A Basement, Canterlot
The cloaked Ponies sat in a circle, a single candle in the center.
One spoke to the pony opposite.
"Brother Six, have you read the stars?"
"I have, Sister Twelve. The stars state that the Eternal Night may yet come."
"Excellent. Sister Three," Sister Twelve said to the pony two places to her left.
"The stars say we can induce the return of our Queen. All we need do is induce strong emotion in the impostor Luna."
"Excellent. Brother Nine?"
"This will be accomplished by..."
Sister Twelve raised a hoof.
"Brother Nine, why do you sit in Sister Five's place?"
"Um, if you're twelve, then I should really be over there," The pony beside her at the One position said, pointing at Seven.
"Nightmare damn it, not again! Every time, you morons sit at the wrong spot on the clock! And it was going so well..."
"If you bought more than one blasted candle..."
"Silence, Sister Eight! I tried to buy Four Candles but I just get Handles for Forks! And anyway, the Nightmare Cult rules demand a single candle light our coven!"
"And you wrote them!"
"Oh, forget it. Nine, get on with it."
"If we assassinate her niece, and make it look like the work of the jealous Sun Tyrant, this will induce sufficient emotion to liberate Our Mistress."
"Wait we have to kill Cadence? That's a bit dark," Four noted.
"We're a Nightmare Moon cult, you idiot!"
"I'm just saying, Cadence is nice. And we are basically planning to kill her on her wedding day, and that's kind of cruel."
"I agree, can't we kill her on the honeymoon?" Ten wondered.
"No, you twit, we can't spill any blood on any moon. The Rules! And of course it is cruel, we must be cruel to liberate Ponykind from the tyra..."
"Oi!" The griffin, Two, protested.
"...And Griffinkind from the tyrant sun!"
Eleven heads nodded
"...Um, with all due respect, what's so tyranical about Celestia again?" Ten wondered.
"Over a thousand years she has improved public services, funded education, improved housing, championed the arts and sports, reduced our military spending and pursued a peaceful approach to international relations that have ensured no wars in centuries, improved our medicine and healthcare personally, invented soft-scoop ice-cream, and also allowed the construction of airships and trains allowing anypony to travel anywhere in the world with ease!"
"...Are those bad things?"
"No, but she is doing it deliberately!" Twelve fumed.
"Ah. That changes it."
Elsewhere, The Changeling Hives
In the Hive Hall, Queen Chrysalis stood before her Generals, studying a map.
"My Queen, what are you planning?" A large changeling asked.
"...Okay, here's the plan."
She pointed at the bulky changeling.
"The Overlord will serve as a 'retard magnet', drawing out the Pony army. And then my 'lings will come in from behind..."
The Overlord sighed.
"With all due respect, Your Majesty, but perhaps a better plan B is in order."
"Well, I don't have one and you're the idiots so paranoid it'll go tits up you want a Plan B. My Plan A is pretty good. You're the only one objecting, baldy!"
"We're all bald except you!" The Overlord protested
She pointed at a map.
"Krabs drew this map of Canterlot, which explains why all the aquariums are marked out. Stoner will lead the first infiltration swarm to conceal themselves half a mile from the castle, in the main shopping district: If we're discovered they'll create a diversion and draw away some of the Guards. You and Kettle will lead the second and third swarms into the castle. Bugdorf will command the fourth swarm in reserve to help where needed, if needed. And Fegeling.... Well, we can only hope he turns his antics against the Ponies and not us."
"I still say we should just kill him."
"Damn it, Kettle, you need to be far less serious about this! Besides, I've tried, he always turns it into an antic."
"I think your plan needs to pay better attention to the fish," Krabs said.
"Oh, for f.... You can take care of the fish later, you piscine-obsessed prat!"
"My Queen, what will you be doing?" Bugdorf asked.
"Simple. I will take the place of Princess Cadence, feed on love, become empowered, all that jazz. This will lure the ponies into thinking I had some kind of objective of taking over the world or feeding my people... though one look at Goeling an Overlord and you can see some of 'my people' could do with a little less feeding...'"
"Hey! I object to this fat joke!"
"You are a fat joke!" Bugdorf snapped.
"Boys! Calm down. Bugdorf is right."
"My Queen..."
"Shut it, fatty. Anyway, where was I... Ah, yes, trick the ponies. I will of course be putting my life on the line with this one, so try not to cock it up or miss any information like a giant shield over the entire city or I'm screwed sixteen ways from Sundays. Because frankly if I get an Alicorn horn up my jacksy you had better hope I die or I swear to the swarm I will ram cactuses down your urethras."
"A...A cactus? In my urethra?!" Krabs would have paled if his chitin wasn't pitch-black.
"It's more likely than you think," Bugdorf muttered.
"But anyway, that's just the plan. What is our true objective?" Chrysalis declared.
Silence.
"Come on, speak up, you chitinous cretins!"
"Steal everything that isn't nailed down, and get a crowbar if there's time for the things that are nailed down," The four generals chorused.
"I think it's an excellent plan, my queen," a stick-thin Changeling said.
