The Name is Hooves. Derpy Hooves.
Nobody was answering the door.
Derpy had been clopping her hoof against the door of our safehouse for a couple minutes now, and the ponies who were supposed to be running it hadn’t answered. That was an ominous sign. “You don’t suppose they got caught, do you?” Hell’s bells, for all we knew the ponies managing our safehouse might have been caught by Celestia’s forces and been next up on the metaphorical chopping block to get an all-expenses-paid trip to the moon.
If Celestia’s ponies had found out about Luna’s little spy ring in her capital, the last place we wanted to be was loudly knocking on the door of a known spy’s home. Unless our enemies were suffering a sudden and extreme case of stupid, they would have people watching the home of a known spy to identify any co-conspirators, and while the lot of us had managed to blend into the crowd so far, if the guards actually started paying close attention to us it wouldn’t be long before someone recognized us.
Even if the bad guys didn’t know that we’d arrived in Equestria yet, they knew I’d knocked all the other ponies free of their Denarian co-pilots. With only one pony left to rescue, it wasn’t exactly hard to guess what my next move would be. Odds were, the reason Twilight had been sent to the moon was to keep her out of my reach so I couldn’t do the same for her.
My paranoia sense was tingling full force, and I started checking every single window and patch of shadow for signs of a waiting ambush. I didn’t see anyone, but for all I knew that just meant the ponies had watched enough Monty Python to know that being seen would result in getting shot or blown up.
After all, it's not much of an ambush if you're doing such a poor job of hiding that that the people you're supposed to ambush see you. Plus anyone with magic could toss up a veil that would make them pretty much invisible. Well, I don’t know if unicorn magic actually has invisibility spells or not, but considering how my luck’s been so far it seemed like a good idea to assume they did.
It probably didn’t help my budding nervousness that the streets were distinctly empty. Oh, there were still ponies around, but not very many, and most the ones I saw were moving along quickly. Nobody stopped for a friendly little chat with a passer-by, there were no little kids frolicking through the streets, none of the usual signs of a bright, happy city. It reminded me of the mood that hit Chicago whenever serious bad news was about to go down; the entire city was filled with a palpable sense of dread. Considering Celestia’s tyrannical turn, it wasn’t hard to figure out why.
“It usually take this long for them to answer the door?” I asked our guide with just a hint of concern in my voice. By now everyone else was starting to look a bit nervous too; maybe their minds had started to connect the dots the same way mine had.
For her part, Derpy just knocked on the door again. After rapping her hoof on the door twice it suddenly flew open, and Derpy rapped a light green unicorn on the head a couple times before realizing what she was doing. “Oops! Sorry Lyra.”
The unicorn, whose name I could probably assume was Lyra, rubbed a hoof over her freshly bruised head. “Ow.” She didn’t seem to have been too badly hurt though, since a second later she was all smiles. “Hey there Derpy, nice to see you again. Sorry it took so long to get the door, Bon Bon and I were kinda in the middle of something, and we didn’t hear you knocking. Come on in!”
Lyra opened the door wide, and six hot, messy, tired, and just generally worn out ponies, along with one wizard-turned-pony, tromped in. Well, make that five worn out ponies; Pinkie was still her usual bouncy hyperactive self. “Oh wowie-wow! Dashie was right, there are Trixie posters, like, everywhere!” That was a bit of an exaggeration, there were a couple patches of ceiling and floor that were still relatively clear, but Trixie had devoted a pretty big chunk of her home to celebrating her own accomplishments.
Pinkie spent a second or two zooming around exploring the room, then zipped back over to the unicorn who’d let us in, who was standing next to a cream-colored earth pony with a blue and pink mane. “Oh, you guys don’t know each other yet! Can I introduce everypony to each other? Can I? Can I? Please? I love introducing new ponies to each other!”
“Yeah, sure, go ahead.” I’m pretty sure she would’ve exploded in a supernova of Pinkie energy if I’d said anything other than yes.
“Yay!” Pinkie bounced over to me. “Lyra, this is Harry Dresden!” She moved over to the unicorn. “Harry, this is Lyra Heartstrings!” She zipped back to my side. “Bon Bon, this is Harry Dresden!” Now she moved over to the earth pony. “Harry, this is Bon Bon!” Then Pinkie jumped up onto Lyra’s back. “Bon Bon, this is Lyra Heartstrings!”
“Lyra and I already know each other, Pinkie.” Bon Bon deadpanned, though it was hard to tell with the rather odd way she had of speaking. She had some kind of accent that I couldn’t really place, and it made her tone kind of tricky to pick up.
“Well duh!” Pinkie shot right back. “But I’m supposed to introduce everypony to each other, and that means I can’t leave anypony out!” I’m pretty sure Pinkie would’ve continued on down the long list of completely unnecessary introductions until she’d gone through every possible combination of ponies, but Rainbow Dash saved us all from being chattered to death by hastily shoving a hoof into Pinkie’s mouth before she could get started.
For a second I thought we were saved, but then Pinkie reached her hooves into her tail and somehow pulled a pair of earplugs out. Rainbow quickly put the earplugs in, and unleashed Pinkie upon all of us with an evil laugh.
As soon as the treacherous pegasus released her, Pinkie resumed introducing everyone to each other, no matter how unnecessary and annoying it might be. The fact that me and every pony aside from Rainbow Dash had hooves over ears and were asking her to stop with varying degrees of politeness was an irrelevant detail. Pinkie might have kept on going forever if Derpy hadn’t made a heroic sacrifice by shoving several muffins into Pinkie’s mouth. By the time Pinkie finished chewing and swallowing the muffins, her mind had moved along to the next topic.
“Sooo…” Pinkie Pie drew the word out as she turned to face our hosts. “What were you gals up to that made it take so long to answer the door anyway? Were you baking cupcakes? Or brownies? Or cookies? Or regular cakes? What about muffins, ‘cause Derpy likes muffins and I like muffins too, even after the whole baked bads thing, which was Applejack’s fault, but not really because I already forgave her for being such a silly pony. So where are the muffins?”
