her brother to never underestimate Pinkie Pie’s ability to produce a party when he went on. “I guess if we can’t have a song and dance routine I’ll just have to keep myself together knowing that I finally saved your tail for a change.”

Twilight let out a snort that wanted to be a laugh before she killed it. “Whatever helps you sleep at night big brother. But I guess I can sleep pretty comfy when we rescue the princess knowing that I’m still ahead by one at saving your tail.”

“I seem to recall getting the crystal heart while you were stuck in Sombra’s prison. We’re all even saving each other’s tail little sis.”

“Oh please, that was all Spike and Cadance. And no you can’t claim some sort of team credit since and Cadance are married.” Twilight smirked as the smile that had just sprouted on her brother’s face died. She did know him.

They argued back and forth about who had saved who’s tail more times over their entire lives, going into and out of hysterics for quite awhile, Twilight hadn’t had this much fun since the last time Pinkie Pie threw one of her truly epic parties.

Twilight was just getting up to start walking around, she didn’t want to be stiff when the action started, when Spike walked up to her with Braeburn and Little Strongheart not that far away. “Hey Twilight, I was thinking, there might be an easier way to do this than storm through the camp and fight our way in.”

“I’m all ears. And I’m sure Little Strongheart would appreciate it if we had a way to get into that tent without hurting anyone.”

“Right,” Spike wound himself up to speak, “I was wondering why we don’t just walk in. The buffalo know Little Strongheart, obviously. I was talking with her about how things have been since we left, and when the settlers need to talk to the buffalo they send Braeburn often enough that no one would blink twice about him coming through. We could just tag along with them and not have to do anything until we’re right next to the tent. Shining Armor could put up a shield to keep us safe, you could cut into the tent, get the princess, and we’d be out without anyone getting hurt. Just like back in Canterlot when you dragged Pinkie Pie and me along to get that scroll from the Starswirl the Bearded wing of the library. Remember how you thought we’d have to sneak in and then the guard just let us walk in? I bet it’d be just like that!”

“Didn’t we agree to treat that like it didn’t happen?” Twilight glared at Spike. Her obsession with getting into the library after her week long series of mishaps was one of her less proud moments, and like she’d said, she’d prefer to just forget it had ever happened.

“Anyways,” she continued after calming herself down, “it wouldn’t work. Ponies are a rare sight in the buffalo camp. Braeburn comes here often enough that they’re used to him, but we’d stand out like a tourist in Canterlot. Everyone would want to get a look at us, and I bet dragons are an even rarer sight. You’re probably the only dragon they’ve ever met, and they wouldn’t pass up a chance to see you, even if it’s in the middle of the night. If the princess was in Appleloosa I’d say it was a great idea, but Chrysalis clearly thought ahead when she brought her out here.”

“Aw man,” Spike kicked at the ground, “I’m never gonna have a good idea. Why am I even along?”

Twilight quickly realized she’d been a bit harsh with her baby dragon, but before she could start apologizing Little Strongheart spoke up. “Actually that might be a very good idea. Twilight Sparkle is correct that the three of you would not be able to enter the camp without drawing undue notice to yourselves. But as Spike pointed out, if Braeburn and I were to walk through the camp, even at this hour, it would not arouse much curiosity in the guards. Returning at such an hour after being absent for some time may give rise to rumors, but if that is the price I must pay to free my father from whatever afflicts him then I will gladly bear it.”

“Well that’s half of the problem.” Shining Armor said. “But there’s still the little problem of getting you two out of there with the princess in tow. They might let you walk in, but they aren’t going to let you into the tent, or out of the camp.”

“Braeburn and I will not be going to the tent where your princess is.” Little Strongheart smiled. “We will go to the other side of the camp from where you will enter and cause a small ruckus. Not large enough to rouse the whole camp, but enough to draw off a few of the guards you would have to otherwise make your way through.”

“See Spike,” Twilight tapped him on the shoulder with a hoof. “That wasn’t a bad idea. It just needed a little more thinking. Now that we’ve got a plan, again, let’s get our stuff and go.”

Twilight was glad she’d so carefully observed the land below when the sun was up since the place she teleported them to wasn’t very visible at night. Preparation paid though, and they all arrived safely.

“I don’t know when we’ll be back here.” Twilight said to Braeburn and Little Strongheart as they prepared to head into the buffalo camp. “But thank you two so much for all your help. We would have walked right into Chrysalis’ hooves if it wasn’t for the two of you. And even if we hadn’t, we never would have known to come here.”

“Shucks.” Twilight could clearly tell that Braeburn and Applejack were cousins in that moment. “It’s nothing special. We’ve all gotta do our part to keep the Changelings from taking over. Just remember us little folks when you’re off saving the world.”

“I’ll see what I can do to get you two your own window in the royal castle.” Shining Armor smiled. “I might have a few strings I can pull once this is all over.”

Silently, Braeburn and Little Strongheart climbed up onto level ground and began making their way towards the buffalo camp as though they hadn’t a care in the world.

“Okay,” Twilight said as soon as they were alone in the dark, “it’s almost show time so let’s make sure we all know what we’re doing…”

Both Shining Armor and Spike quickly tuned Twilight Sparkle out until her voice was no more noticeable than the slight breeze that was the only disturbance in the night. They both knew that obsessively reciting a plan in the moments before it went off was simply her way of blowing off steam. Shining Armor occupied himself by thinking of how they had to defeat Chrysalis while Spike indulged in an idle daydream of how thankful Rarity would be when he returned to Ponyville a hero. Sure he’d been a hero in the Crystal Empire, but this time she could be a damsel in distress for him to save, and everyone knew damsels were thankful to the knights who rode heroically to their rescue.

Long, and painful, experience had taught both Spike and Shining Armor how to completely tune Twilight Sparkle out while still looking engaged. In that manner everyone passed through the long minutes while Little Strongheart and Braeburn made their way into the camp and created the necessary distraction.

Just as Twilight was wrapping up her summation of how exactly things should proceed a bright light flared from the far side of the buffalo camp. As a few of the buffalo guards perked up from their tiresome vigil and made their way over to the disturbance Shining Armor bolted out of the ditch, that was against the plan as they should have waited at least ten more seconds for the guards to gain more distance, but Twilight was only a few steps behind as Spike landed on her back in a magenta glow.

As she ran towards the camp Twilight continued to second guess herself. The guards were proving to be following a very predictable pattern, just what she would expect from guards not expecting any trouble. Maybe she should have chanced putting them down in the camp itself. No, if she’d done that it would have been at the exact moment a guard decided to break routine, or another buffalo decided to come out of their tent for a late night snack, or any of the other reasons that teleporting in a crowded area was a bad idea.

At a flat out gallop the tents of the buffalo camp quickly neared as ground disappeared between two sets of hooves. Several of the guards had left to investigate, but even if none of them had left their posts it still would have been worth it as the complete attention of the remaining guards was directed opposite to Twilight and Shining Armor’s incoming gallop.

In her head, Twilight worried very much that some unsuspecting buffalo would step out of their tent without even thinking there might be a pony galloping right into them. And in doing so throw the whole of her already teetering plan, they were already eight seconds ahead of schedule, completely off the rails.

She could have already started putting guards to sleep, but her brother could only perform the spell from a fairly close distance, and once the guards started dropping their element of surprise would be lost. Still, if a guard happened to turn and spot them she wouldn’t hesitate to act.

To her side, Twilight saw her brother’s horn light up and she in turn started to channel her own magic. The first pair of buffalo guards dropped silently to the ground as they passed the first row of tents. Twilight’s internal count said they’d gotten another precious second ahead of the all-important schedule of how this was to unfold.

Another pair of buffalo guards joined the first in blissful sleep, but Twilight could see that the others were starting to notice that something other than Braeburn and Little Strongheart’s deception was wrong, and much closer to them. She grimaced, the plan said they were only supposed to be detected on the third pair of guards.

While Twilight battled inner panic over the collapse of her dear, dear plan she looked over to see only grim purpose on her brother’s face.

The third pair of guards fell with cries of alarm just beginning to come from their mouths. If each side of the square tent still had that many guards it meant they were a quarter of the way through the guards. But now the guards from the other side were clearly clued in to the distress of their companions and were coming to investigate.

Twilight was tempted, sorely tempted, to start putting more than one guard asleep with the same spell. But she still had to get into the tent, undo whatever spells Chrysalis had put in there, very possibly help fight her off, rescue the princess, and still have the strength to teleport three ponies and a baby dragon far away from here.

“Twilight!” She heard her brother shout. “Get in closer to me!”

That wasn’t called for in the plan. They were supposed to stay a bit apart to minimize the chance of targeting the same guard as well as making it more difficult to target both of them. But as she saw all the remaining guards pouring around the tent towards them she realized her carefully crafted and cherished plan was falling apart, and her brother was much better at on the fly thinking.

Twilight closed the gap and continued galloping as she put another guard to sleep. She saw that though her brother’s horn was still glowing with magic he hadn’t put another guard to sleep himself. She briefly wondered if something was wrong until the world took on a slight magenta hue as one of her brother’s shields leapt into being around them.

The nearest pair of buffalo guards was rapidly approaching them. Twilight put one of them to sleep, and while the other made an impressive charge against Shining Armor’s shield such spells were his special talent and it held with no discernible cracks.

Then she had no more time to put any other guards to sleep as they were skidding to a halt in front of the tent with Spike holding on to her mane for dear life. The tent was made of a very strong yet stretchy canvass and as she probed at it with her magic she could feel the numerous metal supports inside. It wasn’t the worst case scenario she’d thought of, but she’d hoped that they might have used one of the buffalo’s much lighter tents rather than this far more sturdy tent of Equestrian build.

Frowning, she let magic swirl around her horn to rip a hole in the side of the tent and bring the fabric towards her so it didn’t hurt anyone inside the tent. She would still have to free the princess, deal with Chrysalis and her wards, and get them all out of here. It was going to be a long night.

Far away in the glittering city of Canterlot an orange earth pony lay strapped to a table groaning as powerful magic washed over her. Above her stood the shape of Princess Cadance, horn aglow with magic, and a look of concentration on her face.

“You are an impressive specimen Applejack. I’m powerful enough to have bested Celestia, twice, and forcing you to love me is still a challenge. I had originally planned to kill you and your friends when all this was over, completely eliminate the Elements of Harmony as a threat and all that, but I’m starting to think you’ll make endlessly useful thralls once my control over Equestria is absolute.”

She received only a groan in response, but then she’d expected nothing different. The pony beneath her was just a little busy having her brain forcibly rearranged to force her to feel love for a creature she would naturally detest. A smile crossed Cadance’s face, revenge was so much fun.

Suddenly the smile disappeared from her face as her head whipped about to a feeling of one of her warning spells going off a long way from where she was. She’d put that particular captive so far away from civilization for a reason, but Celestia’s brat had somehow found her. This called for her personal attention. Her horn flashed briefly and an instant later a still groaning Applejack was alone in the room.

Twilight hopped into the hole she’d created and stopped. The tent was packed with machinery, and not just any machinery, but cutting edge Equestrian science. Even she didn’t recognize some of the devices in front of her. So what was Chrysalis doing with them?

Then she spotted the large bundle on a table and all other thought fled. She’d have plenty of time to wonder about all this when they’d rescued the princess and gotten away from here. She walked over to the table and started work on the numerous spells placed over the bundle to keep it from being moved by some interloping pony exactly like Twilight.

“The princess is in here!” She shouted out to her brother. “Just stay there a little longer and I’ll be out with her!”

“That’s great!” Came the reply. “But we’ve got a little problem out here!”

“What?” Twilight shouted back as she worked her way through an impressively complex web of protective spells. Celestia’s lessons on complex magic and handling multiple spells at once were coming in quite handy.

“Twilight Sparkle, you are in so much trouble!” She hadn’t heard that particular voice for years. It used to mean her parents would not be happy when they got back from wherever they’d gone for the night. Now though, the Changeling Queen shouting at her in her former babysitter’s voice promised far more painful consequences.

“Just hold her off Shining Armor!” Twilight felt sweat start to bead on her brow as she furiously unraveled spells and disarmed magical trap upon magical trap.

She at last made it through enough of the spells to disconnect the first tube going into the sack. It came out with a sucking sound to reveal a long needle with green goo clinging to it that reminded her of nothing so much as Changeling blood. Or the inside of a Changeling cocoon a small part of her brain smiled at the likely answer to her puzzle. A nondescript sack would make transporting the princess without notice easier, and an artificial cocoon within would enable long term imprisonment.

Outside the tent Shining Armor took an involuntary step back as his shield spell wavered under the assault it was under. “Twilight, I could really use some help out here!”

“Sorry,” she shouted out. “I’m a little busy trying to free the princess, get through Chrysalis’ spells, and get us out of here as soon as I’m done. Just hold her off a little longer!”

“I’m sorry dear,” Cadance’s face twisted into a sneer. “But I can’t let you and your darling little sister leave. Especially not after all the trouble I went to setting up these accommodations for my guest.”

“Where’s Cadance?” He growled at the picture of his wife attacking him. “What have you done with her you witch?”

He was answered with a throaty laugh he’d never heard from his wife. “Oh Shining Armor, I am Cadance. I’m all the Cadance you’ll ever need. Now just lower that shield and come with me. I promise you’ll love it.”

He was about to tell ‘Cadance’ where she could shove her offer, backwards, when Twilight Sparkle jumped out of the hole she’d made in the tent with a large bundle in her magic.

Cadance’s face went from an unattractive sneer to an equally repulsive scowl at seeing his sister’s success. The magical attack she sent ripped up the ground beneath it and threatened to punch straight through his by now flimsy shield. Until Twilight’s horn erupted with light and reinforced by her magic, his shield became as solid as it had ever been. It was one thing to know his little sister was the strongest unicorn alive, it was quite another to see it in action right in front of him.

“Very good Twilight Sparkle.” Cadence’s voice said as she let her magic fade out. “I didn’t intend to teach you so much when we met last. But you’ve learned your lessons very well. So well in fact that I think once I’ve taken Celestia’s place as the beloved ruler of all Equestria I’ll take you on as my personal student.”

That struck a chord somewhere in her mind. But with so much going on, and still do be done, she had zero time to think over it. “Hang on Shining Armor, we’re getting out of here, now.”

Magic swirled around her horn yet again and to the tune of a laughing Cadance the world turned white around them. Where two ponies had once stood with a baby dragon and a large sack there was only a slightly charred patch of ground.

They appeared again in a wooded area with a small stream babbling nearby. Twilight shook her head to clear it from the strain of the spell. She’d had much more time to prepare for this teleport, and it showed. It didn’t do anything to change the fact that teleporting herself a long ways was difficult enough, and adding more ponies and exhaustion to the spell only made it harder and more draining.

Finally back to her senses she looked around and gave a satisfied nod that they’d come out where she’d intended them to. She’d taken a bit of a risk sending them where she had, but with their treasure from the Buffalo Camp securely in tow she felt safe enough to try.

“Come on you guys.” She said to Spike and Shining Armor as she took hold of the bundle and set off at a brisk walk.

Both of her companions were still shaking off their own effects from teleporting so far, but they fell in behind her nonetheless.

“So where are we this time?” Spike asked. “Manehatten? Baltimare? Las Pegasus? No, wait, scratch that last one, we’re on the ground.”

“Ponyville.” Twilight replied. “More precisely we’re just a bit outside of Ponyville, near Fluttershy’s cottage. Cadance wouldn’t have come as quickly as she did without having all my friends securely locked away. We won’t have to worry about any ponies coming to bother us all the way out here, and once we convince Fluttershy’s animals that we’re trying to help her we won’t have to worry about them either. In fact, I bet they’ll let us know if anyone is coming towards us well before we’d know otherwise.”

They made good time towards their destination. It may have been dark out, but on familiar ground Twilight was able to lead them by just moonlight. They’d gone a little more than halfway when she saw a small white object dart from one patch of shadow to another.

“Angel,” she called out to the darkness, “is that you?”

Just as she was starting to think she’d been seeing things a pair of white rabbit ears poked into her view followed by the rest of Fluttershy’s pet rabbit. She quickly noticed however that the rabbit had a look of pure suspicion on his face, and she had the sudden feeling that they were being watched by a great many animals waiting to see if they were friendly or not.

“We’re all ourselves. I promise.” When the look didn’t waver she went on. “Pinkie Pie promise, cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my ow!” She always messed up at that part and poked herself in the eye with a hoof.

A Pinkie Pie Promise seemed to satisfy Angel, and with a wave he led them the rest of the way to the darkened cottage. Twilight nodded to herself, not without a bit of sadness, that she’d been right about her friends all being captured.

The animals had clearly kept the inside clean hoping that Fluttershy would return so Twilight didn’t worry about setting their precious bundle down on the floor.

“That was fun, so now what?” Her brother said as they lit candles around them to dispel the darkness of the middle of the night.

“First we find out who’s in here. Then we get a good night’s sleep, and when we wake up tomorrow we figure out where to go from here.”

For all the wards that had tried to keep her from it there was in the end only a zipper to pull to open the bundle beneath the three waiting faces. Breath caught in her throat Twilight pulled it down and then pulled the flaps of the sack aside with her magic.

Inside the sack a pair of eyes blinked, focused, and then settled on the ponies and dragon above.

“Oh great, it’s you two.” Twilight found herself looking down at the face of Queen Chrysalis.

The Truth of Things

We’ll Always Have Canterlot

Disclaimer: Dear Hasbro’s lawyers, I’ve told you I don’t own My Little Pony, so go somewhere else.

Chapter Five: The Truth of Things

“Okay,” Twilight worked her jaw in confusion, “now I’m confused.

“That’s impossible.” Her equally, if not more, shocked brother said. “You’re the one behind all this. So how are you the one we rescued?”

“Just think about it.” Chrysalis shook herself around to free herself from the confines of the sack they’d found her in. “I still don’t know what that little princess of yours saw in you, but I’m starting to think it wasn’t brains.”

Twilight stuck a hoof in her brother’s face to cut off the biting remark he was getting ready to spit back out at the Changeling Queen. “If you’re here and not behind all this then there’s only a few other creatures in all Equestria I can think of that could beat either Celestia or Luna in a straight fight. So unless Discord has broken free of his prison and is somehow getting his kicks by posing as Cadance there’s only one other possibility. So why don’t you tell us how Nightmare Moon beat you.”

Chrysalis sent a nasty smirk as though daring Twilight to give her a reason to help them. But under her unrelenting glare she finally opened her mouth. “I’m not sure Nightmare Moon is the right name for her. After all that’s what you called your dear little Princess Luna during her temper tantrum. But whatever she’s calling herself these days that’s what you’re up against.”

Twilight spoke into the pause that followed. “She’s clearly taken a few lessons from you. Until we pulled you out of that buffalo camp thinking it was one of the princesses in there we thought you were doing all this.”

“No better teacher I can think of.” Chrysalis had a rather smug look on her face. “But I don’t have any intention of conquering Equestria to devour your love for some time. A good queen knows when something is out of her reach.”

“Alright,” Twilight cut her brother off once again, “so if you’re not behind all this then what exactly happened to you?”

Chrysalis sighed as she realized she clearly wasn’t getting away without suffering through an interrogation. “Little Princess Cutsey came back for revenge, clear as that. Of course if I had me for competition I can see why she felt small enough to turn into Nightmare Moon to come back and beat me to remove me from the picture. Even Shining Armor could probably figure out that without feeding on his love I was no match for a pony that could defeat Celestia herself. Once she had me locked up she started doing all sorts of unpleasant things to me. Part of it I’m sure was Cadance wanting to get back at me for being so superior. But what she was really after, and why I was hooked into all those machines, was to let her feed off the love ponies felt for their dear princess of love.”

“How would that work?” Shining Armor finally got a word in. “Nopony would ever love something like you.”

“I didn’t know you cared so much dear.” Chrysalis bit right back. “I didn’t say she was feeding off love for me. She figured out a way to use me to feed like a Changeling from the love that ponies feel for her. When ponies felt love for her, or when she used her magic to make ponies love her, it went through me and then to her as more power.”

“Now I know you’re lying.” Shining Armor scowled. “Cadance would never use her power to force anyone to love her.”

Chrysalis’ smile was quite sweet, her voice was anything but. “Just like your dear Luna would never use her power to plunge Equestria into eternal night and evil? Face it lover boy, that’s not your perfect little wife anymore. At this point you’d be better off marrying me than getting anywhere near her. And yes, that is an invitation.”

Shining Armor’s suggestion of what she could do with her invitation was something Twilight didn’t think even a changeling was anatomically capable of.

“Come on Twilight. It’s clear she’s somehow controlling Cadance like she was me. And she’s only here so we won’t suspect her while she sucks all the love out of Equestria.”

Twilight closed her eyes and sighed, it was time to go from being a little sister to Celestia’s apprentice. “I’m sorry, I think she’s right big brother. Something Cadance said to me back at the buffalo camp, that I’d learned the lessons she’d taught me. I learned how to teleport from watching Nightmare Moon. And the spell I used to get into the tent, it was the same sort of spell Nightmare Moon used to collapse a cliff under my friends and I when we were going to get the Elements of Harmony. Even the spell I used to boost your shield was similar to how she tried to protect herself once we started using the Elements on her. I didn’t learn anything from Chrysalis, Changeling magic is totally different from unicorn magic.”

Her brother sent her a look of pure betrayal.

“I know this is hard Shining Armor. Cadance is my sister-in-law too, so it hurts me to think she’d do this. But we just have to remind ourselves that this isn’t Cadance, it’s Nightmare Moon, or whatever she’s calling herself now. Once she was freed Luna went right back to being herself. And like you said, she’d never do any of the things she did as Nightmare Moon. We’ll find a way to rescue Cadance from this, and once we do she’ll be back to her old self, we’ll get Celestia and Luna back, and things can go back to normal.”

“That can’t…” Twilight watched her brother walk numbly to a chair and almost drop into it. He was going to need a few minutes to get over his world turning upside down. Out of the corner of her eye she noted Spike moving to keep an eye on him.

In the meantime she still had plenty to do. She turned her attention back to Chrysalis, who had finally succeeded in freeing herself from the bag. The Changeling Queen was clearly malnourished, her chitin skin was dry and cracked, and her mane wasn’t only stringy from lack of attention.

“All right Chrysalis, here’s what we’re dealing with. You don’t like us and we don’t much care for you. But with my friends gone, or worse, we’re all in trouble. Nightmare Moon has clearly learned from when we beat her the last time. I thought it was for good, but clearly she’s taken up residence in Cadance, and I don’t think either of us want her to suck up all the love in Equestria for the next thousand years. We can’t use the Elements of Harmony without my friends, and even though Celestia and Luna must still be alive since the sun and moon are still moving we don’t have the slightest clue where to look for them. It was pure chance we came out where you were, and I don’t think we’re going to get that kind of lucky break again. So the question is how do two unicorns, a baby dragon, and the Changeling Queen beat the most powerful being in Equestria when she’s already won?”

“I don’t know where you’re getting this ‘we’ from. You ponies have hunted us down and banished us to the farthest reaches of Equestria. As far as I can see this is a problem by ponies, and for ponies. My children are strong. We’ve lived through hard times before, and we will find a way to survive this. I have far better and more important things to do than help you overthrow one tyrant just to return the tyrant of your choosing to power. As far as I’m concerned, you’re welcome to whatever comes your way.”

Inside Twilight bit back several curses that would have made her brother blush. On the outside she betrayed nothing. Celestia had drilled into her how critical it was to control her emotions and keep a level head during a crisis like this. Silently she thanked her mentor for the lesson, and hoped Celestia was still doing alright wherever she was.

Chrysalis rolled herself over onto her hooves, stood up, and promptly collapsed back to the ground. Twilight couldn’t quite keep the smirk from her face as she watched her old enemy suffer. A second later the smirk turned to a smile as she saw a possibility open up.

“Right now I could beat you without using so much as a spark of magic. Cadance already tracked you down once after she and my brother blasted you to the farthest reaches of Equestria with the power of their love. So in your condition how long do you think it would take her to find you again and plug you back into her love devouring machine? She was at the buffalo camp, she knows you’re loose, and the only reason she hasn’t found us is because Equestria is a very big place and I can send us just about anywhere without anyone seeing us go. So if you want to go back to being her all you can eat love buffet I’ll be happy to take you back to Appleloosa and leave you there. On the other hoof, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

Chrysalis glared at her a look of loathing that clearly said she was weighing her chances back in Appleloosa.

“Okay, maybe friend was much too strong a word. But at least the enemy of my enemy is someone I can work with to beat our mutual enemy.”

Chrysalis was silent for a minute or so before sighing and rolling her eyes. “You’re lucky I want revenge on little miss princess perfect so badly.”

With a very tenuous agreement put together Twilight Sparkle was more than ready to call it a night and get some sleep. She’d brought out a pillow and blanket for Chrysalis, no sense needlessly antagonizing her, when Angel hopped back into the cottage, saw what was going on, and fixed Twilight with a glare that spoke volumes.

Twilight groaned on the inside at yet another delay to getting to sleep. She knew Fluttershy’s animals would react poorly to a Changeling in their midst, the Changeling Queen no less, but she’d hoped it was a problem she’d be able to deal with after a good night’s sleep.

