It was almost eleven. Luna had brought out her moon fully, the light of it strongly illuminating the streets of skies of Canterlot—thought it was filtered by a pinkish shield.
Moon Dancer opened the door of the office she shared with Luna and stepped out with her head full of spells and hope that she'd still be herself at the end of the night. "Well, now I get to go pretend I'm a hero. Maybe I should ask what would Lyra do?"
"Don't ask that!" Luna's voice came from inside the office. "Ask yourself what would Moon Dancer do?!"
"Moon Dancer would run and hide and wait for a hero to fix everything." Despite her comment, Moon started off toward the main corridor that led outside. Just like when she'd entered the castle, there were extra Royal Guard everywhere. They all knew her on sight, but always stopped her at the major doorways and forced her to show the midnight black token Luna had given her in place of the silver one from Stiff Peaks.
Even just feeling that token made Moon remember the stallion, and despite herself a silly grin spread on her lips. "A date…" The words slipped out on her way across the castle grounds to Cadance and Shining's apartment.
Levitating her clipboard from her saddlebags, Moon formed up the spell for dictation and cast it on a pencil. A quick clearing of her throat and she lifted a hoof and knocked on the door.
Stomping to the door, her thoughts dark, Chrysalis grabbed it with her green telekinesis and yanked it open. "What do you—I mean, what do you want?" She fumbled to get her voice under control. "Don't you know we're busy getting ready for tomorrow?"
"Exactly!" Moon stepped forward, then beside, then past the wolf-in-sheep's-clothing, and into the room. "We heard your request loud and clear, and I've arranged for some non-apple food to be delivered for breakfast." The rumors Moon had gathered from talking with Citron had been invaluable in crafting her entrance speech and ingratiating herself with the monster. "Now, if you could give me a quick list of your favorite foods, and I can get out of your mane."
Letting out a flood of stress she didn't even know she was holding-on to, Chrysalis almost slumped on her hooves. "At last somepony in this castle who'll challenge that orange menace." The problem was, while she could happily eat just about anything, Chrysalis wasn't hungry—Shining Armor had taken care of that. But, there was one thing that changelings always adored: "Some honeyed oat porridge will be just fine."
Holding her quill with her magic, Moon ignored the pencil that was writing down everything and pretended to write down the answer. "Orange menace? I believe you mean the bringer of apples?" Every part of her dialogue was cultivated to be the font of reason in the castle. The Guards had heard all of the monster's complaints, and Moon was here to be her co-conspirator—her hero of reason.
Chrysalis couldn't hold back the amused snort at the title. "It's such a relief to not be the only ch—pony that is noticing. Tell me, wise and all-seeing purveyor of things not apple, what else could you assist me with?"
"I can, for example, keep ponies from annoying you until a set hour. I was assigned to assist you by Princess Celestia herself, and her Royal Guards are at my beck and call to repel all comers." Times. Moon Dancer wanted an itinerary of what the monster had planned for the day, and that was easiest accomplished by just asking her when and where she wanted to be left alone.
"Whilst I'd love to just tell you to keep everypony out until the wedding, the fact is I have myriad small things to do in the morning. But, if you could keep the throngs away until nine A.M., I'd make you my royal advisor on the spot." It was like Celestia had delivered Chrysalis the keys to the castle already—or so the changeling thought. "Just—just make something up to excuse us."
"Of course!" More fake writing from Moon, and a deep desire for the monster to not check her clipboard. "What of your bridesmaids?" The sour look on the monster's face told Moon all she needed. "No—underlined—bridesmaids."
"Actually, even better, could you arrange for all of Twilight Sparkle's friends to be here at nine? If those three airheads can't do the job, I'll distract that orange menace and her friends into the role."
"Absolutely." Moon didn't plan on any such thing, but what the monster had let slip had given her the deepest look yet into its character. "I believe your flowerfillies will be here around midday, I'm sure Rarity can get their dresses organized in short order—and it will keep her out of your mane."
Things were going so swimmingly that Chrysalis almost blurted all her plans. Recovering mentally, she looked down at the bookish-looking pony. "I missed your name…"
If what was coming next was what Moon assumed would be coming next, she had to make sure not to lie, though every instinct told her to give a fake name. "Moon Dancer."
