“Shining!” Cadence cried, hooves reaching out behind a green tinted barrier..
“Cadence,” Shining slurred. His hooves waved blearily back up at her, his head ringing.
“Chrysalis!” the black blob crowed, then raised a hoof, and kicked out again, slamming him through the window.
He cried out from the glass shards cutting into his back, and flailed wildly until he bounced off the hedges below the balcony. The unicorn hissed, slowly rolling over and onto his hooves, leaning against the wall until the world stopped spinning.
Shining Armor levitated a small gem, and tapped it. “Twilight, can you hear me?”
There was a short burst of static. “Shiny! What’s going on?” There was a distorted sound of spellfire.
He pushed a hoof against his head. “Changeling attack. Their Queen has invaded our wedding.” He glanced at the flying black shapes. “We have to regroup, there’s no way we can keep them off separated like this. Where are you?”
“You’re still at the ballroom, right?”
The sound of buzzing started to increase. “In the hedges below the balcony, yeah.”
“Alright, just hold tight. I can get there faster.”
Dark-shelled, bipedal creatures landed around him. “Well, it looks like I’m going to very busy for the next twenty minutes, so please hurry.”
“Hang tight, BBBFF.” The gem flashed, and went dark. He put it back into the pocket of my suit.
“So, gentle-stallions, how’s the reception? I was just about to--” His shield flashed, deflecting a blast of acidic green spellfire. “I see, we’ll do this the hard -- gah!”
Shining hit the floor, magic bolts soaring over his head. His shield flashed into life, just in time as the changelings started attacking him in earnest.
“Not good, not good, not good!” he hissed, crouching lower and lower, his shield shrinking. Sensing blood, the changelings stepped forwards, their attacks increasing in frequency, making Shining Armor’s shield flash so much it turned opaque.
Then it suddenly expanded outwards, smashing the changelings in the face. “Ha, made ya look,” Shining snarked, then groaned, clutching his head. “Ohhh, that still hurts.”
He half limped, half stumbled across the garden paths, keeping to the side and watching through the corners. Unfortunately, his luck didn’t last all that long, before the changelings followed back the arc Shining’s shield bash did and found his trail.
Shining yelped as spellfire set the bush he was standing next to aflame. A barrier ball appeared above Shining’s head and accelerated backwards, smashing a changeling in the stomach. A round shield floated above the unicorn’s head as he slowly turned around.
“Here we go again,” he muttered, as changelings surrounded him, blocking any paths of escape.
There was a brief pause, as both sides eyed each other.
Shining burst backwards. Kick, and spin. The changeling behind him gasped from the hoof embedded into his stomach, while the ones besides him were sent flying from his magical shield.
Shining smirked slightly.
Shining yelped since the changelings didn’t care and just shot at him harder, forcing him to back away behind his shield and shuffle deeper into the hedges.
“Yeeee!” he squeaked, his chin pressed against the dirt as smoldering leaves and drywall rained down on him. “I regret not multiclassing into rogue! Now how the heck am I going to clear them out? They’re not going to fall for the shield smash again.”
As he shuffled about, passing four steel-shoe’d blue hooves, wincing as the hedge shook violently, he caught notice of a torn branch and its glowing embers. “Aha, fire.”
A square shield formed above his head, and shoved the burning hedgerow at the slowly advancing changelings. He dissolved the shield, then quickly formed a new one, a large bubble permeable to everything but oxygen. As the angry, hissing changelings started clawing their way out of the tangling branches, he threw the ball of oxygen at the largest fires.
Shining had to shield his eyes as the flames hungrily consumed the fuel, exploding in a shower of leaf shrapnel. He had to shield his eyes again when his migraine came back in full force, forcing a groan out of his mouth. If more changelings came, he wasn’t sure he would be able to see straight.
A group of metallic thunks hit the ground. “Looks like I got here just in time.”
Shining chanced squinting out of his eyelids. “Twily?”
Twilight Sparkle stepped out of the crater she made with four armored boots. Her chest glowed from an arc reactor embedded in her chest.
“You don’t look so good,” she commented.
“You try getting blown out a window,” Shining said. “Anyways, where to next?”
Twilight bobbed her head towards the castle. “Last I heard, Applejack and Pinkie were at the kitchens.”