“First off I was going to mention this.” Twilight couldn’t believe she was defending Queen Chrysalis to a rabbit, but here she was. “I thought we’d brought back one of the princesses until a few minutes ago, and I figured you’d already gone back to sleep, and I wanted to get to sleep myself before dealing with this.”

Under the gaze of those beady little black eyes Twilight started to understand how Fluttershy could have so many problems dealing with other ponies.

“Look, we need her.” Twilight was probably trying to convince herself as much as Angel with that statement. “Cadance has been possessed by Nightmare Moon, and she can defeat both Celestia and Luna. So unless we want to go break Discord out of his prison Chrysalis is probably the only one who can slow Cadance down enough for someone to do something to her. And no, since it turned out not to be Celestia or Luna in Appleloosa I really don’t have any idea where they are or how I’m going to beat Cadance. Besides, look at her, she’s most of the way to starvation anyways. Sweetie Belle is probably more dangerous with her magic right now than Chrysalis.”

There was an awkward silence after that, but Twilight barely held in a sigh of relief when Angel nodded and hopped away without raising a fuss.

“You are going to help us.” Twilight whirled around to stare down at Chrysalis once again. “I don’t know if my friends are still alive or if Cadance decided to simply put them at the bottom of the Mareneighas Trench without any protection. But if we hear so much as a whisper that they’re alive, we’re going to go after it, and you’re going to be right there with us.”

“Oh relax, your friends are fine. In fact, as long as you’re running loose they’re probably the safest ponies in all Equestria. Honestly, if it meant having you as a sister I’m starting to wonder if it would have been worth it to marry your brother.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh that’s rich!” Chrysalis laughed. “You’re one of the Elements of Harmony and you don’t even know the first thing about them. You and your friends only represent your elements. If Cadance sends them to the moon without any air to breathe those fancy rocks of yours will just find some other pony to latch onto and make a nuisance of themselves.”

“That sounds rather convenient. So just where did you find all this out?”

“Don’t sound so surprised. Of course I did my homework after the wedding fiasco. A good queen learns from her mistakes. And like you said, Cadance clearly decided to learn from the best. So until she gets the complete set she’s going to keep your friends locked away safe and sound where they can’t up and die so you can find other ponies to beat her with.”

“And if she gets her hooves on me?”

“Then she’s probably got a great big family reunion going on with me and your brother as well. In other words she’ll have everyone who knows anything about the Elements of Harmony. I’m sure I’ll go back into her little love factory, or to the moon with no air to breathe, probably the moon if she has you as well. You, your brother, and your pesky friends will also catch an acute case of being living impaired. I’m sure Cadance would like some of us as trophies, but like I said, she learned from the best.”

“Cute, but didn’t you just say that if me and my friends wind up dead the Elements will just attach themselves to some other pony?”

“Yes, but to most ponies the Elements of Harmony are just words. If Celestia hadn’t pointed you in the right direction would you have ever found your lovely little friends and the Elements?”

Twilight bit down on another remark. She and her friends almost certainly knew more about the Elements of Harmony than well... pretty much anyone. If they attached themselves to six random ponies across Equestria how long would it take them to find each other and use them? Or would they never find each other? Would six ponies suddenly find themselves kinder, more honest, more generous, more loyal, funnier, and more magically gifted and make nothing of it?

“Okay,” Twilight said cautiously, “since you seem to know so much where does Cadance have my friends?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” Chrysalis still managed to shrug from the floor. “I only did my work on the true threat to me. Without those rocks I could hardly care less about you and your silly friends past making a meal of you.”

Twilight considered wiping that smug look off her face by pulling out and putting on her Element, but that would mean revealing she had them, and she didn’t trust Chrysalis nearly enough to put that on the table.

“Anyways,” Chrysalis went on, “there’s a far better solution to our problem. I’m assuming you know how Nightmare Moon got into your dear sister-in-law.”

“Not exactly,” Twilight admitted, “but I know the general principle. Worry and jealousy turn to hate, and when that reaches a certain point it transforms into something else and takes over the pony. In Luna’s case her jealousy over ponies sleeping through her nights turned into bitterness and then hatred of them and her sister for raising the sun that hid the stars. The problem is I don’t have the slightest clue what Cadance could fear or hate that much.”

“Clearly you got all the brains in your family. Although it would be a waste of a perfectly good meal I’m rather sure that if your brother can get close enough he can do to Nightmare Moon what he did to me and my children in Canterlot.”

“And just how would we do that?” Twilight had thought her brother had gone to sleep, but where Spike was clearly asleep Shining Armor had regained enough of himself to get back up. “The way Cadance was acting at the buffalo camp I’d be a smoking cinder long before I got close enough to her.”

“That just means she knows how dangerous you are to her.” Twilight was starting to think she was going to be playing peacemaker a great deal until this was all over. “Put that little under developed brain of yours to use and figure out a way to get the drop on her.”

Twilight rubbed her head with her hooves as her brother and Chrysalis abandoned all pretense of civility and started a heated argument. She couldn’t even begin to guess what it was about, and beyond not liking each other and making that apparent she doubted they knew.

Finally she could take no more of the two and placed herself between them by lifting them both with magic and removing them to opposite sides of the room.

“You two don’t like each other. I get it, but if you rip each other limb from limb Cadance is the only one who wins. I’m not expecting you two to start sending each other Hearth’s Warming Eve cards, but I do expect you to keep your eyes on what’s important. Shining Armor, you’re a captain of the royal guards, and there is a clear threat to Equestria in front of you, so do your job. And Chrysalis, if Cadance gets all the ponies in Equestria sending all their love to her what will your swarm eat? You keep going on about how good a queen you are. Do you really want them to starve because you couldn’t do something so simple as work together with my brother?”

She had to admit a small surge of smugness herself at subduing two such willful personalities.

“Now, we’ve got two options that I’m seeing. One, we can find my friends and hope they’re still in a condition to use the Elements of Harmony on Cadance. Or two, we can try to use the power of Shining Armor and Cadance’s love to drive Nightmare Moon out of her.”

The shift in her brother and the Changeling Queen was almost scary. Before, they’d been at each other’s throats. Now they were a flurry of productivity. Twilight noted with some regret that they seemed to be focusing on the second of Twilight’s options. She could admit to herself that the plan they were working on was the easier one, but those were her friends being held in some dungeon somewhere and every fiber of her being cried out to rescue them.

She was starting to drift off herself when she noticed her brother and Chrysalis starting to flub words, repeat themselves, and show all the signs of fatigue finally catching up after a long day.

“That’s enough for today you two, time to go to bed. You won’t get much done if you’re too tired to think straight. Keep it up though, as far as I’m concerned you two can argue till the sun burns out once we beat Cadance, but until then it’s all hooves on deck.”

“One last thing,” Chrysalis struggled to her hooves, “if I’m going to be useful to this little adventure of yours I’m going to need food, and your pony food won't cut it. I can eat it, I can taste it, I might even like it, but by the time I’m back to normal off it Cadance will be running the show forever.”

“Being useful to us?” Twilight raised a skeptical eyebrow. “What brought about this change of heart?”

“When she came for me it was obvious that even though Nightmare Moon is in control, Cadance is still a going concern, or at least part of her is. And I’m pretty sure it’s the part that wants to beat me to a pulp for stealing her husband and humiliating her so completely. I hate to admit that you’re right, but you are right that if she finishes the two of you off I’m next on her list. Fortunately, my favorite meal in the whole world is right here. If I can feed off Shining Armor’s love than it’s a matter of days until I’m strong enough to leave this place.”

“What? No!” Shining Armor objected immediately. “Feel love for you? You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Oh I can make it easy for you to love me.” Chrysalis said in Cadance’s voice. “All you have to do is pretend. If you wanted I could even make it rather enjoyable for both of us.”

“Stop being creepy.” Twilight pointed a hoof at Chrysalis, and then swung it to her brother. “And you said back in Appleloosa that you didn’t care if Sheriff Silverstar had broken every law in Equestria if he could help us, well Chrysalis can help us. I don’t care how you two work it out, but I am going to go get some sleep and if I have to come back in here to sort things out I promise you’ll both be sorry.”

She whirled around on the two of them and walked purposefully into Fluttershy’s room. Under the circumstances she didn’t think her friend would object to Twilight taking her bed. Once the door closed behind her she let a small smile creep onto her face. She might be fighting Cadance at the moment, but several things she’d learned from her old foalsitter, specifically making unruly ponies fall in line, were proving quite useful. With the long day finally behind her Twilight crawled under the covers and was asleep almost before her head hit the pillow.

Friends Like These

We’ll Always Have Canterlot

Disclaimer: ynoP elttiL yM nwo t’nod I. There, I said it backwards. Does that get it through?

Chapter Six: Friends Like These

Angel bringing the newspaper had become the high point of Twilight Sparkle’s day. Not only did it connect her to the world outside Fluttershy’s cottage, but she could count on her brother and Chrysalis to quiet down for at least a little while while they read it. When they weren’t reading the paper, or otherwise distracted, they were expressing their dislike for each other, at the tops of their lungs. She wondered some days why half of Ponyville hadn’t heard them and come out to see what was going on.

Then there was the rare occasion where they were in sync. When that happened it was a bit scary how they dropped the glares and biting remarks to turn into the perfect team. Todays paper had brought about one of those rare moments.

“I have to hand it to your silly little princess, this is a smart move.” If Twilight lived to be as old as Celestia she didn’t think she’d get used to the picture of Chrysalis casually reading a paper.

“I never thought I’d wish for Cadance to screw something up, but this once I wish she wouldn’t be her normal self.” Shining Armor didn’t even seem to notice, let alone mind, that he was sharing the couch with the Changeling Queen. “It makes you the villain, us victims who still have to be stopped for our own sakes, and it lets her set everyone in Equestria against us.”

Chrysalis had been slowly healing for the last week. That whole time they'd been waiting to see how Cadance would react to their springing Chrysalis from the buffalo camp. Her answer seemed to be declaring that the Changelings were back for revenge, and that Twilight and her brother were unwillingly under their thrall. The article decried, at length, how evil Chrysalis was for forcing them to do her bidding, but as Shining Armor had pointed out it said that they still had to be stopped for their sake.

“Does this change our plans at all?” Twilight hated to risk breaking up the moment of peace, but if it meant saving Cadance and not having to deal with Chrysalis anymore it was a chance she would take.

“I don’t think so.” Her brother absent mindedly replied. “We still want to bring Cadance to us and force Nightmare Moon out of her with the power of my love for her.”

“It might become a problem if things go on for awhile.” Chrysalis tapped her chin in thought. “If the police show up they might start helping her instead of standing around wondering what’s going on.”

“That might not be such a big problem.” Shining Armor said. “As soon as the police took one look at you they weren’t going to be on our side.”

“Silly little prince.” Chrysalis grinned before continuing on in Cadance’s voice. “If all I’d wanted was to marry you and consume your love, you would still think you were bravely fighting a Changeling invasion with your dear wife against that horrible Queen Chrysalis who’d taken her place again. Unless and until I want them to everyone will think I’m a perfectly ordinary pony.”

“Please,” Shining Armor bit back, “I think I know my own wife. If you hadn’t put me under that spell when you tried to invade Equestria I would have known something was wrong long before you’d absorbed enough love to fight Celestia and win.”

“You really think so?” Chrysalis’ smile was entirely predatory. “I hardly locked myself away in my rooms while I was wearing her face. I was out nearly every day mingling with those delectable morsels in Canterlot. How many other ponies who’d known ‘Cadance’ just as long as you mindlessly smiled at me and went about their days never even suspecting what was right in their midst?”

“And how well did that work out in the end?” Shining Armor’s smile was equally snide. “I don’t seem to be in a cocoon being drained of my love to feed your hive. In fact, I seem to recall my little sister pulling you out of a cocoon that was draining your love not so long ago.”

Chrysalis deliberately calmed herself. “If you’re expecting an apology for trying to be a good queen and feed my swarm you can keep waiting. I only did what I had to to secure food for my children, and if you think I regret that then you’re even dumber than I think you are.”

Twilight groaned. This was exactly what she didn’t want to happen.

“Okay you two, that’s enough.” She ripped the paper away from them with her magic. “When this is all done I don’t care if you two want to yell and scream at each other till you turn blue from all the screaming. But until we save Cadance from herself she’s the only one who wins when you two act like this.”

They looked appropriately abashed, but Twilight didn’t think for an instant that it would take. They’d been sniping at each other for the last week, and showed no signs of slowing despite Twilight’s best efforts. As long as she could have them both on the right track when the time came she could put up with them for as long as it took.

“Now let’s make sure we all know what we’re doing. The worst case scenarios in Manehatten are us are us not working together, and us not knowing what to do when we get there. I’m going to teleport us there and use a spell that Celestia taught me in case I needed to let her know where I was. Cadance should follow that right to us, and then you two start doing your thing.”

“We know Twiley. Chrysalis and I work together to stun Cadance long enough for me to get a hold of her and blast Nightmare Moon out of her with my love. Meanwhile you handle whoever Cadance brought with her so we can do our part.”

“Are you two sure you can work together?” Twilight fixed the two of them with a suspicious look. “When you’re on the same page you can be fantastic. But if you’re sniping and more ready to fight each other than you are Cadance this could go wrong in a hurry.”

“Relax.” Chrysalis waved a dismissive hole filled hoof. “If it means getting out of Equestria and not having to deal with you ponies any more I’ll put up with this dunce a little longer.”

“Yeah.” Her brother agreed without agreeing. “If it means I don’t have to put up with her anymore I’ll rip Nightmare Moon out of Cadance with my bare hooves.”

“Fine.” Twilight didn’t particularly believe either of them, but she wasn’t willing to push the matter. “Just remember that if we don’t beat Cadance you’re going to be stuck together for a long time. And I swear I will make you two do everything together if that’s what it takes to make a team out of you. I can handle whatever Cadance sends at us short of her bringing an army into Manehatten, but you two have to beat a pony who defeated Celestia and Luna.”

“We’re never going to like each other little sis.” Shining Armor pointed at Chrysalis. “But we’re as ready as we’ll ever be.”

Twilight sighed. She could put up with these two for a bit longer, she could do it, she could do it, she could do it. Maybe if she said it enough times she’d start believing it herself.

“If you say so.” Twilight finally said after gaining control of herself. “Let’s go get Spike so we can get out of here. I don’t know about you two, but I’m ready for this to be over.”

“Ready for what to be over?” The dragon in question walked out of Fluttershy’s room still rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“This.” Twilight’s wave encompassed their temporary home. “We could have already been on our way if someone hadn’t decided to sleep through the whole day.”

“What?” Spike immediately assumed, correctly, that Twilight was talking about him. “I’m a growing dragon. I need my sleep, and plenty of it.”

Twilight shook her head in bemusement. Some things would never change. She turned her head to say something to Spike but never got to say it as at that moment Angel burst open the door and hopped into the room gesticulating frantically.

Wasting no time, the rabbit began frantically pantomiming his point. The others quickly looked at Twilight as being the only one there with any experience at trying to decipher the meaning behind Angel’s frenzied motions.

Twilight watched as Angel hopped in a circle waving his front legs up and down rapidly. “A circle? Something going in a circle? Flapping... flying? Something’s flying here!”

Angel stopped immediately and pointed at Twilight with a smile to show she’d guessed right. He then curled up in a tiny ball and looked as pathetic as a small rabbit could.

“Something needs our help?” Twilight started towards the door before being yanked back by Angel who then took another approach by turning his back on them and looking very shyly over his shoulder at them.

“Something shy? Fluttershy! Fluttershy is coming here!” Twilight was rewarded with several anxious nods. “That’s great! Maybe she knows where the others are.”

She was roughly interrupted by her brother picking her up and throwing her over his back. She quickly glanced and saw their belongings floating along encased in green magic while Spike and Angel cleaned the house with the sort of frantic haste only sheer and total panic could bring.

“What are you all doing?” She said in as dignified a manner as she could manage while draped over her brother’s back. “This is Fluttershy we’re talking about. You know, one of my best friends.”

“One of your best friends who got ponynapped by Cadance.” Her brother started towards the door with her still on his back. “I really hope I’m wrong, but if Cadance is controlling her like she was Sheriff Silverstar then she’s not your friend, not anymore, not until this is all over.”

Twilight opened her mouth to protest, but the rude bouncing of her brother galloping to Fluttershy’s chicken coop forced her to shut her mouth. The chickens already living there didn’t appreciate two ponies, a changeling, and a baby dragon all intruding on their home, but somehow they all fit. Soon they were looking out the mesh covered windows as a yellow pegasus set down lightly on the ground in front of the cottage.

“Oh Angel,” she said to the rabbit waiting for her at the door as she scooped him into a hug, “I’m so sorry I left you all alone for so long. I’m a terrible pony! Can you ever forgive me?”

Angel worked a paw free and began patting her on the head, all the while casting a nervous glance towards the chicken coop.

“See?” Twilight said quite smugly to her brother. “Fluttershy is perfectly normal. Now let’s get out of here and go say hello.”

Before she’d taken a single step both her brother and Chrysalis had pinned her to the ground and each had shoved a hoof in her mouth to silence her. She glared as fiercely as she could at both of them, which in her situation wasn’t very, but listened on.

“Oh I was so worried that you’d all hate me for running out like I did. I didn’t even fluff your tail last week! But I’m helping so many ponies in Canterlot. Cadance is the smartest, nicest pony ever, and she needs my help to make Equestria a better place. That mean old Chrysalis and her Changelings are trying to take over again. And she’s put poor Twilight Sparkle and her brother under her control to make them help her. Oh I hope they’re not being treated too badly.”

Shining Armor sent a far more smug look towards Twilight.

“I would have been here sooner, but Applejack and Rarity didn’t want to listen to Cadance. They kept saying she was evil, and possessed, and asking where Celestia and Luna were.” Fluttershy frowned before brightening considerably. “But it’s all better now! Cadance finally convinced them that she needed their help to make things better for everypony, and Pinkie Pie threw a great big party for them, and it was so much fun.”

Back in the coop Shining Armor and Chrysalis cautiously withdrew their hooves from Twilight’s mouth. She’d heard enough to stay completely silent. If she made any sound in the near future it would be crying at what had happened to her friends.

“I promise I’ll come back when I can.” Fluttershy put Angel back down on the ground. “Cadance still needs our help to save Twilight Sparkle and her brother, and I can’t just leave them. But Cadance promised that even if we don’t find them right away I’ll be able to come back to take care of all of you once things settle down a bit. So just stay here and keep all the animals safe and comfy.”

Angel nodded with an appropriately serious look on his face. Back in the chicken coop four faces looked on with concern.

Fluttershy’s goodbyes went on for some time before Angel finally started tapping a paw in impatience and shooed her back into the sky towards Canterlot. No one at the cottage dared move until Fluttershy disappeared in the distance.

Twilight stepped numbly out into the sunshine. “Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rarity, Cadance has them all. And you heard Fluttershy, it took her awhile but she’s turned them all into her puppets.”

“Hey, it’s going to be okay.” Shining Armor smiled reassuringly at her. “We’re going to blast Nightmare Moon out of Cadance so hard it’ll take her another thousand years to find Equestria again. Once she’s gone your friends will all go back to normal.”

“You’re right.” Twilight took a deep breath and shoved her sorrow deep down. “I can’t let this get to me. I just have to remember that I’m doing all this to save them. Let’s get out of here. This place isn’t safe anymore, and I don’t want them to suffer a moment longer than they have to.”

Shining Armor stared at Chrysalis, who stared back quite blankly. “You know, part of being a team is helping each other out when a team member is down. Twilight just found out all her friends have had their minds taken over by Cadance. I think she’s feeling pretty down.”

Chrysalis sighed and rolled her eyes. “You’ve already done the whole loving sibling thing, but whatever. I’m sure you’ll stumble on some way to fix this, and everyone will think you’re a hero, again.”

Shining Armor glared at the Changeling Queen and had his mouth opening to start another fight until Twilight clamped it shut with magic. “It’s okay Shining Armor. It’s the thought that counts more than what she said, I think. And anyways, if I let you two start up again we’ll still be here when Fluttershy comes back. So let’s go get what we need, get out of here, and finish all this.”

Shining Armor and Chrysalis kept glaring at each other, but set off towards Fluttershy’s cottage in silence when Twilight sent yet another threatening look their way. Spike set off behind them but found himself brought up short by a hoof stuck in his way.

Twilight had known she’d had to do this since they’d arrived, she’d been putting it off for days now, and, as she’d known, that didn’t make it any easier. “Spike, I need you to stay here. I don’t think I can keep you safe out there, and I’d never forgive myself if something happened to you.”

“What?” Twilight had been expecting Spike to feel betrayed, that didn’t make it any less of a gut punch when it happened. “You’re taking Chrysalis, who tried to take over Equestria not that long ago, but you’re leaving me behind? What does she have that I don’t?”

This was going about as badly as Twilight had feared. “Cadance can’t force Chrysalis to love her. At least I don’t think she can. Love is food to her, it would be like me forcing you to do something with the power of a hay sandwich.”

Spike sputtered a bit. “Well what about you and Shining Armor? You must have some way to keep you two safe, so why don’t you just do it to me. I’m sick of always being left behind! I didn't listen to you when you told me to stay behind back in the Crystal Empire, and if I had listened you’d probably still be in front of that door.”

Maybe she should have just put Spike to sleep with her magic and left. “Shining Armor already loves Cadance, but it’s a pure and true love. Cadance can’t make or alter any feelings to take control of him and turn him into her puppet. And I have the Element of Magic. We know Nightmare Moon is the one behind all this, and the Elements of Harmony neutralized her power completely, so as long as I’m wearing my Element I should be completely safe. I’d say you could use one of the other Elements until this was all over, but we both remember how well that worked against Discord.”

“I don’t have to get into any fights.” Twilight hadn’t thought that would convince Spike. “I didn’t have to do any fighting back at the buffalo camp, and it was my idea that got us in there. Twilight, I want to help.”

“I know you do.” Putting sadness in her voice didn’t require any acting. “But Spike, this is Nightmare Moon we’re talking about. I don’t know if I can keep myself safe. Especially if she brings the others along with her. And on top of that, I’ve got to keep Chrysalis and my brother from killing each other. Doing either of those things would be more than enough to keep my hooves full. I know you can take care of yourself, but Cadance knows how important you are to me. If she went after you I don’t think I could stop her, and if she had you in her hooves she could make me do anything by threatening you.”

“Besides,” Twilight decided that with the way things were going it was time to play her trump card, “there’s something I need you to do here. And it’s something that only you can do.”

She had to keep her expression very controlled when she saw on his face that she’d hooked Spike. “Cadance wants to get her hooves on me and my friends because if she does she can kill us and scatter the Elements of Harmony. If that happens then they’ll go to six random ponies who have no idea that they just became the six most important ponies in all Equestria. And if something does happen to me and Shining Armor then you’ll be the only one, the only one in all Equestria who knows the truth about the Elements of Harmony. You’ll have to find those six ponies and make them work together so they can find and use the Elements of Harmony.”

She could see the horror on Spike’s face as he realized the implications of what she’d just said. “I’m not planning on dying for a long time. But Celestia sent me those books about The Elements of Harmony and sent me to Ponyville in the first place for a reason. The Elements of Harmony are too important to be forgotten, and you’re the only one who can do this.”

Twilight saw thoughts crossing Spike’s face rapidly, but she knew she’d won.

They walked back into the cottage to find Shining Armor and Chrysalis had nearly finished packing their meagre belongings. They appeared to have done so in a stony silence that still permeated the atmosphere. But, as Twilight kept telling herself, they’d gotten the job done, and that was what counted.

She checked her own saddlebags and then walked over to the ordinary sack Shining Armor was carrying. A golden crown with a six pointed star floated out and gently settled on her head. She felt the incredible power surge through her. And had to fight the urge to righten the course of the stream outside Fluttershy’s cottage, or to order all the trees in the Everfree Forest into a perfect grid, and for that matter the mountains leading to Canterlot didn’t look quite right, she really should do something about that.

“Are you okay Twiliey?” Shining Armor interrupted her with a hoof on her shoulder.

“I’m fine.” She replied a bit more snappishly than she should have. “I’m just using the most powerful magical artifact known to Ponykind, so give me a few seconds to get used to it.”

“I’d wondered what was in that sack.” Chrysalis of all, was ponies the right word, saved her. “You treated it like it was the most precious thing in the world. It seems I was right.”

Twilight had to work to keep her goodbyes with Spike from lasting as long as one of Shining Armor and Chrysalis’ fights. Eventually though, Angel prodded her enough that she grabbed her belongings and soon the two ponies and one Changeling had disappeared from Ponyville.

“Welcome to Manehatten you two.” The teleportation spell had been almost effortless with the Element of Magic boosting her powers. “Don’t get too comfortable, as soon as we’re ready I’ll lure Cadance here and we’ll make Nightmare Moon wish she’d spent a thousand years hiding rather than come back for a second try.”

“Aren’t you the eager one?” Chrysalis seemed to have weathered the teleport with no apparent ill effects. “I suppose this is as good a time as any to go put on my face.”

“I don’t think you need makeup.” Shining Armor said. “Besides, you’re already a hopeless case. All the makeup in Manehatten couldn’t help you.”

