//------------------------------// // Harry's Plan Goes as Well as His Plans Usually Do // Story: My Little Denarians // by Chengar Qordath //------------------------------// Celestia’s guards were annoyingly gentle when they tossed me into the dungeons. “Great plan, Harry,” Applejack snarked at me as the guards escorted her and the other Element-Bearers in behind me. Well, in Pinkie’s case they weren’t so much escorting her as carrying her along while she played with her Rainbow Dash doll. So here we were in the dungeons. Or at least, the closest thing Canterlot Palace had to a dungeon. It was really more like a suite than a proper dungeon. There was no filth smeared on the wall, no rats and roaches swarming over the floors and nibbling on the single crust of bread that was all I had to eat, and not a single rotting corpse in sight. Instead of a nasty cramped cell, we got a nice set of rooms with fancy furniture, freshly-cooked food waiting for us, and I’m pretty sure a maid had come through to dust and change the bedsheets right before they moved us in. Hell’s bells, aside from the lack of windows and the fact that the only door out was locked and had a pair guards outside of it, there wasn’t even anything to indicate this was a prison at all. I mean really, didn’t these guys know anything about how to set up a proper dungeon? My old apartment was worse than this! “I demand a different cell!” I yelled at the two guards standing outside our door. “As long as I’m in the dungeon of an evil tyrant’s palace, I want the full experience! This is the worst prison I’ve ever been in! You haven’t even put us in chains! Stars and stones, I bet you guys aren’t even going to torture me are you?” Despite my yelling, the pair of them didn’t so much as give a twitch. “Geez, what a rip-off. I am not satisfied with my dungeon-dwelling experience.” Rarity frowned at me. “Do you want the guards to mistreat us?” I sighed. Some people – or ponies as the case may be – just don’t get it. “It’s not about what I want, it’s about standards. If you’re going to be an evil tyrant you need to do things properly.” The other ponies in the room stared at me as if I’d grown a second head. (Most of them – Pinkie Pie was still lost in her own little world.). “Why do we let him make the plans again?” Applejack grumbled. “Hey, my plan was going perfectly right up until the part where we all got captured and thrown in prison,” I offered up in my own defense. “Seriously, I was at least ninety percent successful.” “Well that’s just super,” Applejack snarked. Were the ponies always this smartassed, or was I having a bad influence on them? “You let us know when you get around to takin’ care of that last ten percent, will ya?” “Will do.” I walked over to one of the trays of food the guards had left out for us. “Next part of my brilliant strategy: Chow time. Trying to work on an empty stomach won’t do us any good.” I have to admit, pony food was kind of starting to grow on me. It was no match for a good steak sandwich, but for food that involved a notable lack of dead animal flesh it wasn’t too shabby at all. It was probably a good thing the cartoon was My Little Pony instead of My Little Cow. I’m pretty sure if I'd done all this adventuring with sentient and vaguely anthropomorphic cows I might have a harder time going back to a good old meat-based diet once I wasn’t hanging with herbivores. “And precisely what were you planning to do after you finish your meal?” Rarity’s voice was in that dangerously polite tone women tend to get right before they lose all self-control and just completely explode. Possibly twice. I chewed my food contemplatively as I pondered the question, glancing over at the freshly made beds. “I think I’ll take a nap.” “Um – excuse me – but shouldn’t we be trying to escape?” Fluttershy hesitantly joined the conversation. “Relax; I’m working on a plan. I’m just having something to eat while I do it. Can’t think on an empty stomach.” “Well, while you’re workin’ on that, I figure the rest of us are gonna actually up an’ do somethin’.” Looks like Applejack didn't care for the way I was handling the situation. I’m not surprised; I tended to come up with crazy and complicated plans I never told anyone about while Applejack liked things simple and straightforward. The farmer trotted over to Fluttershy. “Alright now sugarcube, you reckon you could try another one of them shout things to bust us outta here?” “Okay – I’ll try.” Fluttershy took a deep breath. “Fus Ro Dah!” Wow. Somehow, her shouting was actually quieter than her normal speaking voice. Needless to say, it wasn’t up to the job of smashing through stone walls. Applejack tried to put it as gently as possible. “Alright, that wasn’t bad for a first try, ‘Shy. Now just do the exactly same thing again, except louder.” Fluttershy started trembling violently, her eyes swimming with unshed tears. “Y – You want me to shout louder?” A second later her self-control broke completely and she collapsed onto the ground, sobbing uncontrollably. Rarity immediately rushed in to comfort her while Applejack just stood there in shock, trying to figure out what she’d said that provoked Fluttershy’s reaction. Rarity alternated between whispering comforting words to Fluttershy and shooting dirty looks Applejack’s way. Fluttershy eventually calmed down enough to choke out an explanation: the way Applejack asked her to shout louder reminded her of Rainbow Dash. No wonder she was crying. With how fast and crazy things had been going ever since our run-in with Celestia, they hadn’t really had time to let Rainbow’s death sink in. I’m pretty sure they were also trying to not to show how much they were hurting. Applejack wanted to stay strong for her friends, Fluttershy didn’t want Rarity and Applejack worrying about her, and Rarity was trying to keep it together so she’d be there to help when one of them couldn’t handle it anymore. I wanted to go and do what I