On a pale, overcast morning in mid-autumn, a plot was hatched and daggers were drawn.

The Location:
· Fountain Square, Royal Quarter, Canterlot, just outside the balcony of the Princess’s palace.

The Time:
· The Ceremony of Royal Recovery, during the point where all attendees would raise their heads to the balcony, hoping to see the Princess standing before them.

The Organisers:

• Garget ‘Gloriosus’ Gratin ‘Old Pappy Grat’n’- Patriarch of the Megaphobian Church of the Hippothura
• Stankard Siphon ‘Wild-Colt’- Nephew of Gloriosus, hoping to buy Ponyville and thus control trade-routes in and out of Canterlot.
• Guimple Grumpwyke Gratin ‘The Moaning Monk’- Abbot-Ducal
• Splutterous Siphon ‘The Glutton’- Most Esteemed
• Gambison Gratin ‘The Gilded Cuirass’- Recepient Capital
• Galosh Gratin ‘The Oligarchal Schoolcolt’- Magister of the Donatorate
• Mister Ortolan ‘The Egg-Seller from Steeplechase’- Billionaire foal-trafficker who finances the Hundred-Upon-Hundred and the Megaphobian Church.
• Mister Marabou Muster ‘The Old Stork’- Head of the Muster family, one of the richest families in and out of Canterlot; father of Malapert Muster who Dandy Lion executed. Waiting outside the west city gate with a force of attendants to seize control.
• Mister Vultorius Muster ‘The Vulture’- Nephew of Mister Marabou Muster. Placed behind Zanthus Blackbark with a dagger at the ready.
• Archlector-Ingognate Belluine Bungelle ‘The Cymbal-Monkey’- Megaphobic official of the capital province, nephew of Gloriosus Gratin. Waiting outside the Canterlot House of Government with a Conduction cohort.
• Mister Caudexter Carrack ‘Old Cactus-Face’- In-law of Gloriosus and weapons manufacturer to the Hundred-Upon-Hundred and Megaphobian Church

The Targets:

• Pantalion- Head of the Pants family.
• Zanthus Blackbark- Judicial Minister of the Canterlot Provisional Government.
• Tingletongue Sapindale- Pantalion’s wife and Zanthus’s sister.
• Dandy Lion- Maverick Royal Guard.
• Neovision- Captain-General of the Royal guard
• And any associates of theirs present in the city...

The Participants:

• Mister Marabou Muster
• Mister Vultorius Muster
• Archlector-Incognate Belluine Bungelle
• Mister Disbecton Flobb ‘The Tapeworm’- Primary Stockholder of the Muster Family and notorious predator of foals (So quite possibly Ortolan’s representative in the plot). Placed beside Vultorius to aid him against Zanthus.
• Fraigner Bludge and Fraigner Clobb ‘The Cutthroat Clerics’- Priests of the Canterlot Megaphobic mission. Placed behind Pantalion with daggers at the ready.
• Caltrop Starthistle of Bonedry Mountain ‘The Porcupine’- Mercenary Leader and Contract-Killer in charge of ‘The Parched’ mercenary band. Waiting outside the east gate to lead his mercenaries into the city.
• Other relatives and associates around the city such as...

