//------------------------------//
// Merciless 
// Story: TD the Alicorn Princess 
// by BronyWriter 
//------------------------------//

I took a deep breath and raised my head, relishing that, for the first time in a long time, breathing wasn't quite the pain that it used to be. I wasn’t quite at one hundred percent, but that would come in time, obviously.

I survived. Sinosis' plot to kill me failed, and now the doctors had officially discharged me from Baltimare General.

After three freaking months.

I love all of my subjects. I'm an Equestrian princess, and I've made it my duty for the rest of time to serve and protect them. Having said all of that, I cannot understate my joy at seeing the back of the hospital and the doctors. If I never entered that place again I'd be quite pleased for several reasons. No more sick me, no more sick and dying soldiers who fought for me...

I looked at the detachment of sixty soldiers all looking around at the surrounding flag adorned buildings with suspicion, as if expecting another thousand griffins to pop out at any moment. Well, they wouldn't. After the way Celestia and Luna slaughtered them, on top of how Cadance had been ruthlessly searching for Nightmare Weapons, anyone who wanted to kill me would lay pretty low right now.

Of course, there is the matter of the griffins we had right then.

In the tail end of my recovery, I had spent a lot of time thinking about the POWs. As raiders, they didn't technically fall under military jurisdiction of an established nation. So the griffins wouldn't go to war if we started torturing them. Of course, we wouldn't, but the fact remained that we could do anything we wanted to them. Aepnet had made a statement since my attempted assassination, publicly renouncing them. We had them at our complete mercy.

And they were our key to finding out who was behind all of this.

As we walked down the street towards my palace, we saw dozens, if not hundreds of ponies who lined the streets. They did not cheer, but I saw each and every one of them bow at me. Some of them waved the black and red scorpion flag that became a staple of Baltimare in my absence. The sight triggered memories of the dream I suffered through after the attack, and I stared straight ahead, not looking at any of them if I could help it. Half of me expected them to begin shouting at me that I had stolen their family members. I knew that some of the ponies watching had to have lost loved ones in the battle.

I deserved to be screamed at like that, didn't I? I mean, if I had just... something. If I had just paid better attention to the borders, or learned more magic to defeat the griffins as quickly as Celestia and Luna did or... anything, maybe more ponies would have survived.

I don't know. And that's not the way it's supposed to be. I have to know. I can't be helpless to my subjects. Never again.

I didn't say a word as we reached my palace, nor did I look at the ground as we walked inside. My peripheral vision told me that the battlefield had been cleaned up, and I'm sure that if I examined things carefully I wouldn't be able to tell that a bloody massacre had taken place there three months prior.

I walked into my palace, and was greeted by one of my surviving staff, Time Keeper. He bowed low to me and I returned it with a nod.

"Princess Antares, it is a joy to see you up and healthy again."

I forced my best smile on my face, which held a little joy, as every single surviving staff member was something to be happy about, given that Sinosis would have killed all of them if he could have. Nine was too many as it was.

"Thank you, Time Keeper. I am glad to be back. The hospital is no place for me."

Time Keeper chuckled and nodded. "We can all agree on that, Princess Antares. It is our greatest joy that you are up and about again. I hope that you are well enough to see Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. I have heard that they will be arriving at any moment to meet with you regarding the griffon prisoners."

I sighed and nodded. Yes. Them. "Alright. I'll meet them in my..." My ear twitched. "My throne room. If you could retrieve Tulip, I would appreciate it. I would like her there to take notes."

Time Keeper's small smile fell. "Tulip is not feeling well, your majesty. Dr. Needle has suggested that she take it easy, though I assure you that her greatest wish is to be by your side."

I grimaced. "She isn't feeling well? Too bad. What's wrong with her?"

"Er..." Time Keeper's expression turned into a curious frown, and he tilted his head. "You have not heard? Tulip... Tulip is expecting, Princess Antares. She's already started to show. After the events of these past few months, Dr. Needle suggested that she keep it easy so as to not give herself unnecessary stress and potentially cause complications with the foal. That is why she has not been at your side this past month." Time Keeper raised an eyebrow. "You weren't told?"

"No. No I wasn't." I frowned and looked in the direction of the infirmary. "Hmm. Do we know who the sire is?"

"Yes, Princess Antares. Valiant Shield is the sire. They began seeing each other a few weeks before... all of this."

