//------------------------------//
// Chapter 61- Retaking Equestria: Part I 
// Story: Of Heaven and Earth 
// by Garuda IV 
//------------------------------//

The heat was practically unbearable as the sun pounded the city of Canterlot with its blistering rays. And with no pegasi out to move the clouds, there was practically no cover from the heat aside from the pony-built structures. Though the ponies that had been captured had been moved to the crystal caverns beneath Canterlot, they had it better with the cooler temperatures, which is more than could be said about the Changelings who were up on the surface of the city, patrolling and standing guard.

Over on the outer wall of the city, a pair of changelings found themselves standing on the parapet above the city gates, both drenched in their own sweat as they kept an eye out for anything suspicious. However, just like the last several days, there was nothing of any interest, and so, they began to grow lax and bored.

Wanting to kill his boredom, one of the changeling guards began to strike up a conversation.

"Hey, Labellum."

"Yeah, Labium?"

"You ever wonder why we're here?"

Labium looked up into the blue sky. "It's one of life's great mysteries, isn't it? Why are we here? I mean, are we the product of some cosmic coincidence, or is it the result of a revenge-driven queen that's watching everything that we do? You know, with a master plan and stuff." He let out a tired sigh. "I don't know, bud, but it keeps me up at night."

Several seconds of silence followed after that, with Labellum not knowing how to immediately respond to something so unexpectedly heavy... but that wasn't anywhere near what he meant when he asked.

"What? I mean, what are we doing out here standing in this Celestia damned heat, instead of standing guard beneath the shade of one of the nearby towers?"

Labium blinked a few times, realizing how out of context he took that question.

"Oh... I... yeah..."

"... what was all of that just now?"

"Uhh… mmm... nothing..."

"... do you want to talk about it?"

"No."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Now can we drop it and follow your idea, already?"

Labellum shook his head and huffed as he turned to follow his fellow guard out of the harsh sunlight into the shade.

"Seriously, why didn't we think of that earlier?"

"I know! I mean, we can see everything just as easily over there as we could out here."

"And it's not likely that those ponies would try to do anything during the short time we're under the shade, and in broad daylight, no less."

Labellum's pace slowed for a brief moment before he joined his fellow guard beneath the shade.

"Normally I would say that you just jinxed us, but I think I can agree with you this time."

"Speaking of us getting jinxed, have you noticed that everyling seems to be looking a bit weaker?"

"Yeah. I've noticed that, too. You don't think Tirek's been draining us of our magic, do you?"

"I highly doubt it. He can't even drain our magic because the throne shards protect us from it, and besides, even if he somehow did find a way, we'd all be able to see him grow from all the magic he..." Labium's words trailed off as he saw a great shadow began to blanket the lands. "Hey, it's not nighttime already, is it?"

"Hey, Labium."

"Yeah, Labellum"

"Look up."

Doing as his companion said, the changeling looked up to see the source of what was covering the lands in darkness.

"Is that the Moon Princess' moon?"

"Yep."

"Eclipsing the sun?"

"Yep."

"... why?"

"Beats me. Far as I know, they are trying to make us uncomfortable by drastically changing the temperature from scorching-hot to freezing-cold."

"But that's just stupid. Our old hive was located in a desert, so we changelings are used to temperature changes like that."

"That's true, but then why would those two cause an eclipse?" Labium wondered, watching as the moon fully eclipsed the sun and bathed Equestria in darkness.

"Maybe the princesses got into another fight again?" Labellum replied with a shrug. "After all, the night princess was possessed once already, so I wouldn't be surprised if it happened to her agai-"

"Say again, Labellum. You cut yourself off there at the end. What was that about the night princess?" Labium asked, but received no answer from his companion. "Hey, Labellum, you okay?"

Looking over to his side, Labium saw that the spot where Labellum had stood was now vacant. But, what was more curious and concerning was the fact of how he managed to just up and vanish without a sound like he did.

"If you're trying to pull a prank right now, Labellum, then would you mind saving it for later? If we get caught slacking off, the Queen might have our heads."

The only response Labium got was silence. Not so much as a cricket or bird chirping reached his ears as he looked around to see where his companion went off to. But, as he tried to find Labellum, he failed to notice two pairs of glowing, slitted golden eyes directly behind him. Completely unaware of what was about to happen, Labium didn't stand a chance as a pair of dark hooves covered his mouth and chest, and pulled him back into the darkness of the tower, where he was immediately met with unconsciousness.

"Very good, Sir. One more patrol down."