“We weren’t making muffins Pinkie.” Bon Bon’s voice sounded completely different this time, much lighter, and with a vague California accent. Huh, that was weird.
“Nah, we were doing something much better than baking muffins.” Lyra added, looking over at Bon Bon with lidded eyes and wearing a very pleased smirk. That’s when I noticed the fact that both ponies had slightly disheveled manes, and how both the ponies were smiling and blushing just a bit, not to mention the fact that the two were standing just a bit too close to each other for to just be friends. Oh. Huh. Well, I certainly hadn’t seen that one coming. Either Discord was messing with the laws of cartoon reality, or there was a lot of stuff going on in the background of Equestria that flew right over the heads of the show’s target audience. Or maybe I just have a really dirty mind, and there was a perfectly innocent and not remotely sexual explanation for all of this.
Unsurprisingly, the implication flew right over Pinkie’s head. “Better than baking?” The party pony sounded incredulous for a moment, but it didn’t take long for her to transition into energetic curiosity. “What is it? What were you gals doing? Tell me! Tell me! Tell me!”
Lyra had her mouth open and was about to answer when Bon Bon gave her a very unsubtle nudge. “Nothing.” The mare stated hastily, sparing a forceful glare for her very special friend. This time Bon Bon’s voice sounded like it was coming from an old matronly woman, despite her looking to be a youngish adult. Or at least, I assumed she was in that age range; to be honest, it was pretty hard to figure out any pony ages beyond child, adult, and the occasional really old one like Applejack’s grandmother.
“How can doing nothing be more fun than baking?” Pinkie seemed quite perplexed at this point.
“Um…” Lyra and Bon Bon desperately searched the room to see if anyone else might be willing to bail them out, but there was no help to be found. I sure as heck didn’t want to get mixed up in their problem. Judging by the look on her face it was taking every bit of Rainbow Dash’s self-control not to start laughing her ass off, while Applejack and Rarity seemed to be of a similar mind to Rainbow, though a bit more restrained. Fluttershy would probably die of embarrassment two words into any attempt to explain things to Pinkie. Derpy … well who knows what’s going on with Derpy’s head? I still can’t tell if she’s a harmless but lucky fool or an evil genius.
“It was a – um – special kind of nothing.” Lyra finished weakly.
Pinkie’s eyes widened in comprehension, and she bobbed her head up and down. “Oh! I get it! Sheesh, why didn’t you just say so?” The party bounced over to Rainbow Dash, and tossed a friendly foreleg over the pegasus’ shoulders. “Dashie and I do special nothing all the time!”
Jaws dropped across the room, and an awkward silence reigned. That was definitely a bit of a revelation; I mean, I knew they were good friends and all, but I didn’t know they were that close. In hindsight, maybe the whole eating chocolate off of Rainbow thing should’ve been a giveaway.
Rainbow’s jaw dropped right along with everyone else’s, and soon the pegasus was blushing furiously as she quickly extracted herself from Pinkie’s hug. “I – we – we aren’t – It’s not like –“
“Well, I think it is simply wonderful.” Rarity announced airily. “I cannot say I am surprised; the two of you always did seem to be especially close.”
“Shucks RD, when were you plannin’ on tellin’ the rest of us about you an’ Pinkie?” Applejack cut in.
Pinkie Pie stared at all her friends, and raised a single eyebrow at them (well, technically she didn’t since the animators hadn’t really given the ponies eyebrows, but the intended effect was obvious). “What are you gals talking about? You’ve known about what me and Dashie get up to forever!” The pony turned to Lyra and Bon Bon, and eagerly chattered at them. “Hey, I just had a brilliant idea! You gals should get together with me and Dashie for a group session!”
If Pinkie’s last shocker of a line had stunned everyone in the room, this one sent everyone’s brain into full meltdown mode. I’m pretty sure at this point I could definitely confirm that Discord had completely destroyed all of the censorship rules that had once bound Equestria.
Pinkie Pie couldn’t miss the fact that every single person in the room was utterly flabbergasted after her proposition to Lyra and Bon Bon. “What is with everypony? You gals know me and Dashie have been pranking buddies forever! Having two more pranking buddies would make things even more super-duper funneriffic!”
All of us, with the exceptions of Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie, let out a near simultaneous cry of “OH!” as we finally figured out that Pinkie wasn’t suggesting an orgy. Rainbow Dash had her face buried in her hooves, and looked like she had just about hit Fluttershy levels of desperately wanting to get out of the room and away from everyone else.
“What did everypony think I was talking about?” Pinkie asked.
“Never mind!” I hastily cut in. “So, Lyra and Bon Bon. You guys will go pranking with Pinkie sometime after all this is done, right?” There might have been a hint of desperation in my voice.
“Oh! Yes, of course!” Bon Bon hastily agreed.
“Yes, we will go pranking, because that is what Bon Bon and I do.” Lyra added woodenly. Thank goodness Pinkie Pie has no truthdar.
True to form, Pinkie took the obvious lie at face value and grinned brilliantly. “Okie dokie lokie!” Satisfied by the promise of future pranking to come, Pinkie energetically bounced out of the room, leaving the rest of us behind.
Applejack decided to go up to the still very mortified Rainbow Dash and offered a few words of comfort. “Don’t you worry none sugarcube, we all know Pinkie was just bein’ herself, and she didn’t nothin’ by it.” The farmpony smirked, gave Rainbow a playful nudge, and declared. “And we ain’t never gonna let you forget about this.”
Apparently, instead of being there to offer comfort Applejack was there to find amusement in Rainbow’s pain and humiliation. Friends can be funny that way.
“Shut up Applejack.” Rainbow groaned.
