Resent.

If some pony had told Luna that the fog was only for mind control, Luna would have answered that it was a mistake, for as soon as they landed on the outskirts of Ponyville, the first thing they noticed was not the chilling air around them, or the pitch black darkness around them.

It was the silence.

The only sound after their landing was their breathing. Luna scanned their surroundings with magic before turning around to face her guards.

"As I said before, we are going to round up the foals of Ponyville and then I shall teleport them to the castle. I already have some arrangements done to house in the castle." she explained. "You will search the town for them and bring them here. The first one to get here shall stay and mount guard."

"What about the adults show resistance?" one of the guards asked.

"My sister explained to me that they are under some sort of mental control." Luna answered. "Avoid fighting if you can. If it comes down to it, try to not hurt them. They are not responsible for their actions."

The guards nodded and headed towards the town. Luna herself was not far behind. Their eyes were specially useful during the night, so maneuvering through the place was not hard.

But she was still nervous.

There was no sound. No glowing eyes like Twilight had described. There was a complete and utter lack of life. And it was disturbing. No place, least of all a town, should be this quiet.

"Your highness?"

She turned around and saw one of her guards approaching her.

"Have you found the foals?"

"The foals have been found and we are currently bringing them to the meeting place…"

"But?" Luna finished for him.

"Well…I think there is something you should see."

As the guards led Luna through the town, she could hear the quiet shuffling of the guards rounding up the colts and fillies. If she focused, she could also see some unmoving shadows, but she was too busy to investigate at the moment.

"Here we are." The guard said, stopping in place. Luna stopped and looked forward. And gasped.

In front of them was Mayor Mare, with her eyes locked on them. However, she didn't move an inch. She didn't even twitch. The only sign of life was her breathing.

"Why hasn't she given the alarm?" Luna asked.

"I don't know. I don't think she even realizes that we are here." the guard answered. Luna approached the mare, tapping her forehead with her hoof, but no reaction happened.

Suddenly a loud growl was heard coming from the mare, making both night ponies take a fighting stance. But no fighting happened. Mayor Mare was as frozen as she was before.

"What was that?" The guard asked. The growl was heard once again. It wasn't that strong actually, but it was definitely there.

"I think…that its a stomach growling."

"Are you hungry princess?" the guard asked.

"No. Are you?" Luna asked back. The guard shook his head. As realization hit them, their eyes wandered to Mayor Mare. Luna began making calculations as realization slowly reached her.

The guard approached the zombified mare until the princess placed a hoof on his shoulder, forcing him to face her.

"New orders." she began. "Fly back to the castle and tell the servants to forget about the beds for now. I want them to prepare enough food for a town."

"Princess?" the guard stuttered, confused by the weird command.

"If its as I suspect, these ponies have not eaten, drink or rested in little less than two days. Do as I say now."

The guard saluted before bolting away in the sky, quickly vanishing in the fog. Luna looked at the mare in front of her. Mayor Mare was still looking forward, unblinking, completely paralyzed.

Was she conscious the whole time?

She shivered, preferring not to know.

Far from there, up high in one of the castle towers, Celestia sat behind her desk, holding with magic two pictures. On the first, she saw herself, dressed up and ready for a royal dinner with the ambassadors of three other countries. Right besides her was small mare, who was also dressed up nicely.

She was had a white colored coat, while her mane was icy blue. She was smiling as well. Her cutie mark was a snowflake along with a couple of sparkles.  Celestia briefly smiled before putting the pictures inside of a drawer in her desk.

"After so long…how did she…" she murmured.

It had been a few hours since she had sent Luna away. She had no doubt that her sister would return with some sort of evidence. But the question was, of what?

"I should have gone as well. I could have recognized the spell myself…" she thought. Her train of mind was interrupted as a knock echoed in her office. After a few seconds of silence, the knocks came once again, this time, from the door. Celestia teleported herself in front of it and opened it with magic.

A single royal guard stood in front of her. While he was as stiff and stern as every other guard, Celestia could see that he was greatly disturbed.

"Good night, guard. What is it?"

"Your highness…" The guard hesitated. "I have…troublesome news…"

To say that Twilight was having a rough night was understatement. She tossed and turned in her bed, yet sleep would not come. Thoughts of Spike came to her, filling her with fear and doubt.