could to help comfort her but I couldn’t risk it. There were things I could say that might bring a lot of comfort to her. The problem was that anything I told her could mess up the entire operation. One of the nasty parts of doing this job is that sometimes you have to look at the big picture. As bad as Fluttershy was feeling right now, she’d feel a hell of a lot worse if Discord and Nicky won this thing. Rarity guided the pegasus over to the food-laden table I’d been sitting in front of for a while now and did her best to distract Fluttershy from her grief. It seemed to work, and after she was done with her food Fluttershy began hoof-feeding Pinkie Pie. She seemed to find some comfort in nurturing the traumatized pony. After a minute or so, Applejack joined us as well, tossing together a quick sandwich. “What I wanna know,” she declared between bites of food, “is how in the hay the Princess and all her soldiers found us so quick.” “There does seem one likely explanation,” Rarity offered. “Somepony must have told the Princess where our camp was. It is the only way we could have been located so quickly, and with not even a moment’s warning of the impending attack.” “I betcha it was that polecat, Trixie,” Applejack immediately opined. “A liar and a show-off like her, ain’t no way you could trust her to be straight. Any of y’all see her anywhere in camp when the guards hit us? ‘Course you didn’t, ‘cause she already done run off. Figures she’d sell us down the river to save her own hide once things got a little rough.” “It is a possibility,” Rarity conceded. “However, I think it is far more likely that one of the guards Shining Armor brought in got cold hooves. They are sworn to serve the Princess after all, so if one of them had even the slightest bit of doubt that she was under Discord’s control...” “Um, speaking of the guards.” Fluttershy’s words were slightly muffled as she tore a sandwich into bite-sized pieces for Pinkie’s benefit. “Do we really even know for sure that Shining Armor is Twilight’s brother? I mean, I’m not trying to call him a liar or anything, but Twilight never told any of us that she had a brother who was captain of the Royal Guard. He didn’t try to fight when the rest of Celestia’s forces arrived. Plus, he did try to hurt a filly...” “C’mon now, he only did that ‘cause of the mind control, ‘Shy.” Applejack turned to me. “What do you figure Harry? Y’reckon it was Trixie that went and stabbed us in the back?” “I don’t think we should jump to any conclusions.” I played the voice of reason. “We don’t want to end up blaming an innocent pony. Shining Armor probably played along with the guards so he wouldn’t blow his cover and would still be in a position to help us later. As for Trixie, I don’t think there’s any reason to suspect her other than the fact that you don’t get along with each other. If we go around suspecting everyone who’s on our side, pretty soon we won’t have anyone left.” The ponies all nodded in agreement with my advice, and Fluttershy whispered out an apology. I felt just a bit bad about dismissing their worries, seeing as the main reason I wasn’t bothered over who sold us out to Celestia was that I already knew exactly who had done it. It was also the main reason I wasn’t too bothered about coming up with an escape plan. Breaking out now would waste all the effort I’d put into getting us captured in the first place. Victory makes people sloppy. It’s hard to stay constantly on-edge all day, every day – wondering if every shadow or blind corner is hiding spies or assassins just waiting for you to make one tiny little slip, fearing that at any minute the hidden enemies you knew were out there might finally make their move. It’s pretty much impossible not to start relaxing once that looming threat isn’t hanging over your head any more. Celestia had won. The last remnants of resistance to her rule in Equestria were her prisoners. She’d already dropped the barrier spell she’d been holding around Canterlot, and I’m willing to bet that a lot of the other extra precautions she’d been taking ever since this whole mess started were being relaxed as well. The Guards could go back to working normal hours instead of pulling double shifts, and everyone else could finally start to feel like the crisis was over. After all the crazy stuff that had happened over the last few days, people would be jumping at the chance to believe that there could finally be a return to some semblance of normalcy. Needless to say, the perfect time to strike was after the bad guys let down their guard. We only needed three things to win, two of which were right here in Canterlot: The Elements of Harmony and Princess Celestia somewhere close enough for us to hit her with the Elements. That put us in a stronger position than you’d expect for a bunch of people who were effectively rotting in jail. The only problem we had left was making sure we had six ponies to use the Elements, and I had something in mind for that. There’s a reason Derpy hadn’t been in the camp when Celestia dropped the hammer on us. I’ll admit, I was taking a big gamble on the handling the Elements of Laughter and Loyalty. Well, I was taking a big gamble on a lot of things, actually. The old fake surrender gambit is an incredibly risky move. Right now, we were completely within Celestia’s power. If I were up against the likes of Nicodemus, he would probably kill us all out of hand on the assumption that I must be up to something. Hopefully, even in her current corrupted form Celestia wasn’t capable of just walking through the door and killing us all in cold blood. Celestia strode through the door right as that thought passed through my head, her expression grim. The universe just loves to taunt me with it's horribly ironic sense of timing. Judging by the course of my life, it also seems to hate me personally. Not quite sure what I did to piss it off. She was exactly like she’d been the last time I’d seen