“Aw, don’t be like that sugarcube.” Applejack let the hostility just roll right off her back. “I know you’re upset on account of Pinkie an’ all, but don’t you worry none. I’m sure she’ll come ‘round soon enough and agree to be your special somepony.”
“It is a shame.” Rarity added theatrically. “The two of you made such a lovely couple. Young romance, cut so tragically short…” Rarity let out a very overwrought sigh. “It’s just so horrible! Oh, I had such high hopes for them! I was already planning a beautiful wedding! Of all the worst things that could happen, this is THE! WORST! POSSIBLE! THING!” Rarity collapsed against Applejack, holding onto the farmpony while letting out loud histrionic sobs.
“Shut up Rarity.” Rainbow added halfheartedly.
“I suggest flowers or chocolate to fix this.” I offered sagely. “Or, considering the fact that this is Pinkie Pie we’re dealing with, maybe chocolate-covered flowers, with added hot fudge sauce, whipped cream, sprinkles, and a cherry on top.”
“Shut up Harry.”
“Muffins would be even better than flowers!” Derpy opined. “Everypony likes muffins! And you could make muffins with flowers and chocolate in them!”
“You’re not helping, Derpy.” Rainbow complained.
By now everyone in the room was highly amused at the pegasus’ predicament. Have to admit, after the nasty spat we had earlier and all the general stress and trouble the ponies had been through over the last couple days, it was good to see that they could still poke fun at each other and have a bit of good innocent fun. No wonder laughter is one of the Elements of Harmony; sometimes, a good giggle or two is the best way to brighten things up when they’re at their darkest.
“Um…” Fluttershy very hesitantly added. “If it’s okay with you, I could talk to Pinkie for you. It’s just that, I know you’re not very good at talking about your feelings, so maybe I could tell her how much she means to you…”
“Even Fluttershy is teasing me.” Rainbow whimpered. “My life is officially over.”
“Well shoot sugarcube, you know if it were anypony else in your position, you’d be havin’ yourself a chuckle or two at their expense.” Applejack added reasonably. “Can’t ya just relax a little and see the humor in it? Or are ya just too upset on account of Pinkie gettin’ your hopes up?”
“I hate you guys.” Rainbow whined. “Seriously. All of you. So much hate.”
After snagging a couple of Derpy’s muffins for a meal (I’m sure that the daisy sandwiches and hay fries Lyra and Bon Bon made for the lot of us were a perfectly edible meal to ponies, but I had several decades of human experience telling me that flowers and hay weren’t food) I found a comfortable chunk of floor, grabbed a blanket, and settled down for a quick catnap until it was go time. Rainbow Dash had already beaten me to nap time, and the rest of the ponies were quick to follow. Rarity was the only exception since she apparently couldn’t sleep until she’d had a chance to clean off the dust, sweat, and general ickiness that accumulates after half a day walking out in the blazing hot sun.
After what felt like no more than a couple seconds of sleep, I felt a hoof gently shaking my shoulder. I’d hoped that a short power nap would be enough to put a little spring back in my step, but apparently all the rest had accomplished was giving my body a chance to notice all the aches, pains, and troubles it had acquired, and how much it would really like a week of taking it easy to fix all of that.
I opened my eyes, and immediately found myself face to face with a light green unicorn. Lyra seemed way, way too happy to see me. I know what I look like when I’ve just woken up, and it isn’t pretty. Not even turning me into a cartoon pony will fix that. The huge grin and barely contained enthusiasm on the pony’s face was just a bit unsettling. ”Is it true?” I could practically feel the eagerness radiating off of her.
“Is what true?” Being bombarded with contextless questions right after waking up is a good way to make any wizard start getting grouchy. A quick glance out the window confirmed that the sun was still up, which didn’t help my mood much; I’d been hoping to enjoy some quality naptime until the sun went down and Luna’s moon came up.
“Pinkie Pie told me you’re human. Well, you were before you got turned into a pony, but that just means that you’re a human who got turned into a pony, so you’re still a human, just one that looks like a pony now!” Lyra started literally bouncing up and down in excitement. “Isittrue Isittrue Isittrue?”
Stars and stones, I think she stole some of Pinkie’s crazy juice. “Uh … yeah. I’m a human.”
“Aha! I knew it! Oh my Celestia! I knew it!” Lyra began gleefully bouncing around the room. “Yesyesyesyesyesyesyes!” As several sleeping ponies began grumbling about the interruption of their precious sleep, Lyra stopped right in front of me, staring at me intensely enough that I started wondering if I needed to worry about getting pulled into a Soul Gaze. “That means … you know about hands, right?”
This conversation was rapidly moving towards weird. No, scratch that, it was already firmly entrenched in weird territory, especially with the manic gleam I was starting to notice in Lyra’s eyes. “Yes.” I answered very slowly. “I know about hands.”
“Alrighty then, mister human wizard.” Lyra thrust her forelegs towards me. “Give me hands!”
Just when I think my life can’t get any stranger… “Excuse me?”
“I want hands.” Lyra answered, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Have you even tried playing a lyre with hooves? It’s impossible! I mean, sure, I can use my magic to make it work, but it’d be so much easier if I had hands! Plus I could do all kinds of things. Like … like pick things up! And open them! I mean, sure, I could my magic for all that, but … hands! Please use your human wizard magic to give me hands! Please! Pleasepleaseplease!”
Okie dokie lokie. This was starting to get just a touch disturbing. Why do I always get the crazy ones?
By now Lyra was making enough of a racket to start disturbing the other ponies, with the exception of Rainbow Dash, who looked as though she could sleep through Luna standing right next to her and yelling as loud as she could. The combination of the sleepy grumbles of my companions and Lyra’s own considerable noise level drew Bon Bon’s attention, and the earth pony looked less than pleased. “Hush Lyra! You’re bothering everypony!”
“But Bon Bon.” Lyra protested, thrusting a hoof in my direction. “Hands!”
