twilightpony | Foalnapped

My friends and the princesses were foalnapped by changelings while they slept! I was foalnapped from my bed here in the castle by changelings while I slept! My brother, my niece, Cadence, Spike... all twelve of us were paralyzed, restrained magically, cocooned and replaced, and nopony in Equestria was the wiser. Except for Starlight Glimmer, Trixie, Spike's friend Thorax, Sunburst and Discord. Perhaps several dozen butterflies in Ponyville too. I don't know. I don't speak butterfly. I'm surprised that Owlowiscious didn't raise the alarm, or Fluttershy's many animal companions didn't notice something was amiss, and that the changelings managed to catch all of us napping. Literally. I guess with Applejack that's not surprising, and I'm a pretty sound sleeper as well, I didn't hear a thing, but snatching Princess Luna without Princess Celestia noticing, that must have been tricky.

They smuggled us out of Equestria, into the Changeling Hive where Queen Chrysalis had us hung like trophies above her throne. I found myself powerless, fighting some kind of paralysis while floating upside down in green goo. I couldn't breath, I couldn't move, I could barely stay awake and I couldn't cast magic. It was hard to get my bearing in those brief moments of lucidity, but I could see that I was not the only cocooned pony there. Everything was too blurry to see who the other ponies were and I couldn't break free. I kept going unconscious.

We were trapped like that for at least thirty hours. Longer for Rainbow Dash, Princess Luna and Fluttershy. Meanwhile, changelings that looked and acted just like us had replaced all twelve of us. Apparently Queen Chrysalis and several of her drones worked together to raise and set the sun and moon. Unicorns, working in concert, did that task in the past. There are a lot of changelings and Queen Chrysalis's throne in the Hive absorbed pony magic, so that was probably a factor in their success. Queen Chrysalis's throne was carved out of an ancient stone monolith that had the property of neutralizing and absorbing pony magic, but that rock is no more, thanks to Starlight Glimmer and Thorax.

Smuggling us out of sleepy little Ponyville under the cover of darkness wasn't too hard for the changelings, but it was probably more of a challenge to smuggle Luna, Celestia, Cadence, Shining and Flurry Heart out of their cities. Starlight Glimmer said Luna succeeded in dreamwalking into her dream thanks to her recurring nightmare of being rejected by her Village ponies. Luna was probably in a transport to the changeling Hive at that point. It was Luna's warning that led Starlight and Trixie to peek through the door to the Map Room in time to see them using a grid of signature stones and to drop their disguises to talk to Queen Chrysalis. They were lucky to get away and even luckier to be found by the only friendly changeling in Equestria, Thorax. Then Discord joined them, which I guess was fortunate as well.

Discord, Trixie, Thorax and Starlight Glimmer, versus the changeling Hive, a throne that neutralizes and absorbs all but changeling magic, and its Queen. That was not an auspicious beginning. And they won! Thanks to teamwork, skill, some quick talking, Thorax's familiarity with the Hive and Starlight's long-shot deduction, they made it. Queen Chrysalis and the throne got bombarded with so much love that the throne was smashed, the top of the hive was obliterated and we were broken free of the paralyzing goo-filled cocoons that held us.

Starlight and Thorax had reached the throne room only to get surrounded by Queen Chrysalis and a phalanx of drones. Discord and Trixie had already been cocooned. Neither Starlight nor Thorax had any idea on how to demolish, break or neutralize the ancient monolith throne. Starlight did try kicking it and hitting it with whatever she could find. That didn't work. She tried to undermine Queen Chrysalis' plan to rule Equestria by revealing that Thorax no longer starves now that he shares friendship freely. She addressed the drones in the room, telling them that they could be free of starvation if they would just share love, like Thorax. Not surprisingly, Queen Chrysalis was not interested in fomenting dissent among her drones and no changeling volunteered to test the hypothesis. So that flopped. Queen Chrysalis turned her attention to Thorax, who was spit-glued to the floor. Queen Chrysalis proclaimed that she was going to drain Thorax to death (by starvation). Starlight came up with one last long-shot as she tried to at least buy some time. She told Thorax to give all his love to the Queen freely. Apparently no changeling has ever done such a thing in living memory. The blast of love knocked Queen Chrysalis back and Thorax underwent a metamorphosis into, well, something else. A higher form, an adult... regardless, it was impressive. Starlight jumped on the occasion to continue her pitch about how the changelings could become free from their insatiable hunger. This time there were takers. Or givers. A whole lot of giving. Queen Chrysalis was on her throne at that moment, and the intense blast of love from dozens of drones at once smashed the magic-sucking rock into rubble. We broke free of our paralyzing cells and found ourselves amid dozens of orange, green and blue changeling-sized entities. Only Queen Chrysalis was unchanged and not interested in metamorphosing. She ran off. Capturing her in her own lands without prior permission from the changeling governor(s) would have been bad for Equestrian diplomacy, so who knows where she ran off to.

We didn't go straight home. There were still quite a few changelings masquerading as us and other ponies in Equestria and we thought it best to give Thorax time to bring them in. Starlight had an idea where we could go in the meantime, and that was to her Village for the Sunset Festival that is still going on. We all spent the day there, having fun, eating (I was starving!) and catching up on what we missed. The royals left last evening, when it became clear that no changelings were moving the sun and moon, but the rest of us stayed in the Village overnight.

Discord snapped us home this morning, except for Starlight and Trixie. They're staying two more days until the end of festival. In Ponyville the changelings did a good job of fooling everypony and keeping our Ponyville tasks somewhat up to speed. Fluttershy's wards seemed to have been fed less than usual and they were frequently locked out of the cottage. Apparently Applejack burned a few pies while we were gone and Pinkie's sense of humor was off. Rarity is up to her haunches in overdue orders to fill. Dash was lucky that she wasn't on Wonderbolt duty while we were being replaced. The changelings left a mess behind here that we've mostly cleaned up. Before going to bed, Spike made sure all the doors and windows in the castle are shut.

It's good to be back.