I breathed a slight sigh of relief. Valiant Shield was one of my primary guards, and one of the few who fought in the battle that escaped relatively unharmed. Good. I didn't want Tulip's foal to be without his or her father. I couldn't object to the match either. One of my most loyal soldiers with my most devoted servant is a good one. Pity a foal entered the mix so quickly and at such a time as this, but there was nothing to be done about that now. I nodded at Time Keeper and began walking towards my throne room.

"Very well. I'll go visit her later, okay? Keep me updated on her condition, especially if anything changes."

Time Keeper nodded. "Of course, Princess Antares. I will get an update for you on her at once."

"Good."

With all of that settled, Time Keeper went to the infirmary, allowing me to move on to my throne room without interruption. Upon reaching the large double doors, I paused for a moment. Last time I had gone through these doors I had been shot with a Nightmare Weapon, after all. But no, I realized I was being silly, and with a quick burst of magic from my horn, I opened up the doors and walked inside my throne room.

It was... different from the last time I had been in here, to say the least. My staff had gone all out in repairing whatever damage I had done in defeating my griffin attackers. The ceiling, walls, and pillars stood strong once more, and my throne sat proud where it had before this whole mess. I allowed myself a small smile and walked up to it, putting a hoof on its side. It almost felt like reconnecting with an old friend. Albeit an old friend I had beaten an assassin to death with.

I looked to the guards standing vigilantly beside my throne, and noticed that one of them was Valiant Shield. I gave him a smile which he returned with a salute.

"I hear you're going to be a father, Valiant. Congratulations."

"Er... thank you, Princess Antares." Valiant Shield bowed his head. "I admit that this is unexpected, but I'm not unhappy about it. We did agree that we both wanted a foal if we ever got married."

"Well you certainly have my blessing to do that. You two are among my most valued and loyal ponies."

That caused a smile to appear on his normally stoic face. "Thank you, Princess Antares. I promise that I will take care of the foal."

I gave an amused snort. "You'd better. I am the princess of foal services, after all. It wouldn't do to neglect a foal while working for me."

Before the conversation could continue, the doors to my throne room opened once more, and Celestia and Luna walked in, both followed by their respective captains. I turned around to walk over to them with a smile. It was good to not see them in a hospital setting. Celestia and I reached out and gave each other a loving nuzzle.

"It is good to see you out of the hospital, Antares," Celestia said. "You are looking very well."

"I definitely feel better," I agreed. "But..." My smile fell. "Given our topic of conversation, I'd imagine that's going to change quickly."

Celestia's own smile fell, and she gave a sad sigh. "Yes, I'd imagine so too. The griffin prisoners have stewed long enough, I feel. It is past time to find out who did this. We have, of course, been interrogating them, but none are willing to say anything of value. Perhaps your touch will get them to speak."

"Maybe." I thought back to when I interrogated the griffins on whether or not Aepnet hired Sinosis to sack the two border towns. "What have you been doing to get them to talk?"

"The usual carrot and stick tactics. They have said much, Antares, but it has all proven to be lies," Luna grumbled. "They give us contradicting information that often leads us on wild goose chases which eat up our time. If we interview them together, it is a nightmare, and separately is worse." Luna sighed and shook her head. "Maybe you will have more success with them."

"I think I will." I took a deep breath and cracked my neck. “I think that I will." I glanced over at Celestia. "You've been too soft on them, Celestia. I'm not going to torture them or anything, but keep in mind that these are the beings that attacked us, killed hundreds of our soldiers and civilians, and almost killed me. I won't forget that when I talk to them today, and neither should you."


*  *  *  *


In the end I decided to interrogate six of the higher-up griffins at once. Instead of using one of the larger rooms in the prison, as Celestia and Luna had done, I ordered that we move it to a smaller, more intimate space. They couldn't escape that way. The way they were restrained and with my guard, they couldn't attack either. Not that they could even if I was alone. I'd read up on that evaporation spell that Celestia and Luna used in the battle.

Celestia and Luna decided to let me handle the interrogation on my own, as I told them I had a plan on getting them to talk that would be best served if they weren't there. They trusted me on that. Good. They'd just get in the way.

The warden got me the griffins I wanted, and I entered the room I requested, Lieutenant Rapids and two other, lower ranking guards behind me. Unfortunately, Captain Blaze was now Private Blaze, as he had not rescinded his decision to allow me to demote him. He'd come around... I hoped.

