To say that ‘stuff happens in Ponyville’ might be one of the most grossly misleading understatements that could be reasonably made about almost anything. For this and other reasons, on the afternoon when a group of two dozen ponies, covered from head to hoof in obscuring black cloaks, walked into town pushing a large covered cart down the thoroughfare, the citizens of Ponyville were not nearly as concerned as they probably should have been about what was obviously a doomsday cult. After the apparent cult bypassed the market completely and turned towards the large crystal castle inhabited by Ponyville’s own Princess Twilight Sparkle, the citizens decided to ignore them completely. The exact implications of this nonchalance will be shown at a later date.
Unlike the citizens of Ponyville, the two armed and armored pegasi standing guard before the castle front door remained concerned as the two dozen cloaked ponies approached; that was their job, after all. Their concern did not lessen when the group came to a stop just before the stairs leading up and stood as still as statues. By the time the minute mark had passed, both pegasi were justifiably worried. “May we help you, citizens?” the one to the left of the doors asked.
“We have come,” one of the cloaked strangers near the front said, “For her!” With dramatic flare, he found his cloak into the air, and the sunlight gleamed off his sleek, midnight blue armor and helmet. He was larger than most stallions, standing half a head taller and a full hoof wider than even former Captain Shining Armor. His black chitin shone as if it were polished, his scythe-like horn was sharp, and even his tattered, membraneous wings seemed to subtly vibrate with the restrained power of a tornado.
His was a name adored by some, but feared by many more: Commander Wrecker.
Twenty three other cloaks joined his in the air, sunlight reflecting off the armored bodies of a horde of—
“Changelings!”
In an instant, the wings of both guards snapped opened, deploying the steel blades affixed to them, but to no avail; Wrecker’s horn sparked with acid green magic, and both guards a yelp of surprise as they were jolted into the air, mere moments before they gave a yelp of pain as their heads were slammed together. Rendered unconscious, they were dropped without ceremony to the hard landing in front of the doors. Rearing up, Wrecker slammed both front hooves onto the cart and upended it, sending two dozen spears flying into the air, only to be expertly caught by each and every changeling. Raising his own spear into the air, Wrecker sounded his rallying cry and charged.
“BONZAI!”
Princess Twilight's castle doors were no match for Wrecker; he possessed both size and strength enough to act as a living battering ram, and smashed them opened with his shoulder on the first try. Twenty three changelings were hot on his heels as he went barreling down the corridors, domestic staff and visitors alike diving out of the way. It was less than a minute before the doors to Princess Twilight's throne room came into sight.
“Onwards, valiant changelings!” Wrecker ordered. He pushed himself harder, and the rest of his horde galloped all the faster to keep up with him. “At last, the Purple Menace will get what's coming to her!”
As one, the horde of two dozen changelings crashed against the doors in front of them and forced their way into and then came to a scrunching halt inside Princess Twilight's royal ballroom, which was completely devoid of any ponies at all.
After a moment of surprise, Wrecker whirled around to face his fellows and gave a mighty war cry before charging back into the corridor. Without wasting a moment, they followed after him, screaming as they ran through the castle. Finally, their corrected course came to an end the doors leading to Princess Twilight's throne room. As one, the horde of two dozen changelings crashed against them and forced their way into Princess Twilight's laundry room, containing a single, very surprised maid and no one else.
“Uh...” said Wrecker, glancing around the room. After a moment, he spied another door, and whirled around to face his fellows and gave a mighty war cry, pointing to the door with his spear, before charging at it, the horde screaming as they followed after him.
5 minutes later....
Three ponies in white kitchen smocks stared in horror at the doorway leading into the room they occupied.
A single pot of water threatened to boil over.
A horde of two dozen changelings wearing armor and wielding spears stared uncomprehendingly at Princess Twilight's royal kitchen. Wrecker raised his hoof and coughed into it, and then gestured to the others with it. All of them slowly and silently filed back out the doorway.
11 minutes later...
The door to Princess Twilight's empty drawing room opened and a changeling ducked her head in momentarily before leaving and closing the door.
“This isn't it either!”
23 minutes later…
“Did you learn to draw maps by playing Ogres & Oubliettes?” Wrecker demanded of another changeling, who cowered beneath his shadow.
“Well, um… yes?” the changeling offered weakly. Wrecker looked down at the ink-marred paper that was serving as their map, the rooms laid out as if on a grid. Hardly accurate or to scale, but at least it let them see what they had tried already.
“Well, you’re getting results, and I won’t argue with that,” Wrecker concluded. “Now, where are we again?”
“In the bedroom,” another changeling said.
“Yes, but whose bedroom?”
At that instant, the doors to the unknown bedroom burst opened and Princess Twilight charged in and slid to a halt, looking expectantly at the empty bed in front of her. An instant after that, her expression shifted to frustration and she stomped her hoof on the ground. “Phooey!” she said. A stomping hoof not belonging to her pulled her attention to the horde of two dozen changelings, and her eyes widened in shock, surprise, and fear as Wrecker took an aggressive, commanding stance, pointing the tip of his spear at her from across the room.
“Hear me, Purple Menace! We changelings tire of your oppression of our kind, and offer you our ultimatum. Surrender immediately, and be destroyed.”
“Don’t you mean ‘or’?” asked another of the changelings. The scathing look offered by Wreck did nothing to dissuade their sedition. “And do we really have to do this? Look, I can’t speak for anybuggy else, but me? I’m not feeling the whole justice thing anymore.”
Wrecker was stunned. “What do you mean you’re not ‘feeling it’ anymore?” he demanded. “How can you not be feeling it? Our revenge is right in front of us!”
“I didn’t really want revenge,” said another changeling, stunning Wrecker further, “I was just tired of working at that mall.”