Bon Bon facehoofed. “Oh for the love of Luna, not this again.” She turned and gave me a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry about this Harry Dresden, but when she gets started on her hands she’s simply impossible to deal with.” Bon Bon shot a glare at her special somepony, which went completely over Lyra’s head.
I wasn’t sure how much good reasoning would do with Lyra in her current state of mind, so I opted for a little white lie. “Sorry, I can’t do transformation magic to give you hands.” Technically I actually could, much the same as I might technically be capable of performing brain surgery. Neither one was outright impossible, but I certainly didn’t have the skills or experience to do it properly. Pony bodies aren’t designed to have human hands slapped on them, and if I tried just magic-ing up a couple I’d probably mess up all the important little details like connecting bones, muscles, and blood vessels between her new hands and her forelegs/arms.
Even if I could’ve actually given her working hands that wouldn’t cause any health complications, there were all the other issues to deal with. Hands aren’t nearly so suited for walking on as hooves are, and ponies aren’t designed to be bipeds.
That’s not to mention that transforming another person was against the Laws of Magic. Granted, Lyra technically was a pony, not a person, and the Second Law had a bit of a grey area when it came to people who wanted to be transformed, but the Council takes a dim view on messing around in legal grey areas, especially with someone who’d once broken the Laws like me.
“Aw horseapples.” Lyra sighed and flopped to the ground, disheartened by the news that I wouldn’t turn into some sort of unnatural freak pony with hands. With a wistful look in her eyes, she asked. “Is it nice? Having hands?”
“Hands are alright.” I answered with a shrug. I generally didn’t give much thought to the matter, though when I’d nearly lost my left hand a while back to some vampire flunkies with a flamethrower I’d gained a new appreciation for them. That probably wouldn’t be much of a comfort to the pony though. “You can’t really walk on hands though, and walking on just two legs is a lot slower and causes all kinds of trouble. And then there’s trimming your fingernails, and papercuts, and stuff like that. Trust me; hands are way more trouble than they’re worth.”
“I guess.” Lyra sounded utterly unconvinced by my efforts to talk down hands, but seeing as Bon Bon said that hands were an obsession of hers, there probably wasn’t much I could do to convince her that she was better off without them. Who knows, maybe Equestrian magic had a spell that could give hands without all the complications that went along with my brand of spellslinging. After all, Twilight had that spell that could give another pony wings, and you’d think hands would less complicated than that.
I felt vaguely tempted to say something to perk the now mildly depressed unicorn up, even if she was a little on the crazy side, but before I could think of anything remotely suited to such a bizarre situation the room went dark. It was like someone turned out all the lights, except there weren’t any lightbulbs here, just some unlit magical lamps and a bunch of open windows.
I poked my head out the nearest window to confirm what I thought had happened, and sure enough the moon was there, hanging up in the sky. All the ponies out in the street were staring up at it, and I caught a few snatches of worried conversation. For all the ordinary folks who believed Celestia’s line about Nightmare Moon’s return, seeing the sun yanked out of the sky and replaced with the moon had to be a pretty scary sight.
Between myself, Lyra, and Bon Bon we had the other ponies up in a minute. None of them were exactly happy about being taken away from their rest, but unsurprisingly it was Rainbow Dash who seemed most displeased to be woken up. She was a pony who valued her naptime, after all.
Looking the pegasus over made me wonder if that was all it was though. She’d been half past dead two days ago, and even with having Luna personally patch her up, that kind of thing puts a heck of a lot of stress on the mind and the body. Her mane was scragglier than normal, her feathers had a slight droop to them, and her normal air of brash confidence just wasn’t quite as strong. Normally, Rainbow Dash was a pony who projected authority and demanded attention; now, not so much. I motioned her aside, and found a relatively private corner for us to talk in. “You alright Rainbow? You don’t look so hot.”
Rainbow gave a quick shake of her head. “Yeah, m’fine.” A second later the pony was frowning at me and looking me over with a critical eye. “You don’t look like you’re doing so great yourself, Harry.” She pointed a hoof towards the nearest mirror.
I took one look at the pony looking back at me through the looking glass, and had to agree with Rainbow’s assessment. My eyes were bloodshot, my shoulders sagged, and there were half a dozen darker and slightly reddish patches on my coat that I’m pretty sure were the cartoon pony land equivalent of half-healed injuries. No wonder my body kept telling me it would really just like to take a break from saving the world for a week or so for a little R&R.
None of the ponies in my group were looking as bad as me and Rainbow, which I guess figured since the two of us had been in the thick of things for the longest, but they all looked like they were running on about half a tank of gas.
Derpy seemed to have taken note of this, and was busily distributing more of her seemingly never-ending supply of muffins. Naturally, she floated right over to Dash and me once she’d gotten everyone else muffined up, and gave Dash and I muffins as well.
I took a try at using unicorn telekinesis to eat the muffin, and managed to not make too much of a mess in the process. “Good thing I’m getting better at this.” I commented idly to Rainbow Dash. “If I got muffin smeared all over my face, Pinkie would probably be over here trying to eat it, and I know how jealous that would make you.” Fortunately, Derpy’s muffins are soft enough that it didn’t hurt too much when Rainbow pegged me in the head with one.
Have to admit, while I was still tired, sore, stressed, and all that, a chocolate cherry almond muffin made all those things seem slightly less important for a while. For a minute I could forget all the problems, and just think about how tasty that muffin was. Feeling a little bit better now, I turned to Derpy, and got down to business. “Alright, the moon’s up, so it’s time for us to get started.”
“Oh my!” Fluttershy squeaked out. “The moon is already up! We’re not too late, are we? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sleep so long, I’m so sorry, I –‘
“It’s fine.” I hastily cut her off before she could work herself up into full-on panic mode. “The moon just came up, and it’s going to take a while for Celestia to get her people together and get out of Canterlot anyway. We don’t want to dawdle, but we can afford to spend a couple minutes getting ready.” I turned to our expert spy. “Derpy, how do you plan to get us into the palace?”
