-Airship Mauled, ever burning fire, Jade-
I was currently reading a book and writing several notes on what I was reading off to the side.
Nobody had bothered to ask, but I had been at this for the last three days.
When someone did bother to ask me, I’ll be completely and utterly honest with them.
I don’t see why anyone hasn’t noticed this problem yet and I was being left to my own devices to abuse it entirely. Well I couldn’t do so personally.
Hearing limping footsteps coming my way. I looked up and away from my rather interesting series of discoveries for a plan I was working on. It was my sister Jacky who was covered in pine needles and she looked slightly burnt, the pine needles weren’t burnt at all though. Looks like she just got back from her most recent adventure.
“So did it fall or fly at you?” The simple question was met with a simpler response.
“Fly.” My sister groused out quietly, Jacky really has a distaste for flying trees and that phenomenon was a regular constant to at least once every other week or so with different breeds of trees. Last time it was a spruce.
“You going to be okay?” Given that she was limping and alive, she’d be mostly okay. You know aside from having the full weight of a tree hit her. I was happy that she wasn’t permanently crippled or worse.
“Peachy, I’m going to drink some Icky brand peach juice and then report in to Dr. Bones.” The badly ruffled and slightly burnt pirate parrot stumbled away from me, her black feathers dropping pine needles with every step to head into The Witch’s Fare nearby. She seemed to cheer up immediately when she saw Gavin coming towards her with excitement.
“Sorry if our captain is a bit grumpy today Jade.” Joining me at the campfire, with a bag of manure he was munching on by the paw full, Nefer didn’t look too worried. The half plant, half flail-tail, demi-god wasn’t being a bundle of warmth and sunshine currently, which was a sad indeed. “Can’t say I really blame Captain Blackcap for her mood. Between successfully dodging that large swarm of ravenous mutant parasprites, the numerous cragadiles, several terra tortoises tongues and the rocket propelled fruit that burst open into this really scary and sticky flaming sap launched from the semi-intelligent trees, the flying tree actually getting her despite avoiding all of that upset her quite a lot.”
“That’s an understatement, considering that the tree that hit her was a pine tree and it wasn’t even native to the region we were in… heck, I bet there wasn’t even a pine tree within a hundred miles of us before that moment. Rarely is the tree anywhere close to being native to where we are. Anyone have any marshmallows?” As soon as Flotsam asked, a pack of marshmallows, sweet crackers and chocolate were produced to her within seconds by the nearby Filly Scouts.
“Ask and you shall receive, want some cookies too?” Bracing asked with a hint of amusement, as she adjusted her Filly Scout Leader sash. Bracing Knight was not only the leader of the local militia she was also the local Filly Scout Leader, the moon priestess knew how to teach both defense and survival techniques effectively to just about anyone. She was Sekhet certified when it came to teaching things. “We’re having a sale this week and I heard you just came into a windfall.”
“Depends… what do you have?” Flotsam crossed her finned hooves over her chest and tried to look picky.
Airship Mauled had its own chapter of the Filly Scouts now, only ours were obviously more inclusive to other species. That and the merit badges you earned around here proved that you could survive the dangerous creatures fairly well, at least better than the other Filly Scouts at any rate.
One of said badges to earn in our version of Filly Scouts was ‘Myrmeke Taming’ among the other fun extreme things that one could learn to survive around here. Maulwurfs weren’t particularly hard for fillies to beat up once you knew the trick to tying them up, those giant armored skin moles didn’t come anywhere near us anymore after the last few times a bunch of fillies with dancing ribbons took them down.
Bracing and I were friends now and even I learned a thing or two from her when it came to Myrmekes. Maybe I would even bother to learn how to ride one eventually.
“Thanks, we’ll haggle things out later.” My attention was brought back to Flotsam apparently having taken up a stick to start roasting a marshmallow over my ever burning fire.
“Brenda!” Savanna shouted from nearby, her fur color today appeared to be yellowish with dark green stripes. So she was being a Lambkin Melon today, I’m pretty sure Pom would be able to tell us about those if she weren’t back in Huoshan now. In related news, Ratatoskr has been really quite busy lately.
“Savvy!” Returned Brenda and met with the Abyssinian in an affectionate manner, their hugging was almost bordering on inappropriate to watch given their tendencies to grab each other in naughty places in a teasing manner.
Gene eventually came over to me and sat down with us as well. He must be tired, because keeping his wife alive is a full time job and commitment.