• Mister Azdarcho Muster ‘Itchy Bowstring-Hoof’- Sadistic brother of the late Malapert known for casually shooting passers-by with a bow and arrow at random. Assisting Marabou at the West Gate.
• Ma’am Thambema Muster ‘The Hag of Yllmanor’- Sister of Marabou known for her violent temper and avarice. Assisting Marabou at the West Gate
• Mister Dicumany ‘Dicky-Moe’ Moroser ‘The White-Whale’- Business-partner of the Muster Family and one of the foremost ambergris traders in mainland Equestria. Assisting Vultorius just outside Fountain Square.
• Mister Potafeux ‘Potts Bolly’ Boligate ‘The Pot-Roast’- Vicious enforcer of the Hundred-Upon-Hundred, nephew-by-marriage of Ma’am Thambema Muster. Assisting Vultorius before the steps of the Canterlot Royal Quarter.
• High Fraigner Mastiche Palefellow- ‘The Locksmith’ A distant nephew of Belluine Bungelle who served as his Keeper-of-Rituals, carrying a giant padlock to represent the Hippothura. Assisting Belluine Bungelle outside the Provisional House of Government.
• Droitly Shingle-Shabb- ‘That Pretentious Little Curd In The Flat Above The Garlic Stall’ Not an active participant but a prominent supporter and sympathiser. Not much is known about him except that he was an open Megaphobian and anti-alicorn philosopher and artist who was known for painting defamatory slang outside the Princess’s palace. He was in his home at the time constructing a sculpture of Celestia’s downfall to commemorate the event to come.

The Plan as Follows...
Step 1: Vultorius, Disbecton and Fraigners Bludge and Clobb will join Pantalion and Zanthus Blackbark for the Ceremony of Royal Recovery and cut their throats when they raise their heads to the royal balcony. Vultorius and Disbecton will kill Zanthus and Bludge and Clobb will kill Pantalion. If Dandy Lion can be seized and killed, do so. If not ignore her and proceed to...
Step 2: Belluine Bungelle will have his attendants open the east and west city gates, letting in Marabou from the west gate and Caltrop Starthistle from the east gate.
Step 3: Marabou’s thirty-strong henchponies and Caltrop’s eighty-strong mercenaries will take control of the city streets
Step 4: Belluine will lead his fifty-strong cohort into the House of Government, kill Captain-General Neovision and take the Provisional Government members hostage. All members of the Royal Guard are to be arrested.
Step 5: The Royal Palace is broken open and Princess Celestia is arrested. All Canterlot’s families will pledge to serve the Hundred-Upon-Hundred or will be executed. All members of the Royal-Guard are also to be executed as well as any influence that threatens the Hundred-Upon-Hundred.
Step 6: The ‘Centequine Commonwealth’ is to be founded in Canterlot. Equestria shall serve as a continent-wide property and plantation and vigorous foreign policy will see it expand ubiquitously.

That was the plan and at the stroke of the noon bells, it was put into action. And here, the problems began.
Zanthus Blackbark arrived as expected but Pantalion was nowhere to be seen.
It would have been pointless killing one and sparing the other, especially in Pantalion’s case. Pantalion had money and knew how to use it to influence ponies and turn them against the Hundred-Upon-Hundred.
Impatient, Vultorius Muster and his friend, Disbecton Flobb, hurried to Briefly Manor to summon him.
Dandy Lion was present, volunteering to guard Pantalion while the Musters were on the warpath. Vultorius and Disbecton Flobb spent around ten minutes pleading with Pantalion to attend the ceremony.
Pantalion explained that his wife, bedridden and sickly, needed him. Vultorius responded by assuring him that the good lady Tingletongue Sapindale would be fine trudging to Fountain Square and if the Princess showed herself, would surely be healed.
Reluctantly, Pantalion and Dandy Lion shouldered Tingletongue Sapindale, beloved wife of Pantalion and recent mother, to Fountain Square, the young frail mare shakily agreeing to pay respects to Princess Celestia. Vultorius and Disbecton also volunteered to shoulder Pantalion and his wife, secretly checking to see if either were wearing armour. They were not.
Dandy Lion was, however, and she was sceptical.
Vultorius had never, before now, showed anything but murderous intent for Pantalion and his family. More so than most members of the Hundred-Upon-Hundred. The Musters had previously been in the mining business and had, on no less than nine occasions, lost estates and properties because the Pants family brought evidence of corruption and transgressions of business law to the Canterlot Royal court. Vultorius had often spoken of how much he’d like to make the Pants family pay for what they’d done and now, he was helping the head of the family and his sick wife to a public ceremony.
And his partner was even worse. Mister Disbecton Flobb was the Muster family’s Primary Stockholder and had been five-times arrested and five-times acquitted for sexual assault upon fillies and colts aged between five and eleven. Zanthus Blackbark, Pantalion’s brother-in-law, had presided over the cases and, though Disbecton had been backed up by his associates in the Hundred-Upon-Hundred, measures were still taken such as fines, restraining orders and the like, costing him a lot. Disbecton was also, by all accounts, eager for revenge yet here he was having seemingly forgotten any past difficulty.
Something foul was ahoof.
And who should be tailing them but Cimmeria Bethsparke, Dandy Lion’s young apprentice, who was watching the Musters closely.

