House of Sun

by Riossumari

The Trap is Sprung

Cadence and Sweetie quickly made their way to the spa area of the resort, they walked inside and looked around eventually finding Celestia and Luna being pampered by the staff.

“Auntie! I need to talk to you about something.” Cadence announced as she approached, Celestia and Luna both looked up the two staff pausing and waiting for them to finish talking.

“Cadence? What’s wrong?” Celestia asked,

“You’re not here for the treatment too are you? You need to schedule in advance first Cadence.” Luna chuckled. Cadence sat down and looked at the staff before leaning in close to whisper to Celestia so no pony else could hear them talk. “I think there’s something going on here that we don’t know about. I need to talk to you and Aunt Luna okay?” she whispered. Celestia nodded even though she wasn’t quite sure what to think of Cadence’s behavior.

“Alright Cadence, just give us a minute and we’ll talk in the lobby alright?” Celestia replied.

Cadence shook her head though, “No...let’s go somewhere more private I think, back at our rooms maybe. I’ll take Sweetie and go look for Twilight and the others in the meantime.”. Celestia nodded in agreement watching Cadence and Sweetie leave a moment later. Celestia and Luna finished getting cleaned up and got up to leave, Luna was a bit annoyed they didn’t get to finish their appointment but she also understood Cadence was worried about something right now. As the two princesses reached the lobby though they were surprised to see Ms. Cinch was there with two other employees, she smiled and greeted them happily.

“Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, I trust your enjoying the resort? No complaints I hope.” she asked.

“Oh no, we’ve been having lots of fun. Especially my family, we were just going to go and talk to my niece about something she was concerned about is all.” Celestia answered. Cinch smiled and put her hoof on Celestia’s shoulder,

“Well, if there is anything you might need please don’t hesitate to ask Indigo Zap. She’ll be sure to tell me right away and then we’ll make it right I assure you.” Cinch said as she looked back at the yellow pegasus in goggles behind her, she turned to leave and just she reached the door though Luna spoke.

“I thought your name was Sour Sweet?” Every pony in the room, Cinch included suddenly came to a dead stop. Indigo Zap looking back at Cinch with a look of panic and fear in her face now.

Cinch turned and glared angrily at her, “You little moron...now we’ll have to do this the hard way...”

Cadence and Sweetie made their way towards the river rafting course, Cadence hoped to find Twilight or any of the others before getting their but had no luck. Sunny Flare was at the entrance glancing through a book but looked up as the pink alicorn approached.

“Hello Princess, is there something I can help you with?” she asked.

“We were looking for Twilight, or any of the others. They said they were gonna do the river raft today, have you seen them?” Sweetie asked.

Sunny paused and scratched her chin thinking for a moment, “No, I can’t say I have...we had to close down the rafting course in fact due to a tree obstructing the river. They probably went someplace else I’d imagine.” Sunny said. Cadence and Sweetie looked at one another, but then started to walk away to go look elsewhere. As they walked Lemon Zest trot past them and over to Sunny Flare she leaned close and whispered to her quietly.

“Change of plans...we need to grab them all now.” Lemon said, Sunny Flare looked at her surprised watching as Cadence and Sweetie got farther away by the second.

“What happened? Why aren’t we doing the original plan?” she asked.

“Ocellus screwed up, used the wrong name for her disguise. The other Princesses figured it out, keep an eye on them while I get the others together.” Lemon said. Sunny nodded and began to follow Cadence and Sweetie Belle from a distance watching where they were heading.

Cadence walked with a brisk pace, the fact that she didn’t know where Twilight or the rest of her family was starting to make her worry.

“Cadence!” Cadence stopped and looked back realizing she’d been walking too fast for Sweetie to keep up with, the little filly ran up to her and stopped to catch her breath.

“I’m sorry Sweetie Belle, I guess being worried made me space out for a second. Here, let’s give this a try.” Cadence apologized as her horn glowed blue and she lifted Sweetie up setting her onto her back. Cadence readjusted her wings to hold Sweetie in place.

“You don’t have to carry me, just don’t walk so fast is all.” Sweetie said.

Cadence began to walk towards the arcade hoping to find Spike and Shining there at least, “Its alright Sweetie, I’m stronger than I look. Plus I really want to find every pony so we can figure out what exactly is going on right now...” Cadence explained. As Cadence walked she suddenly caught the faint smell of smoke in the air, she looked around and a saw a trail of smoke rising up over the buildings. Cadence paused to look and soon remembered that she was facing in the direction of the Spa where Celestia and Luna were and her concern suddenly began to increasingly grow more. Her pace quickened as she tried to make her way back to the spa to check on her family, soon however she came to face to face with Sugarcoat and another yellow mare with pink hair.