Derpy looked at me as if I’d started speaking really bad Latin. “Through the door?” The pegasus suggested as though it should have been blindingly obvious. “That’s how I always get into the palace.”
“Derpy, sugarcube.” Applejack began gently. “I know it ain’t a problem when it’s just you deliverin’ your mail and all, but don’t you think all them guards might have a thing or two to say ‘bout the lot of us just walkin’ right up to the front door?”
Derpy pondered the question for a bit, and shrugged. “Nah. Everypony there is used to seeing me around, and as long as we don’t get in anypony’s way and don’t do anything to make ourselves stand out they probably won’t bother us.”
Huh. Looks like ponies aren’t that different from people after all. That’s the thing that most people don’t get about sneaking around; most of the time, you were much better off just walking around and acting like you belonged there than you were trying to lurk in the shadows, crawl through the air ducts, or anything else you’d see in a bad action flick. Generally speaking, guards have all kinds of things they need to do on a daily basis, let alone when the entire palace was in crisis mode like it would be now. When everyone’s scrambling around with a dozen different things they need to get done right now, nobody’s going to stop to talk to a couple random folks that just happen to be passing by.
Guess it figures ponies would have all the normal weaknesses that went along with human nature. After all, they were cartoon characters made by humans.
“Alright, so we’ve got a way in.” It wasn’t a very sophisticated way in, but as long as it got us in it would work. “It’ll probably get more complicated once we need to get into the throne room to grab the Elements, but we’ll have to play that part by ear. Soon as we grab the Elements, we haul flank, and get back to Luna.”
I normally like to plan things out a bit more than that, but this time around I just didn’t have enough to go off of for that kind of thing. If I’d had a couple days to scout things out, or even just a better grasp of all the fine little details of Equestrian magic, geography, and all that, I could probably have hammered out a really nice plan. Too bad we didn’t have that kind of time to work with. I wouldn’t be shocked if that was part of why Discord and Nicky had made their move to Earth; Nicky had to know that few things out there are more dangerous than a wizard with enough time on his hands to start really planning things out, so keeping me off-balance and under pressure was his best bet for stopping me.
I was about to lead the way out when a thought occurred to me. “Bon Bon, Lyra, you guys staying here, heading to link up with Luna, or what?” I guess it was even possible they might be planning to tag along with us, though I’d rather they didn’t. Strength in numbers is great and all, but seven people was already a large-ish group. The more folks we had, the harder it would be to stay inconspicuous. Still, I didn’t want to leave two ponies who’d helped us out stuck in the middle of enemy territory.
“The Princess told us to just lie low and wait it out.” Bon Bon answered, and by now I wasn’t even surprised by her voice changing again. I guess it was just one of those weird things that happens in Equestria. “Lyra and I aren’t fighters.”
“Alright. Well, see you when it’s over.” The lot of us tossed on our cloaks and headed out into the streets of Canterlot. The city was already in the early stages of a full-out panic riot. Ponies weren’t quite running around screaming that the end was nigh yet, but lots of ponies were out in the street, and there was plenty of fearful muttering.
We passed one throng of ponies just in time to see a grey earth pony mare hop up onto a conveniently placed soapbox to address the crowd. “My fellow Equestrians. There is no reason to be alarmed; the rising of the moon is not something to fear, but a sign that our liberation is at hand.”
“Liberation?” A voice called out from the crowd. “Nightmare Moon has returned, you foal!”
“Has she?” The speaker shot back. “Nightmare Moon’s goal was to bring eternal night, yet for the last week all we have seen is eternal day, while Celestia’s guards take away our freedoms and the Princess herself sends all who object to the moon. It seems clear to me which of the royal sisters has turned upon her people.”
“That’s blasphemy!”
An off-white unicorn with a bright blue mane hopped up next to the earth pony. “It’s not blasphemy, it’s the truth!” She shouted down the objector. “Besides, a week ago there weren’t even laws against blasphemy!”
Maybe Luna had sent some of her people to Canterlot to help work the crowds and turn the people against Celestia, but I actually hoped that wasn’t the case here. That it was just two ordinary ponies, who’d seen something wrong and decided to stand up against it. It seemed right, that the ordinary ponies of Equestria would stand up in the face of oppression.
I noticed that Pinkie and a couple of the other had stopped to watch the spectacle, and gave them a gentle nudge. “We need to keep moving; lots to do.” Pinkie nodded, and soon we were trotting along again. We passed a couple other gatherings of ponies on our way to the palace, many of which were just milling aimlessly or being broken up by the guards, while others had ponies speaking out against Celestia’s rule. One or two had even devolved into open brawls between the supporters of Celestia and Luna.
After passing one particularly nasty looking scuffle, I realized that I could probably get some answers out of Luna’s spymistress. “Hey Derpy, did you set up all the ponies trying to stir things up here?” It was a good move; every guard stuck in Canterlot keeping a lid on things was one less guard Celestia could leave in the palace or send out to fight Luna’s forces.
“Nope.” Derpy answered. “It’s an independent cell. We’ve had some contact with them, but a lot of the ponies here weren’t sure they trusted Luna. Plus, Luna thinks the Canterlot resistance has been infiltrated.” Derpy gave a thoughtful pause, and added. “We tried working with them a couple days back, but somepony sold us out.”
Well, guess that answered that. I guess with more than a thousand years of bad reputation and two turns to the dark side behind her, Luna had a hard time getting everyone to believe that she was on the side of the angels. Just because Celestia had turned into an evil oppressive tyrant didn’t necessarily mean that her sister was pure sweetness and light. Contrary to what the old saying told you, the enemy of your enemy wasn’t necessarily your friend.
