Twilight Sparkle was in the Hallway of the hospital ward, being comforted by Rainbow Dash. They both had been kicked out of the hospital room, when a small army of doctors nurses had flooded in responding to the volume of yelling and screaming coming from the official patient.
As soon as the first doctor arrived all he saw was a Unicorn of unknown power having a fit and screaming with magical enchanted volume at his nurse and visitors. In a hospital that regularly treated ailing unicorns, there was a protocol to follow and kicking visitors out was just step one of that procedure, no matter if the visitor was an Alicorn Princess, screaming nonsense about the patient being a male Princess Luna.
Step two was a code Magic cart that was rushed into the room by a team of nurses and followed by three of the burliest Earth Pony guards wearing grade echotophillic magic reflective armor. On the cart was already prepped tranquilizer needles, a charged hornlock and extoproto reflective tape.
Twilight watched the cart beings pushed into the room with an expression of horror, "Rainbow, we have to stop them, they can't possible try to use that stuff on the princess. Luna won't be able to lower the moon if she has a horn lock or is drugged! It will be all my fault!" Twilight was clearly in full manic mode.
"Twilight," Rainbow replied, "I don't think lowering the moon is the biggest problem the Princess has right now, I'm more worried about what will happen, if that medical stuff doesn't work! I haven't seen Luna this mad since Night Mare night a few years ago in Ponyville."
"I need to contact Celestia!" Twilight replied, "but Spike's not here and there no way she could get here in time!"
"In time for what?" Rainbow asked.
Suddenly the first doctor was thrown out of the hospital room, smashing through the wooden door with a flying crash. He landed at the unicorn and Pegasus’s hooves, rolling his eyes in surprise.
Twilight pointed at the crashing doctor, even as they were dodging shards of broken door frame. "In time to prevent 'that'" she said.
A moment later there was renewed yelling from the room "How dare you attempt to poke your princess with that thing! We will have the royal guards throw you in the dungeon for your impunity!" Standing on the bed, as regally as possible, surrounded by a swirl of floating blankets and bedding, was Luna Princess of the night, except it was Red Wood’s body doing the shouting and no one but the two friends in the hall believed the Princess was present.
"What's going on here!" A new voice yelled.
A crowd of familiar ponies and their Pegasus guards came stamping(and one case, hopping) down the hall.
The call had come from a very angry Storm Wing, and he was in no mood for any gruff.
A nurse tried to intercept him, "I'm sorry sir, but you can't come this way there is a dangerous unicorn having a fit in there, and it's too dangerous for non professionals."
Storm Wing gave the nurse an "are you serious" look, then pressed on past her. "You are going to turn away a wing of royal guards, while leaving a Princess of Equestria just standing there?" He said with a roar of anger.
Twilight ran forward, "Lutentiunt! You gotta help me get in there! They don't understand and might hurt Princess Luna!"
Storm Wing was in mid bow to Princess Twilight when he halted himself, "Princess Luna here as we'll your majesty? In trouble!" He didn't wait for clarification and bounded off towards the hospital room door, currently being guarded by two burly earth ponies. Seeing the angry guard flying towards them, the two orderlies, wasn't sure what to do, so they stood their ground and braced themselves for impact. It didn't help much, the Pegasus guard flipped in midair and put all his forward momentum into a spectacular buck. The two orderlies, who individually outweighed Storm Wing by half, were knocked aside like pins at a bowling alley.
There wasn't much but splinters of the door left already, so Storm Wing flung himself though the gap, and spin around mid air looking for more targets. But there weren't any.
The only pony still standing was Red Wood, all the remaining doctors and nurses huddling low to the ground to avoid flying objects. The emergency cart was in pieces and bits of flotsam was floating in a magic aura.
"Ahh guard, you have come to our call, good! But it appears I was able to subdue my attackers on my own, though I must admit I am feeling surprisingly weak, it is as if much of my magic is being blocked. We must throw these criminals into the dungeon forthwith, then question them, to discover what evil spell they have cast on us!"
Storm Wing looked at Red Wood in shock, not able to grasp what he was seeing. Before he could formulate a response a string of other ponies stepped over the door wreckage and joined them.
The first of the newcomer ponies to speak was Rarity, "oh dear, what a dreadful mess!" She commented, looking around the scattered room contents.
Fluttershy's reaction was surprisingly forceful, for her, she gave everypony a cross look and immediately started to give aid to the nearest of the injured medical staff. Making tut tut noises, but not quite looking up at Red Wood.
Twilight slunked in behind most of her friends, but was the first Luna directly addressed. “Princess Twilight! Explain this all to us! We ehh I mean, I am feeling very out of sorts!”
