S2E21: Dragon Quest
Season 2 Episode 21 – Dragon Quest
The Gentlecolt’s Club, Canterlot
GALLOP POLL: HEARTSTRINGS (EQE) 45%/BUSTER (EQA) 40%/MARE (IND) 2% (±3%)
Dr. Filthy Rich GSS OB HP raised his eyebrows. “No agenda today?” he asked.
Councilor Lyra Heartstrings shrugged. “The entire government is on furlough.”
“Ah yes, I remember,” the stallion said as he put down the Ponyville Express, bold and austere lettering decorating its entire front page:
SPECIAL COMMUNIQUE FROM HER MAJESTY’S GOVERNMENT: TRADE WITH THE DRAGON HORDE FORBIDDEN UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. REPORT ALL ENCOUNTERS WITH FERAL DRAGONS. AVOID CONTACT WITH FERAL DRAGONS. CURIOSITY IS NOT WORTH YOUR LIFE.
“We need to hold a chat about that,” the industrial magnate referred back to the shutdown, a thin undercurrent of menace undergirding his voice.
A sinking feeling within the unicorn’s heart. “Yes, Dr. Rich.”
The manufacturing baron adjusted the end of his Jaguar-LeColtre watch serenely, seeking to build up tension.
Meanwhile, Councillor Filly Buster sat silently in a shady corner of the room, not sure whether the irascible businessman was merely resting or building up towards one of his thundering rages…
“You failed.”
There was not much else the lime-green pony could do, besides lower her head in begrudging apology.
“YOU FAILED, LYRA!” Filthy Rich clobbered the table with his hooves, the poor thing groaning and splitting slightly through the middle. “You had one job; and you failed!”
The opposition candidate stifled a grunt of protest, twitching ears and eyes betraying her real attitude.
The brown stallion now launched into a tirade normally reserved for his secretaries. “Lyra, how is it even possible that you let Ms. Sparkle do such a thing! You job was so simple – get rid of Mayor Mare; poof, just like that! How could you fail! How was it even possible for you to fail? You stupid horse, how could you- “
The unicorn’s restraint had reached its limit. “I warned you about this, Mr. Rich!” Lyra snapped back recklessly. “I told you to be patient! I told you not to back the Mayor into a corner! But no, you had to do it! You had to do all of it! And now look at what she’s done!”
Filthy Rich dried up mid-rant, eyes wide open with amazement. Evidently he was been accustomed to ponies giving him lip: Why, how dare this pony bite the hoof that feeds her!
His complexion visibly darkened with each reiteration of the thought.
Lyra regretted her words as soon as she said them – but she figured they had to be said at some point; and besides, it was too late to back down now. Nothing left to do but to hold her ground and glare defiantly at her benefactor and torturer.
Filthy Rich slowly sank back into his leather chair. “Councilor Lyra Heartstrings.”
Great. Filthy never addressed anypony with their full title.
The tang of a fine – as fine as tobacco can be, anyway – Marecanudo gently wafted through the air. Dr. Rich swiveled away from his interlocutor. The ax was fast falling.
“Lyra Heartstrings. I believe I that from now on, Filly Buster shall solely enjoy my full support.”
Lyra’s eyes narrowed. If there was any emotion – and she was hopping mad – she wisely concealed it.
In a way, it was probably a good thing. Lyra was heartily sick and tired of having to bow to Filthy Rich’s pretensions and commands. She let him get away with it because he’d had the most wonderful threat in the form of Filly Buster. Get out of line, he warned time and time again, and I’ll give my funding to him instead. And the unicorn really did need the funding.
Yet Mr. Rich – calling him ‘Doctor’ was an unimaginable insult to all scholars – forgot a fundamental principle of politics: a threat only works when you don’t carry it through.
Time to show these two who’s really in charge.
“I understand,” Lyra Heartstrings lied as she turned away in faux disgrace. “I guess our partnership is at an end, then- ”
“YES!” the new favorite leaping and thrusting into air with unbridled joy, had apparently grasped Filthy Rich’s intentions at long last.
*
Mane Street, Ponyville
Ponyville took on new airs in the wake of the Dragon Migration. The roads were jam-packed, the air abuzz with chatter and song. Squirrels zipped amid the potted plants and hedges; hawks and buzzards swooped overhead, a sea of mice parting before them in instinctive terror. Cows and minotaurs and cockatrices and – urgh – snakes: all the world’s animals, everywhere!
