Scootaloo's grin was as wide as could be. She sat up straight behind her desk, looking towards the front of the Ponyville classroom. Cheerilee was standing up, and had a confused look on her face.
Glancing sideways, Scootaloo could figure out what concerned her teacher. The class size of their school had doubled, but more strangely for Cheerilee was likely that each of the new students had another that looked exactly the same as them. Raising her hoof, it was a moment before Scootaloo even noticed Cheerilee blink.
"S-S-Scootaloo?" Cheerilee hoped she had the right name. Sunset Shimmer, one of Princess Celestia's personal students, had offered to help teaching, and the first thing Cheerilee had heard from her was that her new students were a little different. "What is it, dear?"
Scootaloo could tell that the simple routine of a raised hoof helped her teacher function a little easier. "Would it be easier if we all changed so that we looked different?"
In a flash, twenty nymphs flashed with green fire, revealing very brightly colored changelings. Cheerilee stared at her class, took a deep breath, and smiled. "Welcome everypony. We have a lot of new faces, so why don't we start with you. Scootaloo?"
With a buzz of her wings, Scootaloo stood up. "I'm Scootaloo. We,"—she gestured to Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle—"got foalnapped a few weeks ago. The bad changelings did something that turned us into changelings too, and made clones of us. We helped save Princess Cadance, and all of Equestria." With each bold statement, Scootaloo chirped her wings with excitement.
That Cheerilee knew such events had happened, and that the three Cutie Mark Crusaders had been involved, didn't surprise her in the least. "Thank you, Scootaloo. Next?"
"I'm Buzzaloo. I am Scootaloo's clone." Buzzaloo held out a hoof to her sister, and got a firm clop in return. "I helped save the Princess too, and Equestria!"
"Oh great, the losers have been doubled…" Groaning, Diamond Tiara had trouble trying to imagine a future as terrible as what had just happened. Twenty changeling heads turned to look at Diamond, and to her credit she kept her snout in the air and ignored them.
"Diamond Tiara, you will stay behind after class." Cheerilee cleared her throat, and turned to the nymph beside Buzzaloo. "Please dear, keep going."
"Ah'm Apple Bloom!"
Sunset waited for the class to break for lunch before greeting Cheerilee. "Hi Cheerilee. How did class go?" Twitching her wings, she was still a little uncomfortable being around other ponies without a disguise.
"The class was wonderful. I won't deny I had some trouble at first, but once I started with the lesson I had them all hooked." Cheerilee adjusted some of the papers on her desk. "You were right, they really are still foals."
"They are." Sunset grinned widely, inadvertently showing off more of her fangs. "But there is something. They will all know a lot more about some—some odd subjects. Part of their training in the hive was to do with lying, infiltrating, and…" She had to bite her tongue. "Foalnapping."
"Not surprising, considering how they make more of themselves." Lifting up a blackboard duster, Cheerilee started working on cleaning the chalk away.
"Yeah… yeah I guess it isn't. Chrysalis would have us train the nymphs, and then we would bring them to her and she…" Trailing off, Sunset shook a little in memory of how many nymphs she had trained and delivered to Chrysalis.
"Are you going to be okay?" Rushing up to Sunset, Cheerilee didn't hesitate before putting both forelegs around her and pulling her into a hug.
"She had all of us under her control. She made us think what she wanted, and do everything with such—such conviction!" Sunset had shed some of her fears with Celestia, but this was one she had been clinging to. "And—And she—she was under control too! I can't even hate her for it!"
Cheerilee didn't fully follow the line of reasoning, but she didn't need to. She could see a pony was hurting, and did everything she could to help them calm down. "It's over now. It's all over." The more she squeezed, the more Sunset seemed to cry.
A gentle knock on the door startled Sunset and Cheerilee out of the moment. Each turned, breaking the hug to look at the door. "Come in," Cheerilee said.
Adore Belle stood in the doorway, looking up at the two adults. "Is everything alright?" She focused on Sunset, spotting the tears leaking down her cheeks. Trotting in, Adore flashed with fire and took on her Braided Lace form.
Sunset stood still as Adore pulled her into another hug. She wanted to resist, to shout that life was unfair.
"Thank you for getting us all out of there." Adore let go of Sunset and stepped back. "I wasn't really there for all of it, but I know what you did to save us." Turning, she trotted back out the door, dropping her disguise as she did.
"Will you be able to teach the class for your first lesson?" Cheerilee was quite sure she already knew the answer, but she wanted Sunset to confirm it regardless.
"I think—I think I am." Sunset smiled again, and reached around to her saddlebag to lift out a sheaf of notes. "Would you mind double checking this class plan with me one more time?"
Cheerilee could sense a change in Sunset, and smiled as wide as she could. "Of course!" Leaning against Sunset's side, she began to read over the plan, and how it would help the foals of the class get used to changelings a little quicker, as well as teach some valuable information.
Diamond Tiara was not having a good day. The source of nearly three quarters of all her problems had just doubled—literally. She turned to Silver Spoon. "We have to put them in their place once and for all. What would mother think if she saw,"—she shivered in emphasis—"bugs in the school?"
"I know. Look at them." Silver peeked around Diamond and gestured at the changeling nymphs. "They all clash."
"Just follow my lead." Diamond stepped out from the side of the schoolhouse, and made her way slowly towards the big group. "Oh look, Silver, best keep well away from them, I heard you can catch some nasty diseases from bugs."
