A New Plan
Pinkie Pie had never had a party crashed so badly before. And no one wrecks a Pinkie Pie Party. Pinkie Pie was pretty perturbed at the pony princess ruining Pinkie's party. She was going to fix what the princess broke.
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Twilight felt horrible, if it wasn't for her letter then Rainbow would have her brother, and Applejack would have her coltfriend. However, Twilight ruined it. It was all her fault, and she was going to fix it.
She had all of her friends gathered, as well as the two ponies from the 51st, the Wonderbolts T.C. and that red stallion that the princess had dropped off. They were gathered in the library.
"Alright, everypony, we need a plan to get Spectrum back." Twilight said, while pacing back and forth, "But first I think that we all need to learn who everypony is. I am Twilight Sparkle."
They continued around the room each one introducing themselves. When they got to Pinkie, however, she seemed zoned out and wouldn't talk to anypony.
Then they arrived at the mystery stallion. Spitfire hadn't paid him much attention, or vice versa, but when he spoke Spitfire recognized him. "My name is Sergeant Hotshot, and I don't know what is going on here."
After some more attempted plotting, Rainbow realized something, "Wait. Applejack." she said, looking at her farmer friend. "You were dating my brother..." she almost asked. "Did you know?" she raised an eyebrow.
Applejack was getting uncomfortable, "Uuuuhh..." she attempted to convince her friend.
"YOU KNEW!!!!" she screamed, the other ponies all jumped to hold the rainbow pony back. "How could you date my brother, and not tell me?"she screamed from the restraining hooves of the ponies around her.
"He told me that if anypony found out, he'd be arrested, and he was right."
By now Twilight was squirming in her seat, "listen, I think we need a real plan, alright? Any suggestions?" finally they decided to await the day of the trial and perhaps offer some defense.
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Spectrum Dash was sitting in his jail cell, the princess had him placed in solitary, with heavy security placed upon him. He tried to plan out his defense, but he was never any good at lawyer-ey stuff.
It was very boring in his lonely cell. He wasted the time by doing some confined aerial maneuvers. He also took up singing to entertain himself. He realized, pretty quickly, that his years commanding troops had done a number on his vocal chords. His previously beautiful tone quality had been replaced with a slightly raspy, kind of dirty, voice.
When he sang he discovered that it fit a blues style very well. So he made up songs about his life and belted them out at the top of his lungs. Sometimes when he was finished, he could hear the guards at the end of his hallway, talking about him. He could feel their sympathy, and he knew that was what he had to do in the trial.
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The day of the trial came, and while all of the ponies who had met with Twilight in the tree were arriving at the Canterlot courthouse, Celestia had sent Luna with some guards to pick up Spectrum.
Spectrum was sitting in his jail cell, busy singing one of his songs. Too busy to notice the hoofsteps coming down the hall.
Luna walking through the dungeons, to the Solitary confinement wing, where her sister told her she was keeping a traitor.
Celestia had warned her about this individual. He was the greatest fighter that Equestria ever had in its military. He was the fastest flier, the best at maneuvers, and the best training Sergeant the Air Force had ever seen. This one pony could take down an entire squad of the Royal Guard in a matter of minutes. He was one to look out for.
Celestia had told Luna that, since she demanded authority, she would be the one to pick him up from prison. He would also need to have somepony watching over him who could keep him under control, and Luna, being an Alicorn, could do that. She just couldn't fall for his tricks.
She walked into the hallway where the traitor was stored, and noticed singing. There was beautiful blues singing emanating from his cell. The guards were standing there, calm and collected as ever, except one had a tear coming from his eye. The singing was very sorrowful, and very beautiful. She couldn't make out the words from here, but she knew that just by the tone they were sad.
"Guards," she said to the two ponies standing there, "Does he do this often?" she said, referencing the singing.
"Yes, your majesty." the dry-eyed one said.
"He has been singing songs like this all week." the other said. "They are all about the most depressing things, such as, your best friend dying, your family thinking you are dead, and just living a lie." he said, pushing through the pain he felt for the creature at the end of the hall.