When we finally got to the entrance of the royal palace, our plan hit its first big snag. I guess it shouldn’t have been a surprise that with ponies gathering all over the place to ask each other what was going on, there were a bunch of them who’d opted to go to the palace for answers. Naturally, the crowd of ponies milling around the outside of the palace asking what the hay was going on prompted someone to stick a dozen of the royal guards out front on crowd control duties, and part of crowd control is not letting the entire crowd go swarming into the palace.
I turned to our escort and resident spy. “This going to be a problem, Derpy?”
“Nah, I can handle it.” The pegasus assured me casually. It wasn’t too hard to jostle our way through the crowd; there were a lot of ponies packed in pretty tightly here, but they were mostly milling about aimlessly. It wasn’t until we got pretty close to the front of the crowd that we actually had trouble getting through, and then we just had Rainbow and Applejack take the lead and clear a path for the rest of us.
“Halt!” Two of the guards moved to bar our way as soon as we broke out from the front the rest of the crowd and started trotting forward. “The Princess has declared a state of emergency until Nightmare Moon has been defeated. Nopony is allowed entry to the palace except on official business.” The guard fixed us with a stoic glare for a long moment, until he noticed a certain pegasus in our midst. “Is that you, Derpy Hooves? On messenger duty again?”
Derpy fluttered up to stand in front of the guard, and nodded with her the innocent enthusiasm that seemed crop up whenever she wasn’t having one of those flashes of espionage-related brilliance. “Uh-huh! Got a message for Captain Shining Armor from Lieutenant Commander Stalwart Shield in Cloudsdale.”
“Alright, go on through.” The guards cleared out of Derpy’s path, and the lot of us started forward. “Those other ponies with you, Derpy?” The spy nodded back, and the guards shifted a little further to the side to let the rest of us through. Well, that was the first hurdle cleared. Now we just needed to –
“Wait! Stop right there, Derpy Hooves!”
One of the pegasus guards gave a quick flap of his wings to land in front of us. Oh, that was very not good. What gave us away? I should’ve known something was going to go wrong; it had been way too long since I’d run into anything worse than a minor inconvenience. The journey to Canterlot had been quick and easy, Rainbow’s grudge and the big nasty argument amongst all the friends had resolved itself way too easily, our contacts in Canterlot hadn’t been compromised, and the plan was going smoothly. After more than a day of nothing going catastrophically wrong, I was past due for some terrible luck to ruin everything. All the ponies froze, Rainbow was in a half-crouched fighting stance, and I got ready to toss some spellfire.
Derpy played it a lot cooler than my barely concealed fight-or-flight panic, turning around and giving the guards her most harmless smile. A second later the pony who seemed to be in charge here spoke up. “As long as you’re going to see the Captain, tell him we need some more ponies on duty in the city. The crowds are getting restless, and from the reports I’ve been getting reports that Nightmare Moon has agents in the city trying to start a riot.”
“Okay.” Derpy answered innocently. A second later we were moving right along again, and I was feeling a little silly for nearly jumping into a completely unnecessary fight. Considering everything we’d been through, being on edge was totally understandable, but that didn’t change the fact that I’d been seconds away from blowing our cover. Alright, calm down Harry. Remember, you need to play this smooth; don’t get worried or panicky when something goes wrong, just stay cool and in control. Like Derpy.
It says something about the way the last few days had gone that a pony named Derpy Hooves had me beat in the coolness department.
The palace was in a similar state to the rest of Canterlot, except that it was organized panic and chaos instead of the normal kind. It’s kind of hard to explain the difference, really, but trust me, there is one.
Derpy led us straight through several corridors, and true to my hopes everyone else was way too busy dealing with their own business to stick their noses into ours. Soon enough we’d gotten to the entrance of the throne room, and that’s where we hit hurdle number two with a second set of guards. There were only six of them this time, but I doubt Derpy would be able to bluff her way past them as easily as the ones on crowd-control duty. We ducked into a side passage for a quick planning session.
“Alright, the floor’s open to everything from brilliant strategies to zany schemes.” There were two lines of columns in the hallway leading up to the throne room; that would give us some cover if we wanted to try being sneaky. Or if we wound up into a magical firefight; a pretty big chunk of the royal guards were unicorns, after all.
“Oooo! I’ve got an idea!” Pinkie burst out. The pink pony yanked a large cardboard box out from behind a little decorative wall strut that most definitely shouldn’t have been able to have a large box hidden behind it. The pony dropped it over her body and crouched down, so the bottom of the box rested against the floor. “We’ll totally blend in this way! Whenever they’re not looking we’ll move forward, and whenever they look at us we just drop down and stay still, and they’ll all be like, ‘oh, that just a boring dumb box, we can ignore it’ and this is the best plan ever!” Pinkie poked her head out from under the box, and added. “By the way Harry, the floor isn’t open; floors can’t be open, they’re not doors, silly.”
“Uh, right, thanks for that Pinkie.” Rainbow Dash was right; Pinkie Pie was so random. “So, any other suggestions?”
“We got them outnumbered.” Rainbow Dash opined. “And more important than that, we’ve got the fastest, strongest, and coolest pegasus in Equestria on our side.”
“Yeah, Derpy’s a real solid addition to the team.” I never pass up a chance to be a smartass.
That punctured Dash’s ego for a bit, but only for a bit. “And on top of that, we’ve got a pretty cool wizard, and an Earth Pony who’s almost as fast and strong as I am.” Rainbow tossed a significant look Applejack’s way. “We can handle a couple dumb guards.”
“Now hold on a second.” Applejack cut in. “We can’t just go fightin’ all them guards. Even if we beat ‘em, they’ll put out an alarm, and that’s assumin’ nopony hears us gettin’ into a big ol’ tussle with ‘em in the first place.”
“Well what’s your idea then?” Rainbow demanded. “Throw apples at them? Offer to give them some apples if they let us by? Something else stupid involving apples?”
