Starlight awoke early that morning. When she entered the kitchen, she was surprised to find Twilight up as well. "Morning Starlight, what are you doing up so early?"
"Nothing, I just woke up. What about you?"
"I was going to help Applejack out with some of her chores. And she likes to start work as soon as the sun rises."
Starlight looked at the stain glass window, it was giving off a soft glow. "In that case you better get a move on." Twilight swallowed the last of her breakfast then hurried off, leaving her dishes behind for Spike to clean up. "I don't know when I'll be back. Have a good day, Starlight."
She smiled as her mentor left, then proceeded to pour herself some cereal.
= = =
Gravel was in a lot of pain. His face and fore arms were covered in scratches and bruises. The griffon had locked talons with what the annoying announcer had called, a Bueato Viper. Attached to those talons was the coiling, brown body of a snake. It's huge feathered wings continued to beat at his head. He leaned forward and clamped his beak down on one, the winged snake letting out a sharp hiss.
They might have stayed like this for a while if they weren't suddenly hit by another of the creatures which had been thrown by another griffon. As Gravel rose from the floor, he felt a pain in his hind leg, his assailant had bitten down on his leg. He unsheathed his hind claws and began kicking and scratching at the snake repeatedly until it let go. Now the left side of it's face was decorated with both the two yellow lines going down it's face as well as several long red scars criss-crossing them.
Gravel and the winged snake began circling each other, both their wings spread threateningly out. The snake's head bobbing around, looking for an opening. Then lunging at each other, they continued to brawl.
= = =
Twilight arrived at Sweet Apple Acres just before seven. But instead of seeing her friend and her family hard at work in the orchard, she found Big Mac and Granny Smith wandering the farm grounds.
"Good morning Granny Smith. Where's Applejack?"
"Oh Princess! Ah wish I knew. When we woke up, both AJ and Apple Bloom were missing."
"Missing?" Twilight repeated, "Do you want me to help you look for them?"
"Oh, that's alright Princess. I'm sure she's just helping Apple Bloom or one a her other friends out with a problem."
"I'll check around town anyway, just to make sure." As she waved goodbye to the elder Apple, she couldn't help feel a little worried. For any of her friends to go missing without leaving a note of any kind was weird, but for AJ it was practically unheard of. 'I hope she's alright.'
= = =
Fluttershy decided the best thing to do was to hide in a corner until it was all over. Unfortunately, two of the creatures they were forced to fight had the same idea. They were about the size of a small foal, one having yellow fur and the other having more cream colored fur. They looked like some kind of rodent, with larger front teeth and long skinny tails. The fur on the back of the rodents head was much longer, almost like a mane.
Fluttershy fully intended to just back off and let the creatures alone. But the cream colored one jumped her and bite it's incisors into her foreleg. She took to the air, trying to shake the creature off, but it held on tight. The yellow one started making high pitched sounds which Fluttershy couldn't understand.
She found that she couldn't fly to high or her mark would start sparking, so she returned to the ground where the rodent finally let go, Fluttershy's blood staining the corners of it's mouth and teeth. It lunged again, this time aiming for her throat. She used her wings to gain some distance on the creature, only for her efforts to prove pointless as the other creature stopped it's companion short. They exchanged a series of squeaks before the cream rodent backed down.
She let out a sigh of relief, only to realize that something behind her was growling. Turning fast she found another of the rodents, this one blueish black and a head taller than she was. She barely even processed this before the behemoth grabbed her in it's jaws and threw her towards one of the 'hills' in the ring.
= = =
Pinkie Pie woke with a start. She had the burning sensation that something was wrong, terribly wrong. She looked around her room: same bed spread, same pile of laundry she needed to take care of, same Gummy sleeping in the morning sun, same fishy chew toy being gummed by Gummy, even the same spider sitting in the corner of the ceiling building a web. She moved over to her balcony, making sure to keep to tip-hooves so not to wake anyone.
Outside looked pretty normal as well, a few ponies out and about, some shops opening for breakfast. All in all it looked like business as usual in Ponyville. Yet she couldn't shake this feeling of dread that something was terribly wrong.
= = =
As the tiny angry creature plowed through the changelings in front of him, Adze couldn't help but notice that his primary thoughts were: 'Thorax, you're an idiot!' If that coward hadn't 'shared' love with the Hive, they'd all still have their light, quick, agile bodies; instead they were stuck in these bulky, lumbering eye-sores.
He moved to one side just before the creature could run him over. Despite it's smaller height, it was a formidable looking creature. Standing on two legs like a Minotaur, but with less fur and more armor plating. It's lower torso and legs were covered in grey plate-like armor pieces, while it's upper body was just exposed skin. Or it would have been, if it wasn't also stuck in a white and grey leotard. The creature's head was round with pointed ears and nose, as well a very angry red eyes. The amount of anger pouring off this creature was tainting the taste of the air so much that Adze wanted to throw up.
The small creature pounced on the red changeling with lightning speed, only to find a pair of teeth dig into it's throat. The changeling tried to drain the anger from the creature, turning it's strength into his own, only to find that the mark on his jaw was restricting not only his magic and changing skills, but his ability to feed as well.
The creature kneed him in the neck forcing him to drop it. It adopted a defensive stance with it's hands balled into fists. Adze began circling the wounded creature, pretending to look for an opening. After nearly ten seconds of this, the creature learned why he was only pretending, two other changelings had snuck up on it from behind and now had it surrounded. It spun around quickly, trying to keep all three of the insectoid creatures in sight. Unfortunately, the moment it did, Adze headbutted it from behind. Just before it hit the ground, it saw one of the other changelings jump to meet it halfway.
= = =
Twilight flew back to her castle as quickly as possible. She threw the doors open with her magic, sending a loud thud throughout the castle. She found Starlight in one of the empty rooms and Spike licking the wall of the kitchen.
"Spike! Starlight! We have a major problem!"
"Whoa Twilight, calm down. What's the problem?"
"They're gone! All of them! Applejack. Fluttershy. Rainbow Dash. Rarity. They've all gone missing!"