“Not quite what I meant.” Chrysalis smiled a smile full of malice before green flames consumed her to reveal Princess Cadance. “I don’t think this face works either though. You’d probably forget I’m not the real Cadance and run off to marry me.”

Chrysalis walked off laughing while Twilight put herself in front of a positively murderous Shining Armor. “Calm down, you know she’s just trying to get under your skin. Hey , at least we gave her quite the shock when she saw the Elements of Harmony. How did you get these things anyways? I thought you were a little busy running away for your life.”

Distraction was the key to keeping Chrysalis and her brother civil with each other. As long as they forgot their current fight Twilight could usually count on a few hours of peace.

Shining Armor glared at the closed door Chrysalis had disappeared behind, but after awhile he grumbled something Twilight decided not to hear and turned to her. “The day that Celestia and Luna went missing Cadance invited me to dinner, just the two of us. At first, I thought it was her finally getting back to normal. But when I went to make my daily report no one knew where the princesses had gone. I started getting really suspicious about Cadance and begged off. It probably saved my life. That's when I went out and grabbed the Elements. I don't think Cadance realized how suspicious I was, and so she didn't have them guarded. I figured that with Celestia and Luna missing I’d need you and your friends to help, and that you would probably need the Elements. I came back to the castle to get a chariot, and on my way I ran into Cadance, or I guess Nightmare Moon. I knew right away that it wasn’t Cadance, the real Cadance. It was her eyes that gave her away. I thought they looked like Chrysalis’ eyes, but I guess now we know why it didn’t work when I tried to dispel her Changeling disguise. She tried to use some sort of magic on me then, I'm pretty sure it was her trying to make me a puppet, but thankfully it didn’t work. Then she saw I had the Elements of Harmony. Let’s just leave it at I’m really glad I kept up my physical training after becoming a captain. I somehow made it back to my office, found that teleport scroll Celestia left me, and I suppose you know what happened from there.”

“Well that sounds like fun... I guess. Anyways, I’m glad you made it out of there in one piece, and it sounds like I was right thinking that Nightmare Moon can’t use Cadance’s power to make you love her so much you’ll do whatever she says.”

“What sounds like fun?” Twilight heard the door open and turned to see Chrysalis walk back out in her new guise.

The Sum of its Parts

We’ll Always Have Canterlot

Disclaimer: Really, again? Don’t you people know this by now? Fine, I don’t own My Little Pony

Chapter Seven: The Sum of its Parts

“So what do you think?” Chrysalis had turned herself into a unicorn with a coat white as fresh fallen snow. She'd also kept herself quite tall, Twilight thought Chrysalis could look Shining Armor right in the eye. Her mane was the same color as its normal hole-ridden appearance, but it was solid and appeared to have undergone a regimen Rarity would approve of. Her eyes were the same color as her mane, and Twilight admitted to herself that she would have been hard pressed to spot any of the Changeling Queen behind them. She even saw a cutie mark, what looked like a butterfly emerging from a point of light.

“It’s...” Chrysalis began before pausing, clearing her throat, and continuing in a voice that was her voice, but it was what her voice would sound like if she were a pony. “It’s one of my favorite faces to wear among you ponies. No one ever suspects a pony who looks so innocent could possibly be draining them of all their love.”

The smile that graced her face was all Chrysalis.

“As long as she doesn't open her mouth we’ll be fine.” Shining Armor cast a very critical look at their unwilling partner. “Of course, trying to get her to shut up for more than a minute might be tougher than beating Nightmare Moon without the Elements of Harmony.”

“Oh not at all dear.” Twilight could clearly tell that Chrysalis was enjoying riling her brother up. “You ponies live such a soft and easy life that you always assume something is well-meaning until it conquers Canterlot with an army. I assure you, I could convince all those delicious morsels out there that I’m a perfectly upstanding member of their community, all while spending every moment feasting of course.”

Shining Armor had clearly let himself get riled up. “Until one of those ‘morsels’ realizes who you are and what you’re doing, and then we have half the Manehatten police on our tails. Sounds like you’ll be a terrific help saving Cadance.”

“Stop it you two.” Twilight was getting far too used to breaking up these quarrels. “This is exactly what I don’t want you doing when Cadance shows up. So that means you stop harping on every little thing big brother. We know you don’t like Chrysalis. And Chrysalis, unless you really think you can beat Cadance all on your own I’d suggest you start getting along with my brother. In a few hours, when this is all over, I’ll go buy the clubs for you two to beat each other over your heads with. Until then, you work as a team.”

“You don’t need to worry a bit little sister.” Cadance’s voice coming out of Chrysalis clearly got under Shining Armor’s skin. Twilight just glared down the Changeling Queen until she went on in the voice she’d picked for this form. “I only needed to be Cadance for a little while. Unless I’d started draining kittens in the castle courtyard I didn’t have to worry about anyone there putting two and two together and realizing that I wasn't the real Cadance. Or at least I thought I didn't. A good queen admits her failures, and I can admit that I underestimated you. Like I said before, if I had done my homework on Cadance I’d be standing here right now and you two wouldn't have the slightest clue I wasn't her.”

“I think I know my own wife.” Shining Armor put himself right in Chrysalis’ face.

“Oh really?” Chrysalis didn't flinch at the intrusion of her personal space. “So you knew all along that she was possessed by Nightmare Moon, stopped it right away, and I've just been having my own nightmare that I’m stuck here with you.”

“No, I didn't. That must be why I miraculously just appeared in Ponyville with the Elements of Harmony. Even if I thought it was you, I still knew something was wrong with Cadance and I didn't just sit there on it.”

Twilight opened her mouth to stop their arguing, but then thought better of it. She was starting to suspect that this was, at least in part, just their way of blowing off steam at the situation they found themselves in. Oh well, it would all be over soon, and then with a little luck she would never see another Changeling as long as she lived. Or Nightmare Moon for that matter, or Discord, or... Okay, her hopes for a nice quiet life were about as out there as a typical Cutie Mark Crusaders scheme. At least she already had her cutie mark, and as long as she didn't get herself covered in tree sap she’d still come out ahead.

She came out of her reverie to hear her brother and Chrysalis still going at it, and showing no signs of slowing or quieting any time soon.

“Alright you two.” It took her longer than she would have liked to get their attention. “I hope you both had a wonderful time telling each other how you feel, but it’s time to go now. Shining Armor, go grab the other Elements. Chrysalis, that’s a great disguise, but you’re going to need another one.”

“Oh? I see. Clearly I’m so attractive like this that your brother would be far too distracted to fight. Of course, it might make him fight harder it it means getting rid of that hag of his.”

Shining Armor looked like he might vomit at the idea. Twilight felt like vomiting, but kept her control. “Whatever helps you sleep at night. But no, you said that’s one of your favorite disguises. Shining Armor and I are already up on every wanted poster in Equestria. I hope this doesn't go bad, but if it does the face you’re wearing is going to go right up there with us. So I think it makes sense to hang on to this form in case you have to spend more time mingling with us lowly ponies.”

Chrysalis quickly dropped her mirthful expression. “I did underestimate you. How would you like to be a Changeling Princess? We can get around the little detail of you being a pony for the moment.”

“I’ll pass.” Twilight said immediately. “Now put on another face so we can get going.”

If Twilight’s blunt refusal offended her, Chrysalis didn't show it. Instead green flames surrounded her again and disappeared to reveal an ordinary unicorn with a light blue coat.

“Good.” Twilight nodded her head at Chrysalis’ new form. “Now let’s go.”

She made sure to take off the Element of Magic before they left the abandoned building she’d put them in. This whole area of Manehatten was supposed to be abandoned for demolition and redevelopment, but if anyone saw her with that giant crown on her head it would draw very unwanted notice.

“So this is where we’re going to finish this?” Her brother looked around at the boarded up windows surrounding them.

“Well not here, here.” Twilight replied. “But yeah, this whole part of Manehatten is going to be redeveloped soon. Until they finalize the plans though, they won’t start tearing anything down. Hopefully it means we don’t have to worry too much about hurting other ponies, and if we do tear down any buildings we can just think of it as a civic service to Manehatten.”

“Odd way to think about civic service there Twiley. But hopefully beating Nightmare Moon means everyone will look the other way at whatever we do.”

The sounds of Manehatten drifted down the empty streets, without those it would have been easy to forget that they were on the outskirts of one of the largest cities in Equestria. At last they came to a park that had clearly seen better days even before the city had decided to demolish this neighborhood and rebuild it.

“This looks like a pretty good place.” Twilight took in the sight. “Any objections?”

Both Chrysalis and her brother shook their heads. Twilight put back on the bejeweled crown. This time she was ready and only felt briefly the urge to reorder Manehatten into a perfect grid, it really was so disorganized. She tamped down the desire and looked back at what passed for her team. Shining Armor and Chrysalis had used their magic to dig a small hole and put their bags in there for retrieval in case things went bad.

Nodding at that sign of teamwork, and hoping beyond hope it was an omen of what was to come, Twilight used her magic to cast a magical flare. Ordinarily it would see most of its use from unicorns stranded in some far off place trying to signal a rescue. Twilight’s flare was powerful enough to likely give most of the unicorns in Equestria a headache , but Cadance couldn't possibly miss it.

“I think we forgot something.” Chrysalis either didn't have a new voice for her new form, or more likely she wasn’t bothering to use one. “Did we ever plan what Cadance is going to do when she gets here?”

Twilight Sparkle didn't need to see her face to know it wore a look of pure, unadulterated horror.

“What do we do? What do we do?! I didn't make any plans for this! I haven’t thought this through! We’re going in completely blind! This is going to be a disaster! Celestia is going to send me back to magic kindergarten for this!”

“Settle down Twiley.” Shining Armor’s hoof on her shoulder brought her escalating panic attack to a halt. “Cadance, Nightmare Moon is going to come here and try to kill us. Nothing fancy about that.”

“Oh I think I can make it pretty fancy.” Where a second ago there had been nothing Twilight looked at Cadance, and worse, all her friends with the exception of Rainbow Dash. “I had a thousand years in the moon to think of all the ways I could make Celestia suffer. Of course you’re mortal so that will present a few challenges, but I promise you, I can make you spend the rest of your natural lives in agony your pathetic little minds can’t even begin to grasp at. And the best part, if Celestia can see what I do to you, oh it will tear her apart.”

“You mean like knowing that no matter how hard you try you’ll never be even the slightest bit as good as I am?” Twilight immediately recognized the difference between Chrysalis wanting to rile her brother up, and truly hating Cadance. “Face it, you tried to play in my league, and all it did was drive your dear Shining Armor right into my waiting arms.”

Cadance’s face twisted with rage. She let out a wordless scream of rage and attacked the Changeling Queen. Shining Armor had a brief moment of distaste at the thought of being on the same side as Chrysalis against his wife, but after that brief moment his horn lit up and he charged off after the tangled and fighting pair.

Twilight turned her head to her friends. Rainbow Dash wasn't there. Maybe that meant she’d possibly, hopefully, luckily, miraculously gotten away. She stomped the thought down after just a second. That was neither here nor now, and if she let her friends get through her to help Cadance, she’d never see Rainbow Dash again.

“Girls,” she cautiously approached them. “I know Cadance is controlling you, and I know you can fight it. The real Cadance would never want you to do any of this, and I want my friends back.”

Fluttershy took a hesitant step forward. “Twilight, we’re fine, and we’d really like it if you gave up and came with us. Cadance is such a nice pony, and we all love her so much. And she's going to make Equestria so happy by letting them love her as much as we do. We know it's not your fault, but we can’t let you stop her, and we’ll hurt you if that’s what it takes to save you. I mean, if that’s okay with you.”

“No, it’s not okay!” Twilight would have never spoken like that to Fluttershy, but Fluttershy had just confirmed that these weren't her friends. “I am not fine with you hurting me and helping Nightmare Moon turn all of Equestria into her mindless puppets.”

“Oh.” Fluttershy slunk back with an incredibly hurt look on her face. Swallowing back what looked like tears the pegasus called out to the furious mess that was Chrysalis, Shining Armor, and Cadance fighting. “Princess Cadance! Twilight Sparkle isn’t okay with us hurting her. Can we maybe talk about this?”

Cadance shoved Chrysalis and Shining Armor back with a wave of magical force that made the hairs on Twilight’s neck stand up from the energy. “Fluttershy, girls, I know you all love Twilight, I love my little sister too. But you all love me more, don’t you? I know you do. It would make me so happy if I could talk to Twilight Sparkle to make her see how we’re trying to help Equestria. If you have to hurt her then I’ll just know how much that means you love me.”

Rarity stepped forward. Twilight saw the other unicorn had a small ring circling her horn and gasped when she realized what it was. It would remove all of Rarity's natural limitations of how much magic she could channel. Rarity could very well match Twilight, at least without the Element of Magic, but if she tried she could very easily burn the magic out of her body, and likely kill herself in the process.

“That settles it darling. You should know better than any of us how caring and loving Cadance is. We all just want what’s best for you, and if you won’t see it... well I just want what’s best for Sweetie Belle when I yell at her to do her homework.”

“I’m sorry girls.” Magic glowed around Twilight’s horn. “I know that somewhere in there you’re screaming at me not to listen to you. And when all this is over, and you’re all yourselves again, you’ll thank me and I’ll apologize to you until you’re sick of it.”

One against four was not good odds under the best of circumstances. Against ponies as skilled as the four Twilight was facing one against four would be suicide for most ponies. Twilight Sparkle was not most ponies. And with the Element of Magic on she had more magic than she knew what to do with.

Well, actually she knew pretty much exactly what to do with her magic. A magenta glow surrounded her friends, and with squawks of indignity they lifted from the ground in their own individual magical cells.

Meanwhile Shining Armor and Chrysalis were feeling rather outnumbered against Cadance. It didn't help matters that they seemed to be fighting each other as much as they fought her. Nor did it bode well for them that Cadance seemed to realize how dangerous Shining Armor getting close to her could be. At any sign of his approach she responded with a torrent of magic that threatened anyone in its path with utter destruction.

“We can’t dodge her forever and hope for her to fall over from boredom.” Chrysalis panted with exertion as she narrowly avoided a column of light that would have reduced her to dust.

“I’m not going to hurt my wife.” Shining Armor was equally exhausted. “All I have to do is lay a hoof on her and we win. Just keep her busy so I can sneak up to her.”

“If you don’t hurt her, she’ll kill you.” Chrysalis shot Shining Armor a look clearly proclaiming him an idiot. “And unless you want to send some love directly my way I don’t have nearly enough power to stand up to her.”

Shining Armor hastily erected a shield that sunk into the ground as Cadance flew above them and did her level best to kill them. “I’d rather see Nightmare Moon win than love you for a second.”

“At the rate we’re going you’ll get your wish.” Chrysalis sent a spell at Cadance that was repulsed with disgusting ease. “I just hope she lets me live long enough to see you regret your words.”

Taking advantage of the brief pause Shining Armor dropped the shield and they leapt away from each other to give Cadance two targets to concentrate on.

Twilight knew her friends were smart. Having it proven at her expense was ending up a less than enjoyable experience. Preventing one of them from breaking out of their cell was a simple matter. Her friends however had quickly figured out that it took much more effort to keep all of them from breaking out at the same time.

Knowing that they would wear her down before long, Twilight decided to turn that to her advantage. Just before they began their latest attack on her spells Twilight dropped the magic and watched as they all flailed briefly before falling to the ground. Not waiting for them to recover, she cast the sleep spell she’d used back at the buffalo camp. For such a simple spell it was proving immensely useful.

Unfortunately for Twilight, her friends were considerably more prepared for her tricks than the hapless buffalo guards had been. Rarity’s horn flared blue with magic and Twilight felt the spell snap back into her. At the same time Applejack and Pinkie Pie lunged at her. Twilight noted with some dismay that Pinkie Pie’s mane seemed to have deflated. Rainbow Dash had told her how scary the normally jubilant pony had been like that, and now Twilight was about to find out first hoof.

Chrysalis had abandoned her disguise in order to focus all her efforts on Cadance. Not that it was doing her much good. Shining Armor threw caution at the wind to simply charge at his erstwhile wife in an attempt to get a hoof on her. All he got for his trouble was being grabbed by the neck with magic and a futile struggle with his own magic to regain breath.

As she used her own magic to sever the spell and free her unwilling partner Chrysalis wondered if rather than true love being so tasty it was his stupidity that made Shining Armor so delicious. If she lived through this she’d have to experiment on other ponies to find out.

At the moment though, living through this particular day was looking increasingly unlikely. They didn’t have the strength to challenge Cadance directly. And whether from some misguided sense of honor, or throwing reason to the winds in the face of love Shining Armor refused to use any of the underhoofed tactics they needed to use if they were going to have even the tiniest chance of winning.

She sent a spell meant for killing at Cadance. It went against a Changeling’s nature to waste food by killing it. But she hated Cadance and Nightmare Moon more than enough to feel not at all bad. Not that she had any particular chance of succeeding with the spell. It of course failed at its intended purpose of distraction when rather than diving at Cadance, Shining Armor instead sent her a look full of loathing for using the spell. Opportunity lost, Chrysalis went back to dodging Cadance’s magical assault and wondering when, or if, another opportunity would present itself.

Twilight hated stalemates. If she was moving forward she could appreciate the sense of success. If she was moving backwards she could look at what she was doing wrong and reverse the situation. But a stalemate was a tenuous equilibrium where any change risked upsetting that balance to her detriment. Especially since her friends had four chances to grasp any upset while she had only herself.

She could overwhelm any of her friends individually, but she couldn't concentrate her magic in four constantly changing directions. Worse yet, they knew how to work in a team to keep her attention divided. When she started to beat down Rarity's magic, Fluttershy would dive on her. When she tried to yank Applejack's hooves out form under her, Pinkie Pie would pull some party implement from nowhere and put it to deadly use.

Twilight chanced a look over at her brother and Chrysalis, and almost got her face smashed in by Applejack for her trouble, to see that things were not going well. They appeared to be shouting at each other almost as much as they were fighting Cadance. And it was equally clear that her brother was hesitating to attack his wife.

This wasn't going to work. Cadance was winning, and once she’d won she could scoop up Twilight at her leisure and have five elements under her control. Twilight threw a wave of raw magical force at her friends. While they staggered back and tried to regain control of themselves she ran over to her brother and Chrysalis.

“Bet you’re glad you didn't give away your favorite pony face.” She skidded to a stop in front of them. “ We've lost, let’s get out of here while we can.”

With the Element of Magic on her head teleportation for three should have been a simple matter. But as she tried the spell for a second time it felt like her magic kept running into a wall just before it should have grabbed the three of them and sent them away from here.

Twilight shuddered as Cadance laughed and stared at her with eyes that suddenly reminded her very much of Nightmare Moon. “Here’s one last lesson for you Twilight Sparkle. I only showed you how to teleport back in the Everfree Forest. Now let me show you how to keep a pony from teleporting. Of course, before long you’ll love me so much that the rest of the world and everything you've learned will hardly matter, but one last gift from your old foalsitter.”

Twilight frantically tried to teleport them away, but against a pony more powerful than herself there was no hope of her ever succeeding. It came therefore as something of a shock when a ring of green flames shot up around her, her brother, and Chrysalis, whose horn glowed brightly.

“You lose again Cadance.” Chrysalis looked not at all like she was fleeing in defeat. “Looks like I’m going to get away with your dear husband, again. And Nightmare Moon or no, next time we meet I’ll make sure you come away knowing that I’m the better one.”

It was just like when Chrysalis had banished her to the Crystal Caves beneath Canterlot. The circle of green fire turned into a sphere, and Twilight Sparkle found herself sinking into the ground. Then there was the momentary disorientation as the Changeling magic took hold and sent her outside space and time to her new destination.

“Where are we?” Twilight asked as her senses returned. She lit her horn with magic to show what looked like a basement filled with various sacks.

“Changelings aren't exactly welcome in Equestria,” Chrysalis replied. “So we have places we can flee where no pony would think to look for us. Places like this are safety until we can escape, or take a new face.”

“Well where exactly is here?” Twilight had looked to her brother to ask the question, but he didn’t appear about to speak to Chrysalis any time soon.

Before Chrysalis could respond the door to the basement opened and a pony shaped figure descended into the dim light provided by Twilight’s horn.

“Bon-Bon?” Twilight gaped as she recognized the pony. “We’re back in Ponyville, wait Bon-Bon?!”

“Hi Twilight.” Twilight thought she might very well fall over dead from shock when Bon-Bon bowed with apparently genuine reverence before Chrysalis. “My queen, I felt your presence as soon as you entered. I’ll help you however I can, but I can’t leave my customers for long or my cover will be at risk.”

“Worry not my child.” Twilight was almost as shocked at the soft and caring tone coming out of Chrysalis’ mouth. And was only slightly less shocked as green flames surrounded the Changeling Queen and left two Bon-Bon’s standing there. “I can keep your food from suspicion while you answer the many questions I’m sure Twilight Sparkle no doubt has. All we require from you is time and a place to recover.”

“Thank you my queen.” Bon-Bon came out of her bow and turned to Twilight as Chrysalis went up the stairs in her place. “So... this is probably a little awkward.”

Shining Armor looked in confusion at Bon-Bon, then at Twilight, then back at Bon-Bon, and finally back at Twilight. “Twiley, is she a Changeling?”

Twilight sent a blank look by way of reply before turning. “Bon-Bon, are you a Changeling?”

“Well... yes. But I’m not evil or anything! I just feed off the love ponies feel when they’re buying my candy, and I send the excess back to the hive. Their love isn't going anywhere, so it’s not like I’m hurting anyone.”

“Except the real Bon-Bon you mean.” Twilight narrowed her eyes in anger. “Is she still alive, or have you drained all her love and left her a lifeless shell?”

“I didn't replace anyone!” There was actual anger in Bon-Bon’s voice. “I borrowed bits and pieces from various ponies, but I’m the only one of me running around, and I always have been. Changelings like me don’t replace anyone. We’re sent out to gather love over a long time, so we create a life of our own and siphon all the excess love you ponies feel. No one gets hurt, and the love we send keeps the hive from starving even in the worst of times.”

“So then why did you invade?” Shining Armor sounded very suspicious of Bon-Bon’s claims. “It sounds like you already have everything worked out. All of you could just slip into Equestria and make new lives for yourselves.”

“I didn't invade anything.” Bon-Bon said defensively. “I was in Ponyville the whole time since Lyra’s ticket to the wedding wasn't a plus one. You saw how many of us there are though. Ponies can accept quite a bit of weirdness, but if thousands of grown mares and stallions just appeared one day I think it would get noticed. Besides, it takes years of work and training to be able to do what I do.”

Twilight’s brain needed a rest from all this. “Speaking of Lyra, does she know about any of this? You being a Changeling I mean. You’re not sucking her dry of love or anything are you?”

“Of course not!” Twilight never thought she would hear a Changeling sound horrified about draining a pony of their love. “I’d never let anything hurt her. I feed off her more than other ponies, but that’s because I spend more time around her than other ponies. I don’t actually drain her, and I’d never force her to feel anything she doesn't want to just so I could feed. And no, she doesn't have a clue what I am. Please don’t tell her Twilight. My cover’s blown so I’ll probably have to go somewhere else and become someone else. I’ll make up something to tell her, but just make sure she doesn't hate me, please.”

Pity for a Changeling wasn't something Twilight had ever imagined feeling. “When all this is over you and I are going to have a long talk about a lot of things. But for now we have bigger problems.”

“You’re just going to let a Changeling run around draining ponies of their love?” Twilight wasn’t surprised to hear that from her brother. He did have a few reasons to be distrustful of Changelings.

Twilight could feel a monster of a headache coming on. “ I've known Bon-Bon for years now, ever since I moved to Ponyville. And she’s never given the tiniest sign that she’s ever hurt anyone. I've eaten plenty of her candies before and never felt anything wrong. Besides, this is the smallest of small stuff compared to Cadance.”

Relief was by far the clearest emotion on Bon-Bon’s face. “I promise I won’t hurt anyone. It’s been years since I messed up and actually drained a pony. The queen would have my head if I did something so stupid to blow my cover.”

“Have no fear of that my child.” Twilight looked up to see Chrysalis coming back down the stairs. “You've a most impressive operation here. Those ponies practically oozed love when they came in to buy presents for their friends and family. And these candies are delicious! You’re going to stay right here, and your queen will drop by on occasion for a sample.”

“Th... Thank you my queen.” Bon-Bon seemed a bit surprised by such effusive praise. “I’m happy you think I'm serving the hive so well. And please, take all the candy you want. On me, of course.”

Shining Armor glared at Chrysalis, but before he could open his mouth she cut him off with her own glare. “My help isn't free, and I know how much you need it. You will overlook my child being here. And when this is all over we are going to have a talk about doing this all across Equestria. My children have starved for long enough while you feast.”

“Deal, but we sign off on any Changelings coming into Equestria, we know where they are at all times, they stay in cover the whole time, and you stop the whole kidnapping ponies and draining them of their love thing.” Twilight said almost before Chrysalis’ mouth had closed. Then whirled around to face her brother. “This is a chance for peace between ponies and Changelings, I’m not going to pass that up. If they can get enough love from us without having to invade Equestria we might not have to go around seeing Changelings in every shadow. And if it does go bad, then that’s my fault and you told me so. Bon-Bon, you don’t think other Changelings like you would get greedy or anything?”