“That trip was interesting. Before you ask The Ardent Survivor is fine and the balloon is being tended to by Belfry.” What haven’t you taught that butterfly to do at this point in time Gene? Sure Belfry was a horrible pilot, but he could do well enough when in a pinch. A high altitude flyer that butterfly was not. “The Durable Dinghy is definitely proving to be an effective transport for when we can’t safely land the ship.”
“Any particular reason why you’re telling me this?” Not that I was complaining mind you, Generic was married to my sister. “You’re being somewhat suspicious for someone who’s supposedly as emotionally dead as Maud or Mud Briar seem to be on the outside. At least enough that I can pick up on it from constant exposure.”
“We got out with plenty of treasure from this hunt, but… we didn’t get the cursed artifact we were after.” Stretching out Gene stared at the fire with something approaching a pleasant mood for him. “We couldn’t exactly have expected Dispel Grace to show up or become such a hassle with the Perun Paladins… though I can guess why he was after the artifact.”
“What was the artifact this time and why would it be so interesting for him to look into?” After giving it some thought, I blinked as I considered the fact that the earth pony was the size of a breezy and used a magical aura to fill out his armor. “You don’t mean that it was…”
“Something that enhances size? Yes.” There was the slightest of a smirk on Gene’s beak. “Didn’t actually read the fine print on that though.”
“Did it do something ridiculous?” The answer to my question was Gene simply reaching into the bag he was carrying on him. He pulled out a picture and I took it from his claws and looked at it with wide eyes. “They say a picture tells a thousand words, this is a full length novel all on its own. Jacky still hasn’t seen this yet, but I’m waiting until she’s less grumpy about the tree thing to show her. Gavin will do a pretty good job of making her happy.”
Not being able to contain the mirth, I burst out laughing. It certainly enhance his size alright, but not in the exactly way he was expecting, it was cruel irony for the tiny guy. The artifact was pretty cursed alright, as was the image I was looking at.
“Well we always did think of him as being mostly an ass…” Couldn’t keep the giggles out of my voice If I tried.
“So what have you been working on lately?” Not only did Gene take an interest, but so too did Nefer and Flotsam as they stared at me. That was a sudden change of subject.
“Oh this, it’s nothing really. Just looking up a few laws and determining every loophole in them, this is all I’ve been doing for the last three days out of morbid interest.” Why was I receiving disgruntled looks from Flotsam and Nefer? Even Gene was staring at me flatly.
“Jade, as a family, we don’t do normal. It’s even becoming our motto to the point that we can’t keep things normal for too long even if we had everyone in Equestria put their full efforts into it.” This was when Gene leaned forward a bit to stare into my eyes in a dull manner. “What is it and how bad can it be?”
“It’s my plan to conquer Equestria.” Okay, so when I said that the Filly Scouts and Bracing seemed to find it funny. As for Flotsam, Nefer and Gene… they immediately took me at my word without batting an eye about it.
“Wow, that’s sounds so cool! No… wait… doesn’t everyone who tries to conquer Equestria get hit with rainbows or is defeated by an incredible amount of bad hindsight and incredible fortuitous serendipity that’s magical or otherwise?” Nefer was not Savvy, but he was genre savvy enough to know that any plan involving the conquering of Equestria would likely fail. I happen to know the exception to this rule though.
“What makes you think you are going to do any better than all those guys that failed horribly?” Spoke a muffled Flotsam through a mouthful of chocolate, sugar crackers and marshmallow.
“Well for one, I know exactly why everyone else’s plans failed to take over Equestria in a permanent fashion.” My explanation was going to be pretty uninteresting, but I might as well tell them. “Everyone who has ever tried to take Equestria has had the same problems, which is mainly their extreme amounts of hubris. There’s the ones who tried for subtlety through manipulation that, when found out, the plans fall apart faster than a box of already wet tissues dissolves when thrown into the ocean. The examples are Chrysalis or Cozy Glow who never have backup plans for anything and always assumed the first plan would work out of the gate. There’s the ones who try to use raw brute force, which is relatively effective until it isn’t when it comes to Tirek or that Storm King guy who were all about raw power and had very little in the way of actual planning skills. The Storm King almost lost a fight to Jacky even with her bad luck running full tilt against her and his goals were straight forward to blandly conquer things through outright brutality and inertia, but he never really fully bothered to take control the territories he sacked. There’s the ones that try to use magic to either mind control, magical corruption, time travel and etcetera which is usually a unicorns doing, since they go evil or do bad things at the drop of hat. No offense meant to my wonderful and loving wife Fizzy of course, but… it’s true if you look at recent history with how many unicorns went nuts over small things and went destroy the world crazy over the simplest things. Eighty percent of the time magic conquering is involved, it’s a unicorn going evil or mad with power. Speaking of power, the most problematic thing in all of this is that the power of friendship always wins as far as Twilight Sparkle is concerned.”