Luna looked past them, to the door of the cell. "Is he hostile?"
"No, not at all." Guard number one said, "He is always very polite, very nice, and very happy when he isn't singing."
Princess looked hesitantly down the hall, and commanded that she be allowed in to his cell.
Spectrum was only halfway through his song, when he heard somepony walking into his room, he stopped his song, and said, "What? Is it feeding time already? I barely finished my last meal." then he turned around to see Princess Luna. "Oh, hello Princess." he said, with a respectful bow. "And what brings you to my humble dwelling?"
She looked at his sincere smile, and couldn't feel threatened. No matter what warning her sister gave her, she couldn't see him as a bad guy. "Today is the day of your trial and I have been sent to bring you to the courtroom."
His eyes got big, "Wow. I am honored. Why do I get a Royal Chauffeur?" he asked quizzically. "I'm not that special."
"You were deemed too dangerous to allow regular guards to transport you."
"Oh," he said, getting depressed, "I don't know why. She kicked me out of the military for being incapacitated."
"Really?" the princess asked, surprised, while leading him out of the cell. "You don't seem incapacitated."
"I'm not anymore," he began to explain, "I lost my wings in a battle eight years ago, as well as my best friend, and I was then commanded to pretend to be my best friend, under threat of, well, this." he said, referencing his current situation. "If I told anypony who I really was." he said, with a deep sigh.
Luna couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Did my sister give this command?" she asked.
"Yep." he said, calmly, "if you can get my things I will show you the letter if you want." he offered.
Luna had seen many ponies being led to their doom, but none had been as calm as he had. It was slightly disturbing, watching this stallion be so comfortable with submitting to his fate, whatever it may be.
After a few more moments of silent walking, with the princess flanked by her guards, Spectrum spoke up again. "I hope I get banished."
"What?"
"Banishment feels like the best option. Death is the end of me, so that doesn't seem great." he reasoned, "Prison would be ok. I could maybe write my story and get it published or something. But at least in banishment, I could try to start a new life in whatever barren wasteland that I get dumped in, and build a house, find food, and entertain myself. Yep, I think that is my punishment of choice." he said, with a hint of a smile on his face.
Once again, Luna was disturbed. This pony just didn't have any hope, and he was perfectly fine with whatever punishment came his way. Simply put, he was deranged.
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Princess Celestia was having second thoughts. This pony had a life. He had a family, that she hadn't allowed him to see in years, due to a simple selfish desire.
She didn't want to go back on her word, and she had promised that he would be found guilty.
She took a deep breath and decided that she would just have to wait and see what kind of turns the trial took.
The Pincess of the Sun saw the defendant dropped off at his desk, and then her sister came into the Princesses' royal jury box. While there they could watch any trial, and overrule any decision made by either the jury or judge. They rarely used it, unless the trial pertained to them, and no pony alive could remember the last time they overruled a decision.
Luna leaned over to her sister and asked her a question, "What exactly is going on, sister?"
Celestia was watching the pony at the defendant desk carefully, he played with a pencil, pulled out a piece of paper and started doodling on it. He was just sitting there, unfazed by what he was about to go through. "Luna," she sighed, "I fear I have made the wrong decision."
"I feel the same way. I have made and stepped up to my mistakes, I admit that they were far more... destructive than this, but this poor pony's family has been sure of his death for years. He finally had a life, once he was discharged from the military, he had a loving marefriend, and he finally had his sister back. You took away eight years of his life, and stained the same eight years of hers." Celestia looked into the eyes of her sister. "he told me his life story on the way up here." Luna explained, "you need to own up to your mistakes, sister. You can go through with your twisted plan, or you can give this pony his life back. I am going to go restrain the 'captive.'" she said as she walked out of the room, shortly afterward appearing behind Spectrum, who greeted her like a soldier greets his commanding officer.
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The six mares from Ponyville, the Wonderbolts, what's left of the 51st, and Hotshot all were attending the trial.
During the train ride to Canterlot, Rarity had spent almost the whole time marveling over Blue Angel's beauty, and Blue Angel, was getting uncomfortable with it. The Wonderbolts were talking with Red Arrow about flight techniques and attempting to get him to teach them tricks.