“I occasionally give out a few samples to make a burst of love when I need an afternoon snack or something. But as long as they knew how important their role is they would be as careful as I am. Oh, I’m sorry. I’m not putting words in your mouth my queen, am I?”

“Of course not my child.” Chrysalis sent a beneficent look at Bon-Bon. “I’d dreamed of seeing mighty Canterlot laid low, but invading Equestria was all about the food. If I have the chance to feed the swarm without risking any of my children... Well a good queen looks out for her children. Now, I think we've taken up enough of your time my child. Return to your work, and before you know it we’ll be gone.”

Bon-Bon bowed once more before returning to her shop and leaving the three alone.

“Alright you two.” Twilight said into the silence in a deceptively calm voice. “What the hay happened back there?!”

She didn't receive a coherent response as much as a storm of accusations between the two that quickly degenerated into a petty argument. The captain of the Canterlot royal guards and the Changeling Queen could have put a pair of schoolyard fillies to shame for immaturity.

Twilight stuck a hoof between them to force silence. “From now on I don’t care what you two are doing. You’re going to do it together until you learn to work together. I can handle my friends, but I can’t beat them. We probably need all three of us to beat Cadance, but you two are going to have to find a way to do it by yourselves.”

Chrysalis and her brother started protesting again, but Twilight held up another hoof to silence them. “We’re not going after Cadance again right away. You two are going to need time to stop biting each others heads off, and there’s something we need to do before going after Cadance. You two were probably a bit busy, but there was someone important who wasn't in Manehatten, Rainbow Dash.”

“You mean sonic rainboom pony?” Her brother asked.

“Exactly,” Twilight smiled, “if she didn't fly straight to Canterlot, and into Cadance’s hooves, she probably escaped. She wouldn't know what was going on, so she probably found a place to lay low and wait to learn more. Our little show today is going to get her attention, and we need to find her before Cadance does.”

“Wonderful plan.” Twilight didn't hear much enthusiasm from Chrysalis. “Since you have all the answers I assume you have a way to find her.”

“I do. In fact I know just where to start looking for her.”

All the Modes of Distress

We’ll Always Have Canterlot

Disclaimer: You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth! The truth is I don’t own My Little Pony

Chapter Eight: All the Modes of Distress

Defying gravity was the best! If she’d had her way she would only come down to the ground to sleep. All too soon though, the wheels of her scooter impacted the ground and Scootaloo rejoined the world of ponies with all their hooves stuck on the ground. At least she still had speed going for her. If she closed her eyes and flapped her wings hard enough it was easy to imagine she was flying through the sky.

Of course, closing her eyes brought other problems. A cry of alarm gave her just enough time to open her eyes and avoid hitting Bon-Bon with a particularly daring move. She shouted an apology back to the candy maker as she kept on towards the edge of Ponyville. It was a long way from the schoolhouse, but the piles of earth, stone, and wood made the best possible ground for her to practice her moves.

And, she thought, there wasn't anyone for her to hit out here if she indulged in a literal flight of fancy. Although with her destination coming into sight she wouldn't have any time for anything that wasn't practice. She stopped at the edge of a bowl, checked to make sure her helmet was on tight, and then threw herself off the edge. It might not have been flight, but Scootaloo could think of nothing closer as she soared between two ramps she’d put together a few months back.

Okay, maybe she could pretend to fly just once or twice. If she hit one of the ramps fast enough she’d have several seconds before she hit the ground again. Plenty of time for someone as skilled as her to close her eyes for a bit and let her mind go. Scootaloo lined herself up, started flapping her wings as fast as they would go, and leapt off the ramp into the glorious blue sky.

She closed her eyes and imagined that Rainbow Dash, captain of the Wonderbolts of course, was taking her on a congratulatory flight as the newest member of that elite group. Then she frowned. She should have hit the ground by now. She opened her eyes to see the world glowing just before it all turned white and she disappeared.

Scootaloo opened her eyes from the bright flash to find her surroundings had become pitch black. She seemed to be on a chair, but she wasn't tied up, and her scooter wasn't anywhere to be found!

“Don’t worry Scootaloo.” She didn't need to be a unicorn to recognize one using magic to disguise their voice. “You’re quite safe. I just have a few questions and you’ll be free to go, you and your scooter both.”

As her eyes adjusted to the darkness Scootaloo could make out the slight glow of a unicorn’s horn using magic. “Twilight Sparkle? Is that you?”

Twilight Sparkle could only sputter in indignation. Yes Scootaloo knew her, and yes, she should have been able to figure it out eventually, but this was just humiliating. Clearly subterfuge was not a fallback career if both librarian and magical prodigy didn't pan out.

It was a simple spell to turn up the lights of the library basement. No longer in the darkness she took hold of a chair with her magic and sat down in front of Scootaloo.

“Sorry about snatching you out of the air like I did. But you probably know by now that my brother and I are the most wanted ponies in all Equestria, so meeting for cake at Sugarcube Corner was kind of out.”

“You’re not actually...” Scootaloo suddenly remembered Applejack and Rarity telling her and the other Crusaders that Twilight Sparkle and her brother were not themselves and could be very dangerous if provoked.

“My brother and I are completely ourselves. You remember Nightmare Moon?” Twilight waited for Scootaloo to nod. “The last time we beat her we didn’t do a good enough job. She’s come back and taken over Cadance. She’s using Cadance’s powers to force ponies to love her, and that includes all my friends. That’s why I teleported you here. I didn’t know if they were watching you, so I couldn't take any chances.”

Scootaloo looked down at the ground. “I really haven’t seen much of them. Applejack and Rarity stopped by a few days ago. They said they were on some super secret mission from Princess Cadance to save Equestria from the Changelings. They said that you and your brother had been captured, and that if we saw either of you we should let them know right away. But both Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom said something was off with them. They couldn't really put it in words, and we were going to try to get to the bottom of it to get our cutie marks, but they left before we could.”

Twilight started to scratch her mane in thought, and then stopped abruptly as she almost knocked the Element of Magic off her head. She was willing to bet that 'a few days ago' meant the day after she and Shining Armor had rescued Chrysalis. Cadance obviously hadn't wasted much time in predicting her next moves. If she made it through all this she owed all three Cutie Mark Crusaders lunch at Sugarcube Corner as thanks for them spotting something being off with Rarity and Applejack.

“I’m not surprised to hear that. Other ponies I've talked to who were around ponies being controlled by Cadance said the same thing. Just be careful around them, I don’t want you getting hurt. Did they mention anything about Rainbow Dash, or have you seen her since I disappeared? My brother and I tried to free Cadance in Manehatten yesterday, and everyone except Rainbow Dash was there. We barely got out, and if she’d been there things might have gone... well, bad. I think Cadance would have had her there if Rainbow Dash was under her control. And if Rainbow Dash did escape I can’t think of anyone else she’d trust with where she was hiding out or where she was going.”

Twilight watched Scootaloo’s eyes brighten at the thought her idol might have such trust in her. Then they dimmed and Twilight had her answer even before Scootaloo spoke. “Sorry, I haven’t seen Rainbow Dash. And Rarity and Applejack didn’t say anything about her. They spent most of their time talking about how great Cadance was, and how proud they were to be helping her.”

It took all of Twilight’s self control to keep from outright scowling at her hunch being so thoroughly demolished. “It’s okay Scootaloo, it’s not your fault. Just wait here a bit. I need to go take care of something. As soon as that’s done I’ll come back and send you back to where you were.”

Twilight didn’t wait for a response as she stepped through the door to where Chrysalis and her brother were waiting. They’d been listening in the whole time, so she wasn't at all surprised by their frowns.

“I've told my children across Equestria to keep an eye out for this pegasus of yours.” Chrysalis broke the silence. “But it will take some time for my wishes to spread to them, and many of them to distinguish between you ponies.”

Part of Twilight was glad to see Chrysalis actually working with her, but she would have traded that in an instant to have finished things back in Manehatten. “And that won’t do us any good if Rainbow Dash decided to bury herself in some cave somewhere and wait all this out. Hopefully Rainbow Dash decided to hide somewhere around here if she actually got away. If she thinks I’m one of Cadance’s puppets though, she’ll just go deeper if she thinks I’m trying to find her.”

“What are you trying to say little sis?” Shining Armor had a look full of suspicion on his face.

“Remember how I said you two were going to start doing everything together?” Twilight couldn’t quite keep a smirk off her face. “Well you’re going to start by looking around Ponyville for any clues about where Rainbow Dash might be.”

“I don’t know the first place to start.” Shining Armor protested. “Or what we’re looking for for that matter. Twiley, this is your friend and your town, you should be doing this.”

Twilight lit her horn with magic. “One, this is my town so everyone will recognize me. The spell I just put on you to make ponies look past you wouldn't work five minutes on me. Two, I don’t know what to look for either. Rainbow Dash is normally a very showy pony, so hiding out isn't in her nature. The only thing I can think to tell you two is that any clues she left behind will probably be clumsily hidden. That, and make sure you check the newspaper. We’re probably page one, but who knows what we’ll find in there.”

“And if this doesn't work?” Green flames surrounded Chrysalis leaving behind the white coated unicorn she’d originally chosen in Manehatten. “We can’t exactly put up a great big sign of our own to get her attention. And if you thought the filly in there wasn't being watched you wouldn't have gone to such lengths to acquire her without anyone noticing.”

Twilight chewed a lip in thought. “Rainbow Dash was friends with a griffon a long time back, and I can’t imagine Cadance has a large presence in the griffon lands. But I thought the same thing about Appleloosa. Plus, Rainbow Dash and Gilda didn’t exactly part on the best of terms. I’d only suggest going there as a last resort, but if Rainbow Dash didn’t think she could trust any pony she might have decided to see if she could trust a griffon.”

“I’d rather not get near any griffons.” Chrysalis had a rather distasteful look on her face. “Their emotions are tough, scanty, and they taste like... I don’t think you have the words to describe how bad griffon emotions taste.”

“Well then, that should be all the more reason for you two to find Rainbow Dash here in Equestria. I’ll finish talking to Scootaloo and send her back. She was practicing a bit outside of town, so hopefully no one noticed her go, and no one will notice her come back.”

Twilight watched Chrysalis and her brother head up onto the main floor of the library with some apprehension. Those two pushed each others buttons with ease. Under other circumstances she would have enjoyed teasing her straight laced brother, and aggravating Chrysalis would have been endlessly funny if they weren't in a life or death struggle. But they were in a life or death struggle, and that meant she had to hope they could keep their tempers under control enough to be of use.

It was out of her hooves now anyways, and she still had to tend to Scootaloo. Twilight walked back into the small basement room. The orange filly was idly kicking her legs from the chair, the picture of innocence. All of Twilight’s panic alarms instantly went off, that look could only mean disaster. She didn’t think she’d left anything that could be broken, tinkered with, knocked about, or otherwise ruined by an inquisitive Cutie Mark Crusader, but she’d learned from hard experience not to underestimate them.

She couldn't see anything instantly amiss though, and even if she had seen something awry Twilight had bigger problems. “Sorry about that, I probably don’t need to tell you this, but when I send you back out to where you were you shouldn't mention this to anyone. And anyone means even Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom. I know they’re your friends, and I don’t think they’d ever intentionally let anything slip, but I don’t know what Rarity and Applejack are capable of.”

Scootaloo nodded and then smiled. “Hey, I've got an idea. Why don’t you take me with you? I won’t be able to tell anyone then, and I can totally help you!”

Twilight shook her head. “Sorry, but no. I know you want to help, and believe me, I’d take any help I could get. But I don’t have any way to keep Cadance from doing to you what she did to Rarity and Applejack. What you need to do is lay low and keep quiet. If my brother and I fail then you three will be some of the only ponies in Equestria who know anything about the Elements of Harmony. They’ll eventually find new ponies, and you’d have to find and guide them so they could defeat Cadance.”

Scootaloo looked disappointed at being left behind, but as Twilight had thought, the prospect of being useful on her own seemed to calm her down enough. She hadn't mentioned Spike, but she'd been telling the truth when she said she didn't know what means Cadance had to gather information, so she decided against the risk.

“That’s not saying you need to go out looking for your cutie marks in finding ponies who can use the Elements of Harmony. As long as I’m running around, and I hope Rainbow Dash too, then the others are safe and the Elements will stay with us.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Scootaloo sighed, “But I hope I don’t get to go on this particular cutie mark crusade.”

“I hope you don’t either," Twilight said. “I’ll go ahead and send you back now. We’ll hide here a few more days while we look for Rainbow Dash around Ponyville, so if you find anything let me know right away. But make sure that no one comes with you, and that no one is following you either.”

“Right!” Scootaloo saluted flamboyantly. “Cutie Mark Crusader Rainbow Dash Investigator Scootaloo is on the case!”

“Just, don’t get too carried away. One last thing, how did you know it was me at the start?”

Scootaloo paused a few seconds to organize her thoughts. “Well, I don’t know any other ponies who can teleport, so that was kind of a big give away. And you didn’t tie me up or yell at me like the villains in all the Daring-Do novels. I figured you’d only be all nice if you were someone who knew me. Since Rainbow Dash couldn't have teleported me that means you were the only one left who would be doing something all sneaky like that.”

“Thanks,” Twilight smiled. Inside though, she cringed. Subterfuge really was not her strong point. “Go grab your scooter and I’ll send you back outside.”

Scootaloo jumped off the chair, grabbed her scooter, and stood in front of Twilight. “Do you think you can put me a bit up in the air? I could do some awesome tricks if I just started off falling!”

“Not without anyone there to watch you.” Twilight shook her head. “Now hang on, here goes.”

Her horn flared with magic, and when the light dissipated Twilight Sparkle was alone again in the library.

When he first stepped out into the sun, Shining Armor had braced himself for an immediate cry of alarm followed by a frantic flight back into the library and a desperate teleport away from Ponyville. Instead he looked out on ordinary ponies going about a perfectly ordinary day in placid Ponyville who couldn't care less about the extra ponies, well pony and Changeling, among them.

“Whatever Twilight did to keep ponies from noticing me, it seems to be working.” He didn’t like talking to Chrysalis any more than he absolutely had to, but there were times it couldn't be avoided.

“Wonderful for you.” The enthusiasm behind her words was rather lacking. “Now let’s go take a stroll around town, find what we can, and get back here so I don’t have to look at your idiotic face any more.”

“Idiot?” Shining Armor started walking away from the library. “Are you still mad about Manehatten? Well forgive me oh high and mighty queen, I’m sorry that I actually have a heart and didn’t want to hurt my wife. Love might be just food to you, but it’s actually important to us ponies.”

He was getting far too used to Chrysalis’ look that said she thought him an idiot. “Goody for you and your heart. I do hope it was worth it, because you very possibly just wasted the best opportunity we’ll have to save your dear wife. And, oh yes, to save you ponies from being turned into mindless slaves and my children from slow starvation. We understand compassion and affection just fine. We simply have a better hold of it, like say, not throwing away our chance for victory because a horrible creature is wearing a pretty face.”

Shining Armor glared at his most unwilling companion as he threw a few bits down for a newspaper. Their heated argument had drawn a small bit of notice, but compared to mad goddesses, chaos gods, Parasprite invasions, Ursas, well... an unfamiliar couple arguing was not a sight worth getting riled up over for the ponies who lived in Ponyville. Absorbed in pushing each others buttons neither Shining Armor nor Chrysalis noticed any of this as they continued walking.

“You think you understand compassion? How compassionate is it to grab ponies out of their homes and replace them with Changelings who will suck their family dry? How compassionate is it to give ponies a false friend who really just sees them as a five course meal? How do you think these ponies would take it if they learned their favorite candies came with a little extra, your love being drained!”

Chrysalis rolled her eyes in irritation. “Judging by your sister, I think these ponies would take news of my child quite well. She sells delicious candies, takes only what they aren't using, and by all appearances she’s blended in quite well. In fact, she may have blended a bit too well, but as long as she continues to bring in as much love as she has I’ll overlook a few quirks.”

“That’s just like you Changelings.” Shining Armor snorted. “As long as you have enough ponies to drain into withered husks you don’t care what damage you do. Invading Canterlot, enslaving a whole civilization, ripping apart families, it’s all just a day at the office to you isn't it?”

“Oh don’t prattle on to me about how good and nice you ponies are.” Chrysalis got close enough he could see the anger burning in her eyes. “You think you’re being so giving allowing a handful of Changelings into your precious kingdom. Of course the masses can never know of it, and my children will hardly be free. They’ll live off the dregs of your society and send us the few scraps you toss them. Twilight Sparkle talks about a chance for peace between us, I only see desperation. If you didn’t need my help to save yourselves, you’d be perfectly content to let us languish in our misery. I rather suspect you'd enjoy watching it.”

“Misery?” Shining Armor didn’t flinch at all from Chrysalis being right in his face, rather he thrust himself forward to put himself in her comfort zone. “That was hardly a poor little us swarm of Changelings that invaded Canterlot. Would you like to know the names of all the ponies who died because of you that day? I've memorized all of them, a promise to never let anything like that happen again. Have you ever seen what’s left of a pony when your ‘children’ are done with them? Have you ever talked to a grieving parent who just realized the foal they loved was a monster and they’ll never see their real child again?”

“You want to talk about suffering?” At this point they were practically on top of each other. “Do you know how many Changeling nymphs die each year because they don’t get enough to eat? Disease, wounds, in truly hard times we have to choose which nymphs to feed so even a few will survive to grow up. All because you ponies are so arrogant you can’t bear the thought of sparing even a loving thought for anything that doesn't fit perfectly into your paradise. My children who live among you keep us from starving, but that’s all they do. Hunger is the most constant companion of any Changeling.”

“You think we don’t know how lucky we are to have all this?” Shining Armor’s wave encompassed the beautiful day around them. “Every year we tell the Hearth’s Warming Eve story of how ponies suffered to even reach Equestria. We had to carve our homes and lives from creatures that saw us as nothing more than their next meal. Griffons tried to invade us, tyrants tried to rule us, generations of ponies lived in agony under Discord. We worked hard for our peaceful lives, we’re still working hard to deserve those peaceful lives.”

It took them a little more than an hour to walk a circle of Ponyville. In that time their heated argument flagged not a bit. Rather, they let themselves get totally carried away in their passions. The few ponies who were nearby as they neared the library once more would have been not at all surprised to see one of the two jump the other at any moment.

To Chrysalis and Shining Armor it was almost a surprise to find themselves back where they had started. Arguing, though not at all fun, made the time pass almost as fast. White coats did nothing to prevent a blush, so as they realized that in a whole hour on their own all they had accomplished was to buy a newspaper they both turned quite red.

“I have never met another being as infuriating as you.” Chrysalis recovered from their stupor first. “When all this is over I’m taking my swarm to the other side of the world. I don't know how she puts up with you, but Cadance is welcome to you as far as I’m concerned.”

“I’ll be the happiest pony in the world to see you go, but we have to save Cadance first. Rainbow Dash could have flown in front of us a dozen times and we never would have noticed. I feel like I should wash my mouth with soap for saying this, but we need to work together or we’ll never be rid of each other.”

Chrysalis looked sick, whether it was the thought of working with Shining Armor or being stuck with him was a question not even she knew the answer to. “Agreed, we work together to be rid of each other.”

The first test of their new detente would be dealing with Twilight Sparkle’s inevitable anger at their utter failure. However as they were calling down into the basement of the library to summon her they were interrupted by the most terrifying thing in the world, a knock on the door.

Twilight mounted the stairs just in time to see twin looks of horror face her as there was another soft knock at the door. The library had been closed since she fled. No one should have had any reason to come here. Twilight frantically motioned to her brother to get the door while she and Chrysalis moved off to the sides and prepared to magically assault whoever came through at them.

Shining Armor walked up to the door as silently as his training allowed. Making sure he had both Twilight and Chrysalis’ attention, he counted silently to three and jerked the door open.

“Your highness, I’m glad to see you’re alright.” Fancypants wasn't the last pony he’d expected to see on the other side of the door, but then he wasn't exactly high on the list either.

“Forgive me if I’m not as welcoming as I should be.” Shining Armor motioned to Twilight and Chrysalis to not let loose just yet. “But these days it’s kind of hard to tell who’s a friend and who’s an enemy wearing a friends face.”

“That’s why I’m here.” Fancypants looked nervously about, as though he was concerned someone would we watching them. “I think we’d both rather have no one else know that you’re here. Would you object terribly to us moving this indoors?”

Shining Armor glanced back to see Chrysalis had already disappeared and Twilight had hidden the Element of Magic. He took that as a sign that it was okay with them to let Fancypants in and stepped aside from the door.

“Sorry about the less than warm welcome.” Twilight stepped out of the shadows as the door closed. “But like my brother said, we have to be more than a little careful about who we talk to right now.”

“I perfectly understand.” If Fancypants was surprised at Twilight’s abrupt appearance he hid it well. “There’s been a great deal about you two and Changelings in the news the past few days. Myself and a select few other ponies have serious doubts about Princess Cadance’s official story.”

“You should be very careful about who you say that to.” Shining Armor glanced out the windows just to make sure no one was watching the library. “Cadance isn't herself right now, and she can make good ponies do horrible things if she gets a hold of them.”

“Like I said, a select few other ponies. You two seem to be immune to whatever she’s doing, or at least you seem to have some protection against it. I rather suspect that if the truth were otherwise you wouldn't have confronted her in Manehatten.”

Twilight kept a perfectly calm face. “I hope you don’t mind, but before we go answering too many questions I’m very curious about how you found us.”

“I suppose you would be in your position.” Fancypants allowed himself a very small smile. “I must confess a small part of luck on my part to be here in particular. The group of concerned ponies I represent has been looking for you since this began. Ponyville was a logical place to look since it’s your home, it’s close enough to Canterlot for you to strike quickly if an opportunity arises, and yet you can slip into the Everfree Forest and disappear if needed. I’m confident none of the locals could have seen through your brother’s magical protections, but having known him in Canterlot I was able to recognize him with only a little difficulty.”

Twilight felt her calm facade almost slip as she raged at herself inwardly. Of course Ponyville was a logical place for them to recover after the disaster that was Manehatten, but it was too logical. Anyone looking for them would put Ponyville at or near the top of their list.

Still, she had backed herself into a corner where she had to provide some sort of answer. “I think I can speak for both my brother and I when I say that we’re glad to hear other ponies know what’s going on, and that they’re trying to do something about it. I wish we could help you, really, I’d take any help I could get at this point. But our ‘protection’ is a series of spells that I’m just not capable of. It taxed even Celestia when she put them on me, and the only reason I had the protections was that as her student I had unquestioned access to her, so if someone took control of me I’d be a perfect assassin. Shining Armor is the captain of the Canterlot royal guards, and even he didn’t get them until the Changelings showed he was a definite target.”

“That’s... unfortunate.” Fancypants was clearly a master of hiding what he was thinking. “If there’s any other way we can help I assure you that we’re at your disposal.”

“The best thing you can do is keep your heads down,” Twilight said. “Cadance gets more powerful the more ponies she puts under her control. Keep your heads low, keep other ponies from drawing her notice, and that will make our job earlier.”

Twilight would have normally relished the chance to pump such a knowledgeable pony for information about the goings on in Canterlot, instead she hustled him out the door considerably quicker than polite society would have called polite.

“What was with that?” Shining Armor said to her as she looked out the windows. “I thought you said we needed all the help we can get.”

“We do, but we can’t use it. If he’s telling the truth it’s the same story as Spike. The Elements of Harmony are the only things that can protect a normal pony from Cadance’s magic, so it really is safer for him and his friends to keep their heads low. If Cadance already has him under her control then hopefully it sets her on the wrong path if she’s trying to take control of either of us. And speaking of Cadance, we need to get out of here right now.”

“Already a step ahead of you.” Chrysalis emerged from the basement with all their bags packed. “I slipped on a few face and took a look around while you were talking. Nothing terribly suspicious, but that could all change very fast.”

Panic clearly did wonders at making Chrysalis a team player. All the same, Twilight hoped they didn’t find themselves in many more positions like this. Snark between her brother and the Changeling Queen at least meant they weren’t in immediate danger.

Twilight put the Element of Magic back on her head, put her saddlebags on, and after a quick check the Golden Oaks Library was again truly closed for business.

Gifts

We’ll Always Have Canterlot

Disclaimer: Rarr... Snarl... I don’t own My Little Pony.

Chapter Nine: Gifts

The richly appointed meeting room in the royal castle was typically filled with bureaucrats or visiting dignitaries. It offered a grand view from the mountain on which Canterlot rested, a demonstration of just how large and prosperous Equestria was. Today however, only two ponies resided within, and neither paid much attention to the spectacular vista laid out before them.

“I’m so sorry I failed you Princess Cadance!” Rarity gasped between sobs on the floor. “I promise I won’t rest or stop until all Equestria loves you as much as I do! Just please, please don’t banish me from you!”