Twilight raised her head as if to look at Red Wood’s body, but kept her eyes closed unable to look Luna in the eye while a wild mix of shame, fear and regret was on her face. “I’m sorry Princess this is all my fault, I don’t know what went wrong!”
Red Wood/Luna looked even more confused “Wrong? Me being transported to this strange place is what’s wrong, Pray thee explain thyself!”
At this point Pinkie bounced up and said rapidly “Oh boy oh boy! The Princess is a stallion now! But Alicorn's are princesses,so she can’t still be a princess,but then he’s not an Alicorn,so I guess she can still be a prince. Are you sad about not being a Princess,we have to have a party to cheer you up! Oh! is that like a uhh a coronation party? But In Reverse? An anti-coronationparty! What do you serve at an anti-coronation party? Oh cake of course! Right Cake’s always good! Hay! Luna,do you want some more cake now? I’m hungry!”
Red Wood/Luna’s jaw just dropped, it wasn't clear exactly what Pinkie was going on about, but some part of her knew that it was important, if only she could put the pieces together. She did manage to say “Huh?!” in reply, but so did everyone else in hearing.
Rainbow Dash, hovered over Pinkie and shook her head, then dashing down to the grown where the nightstand had fallen over, she reached in an pulled from the broken shelf a hand mirror. It was still intact, and handed it to Luna’s magic. “Princess, you're not exactly looking like yourself right now.”
Luna looked into the hand mirror. At first she just looked at the image in the reflection with confusion, then gasped. “My mane!” She looked down at her extended foreleg, “My coat!” She turned to look at her back. “My Wings are gone!” Then lastly she looked down between her legs, “MY ahhh! That’s NOT MINE!”
She fell down into the bed she had been standing over, and shook in shock. Whimpers escaping from his/her muzzle.
Applejack turned to Twilight who was still trembling and whispering apologies. “What the hay happened here Twilight? Is that some mad pony who just thinks he’s the Princess or did Luna somehow get stallion-afied?”
“I…” Twilight started to answer, when Luna suddenly stopped her/his crying.
Standing backup, this time on the floor, Red Wood/Luna was forcefully gaining control of his emotions. “No matter what I look like, I am still me, a Princess ehh Prince or Equestria!” she declared loudly.
Twilight Sparkle started to stutter a response, “Princess, I think I over loaded the EKG when you must ahh? Wait? What WHERE you doing in Red Wood’s head?”
“Neigh, Princess Twilight, this was not your fault, at least not in the main. It was I, by putting myself in an unknown situation I created the opportunity for this accident. Which as I now realize was due to a conflict of different magics, if I now understand it correctly, is should be easily reversible.”
“Reversible? You know what happened?” Twilight asked.
“I admit I was surprised by this sudden transformation, but I had just been in conversation with one who was also trapped, like myself, in this very odd condition. Before my unexpected arrival here, I was in deep conversation with an alien creature named Parker and he had just explained to me how he and the Equestrian unicorn Red Wood were trapped in the same body and due to alien magic were swapping control each waking and sleep cycle. With the next sleep cycle I should be able to return to my dream walking spell and regain my correct body.”
Storm Wing now stood, “Am I to understand that this alien may have swapped bodies with you? Is there now an alien in the Canterlot Castle, wearing the Princess Luna’s body? I MUST report this at once! What a horrible day! First Coltsdale now this!”
At this mention of Coltsdale, several pairs of eyes suddenly swung towards Storm Wing and nearly at the same time Princess Twilight and Princess Luna both said.
“Coltsdale! What happened in Coltsdale?”
Twilight added “Where you able to find any of the citizens? Where they alright?”
Luna nodded “Indeed, do not let this trivial inconvenience to my person hold your tongue.”
Storm Wing looked back and forth between the two royals and bowed his head low, his body language already carrying much of the message as Twilight's face fell and grew pale. “Your Majesties, before I answer, can we secure this room, I do not think this is a matter for all ears.”
Red Wood/Luna replied, “Indeed, citizens, healers clear this room, only those directly involved should remain and Storm Wing post your guards so none may approach within earshot of the door.”
There was some grumbling but all the doctors and nurses left, Applejack and Fluttershy turned to join them, but a gesture from Twilight and they remained, though Fluttershy in particular looked extra nervous. Twilight looked deeply at her butter colored friend and said, “Fluttershy there is a young colt waiting near the nurses station, he’s Red Wood’s son and I think he’s very scared perhaps you take Spike and go talk to him? And Pinkie you too, he really needs to be cheered up.”
