Well, I instructed my guard to not reveal anything about the conversation that Kathyrine and I had under penalty of being fired, but I didn't feel that I had to worry about that. My guard was loyal to me. Kathyrine gave her guards the same order, but under the penalty of de-clawing.
Yeah, she was kind of upset at the moment. I can't really blame her. If I found out that my dad pulled something like this I don't know what I'd do, but I definitely would not be happy, that's for sure.
Well with the documents found, I ordered my guard to go out in teams of six to search the woods for the presumably griffin or griffins that had set the fire in the fort. I instructed them to shoot up sparks the moment that they found somebody, as it would draw the rest of us to the spot where we could capture the offending party. I left Tracer Arrow and two other guards in the fort to search for any more documents, or anything else that could help us out with this. Lieutenant Rapids would be back with reinforcements, and likely another alpha alicorn, in a few hours. Until then it was just Kathyrine and I relatively alone. Each of us had a guard or two watching us from a small distance, but aside from that it was just the two of us sitting next to each other. Kathyrine was staring contemplatively at the ground and I was idly dragging a small stick through the dirt. I felt no need to force her to say anything. She would talk when she was ready, whenever that was.
I can't say that I blame her for being upset, though. I mean, I'm not quite sure what we're going to do to Aepnet because of all of this, but I can't imagine we're going to slap him on the wrist or the wing or whatever and let him be on his way. Chances are there are going to be some serious repercussions for this kind of thing. If Aepnet has to leave the throne at all, yeah, Princess Kathyrine becomes Empress Kathyrine who isn't sure that she can control dukes who she thinks will want war because of all of this.
Long story short, if I turned back into a human and asked Kathyrine if she wanted to come back to Ponyville with me, she'd probably jump at the chance.
It turns out that we don't have to say anything. We don't have to wait more than half an hour before I hear a small explosion behind me. I turn my head and instantly shoot to my hooves when I see what it is: sparks. Somebody found something. Kathyrine stood up too, but she was slower about it. There was a look of resignation on her face. She looked like she was about to go to the gallows and knew that she couldn't do a darned thing about it.
I have to say that I really felt sorry for her. I could imagine what it was like being forced into a leadership position, but not like that. Mine was an accident, I think. Hers... well, even with the gender loss I still think that she had it worse. Her dad betrayed her and might have just started a war. That's a bit worse.
Both Kathyrine and I took off, her griffin guards following behind us. There was still a token force guarding the fort, and I hoped that we wouldn't be gone too long. Whomever had shot the sparks had done so from a relatively close distance, so we reached it fairly quickly. I landed next to one of my sergeants when we reached the force.
"Sergeant Stones. What's the situation?"
Sergeant Stones grimaced and motioned around us. "About thirty of us have checked in so far, Princess. They know we're here, but they're not running. They couldn't if they wanted to."
"Okay. Who is the 'they' in this situation?"
Sergeant Stones scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Baby bunnies, Princess Antares. A whole herd of them carrying matches and gasoline over their heads chanting 'burn the fort down, burn the fort down.'"
I snort and give a small smirk, noting that Kathyrine is not so amused. "Okay, so griffins, then. How many?"
"Four in the clearing in front of us." Sergeant Stones pats his crossbow which has a sharp arrow loaded into it. "We've got the whole area surrounded, and they know that. They so much as open their wings and look to the sky and we'll put an arrow through one of their wings."
"Sounds like we've got this whole scenario in the bag, then." I take a deep breath and look towards the clearing. "Okay, I'm going to negotiate terms of surrender. Are they armed?" Sergeant Stones shook his head. "Good. I'm going in, then. They still have claws, I suppose, so cover me in case they try anything funny."
"I'm coming too!" Kathyrine growled. "I want to see them for myself."
"If you must." I beckoned Kathyrine to follow me, and she walked behind me with her guards flanking her. We entered the clearing and immediately saw four griffins with their claws over their heads, looking around fearfully. Turns out Sergeant Stones wasn't being sarcastic about the gasoline, though. We had our arsonists. When they saw us enter, one of them squeaked and curled into a ball, but the rest stayed sitting where they were.
