Cadance strolled through the maze, admiring Luna's night before her ear twitched upon hearing the rustling of grass behind her causing her to freeze as her heart sped up.
"Who's there?" she asked, while preparing to defend herself from a possible attack.
"Feeling a little jumpy tonight, princess?" Sunset asked.
"Sunset?" Cadance turned around.
"Yeah," Sunset continued. "I can't really blame you for being on your guard, after all-as the Princess of Love you're probably the one the Changelings want the most, so I'm glad to see you've made a full recovery from their first attack."
"I'm glad to see that you're alright, we were really worried about you when you disappeared..."
"Really?" Sunset challenged. "I would have thought my evasion of the guards Celestia had escorting me out would have made it apparent that I was more than capable of taking care of myself."
"Of course." Cadance agreed. "I was only worried because I care about you...you're so much like Twilight."
"Yeah," Sunset scoffed. "Aside from the fact that she's the one Celestia chosen to replace me since she still actually likes her and the fact that her family loves her-we're exactly the same."
"You know that isn't what I meant." Cadance scolded. "Both of you may have different circumstances in your lives and personalities that make you individuals, I'm saying that I think both of you would benefit if you focused more on what the two of you have in common."
"You mean make friends with her?" Sunset scoffed.
"I would like to be your friend Sunset and I think Twilight, would too."
"We'll see..." Sunset replied skeptically. "So....you have a thing with Shining Armor, huh?"
"Had." Cadance corrected. "I made a very poor choice after the Changelings attacked..."
"I see...still I'm more than a bit jealous-as much crap as I give the guards for being glorified lapdogs, Shining Armor seems like one of the few good ones who can actually use his own judgment....so I take it that he's available, then?" Sunset asked, semi-playfully.
"I think you might have some pretty tough competition...I've know Shining Armor for a long time and I can read him like a book, he's already falling for someone-which I'm happy about-but, I'm also worried that she might end up breaking his heart, too..."
"Damn," Sunset sighed. "I guess that leaves me out...but, in all seriousness I really am sorry that things didn't work out between you guys-you're the only one from my childhood I've ever felt like I could actually trust."
"Do you have someone special in your life?" Cadance asked. "Or maybe a crush?"
"Well, there's this guard; Flash Sentry-he really seems to like me..."
"I know Flash, Shining introduced him to me once after he found out what a hard time he's been having...do you like him?"
"Well, at first I thought he was kind of an idiot since I made it pretty clear that I wasn't looking to make peace with Celestia, but now I'm beginning to think that maybe it was that he knew she would be prepared to kill me as soon I returned..."
"I seriously doubt that she would want to kill anyone, especially a student she still cares so much for-she would probably detain you and prevent you from using your magic in a worst case scenario." Cadance reasoned. "And are you sure that it was Celestia that Flash was counting on? Maybe he had faith in you and that when the time came you would make the right decision?"
"Why would he? From the moment we met I'd shown nothing but hostility-it doesn't make any sense."
"Unfortunately, I haven't had as much time as I would have liked to get to know Flash better, but based on the few times I've spoken with him-he seems very sweet and he probably wanted to give you the benefit of a doubt-"
Her sentence was cut short as they could hear vigorous rustling through the hedges.
"I'll check it out." Sunset stated.
Cadance nodded.
---
Sunset navigated through the maze in a full gallop, silently cursing the fact that she couldn't just use her magic to blast her way through it.
She was already under suspicion by everyone in Canterlot and obliterating Celestia's hedgemaze would probably look, to an outside like nothing more than wanton destruction or a passive-aggressive attempt at petty revenge-especially if the rustling just turned out to be a squirrel or something.
When she caught a glimpse of something moving through the hedge she was running next to before teleporting.
There was a brilliant flash of light opal before colliding with her target, pinning him to the ground.
"Flash!?" she exclaimed.
As he looked up at her with a mixed expression of shock and helplesness, she became caught up in the vivid cornflower blue of his eyes before shaking it off.
"What are you doing out here? Were you stalking me?"
"WHAT!? N-no! I found some guards that I don't recognize...so I followed them out here." he explained.
"Then what are you still doing here at the castle?" Sunset challenged. "It's the Night Guard's shift."
"Well, I was about to go home before I spotted them-but, if I went for back up I was afraid that I'd lose them...which I kind of did in this crazy labryinth..." Flash admitted shamefully.
"Well we better find them fast...I left Cadance behind because I thought you were one of those freaks."
---
Cadance saw the silhuette of a figure approaching from around the corner of her section of the hedgemaze, her heart sped up as her horn began to glow with an aura of light blue magic in preparation to defend herself.
Before the figure revealed itself.