As the crowds gathered, traditional ceremony proceeded as planned and each venerable member of Canterlot’s damaged noble classes stepped forward and offered pleas for Celestia to take charge of Equestria once more. As the ceremony proceeded, Dandy Lion at last stepped forward. Strictly speaking, she was a guard and so was not expected to do so but not ineligible.
It was expected she would join the petitioners for her own plea. Instead, she presented her wishes to the Princess in a rather more aggressive and accusatory tone, asking her what sort of Princess hid away from her war-torn state, how would Laurelore see such actions pointing out that not taking any responsibility at all was worse than trying and failing. For some time she went on and the exact quote has been burnt as blasphemy but all around were shocked.
All eyes were on Dandy Lion.
And then, the curtains on the Royal Balcony begun to draw open.
The heads of every noble present rose.
The signal for the daggers to come down.
Of all the days for Princess Celestia to actually bear witness to government protocol.

Zanthus Blackbark, noticing the glint of steel, threw his sister out of harm’s way as Vultorius Muster and Disbecton Flobb drew their knives impromptu, barely noticing Princess Celestia’s eyes on them, and stabbed the Minister of Justice wildly. Zanthus had no blade with him and as he tried to defend himself from one of his attackers, the other would strike at him. As soon as blood spilt, chaos ensued and the crowd of ponies present fled in a blind, terrified swarm.
Zanthus Blackbark was stabbed nineteen times by Vultorius and Disbecton. Such was the Muster’s fury that Vultorius stabbed himself in the foreleg in the flurry of fevered stabs. Bleeding from over a dozen wounds, Zanthus fell dead upon the royal courtyard. Pantalion was another matter.
The two priests ordered to murder him, Fraigners Bludge and Clobb, botched the operation, panicking and granting the Lord of Briefly Manor the chance to defend himself.
It wasn’t that they were not willing to kill the stallion, far from it. Bludge had been with Stankard when he was accosted by Ponyville’s populace and had soiled his priceless habit and was now hungry for vengeance while Clobb was a senior torturer under Belluine Bungelle, interrogating suspected dissenters and had apparently always harboured an enthusiasm for causing pain.
The trouble was that, while priests tended to be inconspicuous, quiet and easily trusted...they tended not to make the best assassins. The exact details are hazy but one of them drew his dagger before the other did and they argued over now was the time in the hearing of their target who drew back and avoided death, drawing his own sword. He was wounded in the shoulder and across the side of the neck.
The crowd grew hysteric and swanned away from Pantalion struggling with the two cutthroat priests. From one side of the throng, Vultorius Muster and Disbecton Flobb barged their way forward, Disbecton drawing a poisoned dagger for emergencies; one strike from it would seal Pantalion’s fate however the day ended.
While from the other side, Dandy Lion and a few guards she trusted navigated through the herd and tried to ferry Pantalion to safety.
Then between them both, Princess Celestria threw open one of the palace doors and yelled for Pantalion and Dandy Lion to enter quickly. Pantalion, Tingletongue, Dandy Lion and Cimmeria Bethsparke hurried forth and Muster and Flobb surged behind.
As the statespony, his wife and the young mage passed under the doorway, Dandy Lion herself blocked the doorway with her body and took the poisoned dagger in the chest. Cimmeria, crying out to her mistress, blasted the two back and shut the doors as Celestia and her guard placed every known ward and spell upon it then set Dandy Lion down on a marble table to tend to her injury. Already Dandy Lion had begun screaming in agony as lethal Shriekweed toxins coursed through her open wound.
There, in the palace, for the first time in many years since the end of the Civil War, Princess Celestia performed a spell without waiting for anypony’s leave or permission, healing Dandy Lion with powerful magics known only to alicorns, redirecting the poison out of her bloodstream and letting it drip out of her wound that sealed as the toxins were lifted.
The assassination plot had failed. Zanthus Blackbark was dead but he had never truly been the target. He’d only started being a threat at the behest of his sister, brother-in-law and Dandy Lion, all three of which were still very much alive. Vultorius and Disbecton assumed that Dandy Lion was dying of her poisoned wound but they knew Pantalion was fine and almost certainly more determined than ever to get in their way. And now he was in the safest part of Canterlot and guarded by an alicorn who had just witnessed them threatening the peace they’d claimed to be protecting.
Terrified and confused, the assassins fled into the city as the mayhem spun out of anypony’s control.

