Canterlot Wedding Part 2 · 11:45pm Jun 10th, 2018
So after the gripping conclusion to the previous part we rejoin Mac and Time Turner in their hotel room the next morning, Time Turner nursing a monstrous hang-over from the sparkling cider served at the bachelor party and doing his best to politely refuse Big Mac's old-fashioned home remedies (look up a Prairie Oyster and you'll get an idea).
It's the day of the wedding and everypony is rushing about for last minute preparations, but as the two of them meet up with Twilight, Ditzy Doo, and Cheerilee down in the lobby all four have an important question: Where are Spike and Thunderlane?
Well it turns out one of them isn't far as Spike comes running into the lobby. He explains that Thunderlane is in trouble and needs help now, but won't go into details. Though confused over why Spike is being so vague, the others race off to help.
We then jump cut to another Spike. He's waking up nursing a monster headache of his own with only hazy memories of walking home when something attacked him. As he finally comes to though he finds himself looking into a familiar face: Shining Armor's.
Two Shining Armors.
Spike quickly realizes that both he and one of the Shinings are trapped in some weird goopy green pods. The free Shining just has a good laugh at Spike's expense upon realizing he's awake. He doesn't doubt Spike is wondering what's going on, but isn't about to spill his whole plan. He just assures Spike that he'll be having some company shortly, at which point another pod rolls in with an unconscious Thunderlane sealed up inside it, followed by a promise from Imposter!Shining that the other Element Bearers will be joining them soon!
At this point Spike recalls exactly what happened. Spike had heard shouting coming from Shining Armor's home after dropping him off at the start of the story. He went back and saw some strange black creature he'd never seen before knock out Shining and place Cadence under some kind of spell. Before Spike could intervene or run for help another of those black creatures knocked him down and turned into him! Impostor!Shining just chuckles over how, despite his drone's slip up in allowing the other Element Bearers to show up for the wedding it won't matter, and will in fact only help the Changeling invasion if all six of them are captured now! As he leaves, the imposer projects a magic image up on a crystal so that Spike can watch the wedding and Impostor!Shining's conquest of Equestria.
As the impostor heads off to the altar, though, Spike is fuming and starts trying to figure out a way out of his cocoon. Seeing little other option, he starts trying to scrape his way out from the inside using his horn, determine to get to the surface and help his friends.
Topside, "Spike" is leading the remainder of the Flipped Six (now Four I suppose) toward some abandoned warehouse at the edge of Canterlot. As he goes he's apologizing to them for going through all the trouble of coming up here just for him, which only earns him another "why wouldn't we? You're our friend" from the others (aside from Twilight). At this, "Spike" sighs and just explains that he's realized that, which is why he's decided to be honest with them.
And at that point, Thorax drops his disguise and introduces himself.
The others are taken-back, but Thorax asks them not to panic. He explains about Queen Chrysalis's plans to conquer Equestria and drain it of its love and how it started with her trying to capture Princess Cadence so as to drain her love magic and increase her own power. When that got interrupted by Spike and Shining Armor, Chrysalis altered the plan slightly and had Thorax take Spike's place. When Twilight almost instantly pegged Thorax as a fake he was forced to put an enchantment on her so she would just follow his orders, much like what Chrysalis did to Cadence (and to Shining Armor in canon). Reminded of that, he releases Twilight from the spell. Turns out despite being under Thorax's control she had managed to fight back and tried to warn the others, hence the wedding invitations and the line when they arrived about how she could "use their help".
Now the jig is up, and Thorax confesses that he doesn't want to follow Chrysalis's plan anymore. Over the last several days he's felt and seen just how much Spike's friends really care about him and he's disgusted with himself for depriving the real Spike of that. He wants to help rescue the real Spike and stop his queen's plans.
At this point Ditzy Doo asks about Thunderlane, and Thorax explains how he was supposed to be leading the remaining Flipped Four into an ambush so more changelings could take their place...
At which point a huge swarm of the bugs come tearing out of the warehouse, having realized Thorax betrayed them. And Thunderlane is apparently leading them!
Things drop to black as we cut back to Spike finally managing to break out of his pod and starting to look for a way to free Shining Armor and Thunderlane. Before he can try he hears someone coming and hides, watching as a gang of ponies that look like his friends come in with a bunch of carts.
Aboard the carts are the unconscious bodies of Spike's friends, at which point he forgoes any plan and jumps out to try and save the them before they get podded up. This goes about as well as expected as he manages to jump on the Big Macintosh pulling the carts only to get flung off and pinned by the big guy.
Fade to black again, and we see Chrysalis-as-Shining Armor chuckling to herself as she receives reports about Spike's attempted escape from one of the other changeling scouts. His escape was foiled, Thorax was discovered as a traitor and imprisoned, and all the Element Bearers have been replaced. Just in time as the wedding is about to begin. Chrysalis meets with her duplicated Flipped Six and gives them their orders and placements, telling them to be ready to attack on her orders.
So it's looking like Chrysalis has won. As she starts up the aisle as Shining Armor and prepares to launch the ambush that will bring down Celestia and Luna and allow drain the last of Cadence's love magic she's laughing inside over how easy it's all been. As the wedding ceremony begins, though, Celestia reveals that Cadence had a special message for her husband before they take their vows.
And "Cadence" just smiles and says two words to Chrysalis: "Got ya."
"Cadence" suddenly changes, revealing himself to be Thorax! Chrysalis is shocked at this, but not as shocked as she is when Celestia suddenly blasts her back down the aisle undoing her disguise. Chrysalis shouts for her impostor Element Bearers to help her only for Mac and Thunderlane to pin her down and the others to run to Celestia's and Thorax's side!
