We'll Always Have Canterlot

by Tortfeasor

Gifts

Disclaimer: Rarr... Snarl... I don’t own My Little Pony.

The richly appointed meeting room in the royal castle was typically filled with bureaucrats or visiting dignitaries. It offered a grand view from the mountain on which Canterlot rested, a demonstration of just how large and prosperous Equestria was. Today however, only two ponies resided within, and neither paid much attention to the spectacular vista laid out before them.

“I’m so sorry I failed you Princess Cadance!” Rarity gasped between sobs on the floor. “I promise I won’t rest or stop until all Equestria loves you as much as I do! Just please, please don’t banish me from you!”

The creature that wasn’t Cadance, but wore her face and name, let an indolent smile cross her face. “You’ve all said almost exactly those same words as I’ve brought you in. If I hadn’t done the same thing to each of your minds I’d be suspicious about it. But no matter, I’ve discussed with each of you how Twilight Sparkle was able to hold all four of you off, and what you’ll do better the next time to ensure she joins our happy little family. I have to admit though, I’m particularly disappointed with you Rarity. I’d heard you were a talented unicorn, and yet Twilight Sparkle made you look like a talentless foal. Would you care to tell me why that is?”

“Forgive me Princess!” A new round of sobbing wracked the unicorn as she prostrated herself even deeper into the rich carpets on the floor. “I’m a failure as a unicorn and your servant! Let me take my life to show you my final devotion!”

Cadance’s voice tinkled laughter at something the real Cadance would be appalled at. “Oh that will come eventually, once I have all of you in my hooves. But for now, stop crying and tell me why you weren’t able to so much as hinder Twilight Sparkle with your magic.”

The dark magic coursing through her brain meant that the command caused Rarity to cease crying in the space of a heartbeat. “Of course Princess Cadance. My magical studies, practice, and efforts have all centered around my previous life as a tailor. I am rather talented at that, but beyond being able to handle many threads of magic at once it has no use towards capturing Twilight Sparkle so she can realize your magnificence and glory. I did try to engage her with many small magical attacks, but Twilight was able to use brute force to simply overpower me. As long as she has the stolen Element of Magic boosting her power I’ll never be more than an inconvenience to her, and even if she weren’t using it my own magic is no match for her.”

“Hm, you have been spending every waking moment since Manehatten in practice or the library yes?” At Rarity’s nod Cadance continued. “Twilight Sparkle has a lifetime of study at her command, and her talent allows her to learn magic faster than you could ever dream of. She learned a great deal of magic from merely observing me when we met in the Everfree Forest. Tell me Rarity, would you be willing to risk your very self to catch up to her and better serve me?”

“Of course Princess Cadance!” The answer was somewhat blurred for the frantic nodding going on at the same time. “I would do anything, anything if it meant serving you and showing you my love for you!”

“I thought so.” The smile that crossed Cadance’s face was one the real Cadance would never produce. “You’ll find this process to be the most painful experience of your life. In fact, I rather suspect the pain is beyond your limited capacity to imagine. But if you survive, and retain even a shred of sanity, then you’ll be a far more useful servant to me.”

A mist of magical power began flowing from Cadance’s horn, as it touched Rarity’s horn the white unicorns eyes glazed over and a scream tore itself from her throat. Rarity continued screaming as her legs gave out from under her, she continued screaming as her eyes rolled back in her head, even when she was reduced to a twitching heap incapable of speech she continued to scream. All the while, the smile never left Cadance’s face.

Experience was making long distance teleportation a simple matter for Twilight Sparkle. Of course it helped that she had the most powerful magical amplifier known to ponykind helping her with the spell. As the light from her spell dimmed she found her library back in Ponyville replaced with exactly where she’d planned to send the three of them.

“Welcome to Baltimare,” she said. “I came here once with Applejack to help her deliver an awful lot of apples. The owners of the warehouse were going to clean it out and renovate it after they used all the apples. I remember they said the work would take awhile, so we shouldn't have to worry about any interruptions here.”