As I entered the room, I saw the six griffins all standing straight, their wings bound to their sides, and their forelegs chained to a metal ring on the floor that prevented them from moving very far. A few of them bore scars, still fresh enough that I could tell how they'd gotten them. They all turned their heads when they saw me come in, and a few of them flinched. I took note of which ones.

"Good evening, gentlegriffins," I said, my voice completely even. I walked over to a large chair and table that had been put out for me. I sat down on the chair and took a drink from the glass bottle of soda on the table. "I can't say it's good to see you again, and I'm sure the feeling is mutual. Celestia and Luna might have been easy on you, but I assure you that this meeting is going to be very unpleasant for you."

"Unless we cooperate, I take it?" one of the prisoners growled.

I smirked and raised my bottle to him before taking another drink. "He can be taught."

"Well if you've been talking to your other pony princesses, I'm sure you've heard that we're not so easy to crack," another said smugly. "We'll give you all of the information you want, Antares, and one or two completely insignificant details might be true, but it will be up to you to figure out what. Our employers told us what tricks you were going to use to try to make us talk and conditioned us against them. You're wasting your breath."

"Maybe," I said after another swig. "But you forget that I'm an immortal, so It's not like I'm going to run out of breath, you know? Your stunt was cute, but unsuccessful. As for typical Equestrian interrogation tactics: how many times have I interrogated captured enemies?"

The smug smiles on all of the griffins faded one by one, and I saw a few nervous glances exchanged. I chuckled and drained the rest of my soda.

"See, your employer trained you to stand up to the tactics of Celestia and Luna, but skipped the lecture on dealing with me." I stood up from the desk and began pacing back and forth in front of the captured griffins. "And let me tell you something: I'm very, very, very angry at you all for what you do did to me." My expression hardened into the scariest glare that I could muster, and I was pleased to see one of the griffins flinch back. "Statistically speaking, your survival means that you injured and killed several of my subjects and soldiers. I have no tolerance for beings that do either, do I make myself clear? You will tell me what I want to know if you value your continued existence. Celestia and Luna might try to use more carrot than stick, but I assure you that I am not like either of them. I will hurt you."

One of the griffins in the middle gave a weak scoff and rolled his eyes at me. "You talk big, pony princess, but you'll get nothing from any of us. It is not worth speaking. Ask of us what you will, but you're wasting your time."

I turned my head and stared at him for a few moments before walking over. I made sure he became aware of our significant height difference before speaking again.

"Indeed? I'm wasting my time with you?" The griffin gave me his best smirk and nodded, triggering a sigh from me. "Well, that is unfortunate. Truly terrible. I don't like having my time wasted, especially since this topic is so important."

Before the griffin could do anything else, I snatched the empty soda bottle off of the desk, grabbed the griffin in my magic to steady him, forced his head up so that he was looking at me dead in the eye, and began repeatedly smashing the bottle into his face as hard as I could, making sure to use my magic to harden the bottle so it wouldn't break. The griffins around him screamed in fear as my attacks splashed them in their fellow's blood, and I imagined that even my soldiers had to look away from what I was doing. Once I was content that I made the griffin's face unrecognizable enough, I powered down my horn, letting both the griffin and the bottle drop to the ground.

I blinked once and raised a foreleg to wipe the blood off of my face, my expression having not changed a single bit. I took a deep breath and looked around at the remaining five griffins, all of whom were leaning as far away from me as their restraints would allow. One of them had curled up on the ground and began sobbing. I took a deep breath and illuminated my horn once more, taking the spear away from one of my soldiers and raising it above the twitching, but clearly still living, griffin I had just attacked.

"Next time I won't be so merciful, got it?"

With that, I slammed the spear down.

"Please don't kill me!" the griffin to the right of the now dead griffin prisoner moaned.

"That's up to you," I said evenly, wiping off the spear and returning it to my soldier. "You see: you're raiders, and thus you don't fall under the POW section of the Iselin War Convention of 1124 between all of the world's nations. You don't have the rights afforded, say, a captured Griffonian soldier. What I just did was completely legal. Believe me: I checked to make sure. Attacking a princess carries the penalty of death. You did just that. Ergo, I carried out his inevitable execution early when I found out he'd be of no use to me. Are you following me so far, or do I need to put it in simpler terms?"

