Not long after Blackie's brief visit in Equestria, another quick little horse is on a chase. Underneath his golden armour, his white coat, black mane, and sapphire eyes blazed with rage.
"Silk Carnival," Inky Tatters cried, "I'm coming for you, moon-loyal traitor!" For now, the defecting red-maned, green pony was no where to be seen in this mess of green, brown, and black all about him. But his two pricked ears picked up the snap of a trap from a short distance.
Inky whinnied with joy, as he reared and kicked at the air. He hurried to the trap, dodging, sliding, and leaping over any obstacles in his way, but he could only find that his target Silk had already escaped. He followed Silk's tracks to a fortress deep in the woods, with its gate sealed shut just in front of him. He could tell that it was a New Lunar Republic fortress just by looking at its flags, with their dark blue and their silver crescents. For its size and the many towers behind its walls, it might be a strategic fortress — perhaps it might be the headquarters. Now he had himself being surrounded by scores of Lunar soldiers, who blocked every possible route for him to escape. His enemies prepared their bows and rifles, and aimed at him, should he even think of resisting or escaping.
"Surrender now, Captain Inky, and you will make a useful asset to our cause." A cyan pony, clad in silver armour and a purple cape, yelled at him from the battlements. Next to her are two bodyguards, one of which is short and greenish-blue, and the other thin and gold. "Free yourself from Celestia's lies, and help us liberate Equestria from her falsehoods!"
"The Great and Fervent Captain-General Trixie Lulamoon," Inky taunted back, "your wordy speeches are fit for a show, at least back at Canterlot when it wasn't so fortified. But I will never give in!" He twitched his head towards the guards aiming their crossbows and rifles at him at the battlements, of which Silk has became one of them. "And you Lunar rebels always take the losers and low-lives, don't you?"
"They have seen the truth about Celestia's failures," Trixie answered back and cleared her throat, "for she has became so occupied with 'friendship', that some aristocratic snobs at Canterlot managed Equestria's government in her place! Trixie cannot just stand by, and let them waste our riches on themselves!"
"At least they were keeping all of Equestria stable, free, and well-fed, while you rebels want us to be like Starlight's league of bandits: rigid, forced, and ideological," Inky argued. As the soldiers all around him waited for his next move, his conversation with the sky-blue Captain left some of them distracted. "If I am to die free or return to my business, than to linger at some dungeon cell and some brainwashing, so be it!"
He burst through some of the soldiers, dodging arrows, bullets, and blades, and beating up any-pony that stood in his way, until several pegasi seized each of his four legs. He bit into some of their forelegs and kicked their faces, and he dived as he dropped to the ground. He was seized by a light blue glow all around him, as Trixie dragged his floating, struggling body towards a tower, where several guards prepared a net to trap him into.
"You came here all alone, without your bodyguards to protect you," Trixie chided. She turned to the guards next to him. "Take him to the prison cells."
But a beam of light shot down from the sky, right over Inky. For a while he felt as though something is burning him, and then he was gone in the blink of an eye. In his place was a grid of burnt rope strings on charred cobblestone, with several confounded guards around the spot.
"What is this new magic?" Trixie implored. Later, she, her bodyguards, and all the others heard crackling at the place where the "second sun" briefly flashed in the sky. Several electric bolts raced in circles, before a blob grew within the rings of lightning into a metallic disk. It was as large as the entire fortress, and it cast a cool shadow over the Lunar forces.
"Every-pony," Trixie cried, "shoot the disk-ship down!" Scores of cannons and rockets fired away, while hundreds of winged horses swarmed toward the vessel. The vessel created a transparent green sphere of energy, deflecting the cobalt horde and their projectiles. A few shots managed to damage the ship, and several ponies managed to fly through its collapsing shield. It then drew out some speakers, and played at its highest volume what sounded like a shoddy recording of an orchestra of dozens of broken violins. Its unbearable noises scattered those ponies, many of which crashed as they tried to fly away from it. Those on the ground covered their ears and wailed in agony, screaming for that unearthly music to stop.