All this would have been a great testament to the diversity and tolerance of the Equestrian population were it not for the fact that Ponyville’s crippled government was currently NOT dealing with a refugee crisis.
“Hey! Stop that!” Councilor Twilight Sparkle HP ordered as an owl soared into the sky, a squealing weasel caged within its grasp.
A burst of magic quickly drew the perpetrator back to land. “Mr. Owl, if you’re going to seek asylum in Ponyville, you’re going to have to live by our rules, got it?”
“Whoo?”
“Who what?”
“Whoo!”
“That’s what I said- argh! Speak Equestrian!” the magical unicorn growled in frustrat-
A sudden scream ahead distracted the lavender pony long enough for the owl to wiggle free and escape. “No! Don’t you go away! Don’t- urgh!” The bookish mare galloped up the street, rudely shunting spiders and lizards and ponies and bears out of the way to much opprobrium.
The stags were separated easily enough (“No, ‘traditional culture’ doesn’t give you the right to duel in Market Square!”), but Twilight really couldn’t delay any longer. As ‘fascinating’ as dealing with this influx of refugees was – the purple mare was now eternally grateful that the Dragon Migration occurred only once per generation – Twilight nevertheless pushed open the door to Bon Bon’s sweetshop, Fluttershy’s impotent attempts at law enforcement following behind her.
The store was packed with all kinds of animals, as was expected. “Ms. Bon!” the poor mare cried over the din. “Bon Bon!”
The confectioner was concentrating on other matters. “Look, it’s not my fault if I gave you misleading information!” Her voice crested over the bayings of an annoyed family of hounds. “It’s your responsibility to realize that ‘cacao’ means ‘chocolate’!”
“What are you taking about?!” Twilight intuitively demanded as she cajoled and squeezed her way through the crowds, suspiciously eyeing the 70-bit price for a packet of twizzlers. “It’s against the law to mislead customers!“
The beige-coated pony swung over and confronted the challenge head-on. “Oh yeah?” she challenged. “So you’re the Food Inspector now?”
The lavender pony was confused. “Of course not! They’re all on furlough!”
The confectioner sneered. “Then you can’t tell me what to do!”
Twilight was just about to give the unethical vendor a sizeable piece of her mind before Bon Bon diverted to more productive matters. “Get in, Twilight. Berryshine, hold down the fort while I’m gone!” she yelled, indicating a storeroom door behind the counter.
The hustle and bustle of the outside dimmed somewhat as the beige pony shut the door. “Darned refugees,” she grumbled to Twilight. “Well at least we’re making a killing in sales.”
The purple mare frowned. “It’s unethical. Those animals need the food.”
“Yeah well, nobody told the Mayor to close down Government the moment these refugees arrived from the Everfree.” The beige mare took her seat at a nearby table. “Squatters all the way up to Sweet Apple Acres, I hear.”
Unhappy memories of Applejack complaining yammering on about the endless hordes swamping her farmland, though the ability to (finally!) flog off her stock of rotten apples softened her stance somewhat. “Those animals are seeking shelter from the Dragons, and it’s our duty to help.”
“Hmph. While the Government can’t even help its own ponies,” Bon Bon retorted. “Anyway. I’m not here for chat. Lyra has a message for the Mayor.”
Twilight’s ears perked up. Lyra? This was unexpected. She drew out a quill and prepared to-
“No notes,” the confectioner held up a hoof. “No records. This has to be deniable.”
The Councilor, experienced enough to guess why, obediently lowered her implements.
“We have a common enemy,” Bon Bon tapped the table as her voice dropped. “And Lyra is willing to cooperate against him.”
The lavender pony felt her jaw hitting the ground. Really? Cooperation? Had Mayor Mare’s new stance spooked the unicorn that much? “But why?”
“That’s not important,” the confectioner answered. “Assume Lyra's giving the Mayor a chance at redemption before the inevitable defeat.”
“Right.” Twilight bit back the urge to defend her political patron, reminding herself that she was here solely to relay information. “What’s the plan?”
The beige pony took a deep breath. Hopefully Lyra was right, and this pony would possess enough sense to keep the plot hidden. “You remember all that corrupt treasure from the previous administration?”
The look on Twilight’s face suggested the need for some extra prodding.
“The one that’s still waiting for the High Court to hand down its verdict?”