“So you can’t brute force it, you can’t use magic and you can’t use manipulation, Twilight Sparkle will just bring her friends into things to help solve problems that she can’t take care of personally and their friendships will beat practically anything.” Rubbing his chin, Gene was scrutinizing me now. “If that is all true, then how can you possibly think you would ever come close to taking over Equestria?”
“With friendship and the hubris of the Canterlot unicorn nobles of course to not fix old laws that could have a detrimental effect.” I said plainly as I started writing something down. “As such, I’m going to be a friend and give you the plans for how Jacky can take over Equestria, she can then do me a few favors as a ‘good’ and ‘law abiding’ friend. This requires Grace to declare Jacky the pirate queen after a battle of some kind and this list of insane loopholes in Equestrian law that nobody has actually paid attention to since it was unlikely to ever happen, but I found a particular domino chain that I need to run by Maries and Fizzy first so they’ll know when and how to act once it’s implemented. You can take over Canterlot as early as the sun rises tomorrow morning or the day after.”
“Why exactly do you think that this plan you’re making will actually work?” Looking at me Nefer innocently tilted his head.
“Well the plan doesn’t require violence, magic or manipulation by lies… just exploitation of the fact that Equestria’s bureaucracy isn’t interested in protecting Equestria from itself.” Turning to Sekhet when she answered for me, the goddess gave us all a large feral grin. “Do my mortals need help with this plan? I’m freely offering my services to my beloved little nuisances, just because Celestia will nag to me about messing with Twilight. All of this sounds like it’ll be funny and I want in, Mostly since Luna and Celestia can’t actually do anything to run damage control even if Twilight inevitably asks for their help if you’re going to do what I think you are.”
“Ah yes, you’d fit right into it my good friend Sekhet, you’ve become especially talented in red tape and would be quite helpful in looking over what I’ve written down so far with Maries. Also you can swamp Twilight to your hearts content in the stuff.” My grin threatened to split my face in half, I’m pretty sure it was a pure chesire smile. “You know, to make sure it’s all legal and on the up and up. Wouldn’t want to be called liars, wouldn’t want force anything and no high end magic will be used throughout the course of this plan. Just pure knowledge that I’m going to share with all my beloved friends, aren’t I nice?”
“Hey guys, sorry about being so… okay why is Jade grinning like she caught two birds with one well thrown stone?” Jacky looked a little worried and held Gavin a little bit closer to her chest, I don’t know why she would be so worried. I was giving her a completely innocent… “Jade is planning to do something completely evil again isn’t she?”
Friendship was going to rule the day if Jacky agreed to the plan, that and she’d be the ruler of Equestria. It’ll be a fun thought experiment at the very least.
Jacky becoming ruler would, of course, be entirely temporary. The concessions we’d get from this nice and friendship filled plot alone would make it worth doing.
-A day later, Canterlot Castle Throne Room, 5:30 AM, before sunrise, Jacky-
Twilight Sparkle’s right eye twitched.
“That can’t be right!” Twilight suddenly exclaimed with an utter look of horror on her face.
I held out more documents and she took them from me and started to look them over frantically, ten minutes later Twilight was sitting there with a dropped jaw. Her dragon companion, Spike, was just staring at the information he had read from over Twilight’s shoulder, his jaw was equally dropped.
“Twilight… does this mean that pirates rule Canterlot?” As soon as Spike said that with a hint of worry.
“No…” Twilight was quite pale, I took a picture of the look on her face with the camera in my talons.
Spike with relief after hearing that we didn’t rule Canterlot.
“Oh good for a second there I thought…” Spike was stopped when Twilight held up a hoof.
“You don’t understand Spike, she doesn’t just rule Canterlot…. she rules all of Equestria, due to this she owns all the land, any estates built on said land and our entire economy altogether and according to the laws at work here I have to instate her immediately as queen!” Twilight pulled out a paper bag and started to hyperventilate into it.
“Uh… she’s not an Equestrian citizen?” Spike tried as an answer to this situation, I pulled out my adoption papers when Kuril adopted me as an Equestrian citizen after having already gained citizenship and was a dual citizen of Abyssinia and Equestria. I also personally took a citizenship test years ago to make it more official. “Oh, never mind then.”
It was pretty silly, but there were laws that left a wide opening for this to work. You see Princess Platinum was practically the last queen of the unicorns before the reign of Celestia and Luna, there was a declaration that no ‘pony’ could ever be queen of the lands and that princesses were to be instated.
