At Pinkie’s insistence, it was Moondancer who was going to do the engineering of the new sun. Twilight hadn’t protested when Pinkie made her, even though she was excited to do everything herself. Moondancer had been working on the Crystal Heart for far longer, and Twilight needed to delegate. In return, Pinkie didn’t mention the empty paper tubes she started finding around.
Instead, she was organizing everyone in the castle around a big, round conference table, with the biggest map of Equestria she could find unrolled across it. All the major population centers were counted in poker chips, with the values related to their populations. The cities were the big pots, the towns like Ponyville were basically just the blinds.
“First part of the plan is easy. Rainbow Dash flies to every place we know there’s an active resistance cell, and gets them to contact us via Spike. He’s still the most secure line we have.”
“Talk about burn after reading...” Spike chuckled to himself.
“Just happy to have kept my old uniform,” Rainbow tugged at the skintight spandex, letting it ‘snap’ back against her chest, “Means I don’t have to worry about hiding. Ponies are going to go out of their way to not see me.”
“Shining should be able to help you know how to find who we’re looking for, but for obvious reasons we’re not going to be able to give you written instructions.”
“If these guys are communicating via Spike, how about you just send me the instructions for the next contact every time we confirm one. If I get compromised looking for any one cell, it’s going to be because it was already compromised. The only one I know of’s Trottingham, though.”
“We know about Trottingham,” Shining grinned, “They’ve been how we’ve been feeding bad intel for months now. Glad to hear that one didn’t get figured out.”
Rainbow stopped, and her eyes glazed over as she mentally played the memories of the last few months back to herself with the new context. “Wow. So that’s why we messed up the convoy raid so bad. And why we got so blindsided up North. And... okay, that explains a lot.”
“I guess this is what happens when your intelligence specialists all change sides at once. We’re basically cheating on that one.”
Rainbow stared at Shining open-mouthed, while he bashfully rubbed the back of his neck. “How do you pull the best prank in the whole world, and not rub it in their face?”
“I could say ‘because that gets someone killed’, but the honest answer is... I think they’re keeping a running scoreboard and saving it all up for the end, whenever that is. I think the look on somepony’s face a few years from now is what helps them stay creative.”
“Can we get back to the task at hand, please?” Twilight asked, rapping her pointing stick against the map. “We can talk about how brilliant Shining is later.”
Shining grinned so hard at that it almost wasn’t endearing.
“What do I do after that?” Rainbow asked.
“Actually, Rainbow, you should leave now. We can fill you in on what you need to know later, later. Right now, the less you know the better, in case anypony tries to read your mind later.”
Rainbow blinked, surprised, then gave a sharp nod and salute, and walked out of the room. She made sure to close the door behind her hard, to make it clear she wasn’t listening from the other side.
Pinkie knew that there wasn’t really mind reading magic. Mind influencing magic, sure. But Rainbow Dash probably knew how the Shadowbolts really got information out of people too...
“After that... the history says unicorns used to gather to raise the sun, but it seems like it was just because it was easier to coordinate them that way. You don’t need them to be close together, just organized. Nightmare Moon is going to resist as soon as the sun goes up, but as long as we can get enough unicorns to work with us at the same time, we should be able to resist.” Twilight made a face like she’d bit something bitter, “In fact, it’s probably better we don’t have them all in the one place for this.”
“Being able to let everyone organize themselves from their own location is a big deal,” Shining added, “we couldn’t get everyone together without blowing everything before it even starts.”
“It’s symbolic, too,” Cadance added, ever the romantic, “Let them fight for Equestria from the homes they’re fighting for. It’ll mean a lot more to them.”
“Right.”
“This is the part of the plan I’m less clear on.” Shining admitted, looking to Applejack and Fluttershy, as if they knew. “What do we do then? We’ll have support, we’ll have the sun. But if we try to make any central power to oppose the Nightmare-”
“We won’t.” Twilight interrupted him.
“Then how do we beat her?”
“By giving everyone the one thing she won’t, and telling them they have to oppose her to keep it. We pay our own guards with our own taxes, and we let everybody be in charge of their own group.” Twilight smiled, “We’re ponies, we’re good at that sort of thing.”
Fluttershy coughed politely. “Maybe it would be time to talk about that bridge...”
That just made Shining more confused. “What’s this about a bridge?”
“Fluttershy means, ‘what do we do if Nightmare Moon just starts hurting people until they do what she wants’.”
Shining nodded, “That’s a big bridge. What then?”
Twilight massaged the bridge of her nose. “Honestly, it’s really stupid. I was hoping we could just stick to the hope and democracy and declaring a peaceful independence part of the plan.”
Pinkie nodded. “I’d like to stick to that part too, please.”
Shining shook his head though. “We’d all like to stick to that part of the plan, but we need to know you have a contingency in case something like that happens. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.”
Twilight sighed. She mumbled to the side, “I guess we drop the sun on her.”
“Sorry,” Shining leaned forward onto the map, his hoof squashing Las Pegasus, “what was that?”
“I said, we drop the sun on her. It’s the Crystal Heart, powered by the love of ponies all across Equestria, right? What if we just splatted her with it.”