I opened my mouth to begin discussing their surrender, but I was cut off by a loud shriek of pure emotional agony from behind me. I wheeled around and saw Kathyrine on the ground, staring at the griffin in the middle of the pack, pointing one of her talons at him.
"YOU ROTTEN SON OF A FEATHERLESS STRUMPET!" she wailed. "HOW COULD YOU?! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?!"
I turned my head to look back at the griffin in question. I didn't see anything special about him at first glance. He wasn't dressed like a noble or anything like that, so he didn't look important. He didn't seem to care that I was there, though. All he could do was stare sadly down at a screaming, sobbing Kathyrine. He quietly sighed and took a small step forwards.
"Kathyrine, I'm sorry this has hurt you. I was merely following your father's orders."
Kathyrine let out another loud wail and put her talons over her ear holes. I could only look between Kathyrine and the griffin. Not being intricately familiar with the Griffonian political system, I wasn't quite sure who this guy was. I fluttered my wings with a hint of nervousness and turned my full attention to the griffin.
"Okay, who are you, again? I take it you know each other."
The griffin tilted his head in a single nod. "Yes. Yes we do. My name is William. I am the head servant of Emperor Aepnet. It was under his orders that I burn the fort. I must say, I did not expect to be captured so quickly. I thought we would have a little more time to get away."
Ah. Yes, I can see why Kathyrine would be even more upset now. She couldn't deny that her father was behind all of this even if she wanted to now. Sinosis saying that it was Aepnet was one thing, but documents with his seal and his staff confirming it? Yeah, things were going to get very ugly in the next, oh, I'd say four or five hours.
It sucks being princess sometimes.
* * * *
The griffins gave up without a fight and allowed us to tie their wings and bring them back to the fort. Once Tracer Arrow confirmed that there was nothing left in the fort for us to use, I ordered us to pull out and go back to the main force. Boy would the other princesses not be happy about this one.
We were about fifteen minutes out of the fort when I saw Lieutenant Rapids flying back with a group of fifty pegasi. I waved them down and Rapids landed next to me.
"Did you have a nice time, Princess?"
I grimaced and shook my head. I glanced back at Kathyrine whose wings and head were so low to the ground they were nearly dragging. Lieutenant Rapids must have followed my gaze, because when I looked back the trace of amusement she had before was gone. "That bad, huh?"
"'Fraid so." I jerked my head back towards our latest group of prisoners. "We found the arsonists. Turns out that they work directly for our good old friend Emperor Aepnet. The one in front is his head servant."
Rapids flinched and flattened her ears. "Oof. That's not very good, is it?"
"No, it's not," I muttered. "Kathyrine is absolutely devastated because she thinks that we're going to arrest Aepnet which would make her empress. On top of that, she thinks that the dukes might want war now."
"Well..." Rapids subtly glanced back to Kathyrine. "Aren't we going to arrest Aepnet now? I mean, if he is behind this we can't just ignore that."
"I don't know." I quietly sighed and grimaced. "I have to ask Celestia and Luna about this. We have to talk, but I can't imagine we're just going to let this one go like nothing happened."
"We'd have a public outrage on our hooves."
"Precisely."
Man, this is why I wanted to be a teacher, not a politician. Far less drama behind it. Note how I didn't say that there was no drama like this. Take an education class and you'll find that it can get pretty political sometimes, so I did have some background in dealing with the system. Not like this, though. I didn't expect to have the fates of two entire nations hinge on my decisions when I took any kind of power. Ideally the most difficult decisions I wanted to make was who would get to be the line leader when my class went to lunch. Not this kind of thing.
The journey passed in relative silence for the rest of the time due to our smaller group. We didn't have hundreds to transport, so that made everything easier. I kept Tracer Arrow in my sight the entire time, as she was the one with the documents in her saddlebag. The trip was uneventful, but each of us was wary. My pegasi guards were constantly scanning the forest, their crossbows loaded and ready, waiting for anything to pop out of the foliage to ambush our little group. One would think that the griffins had enough sense to not attack a convoy headed by a goddess, but Sinosis had proven that he wasn't the smartest of beings when he decided to capture me without a second thought.