"I wanna go home!" another raider moaned.

"My good sir, I have hundreds, if not thousands, of grieving ponies who wish that their loved ones would come home, but because of scum like you, they can't. Now..." I began pacing back and forth again. "I think the best question to start with is: are any of you going to tell me that you're not going to talk?" I eyed the remaining griffins. "No? Good. Second question: who hired you? Any of you are free to answer any of these questions, by the way."

"I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die..." one of the griffins began muttering to himself. I gave an amused scoff and walked up to him.

"I'll bet, but that's not the answer to my question. If you didn't want to die then you shouldn't have attacked a goddess and her army, even if you had a Nightmare Weapon. What, did you think that the other two goddesses weren't going to figure out what was going on and wipe you out anyway? That's taking into account that getting me with that weapon was a slim shot at best. Sinosis could have easily been killed by an errant crossbow bolt before he ever got to me. Seems almost like a suicide mission if you ask..."

My eyes widened as the thought clicked in my mind. Suicide mission. Maybe these griffins didn't know it, but whoever hired them sure did. The actual odds of success were, in hindsight, so slim, that it took a lot of luck to be as successful as they were. Which implies another motive entirely other than killing me. I looked around at the remaining griffins.

"So, this was a suicide mission. Did any of you know that?" When none of them answered, I walked over to the bottle and nudged it, something that made all of them squeal.

"No! No, Princess Antares, we didn't!" one of them cried. "W-we were told that if we followed the plan right, we'd overwhelm your army and kill you before Celestia and Luna could come close to Baltimare!"

"And your employer was unaware of their powers, both in teleporting and combat?" I shook my head. "Not likely. All of Ponyville alone saw Celestia teleport there from Canterlot when her student cast some spell that went wrong. It's common knowledge that they can do long distance teleportation. Plus her and her sister raise the sun and moon. You think that it would be a surprise that they could lay waste to your army? No. You were set up." I walked to the middle of the line and looked down at the griffin on the left of the body. "The only question is by who?"

"I... I cannot say!" the griffin whimpered. He flinched back when he heard my horn fire up. "B-but I will say that our employer felt that killing you would prove that Equestria was weak! Ready to be attacked!"

"I see. But you cannot tell me who hired you?" The griffin shook his head, causing me to sigh. "Well, then, I guess you were never really all that attached to your tail anyway. Or your legs being not shattered. Makes no difference to me."

"No!" the griffin shrieked, trying to back up as much as he could. "I cannot tell because w-when we were hired, we were bound to secrecy by magic! I-if we tell you, we will instantly die in horrific ways!"

"Hmm." I tapped my jaw, then pointed at the remains of the griffin. "Like that? That kind of horrific?"

"Worse, to hear our employer talk," the griffin said, his head low. "No matter what you do to us, it is nothing compared to what we'd get if we told you."

I frowned and tilted my head. "But that..." A thought clicked in my head, and a smirk crossed my lips. "Ah. Ah, but by not saying, you have told me anyway without breaking your vow. There is only one that could bind you to such a curse." The griffin looked up, his eyes wide. I chuckled and waved my hoof. "Don't worry, you won't fall victim to its punishments. You didn't tell me, I figured it out on my own." I ignited my horn, causing the griffin to flinch back, but instead of snapping him in half like I'm sure he thought, his restraints fell away completely. He looked up at me, his eyes wide, causing me to chuckle. "You're free to go. Tell your employer that I'm coming. Let your employer know that I figured it out, and that it would be a good idea to start running now, because if I win the chase, that's it. Death. Just like that."

"Y-yes, Princess Antares," the griffin whispered.

"Good. If you run and don't send my message in person, I'll know, and dying in excruciating agony will be at the very bottom of the list of your problems, understand?"

The griffin nodded dumbly, and I turned and beckoned him to follow me. I opened the door and escorted him out of the room, where Celestia, Luna, and Warden Lockup waited for us. The eyes of all three widened, when they saw that both the griffin and I were splattered with blood, and the griffin was in a near comatose state at this point now that most of the fear had worn off, but they knew better than to question me.