The creature that wasn’t Cadance, but wore her face and name, let an indolent smile cross her face. “You’ve all said almost exactly those same words as I’ve brought you in. If I hadn’t done the same thing to each of your minds I’d be suspicious about it. But no matter, I’ve discussed with each of you how Twilight Sparkle was able to hold all four of you off, and what you’ll do better the next time to ensure she joins our happy little family. I have to admit though, I’m particularly disappointed with you Rarity. I’d heard you were a talented unicorn, and yet Twilight Sparkle made you look like a talentless foal. Would you care to tell me why that is?”

“Forgive me Princess!” A new round of sobbing wracked the unicorn as she prostrated herself even deeper into the rich carpets on the floor. “I’m a failure as a unicorn and your servant! Let me take my life to show you my final devotion!”

Cadance’s voice tinkled laughter at something the real Cadance would be appalled at. “Oh that will come eventually, once I have all of you in my hooves. But for now, stop crying and tell me why you weren’t able to so much as hinder Twilight Sparkle with your magic.”

The dark magic coursing through her brain meant that the command caused Rarity to cease crying in the space of a heartbeat. “Of course Princess Cadance. My magical studies, practice, and efforts have all centered around my previous life as a tailor. I am rather talented at that, but beyond being able to handle many threads of magic at once it has no use towards capturing Twilight Sparkle so she can realize your magnificence and glory. I did try to engage her with many small magical attacks, but Twilight was able to use brute force to simply overpower me. As long as she has the stolen Element of Magic boosting her power I’ll never be more than an inconvenience to her, and even if she weren’t using it my own magic is no match for her.”

“Hm, you have been spending every waking moment since Manehatten in practice or the library yes?” At Rarity’s nod Cadance continued. “Twilight Sparkle has a lifetime of study at her command, and her talent allows her to learn magic faster than you could ever dream of. She learned a great deal of magic from merely observing me when we met in the Everfree Forest. Tell me Rarity, would you be willing to risk your very self to catch up to her and better serve me?”

“Of course Princess Cadance!” The answer was somewhat blurred for the frantic nodding going on at the same time. “I would do anything, anything if it meant serving you and showing you my love for you!”

“I thought so.” The smile that crossed Cadance’s face was one the real Cadance would never produce. “You’ll find this process to be the most painful experience of your life. In fact, I rather suspect the pain is beyond your limited capacity to imagine. But if you survive, and retain even a shred of sanity, then you’ll be a far more useful servant to me.”

A mist of magical power began flowing from Cadance’s horn, as it touched Rarity’s horn the white unicorns eyes glazed over and a scream tore itself from her throat. Rarity continued screaming as her legs gave out from under her, she continued screaming as her eyes rolled back in her head, even when she was reduced to a twitching heap incapable of speech she continued to scream. All the while, the smile never left Cadance’s face.

Experience was making long distance teleportation a simple matter for Twilight Sparkle. Of course it helped that she had the most powerful magical amplifier known to ponykind helping her with the spell. As the light from her spell dimmed she found her library back in Ponyville replaced with exactly where she’d planned to send the three of them.

“Welcome to Baltimare,” she said. “I came here once with Applejack to help her deliver an awful lot of apples. The owners of the warehouse were going to clean it out and renovate it after they used all the apples. I remember they said the work would take awhile, so we shouldn't have to worry about any interruptions here.”

“We clearly won’t have to worry about accomodations here either.” Twilight noted that Chrysalis’ panic induced politeness had passed. “Is there a single piece of furniture in this entire building?”

“I’m not planning to grow old here or anything,” Twilight sounded more defensive than she’d planned. “Besides, we’re public enemies one, two, and three across all Equestria. We can’t exactly expect to walk into a five star hotel and have them roll out the red carpet for us. If we have to spend more than a few days here we can look around for something better.”

“Speaking of public enemies,” Shining Armor said as he returned from inspecting the lock on the nearest door. “Don’t you think it’s a little odd that almost no one else has noticed anything odd about all this? Celestia and Luna disappeared, Cadance is ruling with absolute power, and ponies are in love with her to the point of worshiping her.”

“Someone noticed something,” Twilight replied. “Us. Remember though, Cadance is going to some pretty impressive lengths to make sure most ponies don't notice anything. Celestia has taken long vacations before. What’s a decade or two off to an immortal pony with millenia behind her? And since Luna returned I don’t think many ponies would blink twice at the idea that Celestia would want to take a few months, or even years, away from Canterlot to catch up with her. Cadance has also kept her hooves off the government, for now. It sounds like she’s made most of the senior government ponies her puppets, but she doesn’t have them doing anything out of the ordinary. I think part of that is she’s worried about us still being loose. But I think it’s much more that Nightmare Moon is immortal, so what’s a generation to her, or two or three, if that’s what it takes to turn Equestria evil without normal ponies ever noticing.”

“Well that’s depressing.” Chrysalis had returned to her normal appearance. “You do realize that means we’re completely on our own, right? And that if we don’t beat Cadance soon we should just roll over and give up because she’ll have all your precious ponies ready to die just to show how much they love her.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this Twiley, but Chrysalis is right.” Her brother looked vaguely sick at saying those words. “Every pony Cadance takes over is one less pony who would know, or even care, that she’s evil. If she keeps this up we won’t be able to show our faces anywhere without Cadance, your friends, the royal guards, and half the local ponies coming down on us.”

“I never said this was going to be easy. We just need to think of it as motivation to save Cadance and Equestria sooner rather than later. And step one of that is finding Rainbow Dash. With two of us I think we can actually spare some time to help you two fight Cadance if you can ever get your act together. That would let us distract her enough that we can win.”

“One problem with that little sis, we don’t have the first idea where Rainbow Dash is. I really can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think we used up all our luck finding Chrysalis like we did. Poking around all over Equestria just risks Cadance spotting us and getting the drop on us. We need to narrow it down to at least a city, probably even closer if we’re going to find her without having to fight for it.”

“As long as we’re saying things we never thought we would, the idiot is right.” Chrysalis looked slightly nauseous at the admission. “And you’re the only one who knows her well enough to pick up any trail she left behind.”

“How did Fancypants find us?” Twilight tapped a hoof on her chin in thought. “If we can figure that out maybe we can follow the same kind of clues to Rainbow Dash. He said that Ponyville was a logical place for us to go, so where would be a logical place for Rainbow Dash to run to?”

“Cloudsdale,” Chrysalis said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Honestly, I’m not even a pony and I know more about you ponies than you do.”

“That was my first thought too,” Twilight said as she continued working the problem over in her mind. “But it’s too logical, and Rainbow Dash couldn’t hide there. She won the Best Young Flyer competition last year, and did a sonic rainboom to do it, she hobnobbed with the Wonderbolts at the Grand Galloping Gala and the wedding, and she was just in the news for helping to save the Crystal Empire. She might have spent a night there or something, but more than that and someone would notice her.”

“I’m kind of surprised you didn’t say we should go to the library.” Shining Armor tried, without success, to lighten the mood. “That’s how Fancypants found us, and you’ve certainly spent enough of your life in libraries.”

Twilight felt an epiphany come over her. “That’s it! You’re a genius Shining Armor!”

“He is?” Chrysalis sounded like Twilight had just shaken the very foundations of her universe.

“I am.” Shining Armor clearly enjoyed the opportunity to nettle the Changeling Queen for a change.

Twilight barrelled on as though the two had never spoken. “We only had the Foal Free Press to connect us to the world, and that’s only concerned with Ponyville. Rainbow Dash would never leave any clues around there, they’d be tracked back to her almost immediately. But if she left clues somewhere else they’d only show up as a curious occurrence in their news, unless someone just like us saw those clues. Baltimare is a large city, so even a branch library should have newspapers from all over Equestria. We can search everywhere and never expose ourselves. I’ll just cast a simple disguise spell and we can...”

“Um Twiley,” Shining Armor put an interrupting hoof on her shoulder, “you can disguise yourself, but what about that?”

Twilight realized he was pointing to the crown that was the Element of Magic atop her head. “Well I’ll just... I mean I can... I think if I... Maybe I can try... I... Well Baltimare is a long way from Ponyville, maybe the ponies here won’t recognize it for what it is?”

Twilight Sparkle had glared down her brother and Chrysalis several times since her unwanted adventure had started. Now, she found herself quailing under their twin glares.

“I have to go! You two would never be able to spot Rainbow Dash’s trail of breadcrumbs, or know if she’s even leaving one. Maybe I can just take it off while we walk? No! If Cadance does spot us and jump us she’ll start by making me her puppet and we’re done for.”

“Don’t worry little sis.” Shining Armor seemed to have completely dispelled his irritation. “We can just steal the newspapers or something. I never thought I’d be stealing from a library, but I think they’ll forgive us once this is all over and we save Equestria.”

“Do you have any idea how many newspapers there are in Equestria?” Twilight scoffed at the idea. “You’d never get them all out of the library unless you could just... That’s it! Shining Armor, if you cast a small spell, say you barely light your horn, then I can follow that magic to the library and teleport there. It will take some work to follow such a small trail, but I think I can do it. If this works I’ll be able to skip being outside with the Element of Magic and still get into the library.”

“I can’t believe I actually don’t want to rain on your fun parade.” Chrysalis actually didn’t look happy to be shooting down Twilight’s idea. “But what are you going to do once you’re inside this library of yours? I hardly imagine we’ll be alone there in such a large city, and if some pony spots your fancy bauble in there it’s just as bad as outside.”

Shining Armor was the first to come up with an idea. “We talked about stealing newspapers out of the library, maybe we could steal ourselves in. I’m a royal guard, I probably know more about magical security systems than just about any other pony in Equestria. I can break into the library at night, leave Twilight a magical trail, and then you two can teleport in.”

Twilight shook her head. “If we weren’t Equestria’s most wanted it would work. But we don’t know whether or not Baltimare has any security guards in its libraries, and who’s to say that a neighbor doesn’t look out a window and see us in there? Cadance is probably watching for something just like this, and I think we’d all like to avoid a repeat of Manehatten.”

“You can’t just make yourself invisible?” Shining Armor asked. “It would be awkward, but I’m sure Chrysalis and I could flip through enough newspapers for you to look for Rainbow Dash.”

“I wish,” Twilight wistfully said. “Starswirl the Bearded has five volumes devoted to camouflage spells, and he never managed to crack invisibility. I don’t think I’m going to manage it in an afternoon. I should just put a sack over my head and claim I’m horribly scared or something. Who knows, it might keep other ponies away from us while we look.”

“Why not a hat?” Chrysalis had been silent for some while. “It would have to be a fairly big one to fit over that toy of yours, but it wouldn’t be so out of place that it would draw notice.”

“Have you been spending time around Rarity? Giant hats is exactly the sort of thing she’d suggest. I... well, actually I can’t think of anything better. One of you two will have to get it, probably you Chrysalis since a stallion like my brother buying a giant hat would draw notice, and it can’t be anything that stands out too much. I’ll probably draw a few glances if I don’t take it off inside, but with even a little bit of luck no one will think enough of it to talk about it.”

“I’m the Changeling Queen, not some common servant.” Chrysalis sounded terribly affronted at the idea. “Why don’t you just magic up a hat or something?”

“Magic doesn’t work like that.” Then, with a smile, Twilight went on. “And besides, I thought you’d jump at the chance to get away from my brother for a while.”

Chrysalis was out the door in a flash of green almost before the words had left Twilight’s mouth.

Twilight was more than a little glad to see Chrysalis gone herself. She might have forged a working relationship with the Changeling Queen, but ‘friend’ was, and most likely always would be, something they never even remotely approached. She was also glad for a chance to spend the time alone with her brother, they were both terribly wound up and needed the chance to unwind.

Unlike their time in Appleloosa however, there was no sense of cautious optimism in their conversation. Instead, they both felt like they were barely keeping their heads above the water. In Appleloosa they had playfully teased each other, here they were merely able to let their masks slip and show the stress, fatigue, and fear they had to keep bottled up.

It took Chrysalis just short of an hour to return. Twilight had trouble deciding whether it felt like minutes or days had passed while she was gone. She had at least returned with a fairly ordinary hat, though of the oversize proportions necessary to cover the Element of Magic on Twilight’s head.

“This works,” Twilight turned the hat over with her magic. “Let’s rest up, and we’ll be at the library when it opens tomorrow. That gives us a whole day to look through the newspapers. And with a little luck, to look for Rainbow Dash.”

They spent an uncomfortable night sleeping on the bare floor of the warehouse. That meant they had no trouble being awake at an early hour. After making sure they had everything ready Twilight cast spells on herself and her brother to make them particularly non-remarkable. They then gathered their few belongings and set out for the library.

Each pony who passed them on the street brought a twinge of fear that they would be the one to see through Twilight’s magic, but the spells held, and though it took some time to find a library near the warehouse district they eventually found themselves in front of a small branch of the Baltimare Library.

“Alright,” Twilight said as they walked up the simple path to the library. “No one do anything in there to draw attention. We’re just looking at newspapers, and whether or not we find anything we’ll stay calm and totally forgettable. Rainbow Dash is all about speed, being cool, and she’s a weather pony. I don’t know exactly what we’re looking for, but hopefully that’s a start. We also have to remember that whatever we’re looking for is probably going to be pretty well hidden. Rainbow Dash is going to know that my friends are under Cadance’s control after Manehatten. And she knows that they’ll be able to spot any clues she left just as well as I can.”

The librarians and other patrons were all thoroughly engrossed in their own day to day business. The arrival of three new ponies, even ponies not immediately recognizable, occasioned nearly zero interest in any of them. Nor was it of the slightest interest when those three new ponies grabbed several newspapers and commandeered a table for themselves. A few patrons found it mildly impolite that one of the ponies refused to remove her hat inside the library, but none of them found it so objectionable as to talk to the pony or to the librarians.

“I do hope you realize how boring this is,” Chrysalis said an hour later. “I’ve read five stories about local sports, two stories about how much water their weatherponies are bringing them this year, and oh yes, a story about some luckless pony being reunited with its pet that was dumb enough to run away.”

“You’d rather wander around where Cadance can find us?” Twilight glanced up from the newspaper she was perusing. “I’m completely fine with boring, safe, and unnoticed.”

“I’m fine with all those,” Chrysalis retorted. “As long as we’re getting somewhere. This is looking for a needle in a pile of needles the size of Equestria.”

“Pretty much,” Twilight agreed. “But if you’ve got anything better I’m all ears.”

The next hour and a half passed in near silence as they rifled through newspaper after newspaper.

Even Twilight was beginning to despair of success when something caught her eye. The story of slightly unusual cloud formations out on the edge of civilization was nothing particularly special, but she remembered seeing a similar story in the same newspaper from a few days ago. She had just begun reaching for that newspaper when the table exploded in front of her.

Twilight was flung backwards into a wall and counted herself lucky she didn’t hit her head upon impact. She collapsed onto the ground and only instinct allowed her to throw up a magical shield that blocked the focused energy that tried to sever her horn from her head.

“Rarity?” Twilight gasped as she finally got a look into the chaos. No, the pony might have looked exactly like her friend, but the crazed look in her eyes betrayed the reality that behind those eyes was only a dark parody of the other unicorn.

“Twilight, darling, how good to see you again. How do you like the new tricks Cadance taught us?”

“New tricks?” Twilight dissolved another pair of magical blades coming her way. “You teleported here! But that’s impossible. No unicorn has ever mastered teleportation. I only learned it because I saw Nightmare Moon do it.”

“Of course,” Rarity said as she flung the shard of the table at Twilight. “But Cadance was so helpful at getting all of us to overcome our limitations. Now we’ll be able to free you from that horrible Chrysalis and bring you back to Canterlot safe and sound.”

Twilight barely held back a growl, Cadance was digging her claws deeper and deeper into Twilight’s friends. She quickly glanced over to see Shining Armor and Chrysalis fighting her other friends. The other ponies in the library were already fleeing, and as Chrysalis flung a bookshelf at Pinkie Pie, Twilight thought that was likely for the best.

Her momentary distraction nearly cost her a leg, she only grabbed Rarity’s magical blade as it was beginning to cut fur. Cadance had clearly told her friends to stop messing around and win. She had also done something to her friends to make them far better fighters. Twilight had been able to handle all four of them by herself back in Manehatten, now the three of them were definitely outnumbered. Rarity wasn’t only using her precision and ability to handle multiple spells at once, that cursed ring around her horn gave her enough magical power to actually be dangerous.

Twilight could have ended the fight with a truly massive application of power, but that would come with the small consequences of almost certainly killing her friends and causing no small amount of civilians harm. She settled for fighting her way to Chrysalis and her brother. Together they were able to hold the others off without a terrible amount of difficulty. Chrysalis fought with no particular concern about hurting Twilight’s friends, but Cadance’s ‘improvements’ seemed to let them stay safe.

However, it was becoming quite clear that they wouldn’t be able to win before Cadance made an appearance. Twilight was rather surprised her sister-in-law hadn’t made an appearance yet. Well, she wasn’t going to let the opportunity go to waste. Her first attempt to teleport them out ran into the same sickening feeling of failure she’d felt back in Manehatten. However Cadance had taught Rarity to teleport, it had clearly included teaching her how to block teleportation. But, even with that blasted ring, Rarity wasn’t nearly as powerful as Cadance, and Twilight had the Element of Magic on her head. Reality seemed to shimmer as her horn and the crystal glowed like twin suns, Rarity strained to hold the spell, but with a crack and release of energy Twilight punched through the shield.

Teleporting them back to the warehouse had proven far more difficult than coming all the way from Ponyville. Spells still fizzled on Shining Armor and Chrysalis’ horns for a second before they realized they were safe and let the magic lapse. The fighting had lasted barely ten minutes, it only felt like a few hours or so.

“How did they find us?” Shining Armor hurriedly gathered their bags, it was clear they were leaving Baltimare as soon as they could. “Was Fancypants being controlled by Cadance? Did he put some sort of tracker on us?”

“Impossible,” Chrysalis said. “I watched him almost the whole time. If he’d made any suspicious moves he wouldn’t be breathing right now.”

“It wasn’t Fancypants. It was... the light spell!” Twilight had a sudden, horrible realization as she ripped the Element of Magic off her head. “The light spell, I was going to track your magic to the library and then teleport there. I’ve spent enough time around Rarity for her to recognize my magic. There’s no way she could track my normal magic from Canterlot, but with the Element of Magic I must stand out like a sore hoof. As long as I’m wearing this she’ll be able to track me wherever I go.”

“Okay,” her brother walked up to her with their bags, “I might be saying something incredibly obvious here, but that’s a problem. If you hadn’t had that rock on your head back there we’d be in serious trouble. How do we have any hope of winning without the Elements?”

“It’s not the end of the world.” Twilight put the Element of Magic back in the sack. “Whatever Cadance did to her, Rarity was fighting harder than she could keep up. I’m stronger at magic, and I would have worn her down sooner or later. I only got us out of there because I was worried Cadance would show up. I can take the Element with me and put it on if we’re attacked. Besides, I didn’t have time to double check it, but I think I might know where Rainbow Dash is.”

Through a Mirror Darkly

We’ll Always Have Canterlot

Disclaimer: Ten chapters in and I’m still saying this. What’s up with you people? Fine, I don’t own My Little Pony

Chapter Ten: Through a Mirror Darkly

Light faded to reveal a dry landscape. Twilight had sent them where she meant to. Then a wave of vertigo and fatigue crashed into her. Right, long distance teleportation without the Element of Magic was actually difficult.

“Alright,” she said. “We’re where we need to be, so let’s not run into Cadance or my friends for the next few hours because I need to take a little nap now.”

Then she passed out.

The first thing she noticed upon regaining consciousness was that she was still on the ground. Was it too much to ask of Chrysalis and her brother to move her off bare rock? Then she remembered that moving her might require them to work together, so it may very well have been too much to ask.

“...Wonderful to be back here, I can go hop back in that horrible sack without going out of my way.”

Clearly they hadn’t missed a beat while she was out.

“Twilight had a reason for sending us here. She said she’d found something back in Baltimare. I don’t know why it took us back to Appleloosa, but there’s something here we need.”

“Forgive me if I don’t jump for joy at revisiting one of my worst moments. Would you like to take a tour of the royal castle and I’ll narrate all the things I had you do while you were under my control and I was draining your love to conquer Equestria?”

“I live there, I lived there. I’ve revisited those moments over and over, and if I can do it you can do it.”

“Someone,” Twilight croaked.

It was quiet, but Twilight speaking managed to get attention. Soon her brother had a canteen held over her lips for her to sip from.

“I’m fine,” she waved off his continued ministrations. “I just forgot how hard a spell like that is when I have to do it completely on my own. I’ll be better prepared the next time we have to go somewhere, I promise.”

“Wonderful,” Twilight didn’t hear the joy in Chrysalis’ voice. “Now would you care to enlighten us as to why we had to come back to this cesspit? There aren’t enough ponies here to feed the hive for a day, what’s worth dragging us across Equestria for?”

“Someone,” Twilight managed to get back on her hooves. “Back in Baltimare I saw a blurb about odd cloud formations here. Could formations that looked sort of like what a pegasus might shape, but not quite, and in any case, there aren’t any pegasi in Appleloosa. To everyone else it’s a curiosity that gets buried in the middle of the paper, but to someone looking for a rogue pegasus.”

“You think Rainbow Dash came here?” Shining Armor looked down the hill into Appleloosa. Twilight had made sure to put them closer to the town this time. “I don’t want to agree with Chrysalis, but why would Rainbow Dash come to a place like this?”

“The same reasons we did,” Twilight smiled. “It’s so far off the beaten track that she could actually disappear if she needed to. And, if you remember, we know a few ponies here who could help us. Rainbow Dash probably thought the same thing. If we’re lucky, we’ll knock on Braeburn’s door and she’ll be in the back room.”

“Great,” Chrysalis sighed. “More ponies. If we have to add to our merry little band can it at least be a pony who hasn’t caused me no end of trouble?”

“Just think of it as another step closer to being done with us.” Twilight started walking towards Braeburn’s ranch. “Now put on a face and follow me. If the ponies in Appleloosa see you we’ll have Cadance on our backs before you can say we’re in trouble.”

Chrysalis grumbled the whole way, and her brother threw more than a few snarky remarks back her way, but it took them less than an hour to find themselves under the welcome shade of an orchard of apple trees.

Twilight walked up to the small house, knocked on the door, and nothing. She knocked again, waited, and was rewarded only with silence.

“Right,” she lightly hit herself on the head. “Braeburn isn’t off saving the world like us so he actually has a day job. We’ll wait inside so no one can see us. Shining Armor, leave your stuff and go out looking for Braeburn. He’ll probably be somewhere out in the fields, but he might have gone into Appleloosa. If you have to go into Appleloosa try to avoid the sheriff. Remember, he’s under Cadance’s control.”

“I don’t mean to complain,” Shining Armor slid his bags off. “But it’s your friend we’re looking for, and you know Braeburn and this whole town far better than I do. Aren’t you the best one to go out looking?”

“Yes, but I can’t. Without the Element of Magic I’m vulnerable to Cadance, and if I put it on to go out then Rarity can track the magic right back to us. That leaves you and Chrysalis, do you really want her out there alone with all those ponies? I suppose both of you could go out, two pairs of eyes might be better than one.”

Shining Armor left with dignified haste.

“Quite the vote of confidence there,” Chrysalis let her disguise slip. “What ever happened to ‘peace between ponies and Changelings’ and all that?”

Twilight responded with a flat look. “Are you telling me you wouldn’t have taken the opportunity for a snack?”

Chrysalis’ smile showed off the full length of her fangs. “Think of them like the buildings back in Manehatten, a civic service. We’re saving Equestria, they’re not, they owe us.”

“No, they don’t.” Twilight had no problem seeing why her brother fought with Chrysalis so often. “They’re ponies, and we don’t have any right to just go thrusting ourselves into their lives.”

Chrysalis snorted. “I’m sure the daisies that went into your daisy chips were just overjoyed to be plucked and eaten.”

Twilight could only stare. “You really want to compare plants to ponies?”

Chrysalis merely shrugged. “You do what you have to to survive, I do what I have to. Besides, won’t our little ‘deal’ take care of that?”

Twilight was reminded that she’d made a deal with the devil in just about the most literal sense possible. Celestia would probably be furious when she heard about it, but if it brought back Celestia to be furious then Twilight would count it worth the sacrifice.

“I’m not having this conversation.” Twilight decided to simply side-step the trap. “Why don’t you try telling me where you Changelings come from? Generations of pony scholars have wondered that. Did Discord create you? Nightmare Moon? You look kind of like the legendary Flutterponies, are you some sort of corrupted version? Or did you just crawl out of a pit in Tartarus?”

“Secrets, secrets.” Chrysalis smiled that unpleasant smile again. “You of all ponies should know that knowledge is power Twilight Sparkle. Your ignorance about us is one of the most powerful weapons we have. I’m not about to throw that away for ‘friendship’ or whatever other silly little ideals you want to throw at me.”

“And no,” Chrysalis smirked. “Don’t think you can pry it out of ‘Bon-Bon’ or any of my other children you should run across. They know how important secrecy is, and what my wrath would be if they betrayed the swarm.”

“So much love for your family,” Twilight deadpanned. “Aren’t you supposed to be the benevolent and caring mother of all the Changelings?”