"Yes, yes, you'd think shagging a bandsaw was a great plan if I said it, Doctor Skeletor."
Overlord blinked.
"Wait, if Goeling and I are an example of why we need to eat less, what is Skeletor?"
"He has A Condition, Overlord, you insensitive tubby shit. You and Goeling are just greedy."
"My Queen, isn't this plan basically just the same as Die Herd?" Bugdorf noted.
"What, it... It's nothing like Die Herd!"
"The bad guy in that pretended to be a terrorist, but he was just a thief."
"Well, we're pretending to be a conquering army! And besides, we're not relying on the special agents cutting all the power to let us steal bearer bonds or something..."
"Wasn't that Tweet? That Robert De Neighro and Alpaca Chino film?"
"...Shut it, Krabs. Point is, we don't need the power to magical locks cut, we don't plan to blow up everyone as a distraction, and we're not just thieves, we're doing this for the good of my new front room. I want you to steal some nice paintings this time! Not just fish and pornography! And especially no fish pornography, Krabs!"
Elsewhere, Near Ponyville
The Rabbits sat.
One Rabbit squeaked. She squeaked some more. The other rabbits stamped their feet.
She squeaked, and did that funny scrunchy thing with her nose while her ears moved around a lot.
What was she saying? I don't know, I'm just a narrator, I don't speak Rabbit and the translator is broken.
She hopped around, and showed a picture of a pony. Oh dear, that's Fluttershy, they may be about to become rabbit stew if they... Nope, there's a big green tick beside her. And there's a picture of Celestia, with a big red cross.
Ah, I see, these rabbits don't like Celestia. Ooh, wait, translator is working a little, says something about how the big pony has done nothing but feed her own people while only a few good ponies such as the yellow winged pink hair have ever tried to give rabbits their deserved... deservings? Okay, it's still a little broken but better than nothing.
Aha, yeah, these are communist rabbits!
The rabbit squeaker speaked some more, and proclaimed something the translator claims is 'revolution!'
The other rabbits cheered, hopped up and down, and are now squeaking the red flag. Ah, translator's back.
"And when we have Canterlot, we will then demand... THE WORLD! WORLD DOMINATION FOR THE COMMUNIST RABBITS, BROTHERS AND SISTERS!"
That may be literal, these are rabbits.
Elsewhere, On the Moon
The Mouse-like creatures whistle.... Oh for God's sake, not again. Also, if these are who I think they are, they're not actually on the moon, it's a blue planet similar to, but NOT, the moon!
This is a fanfic, you pedantic tit
Don't backchat me, sonny-Jim, all you do is location headers! But you make a good point.
So we can say it's the moon?
Might as well. Find a damn translator for these little things, will you.
Elsewhere, On the Moon
The Mouse-like creatures whistled. They observed the planet below.
Their leader pointed, and whistled.
The others whistled back, and began to march towards their flying saucers.
The Clangers were about to invade.
I like how you tried to make that ominous when virtually no one will even get the joke
Shut it, headerboy!
Elsewhere: Another Time, Another Place...
Oi, what's going on here?
Yeah, who the hell are you!
"Confirmed, we have a successful connection. Preparing tachyon package."
Oh, wait, dude, this is the serious bit, we're not allowed here...
We're not?
"Roger that. ETA on delivery?"
No, look at how the Italics one isn't even acknowledging we're here.
"Fifteen minutes this side, five days that side. Insertion can commence immediately. We only have a single day window on that side, make sure you're fully prepared here."
"Acknowledged, we're ready. They won't know what hit them."
Elsewhere, Canterlot Castle
A Fat Guard, a Thin Guard, and a Young Guard stood watch. The three were Night Guards.
"So, it's the wedding soon," The fat Guard said.
"Yeah," The thin Guard noted.
"...What happens at weddings anyway?" The Young Guard asked.
"Well, at boring ones, not much. At good ones, there's a big fight."
"Oh. Will this be a good one?"
"Probably not," The Thin Guard said.
"Who'd fight anyway? It's Princess Cadence and that drippy Captain from the Harmony Guards."
"We could fight the Harmony Guards..."
"It's at daytime, we'll all be asleep after the night shift."
"Less chatter, more watching the gate!" A Major ordered.
"Um, Sir, about watching the gate... With all due respect, shouldn't we be on the other side of it watching for ponies wanting to get in, instead of sitting inside the walls and staring at it?"
"No! That's a valuable gate and if you three stand outside opening and closing it for ponies it might break! And if you stand there checking papers for visitors, that's when gate thieves strike!"
The Major had a faraway look.
"Yes... They strike... You think you're doing the job but then you turn around and it's gone.... gone into nothingness... Stolen... my poor Gate..."
He walked off. The three shared Looks.
"Major Gate Guardian is a little, uh..." The Young Guard began.
"That's not true, Private. He's a lot 'uh...'," The Fat Guard corrected.
"He's seen some things, and some stuff. Mostly stolen gates," The Thin Guard added.
And so, the gates of Canterlot were well guarded that night.
Sixteen doors and twelve cat-flaps, however, were nicked.