Four of the five remain mares were trying to think of ways that they could prove his innocence through character witnesses. Rainbow was trying very hard, not to give Applejack dirty looks, but the thought of her dating her brother were almost too weird to get over.
The two remaining ponies were each lost in their own little worlds, with Hotshot trying to figure out what was going on, and Pinkie trying to figure out how she was going to avenge her slaughtered party.
Suddenly Hotshot had an epiphany. He remembered something that Spectrum had told him, when Spectrum was still Geronimo.
"Hey!" Hotshot shouted, "I just realized something. I have no idea what the heck is going on. Would anypony care to fill me in?" they spent the rest of the trip filling him in on the entire story.
They eventually arrived at the courthouse, when they found their seats, Twilight noticed that Pinkie Pie was missing. "Oh, no."
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The trial began. They brought copies of the letter written by Princess Celestia, and the prosecutor read it aloud to the gathered ponies, who were quickly gaining mixed opinions about the princess who wrote it.
"Does the defense have anything to say about the letter?" the judge asked.
"Yes, yes I do." Spectrum said, "Permission to approach the bench?" the judge nodded. "If you will notice," he said, pulling out the original copy, "it is written to a Training Sergeant in the Equestrian National Air Force, I do not fit that description."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I was discharged from service, due to being "unqualified", and thus no longer qualify as a Training Sergeant in the ENAF." he said politely.
The prosecutor then spoke up, "Unqualified? I have looked over your history, and you are the MOST qualified pegasus in the history of the Air Force. How are you 'unqualified?'"
"Well that depends, which 'me' are we talking about here?" he asked, bringing more confusion from all of the ponies in the room. "Spectrum or Geronimo?"
"Uh... Spectrum." the prosecutor responded.
"Well, if you look in Spectrum's official record, you will notice that he died in battle eight years ago, so that makes him horribly unqualified." he said, leaning back.
"Oh-kay, then let's look at you as Geronimo."
"Geronimo's record would tell you that he lost his wings in the same battle. Due to a recent law that has been passed, a wingless pegasus is unqualified to be in the Air Force." he said with a shrug.
Specs could feel the prosecutor getting annoyed with his loopholes. And they continued on with the trial. They would bring out evidence and he would find a loophole that, even though it didn't prove his innocence of revealing who he was, it irritated the prosecutor.
Eventually, when it came to be time to decide on the verdict, the judge reluctantly determined him to be guilty of giving away what she deemed to be 'important government secrets.'
Spectrum gave a small sigh and walked to his jail cell, awaiting his sentence. Princess Celestia couldn't take watching this. She sat silently through the whole trial, listening to how horrible she was.
She was crying by the time they had pronounced him guilty. She couldn't take it anymore, her sister was right, she had to face up to her mistakes.
The jury was having the hardest time trying to decide a punishment fit for him. He was technically guilty, but no pony thought that he deserved any of the punishment.
Then the princess made a decision, she knew what she had to do. Suddenly, though, there was a loud bang. She looked back and saw the two guards lying in a pile of confetti. She looked around the corner attempting to see what had happened. Then she heard somepony come up behind her.
"Don't move, Princess." The pony said with malice filling her voice. "No one, and I mean NO ONE, ruins a Pinkie Pie Party."
Princess Celestia had never heard the Premier Party Pony so angry. She turned around and saw the mare wearing full commando gear. She had a tight black suit on, with a bandolier filled with water balloons, a now smoking, new shoulder mounted party cannon, and wearing war paint. But the most disturbing thing was her long, strait hair and the twisted look on her face.
"You ruined a Pinkie Pie Party, and I am here to fix what you ruined." The twisted mare said, from behind her hair.
"Wh-wh-what d-do you m-mean?" The princess stammered out.
Pinkie leaned in and whispered in the princess' ear.
"Pinkie, I was already planning on doing that." The princess said.
Suddenly the pink pony sat up straight, as her hair re-inflated. "Okie dokie lokie!"