her. To all appearances, the only thing about her that was the slightest bit off was that the subtle aura of power she normally carried wasn’t so subtle anymore. I wondered if she would eventually go through a more dramatic transformation if we didn’t free her from Discord’s control, like what happened when Luna became Nightmare Moon. Fluttershy, Rarity, and Applejack all started to bow on pure instinct when the Princess entered the room, but halfway through the motion Applejack stopped. Very slowly and deliberately, the farmer stood tall and defiantly met the Princess’ eyes. Rarity followed her example, and I was a little surprised when even Fluttershy managed to stand her ground. Celestia met their gazes, and her face melted into an expression of compassion that seemed genuine enough that the only reason I didn’t think it was for real was my long history of dealing with bad guys who could put up a good act. Not to mention the entirely justified sense of cynicism I’ve developed. “My little ponies, what lies has Nightmare Moon told you? I had hoped you were under some compulsion, but I see now that all of you acted of your own free will. Now that I have banished Nightmare Moon once more, I hope that I can explain the truth to you all and we can put this unpleasantness behind us.” I wasn’t falling for her lies for a minute, but I couldn’t be sure about the ponies. After all, Celestia was a beloved leader whose subjects regarded her with near-religious reverence. Toss out a halfway plausible story about how she wasn’t evil and a lot of folks would believe her. Not because it was a particularly believable lie, but because deep down they’d never wanted to believe she had turned evil in the first place. “So, you’re saying you haven’t gone all psycho-crazy on us? If that’s the case, I’d really like to know why ever since we got back to Equestria, pretty much every single move you’ve made has been straight out of the evil tyrants’ handbook.” Celestia turned her attention to me, and I felt a sudden, crushing pressure on my mind. She wasn’t trying to break into my head; she was just smashing me down with pure willpower. Not the first time I’ve had that happen – a lot of the heavy hitters from back in my neck of the woods like Odin and the Lords of the Outer Night could pull the same kind of trick off. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t do much of anything other than just stand there, pinned in place by her sheer force of will. “Harry Dresden.” If not for the fact that her sheer force of will kept me paralyzed, I probably would’ve nervously swallowed at the way she said my name. Her tone contained a frankly terrifying mixture of incandescent fury and complete confidence in her ability to utterly destroy me. I did my best to keep that instinctive fear lurking in my bowels under control; if I pissed myself in terror because of a girly pony princess, I would never live it down. “You arrived in Equestria shortly before my sister succumbed to Nightmare Moon’s influence once more,” the Princess declared. “I do not believe in coincidences. I do not know what role you played in corrupting her, but I can assure you that you will be thoroughly punished for your crimes.” A second after delivering her promise of retribution for my imagined crimes she turned back to the ponies, and was all sunshine and smiles again. “Do not be afraid, my faithful subjects. You will not be punished simply for being deceived by the lies of Dresden and Nightmare Moon.” I tried to say something to defend myself, but Celestia still had me pinned in place. I’m not entirely sure I could even breathe if she didn’t want me to. Fortunately, the ponies didn’t need me to point out the holes in her logic. “What about Discord and the Denarians?” Applejack demanded. “Y’can’t mean to be tellin’ us that all that was a load of hooey.” “We only have Dresden’s word that the Denarians arrived in Equestria before he did,” Celestia answered smoothly. “For all we know, he might have brought them here himself. Perhaps they were in cahoots with him and had an eventual falling out, or perhaps when Dresden found himself faced with a conflict he could not win on his own, he dragged Equestria – and the four of you – into his personal war. Everything that you have suffered and all that you have lost has been a direct result of his actions. You have all seen the darkness that lurks within him, have you not? Do you doubt that if he felt it suited his goals, he would bring war to our peaceful land to gain the advantage over his enemies?” I gave a little wince at that. Between my brief flirtation with the real Dark Side and the time I took Cadance hostage, I’d shown the ponies a fair bit of my capacity to do really nasty things. Sure, there was a huge difference between doing one or two questionable things in the name of the greater good and throwing an entire peaceful world into chaos for a tactical advantage, but the ponies might not see it that way. They might have picked up a better grasp on the nasty side of life than anyone that had never left nice and peaceful Equestria, but they were still pretty innocent. It wasn’t a sure thing that they would understand how big of a difference there is between a good guy who occasionally does bad things and a straight-up villain. Cartoon morality is usually a lot more black-and-white than the real world. “Reckon there’s a possibility you might be right, Princess.” Even though I’d already anticipated the possibility, it was still like a punch to the gut when Applejack seemed to be on the verge of believing Celestia’s lies. At least, I felt bad until I noticed that she was looking shifty-eyed and the smile she was giving Celestia was far too wide. “There’s just one thing I wanna ask ya first.” Celestia smiled benevolently at the farmer. I guess part of being brainwashed and crazy had cost her whatever skill she had at reading body language. “Anything, my little pony.” “Where’s Rainbow Dash?” Applejack demanded. “What?” Applejack’s sudden snap back to defiance seemed to have caught Celestia off-guard. Her composure only slipped for a second though. “Yes, Rainbow Dash. What happened to her was regrettable. It was not my intention to cause her death, but I had to stop her for the good of all Equestria. I take no pleasure in it, and regret that I could not even recover her body for a proper burial, but her death was necessary. I could not place her life above the safety of all my subjects. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one.” “Horseapples.” Applejack always did have a way with words. “The Princess Celestia we know and love would never think that way. No way she’d ever just kill somepony innocent ‘cause savin’ them was too dangerous. She’d find some other way of fixin’ it before she hurt Rainbow. An’ she sure as hay wouldn’t kill nopony.” Celestia frowned and flinched a bit, just like I’d seen the other ponies do whenever they started fighting Discord’s control. For a second I dared to hope that maybe Applejack would actually be able to snap the Princess out of it. Sadly, it was only a passing moment; Discord had his claws far too deep into her brain for Celestia to snap out of it on her own. If she could’ve shaken free of his control on her own, Luna and Twilight wouldn’t be enjoying a vacation on the moon. And Rainbow Dash would still be alive. “So be it then,” Celestia declared coldly. “If you side with Dresden, then you shall share his fate.” Celestia turned her back on us, and yanked the door open. “Guards! Escort the prisoners to the central square, and gather the populace! I will show my subjects that they need not fear a return to darker times by destroying the last remnants of Nightmare Moon’s reign of terror.” The walk to the central square was one of the more unpleasant experiences of my life, and not just because Celestia had been shooting ponies off to the moon last time we’d been here. It’s not that the walk itself was particularly bad, but I could tell Applejack, Rarity, and Fluttershy were all terrified by the fact that we were about to be publicly executed. If not for the fact that all three were trying to be strong for each other, I’m sure even Applejack would have been crying. The prospect of imminent death can break just about anyone. I wanted nothing more than to tell them to relax because I had a plan to get us out of this, but even if I didn’t have my worries about Celestia’s Intellectus and Applejack’s terrible poker face, I couldn’t really talk to them while we had a bunch of Celestia’s loyal guards surrounding us. Well, some of them might have been Shining Armor’s people – he was supposed to be getting the guards on our side and un-brainwashing the rest of the leadership – but it wasn’t worth the risk. As much as I hated seeing the ponies who had grown to be my friends scared, putting the entire plan at risk just to calm them down wasn’t worth it. I’d feel a lot worse if I ended up leaving Equestria under the rule of Discord and a brain-twisted Celestia. We heard the crowd before we saw them. Celestia had really gone all-out for our execution; from the looks of things, practically every pony in Canterlot had turned out. Then again, not all of that was Celestia’s doing – I had my own reasons for wanting a big audience here too. It’s part of why I made sure Trixie hadn’t been in camp when Celestia’s people hit us. When you need to play a crowd, it’s hard to beat a showman. Showmare. Whatever. Let’s go with stage magician – that’s a nice species-neutral term. We reached the large wooden platform sitting in the square (was it a gallows? No, Celestia wasn’t going to hang us. So what is the proper term, anyway? I guess I’ll just call it a stage). Shining Armor and Cadance were waiting for us at the top, along with even more of the guards. I very carefully avoided looking at either of them so we wouldn’t accidentally give anything away, though I was also trying to not be too obvious about not looking at them either. Shining Armor was a potential weak link in the plan: from what he had told me, Cadance couldn’t block Celestia’s Intellectus the way Luna could. If she started suspecting Shining Armor, her Intellectus would make it all too easy to confirm that he was in on the plot. So the key was to avoid giving her any reason to suspect that there’s anything amiss. Intellectus might give you all the answers you could ask for within the area it covered, but first you have to ask the right questions. I gave the crowd a quick once-over, looking for any familiar faces. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that Trixie was front and center, casually sitting on top of a large crate that just happened to be sitting in the town square. Pretty sure she’d put the crate there herself so she could see and be seen by everyone. That kind of prominent position made plenty of tactical sense considering her role in the plan, but I’m pretty sure her reasons for picking it out had more to do with ego than tactics. Oh well; getting this crazy-ass plan to work was well worth letting her milk her fifteen minutes of fame for all they were worth. I felt a bit of relief when I spotted Cheerilee and the kids. Not only was it just good to know that they were alright after the attack on our camp, but the fact that they were roaming free also meant that Shining Armor and Cadance must have turned enough of the Royal Guard over to our side to make busting them out viable. Getting reasonably high-profile prisoners out of wherever Celestia had stashed them – and pulling it off without anyone finding out and getting word to Celestia – wasn’t the sort of thing you could manage unless you had just about everyone on your side. Trixie wasn’t the only familiar face in the crowd. Lyra and Bon Bon apparently rode out the mess we’d left behind in Canterlot, and presumably Derpy or Trixie had filled them in on what the plan was. Most