That was part one of the reason why I was now titled ‘Queen of Equestria’ as ridiculous as it may sound for what is likely to be unluckiest being in the world to be ruling over ponies. I was going to have fun for the day and then give things back to Twilight Sparkle, provided that everyone is willing to meet Jade’s and my own bizarre demands.
Grace, by the grace of incidentally being the pirate queen of Turtle Toga, passed her title off to me by way of physical combat. I soundly trounced her in a ballroom dancing battle, everyone agreed that I had the moves and was quite graceful despite the numerous accidents and the broken arm I got from it. I’m just making it easier for mom to perfect her healing potions beyond a shadow of any doubt.
That was part two as to why I was ‘Queen of Equestria’.
I might be a ornithian parrot, may have been born and lived in Turtle Toga for the early years of my life, but I was officially an Equestrian citizen twice over. Once by Kuril’s adoption of me, the other by me actually managing to certify my citizenship as an Equestrian to make it stick.
That was part three as to why I was ‘Queen of Equestria’.
While no pony is allowed to be queen, other beings titled ‘queen’ are still technically above princesses provided the third part of why this was happening is fulfilled. The laws involving said queens were still in effect, but ponies couldn’t be queens anymore so…
Had Queen Chrysalis officially worked to become an Equestrian citizen, she could have usurped both Celestia and Luna at any time she wanted as she was not a ‘pony queen’ as specified by Platinum’s law that no pony may become queen anymore, but it never said that other queens didn’t have power over princesses. As far as anyone can tell, Chrysalis loved subterfuge and espionage way too much to think of doing things in a completely legal way.
-Alternate Timeline, Zecora-
Things went wrong when a unicorn teleported into the past and stopped an event and then talked about unifying everyone together, said unicorn was Starlight Glimmer.
It was due to Startlight Glimmer’s interference that Chrysalis discovered that being a titled queen and becoming an Equestrian citizen means she is within her rights to legally take over Equestria. This was much to the dismay of Celestia who managed to defeat both Sombra and Tirek with the aid of her faithful student Twilight Sparkle and turned her sister Luna back to normal from being Nightmare Moon.
Twilight is missing, but has evaded Chrysalis thus far, but Luna and Celestia are trapped and only allowed to move the sun and moon.
Now I run a rebel outfit against the changelings who have taken over Equestria thanks to the meddling time traveling unicorn. I would free the world from their tyranny and my abilities as a shaman and witch doctor would help hope be reborn.
-Back to the friendly colorful changeling timeline, Jacky-
That was part four as to why I was ‘Queen of Equestria’.
The law that was never repealed is that if ‘a queen’ that is an Equestrian citizen, doesn’t matter as long as it is defined as a title of ‘queen’, asks for the throne, then they can simply take the throne of Equestria from a princess.
They will then own all the last queen’s money had earned. Some numbers were crunched, not by my sister Jaded mind you as that could have ended in an odd apocalypse happening, it was safe to say the last queen was quite generous and had money in absolutely everything. Aside from the Unicorn Pony tribe, both Earth Pony and Pegasus Pony tribes flourished from Platinum’s contributions to them.
Everything today came from Platinum giving money to every single establishment that led to what currently exists today.
So when Platinum died and left no will. All the money that was floating around that went everywhere, if I can’t be paid back the interest accrued from what the last queen’s money has earned or created from being used when asked, that means I technically own all of Equestria since I can bankrupt absolutely everybody.
Basically I just legally stole the economy of an entire country.
That was part five as to why I was ‘Queen of Equestria’.
As soon as I got the economy of the entire country for myself, I will pay my own taxes for my future family the next five thousand years or so. This includes all offshoots of the current La Perm families, and Airship Mauled no longer had to worry about paying taxes period. I did this using the money of the entire nation.
Where did all that tax money go you ask? Why, right back to me of course as I’m technically paying my taxes to myself for my family, which is legal for nobles of Canterlot to do so they can keep themselves entirely tax free despite having the most money out of anyone. Since I now counted as a noble of Equestria, I could technically pay off anyone’s taxes ahead of time, including my own for another five thousand years if I wanted to as a joke.
Is it any wonder that some nobles around here are known as smug jerks with loopholes this stupidly insane? Privileged really describes all the stuff they were getting away with and Jade just broke the entire system completely.
That was part six as to why I was ‘Queen of Equestria’.
The last thing of note, and I can’t believe this in its entirety, but I also technically now owned the small expanse of the Crystal Empire too.
It was related to Celestia adopting Cadence, which makes Cadence an Equestrian citizen and since she took control of the Crystal Empire, it was now a demesne of Equestria and Cadence was now technically my vassal.
