//------------------------------// // 5: Nopony Expects the Griffish Inquisition! // Story: But Wait...There's More! // by McPoodle //------------------------------// But Wait...There’s More! - 5: Nopony Expects the Griffish Inquisition! - Author's Note: This is the point where it becomes really obvious that I wrote this before Season 2 started. Vinyl swung her head around to survey the sonic landscape after the sounds of the stampede had subsided. “How many ponies are left in the marketplace?” she asked. “Counting you?” Pinkie asked. “Six.” Vinyl sighed. “You forgot to count yourself, Pinkie.” Pinkie giggled. “Oh, right. Seven. Make that eight—I like to count Spike as an honorary pony.” “Aw, thank you, Pinkie Pie,” said Spike. “Is something on fire?” asked Vinyl, sniffing the air after ensuring it wasn’t the popcorn. “...not anymore,” answered Rarity. “Why,” Twilight Sparkle asked in a dangerously-calm voice, “in the name of pony decency, was an etheric program, a fictional etheric program, allowed to be created based on something as serious as the Return of Nightmare Moon?” “It served an emotional need,” Fluttershy stated with a surprising amount of confidence. “It’s true,” added Rarity. “Fluttershy and I had a long discussion on the topic when I first learned that this show was going to be made, and we came to the conclusion that we simply had to stand aside and let it be broadcast.” Twilight was at a loss for words. Rarity unconsciously put on the airs of a defense attorney as she began to stroll around an imaginary courtroom. “I think Vinyl Scratch here can best demonstrate the point we are trying to make. Vinyl, can I ask you some questions about last year’s Summer Sun Celebration?” Vinyl sighed and put down her bag. Witnesses are not allowed to eat popcorn either, she told herself. “What do you want to know?” “Well, what was it like?” The DJ took a deep breath as she thought back. “Equal parts terror and exhilaration. And then frustration.” “Exhilaration?” asked Twilight. “Really? What about relief?” “Nope.” “Walk us through it, Vinyl,” urged Rarity. “Well, the sun didn’t rise. On the one day of the entire year when everypony in Equestria stays up all night to watch it rise. And there were no explanations. The Princess has never delayed the sunrise without an explanation beforehand. So it stayed down...for hours. And the ponies of Fillydelphia panicked. It was a mad, unreasoning, undirected panic. And then somepony finally thought to look up and notice that the Moon was missing its Mare. So now we had a mad, unreasoning, directed panic. We had all heard what had happened last time, how near it was that Princess Celestia was completely defeated, and what Nightmare Moon had done to the part of Equestria under her control. We came to the only conclusion possible under the circumstances: Nightmare Moon had overthrown Princess Celestia, and that monster was now the sole ruler of Equestria. “No. No, that would not stand,” Vinyl remembered, stamping one hoof into the dirt. “No pony would willingly accept the authority of the Queen of Darkness. For the first time in our lives, for the first time since we were created, we were free ponies. And in that moment we chose to arm ourselves and march on Ponyville, grabbing pointed sticks for swords and trash can lids for shields. And it wasn’t just us. As our rag-tag group approached Ponyville, we were joined by citizen armies from Hoofingdon and Trottingham. The spontaneous army from Canterlot could be seen approaching another corner of the town, and a pegasi squadron from Cloudsdale was already circling overhead; in another few hours we would have been joined by the forces of Manehattan and Stalliongrad. It appeared that the whole pony population of Equestria was marching on Ponyville, to liberate one goddess from the grip of another. It was an utterly mad quest; for there was no question whatsoever that Nightmare Moon would just obliterate us with the blink of an eye. But we would go down fighting! Never again would we bow our knees to the commands of a tyrant! Shouting half-remembered songs of war we had picked up from Equestria’s more barbarous neigh-bors, we reached the Ponyville city limits... “...and found ourselves face to face with Celestia’s Royal Guard. For a while, we suspected that they had fallen under Nightmare Moon’s influence, and we tried to nerve ourselves to rush them. While we were thus pre-occupied, the sun suddenly rose! Princess Celestia appeared behind the guard and politely asked us to return home, promising us a complete explanation once we had done this. And so we returned home—our Princess was restored to us, of course we returned home. And Princess Celestia made her statement.” “She told her subjects,” Vinyl continued, “that Nightmare Moon had been released after a thousand-year long imprisonment because of planetary forces beyond Celestia’s control. Now, every pony knows that there are things beyond even the power of the Princess, but it is not a fact that we like to dwell on. And then the Princess told us that Nightmare Moon’s curse was lifted, and she was restored to being Princess Luna, by the power of the Elements of Harmony. Sure, we knew how Princess Celestia had used them to imprison Nightmare Moon in the first place. She said