In the palace gardens, Celestia was treating John Steele to a cup of tea while they chatted.
“So,” Celestia said after sipping her tea, “you’re telling me that in trying to save your world, you accidentally caused an explosion that caused an entire island to vanish, as well as placing you in my castle?”
“That’s correct, Your Majesty,” Steele replied, taking a sip of his own tea. It was good tea. Better than any tea he’d had back home in Great Britain. Then again, he’d always preferred a nice cocktail instead of tea, so he wasn’t even close to being the best judge on the quality of tea.
“And you have no idea what happened to that island?” the Princess inquired.
“None whatsoever, Your Highness,” John admitted with a shake of his head. “It could be anywhere in the universe, for all I know.”
“Well, just in case we have to deal with this ‘Alexis’, could you tell me some things about her?” Celestia asked next.
“I don’t know all that much about her, but I’ll say what I know for sure,” Steele replied with a nod. “You see, she was the daughter of the owner of a media empire and the heiress to a massive fortune. From what I’ve heard, her father constantly spoiled her, but he also made sure she was well-educated. When he died, she took over his company and quadrupled global profits with her understanding of how the world worked.
“Due to her being constantly spoiled until her father died, I’ve heard that Alexis has a huge ego and utterly craves adoration and glamor,” Steele continued. “The praise from her employees soon proved to be not enough for her, so she took on acting roles herself, and soon won over her entire country with her charm. But even then, the adoration of hundreds of millions of people still wasn’t enough. She disappeared after a few years, and no one knew what had happened to her.
“I met her for the first time in her base after being captured by her henchmen,” he continued. “She laughed at me while one of her minions spun me around in a huge mixer bowl. I got so dizzy, I forgot pretty much everything about the incident, but I still remember that laugh and the mixer. I may have encountered her other times, but like I just said, she has ways of making people forget what they’ve seen, so if I met her other times, I don’t remember any of them until when I tried to thwart her plans by sabotaging her device. And that’s when the explosion happened that dropped me in this world.”
“So, she’s a spoiled brat with a big ego,” Celestia said, summing up pretty much all of that long monologue in one sentence.
“In short, yes,” John replied with a nod. “She seemed bent on ruling the world, so if I had to guess, I’d say she wants the adoration of an entire planet to sate her colossal ego.”
“Well, if she is in this world somewhere, at least we know a few things about her now,” Celestia said. “We may have to assemble some forces to stop her, just in case. Since you seem to be an expert in the field, Mr. Steele, do you think you could help me to train some ponies in how to take her on?”
“I’d be glad to, Your Highness,” Steele replied with a nod. “If Alexis is here, we’ll need to be ready for her.”
“Good,” Celestia said, nodding in approval. “I think we’ll start recruiting right away. I’ll inform the other nations about this possible threat, and we’ll go from there.”
Lord Kane stood at the helm of Alexis’ speedboat as it traveled across the ocean towards the closest landmass indicated by the map. Hopefully, the natives would speak at least one of the languages he was fluent in. If not, he could always focus his psychic powers to try to bridge the language gap. Admittedly, serving as a translator wasn’t his area of psychic expertise, but he could always make the attempt if he had to.
Soon enough, the boat docked at what looked like a simple primitive port town.
If they’re this primitive all over the world, conquering should be an easy task, Kane thought to himself as he and a handful of social minions stepped onto the wooden docks. The wood creaked beneath their feet, indicating the age of the docks.
“Remember Alexis’ orders,” Kane told the minions. “Just talk to a few of the peasants first to see if they understand us, and if they do, start handing out fliers. If they understand our writing as well…”
Kane trailed off as he got his first glimpse of one of the natives. It appeared to be a small horse with a shortened snout, a horn, massive eyes, a yellow coat, a green mane and tail, and a picture of a sailboat adorning its flanks.
Kane cleared his throat and continued as if nothing was out of the ordinary. “If they understand our writing as well, find whatever they have to serve as a post office here and use a few gold bars to pay them to ship the boxes of fliers to travel agencies all over the world. I’m sure money talks, even here.”
“Yes, sir!” the minions all said in unison while giving him a salute.
And so, they wandered the town, engaging random “ponies” in conversations before handing out fliers advertising trips to the “newly-discovered Tiki Island”.
It soon became apparent that these “ponies” spoke unbroken English, and could read it as well. They were quite confused at the appearance of humans, so Kane used his powers of persuasion to convince the denizens of the town that humans were incredibly rare, and most of them had gathered at Tiki Island. Being the smooth operator that he was, Kane easily won them over, and within an hour, they were making a deal with the postmaster of the town.
“So, Mr. Delivery,” Kane said to the navy blue pegasus stallion at the counter. “I have a proposal for you.”
“Please, call me Speedy,” the stallion replied, already falling to Kane’s charisma. “What do you propose?”
“Well Speedy, we, the denizens of Tiki Island, would like to make you our exclusive distributor of advertisements for trips to our island home,” Kane answered. “Will two hundred gold bars suffice as an early investment for us to make for our potential contract?”
Speedy Delivery gasped as a group of minions showed him the contents of the bag they’d brought with them: two hundred gold bars, just like Kane had said.
“Of course! That’s perfect to start with!” the stallion blurted out, happily letting the minions drop the bag behind the counter. “Where do I sign?”
“Right here,” Kane replied, holding out a contract. “The terms are that we will supply you with twenty gold bars per month, as well as a monthly shipment of fifty thousand fliers and other advertising that we wish to see distributed. Your end of the bargain is that you’ll ship the advertisements to every travel agency in the world. That’s all. Keep your end of the bargain, and we’ll keep you supplied.”
“You have yourself a deal!” Speedy said, taking a quill in his mouth and signing the contract. “So, when will I have to make my first shipment?”
“Shortly,” Kane answered, motioning over a group of minions carrying cardboard boxes full of fliers. “Please have these distributed within a week. We hope to see tourists at Tiki Island soon. We get very lonely out there, you see.”
“O-of course!” Speedy replied, tearing open the first box. “You’ll have your tourists, Mr. Kane! Don’t worry about anything! We’ll get it done!”
“Make sure that you do,” Kane muttered to himself, too quiet for anyone else to hear.
“Alright, men, we’ve done what Lady Alexis asked us to do,” Kane told the minions. “Let’s go home and prepare for company!”
The minions saluted before following Lord Kane back to the ship. Once back on board, they started up the engines and departed, heading back to base.
Lady Alexis, we’ve completed Phase Two, Kane thought to himself as the boat sped through the ocean. Now, for Phase Three: how to deal with the tourists from Earth who were brought along for the ride.