Scootaloo’s wings burned as she pushed herself faster, the weathered stone tablet from the Mad Lands clutched to her chest. Mimic struggled to keep up as they circled Canterlot Mountain. The changeling army had already passed them when they’d left the Mad Lands the previous day, and they’d had to keep a safe distance. Finally, Canterlot had come into view far in the distance and they’d broken off, hoping the two of them could fly faster than the horde of changelings. Fast enough to warn the princess about the Elements of Disharmony and to seal the ley lines Lirian would use to conquer Canterlot.
They had to land just after the city came into view again, far below. The changeling army was outside the city walls, held back momentarily by the dampening spells. The spells had been ramped up in power, creating a visible ripple in the air. Royal guards held the city walls as civilians evacuated out the back side of the mountain. Scootaloo could barely make out a splash of pure white at the top of the Canterlot tower.
Before she could ask why the Princess was staying out of the battle, a crack split the air. Part of Canterlot’s outer wall crumbled and changelings flooded into the city. Princess Celestia shot from the top of Canterlot Tower, crossing half the city in the span of a second and throwing waves of changelings out of the city in a white flash. The changelings redoubled their efforts, swarming the weak spot in the defenses. Scootaloo couldn’t make out any actual details, only the mass of black and the flashes of white.
Mimic stood rigidly beside her, looking down at the battle.
“We should keep moving,” Scootaloo said. “Once we talk to the Princess or Twilight, we can go find your brother.”
“I can’t,” Mimic said softly. After a moment, she shook her head. “Give me that seal.”
Scootaloo clutched the seal closer to her chest and backed away awkwardly on her other three legs. “Mimic, think about your brother. He’s not going to be safe if we don’t—”
“Scootaloo,” Mimic snapped, “I get that. Give me the seal, and I’ll go take it to that cave you mentioned.”
“Oh,” Scootaloo said, relaxing a bit. “But you just said you couldn’t...”
“I can’t go down there to find my brother,” Mimic said impatiently. “The second I got close to that field, I’d fall out of the air.”
“Oh,” Scootaloo said again.
“Now give me the seal and go find your princess. The sooner she fights Queen Lirian and ends her stupid plan, the better.” Mimic looked back down at the city. “More changelings are just going to get hurt if she forces them to charge in without magic.”
“I didn’t even think about that,” Scootaloo admitted.
“Of course you didn't,” Mimic said with a sneer. “They’re the enemy. Now stop talking and go!” Scootaloo flinched at the sudden shout and hastily pushed the stone seal to Mimic before taking off.
The city rose quickly toward her as she glided down. The flashes of Princess Celestia’s magic were still visible at the edge of Canterlot, so with a smile, Scootaloo angled toward the front lines.
*****
Thistleroot edged toward Canterlot’s North Gate with the rest of the civilians. Ponies crammed together in the narrow street, struggling to get out of the city just a little faster. The smell was terrible, part sweaty bodies all mashed together, and part something else. Some intangible quiver of fear in the air.
Thistleroot had argued with the princess’s order to evacuate, but eventually gave in. A not insignificant part of him was glad for the excuse to run. He wasn't a fighter, he was just a student. A smaller part of him hated that part.
“Pal!” he called, seeing a familiar splash of green. He nudged past a pair of pegasi and reached the painter. “Glad to see somepony I know.”
“Uh, yeah,” Pal said with an awkward shrug.
Thistleroot was cut off by a younger pony and had to stop abruptly. An older pony was unable to stop in time and ran into him from behind, nearly sending him into the dirt. “I have to say,” Thistleroot said as he clung to Pal for balance, “this could have been better executed. Two out of ten at most. Would not evacuate again.”
“Uhuh,” Pal said, barely pausing to throw him a confused glance.
“You got family somewhere in the crowd? I could help keep my eyes peeled for them.”
“No,” Pal said shortly. After a moment’s hesitation, he asked, “You?”
“No, I got them to visit Aunt Lemon in Dodge a few days ago.” Something caught Thistleroot’s eye and he stopped to look up at the streak of white light in the sky. He was forced forward again a moment later by the flow of evacuees.
“Princess Celestia,” Pal noted.
“Yeah. She said she’d be waiting, watching the battle unfold until she was needed, all while keeping her commander’s informed of changeling’s movement’s through magic.”
Pal glanced at him, eyebrow raised.