Applejack carefully slid a cake out of the oven. This was the 3rd layer, out of five, and she needed to make sure it was ready for frosting and decorations. Pinkie had just gone into the freezer to dig out more eggs, leaving Applejack with some of the kitchen's cooks.
She placed the cooling cake on the counter, and turned to ready the next layer when a wall broke down to a chorus of hisses. There was a quiet splat.
A persistent ringing drowned out all sound from the mare’s ears, as she looked at a pile of fruits and batter crushed and strewn across the floor. The cake was upside down, slowly deflating under its own weight.
She ignored the angry, pupiless eyes staring down at her, reverently caressing a flattened apple. “So driven by hunger,” she whispered. “Yet you are unable to understand it in the eyes of others.”
She took in deep breaths, her body shuddering, heedless to the advancing changelings.
Her mane glowed.
Her hoof snapped up and clenched a black, reaching hand. Applejack lifted her head, her eyes glowing from underneath her stetson. “You gave up any future of mercy!” Her mouth opened, and she inhaled
The changeling screamed as Applejack’s hoof sent his hand ablaze. Applejack crouched low and gave spun to buck the changeling in the chest. Burning hoofprints trailed smoke as the changeling was knocked into his brethren. Another two changelings got flaming holes punched into them before they reacted. Leaping or flying away.
Applejack grabbed a vinegar bottle and pulled the cap off with her teeth. The pulses of life running out of her chest flowed into the bottle, creating steaming bubbles out of the liquid. “Yer ain’t getting away, sugarcube,” she hissed.
Five minutes earlier
Pinkie Pie trotted through the refrigerator, heading for a stack of eggs. She flipped open the carton and counted them out, but paused. Her legs vibrated, which then spread to her hips, then shoulders, then mane. Pinkie frowned. “Oo... that’s a bad twitch. A very bad twitch.” There’d be no time for cakes for a while.
With a heavy sigh, she closed to lid and walked to another section in the chilly room. She tapped the frozen over ground a few times, listening to the echoes. Finding the hollow spot, she took a deep breath. Despite not practicing rock farming for over a decade, she did spend most of her childhood doing it. The Pies’ affinity for rock breaking wasn’t something easily forgotten, and Pinkie was glad she still made time for occasional practice.
So she reared up and smashed the ice covering the floor. It took a few stomps, but she soon swept the ice shards away from a concealed trap door. She dug into the edge with the tip of her hoof and flipped it open.
She was greeted by an armored vest sitting on top of a large briefcase.
Meanwhile, Applejack was crouched behind a counter, lobbing apples at changelings also crouched behind cover, flinging back fireballs. Applejack hears hooves stomping behind her, and when she turns, she’s greeted with Pinkie, who slipped out from behind the freezer door and slid next to her. Pinkie was wearing an armored vest, and a pistol holster thaw was strapped to her foreleg.
Applejack’s jaw dropped. “Where’d ya--”
“Invasion emergencies,” Pinkie replies. “Now get ready. I’ll provide covering fire.”
Applejack kept staring for a moment longer, eventually deciding that there were more important things to worry about. “Alright. On three.”
“Three,” Pinkie repeated, drawing the pistol out of her hoof holster. “One ... two ... three!” Pinkie poked over the edge of the counter and sprayed wildly. Briefly blinded and deafened, the changelings didn’t notice Applejack sprinting up to them until she headbutted a changeling in the stomach. Applejack opened her mouth and sucked in a breath, setting the changeling alight before it bounced off and slammed into its fellows.
The startled creatures turned to face the new threat, giving Pinkie enough time to poke her head out fully to steady or aim. BangBangBangBang! Two changelings fell over, clutching at their chests. More fame spells were sent Pinkie’s way, but she had already dropped behind the counter, switching in a fresh magazine.
Then Applejack reminded them of what they really should’ve have been focusing on by bucking another two changeligns into a wall.
When Twilight and Shining galloped over to the kitchens they were greeted with Applejack sliding beneath a changeling’s desperate kick, hopping into the air behind it, and bucking him in the back. The changeling slid across the kitchen, just enough to Pinkie to fire a bullet into its head.
The two siblings stared, jaws hanging. Pinkie stuck her head out from behind the counter. “Hi everypony!” Behind her, cooks huddled together, their faces pale and their eyes bulging.
Luna poked her head out from the left ajar fridge door and whispered. “Nice.”
“Well then,” Twilight muttered. “Come on, let’s find where the rest of them are.”