For a moment Chrysalis started to call her magic. She began to push it toward the place in her head that caused her eyes to become mesmeric, but felt a twinge of warning. Gritting her teeth tightly, she cursed under her breath that the three bridesmaids had taken so much of her focus to control.
Discarding her plan to invade the mind of Moon Dancer, Chrysalis instead opted for a ruse. Conspiratorially looking around the room, she leaned down to Moon and covered the side of her mouth with a hoof. "I need to know how loyal you are to Equestria?"
It was so cliché that Moon barely managed to not laugh outright. "I am dedicated to whomever sits on the throne." This was off-script, but Moon's mind was racing to cultivate her persona further and reinforce herself as a sycophant. "Why, Your Highness?"
Chrysalis could smell ambition, and the room was rank with it. "You see, Princess Celestia hasn't told anypony but us princesses that she plans to abdicate tomorrow. Since I'll be stepping up to take control of Equestria, that would make me the mare who 'sits on the throne', as it were."
Moon made an appropriate gasp, mostly because it was the real deal. The monster, she realized, intended to take over Equestria. "I-I was not aware of such, Your Highness." Every time Moon had said your highness, she'd noticed a flicker of green in "Cadance"'s eyes.
"Yes, well, it will mean that I'll have need of ponies—ponies loyal to the mare who sits on the throne—to assist in this changeover. It will not be easy, but I believe you have what it takes to be my right-hoof-mare. Do you think you'll be capable of that?" Chrysalis licked her lips and could almost taste the excitement to be in such a position that she perceived in Moon Dancer. "I believe you will."
Dipping her head to hide the gulp she used to force bile back down her throat, Moon Dancer lowered herself to one knee before the monster. "Your Highness, I am your servant to command."
"Rise, Moon Dancer. Stand tall and proud, and await my next commands. For now you have a list of—problems to take care of. See that those mares arrive sharply at nine." Chrysalis raised a hoof and made a dismissive gesture toward Moon. "Please, my fiance requires his—sleep."
"Yes, Your Highness!" Spinning about on the spot, Moon Dancer mentally defenestrated any further questions. She had too much to pass on to Luna as it was.
When the door closed, Chrysalis licked her lips with glee. "These ponies never cease to amaze me. How quickly will they not only welcome their doom, but beckon it on like some kind of—of small, suicidal mammal."
With the door closed behind her, Moon Dancer embraced the fight or flight response of her kind—she galloped like a windigo for the main castle.
Being late at night, and with all the Guard now familiar with her, Moon wasn't stopped until she reached the door of Luna's offices. One very hostile-looking bat pony stood there. "You need to let me in!"
"Princess Luna is in a conference with Princess Celestia. You'll have to head to—" Filthy Dreams almost spat when Moon Dancer galloped off without hearing him out. "Don't know why I bother sometimes."
Knowing the hallways of the castle, Moon rounded one and spotted a bat pony and Citron standing out front of the Two Sisters' Conference Room. Slowing down a little, she trotted up to them. "I need to see the princesses."
"You check. I can handle one on my own." Sharp Fang narrowed her eyes a moment then sharpened her peripheral vision again. When Citron stepped inside and closed the door, she tried to feel for every stray movement. "You reported this, didn't you? Princess Luna says there are monsters that can look like another pony, and we don't know exactly who might be who."
"Yeah, I—I just found out more information from the impostor." Moon was never sure how to handle the bat ponies that seemed to flock to Luna. They always looked as ready to tear something apart as smile and wave. "It—" The door opened again and Citron walked out.
"Go inside," Citron said, and closed the door behind Moon when she did so.
Within the conference room was more than the two alicorns Moon had expected. They were there, of course, but so was Blue Blood, Joyce Mango, and Sweetie Drops. The last of which stood out more because she had more armor on than even Citron had been attired in.
Dipping her head, Moon Dancer showed as much respect as she could given the way her heart was hammering still. "I have news of the impostor."
Luna rushed over to Moon and leaned down to her ear. "You are acting normal?"
The question made Moon snicker a little. "Never. I reject normalcy."