“Don’t you punish your children when they misbehave? Didn’t your benevolent and caring Princess Celestia banish her own sister to the moon for a thousand years to save your pathetic species?”

“Because she tried to plunge Equestria into eternal night.” Twilight glared at Chrysalis. “Not because she had a conversation and answered a few questions.”

Chrysalis was entirely unfazed. “Ask Celestia what it’s like to rule a civilization. I think you’ll find her far more cold-blooded than you give her credit for. I care for all my children, but I have to care for all of them.”

“I kind of feel sorry for you Chrysalis. You talk about caring for all your children, and I think you try to take care of them. But do you know what it’s really like to love them? To truly appreciate what it means to know that they’ve entrusted their fortunes entirely to you and that you have to do your best every day to live up to that? I know Celestia does, but I don’t think you do. And I think that’s why we beat you in Canterlot.”

Twilight could see she’d clearly struck a nerve there. But before Chrysalis could make an angry retort they were both started by a knock at the door. They silently crept towards the door and peeked out the side windows. Shining Armor couldn’t be back this quickly, and he wouldn’t knock, nor would Braeburn knock before entering his own house.

Twilight gasped as she saw the pony on the other side of the window and jerked open the door. “Rainbow Dash!”

Logically she knew how bad an idea that was. They should have subdued, isolated, and interrogated Rainbow Dash to make sure it really was her, and not some creature wearing her face but answering to Cadance. The look she saw Chrysalis sporting out of the corner of her eye said all that quite clearly. But it had been going on three weeks since Twilight Sparkle had seen one of her friends without them trying to kill her.

“Twilight!” The rainbow maned pegasus grabbed her into a hug. “It really is you! I thought I was the only one who got away from Ponyville, but then I saw that story out of Manehatten. Are you really working with the Changelings?”

Twilight pointed to where Chrysalis was still standing. “Not the Changelings as such, but Chrysalis and I have formed a... working alliance against Cadance. Or I suppose I should call her Nightmare Moon.”

Twilight gave Rainbow Dash the severely abridged version of what she’d been up to since that night in Ponyville. She did take the opportunity to complain at length how Chrysalis and Shining Armor never ceased to argue. Maybe now that Rainbow Dash was here she could have a conversation that wouldn’t end in shouting.

“Huh, I knew you were desperate, but wow.” Rainbow Dash seemed oddly nonplussed by Chrysalis, almost suspiciously so. Back during the wedding she’d been the most ready to knock Changeling heads. No, this was Rainbow Dash, Twilight had been on the run for so long she was turning paranoid.

“Well I wasn’t exactly looking for Chrysalis when I found her, but she has been useful, so it wasn’t all bad. How did you get away from Cadance though? I saw you do a sonic rainboom, but then I got out of Ponyville myself, so I didn’t see anything after that.”

“Hah, you need to tell your brother that he needs to make the guards work a lot harder if they’re ever going to have a chance to catch me.” Rainbow Dash absolutely preened at her talents. “The guards were all perky and cheerful, too perky and cheerful for the middle of the night. And then Rarity’s... whatever went off, and probably woke up half of Equestria.”

“Yeah,” Twilight sighed. “When this is all over I’m going to have a talk with her about how loud she made that thing.”

“Don’t go too hard on her. After all, it did save us. When they heard her alarm the guards must have known something was wrong because they tried to grab me. That went about as well as you’d think, and I shot right past them. A few of them tried to keep up with me, but well you know, sonic rainboom and all that.”

“Seriously Rainbow Dash,” Twilight laughed. “You don’t need to regale me with the tale. I was there for most of it. How did you actually get away though? I was worried Cadance might have teleported right on top of you, or you might have flown to Canterlot to get answers and flown right into her hooves.”

“I almost did. I was all ready to fly to Canterlot and start screaming at Celestia. Then I heard your big magic whatever, and I realized that if you were running away it meant something had to be wrong in Canterlot.”

Twilight was actually grateful to Chrysalis, not that she would ever admit it. Weeks of keeping a straight face around her let Twilight keep her cool when she realized this wasn’t her Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash could have never heard Twilight’s’ magic while moving faster than the speed of sound.

“Lucky us,” she smiled. “I know this is Braeburn’s house, but I don’t think he’ll mind if we have some tea while we talk. Why don’t you tell us what happened after Ponyville while I go make some tea.”

As she got up, Twilight made sure to turn her back to Rainbow Dash so she could send a look to Chrysalis telling the Changeling Queen to be careful around Rainbow Dash. Twilight Sparkle had a plan, but she’d need a little time to bring it off. And if Rainbow Dash managed to escape they’d never track her down again.

“Well, I didn’t know where you’d gotten to, and I couldn’t find any of the others.” Rainbow Dash seemed to suspect nothing. “I went to Cloudsdale to hide, but I’m kind of a big deal there, so I had to bug out after ponies started recognizing me. You know I don’t like reading, except for Daring Do, but I knew you’d escaped too, and you’d probably pull one of your crazy stunts again. So I started bouncing around from place to place looking in all the papers for some sort of mention of you that I could go after. I saw those articles about Chrysalis controlling you, but I knew you’d gotten away so that couldn’t be true. Then I saw your little fight in Manehatten. I knew you were the only other one who had gotten away, and I had to find you somehow. But I didn’t know where you’d gone after that, and I knew that if I started leaving too many clues the others could beat you to me.”

“You certainly did a good job of that.” Twilight called from the kitchen. “We almost didn’t find you. You weren’t staying here were you? I mean you did find us pretty fast.”

“That was actually a lucky break. I kinda feel bad about it, but I’ve been picking fruit from the orchards around Appleloosa. I do have to eat, and I can’t exactly stroll through the center of town. I was picking some apples from here when I swear I saw your brother go running towards Appleloosa. I wasn’t sure if it was him, but I knew that if it was then you must be nearby. I decided to take the risk and here we are.”

“I’m glad you took the risk.” Twilight walked out of the kitchen with three cups of tea. While she was using her magic she took the opportunity to put up a shield around the house. It wasn’t what her brother could do, but it would keep Rainbow Dash from getting away. “We definitely need all the help we can get.”

Rainbow Dash sipped from her tea. Twilight had considered drugging it, but she didn’t have anything on hoof, and, unsurprisingly, Braeburn didn’t have anything for making sleep potions. “So if that was your brother I saw running out of here in such a hurry then where was he going?”

Twilight didn’t know if Cadance could hear every word she said to Rainbow Dash. She didn’t know any such spell, but that didn’t mean Nightmare Moon didn’t. “He’s actually looking for you. Changelings aren’t exactly in line to win citizen of the year or anything, and like you said, we’re a little too well known around here to go strolling through town. He’s probably poking around all the orchards and caves near Appleloosa trying to see if you’re in one.”

After that, they sat there in an increasingly awkward silence. Twilight was betting that putting on the Element of Loyalty would fix Rainbow Dash, but she wasn’t sure how to get it onto the pegasus. And she was pretty sure that Cadance wanted Rainbow Dash to catch all three of them.

Predictably, it was Chrysalis who made the first move. After that, things got chaotic to say the least. Twilight Sparkle and Chrysalis were both accomplished spellcasters, but Rainbow Dash was one of the most talented flyers in Equestria. Even indoors she was able to dodge and weave with impunity. When this whole mess was over she would owe Braeburn a major apology, and a sizeable purse of bits to repair the wreck they made of his house. Somewhere in the frenzy of knocking doors off hinges, flipping both couches, ripping the stove out of the wall, and general mayhem, Twilight managed to grab Rainbow Dash’s Element. Now if only she could stop her friend long enough to put it on.

In a pleasant surprise for a change, it was Rainbow Dash who led to her own downfall. Flying through a window was normally asking for severe lacerations from broken glass. Unless you could fly fast enough to avoid those shards. However, flying that fast meant that Rainbow Dash didn’t have nearly enough time to slow down before she hit Twilight’s shield and collapsed to the ground.

Twilight briefly worried that Rainbow Dash had actually been hurt, but as she approached her friend she was relieved to see her groaning on the ground. Wasting no time, Twilight snapped the bejeweled necklace around Rainbow Dash’s neck.

Immediately, Rainbow Dash jerked taut as a rictus of pain claimed her face. She spasmed for about a minute in a wordless, silent scream of pain. Just as Twilight Sparkle was beginning to fear that she’d made a terrible mistake Rainbow Dash went limp and began to gasp for air.

“Rainbow Dash?” Twilight nervously approached her prone friend.

“Twi...light.” Rainbow Dash rolled over onto unsteady hooves. “What did you? I want to pummel Cadance, I actually think I hate her. This is great!”

“It’s great to have you back, but maybe you should settle down first.” Twilight was starting to fear she’d gone a bit too far in reversing Cadance’s control.

“Relax,” Rainbow Dash took a few shaky steps. “I know it’s not really Cadance. It’s just that... Twilight, we all knew, we all know, that what she has us doing is wrong. We know that it’s terrible and it will lead to everyone becoming mindless slaves. But under that spell you just love her so much it doesn’t matter what she has you do. If Cadance told Rarity and Applejack to strangle their little sisters they wouldn’t even blink.”

“Waste of perfectly good food.” Chrysalis scoffed.

“Just ignore her,” Twilight said to Rainbow Dash. “So what have you been up to since Ponyville?”

“I didn’t actually go to Canterlot, at least not at first, but that didn’t matter because Cadance met me halfway. She was coming to kill all of us, and I think it was only her seeing your teleport spell that saved me because she knew she’d missed you. I wish I could say I held out against her magic, but I broke in like fifteen minutes. Rarity held out for four days, and Applejack held out for a week. She was going to take me along to Manehatten, but it turns out you’re not the only one who knows something is up with Cadance. You’re just the only one to put all the pieces together, and more importantly, you’re the only one who’s a real threat to her. I was rounding those other ponies up so she could make them her puppets. Then a few days ago she told me to come here, lure you three here, and keep you waiting until she could show up.”

“Lucky for us you weren’t there. It took everything I had to hold off four of you. Now, if you can walk we should go get my brother and put some distance between ourselves and Appleloosa. He went into town to find Braeburn and see if you’d been in contact with him.”

Rainbow Dash’s look turned to one of horror. “Oh no, oh no no no no no. That’s bad, that’s real bad. Twilight, Cadance was here when you two snagged Chrysalis out, and Braeburn helped you. The first thing she did was to turn him and Little Strongheart to get everything she could out of them. If Braeburn sees your brother he’s going to have Cadance and the others here as soon as he can.”

“Oh no, oh no no no no no.” Twilight immediately scrambled into action. Their saddlebags zipped out of the house, already she was yanking the Element of Magic out of its bag. “Let’s go. Chrysalis, throw on a face and follow us.”

As soon as the green flames disappeared around Chrysalis, Twilight grabbed all of them with her magic and teleported them to the edge of Appleloosa. It ran a sizeable risk of coming out on top of an innocent pony, but if her brother was captured then that pony, and every pony, would suffer Nightmare Moon’s rule for eternity.

As soon as Twilight's magic cleared they were running into Appleloosa looking for Shining Armor. If Braeburn hadn’t already brought Cadance down on them then surely the Element of Magic would let Rarity find her before long. They didn’t have to look long, an explosion echoed from the other end of town. Twilight didn’t wait for the others before she started running towards it. Almost before she knew it Twilight saw her brother running towards them. Behind him were her friends, looking absolutely furious at their escape that morning in Baltimare.

Twilight grabbed her brother with a teleportation spell and put him down right behind her. He glanced about in momentary disorientation before whirling about. “Twiley, Braeburn isn’t himself. As soon as he saw me, he broke some stone and they showed up.”

“I know.” Twilight planted herself and prepared to fight her friends once again. “That’s why we’re here. We found Rainbow Dash though, as long as Cadance doesn’t show up we can try to get their Elements on them, it undoes Cadance’s control.”

“You won’t steal my slaves!” A voice thundered from above. Twilight looked up to see an enraged Cadance hovering overhead. “I’ll see Equestria burnt to ashes before I give them up. Equestria will love me as its eternal queen, or it will love me in death.”

“Oh yeah?” Rainbow Dash shouted up at her, fury in her own voice. “We’ll I’d rather die than be your puppet again!”

“That can be arranged, girls, kill them.”

Cadance tried right away to make good on her command. Bolts of arcane power streaked towards the ground and only Shining Armor raising a shield above them prevented their destruction.

Any hope Twilight had harbored that having Rainbow Dash on their side would make things easy was quickly dashed. Cadance’s ‘improvements’ to her friends had made them exponentially more dangerous. At most, Rainbow Dash offset that disadvantage.

Rarity seemed able to conjure up an endless storm of magical needles, Fluttershy was flying with a skill she’d never shown before, Applejack’s hooves whistled through the air as she tried to pummel Twilight, and Pinkie Pie assaulted them with all manner of deadly implements that should have been anything but.

As she struggled to overcome her friends, Twilight felt her anger start to build. These weren’t her friends, Cadance had turned them into mockeries of themselves. She didn’t notice the black miasma start to surround her horn right away, but she could hardly miss it when Applejack narrowly avoided impalement on a black crystal that erupted right in the path of her charge.

“How could you do that?!” Pinkie Pie punctuated each shout with a weaponized... was that a confetti streamer? “First you abandoned us, then you ponynapped Rainbow Dash, and now you tried to kill Applejack! You’re being a bad friend Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight decided to ignore Pinkie Pie. It was however, a bit harder to ignore the explosion behind her. She glanced over her shoulder to see Cadance swinging a carriage at her brother and Chrysalis. At least they weren’t shouting at each other this time, but that didn’t seem to be enough to beat Cadance.

“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight called out to her friend as Chrysalis and her brother scampered towards her. They weren’t going to win this time. Particularly not when they were tired and Cadance wasn’t.

Rainbow Dash quickly settled down next to her. She started to jerk when the circle of green flames erupted around them, but calmed when she saw Twilight wasn’t worried. Twilight did however worry when Rarity’s horn glowed and the ground started to crack beneath them. She let her own horn glow and the ground started to settle. Then Twilight Sparkle did something she didn’t mean to. The black miasma surrounded her horn again, and Rarity screamed in pain as black crystals erupted from her horn.

Twilight immediately felt sick to her stomach, and not from the sensation of teleportation. When the flames cleared and she found herself in a dark, large room she stumbled away from the group and collapsed in tears.

“Twiley,” her brother’s concern was obvious in his voice. “What’s wrong, are you hurt?”

“No,” Twilight gasped out between sobs, “but I’m a monster.”

“What are you talking about?” Rainbow Dash walked up to her. “You totally saved us back there. Rarity would have knocked us right into Cadance’s hooves if you hadn’t stopped her.”

“Yeah, wonderful job by me. You just forgot to mention the part where I used dark magic on her! I sealed up her horn just like King Sombra. If it wouldn’t mean giving myself up to Cadance, I’d throw myself in a dungeon right now.”

“Twilight,” her brother said hesitantly. “You didn’t have a choice. Besides, you know how to fix it, so when this is all over you can just undo that spell and it’s all back to normal.”

“No it won’t!” Twilight wailed. “I used dark magic on one of my friends. Now they’ll hate me forever, and they should hate a terrible pony like me.”

“No we won’t.” Rainbow Dash grabbed Twilight to look her in the face. “I’m your friend, and I’m right here. Twilight, I was under Cadance’s control. Locking Rarity’s magic up like that is doing her a favor. It means that Cadance can’t make her do terrible things with her magic anymore. When all this is over she’ll thank you.”

Twilight didn’t look convinced.

“Look,” Rainbow Dash sighed. “I know I’m not all super honest like Applejack, but trust me, you didn’t do anything wrong. If you don’t believe me, let’s beat Cadance, free our friends, and then they can tell you themselves.”

“Right,” Twilight wiped away her tears. “One last good thing before I spend the rest of my life in the dungeons. With her magic locked away Rarity won’t be able to track me through my Element anymore, so we should be safe wherever we are. Where did you send us Chrysalis?”

“I’m surprised you haven’t already recognized it. You had a wonderful time here during the wedding.”

“The crystal caves beneath Canterlot?” Twilight lit her horn to get a good look around. Sure enough, they were in a large, crystal faceted chamber.

“Ironic that I should send myself here.” Chrysalis idly walked about the chamber. “But we’ll be able to come up right into the castle and avoid all of Cadance’s puppets. With your friend’s magic... indisposed of, we’ll have a real chance to beat Cadance if we can surprise her. You wallow in your pity, I go back to my hive and never speak to one of you repulsive ponies again.”

“Nice to know we’re growing on you.” Shining Armor didn’t sound at all like he meant it. “We’ve got enough food for a few days, so let’s rest up and then we can save Equestria.”

Learning Curve

We’ll Always Have Canterlot

Disclaimer: This isn’t the disclaimer you’re looking for. I don’t own My Little Pony

Chapter Eleven: Learning Curve

“That’s not going to work,” Rainbow Dash said. “Charging through the front doors is just going to get us killed.”

“There aren't any back doors that would be unguarded,” Shining Armor pointed out. “And if we go running through the front doors we’ll have surprise on our side. That might buy us enough time for me to grab a hold of Cadance and end all this.”

“Cadance has everyone in the castle under her control.” Rainbow Dash shuddered at the memory of being under Cadance’s spell. “Our friends will be right by her side, you’re the only royal guard who will be on our side, even the cooks and clerks will be coming out of the walls to attack us. We've either got to drop on her at a window, or bring her to us on our terms.”

“Now why didn’t we think of that?” Chrysalis’ voice dripped with sarcasm. “Oh wait, that’s what we've been trying to do this whole time. Unless you’re far smarter than you strike me as I don’t think you’ll contribute much beyond brute force. You should get along quite nicely with Shining Idiot in that case.”

Twilight Sparkle knew Rainbow Dash well enough to grab her tail through magic without even looking. “Actually Chrysalis, Rainbow Dash being here does open up some new options to us. Teleporting Cadance to us would require a lot of magical power, even more than I could muster with the Element of Magic. Those spells of her to block teleportation make it exponentially more difficult than it should be. But with another Element of Harmony we just might be able to do it. Rarity can’t teleport the others in now, so we’d be able to gang up on Cadance, and that might just let Shining Armor get a hoof on her.”

“You really think you can do that Twilight?” Rainbow Dash stopped trying to lunge at Chrysalis as she heard what Twilight was saying.

“Only one way to find out.” Twilight picked herself up. “We shouldn't do it in here though. Experimental magic and potentially unstable roofs are a bad mix. I’ll get us out of here, and then we can start working on how to bring Cadance to us.”

Twilight’s horn briefly glowed, they disappeared from the cave and appeared in a forest.

“Welcome to the Everfree Forest. Plenty of room for us to tear up figuring out how to get through Cadance’s spells.”

“Great.” Shining Armor was brimming with eagerness to reclaim his wife. “So how do we do this?”

“I have no idea,” Twilight replied. “ I've only ever used my Element by itself, or all six at once. I don’t know if it’s even possible to use more than one without using all of them. “

Chrysalis snorted. “If you need me I’ll be over there watching this farce.”

She walked over to a large tree and settled in its shade, seemingly content to simply watch them fail.

Twilight had no intention of indulging her. “Rainbow Dash, you know better than I do how to get the magic of Harmony into a form I can use. Just think of what you did when we beat Nightmare Moon and Discord. If this works I’ll be able to tap into that magic and I should be able to cast a much more powerful teleportation spell.”

She’d clearly lost Rainbow Dash with all of her talk about complicated spell work, but the pegasus nevertheless closed her eyes and began to concentrate. Ever so slowly her Element began to thrum with a deep crimson light. It was possible to use multiple Elements without using all of them. Twilight started to wonder if it required her Element as the focus point for the magic, but then she stopped that train of thought. It would be a wonderful experiment after they’d defeated Nightmare Moon.

“Okay,” she felt the magic start to pool within her. “It’s working. Let me try some teleportation spells.”

Twilight decided to have a little fun. Chrysalis and Shining Armor suddenly found themselves disappearing and reappearing all around the nearby forest. On top of trees, upside down, even once in the air before a quick return to the ground. This could work.

“That was rather unnecessary.” Chrysalis flipped her mane with a disdain Rarity would be envious of.

“Yeah,” Shining Armor shook his head to collect himself. “We only have to teleport Cadance once, why’d you have to have us going all over the Everfree Forest?”

“One experiment isn’t enough data,” Twilight said dismissively. “The problem now is that I was just moving you two around at a short distance without any protection. Cadance has powerful anti-teleportation spells up, and we might have to bring her a long ways. I’ll have to teleport you two through an anti-teleportation shield before I know what we’re going to need to do with Cadance.”

“Well that’s two problems now.” Shining Armor walked up to Twilight. “Unless you can’t teleport through your own spell we don’t have anyone who can cast that spell.”

“Sure we do,” Twilight smiled. “It’s a shield spell, your special talent is magical shields, this should be no problem for you to pick up.”

“Twilight,” her brother sighed. “I was in Manehatten. I was right there when Cadance stopped you from teleporting. If it was any kind of shield spell I’m familiar with I would have picked it up there. Stopping you from teleporting isn't any kind of shield I know, and it’s definitely not any kind of spell that’s related to my talent. It’ll take me weeks, months, to learn how to do that spell, and we don’t have that kind of time.”

“You can do this.” Twilight was insistent. “I know this spell, and it is a shield. Yes, it’s not any kind of shield you've seen before, but you had to see all your shields for the first time at some point. You have to do this big brother, you’re the only pony who can. I’ll break the spell down bit by bit and walk you through it. We’ll have you blocking teleportation before you know it.”

For all of Twilight’s bravado it appeared her brother knew his limitations quite well. Her brother's special talent might have been magical shields, but an anti-teleportation shield was a monstrously complex spell. If Twilight Sparkle’s special talent hadn't been absorbing how to cast spells just by seeing them even she would have quailed at learning such a spell. Shining Armor was as smart as any pony she knew, he was in the top tier of unicorn spellcasters, and she knew just how to break down a spell for him. For all those advantages she might have been trying to teach Sweetie Belle how to cast an anti-teleportation shield.

Chrysalis laughed. “So much for the brave and gallant captain of the royal guards willing to do anything to save his poor, captive wife from the clutches of the evil Nightmare Moon.”

Shining Armor abruptly turned his attention to her. “Well I don’t see you being much help Miss I’m trying to save my whole race from slow starvation at the hands of the evil Nightmare Moon. Why don’t you come over here and put up a shield to keep Twilight from teleporting, oh wait, you can’t. So why don’t you just stay over there and let me work?”

Chrysalis stalked up to Shining Armor. “See how far you get without my help. Wait, you’d have died back in Manehatten because of a spell you’re too stupid to figure out when you actually have to. Tell me, did Cadance marry you out of pity? Because it’s the only reason I can think of why anyone would want to spend more than an hour around you.”

Shining Armor planted himself right in Chrysalis’ face. “So I suppose you just crawled out of whatever abyss spawned you knowing everything there is to know about magic. Well, except for that tiny little fact Cadance and I could combine our magic to blast you and your whole worthless swarm to the ends of nowhere.”

They were practically breathing in each other's nostrils as Chrysalis spat back. “My children brought your proud capital to the brink of collapse while half starved. You’re fed, rested, plenty motivated, and you can’t even do what you’re supposed to be skilled at. I know why Cadance married you now, even on her worst days she’d always know she was far better than you!”

“Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said from where she and the unicorn were watching the spat. “Those two are kind of scaring me. Are we gonna have to break them up?”

Twilight sighed at the spectacle her brother and Chrysalis were making. “I wish I could say you get used to those two, but I still haven’t. And no, they haven’t tried to kill each other yet, but the day is young. Just let them get it out of their systems and everything will go back to normal.”

Meanwhile, Chrysalis and Shining Armor had lost all sense of personal space.

“You’re a worthless failure of a unicorn!”

“I was good enough to send you packing!”

“Your wife sent me packing, with your sister’s help. You barely had anything to do with it. It’s a wonder your parents didn’t disown when you were a foal.”

“It’s a wonder your ‘children’ didn’t disown you after you failed so completely in Canterlot.”

“A good queen learns from her failures, I learned. You don’t seem to have learned anything new since walking. Can you even do the simplest of spells without Twilight Sparkle holding your hoof?”

Shining Armor’s horn flared with magic, almost as though he was about to attack Chrysalis. “Twilight, try to teleport, now.”

Twilight had more or less tuned out the argument, and wasn't particularly expecting any resistance to her spell, so she put barely any effort behind her spell. It came therefore, as something of a surprise when her spell unraveled as it hit a wall.

“I’m starting to think this is how they work together,” she said quietly to Rainbow Dash. She continued in a louder voice. “Whatever you did, I think it worked. Let me try again.”

This time she prepared a proper teleportation spell. She felt it begin to grab her, and then it fell apart at that same wall. “That’s it Shining Armor! Keep that up, I’m going to start using the Elements to punch through your shield and figure out what I’ll need to do to grab Cadance.”

The Elements of Loyalty and Magic began to glow with a dull light. Twilight wove a teleportation spell around her brother. She felt it start to fall apart at that wall, but then she used the extra magic to hold the spell together and pull it through. Her brother disappeared with a crack and reappeared next to Chrysalis.