“Oh. That.” The lavender mare had read about it somewhere, sometime; she remembered being vaguely surprised by the amounts locked in Ponyville’s vault, rendered unusable due to the ongoing trial of the corrupt ex-Mayor freezing all funds connected with him. That money could sure be put to good use now...
Bon Bon read her interlocutor’s mind like a book. “Well, Lyra’s thought of a perfect way to use it, both to accomplish her goal, and to peacefully get rid of the animals.”
Twilight leant in expectantly.
"We'll... " The confectioner seemed to have learnt a few tricks from Lyra as well. "We'll negotiate with the dragons!"
"'Negotiate with the dragons'... " Twilight pondered. "'Wait!' isn't that, like, against the law?"
Bon Bon moved decisively. "Firstly, it isn't a law. Secondly, it doesn't really matter if nopony knows that we broke it."
"What?" the bookish mare was momentarily confused. "You mean- "
She understood it soon enough.
"But I don't see Filly Buster doing something so stupid," the unicorn commented cautiously.
The beige pony gave a dry laugh. "Lyra always said you were too rational to be a politician. It's not all about pros and cons. It's also about how ponies feel and how they'd react in the circumstances... "
"I understand that."
"Filly Buster's on a roll now," Bon Bon revealed, without explicitly mentioning what type of roll the stallion was on. "And he's going to be letting down his guard. So we slip in the bait - an opportunity too good to resist, an opportunity to burnish his credentials... " Again, she left out what credentials she was talking about.
"... and he'll walk into it before it's too late!" Twilight completed.
Bon Bon nodded sagely.
"I'll tell the Mayor immediately," the purple unicorn replied, feeling an unnatural and somewhat embarrassing burst of schadenfreude. That was certainly something she was going to leave off the letter to the Princess. "She'll definitely agree to this."
The confectioner broke out into a mysterious smile. "Lyra sends her heartfelt thanks: to both you, and the Mayor."
*
Somewhere within the Everfree Forest, West Phalia (?)
Amid the darkness of the Forest – barely visible if not for Twilight’s horn – five ponies and two dragons were concluding their secret agreement.
“Hmph,” Garble, the red-scaled lead negotiator for the dragons – Twilight’s heart skipped a beat when she realized that she had rescued Spike from him – snorted with derision. “Namby-pamby ponies. I knew you wouldn’t dare fight us.”
Lyra decided not to respond to this insult. “Please accept our tribute, oh great Dragon negotiator, before you depart for better lands.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” his fat companion, Belcher, answered as he trundled up to claim the spoils.
He was abruptly stopped by a piece of parchment being shoved into his belly. He looked down with disdain.
“Please s-sign this first.” Mayor Mare stuttered slightly under the focus of the terrifying creature.
“Give me that!” Garble snatched the parchment, offended at being bypassed. “Let’s see… 'Upon receipt of the aforementioned tribute, the Dragon Horde agrees not to approach the vicinity of Ponyville for another two centuries and to tell nopony about their agreement…' ahh, fine: it’s not that long anyway.” He singed the tip of his claw with some moderate heat and scratched an ‘X’ for his signature.
The lavender unicorn took back the scroll. “Alright. Ms. Coin, please sign on behalf of the Ponyville Government.”
That was quickly done, albeit with no small amount of grumbling as to ‘unpaid overtime’ and 'lack of insurance'.
The purple pony now turned to Filly Buster. “Now, Councillor Buster, please sign on behalf of the Ponyville electorate.”
The old fool snorted happily. “Well, at least we all know who’s the up-and-coming Mayor here!” he croaked with glee.
“Oh, yes!” Lyra replied enthusiastically. “This is the kind of decisive leadership Ponyville needs, unlike that ugly old hag over there.” She pointed haughtily at Mayor Mare.
“You know,” the tan pony responded with equal virulence, “You should really buy some mouthwash.”
“Funny, I’m not the one who’s a racist and a- “
“Both of you!” Twilight yelled. “We’re supposed to be a negotiating team! Show some unity, please!”
Both ponies looked away from each other with gusto.
“Let me tell you this,” Filly Buster observed as he handed the scroll back to the magical unicorn. “When I’m Mayor, I’ll put an end to this nonsense.”
Lyra and Mayor Mare seemingly scowled at each other.
*
The ‘Duke of Mane’ Restaurant, Ponyville
Only a few tables occupied in the eatery; just how Mayor Mare liked it. Sure, the continuing shutdown still meant that restaurateurs continued on with their little tricks (Buy a soda and get up to 50% off your meal!* – *provided your meal is the 700-bit laitue grosse avec des truffes noires du Ponigord) – but, at least, ponies now had room to breathe.