"She is not being controlled. Thank the night you're safe." Luna, surprising herself, reached a foreleg around Moon's withers and hugged her briefly. Stepping back, she cleared her throat. "Please, report on what you found."
"This creature is trying to take over. It—it tried to recruit me as a co-conspirator, to which I resisted a little, but then agreed." As she spoke, Moon was surprised at how expressive the normally haughty Blue Blood was. "It's vain, every time I called them 'your highness', it was like I promised it I would lead them directly to the throne. It wanted me to bring all of Twilight's friends—her friends from Ponyville—to Cadance's home at nine in the morning."
Taking the offered verbatim notes, Luna started to read them and then held them out to Blue. "This here. Hesitation on a word starting ch."
"She almost said her species." Blue Blood could practically taste the information just out of his reach.
Shaking her head, Sweetie Drops tapped her chin—as she'd seen Lyra do—as she thought on one thing. "Did she use telekinesis at all?"
The question surprised Moon. "Y-Yes." That's when it hit her what had been odd. "It was green!"
"And when she used it, did her whole horn glow as normal, or did it pulse from the base toward the tip?"
Thinking hard, Moon closed her eyes to focus on when she'd seen the monster pick something up. "Th-The latter, I think—No. It was definitely the latter. That's not how pony magic works."
"Changeling," Sweetie said. "It's a changeling, though I've never heard of one that could control minds. They're an annoyance in the south, but they've never made a move into Equestria before." She looked up at Celestia. "There was a warning?"
"A pony in Appleloosa who told the sheriff there that an invasion was coming. One changeling, no matter how powerful, is an invasion." Luna was getting better at following current events, but like in her older days, she excelled at minutiae of detail—it was the reason her fight with her sister had started, after all.
"What if that pony was a changeling trying to throw us off?" Sweetie asked.
Despite her recent encounter with one of the monsters, Moon Dancer couldn't help picking a contrary argument. "Or what if they were trying to warn us?"
"You know," Blue said, "I despise these kinds of answers. 'It's a changeling,' you say. Well, that just makes even more questions. You'll have to excuse me, I need to go spill cider all over myself and stumble into the monster in an effort to get more despicable answers like these."
Moon just stared at the stallion as he left the room. "Just like that? He's going to face it down and get—"
"Yes, Moon Dancer. My nephew knows what he's doing and what he's risking." Celestia cleared her throat to hide the fact she almost choked up. "So we're dealing with one or more changelings. How long until you can have a comprehensive report of their expected capabilities written up?"
Sweetie caught the relieved look on Moon's face that Celestia wasn't talking to her. "I'll head to the Guard library and start collating what they have. No more than two hours—less if I have somepony to help."
"I can help!" Moon was unsurprised by how loud she shouted it. The fact was this whole situation terrified her, and the thought of an hour or so in a library sounded like just what she needed.
"Sister," Celestia turned to Luna, "please accompany them to the Guard compound. I'd like you to head-up tactics. No matter if it's one singular, powerful changeling or an army of thousands."
Fire filled Luna's blood. This was what she'd lived for, and it was wonderful to find it again. "Of course."
It was a different vibe that saw Moon Dancer returning to the E.U.P. Guard that evening. She had, on one flank, a mare that looked like she could trample an army and then come back for seconds, and on the other she had an alicorn princess whom she was seeing an entirely new side of. For as long as Moon had known Luna, she'd been an awkward intellectual who'd struggled and fought to connect with the modern era. This Luna, now, had a new sense of purpose behind her.
When they were past the gate guards—who'd snapped to attention so quickly Moon thought they would knock themselves out with their salutes—she heard one sound she didn't expect from Sweetie.
Reaching a steel-clad hoof up to wipe the tear from her cheek, Sweetie turned to look at Moon. "Is Lyra okay? Do you—Luna said you'd met with her."
"She's fighting it. Spell effects like the one wrought on her shouldn't allow for so much autonomy, but somehow Lyra managed to raise the alarm about all this, get the right ponies to Canterlot to deal with a potential disaster, and is protecting her friends. Twinkleshine was barely able to speak, Minuette was a wreck, but Lyra held them together." Moon didn't need to embellish, and she surprised herself at how easy it was to sing her former classmate's praises. "The effect, though, will be easy to remove once we don't fear giving the game away."