“I, well…” Applejack paused for a moment of consideration. “Well, I guess we could try gettin’ them to go somewhere else, so they ain’t in our way anymore. And if that don’t work, then I reckon I’ll take the two on the right, Dash’ll go up the left, and Harry can go up the middle.”
“But … but we can’t fight them.” Fluttershy whispered. “What if we hurt one of them?”
“So, distraction and misdirection then?” Rarity announced. “Well, I can be rather charming when I want to. Leave it to me.”
“Hold on a tick.” I put a leg up in Rarity’s path. “I could buy charming one or two guys to leave, sure. But there are half a dozen of them there. At best, you’ll split them up for a bit. It’s a good idea, but we need something that’ll get rid of all six of them. I mean, getting rid of a couple of them would be something, but that would still leave us in the same boat of needing to fight our way past the ones that are left, and even if we pull it off before the guards can set off some sort of alarm, their friends will be back in a couple minutes. Plus, there’s a pretty good chance the guards watching over the Elements will recognize you guys on sight.”
“Maybe if we just asked them really nicely they’d let us by?” Fluttershy suggested hopefully. A second later, now that everyone was looking at her, she shrank back down to the ground. “Or, maybe not. Sorry. I’ll just be quiet now.”
“Alright.” I could feel the beginnings of a plan coming together. “Derpy, the ponies here trust you to play messenger. So we need to come up with a fake message that’ll get them all out of the way. Tell them that Guard Captain…” I paused and tried to remember what Derpy had said the Captain’s name was.
“Shining Armor.” Derpy helpfully supplied.
“Yeah, him. Anyway, tell the guards that the Captain needs to put them on riot control duty, and he’s got some ponies on the way to replace them, but they need to get moving right now before things go out of control. The guys up front already asked for reinforcements, so with any luck it’ll be awhile before anyone notices anything out of the ordinary.”
“Nice plan!” Derpy declared enthusiastically. The pegasus took wing, and after a bit of conversation with the guards that I couldn’t quite make out, all six of them cantered away. Second hurdle cleared.
The lot of us walked through the massive double doors into the throne room. Just like Derpy told us, all six of the Elements of Harmony were standing on a pedestal right next to the throne. Everything had gone perfectly according to plan.
Way too according to plan. I don’t trust any plan that works perfectly. Maybe that makes me paranoid, but just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean there’s not an invisible demon a couple seconds away from eating your face. My wizard sense was tingling, telling me that something wasn’t quite right here.
I was about to warn the other ponies, when our friendly neighborhood spy flew over to the Elements. “Derpy, wait, I’ve got a bad feeling about this!“
Derpy reached out to take the Elements of Harmony, and her hooves passed right through them, An illusion. And that meant–
There was a blinding flash of light, and all the ponies cried out in pain. Yeah, that’s what I’d been afraid of. We’d walked right into a trap.
Once I could see again, I realized that we were utterly, completely doomed. For starters, instead of being empty now the room was packed with guards. That, I might have been able to deal with. Okay, it would’ve taken a hell of a lot of doing, but I’ve handled a bunch of mooks before. It was what was sitting on the throne that had me shitting bricks.
“I thought there were only two of them.” I whimpered.
The pony on the throne was the very image of a princess, though she was smaller than the actual princesses, and lacked their imposing presence. The pony herself was pink, and her mane had a mix of purple, pink, and yellow. Much like Celestia and Luna, she wore a golden chest piece and shoes.
More importantly than all those minor little details, she had wings. And a horn.
That was bad.
That was very, very bad.
I remembered what had happened when Celestia threw down with Discord. Odds were this winged unicorn wasn’t nearly that strong, but even a fraction of Celestia’s power would be enough to thoroughly kick all of our asses. I didn’t even need to bring up my Sight to know that Discord had gotten to her.
“Greetings, servants of Nightmare Moon.” The winged unicorn declared. “I am Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. By my authority as a member of the royal family, I hereby sentence you to exile. If you resist, you will be summarily executed.” A very nasty smile appeared on her face. “Please, do resist.”
Rainbow Dash summed it all up in two words. “We’re fucked.”
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>It's my birthday today
>this updated
>fuck yeah
Poor Dash, well played sir
Pinkie's plan is best plan.
Wah wah wah waaaaaaah
And then it's not Cadence but Chuck Testa ... I mean, Chrysalis!
Which is probably worse.
Man, you're driving me to re-write the lyrics to the Goldfinger theme from James Bond...Derpy is the best spy ever.
And the ending?
Of course, Rainbow would be the pony to truly take advantage to the lack of censor. Wonderful as always.
TAKE THE EXILE
YOU'LL BE ON THE MOON
539976
Rewritten Goldfinger Lyrics? Please do.
If they're lucky, this world is JUST different enough from the core pony dimension that Shining Armor and Cadence haven't gotten married yet and that's actually the changeling queen, who will be able to see what's going on and will side with them so that Equestria won't become a land unfit for her and her subjects to feed upon. If not, then they could use some major help. Say...the Orbital Friendship Cannon targeting that room, or to have ALL the alternate Pinkie Pies pop in all at the same time and pray that the crazy or evil ones don't appear next to the main characters. Then again, their reality may implode from so many Pinkie Pies all in one place...Actually, Pinkie summoning....that could make for a funny spell in a later fic....
Oh you.
You awesome you, you.
Here's hoping Harry will show his bad-ass side and pwn some ponies!
...Or he and the rest could all just get exiled to the moon and meet Twilight there. No worries.
* Disappointed sigh*
No, no worries at all.
RAINBOW DASH!!!
Language!
I'll admit the situation is a bit out of hand, but where did Dash learn that? I thought she only knew the word "ass". Laughing my ass off when Pinkie suggested the naughty. Looks like the gangs in real trouble though if we're seeing Cadence I'm really excited about the chance they might meet Chrysalis as well. Keep the awesome coming Chengar Qordath.
Looks like Harry might be reaching his Pinkie Pie quota at this point. I suppose 10 straight hours of singing and craziness would do that to a guy.