“We clearly won’t have to worry about accomodations here either.” Twilight noted that Chrysalis’ panic induced politeness had passed. “Is there a single piece of furniture in this entire building?”

“I’m not planning to grow old here or anything,” Twilight sounded more defensive than she’d planned. “Besides, we’re public enemies one, two, and three across all Equestria. We can’t exactly expect to walk into a five star hotel and have them roll out the red carpet for us. If we have to spend more than a few days here we can look around for something better.”

“Speaking of public enemies,” Shining Armor said as he returned from inspecting the lock on the nearest door. “Don’t you think it’s a little odd that almost no one else has noticed anything odd about all this? Celestia and Luna disappeared, Cadance is ruling with absolute power, and ponies are in love with her to the point of worshiping her.”

“Someone noticed something,” Twilight replied. “Us. Remember though, Cadance is going to some pretty impressive lengths to make sure most ponies don't notice anything. Celestia has taken long vacations before. What’s a decade or two off to an immortal pony with millenia behind her? And since Luna returned I don’t think many ponies would blink twice at the idea that Celestia would want to take a few months, or even years, away from Canterlot to catch up with her. Cadance has also kept her hooves off the government, for now. It sounds like she’s made most of the senior government ponies her puppets, but she doesn’t have them doing anything out of the ordinary. I think part of that is she’s worried about us still being loose. But I think it’s much more that Nightmare Moon is immortal, so what’s a generation to her, or two or three, if that’s what it takes to turn Equestria evil without normal ponies ever noticing.”

“Well that’s depressing.” Chrysalis had returned to her normal appearance. “You do realize that means we’re completely on our own, right? And that if we don’t beat Cadance soon we should just roll over and give up because she’ll have all your precious ponies ready to die just to show how much they love her.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this Twiley, but Chrysalis is right.” Her brother looked vaguely sick at saying those words. “Every pony Cadance takes over is one less pony who would know, or even care, that she’s evil. If she keeps this up we won’t be able to show our faces anywhere without Cadance, your friends, the royal guards, and half the local ponies coming down on us.”

“I never said this was going to be easy. We just need to think of it as motivation to save Cadance and Equestria sooner rather than later. And step one of that is finding Rainbow Dash. With two of us I think we can actually spare some time to help you two fight Cadance if you can ever get your act together. That would let us distract her enough that we can win.”

“One problem with that little sis, we don’t have the first idea where Rainbow Dash is. I really can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think we used up all our luck finding Chrysalis like we did. Poking around all over Equestria just risks Cadance spotting us and getting the drop on us. We need to narrow it down to at least a city, probably even closer if we’re going to find her without having to fight for it.”

“As long as we’re saying things we never thought we would, the idiot is right.” Chrysalis looked slightly nauseous at the admission. “And you’re the only one who knows her well enough to pick up any trail she left behind.”

“How did Fancypants find us?” Twilight tapped a hoof on her chin in thought. “If we can figure that out maybe we can follow the same kind of clues to Rainbow Dash. He said that Ponyville was a logical place for us to go, so where would be a logical place for Rainbow Dash to run to?”

“Cloudsdale,” Chrysalis said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Honestly, I’m not even a pony and I know more about you ponies than you do.”

“That was my first thought too,” Twilight said as she continued working the problem over in her mind. “But it’s too logical, and Rainbow Dash couldn’t hide there. She won the Best Young Flyer competition last year, and did a sonic rainboom to do it, she hobnobbed with the Wonderbolts at the Grand Galloping Gala and the wedding, and she was just in the news for helping to save the Crystal Empire. She might have spent a night there or something, but more than that and someone would notice her.”

“I’m kind of surprised you didn’t say we should go to the library.” Shining Armor tried, without success, to lighten the mood. “That’s how Fancypants found us, and you’ve certainly spent enough of your life in libraries.”

Twilight felt an epiphany come over her. “That’s it! You’re a genius Shining Armor!”

“He is?” Chrysalis sounded like Twilight had just shaken the very foundations of her universe.

“I am.” Shining Armor clearly enjoyed the opportunity to nettle the Changeling Queen for a change.