Soon afterwards, the Sun loomed quickly towards the disk-ship like an enormous fireball, and every-pony began running to the caves to avoid its extraordinary heat. It gave out several thin streams of fire were channeled into the ship. Before the Sun could scorch the land and everything on it, the ship's panicked crew pressed several buttons, causing their vessel to disappear in a blinding, searing flash.
"What are you doing, Princess?" a brown unicorn guard, in gleaming gold armour, worriedly inquired. "What has happened to you?" Already most of the ponies in Canterlot Castle hurried into its underground chambers to avoid the growing heat, leaving only the two of them present on a balcony, with several others racing up the towers to attend to the Princess of the Sun. She gave no answer, but only stared at the moving Sun. Her mouth gaped open, as though something is sucking her life out of her. "Your Highness, you need to ANSWER!"
A searing, scorching light grew from Celestia's horn, forcing the guard to retreat indoors and put away his melting, dripping armour and helmet as they seared into his skin. Three smaller alicorns, two purple, one yellow and red, hurried up the stairs, where the guard bumped towards one of them. "Some-pony put the Princess into a powerful spell!" he huffed. When they reached the balcony they noticed Celestia standing there, moving the Sun from the sky, and causing it to grow menacingly in their view.
"Celestia!" Twilight called. "Stop pulling the Sun!" Her head was still craned towards the blinding orb as it crawled across the burning sky.
"What are you doing, Princess?" Starlight added. "You're putting Equestria in great peril - "
"Princess Celestia is bound to some kind of strange magic, strong enough to keep her from paying attention to anything else." Sunset cut in. "We should be casting other spells to snap her back to her senses."
"What spells?" the older purple alicorn asked.
"Stand back and I'll show you," the red-yellow pony answered. They did so, and she fired a beam of energy, scorching into the hoof-shoe at her left foreleg.
The older purple alicorn was shocked. "Sunset, what are you doing to the Princess?!" she asked.
"Trying to snap her out of her mind control!" The fire-maned pony replied. "I don't know what kind of magic that is, but I think some pain would bring her back to reality." While they were arguing, the Princess got pulled out of the balcony and towards a vessel located somewhere over the Everfree Forest. Celestia's cries of "Help me!" trailed off, as the pull became too strong for her to turn and use her wings to fly away.
"Twilight, Sunset, we need to save the Princess," Starlight interrupted. "There's no time to argue!"
The lesser alicorns quickly flew towards her to grab her forelegs, struggling against whatever force that was pulling her towards the vessel, which they noticed to be a disk-ship. Then it vanished in a flash, sending out a shockwave that flung her and her students towards a mountain cliff.
The three students got back up and gathered near their injured Princess.
"Celestia!" Twilight and Starlight called.
"Are you alright?" Sunset asked. She nuzzled the Princess' head, and she opened her eyes.
"What on Equestria just happened?" Celestia asked.
"Something caught you into a powerful spell, causing you to drag the Sun to almost destroy Equestria," Twilight responded.
"We want to know what impossible magic that the disk-ship used," Starlight added, "but we need to take you to the physicians."
They carried her to the chambers under the Castle, and told some ponies to come and tend to her wounds.
Though the Princesses are still alive, and most ponies and inhabitants survived this unusual catastrophe (except for the windigoes, sirens, and merponies), the disk-ship's pulling of the Sun had burned much of the plants of the world, melted mountain snows and polar ice, and dried up the ensuing floods and many bodies of water all over the world. They knew a bit about those alien ships like the one that almost devastated them, but as both Solar, Lunar, and other forces tried to rebuild, they wondered: Who were those piloting the vessel, and why were they doing this, over abducting some random pony?
Then everyone suddenly found themselves at the moment of the abduction, and went on as though nothing happened, or that Inky suddenly disappeared.