Spike looked back glumly a few times, but followed Fluttershy as she quickly skipped out of the room, glad for a chance to get away from bad news, but Pinkie stayed back.
“Oh! I’d love to cheer Red Wood’s colt up! But my Pinkie sense is telling me that I need to stay here, for now. Don’t worry Twilight, just because you have some really bad news, I’m not going to go all moppy woopy on you. As Grandma Pie told me, bad news is the best time to cheer ponies up!”
Twilight wasn’t going to argue with Pinkie, and as the room was now secure, she nodded to Storm Wing to continue.
At the same time Luna said, “Lieutenant, pray thee continue with your report.”
Storm Wing said, “We were not able to keep up with the Princess Twilight and Rainbow Dash as they rainboomed ahead of us to reach the town before us. We flew as fast as three wing groups of Pegasus have ever flown, but did not succeed in catching up until the Princess and Lady Dash had already been too and then left Coltsdale.’
‘We arrived to find the remains of a field of battle, the ground was heavily torn up and rubble, sticks and stones were scattered like leaves all over the town's main square. After only a few moments of searching we found a body of a Unicorn left in the dirt, it clearly spoke of a battle where both sides withdrew quickly, not taking their dead.”
Rainbow Dash interrupted, “That must have been the town Mayor, we should have stopped to do something for him, but we also needed to get out of there fast.”
Storm Wing nodded, “ I would have been very worried for the Princess had one of my flyers not found Princess Sparkles note pinned to the nearby door frame. We removed the body from the dirt and moved it to the town hall, I’m afraid it was not the only one.”
Twilight let out a small gasp, hearing her fear confirmed. “How many Lutentiunt?”
Storm Wing was working to keeping his face and voice steady, but it was costing him. Equestria was a peaceful kingdom and even royal guards were rarely exposed to much real violence, he had seen only a few dead bodies before, as guards investigated accidents, injuries and the rare domestic dispute, this had been very different. “Sixty seven stallions of adult age, eleven colts, five very young fillies and three aged mares. Based on records in the town hall, I believe the cultists kidnapped all the mares who had come to their cutie marks. We found no sign of where they were taken, or how they were transported. The three mares killed where probably considered too old to travel.”
Soft sobbing filled the room, but no one turned to look as the source, perhaps because pretty much everyone was feeling like joining them.
Luna seemed to recover first, “How did they die, were the bodies marked?” She asked.
“I think most were killed in their sleep. If it wasn't for their horns, there was no sign of major physical injury, a few showed some sign of struggle, but most were found in their beds as if asleep.”
Applejack asked “What this about horns? “
Twilight answered Applejack, “Most of the Coltsdale’s ponies were unicorns. The cult probably felt empowered by their twisted prophecy and saw it as an opportunity for a power grab. They have a technique to drain the magic from unicorn horns, they store it in potions and can cast some very dangerous magic with that power. ”
She turned towards Storm Wing, “Did you find the horns all together, probably in a circle pattern, with symbols carved into them?”
Storm Wing nodded. “Yes. It was on the floor of the largest building. Why did they remove their horns after killing the Stallions?”
Luna replied, “I’m afraid killing the Stallions before removing the horns, is not a kindness that cultists practice. They removed the horns why they were still alive. My sister and I have dealt with this foul cult several times over the last several eons. They leave the horns behind to keep the magic from being drawn back to them.They gain great magical power every time they perform this unholy crime, to do this to so many unicorns at once. Its almost unthinkable the type of power they may now have.”
Rarity looked faint and cried, “The brutes! To cut off a horn, while still alive! What horror!”
Luna nodded, “The reason the bodies probably look unharmed, is they would have been frozen in a spell, both alive and aware, while an enchanted silver saw did the deed. If they are not taken away as slaves, then their hearts would be petrified and turned to stone. It is not a pleasant death.” Luna finished coldly.
Rainbow Dash mumbled, “Stone Heart Cult, that’s where they get their name from, isn't’t it?”
Pinkie stood her ground as each pony looked down at the floor in their own thoughts, her puffy hair deflated to flat bangs, but there was no madness in her eyes, instead with surprising strength she walked slowly to each of her friends and gave them a comforting hug, which broken them out of their revelry. There was a moment of awkwardness when she gave Red Wood/Luna a hung but it passed quickly and when she had finished the rounds of friends they all still felt sad, but it was much more under control. Pinkie though remained glum, she was here to comfort her friends, but also knew it was no time for Pinkie silliness.