Twilight barrelled on as though the two had never spoken. “We only had the Foal Free Press to connect us to the world, and that’s only concerned with Ponyville. Rainbow Dash would never leave any clues around there, they’d be tracked back to her almost immediately. But if she left clues somewhere else they’d only show up as a curious occurrence in their news, unless someone just like us saw those clues. Baltimare is a large city, so even a branch library should have newspapers from all over Equestria. We can search everywhere and never expose ourselves. I’ll just cast a simple disguise spell and we can...”

“Um Twiley,” Shining Armor put an interrupting hoof on her shoulder, “you can disguise yourself, but what about that?”

Twilight realized he was pointing to the crown that was the Element of Magic atop her head. “Well I’ll just... I mean I can... I think if I... Maybe I can try... I... Well Baltimare is a long way from Ponyville, maybe the ponies here won’t recognize it for what it is?”

Twilight Sparkle had glared down her brother and Chrysalis several times since her unwanted adventure had started. Now, she found herself quailing under their twin glares.

“I have to go! You two would never be able to spot Rainbow Dash’s trail of breadcrumbs, or know if she’s even leaving one. Maybe I can just take it off while we walk? No! If Cadance does spot us and jump us she’ll start by making me her puppet and we’re done for.”

“Don’t worry little sis.” Shining Armor seemed to have completely dispelled his irritation. “We can just steal the newspapers or something. I never thought I’d be stealing from a library, but I think they’ll forgive us once this is all over and we save Equestria.”

“Do you have any idea how many newspapers there are in Equestria?” Twilight scoffed at the idea. “You’d never get them all out of the library unless you could just... That’s it! Shining Armor, if you cast a small spell, say you barely light your horn, then I can follow that magic to the library and teleport there. It will take some work to follow such a small trail, but I think I can do it. If this works I’ll be able to skip being outside with the Element of Magic and still get into the library.”

“I can’t believe I actually don’t want to rain on your fun parade.” Chrysalis actually didn’t look happy to be shooting down Twilight’s idea. “But what are you going to do once you’re inside this library of yours? I hardly imagine we’ll be alone there in such a large city, and if some pony spots your fancy bauble in there it’s just as bad as outside.”

Shining Armor was the first to come up with an idea. “We talked about stealing newspapers out of the library, maybe we could steal ourselves in. I’m a royal guard, I probably know more about magical security systems than just about any other pony in Equestria. I can break into the library at night, leave Twilight a magical trail, and then you two can teleport in.”

Twilight shook her head. “If we weren’t Equestria’s most wanted it would work. But we don’t know whether or not Baltimare has any security guards in its libraries, and who’s to say that a neighbor doesn’t look out a window and see us in there? Cadance is probably watching for something just like this, and I think we’d all like to avoid a repeat of Manehatten.”

“You can’t just make yourself invisible?” Shining Armor asked. “It would be awkward, but I’m sure Chrysalis and I could flip through enough newspapers for you to look for Rainbow Dash.”

“I wish,” Twilight wistfully said. “Starswirl the Bearded has five volumes devoted to camouflage spells, and he never managed to crack invisibility. I don’t think I’m going to manage it in an afternoon. I should just put a sack over my head and claim I’m horribly scared or something. Who knows, it might keep other ponies away from us while we look.”

“Why not a hat?” Chrysalis had been silent for some while. “It would have to be a fairly big one to fit over that toy of yours, but it wouldn’t be so out of place that it would draw notice.”

“Have you been spending time around Rarity? Giant hats is exactly the sort of thing she’d suggest. I... well, actually I can’t think of anything better. One of you two will have to get it, probably you Chrysalis since a stallion like my brother buying a giant hat would draw notice, and it can’t be anything that stands out too much. I’ll probably draw a few glances if I don’t take it off inside, but with even a little bit of luck no one will think enough of it to talk about it.”

“I’m the Changeling Queen, not some common servant.” Chrysalis sounded terribly affronted at the idea. “Why don’t you just magic up a hat or something?”

“Magic doesn’t work like that.” Then, with a smile, Twilight went on. “And besides, I thought you’d jump at the chance to get away from my brother for a while.”

