One day.
One freakin' day.
That's how long it took us. I'm... honestly not sure where Starlight went at the moment. I know I left with her, but... she said that she had to leave as soon as possible once we were done, and then there was this explosion, and... well, she shoved me out of the way and put a shield spell bubble around me and the other guards to protect us. She looked like she was running out of mana to do her magic after that, though. She told us to stay in Canterlot Castle and then teleported away. I hope she's okay.
I guess I should probably also talk a little about what exactly happened between yesterday and today, since I'm writing this like an hour before midnight.
Our plan went pretty well as far as plans went. We were able to break in through the roof like Luna suggested before. By the time we did that, there weren't very many of Daybreaker's guards or army left inside thanks to the distraction force that we sent through Canterlot's streets. I swear I saw mom and dad in the crowd for a second or two from the rooftop. Not completely sure, though.
Once we got inside, we were able to take down the other guards pretty easily since it was two alicorns, a really strong unicorn, and a bunch of armored guards against only a few other armored guards. We were careful not to... well, kill them. Just bonk them really hard so that they went to sleep. I don't want to have to see somepony else's blood ever again.
And then something bad happened.
I don't really know when or how it happened, but while we were running through the halls, at some point Cadance went missing. We have no idea where she went, or even what happened to her! She was at the back of the group so that we had an alicorn defending our tails while Luna led at the front of the line. Luna says that she thinks Cadance might've fallen into a trap or something, but right now she's spending time talking to Celestia, so I don't think it's a good time yet to ask.
So that meant that without Cadance, we would've had to split the not-Elements of Harmony between two ponies instead. Luna said that she would be fine taking three, since she's done it before with Celestia. Starlight, though? Starlight really seemed nervous about the whole idea of using three Elements at the same time herself, so instead, she took two, and gave me the third one. I'm not really sure what Element I got, but I'm just very glad that it worked. Kind of.
First of all, the rainbow laser thing that I learned about in school didn't happen. There was no laser. We did manage to... I guess, "activate" them, though. The crystal pieces all started glowing and stuff, and Starlight gave this whole speech about friendship and magic and unity and stuff like that. I was really thinking that the rainbow lasers would happen after that, but instead there was this really big explosion. I'm still not sure how we were all still alive after that, though I think part of it was Starlight's shield spell. Luna was fine on her own. Also, that wasn't the same explosion that made Starlight have to make a shield spell again to protect us before disappearing. That came later.
Oh, oh, and... and after all the smoke cleared out, we saw Celestia! Luna went up to Celestia and started crying for her to wake up, which she did and booped Luna on the snoot. Luna got mad for a little bit after that. Apparently, Celestia remembers almost nothing about her time as Daybreaker, and even worse, she doesn't really seem to remember anything right now. She's acting like... like a filly! Like I'm one to talk, though.
So, after all of that happened, Starlight walked out to what was left of the balcony to declare victory. She also announced that she was with us officially instead of being with Daybreaker. There was a lot of cheering, and it looked like a lot of the nobles were retreating, too! I'm pretty sure that not very many, if any of them heard Starlight since she didn't have a megaphone or anything. Not only that, but they were retreating out of Canterlot. I think they're going to go to that fort place Starlight helped build in the Everfree Forest.
All in all, it took a lot less time to attack and reform Daybreaker back into Celestia than I thought it would. I know that Princess Twilight took only one night to reform Nightmare Moon back into Luna years ago, but that was with five other ponies that later became her friends! That made things so much easier to have each pony only wield one element, not like this time when everything went boom after!
And then there's the part I was talking about at the very beginning. Apparently, there was a bomb or something that was dropped into the throne room where we were before the Old Guard went and retreated. Or maybe it was hidden somewhere. I don't know. Either way, Starlight said that she wanted to retreat to Ponyville for a time and "lay low", just in case.
So, the bomb went off, setting off a second explosion. Except this time, none of us were expecting it, and apparently I was standing closest to where it was coming from, so Starlight jumped in front to cast an emergency shield spell. That saved pretty much all of us besides Luna and Celestia since they weren't really in danger anyway. The explosion blew out one of the walls of the castle. After that, Starlight said again that she was going to retreat, and that she might even spend some time looking for Cadance. She didn't really say anything else before she teleported away.
I guess... things might start going back to normal again. I hope. Since Starlight is "laying low", Luna said that she will be in charge for a while until things are put back together. After that, we're going to go by Twilight's original plan to elect a new government. Maybe in the future, we can even welcome the nobles back!