“What can I say?” Thistleroot said, bobbing his head in a cocky strut, “I’m in the know these days.”
“Oh?” Pal asked. “Anything else you’re ‘in the know’ about?”
Thistleroot grinned at finally getting more than one word from him. “Well, you see the shimmering effect all around the city? Those dampening effects have been in place for years, constantly taxing changeling magic to make it harder to keep their shapes changed, but they’ve increased the power for the invasion. It’ll burn them out after a few hours though, otherwise they’d always have them this strong.”
Pal rolled his eyes. “Yeah, we all already know about the dampening fields.”
“Oh yeah,” Thistleroot said, carefully sidestepping an arguing couple and looking back at Pal. “Ever hear of a specter?”
Pal blinked, but shook his head a moment later. “What are they?”
Thistleroot didn’t answer right way. He’d come to a stop after looking back. He didn’t seem to notice a short mare nearly plow right into him. Pal looked back to see what had distracted him.
An orange dot against the blue sky dipped out of sight behind the houses of Canterlot.
*****
“Just let me through!” Scootaloo pleaded, but the two guards just pushed her further back. The wall was less than a block away, and the din from the fighting nearly drowned out Scootaloo’s voice.
“All civilians should have evacuated by now.”
“I just need to see the princess.”
The guards looked at each other in frustration. Neither knew how to deal with a crazy mare trying to get through to the wall, and neither had the time to babysit her.
“Scootaloo!”
Scootaloo turned back to see Thistleroot running down the street toward her, followed closely by Pal.
“Thistleroot!” she shouted back, smile spreading across her face.
“I knew it was you! Ha ha, I knew you were alive! How did you get here?”
“Long story,” Scootaloo said. “I need your help. We need to get past these bozos,” she tilted her head toward the pair of royal guards and they scowled back in response. “Lirian is making her own elements and we have to warn the princess.”
“She knows,” Thistleroot said.
“What? How?”
“Long story. But there’s something more important. Uh,” he looked back to the guards, “We’ll be evacuating now, I guess. Have a good day and whatnot.” Without waiting for a reply, he circled around Scootaloo and nudged her back into the city.
“We can’t just run away,” Scootaloo protested. “We can still help.”
“Yeah, we will,” Thistleroot said, glancing back to make sure the guards were out of earshot. “Look, this is probably going to sound stupid, I heard it from a crazy guy, but did you happen to get something from a Discord that wasn’t actually Discord?”
Scootaloo stopped dead in her tracks to stare at him.
“Ah ponyfeathers. You did, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, but how did you know that?”
“Long story with a crazy pony. Whatever you found, we need to get it. Rose Thorn is apparently planning on using it to blow up Canterlot.
Scootaloo blinked and looked up to Canterlot mountain. “Oh. We might have a problem then.”
*****
It took Mimic nearly half an hour to find the cave. She’d been expecting a gaping hole in the side of the mountain, maybe flashing lights or a red carpet. The real “most magical place in all of Equestria” was actually underwhelming. Barely more than a split in the stone, a black gash against the white snow.
It was noticeably warmer inside the cave. After stumbling blindly for a few yards, it opened up into a larger cavern. A dim light came from the far wall. It was covered in glowing letters from languages Mimic had never seen. The rest of the room was empty, save a bare stone table.
At the very center of the wall was a message. Scootaloo had said the message would be written in some representation of pure thought that anypony could read, and that it would show the reader what they most needed to hear at the moment. Both of the princesses had looked upon it in their greatest times of need. Mimic eagerly read it, ready to learn whatever great wisdom it would impart to her.
“Do not believe the Queen’s lies?” she read aloud. “That’s it? That’s my great wisdom?” With a disgusted shake of her head, she moved forward, lifting the seal in a cocoon of green magic. As she drew closer, something changed about the table. Faint lines began to glow across its surface in a tangled web. A small square was bare, the lines that would cross over it ending abruptly. Mimic looked at the stone square and found the same lines running across one of its faces. With a shrug, she lowered it toward the table.
“Wait!” She pulled it away just before it touched the table. “Do the glowing lines go face down, or up?” she asked herself. After another few seconds she decided to try it both ways and hope something happened.
“Wait!” Somepony shouted outside the cave. She pulled it away once again as Scootaloo climbed through the opening. “Mimic!” Scootaloo managed through gasping breaths. “Do you still have it?”
