It was late in the evening and everypony was sitting down around the conference room. Rainbow Dash and Tidal Wave had just joined them. The leaders of the rebellion, who supposed to be there, had been called out on a last minute reconnaissance mission.
“So,” Twilight began as they all took their seats around the table. “What can we do to help?”
“As you can probably guess, we’ve been trying to do something about this government for a while to little or no avail. We’ve tried everything, but people are just too scared to rebel.”
“So, what are you planning to do?” she asked.
“We’ve got to think bigger. Attacking all of the weak points isn’t doing anything. We’ve got to attack the leader. Take off the head, and the rest will fall.”
“But, where do we come in?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“Well, of course, we can’t just run in willy nilly. Our intel tells us where we believe ‘Her Majesty’ is. And I believe that, with the help of Twilight’s magic, you’ll be able to infiltrate her hideout and find out more about her.”
“Hmm,” Twilight hummed, rubbing her chin in thought. “What do we know about her so far?”
“Not much. All we really know is her location.”
Twilight thought on this for a second. She turned to her friends. “Are you all okay with this?”
“If you’re in, we’re in,” Rainbow Dash assured, which was confirmed by nods of approval from the rest of her friends.
“Alright then, where do we begin?”
“She’s nestled up in a secret hideout on the backside of the mountains. It’s heavily guarded, so you’ll need to be careful getting in and out. I’ll have someone fly you out to a nearby vantage point so you can see where you’re going.”
“But, what about the rest of us that can’t fly?” Applejack asked. “How are we going to get there?”
“I’m sorry, but I think it would be better if just Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy went. It’d be easier for them to escape if something went wrong.” Applejack looked to Twilight for support.
Twilight sighed. “I’m sorry Applejack, but I think he’s right. We’re much more likely to get caught if we all go.”
“But Twi—” Applejack started before she was cut off.
“Applejack, I know you want to help, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. Anyways, don’t you think you should stay here to watch over Applebloom? She needs you more than we do.”
“I guess you’re right,” Applejack said reluctantly.
“So, when do we leave?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“I hope you’re all up for a late night. We leave at midnight.”
It was already late in the evening, as they had waited for the foals to go to sleep before having the meeting. This was something they didn’t want to involve them in.
With the meeting concluded, they all went to go catch a few hours of sleep before it was time to go.
Rainbow Dash followed Fluttershy down a hallway to their room. “Hey, Flutters,” she said once they had entered their room.
“Yes Dash?” she asked.
“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” she asked, wrapping a protective wing around Fluttershy. “I mean, all this seems pretty dangerous.”
“Dash,” Fluttershy said sternly, looking into her eyes. “If you go, I go. I know you’ll protect me, so I’m not worried, but I want to be there for you too. If I didn’t come, and something happened, I would never forgive myself.”
Rainbow Dash smiled, tightly embracing Fluttershy with both of her wings. “That’s my marefriend.”
Fluttershy smiled warmly, enjoying the radiant warmth of the embrace. Eventually, though, they had to separate to at least try to sleep before the mission ahead.
***
“So, you all know what to do?” Blazing Fire asked as he finished with his briefing on the mission ahead. There were simultaneous nods of approval throughout the group. “Good. We’ll see you all back here when you are done. Remember, if anything goes wrong, abandon the mission and get out of there. You are more important than some silly information.”
“Of course. Let’s go everypony,” Twilight said, turning and nodding to the rebel soldier stationed at the door.
He turned and walked out into the main area of the bakery, motioning with a hoof for the others to follow after a brief moment. The three mares said their goodbyes and turned to follow the soldier. They entered the main room of the bakery just in time to see him exit the front, clearly not waiting around for them to waste time.
As they took off into the late evening sky, it quickly became apparent that, whoever this soldier was, he was not much of a talker, hardly saying anything the whole time they were in the air. Not that Twilight minded though, as it gave her some much needed time to think.
The truth was, she’d been thinking ever since they had received their mission. Her mind raced, wondering what would await them when they finally arrived. It was clear to her by this point that this ‘Majesty’” was no ordinary pony. There was no way any normal pony could have this much power over this many ponies.
Her pondering did not go unnoticed by Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. Fluttershy flew up next to Rainbow Dash.
“Is it just me, or is Twilight being really quiet?” Fluttershy asked.
“Yeah, I noticed that,” Rainbow Dash said, looking at her friend as she flew, seemingly lost in thought. “I don’t know how she does that.”
“Does what?” Fluttershy asked.
“How she flies like that. I mean, she’s so clearly focused on something else. How can she focus on flying like that?”
There was silence for a moment, both of them thinking the same thing.