"I forgot how much fun this was. Being stuck behind a desk all these years, pushing papers instead of being out in the field where all the action is, has made me forget the joy I used to feel when I'd sneak up on my enemy and subdue them without them or any others knowing about it."

"Just make sure you don't get too enthusiastic and blow our cover, Captain Night Wing."

Night Wing smirked. "Come now, Lieutenant Crescent, I may not have had a part in the action for some time now, but I haven't gotten that rusty."

"As you have just demonstrated, Sir," the Lieutenant replied with a small smile. "Just make sure to keep it contained."

Night Wing raised a brow. "Now who's giving who orders?"

"Not an order, sir, but a suggestion."

Night Wing let out a low chuckle. "Either way, we should move on to the next patrol before the rest of the Night Guard beat us to the castle."

"Yes, Sir."

Sleeking back into the shadows, Night Wing and Crescent stealthily made their way over towards the next group of changeling patrols, swiftly knocking them out before dragging them out of sight into an ally. As they were busy with that, other groups of the Night Guard had infiltrated Canterlot's outer walls, each taking down their own group of changeling guards. For the first twenty minutes of sneaking between the darkness provided by the eclipse, as well as taking out the patrols, a loud chirping began to echo throughout the otherwise silent air, originating from the south-eastern side of the city, before the noise began to spread until the entire city was consumed by the noise.

"What in the holy Tartarus is happening?!" Night Wing growled, folding his ears back against his head to help drown out the annoying sounds.

"Uh, Sir," Crescent called, pinning her own ears back as she pointed towards something above them, "I think I can see what the problem is."

Looking up, Night Wing eyed what could've caused it before his eyes landed on a very familiar crystal.

"Oh, buck me sideways running. Did they really do what I think they did?"

"Looks like it, Sir. The changelings have figured out how our changeling detection crystals work, and have magically reversed-engineered them to trigger for ponies instead." Crescent then looked up above them and frowned as she saw something unexpected. "And, it looks as though the bugs have added a little extra, too."

Looking up to where his Lieutenant was, Night Wing stared wide-eyed as he saw a green dome of magic begin to surround the city, reminding him of the one Shining Armor had created before Chrysalis' invasion during his and Cadence's wedding. Leaping up into the air to take a look around, he saw that, while it was definitely as large as what Shining Armor had created, it didn't appear to be quite as thorough. Though barrier's starting point began at the top of the outer walls to cover all of Canterlot, it didn't appear to extend downward to protect the gate.

Seeing that their current objective had been foiled, Night Wing flew back down to Crescent with a new plan formulating.

"Change of plans, Lieutenant. You and I will split up, contact the others, and regroup back at the gate."

Crescent gave her Captain a curious look. "Sir?"

"The barrier is covering all of Canterlot, blocking off our aerial escape rout and aerial support, and the enemy knows we are here and will be upon us shortly. However, I noticed that the barrier doesn't cover the gate. Our new objective now is to have everypony fall back to the gatehouse and hold it. So long as we have control of the gate, we can let our troops move in to the city."

Now understanding the plan, Crescent gave a salute before she and Night Wing split up, sleeking away into the shadows to find their fellow Night Guard.





Meanwhile, traveling silently down the road, Celestia and Luna led the army of ponies and yaks up towards Canterlot. At the pace they were going, it would take them about another twenty minutes to get to the front gate, fifteen if they picked up the pace, but at the risk of being detected. However, upon seeing the green dome of changeling magic suddenly burst into the air and encompass the city, it was made quite clear that something had happened.

"Sister."

"Yes, Luna, I know," Celestia replied, frowning and glaring up at the barrier that had encased her golden city within its sickly green magic before speaking up for the others to hear. "Change of plans, everycreature. Something has happened to the advance team, so as of now, we will be picking up the pace to a gallop. Those who are helping conceal us continue doing your best to keep us hidden. Now charge!"





High above the clouds, flying westward just a few miles off the coast of Fillydelphia, Ember and Rarity watched the eclipse from atop of one of the adult dragons that Ember had recruited into carrying them. Though Ember could've flown herself, Rarity could not, and carrying her herdmate by herself over such a long distance would've been difficult to do. As such, a ride was procured for her and, seeing the opportunity, Ember decided to take advantage of it as well.

"You know, I know your Princesses said that they'd give us a signal to help synchronize our attacks, but this is just ridiculous," Ember commented, staring up baffled at the eclipse.

"I know the feeling, darling, but not everycreature received one of those communication amulets, so this was probably the best thing they could come up with," Rarity replied with a small frown. "Even if it does lack any subtly."