"Warden Lockup, you can escort what's left of the rest of them to their cells. This one goes free for providing us with all of the information we could possibly want. He can have a shower before he leaves. Also..." I grimaced and uneasily rubbed the back of my neck. "Sorry about the mess in there. Things got a little... heated."

"I..." Warden Lockup blinked once. "Y-yes, of course, Princess Antares. Do not worry about it."

"Also, I will need to use your office to fill out some important documents, is that acceptable?"

"Of course. Do what you need. My facility is completely at your service."

"Good." I took a deep breath, pointedly ignoring eye contact with Celestia and Luna. I didn't want to look at them right now. I couldn't really handle seeing their expressions. "Well, I'll go to your office, then. I'll come out when I'm ready."

Before anyone could respond, I took off towards the office at a pace a little quicker than necessary, but I didn't really care about that. I heard my guards following me, but didn't acknowledge them in any way. Celestia and Luna would probably be coming after me soon enough as well.

I reached the office and threw the door open, walking inside and slamming it shut behind me before locking it and putting a sound spell around the room. Content that I had my privacy, I allowed my legs and lower lip to wobble as I began rapidly blinking back tears. I noticed a bottle sitting on Warden Lockup's desk, and I whimpered before collapsing on the ground, curling up into a fetal position and allowing myself to begin sobbing. It made me become acutely aware of the blood still on my face, chest, and forelegs.

Who was that in there?


*  *  *  *


I don't know how long I was in there crying, looking like the exact opposite of a regal, dignified Equestrian princess, but my wallowing was, predictably, interrupted when the door to the office swung open. Figured. It would be centuries, maybe millennium, before I ever pulled off a locking spell that could block Celestia. I heard her walk over and stand above me, and I could imagine the look on her face. Not that I wanted to.

"So..." I flinched at the emotionless tone of her voice. "This is the kind of princess you have chosen to be."

I flattened my ears and, despite every effort to the contrary, whimpered again, but managed to raise my head to look up at her. As I suspected, her face held no emotion at all, but I could sense the quiet disappointment in her.

"I..."

"Don't even bother, Antares." She let out an exasperated sigh. "Dont even bother. What's done is done, and you are the one who will have to live with it. Well, you and the other five griffins who saw you do it. And your three guards who have never seen their princess murder someone in cold blood like that. And the prison janitors who will have to clean the mess up. Oh, and Warden Lockup, who has no idea what to make of his princess and one of his prisoners coming out of that room, both covered in blood and one near catatonic. He'll have to remember that too."

I swallowed the bile that had begun building up in the back of my throat. "I just..."

"It is as I said, Antares: do not bother trying to explain yourself." Celestia illuminated her horn, and a wet washcloth appeared, which she used to begin wiping the blood and tears off of me. "What you have to understand is that very few of your actions affect just you anymore, and certainly none of your mistakes. Have I made similar mistakes over the course of my reign? Of course I have. I am likely to make more. Just today I made the mistake of allowing you in the room with them alone without thinking that you might seek revenge against them for killing your guards and subjects."

"I didn't think it would go so far," I muttered.

"No, you just didn't think it would hurt so much when it did, and you ignored the fact that there is a reason we do not torture here in Equestria." Celestia finished wiping me down and made the washcloth vanish. "But you are a princess of Equestria, Antares. You have made your mistake, but now millions of ponies are depending on you still. That is the way of things. Stand up and raise your head high like I know you can. Besides, despite your medieval methods, you know who attempted to kill you?"

I snorted and pushed myself onto my haunches. "I don't have the next clue beyond our current list of suspects." Celestia narrowed her eyes, and I raised a hoof to forestall any objections. "But, I let that griffin go for a reason. When I freed him, I put a tracking spell on him at the same time. I made him believe I'd know if he didn't go straight to his employer and tell him or her that I knew who he was and was coming for him. He proved to me to be superstitious. He'll do it." I raised my eyes to the ceiling. "He's flying west now. Slightly south-west. Just above cloud level."

"West? That would be away from Griffonia, but in the direction of the minotaurs, unless he had someone he was meeting. In a separate place."

"Possibly. But there's something else in that direction..."


*  *  *  *


"Thank you for meeting with me on such short notice, Ms. Skies."

Soaring Skies bowed low to me as I sat down in one of the Las Pegasopolan meeting rooms, before sitting down in a chair across from me. "Of course, Princess Antares. I always have time for royalty. Might I add that I am overjoyed that you have made a full recovery."

