"Twilight! Twilight!." the purple unicorn blinked he eyes open to she her friend and assistant, a baby dragon named Spike, shaking her and holding a scroll. "The Princess just sent this! It's an emergency letter!"
Twilight shook herself awake and used her magic to grab the scroll from Spike. "Dear Twilight Sparkle," she read aloud, "A terrible threat has been made for the whole of Equestria. You and your friends must find this enemy and use the Elements of Harmony to destroy it. We do not know who it is, but a hurt pony turned up saying that whoever attacked her was coming for the rest of Equestria, and Baltimare has been taken over and destroyed."
Twilight gasped and dropped the scroll. "Come on, Spike!" Twilight motioned for the purple-and-green dragon to jump on her back, "We need to get the others and see the Princess in Canterlot!"
----
"The elements!" Twilight gasped. The Mane six stood before the empty case where the Elements of Harmony were supposed to be locked away.
"No!" Celestia examined the case. "Not again! How in Equestria did they go missing?"
"Has anypony has access to them?" Rainbow Dash asked, folding her wings and landing in front of the empty box.
"Nopony except for me, Luna, Cadance, and Summer!" Celestia flipped the case around, as if hoping the elements were stuck in a dusty crack within it. "Only alicorns can break the spell."
Luna was Celestia's sister, and Cadance was Twilight's sister-in-law, but nopony had ever heard of an alicorn named Summer. "Who's Summer?" the Mane Six asked at once.
"She's a new alicorn, come from a land far away." Celestia explained, finally dropping the box on a nearby table, "She's a light blue with a white mane and tail, you'll probably meet her later, she's out right now, meeting with friends."
The mane six all exchanged looks, suspicions aroused.
However, before they could say anything, Princess Luna flew through the window and landed in front of Princess Celestia. "Sister, news has come from Las Pegasus. They have been invaded, and very few were able to flee with their lives. Survivors seem too scared to tell anypony who has attacked them so violently." she reported.
"This is terrible." Celestia pointed her hoof to the empty box, showing her sister. "The elements are missing, as well."
Twilight had never seen Celestia look so worried. She stepped forward. "Princess, what if we go visit Las Pegasus and Blatimare, and we may get a glimpse of our enemies."
"It will be dangerous." the Princess warned.
"Don't worry, Princess, we can handle it!" Rainbow dash flew up into the air, did a few quick spins, then stopped in a hover above her friends.
"You can count on us, Princess!" Applejack said.
"Yea, we'll stop those bad guys!" Pinkie Pie bounced up into the air then held her hooves in attack position and growled.
"Very well." Celestia said, clopping over to stand directly in front of the group. "I'm counting on you, My Little Ponies. find our enemy and the Elements of Harmony!"
----
"We'll head for Balitmare, first." Twilight said as the Mane six trotted down a dirt road that lead to Baltimare.
"Gotcha!" Everypony said, excluding Fluttershy, who whimpered.
"Don't worry, Fluttershy." Twilight said, hearing this. "Remember, we have to do this. think of how unhappy you animal friends would be if the enemies attacked Ponyville."
Fluttershy gulped and trotted faster.
"Rainbow, you fl-" Twilight was interrupted in the middle of her order when she saw a sky blue pony racing towards her. As she came closer, Twilight saw large, beautiful wings spread out from her sides and a glowing horn. It was the alicorn that Princess Celestia had been telling them about, Summer!
"Help!" the alicorn screeched. She appeared to be running from something, and the reason her horn was glowing was because had a force-field around her. On closer inspection, Twilight saw a huge crowd of Changelings chasing her.
"Are Changelings the threat?" she wondered out loud. Nopony heard her, because they were all focused on Rainboe Dash, who had flown over to the, and, with a huge swoop, scooped her off the ground and dropped her on a nearby cliff, out of harm's way.
Now, however, the Changelings were heading right for Twilight, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Rarity. Twilight gasped and her horn glowed. There was a loud snap and the five ponies had disappeared, re-appearing on the safety of the cliff beside Summer and Rainbow Dash.
"Thank you for saving me." Summer gasped to Rainbow Dash. "My name's Summer. I was going to visit some friends in Baltimare, but I got attacked by those Changelings!"
"Are those the enemy who's taken over Baltimare and Las Pegasus?" Rarity asked.
"I don't know." Summer looked down at the Changelings who looked bewildered below, wondering where their victims had gone. As they watched, a Pegasus colt passed, and one of the Changelings dashed towards him. Wide-eyed, the colt flew off as fast as he could, swooping into a nearby forest to hide from the bug-like creatures.
"Shouldn't we go help 'im?" Applejack asked, watching the Changelings swooping around at the forest's edge.
"I don't think they'll chase him." Summer said, watching the Changelings give up and fly away back towards Baltimare. "Look, they're leaving."
"Well, we have to continue on to Baltimare." Twilight said, clopping to the edge of the cliff and watching the leaving changelings. "All we have to do is find a way to get there safely."
"Why in Equestria do you want to go there for?" Summer asked, looking surprised. "They nearly made dessert out of me."
"It doesn't matter if we end up dessert or not in the end." Twilight whinnied, turning to face Summer. "This is for the fate of all of Equestria!"
"Yeah!" the rest of her friends said, whinnying their support.
"Come on, ponies! Let's get in there and find the elements!" Twilight gathered all her magic to teleport them back down to the foot of the cliff, but a glint caught her eye. She turned to see Summer glaring at her. Now, why was Summer glaring at her like that?
Suddenly, everything went black.