“That’s a very technical military term that,” Shining gestured at the rest of the room, “You might want to explain what ‘splatted’ means for those without officer training in the room.”
“Oh, ha-ha, BBBFF.”
“Hold on,” Applejack protested, “Wouldn’t that be like swatting a mosquito with a big lantern?”
Twilight looked like she was trying to explain how it wasn’t, but ended up having to settle on; “It’s a really nasty mosquito.”
Applejack shrugged. “Yeah, alright, I can go with that. You reckon that could work?”
“I’m less sure of it than if it were a detonation, but... if we charge it in the tree of harmony, and then keep it powered by all of the ponies in Equestria, it’d certainly hurt a lot.”
“Good enough for me then. Captain Armor?”
He shrugged. “I guess it makes for an interesting hammer in a hammer-and-anvil strike. I’m just worried about the anvil.”
Pinkie raised an eyebrow at Twilight before she could volunteer to drop a sun on herself for the good of Equestria. Twilight shot back a sheepish grin which meant that was absolutely what she was about to have done.
“Frankly, this is the best plan I’ve had in over two years now. I agree it leaves a lot to be desired-”
Cadance cut her off this time, flashing a perfectly-white perfect smile. “It sounds perfect to me.”
“It does?” Twilight asked, suspiciously.
“Twilight, you made a plan that doesn’t rely on you doing everything, for once. It lets everypony help fight for themselves.” Cadance giddily clapped her hooves together and beamed, “I couldn’t be prouder!”
“That’s definitely one way to look at it...”
“It shows you still trust ponies to do the right thing,” Fluttershy said, and Pinkie jumped when she did. It was so easy to forget she was there, sometimes. “Which must be hard, after everything. I think that’s nice.”
“If I’m being honest, it’s having you and Applejack and Dash here that helped more than anything.”
Applejack knocked her hat forward and leaned back in her chair. “Aw, shucks, to be honest it ain’t like we’ve really done anything yet.”
“I more mean,” Twilight did that thing where her face scrunched up and she looked down a little, thinking so hard about how to say what she was thinking, “Having you out here at all. Being supportive. Dash didn’t have to protect Fluttershy like she did. All of you could have turned me in immediately, and you’d probably have been fine.”
“Oh, heck naw. I might have thought a lot of unkind things about all this, and you know I’m going to be sorry about that now, but I was still more on your side than Nightmare’s.”
“Right,” Twilight agreed, like Applejack summed up exactly what she was finding it so hard to say, “That’s what you being here reminds me. Ponies want what we want. We’re just asking them to take too much of a risk right now for the odds we’re giving them. We still need to think of them as allies.”
“What’s your question?”
“Ah. Right. The Elements originally came from the Tree of Harmony, and I think they didn’t work because it was too sick. So-”
“To save the world, you need a gardener?”
“... yes?”
“Well, shucks.” Applejack knocked her hat forward. “Was worried I was gunna have to learn something.”
Fluttershy raised an arm.
Twilight nodded at her. “I was hoping you could keep Applejack safe, and make some allies in the Everfree.”
Fluttershy lowered the arm.
“Alright. Shining? Cadance?”
Shining looked surprised. “Is there anything for us to do right now?”
Twilight nodded. “I order us to take a break. If everything’s going to get big, soon, we need to be well rested.”
Shining stared. “Really? There’s nothing for me to do?”
Twilight nodded again.
Shining sagged and fell backwards into the chair he’d pulled up to the map, chuckling so quiet it sounded more like he’d been punched twice in the gut. “I can’t remember the last time I could just relax.”
Cadance wrapped him in a hug from behind, but seemed to be propping herself up on him just as much. “There was that one shop, in Canterlot...?”
Shining grinned. “They were good. I think the stallion pushed himself harder than I did. Wonder how they’re doing, right now?”
“They’re tough.” Cadance kissed him on the cheek. “Even then, though, we were so busy, so scared...”
“I wasn’t scared,” Shining lied.
“You weren’t scared,” Cadance agreed.
“There’s nobody to train right now, nothing to be scared of. Nightmare Moon’s known where I am for ages, now, and she won’t come. I think she’s scared of something? Maybe she doesn’t know how sick the tree is...”
Pinkie nudged her in the ribs. Twilight jerked.
“Right! So, whatever I could ask you two to do? Is way less important than you being at your best for showtime. So consider this a mandatory holiday.”
Shining smiled, but shrugged. “I think if there’s something we can do, we have to do it.”
Pinkie smiled at Cadance, who smiled back. This family, they thought at each other.
Twilight teleported next to her brother, and wrapped him in a big hug. “Sorry, BBBFF, but apparently our wellbeing is a matter of national security now.”
Shining hugged back. “What will you be doing?”
Twilight teleported back next to Pinkie, and hugged her too. “Me? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
Pinkie squeezed her tighter. “She’s not good at it, so I’m making her practice.”
Cadance bonked her head against Shining and just let herself lean. “Is that even allowed?”
“Well,” Twilight nuzzled into Pinkie, “as much as I want to handle everything myself... any plan that relies on us, fails without us. And this isn’t just about us.”