Morning, and as promised I was on the sidelines of the hearing regarding the members of the former crew of the Drumlin Hay. Whether I wanted to be there or not.
Princess Celestia was indeed the presiding judge, and Mom, or I should say, Princess Luna, sat with me in all her regalia.
I’d yet to receive any official regalia.
The cases were brought up to Princess Celestia one by one. Most were plea bargaining their way into a lesser charge. Such as impersonating a royal guard owing to a lack of evidence against the individual. Sure, there was enough to convict on higher charges such as aiding and abetting but only those who were caught with a foal in their presence were looking at foal napping charges. There were piracy charges on the table as well, but as they’d not actually been caught in the act it was going to be difficult to prove the various goods on board had indeed been pirated. Granted that the ship’s logs and manifests might well be enough to prove the charge the court had chosen to offer lesser charges for anyone willing to testify and plead for leniency.
A familiar tickling beckoned at the back of my mind.
Was she there? I let myself sort of halfway slip into the dream realm just as Daisy Woods was called forward. She’d several lawyers, all Earth ponies colors ranging from gray to khaki with dark manes, and a pile of law books. Several of the books looked like they were the sort that was not allowed out of the law library.
“Hello me,” Offered my other-self.
“Are you seeing this?” I asked softly.
“Indeed I am,” Mom offered not realizing I hadn't been asking her. The lead lawyer, one Mister Rock Stain, was presently rambling off a bunch of obscure laws, chapter and paragraph, sub-paragraphs, and etc. His cutey mark, a large tome with loops hanging out of it.
“Princess Celestia, owing to your past involvement, make that personal involvement with my client I humbly request that you recuse yourself from her case. Furthermore, we are making a motion for arbitration from a third party.”
“Aye, I’m seeing it,” My other self offered. It was a bit like hearing my own voice in the back of my head, only not my voice.
“And who would you like to arbitrate?” Princess Celestia asked. She sounded most annoyed. Peeved even. And Considering Princess Celestia, it was probably a good thing the judge's desk was non-flammable.
“According to...” book title, chapter, and verse, “..codex of the Nations upon which all our laws are founded,” he had a copy with him, one of the rarest books in Equestria, and he had a copy with him,“..we request arbitration by a Priestess of Akkadia. Furthermore, if a priestess is unavailable according to…” more books titles, chapters, and verses, “..then my client has the right to parole until such time as one is available.”
They’d been planning this. They must have. That old nag probably had these ambulance chasers scouring the law libraries across the land in search of a way to forestall justice. The worst part is they were apparently all well within their rights. One might even say it was a very Twilight move. Daisy had planned for the day she’d eventually get caught. She’d undoubtedly cast as much blame as she could on the crew of the Drumlin Hay and was now going for indefinite parole rather than the lightest sentence she could get.
“A Priestess of Akkadia hasn’t been seen in centuries. The old Republic is gone. Long gone,” Celestia warned.
“It is still within our right to make the request.”
If only that prey lawyer knew of the predatory emotions emanating from my other self.
Princess Celestia had been outfoxed, and she knew it. She had but two options, grant the request or be seen as a pony who was above the law. A pony who let personal grudges blind her judgment. Grant the request and Daisy would walk. The worst part was that Princess Celestia’s own commitment to the rule of law meant she’d have no choice but to grant the request.
She was furious.
As for myself, I got to my hooves, and took a few steps forward. It just seemed the thing to do. Granted that at that moment I may not have been entirely in full control of my body.
“Tell them…” my other self began as power began to well up through me.
Oh that feeling, that adrenaline rush, the hunt was on!
Ah, that must be how I recovered so fast. It was her.
“Princess Nova!” Celestia shouted at me. Celestia was both angry and concerned.
“Nova? Nova?!” Mom called sounding very worried.
I didn’t know it at the time but there was power rippling off me. I’d become white-hot. Why nothing burst into flame, we’ll never know, but maybe that’s the nature of foxfire. It only burns the wicked.
“Thy request has been heard!”
It was my voice, but not my voice. I was using the Canterlot voice. It was her speaking through me. “Thy request shall be granted forthwith!”