likely Trixie, since I hadn't seen the wall-eyed spy anywhere in the crowd. That worried me a bit. Everyone had their parts to play in my master plan, but Derpy had the most important by simple virtue of being the only other pony I knew for sure could operate without having to worry about Celestia’s Intellectus. Since I didn’t have much more than a vague notion of how her Intellectus worked and what might limit it, I had to work off the assumption that anyone else who didn't have some kind of specific protection from it was vulnerable. That’s why I’d put Derpy in charge of securing what I hoped would be the knockout blow to Celestia’s regime. Which could explain why Derpy wasn’t around. My plan depended on quite a few bits of wild conjecture and blind optimism being exactly on the money. Even if I was right, we didn’t have much more than a couple vague notions of where to start looking, so there was no guarantee Derpy could pull everything together in time. That’s not to mention the risk of getting spotted and losing the element of surprise – and when you’re trying to sucker-punch a being with godlike powers you really need the element of surprise. The freedom of an entire dimension and the future of Earth hanging in the balance, and my plan to save everything had so many different ways it could go wrong that I couldn’t even count them all. To hell with poker, this is high-stakes gambling. A unicorn dressed up fancily enough that I had to double check to make sure that he was a he trotted to the front of the platform, pulling out a very official-looking scroll. “Harry Dresden, step forward.” Being an obliging sort of fellow, I did so. If nothing else, it gave me a better view of the crowd. Still no sign of Derpy. Not sure if that’s good or bad. “Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden.” I felt just a bit worried when my full name came out, but there wasn’t the usual weird shiver down the back of your spine that comes when someone uses your Name. There’s a lot more to a Name than just the name (if that makes any sense). The unicorn launched into an impressively long list of charges. “You have been convicted of the crimes of unprovoked aggression against Equestria, assault upon her highness Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, assault upon the soldiers and officers of the Equestrian Royal Guard, providing aid and comfort to a traitor to the realm, lese-majesty, sedition, blasphemy, destruction of royal property, and trespassing.” “Is that all? And here I thought I’d done something wrong.” That got a chuckle out of a couple ponies towards the front of the crowd that could actually hear me. “Tell you what, how about you let me go for a day or two, and I promise that when I come back that list will be at least twice as long. Deal?” That got me a few more laughs. Like most functionaries, the unicorn had his head way too far up his own ass to appreciate a good joke when he heard one. “This is no laughing matter! These are serious crimes, and you will die for them!” I switched gears, and dropped into a faux-philosophical tone. “Aren’t we all dying, really? When you think about it, every single second you live brings you one second closer to death. So I guess that means we’re all dying for our crimes. You, me, everyone here.” That pushed the fancy little bureaucrat into incoherent sputtering. People with small minds never did appreciate good philosophy. After several tries, he finally managed to form a coherent sentence. “Are you mocking me?” “Eeyup.” Hopefully Big Mac wouldn’t mind me borrowing his catchphrase, but it just fit the situation so perfectly. That set the unicorn off into another round of sputtering. When he was still incoherent with rage after several second, I turned to Celestia. “I think I broke him. Do you have any spares, or do you just find the nearest unicorn who can somehow manage to kiss your ass while shoving his head up his own?” That won we a few more laughs from the crowd. “I think I can manage without a herald for this,” Celestia answered quite calmly. “Now then Harry Dresden, I believe you are entitled to a final request.” “I don’t suppose ‘surrender’ would work, would it?” I suggested hopefully. “I’m afraid not.” Celestia had the slightest hint of a smirk on her face. Always nice to see a pony who appreciates some good smartassery. “How about ‘let me go?’” “Sorry, but you can’t use your final request to get out of being executed. It rather defeats the entire purpose of the process.” I gave a philosophical shrug. “Hey, you can’t blame a guy for trying. So if I can’t get out of the whole dying thing, can I at least make request about how I’m executed?” “That seems reasonable enough to me. Make your request.” As far as insane mind-controlled bloodthirsty tyrants went, Celestia was a pretty nice one. “Kill me with the Elements of Harmony.” That put a crack in her cool and in-control facade. “I beg your pardon?” “You heard me,” I turned to the crowd and used my best stage voice. “The Elements of Harmony tap into the magic of friendship. What better weapon could you possibly need to deal with me? If I really am some sort of evil monster like you claim, then the Elements will smite the hell out of me. As an added bonus, if it turns out that the only reason I’ve gone over to the dark side is that I’m being mind-controlled or twisted around into doing it, then they’ll fix me up good as new. There’s only one reason not to use them: you’re afraid they might not work on me. If I’m the good guy and you’re the villain of the piece, then the Elements won’t do jack for you. Hell’s bells, they’ll probably end up smiting you if you try to use them.” Just for a second she looked a bit worried, but it didn’t take her long to work her way out of the trap. “I think not, Harry Dresden. The only reason you would ever request your execution in such a specific way is because you have some reason to believe it will fail. I am no