That means that I just technically took over two nations with only a handful of documents and that my sister created and pulled off the most lawful evil plan ever devised. One that no one saw coming or could actually do anything about, all their hooves were quite metaphorically tied on this.
Since I’m not a pony, but am an Equestrian citizen, that was made a queen by Grace, Platinum’s money used somewhat illegally by the bank where it would have accrued interest to be used by princess royalty in an emergency, the use of said money also being put into many enterprises that still exist to this day that have yet to pay back dividends made over thousands of years, plus a few other odds and ends all leads to me being the ridiculously rich leader of Equestria.
The other details that allowed me to take control of Equestria, including things like the EUP, EEA and other various organizations were all relatively unimportant at the moment.
So yes, again, I’m currently ‘Queen of Equestria’ and I was freaking out about it. It took King Gene to slap me in the face and to come to my senses.
“Jacky, are you okay?” King Gene looked at me worriedly, I could tell even on his generally blank face that he was worried.
“I think… I think Jade just set a world record for most successful evil plot ever.” Time to abuse the crap out of the system that gave me this much power, my bad luck was not going to ruin this day.
-5:58 AM, balcony, Twilight Sparkle-
“So now, I announce that the ruler of Equestria is Queen Jacky Blackcap Chickadee Eric La Perm!” The laws were fairly clear on this, if I ever gained back control of Equestria, then it would require going over all the loopholes with the chimera known as Maries sealing off every avenue of abuse the nobles left open in the system to actually cause this mess.
It was only by actually looking for information into this that this had even happened and it was all legal.
Apparently only having ponies prevented from becoming queens did not prevent foreign queens from coming in filing citizenship and taking over the country, it’s just that nobody has actually ever bothered to try it until now.
“As my first order of business… all nobles report to the theatre for show tunes! Everyone else can go about your day.” Jacky stated with a jovial lilt in her tone as she bow to everyone still wearing her pirate garb, I was fairly jealous that she wasn’t required to wear a dress for the ceremony and could be as scruffy as she wanted to be. “Oh and the theatre will be giving free admission to everyone for our show! So if you want to watch, then come with us, we’ll have a grand time!”
The balcony collapsed out from beneath her, but the injuries from that didn’t stop Jacky for long. She was apparently used to be abused by bad luck on a daily basis, I didn’t use to believe in things until Pinkie Pie happened and I shivered at how horrible her luck was.
This sure brings back memories that I will be able to laugh about later, memories of being a simple unicorn that will probably keep me humble after this incident.
-Theatre, 7:30 AM, Jacky-
“We are the pirates~!” Me and my crew sang, surprisingly quite a few nobles gave us an applause. “Now for a very fun song.”
I and my crew created a loud noises in any way we could as we started up our next song, I was somewhat good at tap dancing.
“With cat-like tread, upon our prey we steal~!” We started off loudly.
-9:00 AM, Flotsam-
This was actually pretty fun, it was practically torture to some of the nobles and others were just highly amused as they sat there with drinks and snacks.
“Oh we’re the girls of chorus, we hope you like our show~!” I sang as I slapped my tail against the stage and twirled my baton in the fancy tuxedo covering my upper body and then slid off the stage following Jacky, Brenda and Savanna while pulling my top hat from my head. “We know you’re rooting for us, but now we have to go~!”
- 9:45 AM, Jacky-
“Okay who trained Belfry to play this music or taught him how to train chickens to do this?” On the stage Belfry was playing an accordion, drums, a cymbal and something like a sousaphone.
Every time he stopped played, the entire line of dancing chickens joined in.
“Cluck-cluck-cluck!” All the chicken sang in unison and then Belfry continue playing the tune as all the chicken moved in a choreographed manner on the stage.
None of my crew was forthcoming, I would learn after this performance that they didn’t have any ideas where Belfry found trained chickens or learned how to play what is well known as the ‘Chicken Dance’.
-10:30 AM, Gene-
“Gather up all of the crew~. It’s time to bring out fruit juice new~.” I sang, even with my bland voice I was touching the hearts of a few of them right off the bat. “High wind blows~. To where~? Who Knows~? The stars shall be our guide~.”
-11:24 AM, Nefer-
“Sail away where no ball and chain can keep us from the roaring winds, together undivided, but forever we’ll be free~!” I started tap dancing on the stage excitedly and Belfry came out behind me wielding an accordion. “We’ll sail away aboard the rig, the moon is quite full and so are we~. We’re seven silly pirates, we’re the seven heavy winds~!”