“I thought we were going on an adventure!” said a third, “Or a quest. Oh! An adventure quest!”
“I don’t really care what we do, I just want to go home,” a fourth chimed in.
“Alright, fine!” Wrecker shouted, “We’ll go home, you quitters! This was a terrible idea, anyway.” To his credit, he only moped for a moment before pointing his spear at Twilight from across the room. “Hear me, Purple Menace! We changelings tire of your labyrinthine abode, and offer you our ultimatum. Direct us to the gate, or be destroyed.”
“One, I don’t appreciate all these threats about my imminent destruction!” Twilight said, somehow managing to yell without actually yelling, although the barely restrained rise of his wings revealed her irritation, “And two, when you say ‘direct us to the gate’, should I take that to mean that none of you now where we are either?”
The changelings looked at Twilight silently and evenly for several moments, until Wrecker gave voice to the question they all wanted to ask: “What do you mean, ‘either’?”
1 hour, six minutes later…
The doors burst opened with only the smallest of shoves from Wrecker’s shoulder, and he immediately surveyed his new surroundings as the rest of his horde of two dozen minus one changelings and one alicorn princess stepped in after him. “Oh, come on, this is ridiculous!” he exclaimed after a single look around the unknown bedroom, “How the heck do we keep ending up here?”
“Wasn't the door on the other wall last time?” Twilight asked. None of the changelings present were keen on answering her; the possibilities were too frightening to consider.
“Never mind that, just, just bring the map,” Wrecker ordered, voice not possessing even half the fire when the changelings had first begun their crusade, “There has to be some way out of here.”
“Why don’t we just take the secret escape tunnel?” suggested one of the other changelings. She was answered with silence.
“What secret escape tunnel?” asked a perplexed Twilight.
“The one behind the armoire.” Without waiting, the changeling walked over to the armoire in question and gave the knob on the front a turn one way and then the other with her teeth, and with a low grinding, the armoire slid to the side, revealing a doorway in the wall that led immediately to a spiraling staircase downward. The changeling looked back to her fellows to see them staring with their jaws hanging opened.
“You knew that was there and you let us go running around the castle for an hour? And six minutes? Why didn’t you say anything?” Wrecker demanded.
“Well, I started to, but then Princess Twilight showed up, and you both looked like you were having so much fun arguing—“
“Debating!” Twilight quickly corrected.
“— with each other, so I didn’t want to interrupt.”
The horde of twenty tree changelings and one alicorn princess looked at the lone changeling silently and evenly for several moments. “Great, even good manners impede us now,” Wrecker huffed. “Whatever, forget it, let’s just go.”
Twilight’s eyes widened, just a bit. “Through the tunnel?” she asked. “We don’t know where it leads, or how long it is. It’ll be pitch black!”
“We all have magic, so it won’t be pitch black, and even if it was, we clearly don’t know where the corridors in here lead, and I’m pretty sure those guards outside don’t know either, seeing as they haven’t found us yet, so I fail to see how going into the tunnel somehow leaves us worse off than we currently are.”
“I have guards outside?”
Wrecker ignored the question. “Besides, it’s an escape tunnel, so it has to let out somewhere at least reasonably nearby. How long could it possibly take?”
??? later...
Night Light was in his personal study-slash-library in the Sparkle family home in Canterlot, organizing his books. Normally, this would not have been cause for any sort of alarm, but it had been so long since he’d done it. It wasn’t because he was lazy, of course. it was because every time he’d tried in the past, he would immediately think of her, and he just couldn’t do it. But finally, he was going to do it. He’d picked a place to start, and was just ready to shelve the first book he’d shelved in far, far too long.
And then, his favorite chair unceremoniously fell over and the floor all but exploded as huge mounds of dirt were pushed up into the room from underground, followed by a black form the rough size and shape of a pony, the afternoon sun gleaming off its midnight blue armor as it entered the library and left Night Light with his mouth agape, book falling useless to the floor.
“Changelings!”
Changelings, covered in dirt and wearing dented armor and carrying spears that had seen better decades, came pouring out of the hole in the floor. They spread around the room, checking behind furniture, glancing out the windows, and otherwise making a nuisance of themselves with their illegal occupation of sovereign territory. Two dozen changelings altogether, if he counted the tiny one that went weaving between the legs of all the others, looking at everything with all the wonder that only a foal was capable of.
“Clear!” one of them shouted back down the hole, “All except for some old guy!”
“Hey!” said Night Light in protest. The changelings ignored him.
Next out of the hole came the largest and most muscley changeling Night Light had ever seen. Larger even than most ponies, standing half a head taller and a full hoof wider than Shining Armor. This changeling, he knew, must have been their commander. As soon as he was in the opened, the changeling commander looked around the room once, and then turned back into the hole. “Careful,” he said to somepony behind him, “It’s slippery.”
The breath hitched in Night Light’s throat when she walked out from the hole. Her form was immaculate: The dirt-smudged, purple fur, the unkempt mane, the ruffled feathers of her wings, the spiral horn in desperate need of a filing, and the very pregnant belly. When she locked eyes with him, emotions changing from surprise, to shock, and finally settling on teary joy, he was certain his heart stopped. “Dad?” she said to him, her voice like that of a princess.
“T-Twilight?” Night Light said, momentarily forgetting about the changelings in his study. “It’s been three years!”
Twilight suddenly narrowed her eyes into a scowl and glared at the changeling commander, standing right next to her. “‘I know exactly where we’re going’, huh?” she said, “I told you we should have taken that left at Cowbuquerque!”
The changeling commander looked from Twilight to Night Light with a resignation in its eye that the stallion recognized all too well; the resignation of a stallion that knew he was beaten.
“Yes, dear,” he said, “You were absolutely right about that.”