fool. You’ve turned the bearers of the Elements against me. Perhaps you’ve found some way to turn the Elements as well. Or you seek some other tactical advantage you can only gain by bringing the Elements out into the open. You do have four of the bearers at your side, so perhaps you believe that even after you’ve corrupted them they can still use the Elements against me. Whatever the case, I am not so great a fool that I would play right into your hooves.” “Darn.” While I’d hoped she might actually fall for that one, I wasn’t optimistic about tricking her that easily. That was why I had plenty of other angles to hit her from; always have a couple backup plans when picking a fight with godlike beings. “How about you put down the sun instead? That way Twilight, Luna, and everyone else you’ve sent to the moon can watch. Actually, that brings up a rather curious point.” I turned my attention back to the crowd. “You say Princess Luna went evil, but so far all I’ve seen is a whole lot of eternal sunshine and not much night that never ends. Back when Luna was still running free, I expect you justified it all by saying that if you let the moon rise you might not have been able to put it back down with Luna fighting you. Fair enough. But that raises a rather interesting question: Now that Luna’s back on the moon and no longer a threat, why are you still keeping the sun up?” That set off a round of concerned muttering in the crowd, but once more Celestia was ready with a counter-argument. “The normal cycle of day and night shall resume eventually. However, for the moment I believe it is best to retain continuous daytime until everypony knows of Nightmare Moon’s defeat. Otherwise, a sudden unexplained return to nighttime could cause a panic. We all saw as much when she managed to wrest control of the skies from me for a few hours at the height of her uprising.” She still had an answer for everything. Super. Time to toss out the next topic. “That all sounds nice, but what’s your explanation for all the repression you’ve been tossing around?” Celestia took the bait. “In light of the crisis caused by Nightmare Moon’s return, additional security measures were needed to ensure the safety of everypony. Sometimes we must sacrifice a little freedom in the name of security.” Trixie took her cue, standing up on top of her box and dramatically yelling, “You sent Trixie’s little brother to the moon! He didn’t do anything wrong! All he did was mention Princess Luna’s name and next thing Trixie knows her poor brother is a convicted heretic, exiled to the moon! How could you do that to Trixie’s poor baby brother?” Celestia tried to snap out a quick response, but her reply to Trixie was drowned out by several other ponies shouting about their own lost relatives. Lyra and Bon Bon were among the first ponies to start but it didn’t take long for the cries of protest to spread to the rest of the crowd. Nobody heard Celestia point out that Trixie didn’t even have a baby brother. Even if they had, nobody would have cared. Trixie was just the catalyst; the fact that she’d lied about her brother didn’t change the fact that plenty of ponies in the crowd had experienced that very thing. I’m not sure what Applejack thought of the fact that I’d used a couple carefully crafted lies to reveal the truth, but I can’t imagine she would approve. As Celestia stared her mutinous subjects in shock, I took the opportunity to rub her nose in it. “You want to know where you messed up, Princess?” I waved a hoof across the rebellious crowd to emphasize my point. “You shouldn’t have argued with me in the first place. You’re the Princess, just kill me and be done with it. Instead you let me pull you into debate, let me start asking questions while you tried to prove me wrong. That got all the ponies thinking about which one of us was making a better argument and asking questions of their own. Once they start thinking that way, it means they’ve stopped thinking of you as the Princess they all have to automatically obey. Doesn’t matter how good your argument is, you stepped off the pedestal and make yourself just another pony with an opinion to discuss. You just lost all of that mystical authority you’ve been keeping this whole thing running on.” Just like I’d hoped it would, that remark got under her skin. Like most people do when you point out that they just made a huge mistake, she overcorrected for it. “SILENCE! AS YOUR PRINCESS, I COMMAND YOU TO CEASE THIS DISPLAY AT ONCE!” Oh my poor ears. Looks like loud voices run in the family, Celestia just keeps the volume turned a bit lower most of the time. However, that much volume can be a handy thing when you’re dealing with a budding mob. Most of the ponies went from screaming at her to cowering on the ground in obedience. They’d been obeying Celestia their entire lives, and breaking a lifelong habit is pretty hard to pull off. Plus, it’s human (or pony) instinct to toe the line when dealing with someone who has all of Celestia’s natural authority. We’re social creatures, and part of that is having a certain natural hierarchy. Any competent leader knows all the little tricks that poke the instinctive parts of your brain and tell it that they’re in charge and you should obey. If I hadn’t seeded the crowd with Trixie and a couple other people, Celestia probably would’ve stopped things right there. Between the respect she normally commanded and the raw authority she projected, she had completely cowed the mob. Fortunately, I had a couple tricks up my own sleeves (or wherever it is I keep my tricks when I’m not wearing clothes). While just about every other pony in the square bowed and scraped, Trixie stood defiantly. If this were a Hollywood movie, she probably would have given some sort of epic speech about freedom and liberty, with a few thinly veiled political messages tossed in while inspirational music swelled in the background. I’m sure it would’ve looked very nice and utterly staged. Or maybe she would’ve gone the bare-bones route and given a big dramatic ‘NO!’ Instead, all Trixie did was stand up. That was all she needed to do. Lyra, Bon Bon, and the other ponies my side seeded in the crowd followed Trixie’s lead, standing defiantly against Celestia. For a moment the crowd hesitated – the mass of ponies muttering amongst itself and pondering what to do – but before long I saw other ponies standing tall. Ponies that weren’t part of the resistance. Even though I knew it wasn’t a genuinely spontaneous thing, it was still a pretty touching sight to see the crowd standing up to Celestia. Sure the ponies were only standing up because Trixie and the others had taken the lead, but the fact remained that they were standing. Me tweaking the circumstances to nudge everyone into doing the right thing was really just a detail; I didn’t trick anyone into being righteous, I just made it a little easier. The hardest part is always being the first one to step up and put everything on the line to fight the bad guys. It’s a lot easier for ordinary people to do take the risk of doing good if they know they won’t be alone. By being the first one to step up Trixie had taken care of that problem. It had been a little thing, but kicking up any sort of revolution is all about momentum. Most of the ponies here knew in their hearts that Celestia’s regime was in the wrong, but there’s a huge difference between knowing something is wrong and doing something about it. With Celestia’s slip into police state tactics, lots of good ponies were probably too scared to do anything. Plus, when you’re just one lonely person it’s easy to think that nothing you could do would make a difference anyway. Once Trixie got the ball rolling, all those ponies who would normally be afraid or didn’t believe they could make a difference got that little push they needed to go from discontented to rebellious. And for every pony that stood up against her, another one found the courage to join the rest of the crowd in defying the princess. Pretty soon we had a nice little snowball effect going, and the entire crowd turned on Celestia. I couldn’t resist feeling a bit smug about what I’d just pulled off. “You’ve lost, Princess. Your subjects are turning on you. Even if you take out me and the remaining Element-bearers, more ponies will rise up to take our place. You can’t stop the revolution; all you can do is add a couple martyrs to the cause.” I turned to the crowd. “Isn’t that right everypony?” It felt a bit strange to break out the pony lexicon instead of using good old normal English, but I was trying to play the crowd. When in Equestria... Trixie was quick to take my cue. “If Harry Dresden should fall, The Great and Powerful Trixie shall bear the Element of Magic!” I was expecting a couple more of my people (ponies – whatever) to chime in with what Elements they would take up to get the crowd into the spirit of things, but we’d moved past the point of needing to give the rest of the ponies any encouragement. Within seconds of Trixie’s statement dozens of ponies were shouting which Elements they would take, and within a minute it had gone up to hundreds – maybe even thousands. For the briefest of moments, I saw a hint of shock and maybe even fear in the Princess’ eyes. It was one thing to have her citizens sullen, angry, and resentful, but now they were seconds away from going into full-scale rebellion. Her public execution plan had backfired horribly; instead of cowing her subjects into submission, it had pushed pretty much the entire populace of her capital into the rebels’ hands. In desperation, Celestia turned to the captain of her Royal Guard. “Shining Armor! Disperse the crowd!” Instead of immediately leaping into action, Shining Armor brought a hoof up to his chin and turned to his girlfriend. “You know Cadance, I’m having a hard time deciding here. I think the Element of Loyalty would suit me quite nicely, but with Twily being my sister and all it really seems like I should take the Element of Magic. What do you think?” “I think you would do wonderfully with any of the Elements, Shining Armor.” Cadance answered, keeping her own tone just as casual. “I admit I’m rather torn between Kindness and Generosity myself. I suppose we could just pick whichever Element there’s a particular need for at the moment.” “That’s a brilliant solution Cadance.” “Thank you dear.” I have to admit, the look on Celestia’s face during the entire exchange was priceless. “Even you, Cadance? Shining Armor? Even you betray me?” “It’s almost like everyone’s fed up with your tyrannical rule or something.” Smartass comments make every plan to overthrow an evil overlord better. “Save yourself and the rest of us a lot of trouble and accept your defeat gracefully.” Sad to say, she didn’t take my advice. “No!” Celestia stomped a hoof hard enough to punch a hole through the wooden platform we’d been standing on, and I felt the ambient temperature spike up a couple dozen degrees. “Even if everypony else turns against me, I shall do whatever I must to protect Equestria!” I could feel her tapping into her mojo. It was still every bit as terrifying as it had been when she’d thrown down against Discord. I suspect that with all of the Royal Guard and the entire city of Canterlot on my side we might be able to take her in a straight fight, but even if we won the end result wouldn’t be pretty. She was just that strong. Good thing we had better options on the table than getting into a slugging match with her. Shining Armor dropped another one of his signature barrier spells over her; an instant later Cadance was right at his side, reinforcing him. In terms of raw magical muscle the two might not be a match for Celestia – but like I said before, Shining Armor is damn good with his barrier spells. Celestia unleashed several blasts of solar flame against the spell surrounding her, but barely managed to make a few cracks