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// Ten: Celestia Suppression Military History 
// Story: Grandfather's Coming For A Visit 
// by GoesKaboom 
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Ten years ago, if you had told Gregory Grayfeather that he was going to be living in Equestria and babysitting a bunch of young ponies, he would have laughed in your face and told you that you were crazy. Everybirdy knew that Greg hated ponies, and that he wanted nothing more than to see his home country invade and crush the pastel annoyances once and for all.

Then the Aquila Regional Weather Factory outsourced most of the jobs to Cloudsdale, the Parliament passed a bunch of new laws regulating the Griffindellian industrial sector, and many positions that used to be occupied by actual living griffons were now replaced by automation. President-General Gustwind was adamant that it was time for Griffindell to become a modern, respectable country. So Greg found himself in a crappy apartment outside of a crappy pony town called Ponyville, commuting to the same damn weather factory his old job had been outsourced to.

Funnily enough, however, he decided that once he'd lived amongst them for a while, ponies weren't so bad after all. He found he really did get along with some of them, especially a stallion on his same shift at the factory. His name was After Dark, and he was a good guy, just trying to live his life as well as he could. His wife had died of grass sickness, leaving him with a young chick- er, foal- and a mound of debt from her medical treatments, but After Dark had stood up and done his best. And that made him practically an honorary griffon in Greg's mind. Plus, he liked the filly- Scootaloo. If he'd ever had a chick, he would have wanted him or her to be like Scootaloo. So he didn't mind looking after her if After Dark had to go cover someone's shift and there wasn't anywhere else for her to go.

But even though he'd begun to dislike ponies as a species less, that didn't mean he liked their leader at all. In fact, he hated her. Not only was it a matter of species pride (Equestria was the traditional enemy of Griffindell), it was personal. Greg's father had seen his family killed right in front of him in the last war, when he was just a little chick, and passed that rage on down to his son. He'd always made sure that Greg knew the real monster in the world wasn't living under his bed, or in the hall closet, but in a palace in Canterlot, in Equestria. George Grayfeather was a lot of things, but diplomatic wasn't one of them. “Son,” he'd told Greg, “one day, the world will see that the Pastel Menace isn't a goddess, or a good and just ruler. They will see her for the monster lurking underneath. And when that happens, you will be able to stand up and tell the world, 'I told you so!'”

And it seemed that the time was now, if the three foals standing in the doorway to his apartment was anything to go by.

“Mr. Grayfeather, you have to help us!” Scootaloo exclaimed. “We've found out something terrible and we don't know what we can do about it! Princess Celestia has cursed a friend of ours, and we think she's going to do something even worse to him!”

“Scootaloo, shut up,” the little yellow Earth pony filly standing next to her hissed. “Don't just yell about it where anypony can hear! What if someone tips her off!”

Okay, granted, Greg thought it was going to be somebirdy in a higher position than a couple of elementary school-aged pony foals, but whatever. He could work with that.

“Your little friend is right, Scootaloo, this sounds serious. You shouldn't talk about it so recklessly. Come inside.” He ushered the foals into the apartment before shutting the door behind them, securely latching it and engaging a deadbolt. The white unicorn filly looked apprehensively at this, but steeled her courage, following Scootaloo to sit on his sofa.

“So what is this you're telling me? Princess Celestia cursed a friend of yours? Not that I don't believe that she is capable of that, but why would she target a foal?” Greg asked, wanting to make absolutely sure he knew what was going on.

“No, he’s not a foal,” Scootaloo answered. “He’s another alicorn- her grandfather. And I swear I’m not lying, he’s at the library with Princess Luna and Princess Twilight right now. Please believe us- we have to save Equestria from falling to a horrible fate! I know you’ve taught me the stories of your home, and I read that book about Austroolia! I know what Princess Celestia is capable of, and we have to stop her! But the three of us can’t do it alone. We need an adult’s help but we can’t go to any other grown-up ponies except for Mr. Loki and he’s not going to be able to do anything if Celestia vaporizes him while he can’t fight back! Nopony will take us seriously…” Scootaloo looked horrified at her own implications. 

“Please sir, we know it sounds crazy,” Sweetie Belle said quietly. “But we’re really not making this up.” 

And Sweetie Belle was right. It did sound crazy. Luckily for them, Greg Grayfeather was pretty damn crazy himself. 

“I believe you,” he reassured the fillies. “But an operation like this… we have to move carefully. And you are right- three fillies and one griffon won’t be able to do much against the might of Canterlot if we take it head-on. So we will need to come up with a plan. And the three of you will need to be very careful especially.”

The fillies spent three hours in his apartment discussing strategy, looking over his books, and trying to come up with ideas. Greg himself chimed in occasionally to offer advice or to shoot down absolutely preposterous ideas, but for the most part his mind was elsewhere. Celestia was even worse than he thought. Imagine, terrorizing foals like that! Nobirdy in Griffindell would even think of harming chicks- it was an absolute disgrace, was what it was. He wasn’t sure if the fillies even knew how much danger they were in from uncovering this in the first place. Celestia, who had ordered the murder of so many of his species over the years… would she even blink at utterly annihilating a few pony foals who posed a threat to her rule? There was an old griffon legend that said if Celestia learned of a threat to her power, she would destroy anybirdy that was part of it and trap their souls so that they couldn’t pass on to the Holy Aerie. Greg hadn’t believed it at first- nobirdy, nopony, nobeing was powerful enough to defy the Holy Aerie, even Celestia. But he wasn’t willing to risk the souls of innocent young ones. And he was sure that the fillies would go to the Holy Aerie after their time on the mortal plane was done- hopefully when they were very old mares. Even just knowing them for a short time, he knew that they had the souls of griffoness warrior maidens, and the Great Griffon would see that, and reincarnate their souls as chicks next time, so that they could truly be worthy of the Aerie after their second life. 

He would not put that in jeopardy.  

Making sure that the Cutie Mark Crusaders, as they called themselves, were otherwise occupied, he sneaked into his kitchen and grabbed the telephone. Gritting his beak and dialing a number he swore he never would, he waited a few moments before the voice on the other end of the line picked up. 

“Yeah? Whaddya want?” 

“Gellert? Yeah, it’s Greg. I’m gonna need a favor…” 





Loki and Luna sat at the table, snacking on some cookies, for the fourth hour in a row. Twilight had immediately bounded off to try to research the problem, and they hadn't heard from her since. The little dragon she kept as an assistant had done everything he could to make them comfortable, but they were getting bored. And Loki was still no closer to controlling his magic, something that frustrated him very much. 

Finally, just when it seemed like four hours of boredom were about to become five hours of boredom, a loud shout jolted both grandfather and granddaughter out of their torpor. 

"I'VE GOT IT!" 

To Be Continued