Chrysalis got played! Turns out Thorax had blown his own cover the night before the wedding when he was leading Thunderlane away from the bar. He'd absorbed so much love and friendship from Spike's friends, so he decided to try and convince the others attacking to stop by sharing some of it with them. Surprisingly it worked, though Thunderlane was a bit less willing to listen upon realizing he'd been tricked for so long. Still, Thorax managed to convince him that he wanted to save Spike and stop Chrysalis, and the other changelings (having experienced the power of willingly shared love) agreed to help. Unfortunately, there was still far to few of them to just storm the hive.
One of the ambushers volunteered to turn into Thunderlane and be imprisoned in the hive. Real!Thunderlane in the meantime camped out with the changelings for tomorrow's ambush against the others. When that ambush got sprung he surprised them all by turning against them. Unfortunately not quite as many were willing to follow Thorax's example, but between the other Flipped Six, Thunderlane's unexpected betrayal and how much Thorax had been powered up by all the love he'd received they were able to fight off the ambushers and were left with just enough changelings who were willing to help.
So Real!Mac and a few impostors took a gang of volunteers who disguised themselves as the remaining Flipped Four for the purposes of being imprisoned. Upon finding Spike had already freed himself (Mac was really sorry he treated Spike so rough but the little guy surprised him pretty bad!) one impostor turned into Spike and got "recaptured". Meanwhile Thorax, Twilight, and the others went ahead to the castle to warn the Princesses and help save Cadence. Given the report came directly from a changeling, there wasn't much trouble convincing them and they even allowed Thorax to help by pretending to be Cadence. Meanwhile the real Flipped Six just had to pretend to be the changelings that were supposed to replace them and wait for the moment to close the trap.
The wedding guests? Already evacuated to a safe place. Cadence? Being cared for in the infirmary to undo Chrysalis's enchantments on her. The guests at this fake wedding were all Royal Guards who'd been briefed on the situation. Now it seems Chrysalis's plan is foiled.
Or is it? She starts laughing explaining that she did have a Plan B on the off chance her disguise was seen through. That, and she points out that Celestia didn't count on one thing: Just how much stronger Chrysalis has grown thanks to absorbing love from Cadence!
With a massive blast of magic she throws Mac and Thunderlane off. Before the guards can close in, Changelings come swarming in from the windows. It's Chrysalis's canon invasion force, and this time there's no barrier to slow them down! Chrysalis laughs as she, Celesia, and Luna ascend into the skies over Canterlot to do battle, leaving the Flipped Six, Thorax, and Twilight to deal with the invading Changelings.
Thorax tries to reason with his brothers and sisters but everything is too chaotic for them to listen. Spike points out that they left one important detail out of the retelling of events, which becomes very important as Chrysalis smashes into the infirmary to finish what she started and drain the last of Cadence's power.
At which point she runs into a very real (and really angry) Shining Armor.
This summary is already running long, so suffice it to say the final battle is pitched and hard fought. Spike and his group are frantically trying to help the guards fight off Changeling invaders, Celestia and Luna have been tossed about like ragdolls, and Chrysalis has little trouble getting the better of Shining Armor. Just as she's about to attack Cadence, Shining throws himself in the path and starts getting his magic drained instead. The sight of which snaps Cadence out of the trance she's been in.
Cadence intervenes, shocking Chrysalis with just how much power she has left. She's even more surprised upon seeing that Shining's magic is also returning and realizes that the love they hold for each other is restoring them. In fact, it very quickly makes them more powerful than her and...
Well, you've all seen canon. The difference here is Thorax and the other changeling rebels are untouched by the love wave. In fact they feel pretty good (and their wings even get a bit shinier!).
Things wrap up at a nice little ceremony, where Celestia congratulates Cadence and Shining Armor on repelling Chrysalis. She also thanks Thorax and his newly founded rebel group for their help and offers them a place to stay in Canterlot, but Thorax turns her down. He knows Chrysalis is out there and that she still has sway over far too many changelings. He intends to return with his group to their homelands and work to spread the word of what they've learned about real love and friendship to as many changelings as they can before Chrysalis returns. He hopes, in time, to make it clear to even Chrysalis herself that love is stronger and more plentiful when shared just like it was between Cadence and Shining Armor as well as Spike and his friends. Thorax and crew leave, with both Celestia's blessing and some final thanks from Spike and his friends, along with an offer to just send word if they're ever in need of aid.
With all that said and done, Spike points out that there's still one more thing to take care of: Shining and Cadence's real wedding! Something that Twilight, the Flipped Six, and everypony else in Canterlot are all too eager to get underway!
So there's the end of it then. I hit a lot of the same notes but the wedding and Chrysalis's plot were kinda intricate making it hard to change without throwing a lot of it into absolute bedlam. I like to think I added something new by making it so Spike is also replaced at the start, and after learning about Thorax from later seasons this made for the perfect spot to introduce him and his dislike of Chrysalis.
With that, let's figure out what to cover next...
A. Flipverse CMC
B. Equestria Girls
C. The Crysal Empire
D. Notes an original character I'd planned to involve in the story
E. Other suggestions
Crystal Empire then Equestria Girls world!!!!!
Crystal Empire would be interesting :)
Yay Thorax! I love the guy. Good use of him.
Crystal Empire, please?
looks like crystal empire is next up
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...let's do A.
I'd like D to see this OC
I vote for A
C! C! C! C! C1 Cone
C plz.