"No kidding. But, it's too late to change it now." Taking a moment to easy her breathing to help calm herself, Ember raised the Bloodstone Scepter up into the air, its gem shining like a small beacon in the otherwise night sky as she used its magic to help amplify her voice. "Dragons, hear me! We will now begin our attack on the changelings that have taking over this city! Hunt down and destroy any changeling that you find! If you find any ponies, leave them be or help them get to safety! And lastly, I don't want to see any of you destroying any of the buildings! Because if I do, I swear, all repair costs for the damages you cause will be coming out of your own hoard! Understand?!"

Each of the dragons there were now staring at Ember in shock, anger and, much to Rarity's surprise, a bit a fear from a number of them. Ember and Spike had both made her aware of how precious a dragon's hoard was to them, so for Ember to openly make such a threat was a bit concerning. At the same time, however, she couldn't help but silently thank Ember for doing it. After all, no dragon would ever willingly risk losing even a piece of their hoard. Of course, Rarity suspected Ember said that as less a threat, and more to ensure that the dragons would be careful during their attack.

After all, it would be most upsetting if somepony got hurt or worse because of somedragon's recklessness. That, and it would be a shame if any potential locations for new shop got damaged.

Unsettled by the threat of their Dragon Lord, the fleet of dragons flew faster towards the city lights in the distance. A few minutes later, once they had transitioned from flying over water to dry land, the fleet dove down to the city. While the larger dragons remained flying outside the city, forming a blockade to keep any changelings trying to escape, the smaller ones flew into the city proper, tackling, slashing, chomping and burning any changeling unfortunate enough to  get in their way.

Within moments, most of the city was filled with a cacophony of shouts, roars, flashes of light from changeling magics and dragon fire and, unfortunately for one dragon, the sound of bending metal and shattering glass as they accidentally flew into one of the skyscrapers.

"What did I say about destroying the buildings?!"





The city of Manehattan was in complete chaos. All around the city, changelings ran around as they tried to flee from their pursuers. None of them even knew when or how it all happened. One moment they had the entire city under their complete control with all of the ponies herded and cocoon at Maneison Square Garden to drain them, and the next, a serious of unexpected events happened.

It started as a ridiculously-large butterfly net suddenly appeared out of nowhere and enclosed the entire city, and not only did the net seem impervious to their magic, but none of them could make contact with any of the changelings that were outside of the net. Next were the floating, yak-sized spray cans depicting a picture of a changeling with its tongue lolled out and x's over its eyes with the words 'Changeling-Be-Gone' written in bold letters above the picture. While confused at first, the changelings quickly began to flee as the cans began to pursue and spray them, causing any that were caught in the gas to collapse on the spot in a deep sleep. In addition to running from the spray cans, they were quickly met with a seemingly-endless number of cart-sized flyswatters that relentlessly pursued them while repeatedly trying to swat them. Eventually, one-by-one the changelings began to run out of energy and ended up either getting whacked and knocked unconscious by the flyswatters, or put to sleep by the spray cans. Thankfully for them, their being unconscious meant that they didn't have to witness their humiliation as a flying broom and dustpan would come over, sweep them up, and dump them into a cage-like trash bin.

While all of that was going on, Discord and Eris were both relaxing around a small round table in Centrail Park, listening to sounds of the surrounding chaos that they had created as they drank some of Discord's favorite tea and ate Eris' favorite teacakes. Despite them getting the message about the signal, Discord had started to grow bored of waiting and decided to go ahead with his part of the plan for retaking Equestria. Eris, having no other choice by this time, decided to go along with it and followed her father's lead. Of course, once they had gotten started, they found that there wasn't much more for them to do now but wait for their appliances to finish neutralizing and capturing all of the changelings, leaving them to do whatever they pleased while they waited.

"Pretty convenient for us that we found that warehouse full of industrial-grade sleep spray and flyswatters, isn't it?" Discord commented.

"I guess," Eris replied with a shrug. "After all, the original tags on them did say they were meant for parasprites, despite how excessively large they are. By the way, thanks for suggesting we use our magic on only the handles of the flyswatters, brooms, dustpans and trash cans to keep our chaos magic out of contact with the changelings."

Discord nodded before he and Eris took a sip from their respective cups of tea.

"You know, Eris," Discord began as he refilled his cup with tea, "we really should do this more often."

"And what exactly is that, dad?" Eris questioned as she licked the crumbs from her lips. "Are you talking about us fighting changelings, helping save ponies, or causing chaos?"