that Shining Armor fixed within seconds. With Cadance pumping him up, it seemed that he was strong enough to keep Celestia contained. After a few more failed attempts to break out, Celestia switched tacks. “You cannot hold me indefinitely. Shining Armor will eventually tire, and then I will free myself and punish all who would oppose me in my efforts to keep Equestria safe. As amusing as your little display with the crowd was Harry Dresden, the fact remains that you have neither the Elements of Harmony nor all the ponies needed to use them.” I shot a glance out at the crowd and felt a thrill of triumph when I saw a certain grey pegasus trotting up towards us, a cloaked pony walking alongside her. I love it when things work out. “You know Celestia, I would think you of all people would understand that the Elements of Harmony are more than just five necklaces and a tiara. Honesty, kindness, and the rest are all basic ideals that every pony believes in. I’m not one for a lot of faith normally, but that kind of belief has a ton of power. I’ve seen my share of holy weapons – stars and stones, one of my best friends is a holy warrior who used to carry freaking Excalibur – but it’s not the weapon itself that’s strong, it’s the belief behind it. The Elements are just a tool that focuses all that belief – the magic of friendship, if you will – into a single point and weaponizes it.” Derpy and her companion moved through the line of unresisting guards to join the rest of us up on the platform. I resisted the urge to smile as I continued speaking to Celestia. “And as far as not having someone to use the Element of Loyalty goes...” I waved a hoof across the massive crowd of thousands of rebellious ponies. “I think we’re spoiled for choice when it comes to finding a replacement, don’t you?” Celestia wasn’t even paying attention to me anymore. The cloaked figure at Derpy’s side had her full attention. “Who are you?” she demanded. “I see you, but you’re not ... why don’t I know who you are?” Looks like somebody’s Intellectus was letting her down. “Aw c’mon Princess, don’t tell me you forgot about me already,” a wonderfully familiar voice came from the mystery pony. “By the way Harry; nice speech and all, but you were completely wrong on one point.” The pony grabbed the cloak in her teeth and dramatically tossed it off, revealing a blue coat and a shock of multi-colored hair. “Nopony could ever replace me!” Rainbow Dash declared. “Rainbow Dash?” “Rainbow?” “RD?” “DASHIE!” Looks like Pinkie Pie had just made a miraculous recovery.  “But – how?” Celestia gaped at the pegasus in shock. “You’re dead! I felt you die! I know you’re dead!” “C’mon Celestia, think about it,” I chided the brainwashed pony. “You saw Luna casting a spell on Rainbow Dash. You must know she can mess with your Intellectus. If she wanted to give Rainbow a fighting chance to get away from you after she sucker-punched you, what’s the first thing she’s gonna do?” It would’ve been nice if Luna could’ve pulled that trick off without throwing the rest of us off as well, but them’s the breaks. Anything good enough to fool Celestia into thinking Rainbow Dash was dead would have to be good enough to fool your friendly neighborhood mortal wizard as well. I didn’t put it together until Derpy told me her little story about how Luna could mess with Celestia’s Intellectus. I’m just glad Derpy managed to find whatever safehouse Luna had ordered Rainbow to go to ground at and get her back to Canterlot in time. You’d think Celestia would’ve put it together before me. Maybe she’d been subconsciously fighting Discord’s control like I had. She might not be able to just bust free completely, but she could make herself miss one important little fact. That was all it took. I looked over at the five ponies in the middle of an epic group hug (I hope the massive pony-pile doesn’t end up crushing her – we’d just gotten her back), and out at the entire city united in their determination to return freedom to their homes. I turned back to the tyrant. “Hey Celestia. I know we don’t have the six Elements of Harmony right now, but do you think six thousand ponies united in friendship is enough to do the job?” I opened up my Sight. Rainbow Dash and her friends blazed with so much energy they were like a miniature sun of their own, while the entire city of Canterlot roiled with what looked like a rainbow-colored thunderstorm. The amount of raw magical friendship energy flowing through the area was like nothing else I’d ever seen before, and all that energy was just begging for someone to take it in hand and give it a little direction. So that’s what I did. I grabbed every single bit of that magic I could find. I gathered that power until it felt like my body was about to explode into sunshine and rainbows, and then I grabbed some more. I didn’t stop until I had every single bit of energy the five Element Bearers and every other pony in Canterlot produced, and then I channeled all that power into a single spell. It was a horribly sloppy and inefficient spell; the end result was probably downright hideous compared to what the Elements of Harmony could pull off, but I had one-point-twenty-one jiggawatts of the magic of friendship at my command. It didn’t matter that the spell wasted most of its energy in the process, because there was so much raw power behind it that even a fraction of its initial strength was enough to get the job done. The timing on this spell would be critical: Shining Armor had to drop the barrier just as the spell loose. Too soon and Celestia could teleport away; too late, and it risked bouncing off of the barrier. I wasn’t sure if either of those would actually happen, but I doubted Celestia would stick around for us to find out. I gave into the urge to toss out a witty one-liner right before I hit her. “Hey Princess ... taste the rainbow.” With a nod to Shining Armor, I unleashed the magic of friendship (and Skittles) upon her.