“If that were for real,” Twilight said. “All we’d have to do is have Shining Armor standing right there to put a hoof on Cadance and this will all be over. We've still got a lot of details to work out, but we’re definitely on the right track, and now we have the pony power to pull this off.”

Twilight quickly discovered a hole in her plan. Overcoming her brother’s shield while standing next to him was easy enough. However, as she moved away from him the difficulty seemed to increase out of all proportion to the distance gained. Bringing her brother from Canterlot through his shield would have exhausted her to collapse. Bringing Cadance from Canterlot through her shield was out of the question.”

“If we want to teleport Cadance we’re going to have to be inside Canterlot.” They had all gathered after Twilight finished experimenting. “The closer we are to wherever she is the easier for me it will be, and the more I’ll have left to fight with. I could probably teleport Cadance here with all six Elements, but if we had all six Elements we wouldn't be here in the first place. Chrysalis, you’re going to have to hold enough back to get us out, because I think that even with two Elements this is a one way trip on my part.”

“So where do we do this then?” Rainbow Dash asked. “Canterlot is a big place, and there’s lots of ponies who aren't under Cadance’s control who could still get hurt.”

Twilight sat in thought for awhile before it struck her. “My old rooms at the castle! Celestia hadn't given them to anyone else the last time I was there, and there’s no reason for Cadance to use them. It’s in the castle, so I should be able to bring Cadance there without too much trouble. Shining Armor puts a hoof on her, fries Nightmare Moon, and all this is over. I fix Rarity’s horn, Celestia boots me back to magic kindergarten as punishment for using dark magic in the first place, and we try to move on.”

“Not this again,” Shining Armor sighed. “Twiley, Celestia isn't going to be mad at you for what you did back in Appleloosa. We were desperate, and she could track us wherever we went. You had to stop her using magic.”

“He’s right,” Rainbow Dash said. “I know I said it before, but that’s doing her a favor as long as she’s Cadance’s puppet.”

“I guess.” Twilight didn’t really believe them. Maybe she shouldn't have shot down Chrysalis so quickly. If Celestia exiled her she’d need somewhere to live out her life away from Equestria.

“Come on little sis.” Shining Armor clearly saw through her. “ We've finally got a plan that can really work. This is almost over, and I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather have done it with. And no matter how big a pity party you throw, I’m not going to change my mind.”

They were right. Not that she’d done the right thing, or that Rarity would forgive her, or Celestia for that matter, but she did need to stop moping if they were going to have a chance. She could deal with banishment and her friends hating her after they’d saved Equestria.

“Right,” Twilight took a deep breath. “This isn't the time or the place for that. Is there anything we’re forgetting? Some super secret protection spell around the castle, or some ancient artifact Cadance dug up, we haven’t released Discord in the last few days have we?”

“Not unless we can find more of your friends,” Shining Armor shook his head. “But I think Cadance is keeping them as close to her as she can so we can’t free any more of them.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash said in agreement. “She thought it was some super powerful protection spells that had kept her magic from working on you when she tried it back in Manehatten. She probably figured it out after you freed me in Appleloosa, and she isn't going to be taking any chances with the others.”

“That’s not going to matter,” Twilight made an effort to sound optimistic. “No one is going to notice us come in, no one will know where Cadance has gone until after it’s too late, and once she’s herself again everything should go back to normal.”

“We still have to get together when the fate of Equestria isn't hanging in the balance.” Her brother then turned to glare at Chrysalis. “Some of us aren't invited though.”

“No problem as far as I’m concerned.” If Chrysalis was offended she showed no signs. “I’ll be perfectly content to never see you again for as long as I live. I have never met another creature who makes me so angry. I’m going to start punishing any of my children who misbehave by making them turn into you so I can take out that anger.”

Chrysalis and Shining Armor quickly got into another of their up close and personal arguments. Twilight was content to let them shout themselves out. She figured that if they got it out of their systems now they’d work better together in Canterlot if things went bad.

“Rainbow Dash,” she turned to her friend. “I am so glad you’re here. I had to put up with those two all by myself before now.”

“How have you not hit them over their heads with a tree by now?” Rainbow Dash looked at the argument with a morbid curiosity.

“Don’t think I haven’t been tempted.” Twilight rolled her eyes at the arguing couple. “But when they actually manage to work together they’re incredible. Like when Shining Armor picked up that teleportation shield, if Chrysalis hadn't goaded him into it he probably would have been at it for days.”

They watched Chrysalis and Shining Armor continue to shout at each other. Twilight took the opportunity to give Rainbow Dash the full story of what they’d been up to. She had of course already given her the cursory version, but telling everything allowed Rainbow Dash to give several insights from the other side of things. For example, so far as Rainbow Dash knew Cadance still hadn't found out about her little conversation with Scootaloo.

It took Chrysalis and Shining Armor about half an hour to finally wind down. Twilight thought with no small bit of amusement that their argument hadn't lasted nearly as long as some she’d listened to. Maybe they were finally growing on each other, and maybe she would suddenly become a dancing virtuoso.

“I hope you two had your fun, you can send each other cards for Hearts and Hooves Day.” Twilight walked over to them. “Now it’s time to get serious . I’ll teleport us into my rooms and then bring Cadance in there. Shining Armor, remember that you need to be standing right next to her when she comes in. We’re probably going to have a second or so before she realizes what’s going on and levels half of Canterlot to kill us.”

“I know little sis.” Shining Armor had his game face on. “This is Cadance we’re talking about. I’m not going to screw this up.”

“Last chance,” Twilight looked around at her companions. “Okay then, here goes.”

For a moment the Element of Magic shone like the sun. In a crack of energy they disappeared from the forest clearing. They reappeared in a large room Twilight was intimately familiar with. She glanced out the window to see Canterlot laid out before her. It looked exactly the same as the last time she’d seen it. If she didn’t know what evil was lurking within these halls she never would have guessed anything was wrong.

“Let’s not waste any time.” She walked briskly to the center of the room. “I’ll find Cadance and yank her here. If she’s in the castle this shouldn't take too long. Shining Armor, wait over there, when Cadance appears just put a hoof on her and love her. Chrysalis, Rainbow Dash, watch the door and the windows. I doubt anyone will spot us, but you can’t be too sure.”

“Twilight, question,” Rainbow Dash said. “What if Pinkie Pie is standing right over there?”

“What?” Twilight asked in disbelief as she looked over just in time to see the pink pony shout out in alarm. Of course, Cadance would need somewhere nearby to put her friends, and Twilight wasn't exactly using her rooms.

Twilight’s friends all came rushing out into the main room. Fluttershy turned immediately for the window in an attempt to alert others, but Rainbow Dash was on top of her and they tumbled to the ground in a tangle of wings.

Applejack sent an astronomical model through the air at Twilight. She grabbed a table with her magic and listened with some dismay as the fragile apparatus shattered. Her dismay fled however, when Applejack’s hooves punched through that same table. The table was an inch and a half of solid oak, made to stand up to the worst piles of books Twilight could generate during a marathon study session.

Before Applejack could pull her legs out from the holes Twilight whipped the table towards where Rarity was using hoof to hoof combat to hold her brother at bay. As her friend jumped out of the way Twilight pushed down a nauseous feeling upon seeing those black crystals jutting out of her horn. As soon as she saw her, Rarity let out a scream of rage and charged. Whatever Rainbow Dash and her brother said, Rarity seemed disinclined to forgive Twilight Sparkle using dark magic on her.

Twilight grabbed several books with her magic and started whirling them about to defend against Rarity’s attacks. The other unicorn seemed quite intent on not just hurting, but killing her. Twilight was hardly a novice at self defense, but she was constantly hampered by her guilt and her desire to not hurt her friend. Rarity was under no such constraints, and she steadily pushed Twilight back across the room probing for a hole in her defense.

Twilight was just starting to get desperate when her fight was interrupted by a tangle of pegasi crashing to the ground on her and Rarity. Rarity tumbled into the table Applejack had trashed and was knocked unconscious as her head met solid oak. Twilight went the other way and stumbled into Pinkie Pie as she was fighting Chrysalis.

“I don’t need the help,” Chrysalis said testily as Twilight righted herself. She didn’t however, seem inclined to turn away Twilight’s help in taking down Pinkie Pie.

The normally party obsessed pony fought with a grim determination. Her mane lay flat across her head and not a trace of joy showed on her face. She was clearly using her Pinkie Sense to dodge the storm of books, ornaments, and things lying around sent towards her by Chrysalis and Twilight. And every chance she got, Pinkie Pie sent back explosive cupcakes, razor sharp confetti, and all manner of party favors that had no business being potentially lethal weapons.

Pinkie Sense or no, Pinkie Pie couldn't defy the laws of physics. Twilight yanked a whole bookshelf into the air and sent it at the earthy pony. Being capable of neither flight nor teleportation she took a biography of Princess Platinum to the face. The book hadn't hit hard enough to knock Pinkie Pie out, Twilight didn’t want to risk breaking her nose with the book, but it more than stunned her long enough for the mist of a sleep spell to settle around her head.

Twilight had precious little time to celebrate as she heard a sharp crack. She turned to see Applejack putting another hole in her heavy oak table. She’d gotten that table as a total overreaction after a third table had collapsed under the weight of a few hundred books. It had seen her through her worst panic attacks about upcoming tests and now it was getting destroyed in an afternoon.

She started running towards Applejack and put up one of her brother’s shields around her. Completely occupied by her fight, Applejack never saw the ball of magenta energy until Twilight charged into her from behind. Applejack was too tough to be put down by that, but like Pinkie Pie it gave plenty of time for her brother to cast a sleep spell.

That left only Fluttershy. The normally meek pegasus snorted with anger as three ponies and the Changeling Queen approached her. True to her completely flipped nature Fluttershy didn’t try to run. Instead, she charged headlong into the four of them. It took them briefly by surprise, but nowhere near enough surprise to give Fluttershy the breathing space she needed to escape Twilight’s rooms and warn Cadance.

As the last of her friends collapsed unconscious at her hooves Twilight paused to catch her breath. “Well, that wasn't so bad.”

“No,” her brother said as he surveyed the wreck they’d made of her old rooms. “At least we won this time.”

“ We've done more than just win.” Twilight walked over to Rarity. Her horn glowed sullenly with a black miasma and the crystals around Rarity’s horn shattered to dust. “ We've got all six Elements, and now we have all six ponies we need to use them. We know the Elements will return them to normal, so let’s put them on and use them.”

“Back where we started.” Her brother laughed as he produced the plain sack containing the four precious necklaces. “I’m certainly not going to complain if we can just blast Nightmare Moon out of Cadance without giving her a chance to fight back.”

As the words left his mouth they were all blown backwards as the air split from a mighty teleportation spell. It cleared to show Cadance standing there. Her mane was effervescent with energy, her horn crackled with magic, and her eyes glowed with the madness and hate of a being that had nursed a grudge against Equestria for over a thousand years.

“I felt my slave’s magic return as soon as you took that block off. There’s only one pony in all Equestria who knows that spell, Twilight Sparkle. Now, no more games, no more escapes, no more mercy. I will rip you apart while you feel every second of it like a year, then I will hang your bloody corpse from the gates of the castle so every pony in every corner of Equestria knows what it means to cross me, and then I will sow this land with darkness and evil that will fester for a thousand generations.”

“Run!” Was Twilight’s only response.

The Best Laid Plans

We’ll Always Have Canterlot

Disclaimer: Last chance, I’m not going to say this again. I don’t own My Little Pony

Chapter Twelve: The Best Laid Plans

Twilight Sparkle was the first to take her own advice. She didn’t dare look back as she fled into the stairwell leading down into the proper castle. Behind her, she heard the sounds of a spell fizzling against one of her brother’s shields. That plus the fact that Cadance wasn’t crying out in triumph let her feel safe the others had followed her.

“What do we do with these?” Twilight looked up to see Rainbow Dash flying just above her with the sack holding the other Elements of Harmony.

“We have to double back,” Twilight shouted to make sure her brother and Chrysalis could hear. “Lose Cadance and we can get back to my rooms. We’ll be able to put the Elements on the others and then we make Nightmare Moon sorry she ever set hoof back in Equestria.”

“Easier said than done!” Her brother ducked as the wall beside him exploded into razor sharp fragments of rock. “She really has it in for us this time.”

“Because she’s been so friendly before.” Twilight muttered to herself as she burst out into the castle proper. Apparently Rainbow Dash had overstated things when she said Cadance had control of everyone in the castle. Several ponies jumped towards Twilight, only to be intercepted by others who shouted at her to run.

Twilight took off in a random direction. As long as she wasn’t sure where she was running Cadance wouldn’t be able to guess and cut them off. More explosions from behind told her that Shining Armor and Chrysalis were still covering their flight. Twilight was hardly idle though, every time a pony burst out in front of them they were sent flying backwards by her magic.

As fast as she was running through the castle chaos spread faster. Twilight threw aside a pair of doors into an indoor courtyard to be met with the sight of a pony being flung across the walkway. The standing pony waved her on so she assume it was a pony not under Cadance’s control. Still, as she ran through the statues and shrubbery she kept a wary eye glancing back.

“Rainbow Dash.” Twilight looked up to see the pegasus was still above her. “If we could get you to a window do you think you’d be able to get back up to my rooms and get the Elements on the others?”

“Probably.” Rainbow Dash ducked under a bolt of energy that had made it past Shining Armor and Chrysalis. “But if Cadance sees me flying off with the Elements she’s going to come after me. Could you keep her off me for that long?”

Twilight sorely doubted that. If they could keep Cadance off anything they wouldn’t be running all over the castle to escape her.

“Fly ahead when we get back to the stairs,” she said eventually. “Cadance will have to go through us to get to you so that should buy you enough time to get back with the others.”

That left out the small, insignificant detail of getting back to the stairs. Twilight knew the castle more than well enough to find her way back to her rooms from anywhere. Cadance however, seemed well aware of that fact, and whenever Twilight tried to double back she found the hallways choked with ponies, or rubble, or a storm of arcane energies that would have stripped her to the bone had she tried to pass through.

Cadance was herding them. She knew as well as Twilight that they would never get another chance like this. Her friends were nearby, and she could get the Elements of Harmony on them if she could just get back. If they fled, Cadance would move her friends to some dark cave where Twilight would never find them. Twilight couldn’t run away from this. She would just have to find a way around Cadance. If they could get back to that staircase Rainbow Dash wouldn’t even need a minute to get back up and down. They could hold Cadance off for a minute, right?

Unfortunately, Cadance too had plans of her own. They were running through one of the many long collonaded hallways that criss-crossed the castle when Cadance started collapsing the columns into the middle of the room. Unsurprisingly, since the columns supported the roof it too started coming down.

With the Element of Magic Twilight could have held up all the weight. That is, she could have held it up if she were rested and she’d had the leisure to concentrate all her magic. Being pursued by a murderous ancient entity didn’t leave much time for rest or concentration beyond escape. She was more than a little lucky that the column that separated her and Rainbow Dash from her brother and Chrysalis didn’t kill her. As it was, she still thought she felt a few hairs on her tail get yanked out.

“Shining Armor!” She shouted over the column blocking her view.

“We’re fine!” Came the reply. “Just keep running. We’ll hold off Cadance and try to meet up with you somewhere else.”

It was a good plan, if only Cadance had played her part. Probably because she knew Rainbow Dash had the Elements of Harmony on her, Cadance ignored Shining Armor and Chrysalis completely. Instead, she launched herself over the column and bore down on Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash.

“Run!” That was becoming a depressingly common occurrence for Twilight, but there was no denying it was the lesser of the two evils.

They took off again, moving more or less at random as Twilight tried to steer back towards her rooms and Cadance tried to steer them anywhere but. Being able to draw magic from both her Element and Rainbow Dash’s almost certainly saved their lives. Cadance had only been trying to get past Shining Armor and Chrysalis, she was pulling out every trick in her disturbingly large bag of tricks to kill Twilight and Rainbow Dash.

Twilight was a glowing whirl of shields, debris flying backwards, and every non-lethal offensive spell she knew how to conjure. But every time she looked back she could see Cadance at the center of a luminous ball of magic that annihilated everything in her single minded path. Around her, Twilight could see ponies fighting each other, but they all wisely fled from the maelstrom that was Twilight and Cadance fighting each other.

On and on they ran. Twilight wondered where her brother and Chrysalis were, with all the destruction she and Cadance were causing it shouldn’t have been particularly hard to find them. That however, was completely out of her power. Speaking of power, even drawing on two Elements Twilight could feel exhaustion starting to creep up on her. She had been galloping and spell casting flat out for nearly half an hour now. She wondered how Cadance appeared so unaffected. It wouldn’t have surprised her to learn Nightmare Moon had some way to make her bodies more durable, or that she simply didn’t care if she burned up Cadance so long as she won. It was probably the latter.

Feeling more desperate than she cared to admit, Twilight tried to teleport Rainbow Dash and herself back to her rooms. Unfortunately, Cadance seemed to have thought of that. Twilight’s spell fell apart in the face of a shield so strong she wouldn’t have believed it was possible if she hadn’t seen it for herself. It would take all six Elements to move so much as an inch through that shield. And that brought her back to her recurring dilemma, if she could use all six Elements she wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.

Twilight soon found herself barreling through the large doors into the throne room. She noticed that it still looked the same as the last time she’d been here after returning from the Crystal Empire. Well, if you didn’t count the ripped tapestries, blood-stained carpets, and the shattered window, but those were obviously very recent additions. Maybe, just maybe, she could lose Cadance amongst the wreckage. They couldn’t head straight back to her rooms, Cadance would suspect that, but if they could lose her they could get back there one way or another and use the Elements.

Twilight grabbed as many tapestries and shreds of tapestries as she could manage and threw them back at Cadance. With a little luck it would occupy her long enough for Twilight and Rainbow Dash to disappear. Luck, unfortunately, was not with her. Cadance burned the tapestries, some of them as old as Equestria itself, to ash before they reached her. She returned the favor by shattering several stained glass windows and hurtling the shards at Twilight. A quickly erected shield blocked those razor sharp shards, but it left Cadance still coming after them.

“It’s time for you to die Twilight Sparkle!” Cadance roared as she ripped the ornate royal throne from its place and sent it flying towards Twilight and Rainbow Dash. Somehow, Twilight was fast enough to dodge it while Rainbow Dash wasn’t. If she lived through this she would ponder on how absurd that was, but living through today was going to be a sizeable if.

Twilight ran over to Rainbow Dash to make sure she was okay. After assuring herself that her friend was merely knocked out she snatched the bag containing the Elements and turned to face Cadance.

“Why don’t you give up?” Nightmare Moon sneered with Cadance’s face. “I promise I’ll only torture you horribly before killing you, not torture you with pain beyond mortal comprehension.”

“I’ll pass,” Twilight panted. She had to find a way around Cadance, but that was going to be next to impossible with all of Cadance’s attention focused on her.

For that matter, Cadance seemed quite unwilling to wait for Twilight to try escaping. Rarity had attacked her with a few dozen spells, Cadance threw several hundred at her. Twilight held it off for a few seconds, but such spellwork was simply beyond her. She wasn’t sure exactly what threw her to the ground, but it left her sore beyond belief. It also knocked the Element of Magic off her head.

Cadance wasted no time in pouncing. Her horn shone with an incredible brightness that made Twilight close her eyes involuntarily. Twilight knew exactly what spell Cadance was casting. Rainbow Dash had said that Rarity and Applejack had resisted the spell for several days, but the power Cadance was putting into the magic was simply unbelievable.

Twilight couldn’t give up, she couldn’t stop fighting Cadance... why was she fighting Cadance... because Cadance wanted to conquer... Cadance didn’t want to conquer anything... Cadance, her old foalsitter... one of the kindest, most loving ponies Twilight had ever known... Cadance... would love her... would love all Equestria...

Twilight snapped her eyes open to see a Cadance flying back as a white blur charged into her. It had hurt Cadance! She had to protect the pony she loved most in all Equestria. No! Cadance was evil. That white blur was probably her brother, she had to get the Element of Magic back on and help him and Chrysalis. She reached towards the crown, but stopped halfway as an overwhelming feeling of revulsion assaulted her. She couldn’t hurt Cadance, wonderful, loving Cadance. But that wasn’t Cadance. It was Nightmare Moon, and she had to fight Nightmare Moon.

Twilight’s hoof trembled inches away from the crown, her horn sparked with the magic she needed to grab it, but she couldn’t, for the life of her, literally, for the life of her, grab the crown and attack Cadance.

All the while she watched her brother fight the monster controlling his wife. She wondered where Chrysalis was, she wouldn’t have been terribly torn up had something happened to the Changeling Queen, but she would have preferred it happen after they saved Cadance.

Shining Armor seemed to be favoring attacking Cadance much more than using his shields to block her. Twilight just wished it hadn’t taken her being half controlled by Cadance to break his resistance to fighting. If he’d fought like this back in Manehatten they could have ended this whole mess back then. If Chrysalis had shown up they would have had a chance to beat her now. If Twilight could just get the Element of Magic back on her head they might have a chance. If Rainbow Dash would wake up they might have a chance. If, if, if, none of that did Shining Armor any good.

He had the element of surprise, and he used it as well as Twilight could have hoped, but even Celestia hadn’t been able to stand up to Nightmare Moon. Twilight managed to move the Element of Magic ever so slightly closer to her. It seemed as if merely being next to the artifact helped her to fight Cadance’s magic. She shuddered ever so slightly as she thought what would have happened had the Element been knocked just a little bit farther from her.

“Oh this is so darling,” Cadance crooned as she threw a battered Shining Armor to the floor next to Twilight. “Brother and sister dying together after spending so much quality time together. Except, it wasn’t really quality time since you never had a chance. Anyways, Shiny, dear, consider this our divorce.”

Cadance’s horn began to hum threateningly. Twilight really, really didn’t want to find out what Nightmare Moon had in mind for her. However, just as the humming reached a crescendo Shining Armor disappeared in a wash of green flames leaving Chrysalis next to her.

“A good queen always has a backup plan.”

Cadance whipped her head back and forth looking for the real Shining Armor. She didn’t look up. Shining Armor had somehow clung to one of the columns in the throne room through that whole fight. He flattened Cadance to the ground with this fall, and before she could begin to realize what was happening he had his horn pressed against hers. Magic, like what Twilight had felt in this same room when they’d defeated the Changelings, began to swirl around them. A scream no pony could have ever made escaped from Cadance’s throat. Nightmare Moon was obviously not happy about being evicted from Equestria again.

The light from their horns became bright, painfully bright, just as it began to hurt Twilight’s eyes through her eyelids there was a rush of energy and everything went black.

Twilight blinked groggily as consciousness slowly returned. What in Equestria had happened? Shining Armor had gotten a hold of Cadance and used the same spell he’d used to defeat the Changelings. Then there was that huge wave of energy, and then waking up. Had they won?

She opened her eyes to look around. The first thing she saw was a small piece of paper on her chest. She picked it up and read it, ‘Thought it best I was gone before anyone woke up. I’ll be in touch about our arrangement.’ There was no name, Twilight didn’t need one though to know it was Chrysalis. She supposed that meant they had beaten Nightmare Moon, or at least Chrysalis was sure enough to leave them. It also didn’t surprise her that Chrysalis had been the first to recover, she did have experience with this sort of thing after all.

Twilight struggled to her hooves. They really had done a number on the throne room. Carpet was ripped up, tiles and even a few of the titanic columns were cracked, they’d broken quite a few windows, and the throne itself had been tossed about like a toy. Celestia was going to banish her to the moon when she saw what Twilight had done to the place.

“Twilight Sparkle.” Twilight spun around and dropped to her knees in shame as she found herself facing her mentor.

“I’m so sorry Princess Celestia.” Twilight didn’t quite grovel, barely. “This is all my fault. Just please let me say goodbye to my friends before you banish me.”

“Banish you?” Celestia sounded rather surprised. “Why would I banish you Twilight Sparkle? You just saved Equestria. Rescuing Luna, defeating Discord, and now this, I think you’re going to set some sort of record for the most windows showing one pony’s heroics.”

“Heroics?” Twilight still wouldn’t meet Celestia’s eyes. “I dealt with the Changelings, I used dark magic on my friends, and if I had listened to my brother in the first place all this might never have happened.”

“Twilight,” Celestia said in her most comforting voice. “You were in a very difficult situation, and you made the best of it that you could. Here’s a lesson from your teacher, sometimes there are no good choices, just bad and worse. If anyone should be blamed for all this, I should.”

“And I made the worst choices. I’m another King Sombra waiting to happen.” Twilight wished Celestia would just banish her already.

“One of the most dangerous things about dark magic is how useful it is, or how useful it seems.” Celestia sounded like she was at least partly talking to herself. “That said, there is a time and a place for everything. King Sombra reveled in the power that dark magic gave him, and he used it far beyond what was necessary. You are not King Sombra, Twilight Sparkle. You used the only tool available to you, and as soon as you could you removed the curse. Of course, you should avoid dark magic unless it’s absolutely necessary, but you already know that. And Twilight, I’m not mad at you for making a deal with Queen Chrysalis. You had an opportunity to make peace with an enemy and you took it.”

“I let the Changelings into Equestria to feed. I deserve to be in one of those pods having all my love drained.”