"Well, those too I suppose, but I was actually talking about us just spending time together. I never really knew how much I missed it until recently."

Eris grumbled and brought her teacup up to her lips. "I guess I wouldn't mind it. I know it would make Fluttershy happy to see us really getting along again."

"Yes, it would. That's also another reason why I want us to spend more time together. She's been urging me to really try and make an effort to patch things up with you. I mean, it's not like I haven't been trying already, but you get what I'm saying, right?"

"Yeah, I get it. She's been trying to get me to do the same thing."

"I see. Speaking of Fluttershy, I've noticed that you seem to have taken quite a liking to her."

"I suppose," she said with a shrug. "I knew she was a lot more interesting than I first gave her credit for, but our time spent in the Underkingdom has given me a chance to get to know her better and make me see her in a new light." Eris placed her teacup on the saucer and rested her chin on her hands with a toothy grin. "Speaking of her, when are you gonna ask her to marry you?"

Discord raised an eyebrow at that, but didn't bother to answer her. Instead, he opted to remain silent and munch on one of the teacakes, all the while ignoring his daughter and the mischievous look she was giving him. It was at that moment that the moon began to eclipse the sun, bathing the city in darkness and signaling that their plans to retake Equestria should commence.

At least, it would if it weren't for the lampposts lighting up, including a few other things. To Discord's surprise, 
the spray cans suddenly began to glow a myriad of prismatic colors, the flyswatter handles each began glowing their own color that changed every time it struck something, while the glow-in-the-dark-graffitied brooms and dustpans continued to pour their contents into a giant trash can that had lights shooting out from within, making it look like there was a rave party going on inside of it, complete with dubstep.

"Eris."

"Hmm?"

"Did you secretly turn our implements of chaotic justice into a bunch of stuff that you'd see at a DJ Pon-3 concert while I wasn't looking?"

Eris' grin widened. "Maybe."

Turning his attention away from the chaos and back to his daughter, Discord leaned back into his seat with a satisfied chuckle.

That's my girl.

"Hey, dad?"

"Hmm?"

"It seems like we've got things pretty much handled here, so shouldn't we go help our friends... or the captured ponies for that matter?"

"What, and rob them of their fun? Of course not. Besides, it would be boring if we just snapped our claws and fixed everything for everypony."

Eris sighed with a pout. "Yeah, I guess it would."

"As for the captured ponies... they can wait a little longer. Right now, I just want to savor this moment with my daughter."





Over in Baltimare, changelings patrolled the city streets and airways as they kept an eye out for any intruders. With the announcement of Tirek's approach, they wanted nothing to go wrong while he was there. Besides it being an order by their queen, they also didn't want to upset the powerful giant centaur. After all, even though he couldn't drain them of their magic (that they knew of, anyways), that didn't mean he couldn't just step on them and easily squash them beneath his hooves.

As time continued on, the changelings noticed it getting darker and, figuring they were under attack, looked to the skies. But, rather than seeing an army like they expected, they instead saw that the source of the darkness was from a solar eclipse.

"Phew. Now that's quite a sight, huh?"

Startled by the unexpected and unfamiliar voice, dozens of nearby changelings collectively snapped their attention to the source of the voice. At first they didn't know what to think. After all, just a second ago the streets were empty from anything other than their patrols, and now, standing there in the middle of the road, was a purple dragon with green spines who they immediately identified as Princess Twilight's pet dragon, Spike, who stood idle looking up at the eclipse as he loosely held a burlap sack in his left claw.

"Intruder! Get him!"

As a tide of black, the changelings swarmed Spike with the intent of capturing and presenting him to their queen. At first, it looked like they had him when they had him surrounded and began closing in on him with horns lit and fangs bared... that is, until he suddenly appeared outside of their encirclement.

"Wow. You guys are slow," he commented. Taking a moment, Spike then opened the sack and laid it on the pavement. "Ok, guys. It's time."

Initially the changelings were confused as to how Spike had slipped past their encirclement as though he had teleported, but that confusion was quickly replaced as a swarm of gnats started flying out of the sack he was carrying. Unfortunately for them, their confusion quickly turned to fear as, one-by-one, the gnats became engulfed in a familiar green flame, revealing an army of reformed changelings. And there, standing at the head of them all, were Pharynx and Thorax.

Gulping nervously at how immediately outnumbered and outgunned they were, the changelings slowly began to hover. As they did, Thorax began to approach them, charging his horns with changeling magic with a look of determination and sad upon his face.

"I really didn't want to do this, but you gave us no other choice."