When Dandy Lion found her strength again, she gave orders to barricade the palace and get a beacon working to communicate with Captain-General Neovision and the rest of the Provisional Government. Celestia apparently needed no convincing. The strength of the royal palaces beacon overrode any silencing spells the Hundred-Upon-Hundred may have cast.
While that was going on, Neovision was in his study and heard of the commotion. He was debating with himself on what to do. He hadn’t the horsepower to break up a crowd and their presence may have only worsened the state of affairs. At the same time, this sort of chaos was not something he felt right in ignoring. In the past, he’d turned a blind eye to the corruption of the Hundred-Upon-Hundred in order to stop them taking their anger out on innocent civilians. Now it seemed, that wasn’t working. He’d remembered Dandy Lion and her reckless actions that turned out to be so provoking in his fellow guard and many other citizens. Steadily, he worked things out in his mind.
At that moment, Belluine Bungelle had entered the House of Government with his fifty-strong Conduction cohort. Belluine kept his men hidden by telling them to wait in the Chancery, the government-house’s safe-room, the interior sound-proof and large enough to hold a small crowd. Belluine would signal them when ready and they would come out to kill or capture every member of the Provisional Government present in the building.
Trying to catch his primary target unaware, Belluine entered Neovision’s study and talked with him about various incidents of note, avoiding the topic of the screams in Fountain Square, claiming he knew nothing about that. It was only when he referred to Pantalion in the past-tense, his exact quote something along the lines of ‘He mustn’t have been as wise as we all hoped.” that Neovision grew suspicious. While he wasn’t privy to the exact information on the affair, knew Pantalion was in Fountain Square and he knew the Musters were too and that Belluine Bungelle must have known that as well. Seeing through the façade, Neovision drew his sword, cast a holding-spell and summoned his guard to arrest Belluine Bungelle there and then. Belluine cried out for his cohort to attack, certain to overwhelm a dozen or so guards. But here, careless folly prevailed over devious machination; the Chancery, where he’d hidden his fifty henchponies, often doubled as a holding cell for hostages or protected witnesses...meaning that the room could not be opened from the inside unless they had the key which Neovision had now confiscated off Belluine. The scheming Archlector-Incognate had succeeded in locking his own guard up ready for the Royal Guard to take prisoner. Neovision and the unicorns at his command cast a sleeping spell through the vent leading to the Chancery, sending the Conduction cohort unconscious and confiscating their weapons and armour, all of them arrested for possession of illegal arms in a private area and implicated in conspiracy to commit high treason. He then got Dandy Lion’s message via the royal beacon and understood what was going on. He decided that it was time to put power back in the hooves of the princess and those loyal to her.
Outside, Mister Marabou Muster gathered his thirty-strong attendants and spouted cries that the alicorn monarchy was at an end, the uncontrollable princess and her wicked followers were dead and Canterlot was in the hooves of the true ponies once again. He galloped through the streets and prepared to meet Caltrop Starthistle with his eighty Parched, having gathered up hundreds of supporters to storm the Royal Palace. But instead of joining him in his march, to his dismay, the populace mobbed him, knocked him and his attendants to the ground. He yelled for the Parched to save him, wherever they were and Caltrop Starthistle surged forward with his troop to aid him. But before he could reach him, magical barriers activated and cut him and his troops off from the alleys in front of and behind them, trapping them. Here, however, Caltrop was not simply imprisoned where he stood but was faced instead by a group of highly-skilled Royal Guard, led by personal friends of Dandy Lion; the silent claymore-wielding ‘Black’ Cronin Caw; Gimsee-Go who studied the fighting-style of the Chineighse Warrior Monks; Silverliner, a rapier-wielding heiress of the famed Silver family who’d left her family to pursue swordwork when her father-in-law demanded she be wed to one of the Muster family; Flint Heart, a promising mage who Cimmeria had noticed showed great potential in advanced magic, he alone setting up the magical barriers; and even Neovision’s daughter, Politana who fought with a blade concealed in a parasol. It is also believed the legendary gytrash ranger, D’zzlr Zae’Leyrie, was present for the conflict and fought against the Hundred-Upon-Hundred but this is not confirmed (Although all who know of D’zzlr Zae’Leyrie state that this is something he would probably do)
Caltrop Starthistle was brought down and subdued by the Royal Guard officers and his leaderless Parched were incapacitated. All around the city, the Muster conspirators panicked, accidentally revealed themselves, were identified and captured by members of the public.
At last, Dandy Lion emerged, her wound still open and raw to show all in the city just how far she was willing to go to protect Canterlot and its servants.
And in her eyes was an inferno of bloody retribution.