"Thank you." The words choked free of Sweetie's throat. "Y-Your Highness, you will find Lieutenant Stiff Peaks in his offices. The heavily guarded building over there."
Pausing, Luna halted in her tracks—which caused the other two to stop as well. She examined Sweetie with some care to her aura. "You're bracing?"
"Yes," Sweetie Drops said.
"Bracing?" Moon Dancer asked, confusion evident on her face.
"Bracing is the old term for grounding, what a trained earth pony does to avoid magical effects. I will not end up like Lyra, and I will not see myself used as a weapon against my friends again." Sweetie's tone was deliberate and sounded like she was almost about to break into tears.
Luna felt worry and more than a little pride in Sweetie's tone. "How long have you been like this?"
"Since I heard the news of what happened to Lyra."
Being night time, Luna was quite literally within her element. Closing her eyes, she pulled the dark of the night down around them. "Relax your protection, sergeant."
Straining, Sweetie trembled for nearly ten seconds before finally being able to relax her defenses. When she finally stopped, her legs almost folded under her.
The change in the mare hardened Luna's resolve further. Pulling her power in closer, she wrapped it around all three of them individually.
It was akin to running a twelve-hour marathon, then being dunked in a barrel of ice water. Every part of Sweetie screamed for a second before the chill of Luna's magic shored her back up. Taking stock of the situation, she felt renewed and empowered—but above all she felt invincible. "Thank you, princess."
"You're welcome but, please, just call me Luna." Feeling the chill of her own magic wrapping around her like armor, Luna looked up at the moon and was reminded of what Equestria meant to her. "That will protect you until daybreak. Get your report for my sister, have Moon Dancer bring you to my study, and ensure you get some sleep."
"Yes, Your—Luna." Sweetie managed to correct herself just before the usual honorific spilled out. Turning for the library, she started marching with Moon at her side. The sound of four, heavy hooves hitting the ground near Luna made her look back, but it was one of the bat ponies that followed Luna everywhere.
Filthy Dreams didn't normally hit the ground so hard, but with all that was going on he didn't really care for being elegant and nice. "Okay, so they're going to find out what this bugger can do, while you're going to talk to a bunch of big-wigs about how to deal with it and any friends it's got. Expecting any hostiles in this place?"
"No. Preparing in case there is? Yes. I have to take it as a possibility that if we have one shapechanging monster in our city, we could have more." Reaching the doorway where two huge ponies (one unicorn, one earth pony) in armor stood—both members of the Royal Guard—Luna paused. "You need me to—"
Flaring his horn, Bartlett used a spell he'd been forced to study earlier in the day—Species Identification was getting a lot of use. "Sorry, Your Highness, but we have to be sure. You're both free to enter." Dialing it in to alicorn had let Bartlett easily recognize that Luna was who she said she was, and Filthy could be accepted by association.
Inside the building, Luna and Filthy found nearly a dozen ponies all grumbling over a map. As one they froze when they realized Luna had walked into the room. "My sister has asked me to return to her by morning with a series of plans for the defense of Canterlot. There could be one changeling, there could be thousands—we need to account for every possibility."
Spring Dance's blood chilled at the word. The old ache in his damaged horn faded into the background as he looked at the princess and her guard with his stoic, single-eyed stare. "Changeling? It's been confirmed?"
Luna nodded. "One of our operatives tricked it into using its magic to lift an object—bright green, and its horn pulsed from base to tip. I don't think I need to explain that Cadance's aura is typically in shades of light blue."
It was information Stiff Peaks knew how to act on. "I'll have some ponies scour the library for all information we have on changel—"
"Sergeant Sweetie Drops and my own advisor, Moon Dancer, are already in your library doing that." It shouldn't have surprised Luna that dropping Sweetie's name encouraged so many sighs of relief, but she kept forgetting that the mare in question had caught the eye of Lyra Heartstrings. "We need to prepare for war, gentleponies."
By the time the first hour was up, Sweetie was more than thankful she had Moon with her. A unicorn to carry books to/from the shelves was one thing, but one that understood at an instinctual level both the filing system and how to work with research books was something else.
Also, as Sweetie had discovered, Moon was literally fueled by coffee.