Was he okay? Was he hurt? Did he regret anything? Was the spell over him, assuming it was a spell, permanent?

After a few hours of trying to get some sleep, Twilight gave up and left her bed. She was in her old room, back from when she was still living in Canterlot. It was small, cozy and very organized, with a small balcony that allowed her to see the outside of Canterlot.

"Maybe a nice breeze will help…" she thought as she opened the glass door of the balcony. A light breeze flowed outside the tower. She smiled as she felt the cool air between the strand of her mane. It was calming and it soothed her mind.

"Things are going to be alright. We just have to put some effort into it." she thought.

Thats when she noticed the lone bat like figure flying straight into one of the open windows.

"It seems that one of the night guards returned." Twilight murmured. "But that would mean…"

It was then that a the sound of guards running about reached her ears. Orders and shouts could be heard. Both curious and worried about all the noise that had suddenly spurned to life, Twilight exited her room.

A few guards were running about, as were a few servants. Twilight saw a maid running and stopped her with a hoof.

"Whats going on?" she asked.

"Ponyville! All of it! Is coming to the castle!" the maid said hurriedly before dashing away in direction to the kitchen, as Twilight remembered.

"All of Ponyville?" Twilight repeated. With a purple flash of magic, she teleported to the throne room, where Princess Celestia was speaking with a pegasus guard, who, after a few more words, took flight into the night.

"Princess?" Twilight asked.

"Twilight…" Celestia looked to her former student. "I was hoping that you could get a few more hours rest, but alas, it seems that rest will have to wait a bit longer."

"What happened?" Twilight asked. Celestia grimaced, as if the answer in itself was hard.

"Fillydelphia has fallen under the same kind of fog as Ponyville."

The entire world seemed to freeze as Twilight's mind assimilated the news. Fillydelphia? An entire city?!

"The guards that were sent to investigate that area have not returned. When others went to investigate, they could see the fog under the light of the moon."

Twilight had to sit down. Ponyville was one thing. But a city? An entire city of ponies that had nothing to do with the whole thing?

"On the bright side, my sister has dealt with Ponyville. She should start bringing them here any moment."

"Wha-what?" Twilight stammered.

Celestia quickly explained to Twilight what she had heard from the night guard before walking towards the door.

"Please go and wake up your friends. As soon as Luna arrives, we are going to have a talk."

Meanwhile, far away from Canterlot, in the now near invisible city of Fillidelphia, all sound had faded. There were no ponies walking in the night. No carts being pulled through the streets. No chattery and business life going on at the moment.

Just the soft sound of a filly's hooves walking on the pavement.

"Wow. It really did get everyone." Diamond Tiara said. A for beating of wings were heard as Derpy landed besides her.

"Everything looks so…wrong." she said, looking around them. It was only thanks to Snowdrop's spell that they could see anything, and even then, it was rather murky.

"Cheer up Derpy. Remember what Snowdrop said: Its for the greater good. Now lets go back."

"Yeah…greater good…" Derpy answered. If Tiara had been watching her friend, she would have noticed how her eyes had dimmed a little bit.

Back at their shelter, in what used to be the kitchen, Snowdrop grinned as she looked at her work.

"How do you feel?"

"Big." Spike answered from the darkness. "But strong. What did you give me?

Snowdrop smiled before grabbing an old bottle with her mouth and tossing out the window.

"I prepared a special potion for you a few ingredients that I had Diamond Tiara bring here.. It slows down your growth, but allows you to keep the strength, even if you are barely the size of a pony."

And indeed, Spike was no longer the small baby dragon that left Ponyville. he was now a young drake, as tall as a mare. Only the likes of Big Macintosh were taller. He was probably just as strong too, if not more.

"We have the city." Diamond Tiara announced as she entered the abandoned house, followed by Derpy. "What now?"

"Now…we wait." Snowdrop answered, receiving three shocked stares as a response.

"Wait?! Are you crazy?! They'll be unto us in a second!" Spike shouted.

"I know." Snowdrop replied calmly. After a few seconds of silence, it was none other than Derpy who came to the obvious conclusion.

"You want them to come here."

"Of course. Its all part of the plan."

"Plan for what?!" Diamond growled. "Get busted?!"

