The doors to the throne room are dramatically pushed open by a guard.
Funny, I thought they were already open.
The guard, wearing slightly different armor than the rest of them, shakily walks in. He's a familiar-looking white regular pony with blue hair. He's panting, tired, and his tongue is hanging out of his mouth. Dude looks like he galloped a marathon.
"Princess!" He calls out. "I'm so glad I found you!"
Ok, that guy has to be Twilight's brother… In fact, I think I saw them talking when we got to Canterlot. Wait a minute…
"Shiny!?" Apple-Twi shouts.
"Stop right there, Shining Armor," Celestia commands.
He hesitates but obeys, and bows before her. "Your majesty, I…"
She cuts him off, "Silence!" She points her horn at him and blasts him with magic.
It knocks him over. Dude's out for the count. Apple-Twi runs over to him and cradles his head in her hooves.
"So... what spell was that?" I look up to her and casually ask.
"Changeling unmasking spell," she announces loudly for all to hear.
"CH-CHANGELINGS?" Apple-Twi shouts in surprise.
"Yes, I was getting to that."
There are murmurs from the others. Whispers of yet another enemy.
Shining, who still looks the same, starts to wake up. "Wha? Huh?" He shakes his head and looks up into the eyes of the pony holding him. He squints. "Uh… Ap- Applejack?"
"Heh heh… no, it's me, Twilight." She scratches the back of her neck.
"Huh?" He tries to get up and Apple-Twi helps him.
"So him being here is good news, right?" I ask Celestia.
"Well, yes, it appears he is still himself. That is indeed good news, but..."
"Princess!" Shining gallops closer and bows.
"Report?"
"There's been a complete breakdown in military command! Some of our guards were found out to be changelings! And well… everypony started fighting each other mindlessly! It's a huge mess out there… and, um…" He chuckles nervously. "I don't know if you noticed…" He points to his forehead.
"Yes, I did notice. That's why I suspected you of being an imposter."
"What happened to your horn?" Apple-Twi asks as she walks up next to him.
"Well, I guess Discord liked the idea of changelings running around Canterlot as Royal Guards…"
"Oh…" Twilight sighs.
"I was warming up to cast the force field spell, to put a stop to all the mayhem, and the ol' Spirit of Chaos himself just teleported next to me! He grabbed my horn, and popped it right off!"
Apple-Twi winces.
"Just like that! Pop! It didn't hurt or anything. He said 'I'll be keeping this' and then he disappeared."
Celestia lets out a deep sigh. "Well, at least it can't get any worse…"
Famous last words, much?
Suddenly a window shatters, a cloud of smoke comes in through the window, glass sprinkles everywhere, sparkling in the moonlight, shards slide across the floor.
The smoke clears to reveal six pegasi in blue and yellow gimp suits.
"Great, who are these guys now?" ...Pretty sure one of them is named Spitfire, though.
"Your majesty!" The orange and yellow one steps forward and bows. She's Spitfire I think. Her friends follow her example and bow too.
"Rise," Celestia says with slight annoyance, probably because they broke her window.
The light blue guy with dark blue hair waves at me with a sheepish smile on his face. I just look back at him, confused.
"Princess, we are here to offer any assistance we can!" Spitfire announces.
She sighs and says, "Good. Please go and find the whereabouts of Discord and Nightmare Moon."
"Nigh- I'm sorry, did you say Nightmare Moon?!"
"Yes. I did."
The gimp suit ponies look nervous.
"Princess, it may be a little difficult to search in the dark."
The sun conveniently shoots up into the sky again.
"Or not. Report back to me when you have their locations. Dismissed!"
Spitfire turns to leave. Our eyes meet for a second. She gives me a slight nod of greeting and then flies off out the broken window, her compatriots following her.
"Well Celestia, what do you think we should do?" I ask.
"Do ALL humans treat royalty as if they were commoners?" Pinkie-Rarity snobbishly complains at me. "I suggest you refer to her as 'Princess' or 'Princess Celestia,' after all, she no doubt saved you from whatever trouble you've caused during your short time here. I'm only surprised that you've bothered to bow, but the way you've shown disrespect to such an esteemed pony such as the princess is downright abhorrent."
"...Sorry?" I shrug at Pink-ity.
"Oh, it's quite alright… Rarity? These are extra-ordinary circumstances after all," Celestia says.
"Hmph."
"Well?" I ask again.
"I think we should get them back to themselves again," she says, looking at the ponies.
"How do you plan on doing that, do you know the spell?"
"No, but I know where we can look." Celestia looks knowingly at Apple-Twi.
"THE ARCHIVES!"
We're walking to the archives apparently, where hopefully they'll find a spell to mindswap them all back to normal. Apple-Twi brought Shiny up to speed on that whole thing and everything else.
"So, if'n ya don't mind me askin' princess, why are we all walkin' again? Can't you jus' teleport us there?" A cowboy-hat-wearing Rarity asks.
"Well Applejack, if we would have teleported, Discord could have followed us from the residual magic left by the teleportation," Celestia explains.