Princess Celestia would have shown mercy.
Princess Celestia would have settled things peacefully.
But Princess Celestia was still in her palace, having asked Dandy Lion to end the chaos in the city by whatever means necessary.
And Dandy Lion accomplished this her way.
The conspirators were taken far outside of Fountain Square, just outside the walls of Canterlot.
For Celestia had ordered no more bloodshed in the city.
She’d said nothing about outside of the city.
There, the less squeamish of Dandy Lion’s associates, and a raging crowd of various citizens with grudges against the Hundred-Upon-Hundred for one reason or another, put the conspirators to death, many by the age-old group-execution tactic of having all four limbs strapped to the saddles of their executioners who then pulled until something gave way. Vultorius Muster, Marabou Muster, Belluine Bungelle, Fraigners Clobb and Bludge and each and every one of their associates in the city at the time were quartered there and then. Known supporters of the Muster family in Canterlot were dragged out by their neighbours and killed. The Conduction cohort Belluine had accidentally locked in the house of government were taken to the top of the building, woken up one by one and then tossed off the roof to a forty-foot drop on stone pavement.
A few were simply imprisoned or exiled but this was likely no more than a tenth of the proven conspirators. To her credit, Dandy Lion ordered that all ponies under suspicion of conspiracy first be brought to her for questioning and thorough examination of their effects be carried out. If there was no clear proof, they were simply kept under moderate supervision for a period of five months. If there was proof however, they were summarily interrogated by torture and executed once any information had been extracted. All of which was done personally by Dandy Lion herself.
There was one escapee; Mister Disbecton Flobb, five-times wanted for paedophilia, now wanted for the murder of Zanthus Blackbark and attempting to commit high treason. He fled the city in disguise and headed first for Manehattan and then to Maretania by boat. However, Pantalion was a college friend of Prince Chelema Nebiri ey-Kebur, known as ‘The Panther of Gemel’ and once Cimmeria Bethsparke had tracked down Disbecton’s name and signature on a bank-transfer detail before he bought his ticket under a pseudonym, Pantalion wrote to Prince Chelema to inform him of this wanted fugitive. The prince and his guard found him in three days, Chelema offering twice to put him to death there and then but Dandy Lion insisted he be brought back to Canterlot to share the same fate as his compatriots. Disbecton tried to commit suicide several times on his journey back but this came to naught and Dandy Lion had him publicly dismembered, castrated, disembowelled and beheaded.
In Canterlot, once the carnage was cleared, Pantalion cradled his sobbing wife and ordered his brother-in-law’s body buried with full honours. He then met with Dandy Lion and Cimmeria and promised his full support for as long as Dandy Lion needed to overthrow the Hundred-Upon-Hundred directly. The wealth of Briefly Manor, his mines, his investments and the debts owed to him would go jointly to reestablishing the Royal Guard and locating, combating and destroying the Church of Megaphobia and its allies. Most, if not all of the Provisional Government was in unity and believed that the Hundred-Upon-Hundred was a direct threat to Equestrian peace and stability and it would only be through destroying them rather than appeasing them that Equestria would be allowed to recover from the Civil War and Princess Celestia could become a worthy monarch.
Neovision took Dandy Lion as his First Lieutenant and Chief Constable of Canterlot. Pantalion vouched for Dandy Lion, all members of the Provisional Government concurred and Princess Celestia personally gave Dandy Lion leave to stop the Hundred-Upon-Hundred and their allies from taking control by whatever means were acceptable under the Laws of Harmony.
Though Zanthus Blackbark had been killed and the government in Canterlot was left threatened and shaken, Dandy Lion, the one with the plans, had come out better than ever.
There are several prominent scholars who believe that Dandy Lion knew of the plot in advance and made sure that at least somepony important was killed to spur everypony else into action and to show the Hundred-Upon-Hundred as enemies of Equestria.
A sordid tale and, while plausible, has no clear evidence.