-Theatre, 12:00 PM, Jacky-
“Okay everyone, that’s the show!” Quite a few ponies whine audibly. “Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re going to legally steal whatever we want from whoever we want. Pirates, you know the drill, you should be at least thankful that we’re not the violent sort.”
-Canterlot Square, 2:15 PM, Fizzle-
I have never seriously fought Jacky before, not with a sword and not in any way that was really true combat. Anytime we interacted previously it was just exercise and sparring, not in a serious fight.
Everyone on Jacky’s crew were somewhat medical experts and their captain could take a metric buck ton of physical trauma, I think far more than even Jade can. It didn’t help that she could move insanely fast with that jetpack of hers, she could even turn on a bit and go in any direction at any time using it.
Jacky’s stamina was actually exhausting all my magical reserves! She could take out winged ponies at incredible speeds and with the kind of acceleration she was putting on her body, you’d think she would black out from the forces being exerted on it, but no, like a pegasus, her resilience kept her awake at those speeds.
Jacky uses her curse as a weapon as much as a sword and it was terrifying to face in battle.
“Now this is how you train the guard’s pirate style, don’t give up men or else I’ll have my sister come in to keelhaul the lot of you!” The guards looked at Jacky confusedly. “My sister is Jaded La Perm, so stand up and fight or face her later! If you please me enough, then I won’t send her after you.”
Every royal guard that was on the ground groaning from pain, had various injuries from all the accidents going on around Jacky and the occasional injury from a banana peel slip here or there, were all immediately on their hooves.
They were taking this far more seriously than I have ever seen the royal guards take absolutely anything else.
They all charged Jacky and her crew with yells that they didn’t want to face Jade, I sighed and joined them. I needed to keep in shape too… it would probably help when I wanted a foal of my own, in maybe a year, right now we were too busy with Silvers because our little chimera was a constant hoof full of trouble. That didn’t even account for Gavin being a little troublesome at times too.
“Ganging up on me eh? It’s cannon time!” Jacky reached behind her back and produced a cannon and fire it, the various ponies close enough to the cannon were caught in a blast of a rather sticky cake batter that disabled them momentarily and slowed them down a lot because of the molasses and syrup in the cake batter. “Let me show you why the Pirate Queen of Equestria needs to train you sorry lot!”
Five mintues later, I was groggily stirring my head and looking up into Jacky’s bright eyes as she held out a talon to grab my hoof and help me up.
I looked around at the carnage. Nefer was sitting on a pile of unconscious bodies licking the back of one of his paws, Gene was practicing forms with his spear, Flotsam was juggling three unconscious ponies, Belfry was sitting around a bunch of dazed royal guards and big pupiled guards and strange smiles, Savanna and Brenda were both tag teaming a poor guards-mare with untoward advances that she might actually be responding to. Maybe I should stop that last one before anything happens...
Out of all of them Jacky took a seat on the edge of the fountain to take a breather. She slipped backwards and three jets of water angled into her face and then half of the fountain fell and broken in half against her skull. Despite the wet feathers and numerous injuries… she was smiling as she sat up.
“That was a pretty good scrap… they deserve a break. Fizzy I order you to not allow Jade near the Royal Guard for a week, they did a quarter way decent job.” Jacky stretched out pulled off her skull cap to squeeze the water out of it, she flicked some water off her two small fluffy feathery ears and shook an amount of excess out her clothes and head feathers. “Well my body is a total mess of sores, bruises and internal bleeding. Nothing new, but… Belfry medical kit stat!”
I think Jacky’s crew is clinically insane for numerous reasons… why did Jade give them control of Equestria again?
Oh right, to teach a lesson about leaving too many old laws with too many loopholes sitting around. I think all those niggling problems were going to be patched after this thanks to Maries.
-3:00 PM, Canterlot Castle Dining Room, Jade-
“This was a pretty good meal, not as good as my mom’s by a long shot, but really good nonetheless.” Jacky even hugged the maid and she smiled. “Thank you for all the work you do here in Canterlot, know that someone really appreciates you. Also Fresh Start says hello. Anyway we’ll have churros, ice cream, soft cookies and several other sweet things for dessert, don’t forget an apple pie for me personally please. Oh and you can sit at the table and join us, working throughout the castle all day must be tiring.”
“So… do you think anyone else can break the world record for longest running villainous victory where they actually conquered all of Equestria and held it?” I turned and asked the pony who was in charge of writing the book of amazing world records right now.
“What do you mean by world record? You’ve set several today alone that nobody else could possibly hope to achieve!” The blonde stallion named Trender Hoof stated with a friendly smile. “The most used loopholes in the legal system by a single group at one time is going to be hard to replicate personally if the loopholes are all sealed up. Technically the Storm King holds the one you talked about. Say, are doing anything later?”
