//------------------------------//
// We the ponies 
// Story: Things Change 
// by Equimorto 
//------------------------------//

"Is that... Is that what I think it is?" asked a pegasus to another pony walking beside him, pointing a hoof towards a point somewhere in front of them on the street.
A rapidly growing crowd was gathering there, ponies curiously trying to understand what was going on. At the centre of it all, on the receiving end of numerous stares both bewildered and hopeful, was a tall cream-coloured alicorn with a billowing blue mane and green eyes, staring down at the ponies around her, waiting for them to calm down.
"Oh, please, not another one of those things!" the pony said to the pegasus at his side.
"Maybe this one is good."
"Sure, like the last four."
"Oh come on! We should at least give her a chance," the pegasus said as he began to walk towards the alicorn, "she might have something important to say."
"I'm only following you because she'll probably have those who didn't listen to her jailed," the other pony said as he began to follow the pegasus.
The two arrived near the alicorn, close enough to see her cutie mark, a grey-coloured pair of scales, but still held at a distance by the still agitated and moving mass of perplexed equines, from which remarks and observations of various kinds could be heard, spoken to everyone and to no one in particular.
"Remember when you could be a princess without having a pair of wings and a horn? I mean, I don't, but according to the archives that was a thing at one point."
"Can't wait to hear what sort of crazy requests this one will have."
"Do you guys think we're we getting a song?"
When enough ponies had gathered around her the alicorn loudly cleared her throat, and all around her was silence. "Ponies of Canterlot!" she began, all heads turned to her, all the presents eagerly awaiting what she would say next. "It has been brought to my attention that Equestria has been under the tyrannical rule of one 'Princess Celestia', and that she has her residence in this city. Many cries for help I have heard from you, citizens, asking to be freed from her. Fear not, for your prayers have been answered. I, Giustize, Princess of Justice, have come here to rescue you and dethrone this vile creature."
The ponies around her remained silent, those who believed her still trying to process the information, those who didn't fearful of the repercussions for exposing what they believed to be the latest of Celestia's schemes.
The alicorn produced a roll of paper from beneath one of her wings. "Once I have finally defeated Celestia, I promise to you that I will-" she unrolled the paper, the bottom of it reaching the ground, and began to read from her list "- reduce your taxes, establish peaceful relationships with our neighbour countries, reorganize the royal guard, utilize a meritocratic procedure to determine the assigned positions of our dignitaries-" Chrysalis had to double check she'd read that right "-fix that one annoying hollow in the road near the bakery, give out free candy once a week, ban from entering the nation all z-eh, actually, not this one." Chrysalis began to move ahead on the list, trying to find something else to appease the crowd with. "Not this one. Not this one either. Legalise what exactly? This one I can't even read. Free ice-cream on the weekends, a proper water distribution system, nerf quest rogue, more frequent FiMC updates, and... Eh, you know what?" Chrysalis threw away the list. "Screw it. Whatever you ponies want, I'm sure I'll have the time to accommodate your requests once I'm queen. Now who wants to follow me as I march towards the castle and politely offer Celestia a chance to surrender?"
The crowd remained silent.
"Well I'm going," the disguised changeling said, and she began to walk away.
"Excuse me, Your Highness," a female earth pony said to her, "the castle is that way," the pony pointed in the direction opposite to the one Chrysalis was walking towards.
"Oh, I..." the changeling turned around and began to walk towards the castle. "I knew that. I was just... testing your loyalty."
"Do you think we should follow her?" a pony asked to the one near him.
"Well, if she's saying the truth then this is what we've always been waiting for. We definitely want to go."
"But what if she's lying?" a third asked, "What if it's a trap laid out by Celestia?"
"Then we'll say that we were following her to make sure she didn't actually hurt the Princess."
And so, either out of hope or out of fear, the crowd began to follow the cream-coloured alicorn Chrysalis had disguised herself as as she marched towards the castle. All but one pony, a certain purple mare born a unicorn who had been in the process of returning to her town with all the intention of declaring its independence before she had noticed the crowd and who was now teleporting herself directly to the castle.



"So Chrysalis is trying to start a revolution?" Celestia asked, taking another bite of her cake.
"It's what I've been trying to tell you for the last ten minutes!" a very disgruntled Twilight replied. "We could have prepared ourselves, but you had to keep asking questions!"
"It's not my fault that you kept mentioning an alicorn. I had to understand who she was."
"Really? Did you just forget that Chrysalis can shape-shift? After she spent the good half of a day impersonating you and your guards and causing mayhem around the castle? Really?"
"How did you say this new alicorn is called?"
Twilight resisted the urge to go back to Ponyville that instant. "Giustize, but I'm pretty sure she got it wrong. You see-" Twilight produced two worn out books seemingly out of nowhere "-if we look at this version, that's how the name is spelled. It's right here next to yours," She said while pointing to one of the books, now opened, "However, if we look at this," she said while opening the other book, "which is the original copy, we can see that an error was made during the transcription. It looks like whoever had to copy this accidentally swapped the ending of the name with that of the one next to it. So it should actually end with -ia, while the other... Wait a minute." Twilight's eyes frantically darted between the two versions of the text. "Oh dear. you might want to see this," she said while levitating the books closer to Celestia.
"Oh," the alicorn said. "So I was using-"
"The wrong one, yes."
"Twilight?"
"Yes?"
"Do me a favour and burn this book, please. As for the revolution, Luna?"
The dark alicorn snored in her chair.
"Luna!" Celestia repeated, nudging her sister with her hoof.
"What is it?" Luna said, dizzily waking up.
"Chrysalis, alicorn disguise, revolution. Go deal with them."
"Sure," the alicorn said, walking out of the room.
Celestia kept eating her cake and Twilight burned the book, then spent the subsequent minutes curled up on the floor, trying to hold back the tears for the horrible crime she'd committed.
After a while Luna entered the room. "Sister, there's a large crowd outside demanding you give up your position. They're lead by an alicorn and it seems the whole city is out there."
"Luna, I sent you out specifically to deal with them. Why didn't you deal with them?"
"They were singing 'Dethrone Tyranny'. I could never harm ponies with such a fine taste in music."
"Oh fine! Twilight, get out of your cataleptic state and come help me," Celestia said as she got up and walked towards the balcony of the room, "we're still two alicorns against one."
The two reached the balcony and looked down. Sure enough, everypony in Canterlot seemed to have gathered there, and on a pedestal just outside the gates stood the alicorn Chrysalis had disguised herself as.
"Do you think you can deal with that?" Celestia asked to her once student.
Twilight was about to answer, but Chrysalis interrupted her. "I see you there, Celestia!" she shouted, "Can you hear it? Can you hear the ponies singing for the revolution? Singing for your DOOM?"
"Impossible!" Twilight shrieked, and she instantly teleported to Chrysalis. From her position Celestia couldn't hear them, but she saw they were discussing and Chrysalis was holding a large folder in her magic.
Twilight reappeared at Celestia's side. "Sorry, it looks like you're on your own. Chrysalis might have, sort of... She... found... She..."
"She found your shipfic folder, didn't she?"
Twilight backed away in shock. "You know about my secret shipfic folder?"
Celestia stared at her. "Twilight, everypony knows about your shipfic folder. It's probably the worst kept secret in the history of Equestria."
"Oh. So... did you read any of it?"
"I'm not that crazy, Twilight."
The purple alicorn gave a sigh of relief. "Okay. But the contents must still remain a secret. The world isn't ready to know of my genius yet, and I haven't finished writing them. Chrysalis says she'll publish them if I help you, so you're on your own."
"Honestly Twilight, the prospect of her publishing them would be enough for me to order you not to help me."