But more chaos was occurring elsewhere in Equestria. Stankard Siphon was preparing to march on Ponyville once more. However he received a message from his cousin Gambison Gratin informing him of the events in Canterlot and urging him to wait until he arrived with his own force.
Remembering how badly his previous attack on Ponyville had gone, Stankard urged Gambison to get to him as quickly as he could. Unknown to him, it was not actually Gambison that had written to him but his wife, Silver Lupine, daughter of the famed slayer; Silver Bullet. Her marriage to Gambison had not been happy and she was going about making sure he and his family understood that, she and her servants having trussed up Gambison in his sleep and imprisoned him in the cellar while she took back charge of the Silver estate. She’d called upon several old family friends who themselves had called upon their friends and so on until she arrived at the crossroads before Ponyville with an army twice as large as Stankard’s, hiding them along a gully and approached Silver Lupine with her pet Frost Tiger named Vivaldi. When Stankard demanded to know what his cousin was doing, Silver Lupine replied bluntly “Feeling rather scared.”. She then set Vivaldi on Stankard, the huge Frost Tiger throwing the stallion to the ground and ripping off his genitals, then signalled for her household to attack. Forty stallions under Stankard were killed and, twelve were captured and the remaining eight fled along with a heavily wounded Stankard who was carried off, shrieking and babbling in agonised hysteria. Not far from Canterlot, Galosh Gratin was told that his cousin Belluine Bungelle had taken Canterlot and was calling him to the capital, led there by his own wife, Gusty’s descendent, Demeter Desidue, whereupon he was captured and held prisoner by Neovision. Dandy Lion was convinced to hold Galosh for ransom and, in fairness, Galosh was fourteen and was almost certainly only a passive accomplice in his family’s plans. Gambison however was arrested and sentenced to convict service indefinitely. Dandy Lion instead decided to focus on tracking down Stankard who, she hoped, would lead her to Ortolan and his foal-trafficking ring. At this, Neovision and her guards confided in her that every guard or independent investigator had met with a vile end that more often than not looked more like suicide or a nasty accident. Dandy Lion replied that she was aware that she was also aware that witnesses met the same fate, including others suspected of associating with Ortolan. Dandy Lion was putting a hunt out for Stankard to limit Ortolan’s own choice of actions. If he went after every guard and citizen who went looking, he’d have to overreach himself. But he silenced Stankard himself, he’d make an enemy of his friends in the Siphon and Gratin families. To their surprise, the hunt concluded swifter and more successfully than they expected as Stankard was caught in one of the alleys of Canterlot raging at a passer-by at how a Megophobe-run brothel that specialised in foal-prostitutes had been shut down. By now his wounds inflicted upon him by Silver Lupine and Vivaldi had gone septic, his body was riddled with gangrene and he was rapidly losing his mind. Dandy Lion had him arrested and interrogated. And she made no attempt to hide the fact that he was being interrogated. It was here that her compatriots in the Royal Guard caught on to what she intended.
Dandy Lion was fighting Ortolan and the Church of Megaphobia with their own weapons; to whit open show of intimidation with the intention of forcing her enemy to reveal themselves.
Dandy Lion simply placed Stankard in a cell, waited outside it all day while Cimmeria took over all night and anypony who asked to see him in a cell was arrested and questioned.
Eventually, this applied to Neovision himself who asked to check on the prisoner. Dandy Lion questioned why he wanted to know and then, unsatisfied with the answer, ordered several guards chiefly loyal to her to hold him and interrogate him about who sent him to silence Stankard. Neovision protested strongly and ordered Dandy Lion discharged from the Royal Guard several times but when Dandy Lion ordered Cimmeria to check on Neovision’s house and family for reasons unspecified, Neovision broke and pleaded with her not to be seen entering his house. Ortolan had his stallions waiting outside to murder his family if he did not kill Stankard Siphon in his cell by the night’s end. Dandy Lion promised him that if he gave her his full trust and cooperation, she would protect his family and undo what Ortolan was doing. Neovision gave her the letter Ortolan had sent to his office detailing what he was to do and what would happen to his loved ones if he refused.
So Dandy Lion and Cimmeria went out into the night, identified Ortolan’s henchponies, knocked them out with a spell and while Neovision took over interrogating them, she performed complex spells to trace their steps and locate their place of operations. It was difficult but she pinpointed traces of Soot’s Cray Rum on the back of the letter, suggesting it had been written on a table stained with alcohol. And by good fortune, Soot’s Cray Rum was only sold in one place in Canterlot (And the stain was too fresh to have come outside of the capital); a seedy tavern called the Copper Coronet. Dandy Lion surrounded the place, manned each wall and cut their way in. The Copper Coronet was famous for sub-par service and variety but boasted of very regular clientele and offering special services to those willing to both pay and keep their mouths shut. It was after regular serving hours. Dandy Lion discovered the Copper Coronet dealt in Ortolan’s trade, foal-prostitution. All staff and clientele were arrested on the spot. Once inside, Cimmeria cast a homing spell that allowed her to null all but the most powerful messaging spells and also track them. Dandy Lion took half her guard and tracked the message to where the foals were being held; a disused warehouse on the edge of Canterbury Dock. Dandy Lion stormed it from every angle and all the slavers in it were captured or killed.
Then, just for good measure, Dandy Lion walked into Stankard Siphon’s cell, carved him open and threw him into the streets just outside the Copper Coronet.