“She’s already married to a wonderful herd.” Fizzle growled out, she was so cute when she was protective of me.
“Excuse me, but… what will it take for me to regain control of Equestria?! I’ll do almost anything!” Twilight pleaded with sad watery eyes. “Celestia and Luna said they couldn’t help me with this and that bureaucracy was one of the things I had to learn to deal with. I’ve spent the last few hours signing the documents Ms. Sekhet sent over in triplicate… please… please, make the paperwork stop…”
“Well that’s a surprise, I never thought anyone could break Twilight with things she usually likes to do.” Spike looked worried for Twilight, especially after Jacky had her tell the librarians to take a half day off today and for Twilight to do all their jobs at once. This was on top of the paperwork Jacky assigned her, just so she’d know how it felt to be the pony doing all the small stuff for her felt. “Also isn’t a bad idea to show desperation in front of the current rulers of the country, especially when they already own everything and you have nothing to really offer them anymore?”
Cruel, but it taught Twilight some valuable life lessons to not let anyone put anymore loopholes in the laws around here. She was going to certainly take politics a bit more seriously.
Twilight’s ability for foreign politics was pretty much perfect.
As for Twilight’s ability for local politics… not so much and we were helping her learn the ins and outs while we ate a luncheon dinner kind of deal.
“A few caveats, first, close up all the laws that favor unicorns and make them more equal for every pony and get psyche evaluations for unicorns or at least therapists that can stop them from going evil more often than any other pony race. Canterlot may primarily be a unicorn made city, but if you want other species to live here, you should make it so the laws can’t favor anyone and are neutral if fair to all.” Jacky was pretty good at pirate politics, which were more action oriented or word play. So being Queen of Equestria for day didn’t bother her in the slightest. “Another thing we want to happen is…”
We continue to happily consume our feast and shared our table with the workers, unlike Twilight the workers all opened up to Jacky’s ideas for better equality.
-4:10 PM, Café, Maries-
Silvers curiously watched from underneath us as the water balloons flew everywhere, the foals and colts were certainly enjoying this day and the fact that pirate’s closed down all the schools in the city for the day.
Jacky and her crew were having fun and Jade was sitting with us quietly gnawing away on a strawberry and vanilla tiger tail doughnut.
“So, this day has been particularly eventful day.” Jade commented idly, she had arrive in Canterlot sometime after the impromptu pirate variety show at the theatre this morning finished up.
“Yeah, but what did you expect, you gave a bunch of pirates a get out of trouble free card and gave them the wherewithal to screw around as much as they wanted.” Maria burped some flames, then went back to drinking her liquefied cottage cheese milkshake.
“I thought it would be fun to run roughshod over everyone for just a short while, also Fizzy is making sure I don’t do anything to the guards.” After leaning back, Jade looked down to see Silvers climbing up into her lap to slowly curl up. They were getting better at moving around. Jade started to pet them gently and cooed softly at our beloved daughters. “Jacky promised them that I wouldn’t do anything for a while and I’ll actually hold up to that. Still, I saw an opportunity and took it for all its worth. No other Equestrian villain can claim to have won and retired from victory without being turned to stone, hit with a rainbow or otherwise getting any comeuppance whatsoever.”
“If Twilight knows what’s good for her, she won’t let this happen again.” Yawned out a top hat wearing Marie as she laid her head across Jade’s lap and curled up around Silvers.
“Jade, I know the end of my reign as Queen of Equestria is coming soon, but there has always been something I wanted to do without repercussions while I’m currently reigning queen.” Jacky was going to tell us what that was, but was then tagged by three water balloons to the head and then a rock. “Okay, who threw the rock?! We’re supposed to be playing nice here, queens orders!”
-5:07 PM, Canterlot Castle Entrance, Jacky-
The one last thing I wanted to do before giving up all this corruptive power and money Jade gave me to do practically anything was simple. So far I have resisted the urge to go out of control with it and I will continue to do so… except for this one thing.
“I’m actually not against this.” Twilight Sparkle told me immediately once she saw what I was up to. “You know, for pirates, I’d have thought you would have done far worse things than you have.”
“We’re blue pirates, meaning closer to privateers and having more of a moral compass than most pirates. I believe you’ve met Captain Celaeno?” Seeing that I got a nod and recognition at the name, I grinned “Yeah she’s somewhat blue pirate, she’s not merciless at the very least. She still attacked me and my crew, she’s a really good fight too. We’re both classically trained and know how to sling an insult, but we’re friends… somewhat. She’s afraid I’m going to destroy her ship anytime I’m around her and she wouldn’t be wrong since I’m a blackcap known for that very thing.”