“Mayor Mare!” Filly Buster stomped up to the bespectacled mare like an enraged bull. He was obviously flustered. Lyra Heartstrings must have met with him beforehand.
“Please sit, Councilor Buster.”
Straight to brass tacks – a facsimile of the Dragon Treaty slipped deftly before the white stallion. “Now, you don’t need me to tell you how serious this is. Disposing of legal property before the Court has reached its verdict… trading with the enemy in clear violation of the Equestrian embargo… this is treason, Mr. Buster.”
Filly Buster didn’t even bother looking at the pictures before his demeanor turned into one of panic. “B-but… you were there too, M-mayor!”
The gray-maned pony frowned. “Was I?” she wondered out aloud, absent-mindedly slipping over her itinerary. “I personally recall attending a meeting with Councilor Heartstrings and Ms. Sparkle during the alleged time period. In fact, I only know the time you went out on your mission to the Dragons, because of your insistence that Ms. Coin go along with you. She was most reluctant.”
The white stallion paled even further, seeing his Mayoral ambitions fast crumbling into dust. “B-but that’s impossible… it’s… it’s a trick! A conspiracy! You two are in it together!” Suddenly enraged, he jabbed an accusatory hoof directly at the Mayor. A couple of diners gave passing glances.
The Mayor was confused. “Us two?”
“You two! You and Lyra!” The white stallion deduced.
The tan pony slumped back, dazed. For a moment Filly Buster thought he had won.
But slowly… a grin… a chuckle… a massive laugh. “Oh that is a fine joke, Councilor! Me and Councilor Heartstrings, working together? Hilarious!”
“But it’s true! It’s true!” Filly Buster continued to insist desperately.
“Claim it all you want, but I don’t think LegCo or Her Highness would contend with such a ludicrous accustion without evidence,” Mayor Mare stressed.
The futility of what he was claiming finally got to the former Mayoral favorite. Filly Buster slumped into his chair, defeated. “Alright,” he mumbled. “You got me. What do you want?”
It was only then that the Mayor realized that she still hadn’t paid this pony back for his betrayal, seemingly lifetimes ago. Ah well, this was revenge enough.
“Well, Mr. Buster,” the tan pony began. “Your actions still benefited Ponyville. I, personally, am willing to overlook your ‘crimes’ if you, firstly, withdraw from the election race… ”
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Blackguards, all of the them! Mayor Mare seems the lesser of all the evils currently. I want some payback against Filthy.
There seemed to be a bit of a jump to the forest scheme and Filly seems really dumb to fall for that one, it would be nice to see how he was talked into that,
I hate how Ronald Reagan never got any blame for his role in the Iran-Contra affair. Much like Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon he lied under oath, he said he didn't remember selling arms and then when he got caught he said he was "sorry". And yet he got away with it. Whereas Bill Clinton lied about something personal and the Republicans tried to have him impeached. Lying about an affair is not the same as lying about making deals with terrorists or denying involvement in a cover up.
3516724 Alright. Will add in some brief exposition there.
EDIT: Done. I basically said Filly Buster is on a roll, and that this plan plays into his expectation that he'll be Mayor and so he'd better get around to acting like one (e.g. solving Ponyville's problems). People get careless when a win is near-guaranteed. That's also why Filthy Rich thought it would be a good time to fob off Lyra at this critical juncture.
3516714 Aw, you and your cute little "evil people will get punished" ideals
(Well you readers all know how the election's going to end so isn't that punishment enough?)
3516725 Sayre's Law: The less important the stakes, the more bitter the argument.
3516888 Just further prooves that while they aren't saints at least the Democrats don't seem too far gone whereas the Republicans seem more then willing to bash anything they don't like, even if it makes them hypocrites.
3516895 Democrats? Hillery and Billy boy have dead bodies crammed in their closets 47 last count from troopers to McDougal . Both lie like pros from her Watergate firing from her lies to Benghazi .
As Secretary of State her foundation raked in millions for political favors including Canada uranium sold to Russia, His Costco shipping land deals in Long Beach NSY.and revenge bombing (accident?) of a Chinese embassy in Kosavo and the Lying to congress with Monica.
As Billy said with BHO "He should be getting our iced tea and fetching our bags" Yeah pull your head out
you might see the truth.
Instead the perceptions you're fed,