Finally, it was Rainbow Dash who broke the silence. “What do you think she’s thinking about?”
“I… don’t know,” Fluttershy answered truthfully.
They were not left much longer to speculate though, as it was soon after this that they arrived at the observation point. They flew up beside Twilight, snapping her out of her reverie and alerting her to the incoming landing.
Once they had landed, it quickly became apparent why this location had been chosen. They were just on the backside of one of the taller mountains in the chain, though they were still near the peak. The height, relative to the other mountains around them, allowed them a nearly unobstructed view. Hundreds of lights lit up the backside of the mountain, exposing a very large complex on its face.
Twilight was just about to take off, she spread her wings and bent her knees to launch into the air, but she was stopped by a hoof on her shoulder. She turned, seeing that Rainbow Dash had been the one to stop her, and Fluttershy was standing next to her. They were both giving her looks of concern.
“What is it?” she asked, folding her wings back to her side.
“What’s wrong Twi?” Rainbow Dash asked, lowering her hoof.
“What do you mean?”
“Twilight, it’s clear something’s wrong. You were so lost in thought on the flight here I’m surprised you were able to fly straight.”
Twilight sighed. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I’m just a little worried is all.”
“What for?” Fluttershy asked. “You’ve got us here, and we’ve got you. There’s no point in being worried. Whatever we come across, we can face together.”
Twilight smiled, wrapping both of them in a hug. “I know. I just can’t help but worry. There’s no telling how powerful this pony is.”
“Not if we stand around here all night,” Rainbow Dash said jokingly as they separated their group hug. “Come on, let’s go.”
They took off into the midnight sky, leaving the guard behind to wait for them. They soared towards the compound, hugging the faces of the mountains as they went to avoid being seen.
Once they were near the complex, they dove down, coming to land just outside of it. The complex was rather inconspicuous, but heavily guarded nonetheless. There was a small wall surrounding it, with several small watchtowers placed around the edge. They had to duck behind some bushes to avoid a light swept past them by one of the ponies in the watchtowers.
“This is gonna be harder than I thought,” Twilight said, voicing what all three of them were clearly thinking. She put her hoof to her chin, only barely visible in the dim light of the moon. Suddenly her face lit up. “I’ve got an idea. Next time the spotlight comes by, we’ll use the light to disguise the light from my horn so I can cast a quick invisibility spell.”
The others nodded in agreement, and, sure enough, the next time the light came by, Twilight’s horn lit up as little as she could manage, and they were invisible. The spotlight faltered for a moment, pausing over their area.
Their hearts skipped a beat, and their breath caught in their throat as the spotlight lingered. Moments later though, it moved on, and they all let out simultaneous sighs of relief.
“Come on, let’s hurry,” Twilight said as she jumped up out of the bush, followed closely by Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. They walked quickly up to the edge of the wall before carefully climbing over, making sure to not make too much noise. Once they were over, it was not very hard to find where they were going.
“That giant building at the very center of the complex looks like a decent place to start,” Twilight suggested, pointing out the obvious. They made their way over to it, ducking behind bushes and such whenever a pony passed them. They may have been invisible but they still made noise.
It was not long before the building was within reach, and they quickly moved below one of the windows. All of the windows were on the second floor, so they would have to fly up to get a view inside, but it would be better than trying to sneak into the building itself.
“Fluttershy,” Twilight whispered. “You take the first window. Fly up and get a look inside. Dash, you take the next one. I’ll take the third one. Once you’ve seen what’s inside, fly back down and we’ll regroup before we do it again. Once we find the leader, we get as much intel as we can, and then we get out, got it?”
They both nodded and took off towards their respective windows. Twilight took a deep breath. “Here goes nothing.”
Twilight flapped her wings slowly, making as little noise as possible. The window she had chosen was near the center of the building, and it was also one of the larger ones. Like many of the others, light poured out of this window, illuminating the area around the window in a warm yellow glow. Twilight flew up on the underside of the window, just barely flapping her wings hard enough to keep herself aloft.
Slowly, she poked her head up over the windowsill, having to squint her eyes to see into the brightly lit room. It looked promising. The room was large, with the floor being on ground level, and the ceiling stretching up to the second floor. There was a large throne on the far left side of the room, although there was no occupant at the moment. ’Huh,’ Twilight thought. ’I guess even at a secret complex, a ruler needs a throne.’
She continued to scan the room but found nothing else worth noting. She was about to fly back down to see what the others had found when she noticed a small flash of movement in the corner of her eye.
“I’ve been expecting you…”
That was the last thing Twilight heard before her world went black, her motionless body free-falling towards the ground.