"So, from what we've gathered, the mind-control aspect is only possessed by a queen changeling. This is less than ideal news, but at least we have something to show for our time." Moon Dancer tilted her head from one side to the other, earning a pair of clicks. "I've been awake too long."
"Any cramps or stiff muscles? Have you tried adding a teaspoon of salt to your coffee?" With her nose in yet another tome on extra-Equestrian threats, Sweetie rattled off the questions without a second thought.
"Salt?!"
"Helps keep your electrolytes up. Give it a try." Sweetie closed the volume when she found nothing new on their topic. "I think this is all we're going to get."
"One last book. This is just a field guide, but it was retrieved by an archaeologist and translated to Equish from old Sealantean." Setting another book down before Sweetie, Moon walked over and started pouring another cup from the coffee pot.
Looking at the salt shaker, Moon now realized that Sweetie might not have been lying to her about it. Carefully, she added a small amount to her mug and took a sip.
The coffee was just horrid enough already that the salty flavor was almost completely destroyed—almost. "This was a terrible idea," Moon said as she took another sip. "Why did I listen to you?"
"No clue. Lyra normally ignores anything I say unless it's in praise of her." The way Sweetie loaded up her sentence with sarcastic undertones, she was sure Moon wouldn't get the wrong impression. "Huh. Apparently a good disorienting spell will stun a changeling and usually cause them to return to their natural form."
"I'm sure that would be immediately more useful if I knew any spells like that." Moon wasn't above using sarcasm herself. Taking a deeper sip of her coffee, she floated the books Sweetie wasn't using back to their correct spots on the shelves. "So, we're done here?"
Flicking through her notes on the two different types of changelings, Sweetie nodded. "We are. Let's go and see if Princess Luna wants this before we take a copy to Princess Celestia."
Putting the final book away, Moon followed Sweetie out of the library and into the dark night. "Shouldn't we feel, you know, afraid? Night time—evil monsters stalking the city…"
"And here we are, wrapped in Princess Luna's power that's probably a better foil for anything they could throw at us than my armor?" Sweetie raised one eyebrow at Moon as they walked toward Stiff Peaks' actual office.
"Sergeant, I can't let you in there, sorry." Bartlett stood his ground. "Order of damn near everypony senior to both of us."
Fishing around in her saddlebag, Moon Dancer pulled out a token. "What about if I show you this?" Midnight black, it actually glittered and reflected the starlight somehow.
Straightening, Bartlett used the standard identification spell on the token, then repeated the spell he'd used to identify Luna earlier. "With that you can go in. The Sergeant is with you?"
"She is," Moon said.
Entering the building together, Sweetie stepped before Moon. Instinct drove her—she trusted the two Royal Guards behind her, but beyond the foyer of the office anything could be present.
Noticing the way Sweetie got before her, Moon was a little concerned. "What are you doing?"
"Force of habit. You're a civilian and I don't know what's ahead." Sweetie shrugged her armored shoulders. "By the sound of it, they're in the planning room."
The knock on the door surprised Luna and the rest of the room into silence. Without a word, Filthy walked over and worked his nerves up to the edge of twitching. Two creatures, his senses told him, quadrupeds and one of them was far heavier than the other. "It's the sergeant and your assistant."
"Open the door, but be ready in case they are not who they appear to be." Luna's words were firm, but she was exceptionally grateful that she had such a pony as Filthy Dreams on her side.
When the door opened and Sweetie was facing Filthy, she let out a sigh of relief. "I have the reports, Your Highness."
With Sweetie in sight, Luna could feel her magic still on the mare. "They're who they appear, Filthy. Let them in." When the two stepped into the room, she was glad to feel they both still carried her magic. "What did you manage to find?"
"We're dealing with two threats from the same source. Regular changelings can't"—Sweetie froze as she watched Moon's magic pick the reports from her hoof and then duplicate the pages as she passed them out to all present—"can't make use of mind-control, but that's where we started picking up information on the greater threat."
"A queen changeling?" Spring Dance looked at Sweetie Drops. "Bigger, more magic, a greater threat, but it says here they are often accompanied by swarms of the regular changelings. Where's the swarm?"