that Princess Luna was completely restored, and that we could look forward to her resuming her place as co-ruler of Equestria in the near future. “And then she said...and then she said nothing. That was all she told us. Nightmare Moon’s previous reign of terror was truly a thing of nightmares, even a millennium later. And this time she was defeated in a matter of hours, while the Princess whose immortal life was in jeopardy reveals absolutely no details to a public that was preparing to die for her, en masse. And what about Princess Luna? If we didn’t know how she was ‘restored’ (restored to what? her sanity?), then how could we be sure that Nightmare Moon was truly banished forever?” “So you were frustrated,” asked Rarity. “Yeah, a little,” Vinyl replied sarcastically. “Princess Celestia promised to protect our privacy by not telling anypony that we were the ones that defeated Nightmare Moon,” said co-counsel Fluttershy. “Wait...what?” said Vinyl, but everypony was paying attention to the cream-colored pegasus. Fluttershy concluded her statement by saying, “She didn’t consider the result this would have on every Equestrian living outside of Ponyville.” ~ ~ ~ “We next turn our attention to Canterlot,” declared Rarity. “More than any other city, the inhabitants of Canterlot have always focused their curiosity upon the acts of the Royal Palace. They were also masters at interpreting their ruler’s statements. The exact wording of Princess Celestia’s statement was crucial: she did not say that she defeated Nightmare Moon, or that she used the Elements of Harmony. According to those who spent their lives parsing her every word, the Princess’s statement revealed that Celestia herself was rescued by an outside force, merely by the fact that she didn’t claim credit. If she didn’t defeat Nightmare Moon, who did? The ponies of Canterlot were now even more frustrated than anypony else, but at least they were in a position to do something about it. “The city has a proud tradition of turning political controversy into drama, first upon the stage, and then over the etheric. The Princess had long since learned the wisdom of allowing the playwrights and ethericwrights to exercise their imaginations, because even when they got facts and motivations egregiously wrong, they had the salutary effect of relieving tension. “Now Oars In Wells,” Rarity continued, “was already a legend among etheric producers, responsible for the first all-pegasi production of Hearts in the Clouds. He may have been at the back of the Canterlot army Vinyl spoke of, but that was only because that pony really loves his éclairs. But Mr. Wells thought hard the entire journey out and back, and even before Princess Celestia had made her statement he began his own investigation. Asking around the University, he uncovered a crucial fact: Twilight Sparkle, the Princess’ only personal student in the last hundred years, had left for Ponyville the day before the Summer Sun Celebration.” “Well, that doesn’t really mean very much,” Twilight objected. “I mean, it actually does mean something, but when all you know is that I was sent to Ponyville, that fact by itself doesn’t automatically suggest that I would be involved.” “Ah,” rebutted Rarity, “but this is a Canterlotian, neigh, a Canterlotian immigrant bound and determined to prove to long-time residents that he was more Canterlotian than any of them!” “Objection! I move that ‘Canterlotian’ be officially put on the list of words that have been said way too many times in a row!” shouted Spike from the back of the crowd. “Seconded!” cried Pinkie Pie, happily jumping into parliamentary procedure. “As I was saying,” continued Rarity, trying to pretend that she hadn’t been so rudely interrupted, “Oars In Wells came to the natural conclusion, for a resident of Canterlot, that anypony from that great city who came to such a tiny and insignificant town as Ponyville...” “Objection!” cried Pinkie Pie. “Ponyville is a great place!” Rarity sighed. “May I draw the court’s attention to the fact that I have also expressed my admiration of Ponyville on numerous occasions? I was simply trying to acquaint your minds with the point of view of Mr. Wells.” “Okey-dokey-lokey!” chirped Pinkie. “Or ‘objection withdrawn’. They mean the same thing.” “Now then,” Rarity continued, “Mr. Wells came to the conclusion, from false premises, that Twilight Sparkle was intimately involved with Nightmare Moon. He happened to be correct, but that fact is immaterial. He came up with two possible scenarios. Either Ponyville was a sweet innocent little town corrupted by the evil influence of the dark sorceress Twilight Sparkle; Twilight Sparkle, who had tricked even the great and kind Princess Celestia into teaching her the secrets of her godmagic, and then used that power to liberate Nightmare Moon. Or, Ponyville was a dark corrupted cesspool of Nightmare Moon worshipers, who by some unspeakable ceremony managed to free Nightmare Moon, and only the powerful magic of Princess Celestia’s secret agent Twilight Sparkle was able to overthrow the evil town and free Princess Luna of her curse!” “I don’t like either one of those scenarios!” declared Twilight Sparkle. “Yes, it is rather unfortunate that these were the only two explanations that suggested