"But princess," Apple-Twi starts, "Discord's teleported to me before, even when I hadn't. Doesn't that mean he can find us where ever we go?"
Celestia giggles as a little smirk plays its way across her lips, but only for a split second before it turns back into a frown. "No, he does not know where somepony is at all times. He just happens to be very good at guessing things like that. So, we'll have to outsmart him."
"So then what's your plan if he's waiting at the archives?" I ask.
"Ah, yes Church, that is a possibility. I'm just hoping he won't be, we are running out of options at this point."
"Well shouldn't we wait for... erm, Spitfire to report in?"
"That is assuming they find either of them. And that is also assuming that the Wonderbolts are still the Wonderbolts. Besides," she leans close to me and whispers, "the Wonderbolts are not actually very good at actual military operations."
We all stop walking, hearing hooves clopping quickly on the stone floor behind us.
A single white pegasus guard, with all the armor except his helmet, is running towards us.
"STOP RIGHT THERE!" Celestia orders.
He complies and slides on his hooves… seriously… these floors…
He bows with about as much grace as he can after stumbling like that.
"Be gone with you, 'Cutlass'."
Oh… so this is the guy who was banging on that door in the tower.
"B-But your highness!"
"Neigh! Leave us!"
"I can't do that, your highness."
"And why not?"
"It is my sworn duty to protect you, my princess!"
"Protect me? Heavy Steel was replaced by a changeling for who knows how long, and yet you did not notice… or chose not to notice… It could have been FEEDING on me, and was almost certainly spying on me! A fine job you've done protecting your princess!" She barks.
I cut in, "...In his defense, I don't think I've ever seen the guards do a good job..."
Celestia shoots me a dirty look for that.
"Oh yeah, that's right... I'm not me either. Silly me."
"I… I," Cutlass starts, "I have failed you, my princess…" He bows his head all the way to the floor.
Well at least the guards know they're terrible.
"Let me redeem myself!" He lifts up his head and looks directly at her. "Let me be at your service once more!"
"I need to know I can trust you. I need to know that you are not a changeling." Celestia responds grimly.
"Anything to prove my loyalty!" He stands back up.
Celestia points her horn at him, he closes his eyes and braces for impact, knowing full well what's about to happen.
She blasts him. It looks a lot more brutal than when she did that to Shiny. He gets thrown clear down the hallway, back the way he came. I'm fairly certain I heard a crunch when it hit him.
"Don't you think you might have went a little overboard with that Celes... er, princess?"
She looks at me, a little unsure. "I do not…" She sighs. "Maybe I was venting my anger just a little bit."
"Well, better go check on him." No one else looked like they were going to do it. I trek down the hall a ways. I look behind me, they're letting me go alone.
He's laying here, apparently unconscious. The first thing I notice is a low crackling sound… like electricity discharging. But other than that, he still looks the same.
"Hey Robot Boy," I kick the armor covering his chest. "Wake up!"
One of his legs twitches, an electric spark arcs across his chest armor.
Fuck it.
I walk back.
"Well?" Celestia asks.
"Well. The dude's a robot."
"HUH?!" Everyone says in unison.
"Well he made a sound that sounds like electricity and when I touched him he twitched like a robot. Therefore… he's a robot."
Celestia starts giggling and everyone else follows her example with forced chuckles.
Then she stops.
And so do they.
Celestia lifts an eyebrow at me. "Come on, everypony, let's go see…"
When we get there the guy is still out cold.
Maybe he's not a robot... Hmmmmm…
"Shining," Celestia calls. "See if you can wake your fellow guardstallion."
He obeys and shakes him a little. He shakes him a little harder. He stirs a little bit. He smacks him on the face gently. How gentle hooves could be, I don't know. It doesn't seem to be working.
SMACK
Ouch!
"AHHhaHA!"
Looks like that worked. He stumbles back on his hooves.
"Oh... my head…"
Celestia looks at me funny, but not angrily, and turns around and walks down the hall, the way we were going.
I run up to 'Cutlass,' and ask him, "Quick! What's the square root of 1369?"
"Uh…" he responds, still a little hazy, "I don't know…?"
"I'm keeping my eye on you..." I point a hoof at him.
"Um, ok…?"
A long, boring walk and several different buildings and bridges later…
And we find ourselves in the archives, apparently. Big giant library-looking dump.
"Well princess, where should we look?" Apple-Twi asks.
"Oh, I think I have an idea…" Celestia answers.
Some shelves later…
"Alright, my little ponies, start reading," Celestia announces.
"OK!" Flutter-Pie dives right in.
"Alright, princess," Apple-Twi starts biting some scrolls from a shelf.
"Well, if it helps us get back to normal, I guess it's worth getting some dust on my hooves," Pink-ity complains.
Shiny just goes to a shelf and fumbles trying to grab a book with his hooves.
"Yes, your highness," Cutlass obeys.
"Um… ok…" Twi-Shy meekly agrees.
"Beg pardon, princess, but what exactly are we lookin' for?" Rari-Jack asks.
Dear god I hate reading...
But I'll do it. For the team.