"Outside the barrier." The pieces all fell together for Luna. "Who erected the barrier? Who maintains it?"
Spring's blood ran to ice. "Shining Armor."
"And who is closest to Shining Armor?"
"Right now, this." Spring held up the sheaf of papers with Changeling Queen written large on the front. "Your Highness, could you make another stallion look like Shining Armor?"
The room went quiet and still. Luna had to fight against that oppressive shock and look into Spring's one eye. "I can, but it won't be you, commander. There are other ponies better for this job than the most experienced fighter of monsters in the country." Mental sighs rang out around her, or so Luna liked to think. "Sweetie, Moon, Filthy—please escort me."
"Your Highness—Luna—please advise us what you plan," Stiff asked.
"I will be extracting Shining Armor from that creature's clutches and replacing him with an operative. I will not be naming the replacement, suffice to say he is completely loyal to the crown."
Prince Blue Blood stared at Luna. "You want me to go back to that beast and—and pretend to be its captive?" Of course she did. He knew it was his duty to, but there was a little voice in the back of his head (the one he referred to as his common sense) that screamed at him that this was the worst idea ever. Huffing out a sigh, Blue nodded and shoved that voice back in the box he normally kept it in. "Of course you do. How are we going to do this?"
"Not why?" Moon looked from Blue to Sweetie to Luna.
"If I asked why, it wouldn't be very sporting of me. I know Auntie Luna wouldn't cast such magics and put me into danger for a lark. Obviously this is important enough for me to risk my life." Blue winked at Luna. "So, how?"
"You're already the right coat color. The changes to make you the spitting image of Shining Armor are small and within my power. Then we need to sneak you into Cadance's bedroom and the real Shining Armor out. Moon, you've had the best rapport with the creature—can you distract it?" Luna turned her attention on Moon Dancer.
Sweetie cleared her throat. "Not alone. It might have enough juice left to mind-control one more pony, but it wouldn't think about trying two. According to the notes, it should be tapped-out already. I'll be your guard, Moon."
"Good idea," Luna said. "While you two keep it distracted, we'll slip in and Blue will take Shining's place, and I'll teleport Shining out and break the grip on his mind. That will probably result in this changeling getting very upset."
"And she'll find me in the bedroom, looking confused and a little triumphant." Blue sighed. "And she'll slam me with all her magic again and I'll have to think I'm Shining so much I'll need to convince myself."
Moon looked up at Blue. "That's easy. Luna, your word is absolute, right?" She waited for Luna to nod. "So, make an official proclamation that until tomorrow night, Blue Blood is Shining Armor. That way it'll be true."
"That will work?" Sweetie asked.
Grinning, Blue nodded. "Absolutely! Unless she digs around for more certain answers, I can use that hook to make myself know I am Shining. Good thinking, Miss Moon."
The praise made Moon's heart speed up a little and her cheeks grow a little red. For some reason she couldn't get her mind off Stiff Peaks and the date she had agreed to. "W-Well, good luck with that. I guess we get this done as soon as possible?"
"The longer we leave Shining in her clutches," Sweetie said, "the greater her chance of draining his magic and destroying the barrier."
"Okay, Auntie, hit me with your magic and let's do this," Blue said.
Moon had never seen this particular spell wrought, mostly because of how obscenely complicated it was. She watched as Luna built a spell matrix that would have taken Moon a week to memorize—at the loss of all her other spells—and then Luna cast it.
Staring down the barrel of enough cobalt magic to flatten him completely, Blue closed his eyes and trusted Luna to know what she was doing. When he couldn't feel magic crackling over his body anymore, he opened his eyes—and saw blue bangs hanging down into his vision. "How do I look?"
Sweetie stared in real shock. "Just like him. I mean, exactly like him."
"Good. Of everypony here, you know Shining Armor the best." Luna gave a nod. "Now, do you all know what you're going to do?"
Moon couldn't believe what she'd seen. The spell was a work of art and the result only a mere conclusion to its performance. Luna's question, however, broke her from her attempts to process what she'd seen. "Advise the creature that I can't contact Twilight's friends and that I'll have to get special permission to even get near them with all the new security."