Storm Wing continued his report, “We found a total of one hundred and twenty eight horns, which is more than the number of bodies we found, so the extra horns must have been from the mares. After scouting the area and finding no sign of the cult members, and only evidence of their quick departure, I split my forces into groups. One I left to prepare the bodies for transport. They will need to be transported here or Manehatten for proper forensics. Another group is setting up a perimeter and patrols to secure the area. The rest I brought back here to arrange the necessary transport and recovery operations. Plus I want to send out more wings to search for clues where the kidnapped mares were taken.”
Twilight nodded at the Lutentiunt, she tried to talk, her mouth was very dry, “Th.th ack “ she tried again. “Thank you, you did what you could. We’ll have to send out a specialized group to to..” Twilight turned to Luna, “Do we even have any specialists for this kind of disaster?”
Luna nodded, “Yes, they normally are called to help with natural disasters, not pony made ones. It’s been a very long time since an entire pony town has been completely devastated. My sister and I will journey to the site ourselves to offer aid. I would also say offer comfort, but there appears to be no survivors in this terrible crime, other than the one pony whose body I seem to be wearing.”
“And his son.” Rainbow Dash added, “Banyan is the only other survivor.”
“Ah yes, I have heard his name but have not met this colt. This will be a terrible weight on him, the lose of all his friends, we must arrange his transport, along with his father, once this body swapping mess is taken care of, to Canterlot. Both will need much aid and comfort if they are ever to recover from such blows.”
Applejack asked “What about the kidnapped ponies, we need to rescue them, there are still plenty of survivors if we can find them!” The idea of an entire town destroyed really bothered the Apple Family member. It was very close to her heart as her family saw the founding of new settlements part of their duties to Equestria, Ponyville and Appleloosa where just two famous examples. Part of her mind was already figuring out ways to re-establish Coltsdale if the kidnapped victims could be rescued.
Luna solemnly told the apple farmer, “Hold not too much hope for them, in the past when this has come up, kidnapped victims if not rescued right away would soon fall in thrall to the colts brainwashing magic. You will not find them willing to return, and will fight you with the same vigor and dedication as any lifetime member of the colt. Enslaved to their leadership. I do not know of any case of a victim of this sort being rescued or returning to their former lives.”
A new wave of horror washed over the ponies, victims turned into enemy? Brainwashing so effective it could not be reversed? What sort of monster where they facing?
After Storm Wing finished his report, the two Princesses told him to follow through with his plans to organize search parties and relief for the pegasus wings left behind. He left with a sharp salute and quickly led his troops away from the room.
Red Wood/Luna then motioned to Twilight, “Please call back Spike, we will need to consult with my sister.”
Rainbow flew out of the room to get the baby dragon, while Twilight and Luna quietly worked together on a note, which they wrote on paper ripped from one of the doctors forgotten medical forms. When they were finished, Luna handed the dragon the folded paper.
Spike started to open the paper, as Twilight had always allowed him to look over any notes she normally sent to the Celestia. This time Twilight stopped him with her magic and told Spike, “Just send it please, I’ll explain when your older.”
Spike just shrugged and with a blast of green flame, the note was on it’s way.
When this was done, Applejack asked, “Pardon me Princess,” while looking at Luna, “how are ya going to get about into your proper body?”
“Yes darling!” Rarity agreed, “It’s most confusing and unprecedented for a stallion to be a princess. I mean it could spark some interesting fashion opportunities, but all the same, I think everyone would be much more comfortable if the status quo was maintained for decorum sake.”
Luna looked pensive, “According to the alien creature Parker, he believed that both himself and Red Wood are now sharing the same body and brain, and when they both start to fall into the early stages of sleep, there is an opportunity for them to switch who has control of the physical body. My entry in Parker’s dream space, drew me into their curse, when Twilight's overcharge of the EKG triggering the transfer and being that I do have a stronger than average will, my mind was the one drawn into the awakened mind.’
‘I would guess that both Red Wood and Parker are themselves stuck in the sleeping mode until I have fatigued this body sufficiently. I am sure that once properly asleep again, my control of dreams will allow me to separate myself from the Red Wood’s body and return to my own.”
Twilight looked up brightly, “Well then Princess, you should lay down and try to go back to sleep?”
“No, I think not, with the grave news we have been delivered, I could not easily sleep, and I think it’s best I spend my waking time aiding my little ponies prepare for the dread work ahead of them. Besides, the nature of this body, is novel to me, many years ago I had the experience in wearing a non alicorn body, but certainly this is a unique opportunity to see the world from a male perspective. Alas the hard facts of today will prevent me from taking the opportunity to learn much, or else I would suggest we explore the famous fillydelphia saddle street bars and nightclubs. For educational purposes only, of course.” Despite the grim atmosphere, Luna managed to give Twilight a small playful grin.