Chrysalis was out the door in a flash of green almost before the words had left Twilight’s mouth.

Twilight was more than a little glad to see Chrysalis gone herself. She might have forged a working relationship with the Changeling Queen, but ‘friend’ was, and most likely always would be, something they never even remotely approached. She was also glad for a chance to spend the time alone with her brother, they were both terribly wound up and needed the chance to unwind.

Unlike their time in Appleloosa however, there was no sense of cautious optimism in their conversation. Instead, they both felt like they were barely keeping their heads above the water. In Appleloosa they had playfully teased each other, here they were merely able to let their masks slip and show the stress, fatigue, and fear they had to keep bottled up.

It took Chrysalis just short of an hour to return. Twilight had trouble deciding whether it felt like minutes or days had passed while she was gone. She had at least returned with a fairly ordinary hat, though of the oversize proportions necessary to cover the Element of Magic on Twilight’s head.

“This works,” Twilight turned the hat over with her magic. “Let’s rest up, and we’ll be at the library when it opens tomorrow. That gives us a whole day to look through the newspapers. And with a little luck, to look for Rainbow Dash.”

They spent an uncomfortable night sleeping on the bare floor of the warehouse. That meant they had no trouble being awake at an early hour. After making sure they had everything ready Twilight cast spells on herself and her brother to make them particularly non-remarkable. They then gathered their few belongings and set out for the library.

Each pony who passed them on the street brought a twinge of fear that they would be the one to see through Twilight’s magic, but the spells held, and though it took some time to find a library near the warehouse district they eventually found themselves in front of a small branch of the Baltimare Library.

“Alright,” Twilight said as they walked up the simple path to the library. “No one do anything in there to draw attention. We’re just looking at newspapers, and whether or not we find anything we’ll stay calm and totally forgettable. Rainbow Dash is all about speed, being cool, and she’s a weather pony. I don’t know exactly what we’re looking for, but hopefully that’s a start. We also have to remember that whatever we’re looking for is probably going to be pretty well hidden. Rainbow Dash is going to know that my friends are under Cadance’s control after Manehatten. And she knows that they’ll be able to spot any clues she left just as well as I can.”

The librarians and other patrons were all thoroughly engrossed in their own day to day business. The arrival of three new ponies, even ponies not immediately recognizable, occasioned nearly zero interest in any of them. Nor was it of the slightest interest when those three new ponies grabbed several newspapers and commandeered a table for themselves. A few patrons found it mildly impolite that one of the ponies refused to remove her hat inside the library, but none of them found it so objectionable as to talk to the pony or to the librarians.

“I do hope you realize how boring this is,” Chrysalis said an hour later. “I’ve read five stories about local sports, two stories about how much water their weatherponies are bringing them this year, and oh yes, a story about some luckless pony being reunited with its pet that was dumb enough to run away.”

“You’d rather wander around where Cadance can find us?” Twilight glanced up from the newspaper she was perusing. “I’m completely fine with boring, safe, and unnoticed.”

“I’m fine with all those,” Chrysalis retorted. “As long as we’re getting somewhere. This is looking for a needle in a pile of needles the size of Equestria.”

“Pretty much,” Twilight agreed. “But if you’ve got anything better I’m all ears.”

The next hour and a half passed in near silence as they rifled through newspaper after newspaper.

Even Twilight was beginning to despair of success when something caught her eye. The story of slightly unusual cloud formations out on the edge of civilization was nothing particularly special, but she remembered seeing a similar story in the same newspaper from a few days ago. She had just begun reaching for that newspaper when the table exploded in front of her.

Twilight was flung backwards into a wall and counted herself lucky she didn’t hit her head upon impact. She collapsed onto the ground and only instinct allowed her to throw up a magical shield that blocked the focused energy that tried to sever her horn from her head.

“Rarity?” Twilight gasped as she finally got a look into the chaos. No, the pony might have looked exactly like her friend, but the crazed look in her eyes betrayed the reality that behind those eyes was only a dark parody of the other unicorn.