"Shining Armor?" she asked, letting her magic fade. "What are you still doing out here? I thought you had gone back inside to speak with Twilight...what did she have to say about it?"
"Yeah...I did, and she uh, she said that she was fine with it...no worries here." he replied before offering a nervous chuckle.
Something about him was making her uneasy, sure he had been nervous when they spoke earlier, but he had also seemed pretty tired having to deal with her, Twilight, and the Changelings-she would have thought he'd want to go to bed after speaking with her.
"What's that you have behind your back?" Cadance asked, suspiciously.
Shining's horn glowed a brilliant shade of green as he brought a boquet of flower out from behind his back and levitated them before her-Cadance however, was more focused on the color of the aura surrounding them.
"Flowers, for the most beautiful mare in Equestria." he replied, grinng broadly.
"Oh...why thank you." she stated distractedly. "While I am grateful for them, may I ask what the occasion is?"
That smile he was wearing...she didn't like it, something about it was definitely not Shining Armor-this was definitely a Changeling, but in the back of her mind she was trying to decide if it would be smarter to confront it now or wait for Sunset to come back. While she was quite confident in her ability to defend herself, there was no telling how powerful this imposter had become through the love it fed on-especially if it had been lurking around the castle for a while. And as the real Shining Armor had pointed out to her earlier, a mistake that lead to her being captured or the love being drained from her would likely doom Equestria.
"Does a guy really need a reason to do something nice for his girlfriend?" he asked rhetorically before frowning. "Why...is something wrong?"
"What? No!" she quickly replied, taking them with her magic. "I love, love, LOVE them!"
"Are you sure?" he asked, advancing towards her. "Because you're acting really weird-"
He was cut off as a blast of opal magic hit him square in the chest, knocking him backwards.
"Eat that, bitch."
Cadance looked behind her to see Sunset with her horn lowered and Flash flying towards her.
"Are you okay, princess?" he asked, landing next to her.
"Yes...I'm sorry, I knew what he was- but I had a small moment of indecisiveness-it won't happen again." she apologized.
"It's fine." Sunset replied, walking towards the Changeling. "Things were started to get a bit boring around her, anyway-I'm gonna see if this guy is still breathing-Flash, keep an eye out for any of those phony guards you saw earlier, they'll probably be on us the second they realize what happened to their 'friend'."
As soon as she finished her sentence, five more Changelings seemed to materialize around them from out of thin air in a circle around the trio.
"Interesting," Sunset commented, amused. "It seems that they can also alter their bodies for natural camoflouge."
"Well, don't beat youreslf up about it too much, Cadance-it looks like these guys were lying in wait for us the whole time-so if you took 'Shiny' here on it looks like they would have overpowered you, anyway-still, think you can help us out this time?"
The Changelings all began to his as they dove towards them.
Flash bucked at one coming in from behind him and his hindlegs connected with its stomach, causing it to fall backwards, winded.
Cadance took a step back, as two Changelings rushing towards her from either side had there heads collide together, knocking them into a daze.
The remaining two flew towards Sunset.
She magically grabbed ahold of one of the Changeling's wings before ripping them from its back, causing it to shreik in agony before falling to the ground where it began to writhe in pain as sickly green fluids began to leak from its back.
The other stopped short of Sunset before realizing that it could not longer move as its body was surrounded by her magical aura when she began lifting it into the air as Flash and Cadance watched in stunned silence at what they were witnessing.
Flash was the first to snap out of it.
"Sunset, what are you doing?" he asked, shakily.
His question was answered as small cracking sounds could be heard emanating from the creature's body and he was horrified to see the pure hatred in Sunset's eyes as she was crushing the Changeling's body.
"Sunset, don't do this..." he pleaded.
The cracking sounds became even louder and more intense as the Changeling let out a long howl unmitigated pain as its bones cracked.
"SUNSET STOP!"
Much to his and Cadance's relief, this seemed to snap her out of whatever violent trance she was in as she reluctantly halted her administrations and slowly lowered it back onto the ground.
Cadance's ear twitched as she turned to see Rainbow Dash along with the Captain of the Night Guard and his subordinates.
"What's going on here?" The Bat Pony asked.
"These Changelings tried to ambush me." Cadance explained.
"What you going to do with them?" Dash asked.
"Finish them...or let them bleed." Sunset spat before walking off.
"We will keep them prisoner, so they can do no further harm until this whole conflict has been resolved." Cadance replied, returning her attention back to Rainbow Dash. "These two however," she gestured to the ones that Sunset had attacked "need medical attention."
"Very well." The Captain confirmed. "Flash, we'll take things from here."
He nodded before lifting off into the air again to find Sunset, just what was that all about?