I was quite relieved when we reached the main group again. It was getting close to evening, and I can imagine that everybody just wanted to go home at this point, the griffins included, but that wasn't going to happen right now. I did see that the villagers who had been captured where nowhere to be found, as well as Cadance, so I imagined that she had taken them back to Baltimare for the time being. There was no need to keep them here. I saw my guard still standing watch over the griffin prisoners, while the princesses guarded Aepnet. He wasn't quite under arrest yet, but he would be shortly, I imagined.
William and the other three prisoners were put with the rest of them away from Sinosis while I walked over to the princesses. Tracer Arrow, Kathyrine, and Lieutenant Rapids followed closely behind me. I had to admit that I did not look forward to this. You know that feeling that you get in your stomach when you go get a shot from the dentist because they're complete sadists about it and you know it's going to hurt like heck no matter how much you mentally prepare for it? Yeah, I had that feeling. It's pretty hard to ignore the evidence that we had just gotten. Aepnet would have a much harder time refuting this.
We reached the small group and felt the eyes of everyone fixed on us. This would be a conversation that could change the political outlook of both of our nations for quite a while. I didn't like it. Not one bit, but it had to be done. It would be worse to just burn the papers and let Aepnet get off for this.
"Well, what did you find?" Celestia asked when we got close. "Did you discover the documents that Sinosis was talking about?"
"More than that." I motioned back to the new prisoners. "I take it that you were told that when we arrived we discovered that the fort was on fire. We caught the guys who did it." I turned my attention to Aepnet and my gaze hardened into a glare. "The one who was behind the arson was your head servant William."
Aepnet quietly squeaked and brought a claw up to his mouth. "I... I don't know what to say, Princess Antares! I do not know why my most trusted servant would set fire to the fort?"
"Really?" I ignited my horn and levitated the saddlebag off of Tracer Arrow's back. As I did, I noticed that Kathyrine's legs were shaking like an earthquake was going through the field. Man, her situation just made this whole thing worse to me, but it had to be done. "Then how about these documents asking Sinosis to kidnap the ponies?" I took the documents out and showed him the topmost letter. "That is your seal at the top, correct? And your signature at the bottom?"
Aepnet's eyes went so wide that they seemed to take up his entire head. His mouth flopped up and down like a fish out of water. The instant lack of denial left no doubt in my mind that yes, they were his seal and signature. I turned the parchment so that Celestia and Luna could see, and they nodded.
"They are." Celestia turned her head to Aepnet, who was staring blankly at the paper. He looked to me like he hadn't registered it yet. "Aepnet, do you have any evidence in your defense? Any reason for us to believe that these documents are forgeries? Sinosis has named you the mastermind, we have documents from you to him ordering the raids, and your head servant was captured trying to burn down the fort holding the evidence."
"And he also said that you did it," I chimed in. "He said that you were the one who ordered him to burn the fort."
That snapped him out of his stupor. Before any of us could react, he spread his wings and took to the sky as fast as he could. Not a good idea. We were stunned only for a brief moment before Celestia ignited her horn and fired a beam of magic at him that completely encased him in the same spell I had used on Kathyrine and her guards earlier. Aepnet's guards did not move to his aide. There was no point once Luna turned on them, her wings flared and her expression just daring them to try something.
As for me? I just wanted to go home. All of this sucked. I didn't want to be this rough with Aepnet, but he forced our hooves here. The overwhelming evidence and then he tries to run? Sorry, buddy, but we can't ignore that.
I was not looking forward to dealing with this in the coming weeks, let me tell you that.
With Aepnet subdued, Celestia lowered him to the ground while some of my guards moved in to secure him. He was thrashing about the entire time, but it was no use. Celestia slowly walked up to him, her expression grim.
"Aepnet, son of Attchune, I hereby arrest you in the name of three crowns of Equestria for the act of invading our lands for the purpose of enslaving our ponies. You will be given a fair trial, but should you be found guilty you will be punished to the full extent of our laws."
"Let me go, Celestia!" Aepnet screeched as my guards tied his wings. "This is an act of war! I'll see Canterlot burned to the ground for this!"