The false insults were a little above what Silver Spoon had been aiming at, so rather than further Diamond's lies, she told it like she saw it. "Not to mention those colors. What happened? Did somepony drop a rainbow on you all?"
Diamond loved her friend's insult, and grinned at the uncertain looks from all the nymphs. "If they had dropped a rainbow, it only had the ugly colors. Must have been a defective rainbow for defective b—" A rush of green fire stalled Diamond just as she was delivering the best part of her insult.
Buzzaloo was first to shift, and at her side Apple Bloom was barely a moment later. The two peered at Diamond and Silver with big smirks.
"W-W-What are you doing?" Diamond stepped back. Of the twenty nymphs, half of them now looked the same as her, and the other half looked like Silver Spoon. Biting down on her confusion, she felt fury burn in her tiny body. "I guess this is an improvement, at least."
Strutting away from the group, right past Diamond and Silver, Buzzaloo's little magenta hooves trotted carefully until she was beside another group of foals at the school. Featherweight, Pipsqueak, Rumble, and Snails all turned their attention to her. Lifting her chin up and striking a perfect Diamond Tiara pose, Buzzaloo cleared her throat. "Attention. Everypony! I have cooties!"
There was silence for nearly ten whole seconds, before Snails snorted and started to laugh.
"And I got my cutie mark upside down!" Scarlet Peaches trotted out of the group of Diamond Tiaras and Silver Spoons. Her disguise was Silver Spoon, and sure enough the cutie mark on her flank was an upside down spoon.
"Stop that!" Diamond Tiara—the real one—stomped a hoof. "Stop that this instant! None of it is true!"
Fumbling her way out of the crowd on nymphs, Hyacinth fell over and plunged her own face into a puddle of mud. Of course, disguised as Diamond Tiara, she managed to make the tumble look as uncoordinated as possible.
Silver Spoon stared as another copy of her, apparently with curly mane and tail, started barking like a dog. She glanced around for an escape, and turned. "Come on DT."
Watching the two fillies gallop away from them, Stunning Loyalty shed his Diamond Tiara disguise and shook his crest and tail fins. "Who were they? Seemed really nasty."
"Not as nasty as Chrysalis." Apple Bloom got rid of her own disguise, as did all the rest. "But Ah don't think they'll be botherin' us for a while."
In the dark of the night, Equestria slept under the stewardship of Princess Luna. She patrolled the parapets of Canterlot Castle, and every so often would pause to inspect the peace of the dream realm. As always, when she did so, she felt mostly happy dreams. Lifting her hoof to take another step, however, sent a spike of cold from her withers to her croup.
Luna froze, the one hoof still in the air. An old terror, one she had thought she had already cast aside, was back. "Nightmare Moon." Just whispering the name into the night sky was dangerous. Luna could feel the chill power that the darkness had offered her so many years ago.
Her memory cast back to that time, when she had been in an argument with Celestia, and had stormed out. The same power that was in the air had been there, and in her anger she had agreed to its offers. "No." She shook her head and took a step back.
Power flooded the area around her. Luna first felt every ounce of heat fade away, and then the very air was like a thick pudding. She wanted to scream, to run, to call for help. A tear crawled from the corner of her eyes as she felt the chill start to soak into her.
"Not again."
Two words cut through the cold like the sun cuts through a chill morning mist. The darkness around Luna was ripped to shreds by bright, white-hot light. Luna turned to the side and saw her sister, and cried more. "Tia!"
"You took my sister from me once. I will not allow it a second time." Where Celestia's hooves touched the floor atop the tower they were both on, the polished stones cracked and blistered. Each step brought her closer to Luna, and each step pushed the darkness away. "What are you? I would see your true form this time."
Luna ignored the heat. Celestia's fire had never harmed her before, even as Nightmare Moon. She spread her wings and wrapped them around Celestia's neck. "You came for me!"
Above the two alicorns, still shrouded in darkness, a pony-like shape was outlined by the light of Celestia's power. "My pets failed. Pity." The voice was full of confidence and malevolence in equal measure. "Surrender, and I will spare you the yoke all others will bear."
"It's him again. It's Sombra!" Luna looked up at the dark unicorn floating on a thick, black thunderhead in the sky. She felt panic and terror grow, but a white wing matched hers, pulling around Luna's shoulders.
"No." Celestia could already hear hoofsteps charging up the stairs to the tower they were on. "No, Sombra, not this time. Not now, and not ever!" Celestia brought a hoof up and slammed it down. The force of her strike, combined with the heat, forced a horseshoe-shaped print into the stone.
Shining Armor, keeping his disguise of his former self up, rallied to the tower, and without thinking twice he put himself between Sombra and his princesses. Burning green power poured from his horn, and wrapped around the city.
"What's this?" Sombra turned his attention to Shining Armor. "Oh, wonderful. He is one of mine." Black power lanced from Sombra, and he drove it down and into Shining's horn. Even his barrier had been useless against the bolt.
A rage-filled screech filled the night air. Green fire erupted around Shining's felled form, and with a blast of changeling power, Thorax was standing over Shining. "Be gone!" Green magic lanced into the sky, and even when it pierced the sky, it didn't stop.
Sombra's form seemed to evaporate to the sounds of laughter—deep, amused laughter.