“Yes,” she nodded, levitating the stone a little higher. “I was just about to put it on the table and—”
“Don’t!” Mimic flinched.
“Why not?”
“Well, it might not do exactly what we thought it would.”
“Well, what would it do instead?” Mimic asked.
“Uh... blow up Canterlot.”
Mimic blinked.
“Yeah,” Scootaloo said. “Apparently it’s a long story.”
*****
“So, this thing either seals away unlimited arcane power, guaranteeing your princess will be able to defeat the queen, put a stop to the battle, and hopefully open the throne to somechangeling who isn’t crazy, or it’ll blow up the city, and we’re taking the word of a crazy pony?” Mimic summarized.
“Basically,” Thistleroot nodded. They’d met up with him outside Pony Joe’s Doughnuts and after the initial shock and introductions, they’d magicked the door open for a private place to sit and he’d given them a full account of his week.
“Scootaloo? What do you think?” Mimic asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t trust Rose Thorn, so if Thistleroot says she wants to blow up Canterlot, I’ll believe him. But I don’t know why she’d want to, or how it would get rid of the princesses and the changelings. I think we need to talk to the Princess.”
“Yeah,” Thistleroot said. “But how are we even going to get to her? The guards will stop us from even getting close.” He traced a hoof across the table, frowning thoughtfully. “The fighting’s probably stopped for the moment. All those strategists and advisors expected that between the dampening field and the wall, it would turn into a siege until the Princesses fought Lirian. If we could get to her, she’d probably be able to hear us out, if we could just get to her.”
“I have an idea,” Mimic said. “What if I changed to look like a high ranking guard. Then I could tell them I was ordered to bring you to the princess.”
“No good,” Thistleroot said, “Dampening fields are too strong at the moment. You wouldn’t even be able to take the form, let alone hold it.”
“Oh, right,” Mimic said. After a second, she looked up. “Wait...”
“But that does give me an idea. If me and Scootaloo could steal some royal guard armor, we could pretend to have orders to report to the princess.”
“Uh, guys,” Mimic said nervously. “I just realized, I flew down here.”
“But where would we find armor?” Scootaloo asked. “I doubt they have a couple spare sets that would fit us just conveniently lying around the castle?”
“Well, maybe we can jump a pair of guards and steal theirs? It’s not very nice, but desperate times and all that.”
“Like we could take a pair of trained guards,” Scootaloo said.
“Uh seriously, guys, this is important,” Mimic said a little louder. They both looked at her. “Uh, I guess I was distracted with all the talk of cities blowing up, but I flew down here.”
“Okay?” Scootaloo said, raising an eyebrow. Thistleroot’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
“Don’t you remember? I—”
“Thistleroot?”
“Pal?” Scootaloo asked as the door swung open. “You took your time meeting us here.”
“Yeah, it’s like I told Thistleroot, I had to...” Pal trailed off as he saw Mimic.
“Oh, don’t worry about her,” Scootaloo said. “She’s friendly. Well, most of the time. I promise she won’t attack—”
Scootaloo was knocked back as Mimic came out of the seat next to her and flew across the room. Pal barely had a moment to react when she reached him and threw herself into a full body tackle, slamming him into the far wall.
“Mimic!” Scootaloo shouted in shock as she and Thistleroot rushed to pull her away from Pal. They both hesitated when Pal collapsed and was suddenly engulfed in green fire. The fire died, leaving an unconscious changeling.
“Double,” Mimic said. “One of my old co-harvesters.”
“But how?” Scootaloo asked. “I thought the dampening fields...”
“They’re not working,” Mimic said. “I should have noticed sooner. They should have made me fall out of the air while we were flying down.”
“We have to go find the princess,” Scootaloo said. “Before—”
An earsplitting grinding echoed through the city, shaking the ground beneath their hooves. The three of them rushed back outside, but nothing had changed. Scootaloo took to the air, hoping to get a better view.
Canterlot’s southern wall had come crumbling down, and the changelings were pushing the surprised guardsponies back into the city. “Scootaloo.” Mimic was flying beside her, facing the other way. Scootaloo turned around. A wave of pegasi were flying up from the path leading out of the city. “They look like they’re running away?”
“The evacuating townsponies,” Scootaloo said, stomach turning cold. Everypony thought the dampening fields were working. If there were changelings hiding among them... She glanced down at the shop where the fake Pal was still lying unconscious. “They replaced the crusaders. They’ve got everypony trapped on that path.”