"I'm part of that security. Whenever you start talking, I'll argue. Yell as much as you want." Sweetie held up her hoof to Moon, who looked at it with a little confusion before she realized she was meant to clop it with her own. "You'll want it sympathizing with you, which means you get to be its stand-in to yell at me while I try to be as infuriating as possible."
Blue tossed his head so that his new mane fell across one eye—until he blew upward to scatter it. "Why can't I play that role? You'd make a better Shining, anyway."
"Hrmm, but I lack certain equipment." Turning to Luna, Sweetie asked, "This spell can't make a mare into a stallion, can it?"
"Of the two of us, my sister's magic is far more potent. She burns with the potential of the sun. Mine is more subtle, and suited to this kind of spell. But between us, we couldn't do that." Luna used her magic to open the door of her office. "Just remember, Nephew, you don't actually have to marry her."
Stepping into the hallway, Blue Blood looked left and right at the two bat ponies. "Hey, uh, can you show me the way to the big pink monster?"
Filthy was a little startled by the change in Blue, but a glance back into the room showed him Luna walking out behind the stallion. "The big pink monster is right this way, Commander Shining Armor."
Following along toward the building Cadance and Shining had been living in for quite a few years, Sweetie steeled herself for her part in the upcoming situation, that's when she got an idea. "Moon, drink about half of this."
Walking beside Sweetie, Moon watched her reach back and produce a bottle of a yellowish substance. "What is it?"
"There's a few names for it, but if we're going to be on the ball here, we may need it." When Moon didn't look any further encouraged, Sweetie sighed. "Caffeine, sugar, salt. It's mostly just something to wake and fuel you up. It will make you not just awake, but hyper-awake."
"Huh. Sounds like breakfast." Taking the bottle, Moon opened it and sniffed. "Smells really sweet and—"
"We're almost there. Can you please just drink it?"
Sticking her tongue out at Sweetie, Moon tipped the bottle up and drank half of it down in one long swig. The effects were swift. The dulling of her mind that she'd been feeling was gone and Moon felt like she could gallop a marathon—not that she'd ever galloped (or even walked) one before, but she was sure she could now. "Wow!"
"Okay, let me drink the rest. My in-laws might be bat ponies, but that doesn't mean I can stay up all night." Sweetie caught the bottle Moon passed her and swigged it down. Like every time she'd used it before, the syrup-sweet concoction made her feel more solid and focused, though she knew its boost was limited. "If we want to survive past about two hours, we'll need to eat something."
"What? But I feel great!"
"Yeah, you see, there's enough caffeine in this for about four to six hours, but if you do anything beyond a light walk, you run out of energy in two. Pack more energy and you'll stay awake longer just because you're doing something." Screwing the lid back on the bottle, Sweetie stowed it in her pack. "I think it'd be best if you yelling at me was what wakes the monster up."
Moon shook her head. "I think it'd be best if your knocking on the door was what woke her up. That way she's immediately on my side if I defend her against you."
Tilting her head to the side a little, Sweetie nodded. "Yeah. Good plan. Okay." Nearing the door, Sweetie advanced right up to it and lifted her armored hoof.
What worried Moon the most, when Sweetie started hammering her hoof on the door, was her companion actually bringing the door down.
"Open up in the name of the E.U.P. Guard!"
Chrysalis had only barely gotten to sleep when the hammering on the building started. At first, she hoped to just ignore it, but when the third set of "knocking" came, it brought down some plaster from the ceiling. "I am going to grab whomever that is and glue them upside down to the ceiling. Stay here, slave."
Standing beside the bed, his legs locked, Shining couldn't get much further than the command she'd given him. He was almost completely done-in. His mind was a wreck and his body hadn't gotten true rest in days.
As soon as the monster left the bedroom, Luna struck. She eased open the doorway to the balcony and gave Blue a pat on the shoulders.
Blue still kept his mind focused on being Shining Armor. Using his magic, and working with Luna, he stripped the armor and uniform from Shining as the argument started downstairs.
"I'll give you ten seconds to tell me wh—" Chrysalis froze, staring at the two mares. One, wearing more armor than she'd ever seen a pony wear before, looked impassive and stoic. The other, Chrysalis' personal stooge, looked apoplectic.