themselves to the great producer. He eventually decided on the evil town, good Twilight scenario, but then decided that he had made Twilight too powerful if she could save Princess Celestia all by herself.” Pinkie nodded. “Overpowered characters are the fastest way to ruin a good story...FOREVER!” “Where was I?” asked Rarity. “Super-Saiyan Twilight,” Pinkie told her. “Err...right,” said Rarity, collecting her thoughts. “Mr. Wells decided to turn the Elements of Harmony into additional characters who would help Twilight in her quest. If Twilight was the queen of spies, sent into Ponyville to correct a great wrong, then these were the spies under her command. Once again, Mr. Wells stumbled upon a truth, but managed to mangle it anyway. He even decided to come up with a pleasing name for this group: the ‘Risking It All Team’, or RIAT. And that’s the name he gave to his completed ethericplay.” Rarity took a drink of crystal spring water from a nearby trough before continuing. (If Princess Celestia could drop out of the sky in any part of the city to get a drink of water, then every source of water in the city had to be “Princess Quality”. Or else.) “To play the part of Twilight Sparkle, he hired Blue Bubbles, one of the most talented etheric actresses to have ever recorded.” “I went to school with Blue Bubbles,” Twilight told the others. “There wasn’t a female teacher on campus she couldn’t mimic perfectly. It got her in a lot of trouble at the time.” Rarity nodded. “Blue Bubbles had some qualms about turning one of her former classmates into an action heroine...” “...into a what?” asked Twilight. She tried to imagine herself as a comic book character, and it nearly broke her brain. “...but she was assured that this would be a one-time performance,” Rarity continued. “The other actors involved were all masters of their profession. Finally the day of the recording and live broadcast arrived. Mr. Wells peeked out of the curtain to see who was there to see his show in person, and he saw Princess Celestia, front and center.” “Ooo...awkward!” exclaimed Pinkie. Rarity nodded. “Now it was one thing to make a play about royalty when you could pretend they knew nothing about it, and quite another when said royalty is staring right at you with eyes that never needed to blink in ten thousand years. So of course Mr. Wells blinked first. Also, the actresses playing the parts of Princess Celestia and Nightmare Moon suddenly decided they needed to simplify their lives by changing their permanent place of residence to under their beds. The backstory of ‘The Risking It All Team’ was completely gutted. It was now a totally-fictional Kingdom of Light being menaced by a completely-imaginary Kingdom of Darkness. The Light Queen was kidnapped by the Dark King—see, Dark King, no relationship to Princess Luna at all!—and the character of Twilight Sparkle, who wasn’t even given a semi-transparent alias before, became Shrinking Violet. The voice was still awfully familiar, and she still had a pet dragon, but you can’t expect miracles from unicorns on short notice.” “Nevertheless,” said Rarity, “a miracle was what Mr. Wells got, because not only did Princess Celestia leave the recording with a smile on her face, but the show became the most listened-to broadcast (non-emergency) in history, and the show’s sponsor, the Poul Mason Whinery, saw orders triple the following day. Mr. Wells could judge the success of the show just by walking down the street and hearing how many colts and fillies were singing the show’s theme song. Thanks to the changes to fictionalize the story, it was now possible to turn it into a series. The end of the original show saw the liberation of the Light Queen but rather cleverly, the Dark King (a part performed by Oars In Wells himself) was not brought to justice, leaving him as the main villain. And so it has remained for an entire season, as the RIAT has snuck into the Dark Kingdom again and again, uncovering plots and sowing dissention among the ranks of the darkponies.” “So Celestia never changed her mind about revealing what really happened with Nightmare Moon?” Vinyl asked with some worry in her voice. The show should have made it clear to the Princess of the harm not revealing everything was having on the populace. Is she really that stubborn? Vinyl asked herself. Or did she do something sneaky like install a stained glass window revealing all in a part of the castle that nopony ever visits? “It would appear not,” said Twilight. “Although to be perfectly honest, I wouldn’t really mind all that much one way or the other. If Celestia thought it best to tell our story, then I for one would have no objection. As for the series...” She thought carefully for several moments before continuing. “you all made some very good points. I suppose I really should experience an episode of this show before making up my mind about it. Applejack, did you say there was a recording scheduled for today?” “Did you hear that?” asked Pinkie Pie. “We get to see an Explosions Are Awesome episode!” “YAY!” Twilight’s friends shouted, before exiting the market together. Vinyl followed a short distance behind them, swiveling her ears in every direction. No freeze frame, and no canned laughter, she thought to herself. See, this is a soap opera!