The number of those who made it inside was smaller than how Ashley would have liked, but they were more than enough to take down the unicorn who made the barrier, so they all flew straight towards the palace.
More volleys of arrows were thrown towards them, this time joined by magenta and azure magic blasts, cutting down the ranks even more, but it didn't matter to the queen: soon other breaches would open and more of her subjects would be to her side.
Having come near enough to their objective, every member of the group covered himself, or herself in the queen's case, with an hemispherical green shield and launched themselves towards the three ponies on the balcony.
This proved to be a bit too rushed since most of the faceplanted into many shimmering light blue walls of force, leaving only Ashley and two of her private guards to face the armor clad pink alicorn left to cover the other two retreat.
"Well, well, well, the little pony princess is now ready to bow her head to her new queen?" asked Ashley with a smug grin.
"New queen? Please, you're just an overgrown flea!" retorted Cadence, her voice dripping poison.
"Bark all you want, little pony, for that's all you can do! Guards, get her!" answered the changeling queen without dropping her grin.
Instantly, the two bulky guards jumped at the pink mare, pinning her down. Such a maneuver would have proven good with an earth pony or a pegasus; unfortunately for the duo, Cadence had a horn too.
She grabbed them with her telekinesis and sent one slamming in the marble floor, the other in the palace crystalline walls.
"I can bite too," she said with a determined look while rising once again.
This made Ashley drop her grin in favor of an angry expression.
Her twisted horn lit up and let out an emerald green blast, which the alicorn dodged swiftly.
They jumped at each other, lashing magic bolts and flailing their forelegs.
One green blast charred some of Cadence left wing's feathers, but in return she jabbed the changeling in the muzzle, cracking slightly her carapace on the right cheek.
Ashley, having evidently lost her temper, let out a huge, dome-shaped wall of flames that incinerated everything in the balcony, namely the two guards since the pink pony succeeded in jumping over the edge.
"Serve you right: nopony dares to scar my beautiful face," said the queen contemplating the now black floor of the balcony before reaching for the window to go after her prey.
---
Meanwhile, in another part of the palace, Twilight was fiercely fighting her urge to panic, resulting surprisingly victorious at the price of the 'lives' of seven stress balls, the number of causalities increasing by the minute as she kept squeezing them between her front hooves.
She was sitting on the bed of one of the many guest rooms, which was identical to the one she had shared with queen Chrysalis just a pair of days before, while her brother stood at the window, occasionally reinforcing the barrier or mending it where new holes were opened; Spike, who was sitting near the lavender unicorn, kept passing her new 'victims' to squish as soon as they were required.
They didn't speak, for it would simplify the task of pinpointing their position through the illusions the librarian had weaved in the corridor. And in that silence filled with tension, they heard a set of hoof pacing down the hallway.
Clip-clop, clip-clop.
The hoofsteps' owner proceeded past their room, the noise slowly fading.
The three of them let out a sigh of relief.
Clip-clop, clip-clop.
The hoofsteps echoed once again in the hallway.
The stress was swiftly becoming unbearable for the only mare in the room, particularly thanks to the fact that she had destroyed the fifteenth and last ball some seconds earlier.
Clip-clop, clip.
The sound stopped, another one clearly audible: Twilight was hyperventilating.
In an instant, Spike launched himself on his mother/sister doing his best to silence her, as the stallion readied himself to fight.
Knock-knock.
The one on the other side of the door started knocking on the wall, testing if it sounded empty or not; luckily, the librarian's illusions took that into account too, returning the typical sound of a full, twenty centimeters wide, stone wall.
The pony in the hallway hummed, clearly satisfied by what she heard, then no sound could be heard anymore.
The three in the room exchanged worried looks as the silence stretched for a minute, then finally came a sound. Quite unfortunately for them, it was the crack made by the door while succumbing to an explosion of bright green flames.
"Found you," chimed a double-toned, raspy voice from the hallway.
Queen Ashley grinned knowing that her victory was within hoof reach as she made the first step in the room.
A bright magenta ray prevented her from making a second, forcing her to summon a green shield.
A strong flash of light made her drop her grin, as the three disappeared in thin air.
---
"What do we do now?" whispered Twilight into her brother hear, her voice barely audible.
She had teleported the three of them out of the changeling sight, but they still were pretty near being in one of the other bedrooms.
They could hear the queen's muffled screams of rage through the closed door.
"You can hide, but I won't let you run again!" shouted the enraged queen.
Both unicorns could clearly feel the massive surge of magical power in the hallway. Twilight paled visibly.
"Twi?" asked Shining Armor, his worry for the sister he loved clear in his voice.
"That's a disaster: she casted a powerful teleport-interdicting spell! I seriously doubt that even Cadence would be able to overpower that!" explained the mare as the panic came back with the strength of a tidal wave.
A loud blast could be heard down the corridor, clear proof that Ashley was searching the chambers, followed by the changeling's two-toned voice expressing her disappointment.
"What's the plan?" asked Spike moving his gaze between Twilight and her brother.
Another explosion, this time nearer.
"When I yell, you two run as fast as you can. I'll buy you some time," explained the lavender unicorn with a determined look on her face.
"I wont leave you behind!" hissed the baby dragon.
"Nor will I!" echoed the stallion while the blasts from the corridor where getting dangerously near.
"You must stand Shiny, or the empire is done for, and you Spike must help him for me," retorted the immovable librarian.
The two males wanted to argue on that point, but Twilight silenced them as the last explosion got the closest room on their right.
The three of them braced themselves from the coming blast. As the door exploded in a rain of wooden shards, the librarian let loose a beam of magenta energy and yelled.
Shining and Spike, unable to leave the mare, charged on towards the tall shadow in the cloud of dust raised by the demolition.
Soon, magenta and green beams bolted between the two parts, followed by dark green flames, yet in the end the trio's efforts were for naught, since the queen easily subdued each of her opponents through magic, like blasting the little dragon into a wall or telekinetically smashing the stallion in the floor, or through mere brute force, as bucking Twilight in the face.
"You lost, and with you the whole empire!" boasted Ashley approaching the nearly unconscious king with a smug grin "I admit that you gave me some troubles, but in the end I can say that this day has been just perfect."
Her horn glowed to life once more, ready to discharge.
There was a flash of green light and Ashley's hooves lost contact with the floor as she was tossed further in the hallway.
"That's sad," commented a different two-toned, raspy voice as a new set of crystal-like black holed hooves entered Shining's field of vision "You even stole my most famous line."