I looked back over to Kathyrine who was sitting on the ground, tears streaming down her face. Yeah, I didn't like this any more than she did, but it had to be done. What her father did could not be ignored, and even she knew that. Otherwise I think she'd be fighting it harder.
With Aepnet down for the count, one of his guards looked over to his fellows and nodded. They nodded back, and he turned to address the captured griffins. "Emperor Aepnet has been arrested by the Equestrian scum and can no longer fulfill his duties as emperor. As our laws dictate..." He pointed his spear straight at the being who wanted the least to do with this. "Kathyrine is now empress! Long live Empress Kathyrine the Fifth!"
A piercing scream split the air, and Kathyrine held her head in her claws and collapsed on the ground, sobbing loudly. The guard who had spoken ran over to Aepnet and before my guards could do anything, he took off Aepnet's cape. His crown had long since fallen off, so he collected that from a few feet away before flying back over to Kathyrine. Two of the guards had lifted her to her haunches, allowing the first guard to secure the cape around Kathyrine's neck and place the crown on her head. He backed away and bowed low. "Hail Empress Kathyrine."
Kathyrine wrapped her forelegs around herself and began hyperventilating, thick tears streaking down her face. "N-nuh, nuh duh wanna be e-empress," she whimpered. "Duh wanna be e-empress. Nuh, nuh not nuh now. Not l-like this!"
"Empress Kathyrine, if you refuse your responsibilities then you will bring eternal shame upon your family and your crown will be given to one of the dukes," the head guard said. He gently grabbed her by the foreleg and lifted her to a standing position. "We have to get you home. We shall deal with the Equestrians very soon."
I looked over to Celestia and Luna who watching grimly as Kathyrine was led to the chariot that her and her father had come in. If what Kathyrine had told me about griffin law was true, and I had every reason to believe that as the crowned princess of Griffonia, Kathyrine would know, then this coronation was completely legitimate. I walked over to them and leaned in close to Celestia.
"Now what? What are we going to do about this?"
"What do you propose we do, Antares?" Celestia mumbled back. "Kathyrine is the next in line, and we have no cause to arrest her. Whether you or I or she likes it or not, Kathyrine is empress of Griffonia."
"Yeah." I glanced down at Aepnet who, like us, was staring at his daughter being taken away. "What about him?"
"He will be tried, as will all of them. Kidnapping a hundred of our ponies and sacking two border towns is an act of war whether they admit to it or not."
"They will want war for this, Sister," Luna muttered. "You know this as well as us."
"Would you prefer that Aepnet be released?" Celestia shook her head as we watched the chariot with the new empress take off. "No, we must use all of our resources in the coming months to make sure that this goes down as smoothly as possible, but given the actions, I feel that we did what was necessary."
As somebody who has only been a goddess for a few months, I can only hope that she's right.
What's striking is the inevitability of it all. Katherine knows she is going to be empress, AnTDares and the other princesses know that there is going to be a war after, but there is really nothing they can do.
I will be interested to see how they handle a wartime situation.
I think it's time that Powell Harrison introduces Equestria to the age of the modernized ballistic firearm. It would certainly do more damage and be more effective than the crossbows/bow-and-arrows currently used by both.... Plus, you could also have it that the firearms are enchanted to only be used by a certain unicorn's magical aura, or required to have a certain piece of identification that the gun would recognize as to whom the user was, so the gryphons could not interdict a shipment or loot them off the bodies of dead ponies and use them against Equestria. It would also allow for keeping them away from any criminals in Equestria proper, with the requirement for a certain pony's reading to work...
Damn, this is sad...
I mean, Apnet deserved it, and I hoped that no matter what that he gets arrested and glad it happened, but what about Katherine?
I wonder what'll happen to her...
I was kind of hoping that she and Antares would become friends but I guess not anymore.
I just hope that Katherine will have the strength to prevent a war, but I highly doubt it.
I just realized that wandering of a non brony never happened soooooo
CHANGELINGS ARE GOING TO ATTACK PONYVILLE!!!!!
Wow this is starting to get serious. Hope Kathyrine gets out of it all right.
Maybe this is just me, but repeating the same line feels redundant. You could delete the last sentence and it would still get your point across.