"You can't just bang on the door of a quee—princess in the small hours before her wedding day! This is ridiculous behavior and I will personally see you drummed out of the Guard!" Moon was just working up to full steam.
Turning slightly, Chrysalis barely realized she was moving to stand beside Moon—taking up a supportive stance.
When Moon felt the monster touch her side, she almost jumped. "Oh! Your Imperial Majesty! I was just trying to stop this—"
"I'm just doing my duty, ma'am." Sweetie wasn't going to give either of them more prestige than that. "I was told to be down here at three A.M. and to wake you."
"No you weren't! You were instructed to be here at nine A.M.! Why would the que—princess want a wake-up call at this hour?!" With a serious hit of caffeine in her blood, Moon Dancer was in her element. She stood tall and glared down on (well, even she had to admit that Sweetie Drops was taller than her, but she was sure it was the armor doing that) Sweetie Drops, and kept up a flow of berating that grew more thorns the longer she went.
Having stripped the real Shining of his equipment, Luna and Blue worked fast to fit it onto Blue himself. Each piece needed to be quietly assembled before Blue was completely dressed the same. Turning to Luna, he hoped against hope that he'd see her again before the next evening. Instead of speaking, he bowed his head, and was shocked to see Luna do the same to him.
"Be ready," Luna said as softly as she could, which given her penchant for the Royal Canterlot Voice, was surprisingly quiet. Backing up to the balcony, she stood on the edge and then sent a wave of magic in and at Shining Armor.
Terror, strain, and panic ripped free of Shining's trapped mind as Luna swept away the mind-control. He looked around with a panic—saw a doppelganger of himself, and tried to shout. The only thing that stopped him was a cobalt glow of magic pinning his snout closed; a glow that wrapped around more of him and lifted him out the window.
"Ugh, what's going on?" Blue Blood asked, winking at the departing Shining Armor. "What's—?"
Chrysalis, having felt her mind-control spell shatter, turned from the ongoing argument and would have flown up the stairs if she thought she could manage it faster than galloping. "My love!" Her headache (from having her magic forcefully shattered) made building a repeat of the mind-control entrapment hard—after several tries to work it with precision and subtlety, she just shoved it into the stallion's head.
Mentally relaxing, Blue tried to move with the blow, but even doing that meant he felt darkness wrapping around him as well as the magic itself. Not fighting the knockout blow, he smiled a little as he crumpled to the floor.
"Your Majesty! I'll make sure this idiot is scrubbing the castle bathrooms for the rest of her life!" Backing away from the door, Moon used her magic to pull it closed. She tried to march Sweetie authoritatively toward the castle, but it wasn't easy to guide that much mare given her own size.
The moment they were inside the halls of the castle, Sweetie let out squeal she'd been desperately holding onto. "We did it. You did it!"
"Me? I just kept shouting, calling her whatever title or honorific I thought she'd like, and doing it all with the power of—What was that stuff you made me drink?" Moon was actually pronking on all four legs, her energy just buzzing around her body.
"Uh, it's got a lot of names. It's usually used by Guardponies whenever they need just a few more hours of peak energy. Remind me at some point to only recommend half-bottles for civilians." Sweetie guided Moon along the hall for a bit, before stopping. "I can't remember the way to Luna's—"
"I know the way!" Moon Dancer said, then disappeared with a pomf of magical teleportation, only to reappear a moment later. "That was the kitchen. This way!" Another pomf, and another return. "Princess Luna said to come back and lead you there without teleporting."
Sweetie reached out a hoof and poked Moon on the horn just before she cast what was obviously another teleport—it was the gentlest way to dissuade a spell. "How about we just walk?"
"Walk! Yes!" Moon's head was fizzing. She couldn't remember when she'd memorized a teleport spell, or how she'd worked out the coordinates. "Have you got another bottle of that—that good stuff?"
"Yeaaaaaah, no. We're going back to the princess' office and we're going to sleep there. You know why?" Sweetie walked beside Moon while she still pronked along. When Moon shook her head, Sweetie continued. "It's because we haven't eaten anything, and that means you, at least, are just about ready to—"
Chuckling, Sweetie lifted Moon onto her back. "And now, carrying you should give me just enough extra work that I'll be dead on my hooves when we reach the right room."