Twilight Sparkle and her sister, Nightfall, had spent their afternoon discussing many things, such as their brother, his new wife, their love lives (this was a very short conversation, as both unicorns spent the majority of their time working instead of meeting colts, or fillies). Slowly, the topic started to stray in the direction of the current threat, something that Nightfall was very eager to discuss, because that’s what she was there for.
“Twilight, sit down; what I say next is going to be quite shocking. We may need the Elements of Harmony to deal with this threat,” Nightfall said, losing the jovial manner that she had possessed up until now.
Following her advice, Twilight Sparkle sat down and wore a face that showed a mixture of curiosity and fear. Spike, who had been serving tea up until this point, vacated the room; he had developed a good sense of when he should make himself scarce. Good, but not perfect.
“Spike, come back, I need you to write something in a few minutes,” waiting for Spike to come back before continuing.
“There are changelings in the kingdom, probably in Ponyville, we need to get you and the rest of the Elements of Harmony out of here when we can.”
“Well, we need to go, quickly as possible, I’ll go pack right away and...”
“No, we can’t leave yet, we’ll draw suspicion; if they know you’re leaving they will send half the colony in your direction. You must stay here and lie low for a couple of days until we’ve gathered the Elements and they’ve lost our scent,”
“Hey, I don’t smell!” Both unicorns looked at Spike, which confused him no end, since he didn’t understand the metaphor.
“She meant a metaphorical scent, Spike,” Twilight said, through the hoof that was now clamped firmly to her face; Nightfall couldn’t help but laugh, no matter how hard she tried to hide it with her own hoof pressed firmly to her mouth. Realisation dawned on his face and he tried to hide his entire body behind his tail.
“Anyway, Nightfall,” Twilight said, turning back to her sister “What if they haven’t lost our scent by the time I leave the house; what if they kidnap my friends when they get here?”
“You need not worry about that; I’ve got several undercover guards posted here and they’ll also escort your friends as they get here, they should be safe,”
“Fine, but I’m still not absolutely sure this is a good idea”.
“Should I send for them, Twilight?” Spike suggested.
“You can do that? I thought your messages only went to Celestia.”
“That’s because I think of Celestia’s name when I send them; kind of gets into a habit. If I thought of somepony else they’d go to them instead,”
Nightfall spoke next, “In that case, I have several messages I want you to send,”
“What do you want me to send?”
Nightfall then proceeded to dictate a message to two of the guards in Ponyville, asking them to pick up Pinkie Pie. She then repeated this for all the other Elements before allowing Spike to send them all.
“Sister, why did you send for the guards? Couldn’t you have sent for them directly?”
“Twilight, while I may be trying to keep this operation under wraps, I still need to make sure they’re safe.” She said, before smirking and adding “Besides, Soldiers make me feel superior.”
At that point four ponies burst in, before being followed by eight guards. Four ponies.
“WHERE’S PINKIE?!”
-----------------------------------------------------------
Pinkie was being carried to the library from Sugarcube Corner in a combined gold and blue swirling aura, supported by Whinnyam Blueblood and the other white unicorn, who had taken pity on his situation. Gleaming Blade had flown ahead “for reconnaissance purposes” which meant leaving Pinkie behind; anypony would think he was scared to be around her.
“... and then the Doctor pony prescribed Ritalin and I was like ‘Ritalin, are you crazy!?’ but he was very very insistent and then I took it for a couple of weeks and then everypony was like ‘you’re not yourself’ so I thought I should stop taking it and then I realised that I’d already been through three really really big jars and then the Cakes stopped having migraines and...”
“So what was your name anyway?” Blueblood found his attention to his current task slightly compromised and Pinkie dropped a few inches in the air, before floating back up.
“Oh, I’m Blueblood”
The other unicorn completely forgot what she was doing and Pinkie was dropped an entire two feet before she recovered; the floating pony was unperturbed, and may even have been enjoying it. Nopony noticed her reaction through all the babbling and the funny faces she was already pulling.
“You mean you’re that stupid, picky, arrogant featherbrain Rarity told everypony about!?”