This seems awkward. Maybe it's supposed to be "Far less drama behind it, unlike this". Or you could say "Far less drama behind it" and it still makes sense.
Probably break that into two sentences. "Note how I didn't say there was no drama like this. Take an education class..."
Also what is an education class?
forward
You get a shot from a dentist? What kind of dentist have you been going to?
Seems awkward. Maybe it should be "It's pretty hard to ignore evidence, especially what we had just gotten" or "it's pretty hard to ignore evidence we had just gotten".
3977658 Feh, no one ever realizes how to properly weaponize telekinesis.
Honestly, the things you can do with it if you're creative are absolutely horrifying.
The extreme of that was Bill Mumy's little demon spawn character from the old "Twilight Zone" episode.
Frankly, magic would be an ultimate weapon against any race that didn't also possess it. Its mere existence allows one to defy natural law at will.
And let's not forget... there's still Discord to deal with in this particular story... the most outrageously powerful magical creature of all.
3977727 I agree there, but Psychokinesis doesn't have the accompanying controlled explosions to add the superior BOOM power....
I know it's probably oversimplifying things to use it as a comparison, but the way the griffons minus Kathyrine are acting just reminds me of islamic terrorists; they pull crap like 9/11 and then get mad because someone comes and kicks their teeth in over it.
3977721 fixed. Also...
An education class is a "how to be a teacher" class.
When you go to the dentist and need a cavity filled or a tooth removed or something like that they'll give you a shot in the gums to numb the area. It hurts like a son of a gun. Doctors are quick. It only takes half a second. Not a dentist, though. Not a dentist...
Hopefully TD can diffuse the situation before it blows over, not much time to act however. War would suck really badly against an unified Griffin army.
Poor Kat.
Maybe Kat could just give up the crown right there for the Dukes to fight over while she just runs away. The guard did mention she could do so.
Can't wait to see where it goes.
Well, it looks like the clusterfuck is continuing as expected. I am mostly hoping that Kathrine can cave to whatever demands the princesses make on the grounds that they do have a very legitimate complaint without starting a civil war, but at this point I think she is going to wind up fleeing to Equestria one way or another. Oh well, she will probably be better off for it in the long run even if the result is a disaster for the empire as a whole.
3977755
Oh that shot! I forgot about that. I especially hated how numb one side of your mouth felt for hours afterward. Made eating a pain.
3977791 Precisely.
Aaaw... our little scorpid has dig out evidence and It cost her not much. Whole thing was...easy. I bet this event is only upper part of "iceberg".
3977727 The quick and dirty mass drivers you can likely do with flight and a large enough stone are enough to scare the crap outta anything you could do with a missile strike.
Let alone the pooled power of that, in other ways... Yeah, not something you want to mess with a creative mind... It ends, poorly for anyone on the receiving end.
I doubt the Griffon empire would want to go up against a peaceful nation who's got super weapons and 3 (+1) immortal Gods as their residents. They aren't omnipotent or infallible, but anything not seriously magic based is ineffective at even plucking their hairs. The Griffons have nothing, unless they have magicians and channalers among their kind who can augment and use magical abilities. Otherwise they can make it up with numbers and ferocity Equestrian's don't have.
If the Empress's word is law now, maybe TD can cut a deal with her to make sure war isn't a priority the Griffons want. There is nothing to be gain from attacking when justice is being done with publicized trial showing all the evidence and two main witnesses that he already committed an act of war. The Griffon empire is already at fault, but the Equestrian's have already captured the culprit responsible for invading and kidnapping hundreds of ponies. It's not anybodies fault except the emperor and he's already taken care of. It would be a PR disaster for the griffons if their citizens and nobles wanted to become bloodthirsty for having been slighted by having the emperor himself be an idiot.
If war does break out, TD knows a good few things from Earth on how to even it out quickly.
No matter what universe TD is in, Aepnet is a lying bitch who should be shanked.
Kathyrine probably wouldn't want war though...she'll either be placed as a figurehead with no real power, be shanked in her sleep, or she'll run to TD for asylum. Those are what I see as her three options.