“So why this of all things?” The princess of friendship was curious as to why I was doing this, really?
“I’m quite sure nostalgia will become a problem for you in the future, mark my words you’re going to want to have fun like this some time again in the future.” Any pony that wanted to join as an enemy or a hero was going to have a lot of fun when we started to live action role play with the entire area of Canterlot Castle. “Okay Discord start the world’s biggest game of live action Ogres and Oubliettes!”
-5:45 PM, Canterlot Castle, Twilight-
That was actually really quite fun.
“So I will be giving up my position as queen and ruler of Equestria soon.” Said Jacky plainly and clearly to the crowd, most of which were entirely upset. Many of the fillies and colts were sad that Jacky was giving up her position as Queen of Equestria. “Now Twilight will read of a list of my demands before I do that.”
“First up, while it’s not required, we are going to implement Tiger-Tail Tuesday, specifically Pony Joe has to make an effort to make them or else. I’m not sure what the ‘or else’ of this is or what it means, but it also says strawberry and raspberry Tiger-Tails please.” This caused an immediate reaction in Pony Joe, who was in the audience.
“Oh my goodness really Jade, you utter degenerate and menace to all things that are good!” Pony Joe really seem to dislike Jade. “I’ll give you this, well played you evil, misbegotten, punk of a cat!
“Can I get some right now please?” Jade was just smiling brightly at him.
“Oh you would like that wouldn’t you, you utterly conniving…” Joe started to go into a rant.
-6:00 PM, Canterlot Castle Garden, Jacky-
“Well that was fun.” I then bit into the Tiger-Tail as did my sister next to me. “Also someone really needs to curb your evil Jade.”
“Oh come on, that’s what Maries, Fizzy and Silvers are for!” We’ve had a pretty busy day all things considered and we’ve had a lot of fun, Jade is the best sister a pirate could ask for. Mostly because she’s one of those guideline types that doesn’t get to fussy with the details.
-?-
Equestria wouldn’t forget that this happen, quite a few laws were revised and any of the ones that were active that led to this incident were repealed with extreme prejudice.
Jacky’s crew would become infamous for not only having stolen two countries, but giving them back in the same day. Jacky would eventually lose the title of Pirate Queen to Celaeno… some said she did so on purpose, others say it was her curse getting the best of her that day.
Whether it was in the skies, on land or rarely in the water, Jacky’s crew were well known pirates to stay away from as they were disastrous to go near as much as fight.
Their adventures would be legendary, as much as their habit of searching for cursed treasure. On some rare occasions they’d find powerful magical artifacts that weren’t cursed, which would be a pleasant find for the unstoppable disaster that is the continuing stories of Captain Blackcap.
Jacky’s home port was always at Airship Mauled. It was where she could relax, for the most part because of her cursed life, from a rather hectic adventure. Her crew were willing to follow her anywhere, the friends that weren’t in her crew were willing to assist in many an odd or dangerous endeavor.
They would be pirates as renowned as Captain Jaqueline Sparrow or Captain Celaeno.
-Airship Mauled, ever burning fire, Jade-
“So what’s up with our favorite reindeer Velvet? She’s been getting really angry and aggressive lately.” Jacky asked as she took a seat next to me with two black eyes and looking like she had been mauled by a drop bear.
“Arizona refuses to fight and or hit her pregnant wife, so she’s basically just taking it. Velvet thinks it’s somehow Arizona’s fault she’s starting to look like a bloated floof balloon.” I was calmly roasting a marshmallow and was slowly melting it onto a bit of skewered fish. The Abyssinian classic of marshmallow fish, an acquired taste if there ever was one. “Paprika is really quite happy, but alpaca have a tendency to refuse sex if they're expectant so that’s annoying both Arizona and Velvet. I feel sorry for Arizona, she’s getting the short end of this.”
“Gene finally showed me the picture, it was actually kind of worth losing the treasure just for that.” Jacky smiled. “I’m kind of surprised that I’m still high in the popularity polls in Canterlot.”
“Eh, you’re probably one of the coolest thing to happen to Canterlot in years.” It was kind of hard to match the oddities of Ponyville, which was only getting odder now that creatures from all over were going to the school of friendship.
Speaking of the friendship school Twilight asked me to go in to teach a class or two about finding friendship in odd places.
Twilight figured out that I was going to be too stir crazy from being incapable of toying with the EUP guards thanks to my sister banning me from helping them train for a week. They still think Jacky was better than having to train with me... the nerve!