“Twilight, darling, how good to see you again. How do you like the new tricks Cadance taught us?”

“New tricks?” Twilight dissolved another pair of magical blades coming her way. “You teleported here! But that’s impossible. No unicorn has ever mastered teleportation. I only learned it because I saw Nightmare Moon do it.”

“Of course,” Rarity said as she flung the shard of the table at Twilight. “But Cadance was so helpful at getting all of us to overcome our limitations. Now we’ll be able to free you from that horrible Chrysalis and bring you back to Canterlot safe and sound.”

Twilight barely held back a growl, Cadance was digging her claws deeper and deeper into Twilight’s friends. She quickly glanced over to see Shining Armor and Chrysalis fighting her other friends. The other ponies in the library were already fleeing, and as Chrysalis flung a bookshelf at Pinkie Pie, Twilight thought that was likely for the best.

Her momentary distraction nearly cost her a leg, she only grabbed Rarity’s magical blade as it was beginning to cut fur. Cadance had clearly told her friends to stop messing around and win. She had also done something to her friends to make them far better fighters. Twilight had been able to handle all four of them by herself back in Manehatten, now the three of them were definitely outnumbered. Rarity wasn’t only using her precision and ability to handle multiple spells at once, that cursed ring around her horn gave her enough magical power to actually be dangerous.

Twilight could have ended the fight with a truly massive application of power, but that would come with the small consequences of almost certainly killing her friends and causing no small amount of civilians harm. She settled for fighting her way to Chrysalis and her brother. Together they were able to hold the others off without a terrible amount of difficulty. Chrysalis fought with no particular concern about hurting Twilight’s friends, but Cadance’s ‘improvements’ seemed to let them stay safe.

However, it was becoming quite clear that they wouldn’t be able to win before Cadance made an appearance. Twilight was rather surprised her sister-in-law hadn’t made an appearance yet. Well, she wasn’t going to let the opportunity go to waste. Her first attempt to teleport them out ran into the same sickening feeling of failure she’d felt back in Manehatten. However Cadance had taught Rarity to teleport, it had clearly included teaching her how to block teleportation. But, even with that blasted ring, Rarity wasn’t nearly as powerful as Cadance, and Twilight had the Element of Magic on her head. Reality seemed to shimmer as her horn and the crystal glowed like twin suns, Rarity strained to hold the spell, but with a crack and release of energy Twilight punched through the shield.

Teleporting them back to the warehouse had proven far more difficult than coming all the way from Ponyville. Spells still fizzled on Shining Armor and Chrysalis’ horns for a second before they realized they were safe and let the magic lapse. The fighting had lasted barely ten minutes, it only felt like a few hours or so.

“How did they find us?” Shining Armor hurriedly gathered their bags, it was clear they were leaving Baltimare as soon as they could. “Was Fancypants being controlled by Cadance? Did he put some sort of tracker on us?”

“Impossible,” Chrysalis said. “I watched him almost the whole time. If he’d made any suspicious moves he wouldn’t be breathing right now.”

“It wasn’t Fancypants. It was... the light spell!” Twilight had a sudden, horrible realization as she ripped the Element of Magic off her head. “The light spell, I was going to track your magic to the library and then teleport there. I’ve spent enough time around Rarity for her to recognize my magic. There’s no way she could track my normal magic from Canterlot, but with the Element of Magic I must stand out like a sore hoof. As long as I’m wearing this she’ll be able to track me wherever I go.”

“Okay,” her brother walked up to her with their bags, “I might be saying something incredibly obvious here, but that’s a problem. If you hadn’t had that rock on your head back there we’d be in serious trouble. How do we have any hope of winning without the Elements?”

“It’s not the end of the world.” Twilight put the Element of Magic back in the sack. “Whatever Cadance did to her, Rarity was fighting harder than she could keep up. I’m stronger at magic, and I would have worn her down sooner or later. I only got us out of there because I was worried Cadance would show up. I can take the Element with me and put it on if we’re attacked. Besides, I didn’t have time to double check it, but I think I might know where Rainbow Dash is.”