3977950 Aepnet said a few chapters ago that the griffons had weapons that could hurt Celestia, Luna and TD. He wasn't lying...
considering that its a dentist giving a shot he must be a sadist. you make me sad
3978281
3978381 that hurt my mind... I'm just going to go to bed now.
3978281 I know this nice dentist who takes his time and makes it as painless as possible.
This is really interesting....
I look forward to more chapters.
is it bad that ive been calling him Anept (An-ept) insted of Aepnet ever sence i first read his name untill now....?
3977731 except for the fact explosions aren't the most deadly aspect of big weapons. for instance, take two separate pulls of telekinesis into different directions. You automatically have a one size fits all portable stretching rack. with enough pull you can dislodge vital organs easily enough. and really if you think about it considering how telekinesis is all about directional force if it was used against non-flyers all they'd have to do is fling people into the sky and bam! death by falling.
3977892 But there are no mass drivers in Equestria...
Besides, with sci-fi involves, you just have John Crichton build a wormhole weapon and destroy the galaxy.
3978920 what I mean more in the mass drivers, i suppose more the bab 5 style, not the super fancy crud. Something large, heavy, from in the upper stratosphere, let gravity, weight, and mass do the wonders of pancaking everything. If unicorns could move the sun and moon, how hard is it going to be get a team of them chucking something no wall is going to stop?
This chapter though... Freakin Aepnet. -___- Do you even...
Aepnet is further proved to be the biggest fool ever.
nyflygirl.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/i-pity-da-fool.jpg
3979112 Very
3977695 You would be happy about that, wouldn't you Changeling Drone?
3979247 hardy har har, I left my swarm years ago. And that was a different swarm anyway. But still the attack
With Equestria's current technological capability (They have trains) perhaps their limit would probably be at the rifles of the 1890's
I'm not so sure about artillery though, maybe Gatling Guns or early Maxim Guns would be possible along with the heavy cannons of the time.
Add airships and magic and you have an air force/navy? (pegasi added)
Imagine a fleet of airships armed with the above mentioned, enchanted with various effects.
Though it all depends on how much TD knows, how quick she can implement them or how far she or the Sisters want to go to prepare for a War.
I wonder who the real mastermind behind this whole plot is.
Everything is too neat, the evidence too easy to find, the culprits too easily captured.
Something smells fishy, and it's not just T.D forgetting to wash.
Have Katherine fake her death,And flee to equestria under a different name,And possible a dye job....TD has spare rooms
3979377 There was a definite political game, which Aepenet has lost, I don't know who led the plot... But it seems exceedingly unlikely that this happened solely on Aepenet, what with the head servant giving himself up so readily...
Do we want a long drawn out War, or do we want TD or the princesses to
Introduce EarthTech (and all the explodey tech that comes with it) for TD
Use some ancient powerful spell or true power of the sun and moon. for the Sisters
As a show of force or deterrent to actual agression. Like Nukes during the Cold War
Perhaps a weapon that negates a Warrior races dreams of glorious battle in favor of giant explodey mushroom cloud will have the Griffons think twice.
3979377 You forget that Aepnet is CLEARLY a moron, as shown both here and in Wanderings.
3979435 He had a VERY angry Princess yelling at him and was surrounded by the armed forces of a second princess. Methinks self preservation would kick in pretty quickly, even for a griffon, as shown by the one who curled up into a ball. Also, see my response to Sixpence.
As for the chapter, I'm suprised Katherine didn't try to abdicate the throne and seek asylum then and there. She could have easily gone for the save herself method, and heck, she thought of it in Wanderings when Aepnet screwed up there.
Makes ya wonder whats going to happen, and whether or not TD is going to go to help her...
I'm surprised TD didn't do what medieval states used to do to ensure peace, and took Kathyrine hostage. Insisting that - on top of everyone else Griffonia has to do to make reparations - Kathyrine is to stay in Canterlot indefinitely and is therefore unable to become empress seems like the best solution for all concerned.
Unless, of course, that's all set to happen next chapter. All the princesses put their heads together and say 'Here are the peace terms, also Kathyrine cannot become empress. Except these or we burn your country to the ground' (or something to that effect). Equestria avoids war, Kathyrine doesn't get forced into leadership, Aepnet gets what's coming to him and, best of all, his successor doesn't become ruler of Griffonia. Something that, if I remember Wanderings correctly, is something that he very much cares about.