“You’ve given us a chance to not live in fear of the Changelings,” Celestia said. “I don’t begrudge them trying to feed themselves. I begrudge them trying to feed themselves at our expense. If they can feed without abducting ponies and draining them I think they will. I would be lying if I said I didn’t have my doubts that it will work. I have many doubts about it, but I don’t blame you for that Twilight, I’m proud of you.”

Twilight finally looked up at Celestia’s face. She saw not a bit of anger in her mentors face. That more than anything else finally brought out the tears of stress, anger, sadness, and far too much pressure on one pony that she’d been pushing down for weeks.

“It’s okay,” Celestia gently patted Twilight on her back. “I’m so proud of you Twilight Sparkle. You saved all of us.”

“What, what about my friends?” Twilight managed between sniffles as her tears began to dry. “Nightmare Moon, she did things to them while they were under her control.”

“I wish I could say they were all fine.” Celestia let her worry show for the briefest of instants. “But nothing I can do will take away the memories of what Nightmare Moon made them do. And we won’t know until they wake up if what she did to them had any side-effects. Luna and I can handle things here. Go make sure you friends are okay Twilight.”

Twilight didn’t want to leave the throne room, but eventually her worry for her friends dragged her back through the ruined hallways and up the tower to her rooms. The whole way she kept thinking to herself that all the destruction and hurt she could see was all her fault for not listening to her brother that night. Celestia had told her emphatically otherwise, and on some level Twilight knew that what she’d said was right, but every bit of her personality screamed out that all these ponies should be angry at her for failing them.

Ironically, the closer she got to her rooms the less the destruction. She supposed that she hadn’t quite started using her full magical arsenal until they’d run a bit further.The stairs going up to her rooms showed only a few occasional cracks from a stray spell. Even Nightmare Moon had had to concentrate a bit on not hitting the walls herself as she’d pursued them.

She opened the doors to her room, they’d somehow closed, and looked inside. Almost immediately she found herself at the bottom of a mass of ponies she only belatedly realized was her friends. Clearly they’d decided to take their anger at her out in a physical manner. At least someone was finally being honest about what Twilight deserved.

“Twilight! We’re so glad to see you!” That didn’t sound like an impending thrashing for failing her friends and using dark magic on them.

“I’m sorry girls!” Twilight blurted out. Before they let her know how much they hated her she wanted to get that out. “You must hate me now. I promise I’ll stay out of your way from now on. I just wanted you to know that I hate myself even more.”

“Why would we hate you Twilight?” Fluttershy didn’t look like she hated Twilight, but that was Fluttershy. “You saved us. We should be apologizing to you for what we did.”

“I let you down, all of you!” Twilight couldn’t believe they weren’t all lashing out at her. “I ignored my brother’s warnings and let Cadance take control of all of you. Then I used dark magic on you in Appleloosa. I’m a horrible pony. I don’t deserve to be in the same city as you, let alone be your friend.”

“Twilight, darling.” She saw Rarity standing on shaky hooves. “Cadance, no, Nightmare Moon did those horrible things to us. You had nothing to do with any of it.”

“She’s right sugarcube,” Applejack said. “Remember what you said back in Manehatten, that we were inside and we’d thank you when all this was over? Well, thank you. We had to watch ourselves do all those horrible things, and deep inside we were rooting for you the whole time. We’re all gonna be laid up awhile getting better from what that witch did to us, but you’re the one who stopped her.”

“But I let it happen.” Twilight was insistent. “If I’d been just a little bit faster I could have gotten you out of Ponyville. We could have used the Elements of Harmony right there and none of you would have had to go through this. I don’t deserve to talk about it, but Nightmare Moon used terrible magic on you. You’ll be weeks, months even, getting better from this.”

“And it’s thanks to you we’ll get better.” Rarity abandoned trying to stand for lounging as dignified as she could manage amidst the ruin they’d made of Twilight’s rooms. “I’m lucky that learning how to teleport didn’t turn me into a vegetable. If you hadn’t locked up my magic in Appleloosa who knows what Nightmare Moon would have ‘taught’ me next, and if I would have survived it.”

“Face it Twilight.” Pinkie Pie couldn’t manage to bounce around, but she still exuded joy. “You’re a hero, again, and everyone loves you for it! We’re going to throw you the biggest, bestest, mostest fantastic party ever! And then you’ll be happy again, and we can throw you another party because you’re not being all depressing Twilight anymore.”

“I don’t deserve you for friends.” Twilight had cried herself out with Celestia, but she felt like it nonetheless. “Where would I be without you?”

“Probably in a ditch crying at yourself.” Twilight turned to see Rainbow Dash leaning on the doorway. “Thank goodness you’re all better now. I can’t deal with Twilight’s pity parades on my own. And, you know, it was bad that you were all still being controlled by Nightmare Moon while I was free.”

“I mean it girls, I really don’t deserve you for friends.”

She was met with five identical sighs.

Cadance had woken up the morning after they’d trashed the castle. By all appearances she was back to normal. With the tiny exception of all the mental baggage she’d picked up while possessed by Nightmare Moon. Unfortunately, how to help your wife after she tried to conquer Equestria while possessed by an ancient evil was not part of royal guard training. That left Shining Armor in a bit of a bind.

“Dear,” Cadance sighed. “I’m not made of spun glass, and the more I get back to a normal routine the more I’ll be able to get back to normal myself. I talked all this over with Aunt Luna, and you do remember that she has a bit of experience being where I am, right?”

“I know, I know.” Shining Armor knew he sounded petulant, he just didn’t care. “It’s just that you seemed so normal before Nightmare Moon took you over, and we didn’t defeat her with the Elements of Harmony, so who knows if I got all of her out of you.”

“Come here,” she patted the side of the bed and fixed him with a look until he settled down beside her. “Nightmare Moon got in by feeding off of my fear and worry. I saw Chrysalis draped all over you at the wedding, and I know it wasn’t your fault, but you seemed to enjoy it. Then you were quite the popular one in the Crystal Empire. And all of Twilight’s friends seem to like you quite a lot. I... I felt like I’m just little old me, how could I compete with all that? And Nightmare Moon was there, waiting, and she took the opportunity to get in my head and twist all those fears until I became something else.”

“How could you think that Cadance?” Shining Armor took his wife’s hooves. “I love you because you’re little old you. I don’t want to be with anyone else. Just ask Twilight what I think of Chrysalis.”

“I know, I know.” Now Cadance was the one who sounded a bit petulant. “When you used your spell to force Nightmare Moon out of me I felt your love. And I knew how stupid I was to let Nightmare Moon into me in the first place. Believe me, I’ve gone round and round on that with Aunt Luna. What I really don’t know is how I’ll ever apologize to all the ponies I hurt. At least Luna got around that by being gone for a thousand years. But I still think she feels guilty, and I don’t think that says anything good for how soon I’ll get over this.”

“That doesn’t matter.” Shining Armor looked her in the eyes. “However long it takes, whatever anyone else says, I’ll be right beside you, and I’m not going anywhere. Nightmare Moon didn’t do much in the Crystal Empire, so when you’re a bit better we can go back up there and you’ll have a chance to prove to all the ponies back here how great you are.”

“I hope so,” Cadance looked past Shining Armor to something only she could see. “I’ve got a lot of proving to do. Probably to myself first. I talked to Twilight’s friends yesterday. I couldn’t believe how ready they were to forgive me. They kept saying that I hadn’t done anything to them and there wasn’t anything to forgive in the first place. But I remember everything Nightmare Moon did, and it feels just like I did it. Can you believe they said that Twilight felt like she had to apologize to them?”

“Yes,” Shining Armor couldn’t hold in a laugh. “That sounds just like Twiley. They were right though, you didn’t do anything to them. And if anyone does blame you for any of this I bet they’ll be the first ones to stand up and defend you.”

Cadance smiled, a smile most unlike the cruel imitations Nightmare Moon had worn. “How did I ever get so lucky to become part of such a great group of ponies?”

Shining Armor laughed. Partly at Cadance’s question, but mostly because her stomach let out a rather audible growl at that point. Apparently Nightmare Moon didn’t eat like other ponies, and it seemed like all those weeks of hunger were coming back at once. “I think I’m the one who should be asking that question. Now let me go get you something to eat.”

“I’ll do it.” Cadance put a hoof out to stop him and got up. Shining Armor couldn’t see it, but as she passed a window the light caught her eyes for just an instant and they changed. “I need to start getting out of this room if I’m ever going to get back to normal. Besides, whatever happens, with you here this day is going to be perfect.”

-Fin-

Author's Note

Thank you all so much for reading along with this story. If you had half as much fun reading it as I did writing it you had a fun trip indeed. I'm not sure what my next sojourn into storytelling will be, or even when it will see the light of day. I have some ideas bouncing around, but I'll defer sharing them for now. This story started as a completely different idea that mutated along the way, so I don't want to say I'm going to do something only to have it wind up completely different. Thank you all so much once again. Until next we meet.

Once Upon a Midnight Dreary

We’ll Always Have Canterlot

Disclaimer: For the first of what I’m sure will be many times, I don’t own My Little Pony.

Chapter One: Once Upon a Midnight Dreary

To most ponies, particularly those still in school, being trapped inside a never ending library would be a nightmare. To some ponies being trapped in a never ending library would have thrown them upright in bed soaked in sweat and on the verge of tears. Twilight Sparkle however was not most ponies. To her, a never ending library was closer to being in a never ending candy store with your dentist standing right there telling you to eat as much as you wanted and not worry. She gleefully teleported herself with abandon from shelf to shelf lifting whole rows of books to trail behind her in a stream of magic. Mareistotle, Ponyfucius, Isaac Hoofton, Coltaire, and there was the combined contents of the Star Swirl the Bearded wing of the royal library! All she was missing now was a place to dig in to her literary extravaganza.

As if on cue a giant oak table materialized on an empty level of the library that hadn’t been there before. Twilight Sparkle leapt in front of the table in a burst of light and magic with a smile on her face. The books held in her magic organized themselves several times, first by name, then by author, by subject, by number of pages, by date published, and finally by how much Twilight Sparkle simply couldn’t wait to read them. The magenta glow of her magic disappeared and the books settled to the table with a mighty creak. A normal table would have splintered under the weight of so many books coming down on it at once, but since Twilight Sparkle didn’t want the table to break, and this was all her dream anyways, the table was perfectly fine.

“Let’s see,” Twilight tapped a hoof against her chin in thought, “I’m missing one last thing… Ah ha! A checklist of all the books!”

Being all a dream Twilight Sparkle saw nothing wrong when a quill, pot of ink, and a long roll of parchment appeared right beside her as soon as she needed it. Normally she would have Spike nearby to take down everything she needed in list form. Not having her assistant there to do the work for her was a small price to pay to read all these books. Besides, it wasn’t like her writing was so messy she couldn’t read it, most of the time.

At last her checklist was done, the books were all sorted, and a mug of the finest cider from Sweet Apple Acres awaited her as the perfect companion to the perfect book. She levitated the first book towards her and savored the moment as she cracked it open. The smell of the ink and the glue that bound it all together, the sound of the spine as it flexed open, even the feel of the book in her magic that was almost as familiar as her own coat, and to top it all off there was the gentle shaking of the library.

Wait, the library was shaking? Yes, yes it was. Twilight leapt from her table intent on stopping the collapse around her. She darted around the fog shrouded library as books fell from their shelves in chaos that was almost unbearable to the intensely organized librarian. Soon the shelves themselves were collapsing and Twilight could no longer keep up with the disaster going on around her. The final straw came when the floor underneath her hooves cracked and Twilight fell into a bright light that dissolved itself into an unwelcome awakening.

Twilight Sparkle jerked awake in her bed in her own very much finite library in Ponyville. The first thing she saw through her still sleep clouded eyes was a large white pony shaped blob with what she was pretty sure was a unicorn’s horn.

“Rarity,” she groaned as she looked over at her clock, “whatever fashion disaster it is, it doesn’t need to be solved at one thirty seven in the morning. Come back when it’s light out and I’ll see what I can do.”

Twilight Sparkle grabbed her sheets and rather roughly turned her back to her fashion obsessed friend. Her return to sleep was rudely interrupted by a pair of rough hooves on her back turning her back over. A part of Twilight’s sleep deprived brain noted that Rarity didn’t have rough hooves, but the rest of her brain was not remotely awake enough to receive the message.

“Twiley,” came a much deeper voice than Twilight Sparkle had ever heard from Rarity, and Rarity would never call her ‘Twiliey,’ only one pony called her that.

“Shining Armor?” Twilight Sparkle blinked her eyes several times until the white blob resolved itself into her older brother. “What in Equestria are you doing here in the middle of the night? Go bug Cadance with it. She married you, so she should get to put up with your middle of the night crazy.”

She started to turn over once again when her brother took firm hold of her shoulders and turned her back to look into his face.

“Twilight, Cadance is the problem. Something’s gone wrong, really wrong, in Canterlot. I can’t find Celestia or Luna anywhere, and Cadance isn’t acting like herself. She’s been acting more like the way you said Chrysalis was when she was posing as Cadance. The worst part is that I’m the only one who seems to realize something’s wrong. Everyone else just smiles and keeps on working like Celestia and Luna disappearing happens every week.”

“Start over.” Twilight shook her head as she sat upright and tossed her covers back. “It’s way too early, or too late, for me to be dealing with all this.”

“Sorry little sis.” Shining Armor grabbed Twilight’s saddlebags with his magic and started stuffing them with food she had lying around the library. “We don’t have time to play twenty questions, and I don’t know enough to answer even seven questions, we’ve got to run. Cadance is going to come for you and your friends next, and we need to have you guys a long way away from here when she comes.”

“Let me get this straight.” Twilight was starting to get more than a little grumpy with her brother. “Celestia and Luna decided to take a vacation and didn’t tell you, Cadance is having a couple of bad days, and nopony else seems to be concerned about it? Well count me among the ponies not seeing anything wrong going on here. The princesses can take care of themselves, and if I had to put up with you freaking out in the middle of the night like this for several days in a row I’d be in a bad mood like Cadance.”

“Twilight,” Shining Armor paused stuffing things into her saddlebags to look at her with not a trace of humor on his face, “I’m your brother, and I’m a captain of the royal guards. Celestia has never gone on vacation without telling me before, and I’ve seen Cadance have bad days. Something is very wrong in Canterlot, and I’m going to need your help to find out what’s wrong and to fix it.”

“Ugh, fine. We can go to Canterlot and have a talk with Cadance, tomorrow. I’m not waking my friends up in the middle of the night to go on some wild goose chase!”

“This isn’t a wild goose chase.” Her brother lifted Spike, who had somehow slept through everything, and settled the baby dragon on her back. “And it will be too late long before morning. We need to get you and your friends out of here now if we’re going to have a chance against whatever this is.”

“Whatever.” Twilight sighed, she knew better than to argue with her brother when he got so single-minded. “But you’ll be doing all the talking, and all the apologizing when this turns out to be nothing.”

“And you can apologize to me when we’re finished saving Equestria.”

After Resigning to being up for a while,Twilight Sparkle followed her brother downstairs. She would have liked nothing more than to get a cup of coffee going for herself if she was going to be up at this kind of hour, but she didn’t think Shining Armor would take the delay too well in his state. She was definitely going to have a talk with Celestia and Luna, and her sister-in-law for that matter, about getting her brother to calm down big time after all this. A few weeks of vacation would probably do wonders for his stress levels. Even though it wasn’t that long since he and Cadance had gotten back from their honeymoon, but oh well, married life affects everyone differently.

Twilight wasn’t too worried about having Spike on her back. Her baby dragon could sleep through just about anything save the end of the world. Rarity’s shrieks when they woke her from her beauty sleep might come close, but she didn’t think Spike would mind waking up to that. And besides, if Spike did wake up it would just be one more voice of reason to try to convince her brother to come back to the real world.

The crescent moon didn’t provide much by way of illumination as they descended the stairs, but even without her brother’s spell lighting the way Twilight knew her way about her home well enough to have gotten around were it pitch black outside and in. Out a window Twilight caught a view of Canterlot in the distance. A few spots of light lit the otherwise black silhouette against the stars, and to her not at all surprise everything looked to be perfectly fine in the city.

“There’s no chance I can talk you out of this crazy plan is there?” Twilight took one last chance at talking her brother down as they made their way towards the door. Her brother only sent back a look she hadn’t seen since she was a filly without a clue about how the world worked. As the doorknob took on a glow and started turning Twilight made a mental note to herself to start locking the library door when she went to bed.

The door opened not to an empty and quiet street like Ponyville normally was at night, rather it opened to a pair of guards in their golden armor looking rather surprised to see the door to the library open well before they got close enough to knock. “Friends of yours?” Twilight turned to her brother.

She was more than a little shocked to see Shining Armor’s horn glowing with what she recognized as combat magic. “Cut that out!” She jabbed him in the side with a not particularly gentle hoof.

“It’s good to see you sir,” one of the guards crisply saluted. “Your wife apologizes that their highnesses didn’t inform you about their vacation, and for any… misunderstandings between the two of you for the past few days. She’d like you to return to Canterlot at your earliest convenience.”

“I’m sure,” her brother said as he slowly side-stepped to give himself a shot at both guards.

Twilight shot a withering glare at her brother. “See Mr. I’ve started seeing a changeling conspiracy under every rock, I told you there was a perfectly rational explanation for all of this. Celestia used to go off for a week at a time without telling me back when I was studying under her in Canterlot. All that’s different this time is that Luna decided to go on vacation with her. They can take care of themselves, and meanwhile your poor wife is trying to run Equestria all by herself while she’s worried sick about you!”

She turned to the guards with an apologetic look. “I’m so sorry Mr. Grumpy Pants here made you two come all the way out here in the middle of the night. You two can go back to Canterlot and tell Cadance that I’ll have my brother out there tomorrow, and I’ll be having a long talk with him on the way.”

Twilight was all set to go back inside and try to salvage something out of this night when suddenly a horrible wailing noise echoed across Ponyville. She immediately recognized it as the security spells Rarity had set up upon returning from the wedding in Canterlot. Twilight had been rather hesitant to help the other unicorn set up the spells, but Rarity had insisted that fashion was a dangerous and cutthroat business, and that her new fame from working on the royal wedding would make her a target. Twilight hadn’t believed a word of that, but relented upon realizing that no one would risk setting off the spells for years until Sweetie Belle and her friends got old enough to sneak in and out at night.

The security spell’s alarm shouldn’t have been nearly as loud as it was though. Clearly Rarity had done some tinkering with the spells after Twilight had shown her how to cast them. When she looked over at the guards she got quite the shock. Instead of looking surprised at such a noise out of nowhere they appeared concerned, as if they knew about the wards and hadn’t intended to set them off.

For the first time that night a part of Twilight began to suspect that her brother may perhaps not have been spouting nonsense.

Before she could voice her suspicions the night sky was shattered by a suddenly expanding ring of light in all the colors of the rainbow. A bare second later came the thud of what could only be Rainbow Dash doing a sonic rainboom. And at the center of the ring of light there was the unmistakable glint of light reflecting off the highly polished armor only worn by royal guards.

The final straw was another dozen guards emerging from the shadows and walking quite menacingly towards them.

“Get her!” Shouted the first guard. “Cadance says she’s the only one that matters.”

Twilight’s horn began to glow as she prepared to teleport herself, Spike, and Shining Armor well away from Ponyville. She didn’t like the thought of leaving her friends, but it was clear that they were out matched at this point and staying here would only get her captured as well.

Several guards leapt at her, but Shining Armor’s special talent was shield spells and instead of tackling her to the ground they rather painfully hit a magenta shield that appeared from nowhere.

“Now would be a great time to do something Twiley! And for the record, I told you so.”

“Working on it, and keep them off me or you won’t get to gloat.”

Several more shields sprung into existence as Twilight’s horn grew brighter and brighter. Just as it became painful to look at there was a burst of sparks and energy that threw the guards back, and blew out half the windows in Ponyville, when the dust cleared the spot where Twilight Sparkle and her brother had stood was empty.

In a starlit field elsewhere in Equestria there was an accompanying burst of sparks and energy as three figures, two ponies and a dragon, appeared from nowhere. Twilight groaned and shook her head as she tried to recover from such an exhausting spell performed at such an odd hour.

“Um, where are we?” Shining Armor looked around in confusion. Clearly he had been expecting Twilight to help him fight off the dozen guards attacking them rather than sending them somewhere else.

“We’re not in Ponyville anymore. And Shining Armor, I’m sorry. I mean you came all the way to Ponyville in the middle of the night and tried to tell me what was going on. And I just...”

“Hey it’s okay Twilight. You know what I always say, don’t let your mistakes tear you apart, fix it if you can, learn from it, and then move on.”

“I know.” Twilight hadn’t felt so small since she was a filly and had had to have her brother’s help to fix Mrs. Smartypants. “Now please, start over. You have my complete attention.”

At that moment Spike decided to wake up for what should have been a middle of the night snack trip. Unfortunately for him what should have been a stretch and roll in his basket back in Ponyville turned into a stretch and roll of Twilight’s back that culminated in a grunt of pain as he hit the ground.

“Twilight,” the baby dragon groaned as he turned to look at her. “What in Equestria is going on?”

“Somepony,” she pointed at her brother, “was just about to tell us.”

“Okay,” he began, “you know how Cadance has always been a popular pony, right.”

Yeah,” Twilight couldn’t help interrupting, “a pony who spreads love and happiness wherever she goes, kind of hard to imagine how she could be popular.”

“Hey, I thought I was the one talking here.” Shining Armor didn’t seem in much of a joking mood. “For the last week or so Cadance hasn’t just been popular. It was like ponies were on the verge of worshiping her or something. I saw her ask for lunch and two servants started fighting over who would bring it to her. And when the guards came to break it up they were asking her what to do, and I was right there in the room!”

“Okay, that’s odd.” Twilight stroked her chin with a hoof. “Cadance didn’t do anything to stop them?”

“She was smiling at it. Needless to say I’ve been sleeping on the couch since then by choice. I thought about talking to Celestia or Luna about it, but they’ve been working around the clock getting everything sorted out with the Crystal Empire and this new trade agreement with the Griffons, and besides, I figured I could handle my wife having a few bad days. It kept getting worse though, Cadance wouldn’t talk to me, and whenever I tried to bring it up with somepony else they’d just gush about how great Cadance was and how much they loved her. I finally managed to catch Luna with a few minutes of free time this afternoon, or I guess last afternoon, and she agreed to at least go talk with Cadance. Twilight, when she came out… I haven’t seen either of them look that scared since Discord broke free. Anything that can scare her that much can’t be good. And I haven’t seen either of them since. The moon came up so they have to be fine wherever they are, but I looked all over the castle and couldn’t find either one.”

“Well we definitely have a problem if Celestia and Luna are missing. Now I really wish we’d been able to get any of the others out of Ponyville.”

“If we can find them I think you’ll find these useful.” Shining Armor grabbed hold of a bag so non-descript Twilight hadn’t noticed it until now. When he opened it and turned it over though, the most precious objects in perhaps the entire world spilled to the ground.

“Shining Armor, those are the Elements of Harmony. How in Equestria did you get those?”

“I am a captain of the royal guard.” He answered with a smile. “And your brother, which might have had more to do with Celestia giving me access to the vault. Do you think any of your friends might have gotten away?”

Twilight looked up at the stars before turning to answer. “Applejack is isolated from the others, but her dog Winona can smell trouble coming from a mile away. And if they had time to get ready I would not want to mess with the Apple family. Pinkie Pie, well you know Pinkie Pie. Point is she’s probably the most resourceful and unpredictable pony I know. On her own I’d say no way Fluttershy would escape, but lots of the animals she lives with can get a bit protective if they think she’s in danger, and one of those animals is a bear. Rarity’s a lot tougher than she looks, and she put all sorts of security spells in her home. She’d know something was up when her alarm went off, and there’s a surprising amount of pointy things in a boutique. And I’m sure you saw Rainbow Dash do her sonic rainboom. If she got up to speed the Wonderbolts might be able to keep up with her, but I’d still put my bits on Rainbow Dash. So the short and long answer is I don’t know. They’re all very talented mares, but if they were surprised in the middle of the night. I mean if you hadn’t shown up they probably would have grabbed me in my sleep and that would have been that.”

The change in his demeanor was small, but Twilight definitely noticed when Shining Armor switched from her older brother to captain of the royal guard. “If we can find them then using the Elements of Harmony would definitely work. It’s the most powerful magic I know of, but we have to find all five of your friends and we don’t know if they got away. We could also find Celestia or Luna and hope they can help us figure out what’s wrong with Cadance. There are only two of them we have to look for, but if Cadance managed to beat them the first time then I don’t know what we’ll be able to do to help.”

“Hey,” Twilight put a hoof on her brother’s shoulder, “we’ll find out what’s wrong with Cadance and fix everything before you know it.”

Her brother visibly relaxed. “Thanks Twiley, I just…”

“I know, I’m worried too. Now come on Spike, ready for an adventure?”

“Um, no!” The baby dragon hustled after them. “I’m still not sure what’s going on here!”

Author's Note

I'd like to extend 1,213,467 thanks to Uber_Shy for proofreading this story and making it immeasurably better in the process.

I hope you enjoy it, and look forward to the next chapter next Saturday!