I inclined my head in a nod. "Yes, as am I. Now, then..." I cleared my throat and put a hoof on the cloud table. "I'd like to get to business right away. You see, my recent assassination attempt and the near decimation of my army has gotten me to thinking, Ms. Skies. Specifically about our meetings."

Soaring Skies raised an eyebrow. "Oh? What about?"

"Well, simply put: I found out that you were right. We are woefully under-prepared in the event of an attack. Were it not for the timely intervention of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, we might not be having this conversation, and my guard would certainly have suffered more casualties than it already did."

Soaring Skies nodded sympathetically. "Yes, and we all mourned when we heard of the losses."

"Thank you. It is good to have your support. Now, then..." I motioned to one of my guards, who gave me a suitcase which I put on the table in front of me and opened up. "It is my plan to drastically upgrade as many aspects of the Equestrian army as I can in the hopes that this does not happen again. With a potential war with the minotaurs and possibly griffins on the horizon, I cannot have a repeat of what happened at my palace."

Soaring Skies nodded. "Of course, Princess Antares. We will help you however we can."

"That is very good to hear, Ms. Skies. The names of your co-conspirators should be a good start."

Silence filled the room, and Soaring Skies blinked once in confusion. "Er... I'm sorry, Princess Antares, my what?"

"Co-conspirators. The ponies, or otherwise, who helped you try to assassinate me. Their names."

"I..." Soaring Skies went pale, and her mouth began flopping up and down. "P-Princess Antares, I'm afraid that you must be mistaken. Our intelligence reports that it was a force outside of Equestria that attempted to have you assassinated. If my knowledge is correct, the intelligence gathered by Princess Cadance and her Blade Wings says the same thing."

"Yes, I've heard that too," I said, illuminating my horn and taking a small red gem out of the briefcase. "But the Blade Wings aren't all looking around for Nightmare Weapons. Princess Cadance still has them stationed in key places in Equestria too." I put the gem down in front of Soaring Skies. "So that's how I was able to get this when I released one of the griffin leaders with a tracking spell on him."

I poured a little magic into the gem, and immediately voices begin resonating out of it. Familiar voices. Ones that Soaring Skies instantly recognized as both hers and the griffin I had let go.

Are you crazy?! Approaching me like this out of the blue is too dangerous! Why did you track me down at all? What if you were followed?

It doesn't matter! Princess Antares already knows who you are!

If any one of the princesses knew who I was, I'd already be arrested or worse. You need to calm down and go into hiding. Do you really think that she can do anything worse to you than the secrecy spell you've been put under? I assure you that she can't. Just get out of here! She was bluffing, and if she was bluffing about that, then she was bluffing about knowing who I am, so just leave me alone!

The recording ended, and I let Soaring Skies stew as she stared in horror at the gem. After a few seconds, I put the gem back in the briefcase and snapped it shut before hoofing it back to my guard.

"So, I think that you can guess that you are so under arrest right now that it isn't even funny. I mean, did you really think that you'd get away with it, even with lying to them with the whole fake ‘secrecy spell’ nonsense?"

Soaring Skies' eye twitched, but she managed to regain her senses once she felt a band of magic wrap around her wings, pinning them to her sides, and hoofcuffs being secured to her forelegs. She squealed and tried to bolt, but, secured as she was, she fell flat on her face. I sighed and stood up from my chair to stand over her.

"You helped cause the deaths of hundreds of my subjects, your fellow ponies, and for what? To get control of the military? To prove a point? Don't expect much more life, Ms. Skies. What little more you have will be spent behind bars, I assure you."

"I was only doing it for Equestria, I swear, Princess Antares!" Soaring Skies wailed as my guards dragged her away. "I never intended your death!"

"No, but you intended the deaths of my soldiers." I sighed and turned my head to Lieutenant Rapids. "Lieutenant Rapids, if you would please gag Ms. Skies so she doesn't accidentally say something that will make me lose my temper and snap her in half in a way that won't kill her? Thank you."

Lieutenant Rapids nodded and fixed a muzzle over Soaring Skies' face. My guards dragged her out of the room to a waiting prisoner wagon that would no doubt be used again later. I took a deep breath as silence filled the room and glanced over to my remaining guard. I gave her a weary smile.

"Well, Celestia, I guess we got 'em."