It was a huge blow for one of the most untouchable ponies in Equestria. While Ortolan had not been caught, his operations in Canterlot were completely compromised, and blame fell on him for Stankard Siphon’s death causing the Hundred-Upon-Hundred to turn against him and then against each other. He went into hiding and Dandy Lion began measures to hunt him down.
There was only one overhanging problem. Dandy Lion was left with custody over around sixty foals rescued from the Copper Coronet and Ortolan’s warehouse. She and Cimmeria examined them and found that whatever had been done to them had left them empty husks of ponies, barely able to feel anything, numb to the world around them, blindly obedient and with a constant look of fear in their eyes.
Cimmeria did not know what to recommend but Dandy Lion looked them over and spoke sternly, bitterly...
“They deserve justice...They deserve to see their tormentors screaming for mercy...They deserve to deliver the blow of retribution.”
Cimmeria asked just how that was going to work. The foals were in no fit state to do much at all.
Dandy Lion said.
“I cannot give them back their lives but I can and will give them something to live for.”
And at this, Dandy Lion brought forth an obscure tome titled Uncertayn Truthes by Gimic the Wandering Wizard. Written by Mimic’s sibling who was known for adventuring and investigating just about everything, it detailed a passage referring to a small stream of the Four Rivers Into Tartarus, cut off from its channel by magical events and at one time connected to the River Bree in the land of the Breezies which connected mainland Equestria to the Flutter Valley many centuries ago.
Glomber Stream.
The passage Dandy Lion found most interesting was the tale of what would happen if one drank it. It was said that Breezies began life as mere wisps of the river-weed but when they drank of it, they underwent strange transformations into the wily, swift, dangerous creatures they are today. Gimic speculated that a creature with as many present capabilities as a pony would become a staggering fighting force if the river was ever located properly and its waters drunk.
In her memoirs, Cimmeria described Dandy Lion’s grin as wide and wild as she told Cimmeria to find the river and a means to bring its waters to her. Cimmeria urged her to reconsider, stating that if the tales were true, a drink from the waters could cause untold havoc to its taster or those in their vicinity. A pony was capable of many things and their personalities, neuroses and impulses magnified in such a way as the river’s waters would claim to do would cause chaos.
“Not in these ones.” Dandy Lion said, gesturing to the semi-aware foals “I will give them a chance to claim vengeance and turn Equestria into a place where what happened to them will never happen to anypony again. I cannot make them ponies...but I can make them soldiers.”
So would begin the search for the Glomber Stream and the draw of Dandy Lion’s famous trump card that would turn her from a simple officer of the Royal Guard to the political and military powerhouse she would become...
The Birth of the Wilderbeasts.

