On the far side of town a dragon and alicorn proceeded to run for their lives, a changeling queen hot on their heels. The ground was littered with small craters, scorch marks and cracks still smoking from fiery green magic that had barely missed scales and hide.
"Spike! What do we do?! What do we do!?"
"Get back here!"
The race-swapped Twilight bound along all fours, Spike by her side, and narrowly missed another jolt of green. They passed into town, ducking around the corner and disappearing from the changeling's sight. Twilight and Spike held their breaths as they leaned against the brick and silently prayed she'd leave.
"You can run but you can't hide, Twilight Sparkle!"
Several horrifying moments passed and finally the sounds of hollow hooves stamping around faded away and disappeared completely. Spike's ears twitched - an alien sensation - and he looked sideways at Twilight, "is she gone?"
Twilight carefully peeked around the corner and seeing nothing, leaned back against the wall and both of them let out a deep sigh of relief, "yes, she's go-" but before she could finish a terrifying screech, followed by the loud scream of a pony came from somewhere in front of them. Just as both of them were about to question the other on what was going on, another scream was heard and from around the alley corner a bright orange light and a terrible roar filled the sky.
Without even thinking, Twilight and Spike rushed out of the alleyway and back into the streets coming face to face with the fiery beast. A dragon, red and orange in scale and wing and no bigger than Twilight was herself, rampaged after a pony who was running for their life. Twilight recognised the pony as Bon Bon and jumped out of her cover, rolled and then stood between the mare and the beast. The cream pony behind her screamed at her sudden appearance.
"AAAAAH! Another one! HELP!!"
"Bon Bon, it's me!!" Twilight said, turning her head just slightly but not taking her eyes of the dragon before her who had since come to a stand still.
"..S-Spike?"
At that Spike walked out of his cover and gave Bon Bon an unamused glare, "really, do I really sound like that?" At that Bon Bon nearly tripped, confused and terrified. The dragon before them snorted and readied his claws, redirecting their attention back to it. Twilight shouted for Spike to get Bon Bon to safety and as he did, the red beast lunged forward upon realising his prey was running away.
"I don't think so!" Twilight growled and blocked his path, headbutting the other's chest to push it back. The other staggered and Twilight took the chance to pounce him, tackling him to the ground.
"What are you doing?! We're supposed to be at peace not trying to kill each other!" Twilight asked, holding the red dragon down, to which he responded with breathing a gush of fire into her face. Un-harmed, when the torrent passed she took a second to admire dragon's fire resistance and made a mental note to look into it more later.
Until the dragon swung his claw around and caught the side of her face, forcing her off with a cry and leaving three straight cuts on her cheek that slowly began to dribble red. The purple dragon brought a claw to her face, then brought her claw down and looked at it only to be interrupted as the red beast grabbed her tail and began to drag her. She was about to call out when all of a sudden a purple streak darted from the alley and straight into the red dragon, bowling him over and releasing Twilight. When Twilight pulled herself up again, she found pony-Spike standing over the red dragon, wings flared and dangerous sparks of magic flickering along his horn.
"Don't. You. DARE. Touch. Her. Again!" and with one swift motion, he picked up the dragon by the shoulder and threw him against the wall of a nearby house and right into a water pipe. The pipe broke and as the red monster tried to stand, it fell and hit it on the head. The beast collasped back on the floor, unmoving.
Twilight was frozen in place as Spike remained where he was, panting heavily with a scowl for several long moments. When he finally calmed down, he turned and quickly moved beside Twilight, noticing the red shining on her scales and holding a hoof near the wound to examine it.
"Are you hurt any where else?"
"S-Spike-"
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have left you," he said, helping her onto her feet.
"Spike..."
"Don't worry about the dragon, it's just knocked out."
"...Oh," Twilight finally said after a moment of silence, then properly balanced herself. On all fours she was still smaller than him, but she didn't mind.
"Lyra!"
They both turned around to see Bon Bon returning, passing them both and stopping next to the red dragon.
"Lyra! Lyra are you okay?!"
"Lyra?!" both Spike and Twilight questioned at once. Bon Bon however wasn't paying attention to them and the two thought it best to leave.
"I don't understand, how can that dragon be Lyra?" Twilight whispered, to which Spike gave her an unimpressed look. She returned it until she realised what he meant and took a moment to look at her claws, "oh... right."
"It must have happened to everyone in Ponyville - Well almost everyone, Bon Bon seemed like a regular pony."
"That doesn't help us work out what happened!" Twilight huffed and turned another corner. Spike followed her, thinking over it. He nearly tripped when he lifted a hoof to his chin and realised it was hard enough walking on four hooves let alone three. Then it struck him.
"Twilight! Our costumes! Everyone's turned into their costumes and-"
"Anyone not wearing a costume wasn't affected!"
"Exactly!"
Twilight slowed to a stop and frowned, "but this is some powerful magic... who would have been powerful enough to do this?"
And it took them all of three seconds to turn to each other and growl the same name, "Discord!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A not-so-Rainbow Dash stared over the scene of Ponyville with the pale pegasus still held in her forelegs. Ponyville was a mess, a few small fires had started, mostly in isolated areas where very little damage could be caused, and many ponies were hiding behind or in anything they could find as horrible monsters ran through the streets.
Atop the main hall, a familiar stallion looked over Ponyville with an emotionless stare.
"Luna!"
Rainbow Dash sped towards 'Luna' as fast as she could carrying her friend and stopped on the balcony behind the princess, "Princess Luna!"
'Luna' turned to face Dash with a growl, shadows seeping towards the pony. Rainbow Dash was, however, more focused on saving her friend than the sudden dangers around her.
"Princess please, you have to help me! Fluttershy's no-" Rainbow begun but was cut off abruptly as a shadowy tendril whipped around Rainbow's hind leg and just as Rainbow tried to yank her hoof free, it flung her across the balcony. She slid to a stop, stood up, standing guard over Fluttershy and glared at 'Luna', "hey! What's the big idea?!"
'Luna' merely hissed and sent two more shadowy tendrils towards Rainbow Dash, the pegasus dodging one but the other grappling her wing allowing the second to wrap around her other again.
"Princess Luna! Stop!"
A third tendril shot out towards Fluttershy and wrapped around her body. Rainbow began to panic and struggle in the shadowy grip with no avail.
"My name... is... SOMBRA!!" the stallion once Luna snarled and with a spark of green and black magic flung the tendrils over the railing, releasing the two ponies in the air. He laughed as he watched them both bounce across the roof and after a final terrified scream from the tan pony, fall over the roof's edge.
Rainbow quickly turned in her fall and redirected herself towards Fluttershy. She caught the pale pegasus and flared open her wings just in time to barely skim the ground and fly off un-harmed.
Back in the air she caught sight of a purple pony and a.. rather large dragon running past another group of what appeared to be pony skeletons. Until they moved. Even this far away she flinched at the sight. She quickly looked back to where the pony and dragon had gone.
"That must have been Twilight and Spike," she muttered and dove down towards where she saw them go ,"hang on Fluttershy...."
"Twilight!.... Slow... Down..!" Spike shouted, trying to catch his breath. The dragon in front of him however, did stop quite suddenly, leading Spike to crash right into it. Standing upright and rubbing his head, he let out what should have been a growl and came out as anything but, "I said slow down, not sto-ooh ... Rarity?!" he gasped as he looked around Twilight to see why she had so suddenly stopped.
Before them, Rarity stood with wide eyes and panicked, like a criminal caught in the act, but the most notable- and perhaps most concerning- feature was the red staining her muzzle and neck.
And a pale figure in the shadows behind her.