“Princess Cadence, is there something the matter? You seem flustered.” Sugarcoat asked, Cadence tried to walk past her to get to the spa but was cut off by the other mare.

“I’m sorry Princess, there was a small fire from a piece equipment breaking in that direction. I’m going to have to ask you go another direction.” Sugarcoat said. Sweetie wrapped her hooves around Cadence’s neck, she could feel that the little filly was getting nervous now.

“Well, I just want to go and check to see if my Aunts are okay is all. I won’t get in any ponies way. I promise.” Cadence said as she tried to walk past again but was stopped like before.

“Trust us Princess, everything’s just fine. Right, Sour Sweet?” Sugarcoat said looking at the mare standing beside her.

“Wait, you’re not Sour Sweet...we saw her at the nature trail.” Sweetie said. The two ponies in front of them both looking at them with surprise but then their expressions changed to anger, Cadence turned and tried to walk away the need to keep Sweetie Belle safe now her main priority. As she turned to leave though she realized they were suddenly surrounded on all sides by the resorts staff.

“Well I suppose the charade is well over now, no point in hiding anything.” Cadence and Sweetie Belle looked back to see Cinch slowly approach through the ponies surrounding them.

Cinch came to a stop in front of Cadence smiling as she did, “You see Cadence, were not the staff of the resort. In fact we’ve been here waiting for you all for some time, having the royal family all in one place would make it easy to replace them and then infiltrate Canterlot from within.” Cinch explained. Then one by one each pony around them changed in a flash of green magic into black, green eyed bug like creatures with ragged wings until the only pony left was Cinch herself who smiled before changing into a much larger bug like creature herself. She stood as tall as Celestia, her wings larger, holes in her legs, a blue stringy mane draping down over her back, and a black crown to show her status.

“We are the changelings Princess, and I am Queen Chrysalis...”

Author's Note:

Phew, almost forgot to post an update this month. Haven't been focusing enough on my fanfics lately since World of Warcraft has been consuming most of my free time as of late. But I'll try and be more attentive to my updates in the near future. Anyway finally get to the exciting part of the vacation arc as the Changelings have finally made their move. Hope some creature appreciates the name drop I did. Anyway you know the usual, leave a comment and let me know what you all think!

Comments

[Melody Song]

Oh no...they're caught!!!

Wait, if Ocellus is there, are Thorax and Pharynx there too?

[SpikeSmolder fan]

Welp, the crap just hit the fan now!

Wasn't expecting Ocellus to be there helping Queen bug with the charade, here's hoping she gets her eyes open at Chrissy's *plan* so to speak.

[SuperSonicHeroes]

Oh this is bad. Interesting to see Ocellus before her reformation though.

[Comickook]

Great job on this latest chapter. Definitely loved the work that went into the exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-up. Also interesting to see a pre-reformed Ocellus as part of Chrysalis's undercover team here (albeit the one that blew the Changelings' cover and forced Chrysalis to take the direct approach [not that the REAL Cinch is much better than Chrysalis, because she ISN'T]). On the upside, Chrysalis was part of the group going after Cadance and Sweetie and Celestia and Luna SHOULD be powerful enough to handle a few mook Changelings on full alert (ESPECIALLY with BOTH of them in Mama Bear mode). I just hope that the Changelings that AREN'T annihilated here (aside from Chrysalis herself, who will become part of Grogar's legion) will include Ocellus, Thorax and Pharynx so that the Equestrian royal family can show them a better way.

But anyway, very certainly looking forward to more of this.

[DavisSentoV5]

Welp, going to be Very interesting to see how they get out of this one

[redandready45]

Someone had to post it.

[Viatorem]

So I finally managed to catch up with this fic after falling behind last year (I basically made a rush from Discord first appearance to this chapter), and man, I forgot how good this fic was!

True there are some grammatical mistakes here and there but other than that, the fic is good, and in happy to see that you are introducing so many new ideas. Nightmare Rarity and Twilight alone where wellcome additions, but now bringing Ocellus and possibly Thorax and Pharynx this early in the fic is such a good and interesting idea, I can’t wait for the next chapter

[Riossumari]

10716216
I appreciate the compliment, and I try to get all the typos and such but occasionally they slip past me. My brains tends to think faster than my hands can type and that's about 90% of the reason I have grammatical hiccups here and there.