“Nova! This is not the time!” Princess Celestia shouted back at me as she rose to her hooves. And then a hush fell over the hall. Music? Yes, music. You see, the fun thing about magical worlds is that when epic background music is needed, epic background music happens. The rumble of drums vibrates through the floor, followed by a string section picking up the tempo, and then the brass begins the fanfare.
“Is that Prench horns?” Celestia said softly as the tempo began a hard-driving rhythm. Heavy drum beats, bass drums, the hall shook from a rain-boom outside. What followed was a sound that was reminiscent of sheet lightning or fighter jets racing overhead making hard turns with full afterburners on. I cast a glance out the windows and caught a glimpse of a pair of ponies racing through the air, wings set to the delta position doing impossible maneuvers without flapping.
And then it stopped.
I could still feel her presence, but she wasn’t in my head anymore. The hall had grown strangely quiet. No one moved, no one spoke, some even seemed to be holding their breath in anticipation.
A distant drumbeat of hooves on tile broke the silence.
The sound of some pony running, coming closer, ever closer hooves sounding like an approaching drum with a rounding boom of doors slamming open as they burst into the hall. They didn’t wait to be called forward choosing instead to run all the way up to within a wing length of Princess Celestia.
“Alicorns,” spoke the runner in a breathless voice.
The soft sound of triumphal violins could be heard as if blown in on the wind along with flutes. The doors swung open, and the music transitioned to that of an invigorating march. I bowed as my senior entered, her armor looking remarkably like the Iron man black and gold armor. At her side was the adult alicorn version of Scootaloo in red and gold armor. Behind them came Fluttershy goddess of nature her mane trailing behind with vines, flowers, and even some woodland friends in it. All beautifully arranged. At her side walked a young sun-dappled alabaster redhead that I was sure just had to be Rose Myrtle. Had I in fact been seeing into their lives? I suppose anything’s possible.
One more thing I hadn’t noticed right at first was the physical pressure of their combined aura. Ponies dropped to the floor, heads bowed whether they wanted or not. They were in turn followed by a pair of stallions, a white fox type who I was just sure had to be Loki do to the Blue in his main. When exactly did that horn show up I wondered? With him was the most unlikely individual I’d ever seen. He was sort of a grayish tan with white below the fetlocks, dark gray hooves, mane, and tail. His wings started with that odd khaki color, then white, then black with bluish tips. His horn curled upward not in a tight spiral but in great swoops like the African Kudu. His cutie mark was a Triskelion form that spiraled out, then in, the rays arching back into tight spirals which then spiraled outwards once more, up and around to form a trio of Triquetra the ends of which continued to spiral out into a knot-work ring. Chaos contained, and then I knew exactly who it was; like the bowler hat, monocle, and tweed jacket hadn’t already been a big clue.
My adult counterpart gave me a wink as they progressed towards Princess Celestia. It was all I could do not to trot in place. As for Princess Celestia, she looked like she had overloaded in much the same way Twilight often did. Her perfect mane actually had hairs sticking out in random directions.
“Princess Celestia,” I began when Celestia turned to me with a look of desperation on her face. “I’d like to introduce to you Princess Tsuki, element of Hope and Priestess of Akkadia. Princess Louise, element of Compassion...”
Ya, I was winging it, and I wasn’t about to just announce that Tsuki was in fact my counterpart from another dimension. As for the name Tsuki? Yes, that was a name used by one of my Kitsumi Novas at least once, Tsuki Nym. You know, as in pseudonym? Add to that the names are real enough. Tsuki means moon, and Nym was one of Shakespeare’s King’s men. Nym is also literally a placeholder. It’s Greek and means name. I literally called her Moon Name. Yes, I did a thing and didn’t even know it at the time.
“And also a priestess of Akkadia,” Princess Tsuki, aka Kitzumi Nova, announced in reference to Louise. “If you’ll pardon me,” She smiled at me and then turned back to Princess Celestia.
“Fraud!” cried out Daisy desperately. Beads of sweat could be seen on her forehead as she struggled against the presence before her. Her plans were about to go horribly wrong and there was nothing she could do. Still, though, she would try. She would grasp at anything that offered hope.
She was silenced by the sound of the air outside being shattered by a massive bolt of electricity arcing through the sky. Silence followed.