"Don't you see? The only ponies that resist the fog are the elements of harmony and the alicorn sisters." Snowdrop explained. "And since we know that at least two of the bearers are incapacitated and that the princesses will not risk themselves, that leaves four ponies available."

"So they show. One of them is Twilight, remember?" Spike said. "She can stop us."

"No she won't" Snowdrop turned towards him, staring directly at his eyes. "You won't let her, right?"

"I…"

"You won't let her hurt your friends, right?"

"No. She will never hurt my friends." Spike answered. His briefly flickering back to the old green.

"Good. Now, Diamond Tiara, could you be a sweetie and have every pony in position? I don't think we are going to have to wait too long for them."

However, back at the castle, back in the patient ward of the royal hospital, the bearers of harmony waited patiently for their rulers to arrive. The only sound inside the room was the soft chewing sound of Pinkie eating a cupcake that she had somehow pulled from behind her pillow.

Twilight was staring to get fidgety. It had been a couple of hours since Celestia had asked her to wake up her friends. They had made some small talk while they waited, but eventually fell into silence as the time passed.

Suddenly, the door to the room opened, startling every pony.  Celestia, dignified as ever, walked in, followed by Luna, who was, while still very prideful and tall, breathing a bit heavily.

"I apologize for the wait my little ponies. I needed to speak with my sister first." Celestia turned towards Luna. "Now Luna, could you please repeat what you discovered.?"

"The ponies in Ponyville have literally done nothing since you managed to escape. We explored every inch of the town and found every pony. They were all standing still, without even reacting to us." Luna explained. "No food was prepared. No work was done. No field tendering. No cleaning. No nothing."

Twilight was, just as much as their friends, horrified at the answer, and all that it implied.

"What about the foals?!" Rarity asked loudly.

"All the foals, both colts and fillies, were found deeply asleep, just as much as your sister was before I woke her up."

"Did you wake them up?" Applejack asked.

"What about the babies!?" Pinkie Pie jumped from her bed.

"The foals are in the process of waking up. I applied a spell that will hasten the process. It will take a bit longer that with Sweetie Belle, but it will work. As for the babies, they have been woken up as soon as I found them and are being tended to."

Pinkie Pie started crying loudly in happiness before falling back asleep, content with the knowledge that her adoptive siblings were safe. Rainbow Dash wanted to say something, but the knowledge that Scootaloo was safe kept her quiet.

"What about the rest of the ponies? Are they going to be okay?" Flutterhsy asked.

"The same process is being applied to them as we speak. As soon as they wake up, they shall be fed and given a place to rest."

"Thats for the moment, the entire royal dinners have turned into a temporary sleeping place for them." Celestia added.

"What was the spell used on them? Mind control?" Twilight asked, focusing on what she knew best.

"Something like it. I cannot explain it, but it didn't feel much like mind control. The magic was there but in a different way. I cannot explain how." Luna looked at her sister. "But I believe that you can, right sister?"

All eyes turned towards Celestia, who sighed. With a flash of golden magic, a couple of pillows appeared next to herself and Luna. Sitting on one of them, and signaling Luna to follow her example, Celestia began answering.

"You asked me before if I had seen this magic before, and I said yes." the sun princess answered. "Then you asked me if that was it, and I said no."

Everypony was silent as a stone, eager to learn what was happening.

"Luna, you are half right. It is indeed a magic mind control spell. A very potent one in fact, that makes the victim absolutely loyal to the caster, to the point were they can't even do the most basic of things without a command." Celestia explained. "However, although it is called a spell, its not a spell at all."

"But thats impossible. How can it be anything but a spell?" Twilight asked.

"There are many ways to perform a feat that could be called a 'spell' Twilight. Runes. Nature forces." Celesita paused for a second. "Or on this case…alchemy."

"Alchemy? Is it still being used in this day and age?" Luna asked.

"Not much. Magic has advanced a lot, thanks to prodigies like Twilight here. However, one hundred and twenty years ago, alchemy almost faced the same kind of drastic changes, all caused by one pony."

"Who?" Rainbow Dash asked, having staid uncharacteristically quiet.

"An earth pony mare. She was an accomplished scientist and a brilliant alchemist." Celesita looked at the window. "And she was also my number one assistant."