I know Wanderings didn't happen in this story, but the characters are pretty much the same, yes?
Oh fuck-nuggets. And there was a bit of brogue some-'where' in the middle of the chapter.
3978606 they take their time to enjoy watching you squirm the fact that nopony can see that...... the sadness has been doubled
Oh TD, you always manage to walk into something bad, i'm surprised you didn't order some rubber booties to save you from the stink.
Kinda feel sorry for Kat, she sure as sugar ended up shafted.
3978381 I was referring to a line in the chapter. being somewhat new to having an account on this site I dont know how to pull out quotes. and please explain your evil new profile pic that makes me sad as well as sadistic dentist
At this point, seems pretty obvious one of the "dukes" convinced him to act this foolishly, probably with the clear intent of sparking a war
So...............
Who is the mastermind?
3977755
Yep, just like the old Bill Cosby routine. They STAB it in and then... they try chatting with you. Really?! Oh yes, they strike up a one-sided conversation while pumping the little device of torture, asking about the weather while you can only drool and make choking noises with your mouth slowly going numb.
And all these people talking about weaponizing magic, TD inventing guns (or spell guns), good grief... I know ponies aren't complete pacifists but I seriously doubt they want to recreate World War 1 in Equestria with hundreds of thousands of corpses littering the land. If anything, it'll be the most one-sided war in history. One side has, what, spears and crossbows? The other moves the Sun and Moon at will. Add that Kathy doesn't want war and neither do the Princesses yet "everyone" demands it. Who is this "everyone"? I thought there was a few princesses ruling Equestria, not this "everyone".
I'm going to hope for the best and see if TD can't pull this one out of the fire; drawing on his former life on Earth, the United Nations, and diplomacy. Ok, they caught the featherbrained mastermind (and I use mastermind loosely) so he can go on trial. Both sides don't want war but reparations must be paid so what about sanctions? The US does it all the time. It's a lot easier to do than having to send proud warriors off and getting them back in pine boxes. The biggest problem will be the war mongering Dukes who want war for the sake of battle. I'm tempted to say that if they want it so bad, dress them up and let them go fight; I bet Luna will even handicap herself with one hoof tied to her side...
It's easy to tell someone to fight for you, not so when you have to do it.
No, I do not like this line of progression. War is never preordained. It's a conscious choice.
That Gryphon Head Guard. He acted like he was expecting all of this, & his line about 'Dealing with the Equestrians soon enough" makes it sound like war has already been decided & this is all just an excuse to make it happen.
Unless the Princesses can get to the truth, I think that that person or group pulling the strings behind the scenes is going to get that war, no matter how one sided in favour in the Equestrians it might be.
3979755 Meh, whatever. Believe what you want to believe.
3980448
Like a plot using the emperor as a patsy in starting a war with the Equestrians.
3979915 I'm not sure about what your problem with the dentist line is. You ever gotten a shot in the mouth from a dentist? It freaking hurts! Sometimes it doesn't work the first time and they do it again and it hurts more because they press harder.
As for my profile pic, I believe it can be summed up in the following quote.
"Ladies and Gentlemen! You've read about it in the papers! Now witness, before your very eyes, that most rare and tragic of nature's mistakes! I give you:
The average mare.
Physically unremarkable, it instead possesses a deformed set of values. Notice the hideously bloated sense of pony-kind's importance. Also note the club-hoofed social conscience and the withered optimism.
It's certainly not for the squeamish, is it?
Most repulsive of all, are its frail and useless notions of order and sanity. If too much weight is placed upon them... they snap.
How does it live, I hear you ask? How does this poor pathetic specimen survive in today's harsh and irrational environment?
I'm afraid the sad answer is, "Not very well."
Faced with the inescapable fact that pony-kind's existence is mad, random, and pointless, one in eight of them crack up and go stark slavering buggo! Who can blame them? In a world as psychotic as this... any other response would be crazy!"
I am still in favor of Equestrian world domination you know.