Dear Celestia, I think Discord’s bending the laws of Equestria is starting to let the fanfic and fanon bleed in a bit! Or at least letting it fill in the blanks given by the cartoon.
Well everypony is well and truly boned. Seems Dresden and the gang have been completely outplayed this round once again. Harry is just not catching any breaks once again. I guess its off to the moon for everyone. And oh goody, then it will be time to deal with Denarianized Twilight. This just keeps getting better and better for Harry Dresden. He is going to have to be at the top of his game to pull this one off somehow.
541722
Yup. Since the MLP-verse is driven by fans believing in it, where there's no canon, fanon will fill the gaps. That's not to mention Discord horribly destabilizing things, which causes problems like characters who aren't supposed to show up for 20+ episodes appearing.
wait... NO! cadence, you fool! this is perfect!
the way celestia is right now, she'd never send them to the moon, that's where twilight and probably the elements are (if they were left anywhere, they'd be on the moon or in the sun)
cadence is about to make the terrible mistake of sending harry & the gang right to where they need to be
Pinkie’s eyes widened in comprehension, and she bobbed her head up and down. “Oh! I get it! Sheesh, why didn’t you just say so?” The party bounced over to Rainbow Dash, and tossed a friendly foreleg over the pegasus’ shoulders. “Dashie and I do special nothing all the time!”
...
Pinkie Pie couldn’t miss the fact that every single person in the room was utterly flabbergasted after her proposition to Lyra and Bon Bon. “What is with everypony? You gals know me and Dashie have been pranking buddies forever! Having two more pranking buddies would make things even more super-duper funneriffic!”
On the other hand, you continue to create an extremely strong and interesting story, and I'm particularly impressed with the way you work in characters that didn't exist when you started writing. What was the plan for the end of this chapter before A Canterlot Wedding aired? I'm curious.
544946
factor.
Pre-Canterlot wedding, it was just going to be a bunch of guards and a Denarian pony for the ambush, Bad news, but it lacked a certain
Within an hour of watching Canterlot Wedding, Cadence was in.
One silly question... How were Lyra and Bon Bon having their "fun" with no "toys". I don't remember Harry Jr. making a cameo, so I doubt Harpflank and Sweets were there either. So just making out? I guess...
540421
Remember, Discord's release was at the beginning of the season, Canterlot Wedding was at the end. This is taking place nowhere near the wedding. It's doubtful the Changeling Queen was imitation Cadance for more than a week at most, considering Cadance did not starve to death in the Jewel Caves.
558084
Given sufficient time and determination, I'm sure Bon Bon and Lyra could come up with a a way to enjoy themselves within the limits imposed upon them by cartoon anatomy.
558161
Well yeah. I was just subversively trying to ask if said anatomy was or was not still cartoon. Of if a stealth change nopony had noticed had occurred.
558179
Nah, if Harry got his "anatomy" restored, he would notice.
558084
Cadence starving? Luna was on the moon for ONE THOUSAND YEARS. No food, water, or Oxygen, for that matter. I don't tihnk a few weeks or months in a cave would be a problem.
558378
Luna was spiritually imprisoned in the moon by the Elements of Harmony. Not teleported to the moon by Celestia. And even if she was, the moon is made of cheese. And Celestia and Luna eat food so they can starve. They also breathe air so they can suffocate.
Not to mention that most of the fan-theories out there seem to agree Cadence isn't quite on the level of Luna and Celestia.
558416
).
Okay, I suppose you've got me there, save that I don't think that Luna would have eaten the moon until it had a crater in it shaped like a Unicorn's head. That seems more like Discord's style (or mine, but I'd have eaten a big 'F U' or 'NLR' into it
558446
On note of Cadence,
Fun facts (that everybody probably knows by now)! all the ponies have a name that means something. It may or may not pertain to their occupation, but they all represent an object, color, time of day, emotion, flavor, or some other such thing.
Luna means 'moon' in another language, and Celestia, while not an actual word, is similar to the word 'Celestial' which is means 'of relating to the sky or the heavens' and 'supremely good; sublime'. (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/celestial) Which is rather fitting given that she raises and sets the sun, and is a benevolent ruler.
'Cadence' has to do with rhythm, or musical tone. I suppose that makes a degree of sense with that silly dance-game that she played with Twilight.
Mhm. Rules of being in a cartoon? Obliterated.
Chances of winning? Decimated?
Hope for a decent outcome? Nonexistant.
Yeah. Rainbow's right. We're fucked.
630502
Send in the vault dweller.
TVTropes is right. This chapter could be renamed to "Getting Crap Past the Radar". Or it would, if there still was a radar at this point.
Well, we're all fucked.
Ugh! Really! Was it so freakin' necessary (or even thematically appropriate) to turn Lyra and BonBon into a couple. You were doing so good about ignoring insipid fan conventions, too.
1429934
Since it gave us the "Dashie and I do special nothing all the time!" scene... yes, yes it was!
Changeling or Discorded?
560681 Hi there. I found your rhyme poemworthy. Also, I get the feeling that's Chrysalis, too.
Derpy. Derpy everywhere.
It is glorious.
1429934
The thing is, Equestria is fiction. It's explicitly fiction, in this telling, which means that the areas that aren't locked down in canon are going to be fluid. When the majority of the fandom agrees on a thing, that becomes the reality of the world, because of how the Outside works. The question wasn't if they were a couple or not, the only question was if we met them.
Immediately brings this image to mind:
orig10.deviantart.net/9326/f/2015/085/a/9/decadence_by_underpable-d8n1nq0.png
'Decadence'
558446 At least alone. With a love-driven powerup she may just be on the same tier. Remember when she drove them (changelings) from Canterlot with what logically should have been equivalent to beating them over the head with a bag of sandwiches?
. . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
Good God, it's a Metal Gear Solid reference...