Chapter 1 - You Arent Real
As the sun rose over Ponyville, buildings began to open up and ponies began to stream to and fro, leaving their homes to go to their jobs, or returning home after a late shift. A small but bustling town, seemingly calm, but used to the events that came with being the “Chaos Capital of the World”, a title informally given by Discord, but kept by the Ponyville citizens, due to the town’s propensity towards chaos and destruction. In the center of Ponyville stood a giant oak, the home of the Ponyville Library. In this majestic tree lives Twilight Sparkle, Ponyville Librarian, National Hero, and Princess of Equestria; titles in order of importance to the average Ponyville citizen.
Twilight sat in her kitchen, eating a quick breakfast of hay pancakes. She had gotten up early, partly because she never got to enjoy a real breakfast and partly because everypony who had some problem to be solved was asleep. For not remembering she was a princess, they certainly had enough problems for her to fix. For a brief moment she wished she could switch places with Princess Celestia, then she remembered that she’d have to deal with ponies like Blueblood.
A soft click announced the house’s other occupant’s entrance to the kitchen. “Hey, Twilight. What’re you doing up so early?”
“Hello, Spike. I felt like making a real breakfast today. I made a few extra; they’re over by the stove.” Twilight continued eating her pancakes. She always forgot how good a full breakfast was, seeing as her usual breakfast was a cold bowl of oatmeal consumed while sprinting across town. She could hear the clack of Spike grabbing a few pancakes and slipping a some gems underneath. He seemed to think she’d be insulted at his livening up of her pancakes; she always pretended not to notice.
The chair across from her scraped against the floor as Spike pulled it out. Twilight was busy staring at her plate and didn’t look up. She was hungry. She debated whether eating more pancakes would be considered gluttonous. This is my house, I’ll eat however much I want to.
She went back to the stove and grabbed the rest of the pancakes. Loading them all onto her plate, she started back towards the table. She looked over towards Spike to see if she should offer him another pancake before she finished them all, but froze when her eyes locked onto him.
That. Wasn’t. Spike. It looked like him, sounded like him, and acted like him, but it wasn’t him. Her magical grip on her plate flickered, sending half her pile of pancakes to flop onto the floor. She remained still, trying to process the new information.
“Uhh, Twilight? Are you okay?”
Adrenaline shot through her veins. With a crack, her plate went supersonic, flying towards the imposter’s head. With a yelp, Not-Spike sent a jet of flame out, engulfing the plate. But it continued its flight, charred, breaking against the far wall. With another breath, Not-Spike sent a dark cloud of smoke rolling throughout the kitchen.
Twilight grinned. I have you now! Charging her magic, she sent a changeling-detection spell around the room. When it returned, it had detected two life forms, no changelings. It’s not Spike and it isn’t a changeling. What are you?
Adrenaline coursing throughout her body, her hypersensitive ears picked up the sound of a quill scratching on a scroll. She shut her eyes, listening intensely, as numbers began to flow through her head. Direction of sound, the sound’s vector and magnitude, delta time to the echo, duration of frequency; statistics flowed as she determined the scripture being written. Total time of calculations: 0.672 seconds.
-I-L-I-G-H-T-I-S-C-R-A-Z-Y-S-E-N-D-G-U-A-R-D-S.
He was calling in reinforcements! Twilight couldn’t allow that letter to leave. A green flame briefly lit the room, then the hazy cloud of the letter flew out of the window. With a snap, Twilight teleported to the roof of the tree and focused on the quickly shrinking cloud of smoke.
Arc to Canterlot, velocity, counter-velocity, tangential speed, counter-arc, interception point... there! With a quick release of magic, Twilight sent a burst of energy on a slow curve towards Canterlot. For a moment, nothing happened. Then with a quick flash of light, flaming bits of paper fluttered down on Ponyville, completely unintelligible. Then, with another snap, Twilight reappeared in the kitchen.
The smoke had mostly cleared by this point. Not-Spike was standing at the window, looking in horror at the ruined scrap of his plea for help. He backed away from the window, only to crash into Twilight’s hooves.
“What have you done with Spike?” Twilight shouted, lifting the cowering dragon with her magic.
“I-I am Spike!”
“Liar! What did you do with the real Spike?”
“I am the real Spike! Please, you gotta believe me!”
“I know you aren’t the real Spike!” Her voice approaching the Royal Canterlot Voice, Twilight began to interrogate Not-Spike. “Who and what are you? Are you some new species of changeling? What are you doing in Ponyville? SPEAK!”
Blubbering in fear, Not-Spike tried to answer, but a knocking at the front door cut him off.
“Twilight? Are ya in there? What’s goin’ on? We need to talk ta ya!”
Growling, Twilight levitated the dragon imposter over to the chair and bound him there with a spell. “I’ll have more questions for you, imposter.” She Walked over to the door and swung it open.
“Girls I’m glad you all are here. I found an...” She stuttered to a stop when she looked outside the door.
Not-Applejack looked on nervously. “Are ya alright sugarcube? There were some explosions over the town and we heard yelling from inside. How’re you holding up?” Not-Rainbow Dash and Not-Rarity nodded, equally worried about their supposed friend.
“Not you all too...” Twilight backed away from the door in fear. This is bad, bad, bad! She was outnumbered, and if these replicated the abilities of those they copied as well as Not-Spike had done, then she was in deep trouble. I’ve got only one option; I have to run! Releasing her pent-up magic and fear, she knocked the three imposters to their hooves, and teleported away.