Blueblood smirked “No... I’m Whinnyam, the nephew of ‘that stupid, picky, arrogant featherbrain’ as you so aptly put it; he would never dare set foot in here. He might be my uncle but he can go and buck himself for all I care.”
“Thank Celestia for that,” the other unicorn said, smiling. “I’m Vinyl Scratch; most people call me DJ P0N3 though.”
“Oh, you’re that pony everypony’s talking about; the pony constantly getting into trouble with the law. Every guard in Canterlot has seen you in a prison cell.” Whinnyam glanced at her.
The DJ, just blushed and grimaced, scratching the back of her head with her hoof, sharing a nervous chuckle. “I didn’t do anything wrong, but they REALLY don’t like fun”
“I see where you’re coming from, to be honest; my uncle’s one of the worst.” Whinnyam smirked then sarcastically added “He’d love you.”
“WE’RE HERE, WE’RE HERE!” Pinkie suddenly shouted at them both.
“Oh, thank Celestia” Whinnyam and Vinyl exasperatedly muttered under their breath, then quietly giggled at how their reactions had been identical.
Together they levitated Pinkie through the library door and unceremoniously dumped her on the floor.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Once all the Elements had gathered (much to the relief of the Sparkles) they began to converse on what had been done and what needed to be.
“Now that Whinnyam and Vinyl have got Pinkie here, we need to make plans to leave.” Twilight said to the collected ponies and dragon.
“Way ahead of you BSBFF.”
Nightfall began to outline her plan, gesticulating at various ponies as she did so. “The Captain and the Lieutenant here will take a platoon of the Pegasus guards and a large chariot to the main camp, about half a mile away. Once there the Captain will take the rest of the battalion and march back into Ponyville, hopefully diverting the changelings away from the main objective, and set up defences there. The Elements and their escort with First Lieutenant Blueblood will fly South-East for twenty miles before turning North to the Capital.” She looked around at the room “Any questions or objections?”
Whinnyam raised his hoof and began to speak when Nightfall looked at him. “Should the diversion fail, would it not be better if Captain Blade was commanding the escort? He has more combat experience and he is a pegasus himself; he would not have to sit in the chariot with the Elements and let events take care of themselves.”
“A valid point you raise.” She thought to herself then decided that Blade was in command of the escort, and Blueblood was commanding the rest of the battalion. “Any more questions?”
Gleaming Blade raised his hoof and when he was acknowledged he lowered it and began to speak. “I have two.” He cleared his throat before continuing. “First, Where will you be? Second, who is she?” He said, pointing with his hoof at a white unicorn with a neon blue mane and shades and two joined eighth notes as a cutie mark, who hadn’t been listening until she saw said hoof.
Nightfall responded matter-of-factly. “To the first, I’ll be with the Elements, ensuring they are briefed in how we are going to defeat the changelings. To the second, I have no idea.” The white unicorn looked up, offended.
“Everypony knows who DJ-P0N... OOF!” she managed to say before being hit with a spell designed to reveal changelings.
“VINYL!” Whinnyam shouted, quickly standing up and running over.
“I’m fine Whinnyam, just a little confused ‘cos someone randomly cast a spell on me. You can let me go now.” Whinnyam was confused now; he had failed to notice what everypony else was staring at. He had caught Vinyl Scratch as she fell backwards and they were now lying side-by-side, Whinnyam holding the DJ tightly. Both of them started to blush uncontrollably at what had happened.
Everypony else’s smile was twice as wide as it should have been. It was Pinkie Pie who spoke first. “OH MY GOSH! They’re special someponies! WE NEED A PARTY!”
“Ain’ tha’ sweet”
“Scratchy and Blueblood sitting in a tree, B-U-C”
“Shu’ up Rainbow, ya’ll ruin t’ momen’”
“This is nice”
“This will make a very good letter to the Princess”
“This is the most romantic thing I have ever seen”
Captain Blade just said smugly “So that’s why you wanted to stay in Ponyville.”
This was without a doubt, the most embarrassing moment in either Vinyl Scratch’s or Whinnyam Blueblood’s lives.