7375885
Impressive, as always! While I am not a fan of the death sentence, it's sometimes the only way. And Dandy's action, as the preachers in the Division sometimes say

Tough job, but someone has to do it

And she's ten times better than the cops in GTA 5.

Her decision about the foals is understandable. Just look at Raiden, or Big boss from Metal gear. They experienced horrible things when young, and they couldn't imagine anything else, thus their path as soldiers. My OC James isn't any different here

7375891
I don't think comparisons to the Division work.
Dandy Lion is facing the Hundred-Upon-Hundred who have taken advantage of the chaos to make themselves the dominant faction in Equestria as a whole and Dandy Lion has set up a network of specialists to combat that.
She started from the bottom and worked her way up to protect the rightful rulers of the government from threats.
The Division work for a shady branch of the government and attack people who are dissenting against them.
If there was a version of the Division here, they'd probably be working for the Hundred-Upon-Hundred. Because the Hundred-Upon-Hundred have similar methods; a might-makes-right philosophy and zero accountability.
The comparison is basically Empire to Rebellion. Dandy Lion is fighting for the legitimate government, yes, but against a powerhouse that has more influence than the legitimate government through illicit means not against rebel cells or unruly citizens. Those could play a part but not in this case.

7378604
I didn't mean to compare it to the division, the line

Tough job, but someone has to do it

just sounds what she had to do, I just remember it from the cleaners saying it when idle. It's still a fact, isn't it? IT's a tough job to bring down the Hundred-Upon-Hundred but somepony has to do it, right?

7378609
Ah right, yeah. I see what you mean.
Still, it was mostly for ideal's sake than any sense of 'having to do it'.

7378611
Of course. What I mean is, no one else really resisted, Dandy was the one who started

7378620
True.