Epilogue: Know They Did1,309 words

Broke: We're in debt to the Mob again

"WHAT?!" De Gauss was stunned. He gasped, started panting. "What, how could you... but why?!"

"You should know something about me and bluffing," Dan said. "When I'm done bluffing, I'm done bluffing."

The monitor in the Lucky 38 control room continued to display the missiles. The trio of Sword Spell-equipped ballistic missiles continued rising into the night sky, burning a trail bright enough to see for miles. In fact, De Gauss and others could see the missiles as they rose ever skyward.

"Okay, Dan, please, come on," De Gauss said. His heart was racing, he was sweating, his knees felt weak, it was everything Dan wanted. De Gauss had become everything Dan wanted to see. "Stop the missiles, please! We'll give you back everything, come on, please!"

Dan beamed with pride. "Aww, what's wrong? You were happy enough to plunder, pillage and steal your way across the continent. You'll still be able to do that. You just won't have a nest to go back to, birdie."

"Don't be like that! This is insanity! It's not like you were even doing anything with that junk in your treasury! We robbed from the richest in Equestria, not the common folk! It was just the treasury, not the banks! And those rich gem-lovers in the Crystal Empire... we didn't steal from you!"

"You stole from me," Dan said coldly. "When you abducted our people to sell them into slavery!"

"Only the rich. The elite," De Gauss said, his voice weak and pleading.

Dan simply shook his head at him. The problem with casting yourself as a Robin Hood is that it puts yourself in a position of judgement. Eventually, you make a bad call, you screw up and you're no longer the hero. Villains can and do make mistakes but the hero can't. You can't ever let them see you bleed.

De Gauss may have started out just wanting to steal from the rich, but more had been affected. It was unavoidable. What little, remote defense he had was crumbling.

"I'm sorry," De Gauss said. He hung his head low. One of the greatest Daring Do villains(voted ninth favorite in the top ten of all time) and he was now truly defeated. "Please, don't destroy my people. They're innocent. We'll help you rebuild... everything. We'll return everything, I promise."

Dan smiled. He pulled out his remote and pressed a single button.

On the monitor behind him, the missiles detonated. The red Sword Spell warheads burst into fireworks, lighting up the night sky.

Dan turned to Gust Grasp. "And THAT is called bluffing."

"Indeed it is!" De Gauss' head shot back up. "You realize you just blew up your only leverage, right? All I had to do was give you my word but you should know, the word of a pirate is-"

Dan pressed the remote again. The monitor switched back to the launch silos where another trio of missiles was being prepped. "You were saying?"

"Nothing, not a thing, where would you like your money?"

Sword Spells were still magic. As Dan found out from fighting Rice the first time, they behave how you want them to, the spell does what the caster, or launcher intends it to do. It really was the perfect weapon for Dan as, even in an instant, they could go from weapons of mass destruction to harmless fireworks.

Or were they all just fake Sword Spells that Phoenix and others convinced Dan to use rather than real ones? Either way, De Gauss didn't know that.

"You wanna keep rolling the dice with your own country's safety, by all means, I made extra," Dan said, twirling the remote in his hands. "Not exactly Russian Roulette but I think I got the point across. You see, I do play games from time to time. But when you mess around with me, you should know... even when I don't have quite all the cards, I still have plenty of tricks up my sleeve."

Pinkie applauded. "And THAT is why I loaned you that pun book!"

"And this is why no one is ever going to ship us together."

"What was that?"

"Nothing," Dan said. And that is why everyone ships Dan and Pinkie together. He cleared his throat. "Now, you said you were in debt to the dragons?"

De Gauss got up. "Yes. Are you... are you going to nuke the dragons?"

"No. Maybe? Dunno. They haven't pissed me off like you have, so probably not. HOW MUCH do you owe them?" Dan asked.

The purple griffon looked down at the floor, down at his talons, shrugged and said, "Fifteen-million."

"Fifteen-million what? Bits, bobs, trinkets? Fifteen-million hugs and kisses?"

"Oooh, hugs and kisses are valuable," Pinkie said.

"Eggs," De Gauss said.

"Eggs?" Dan repeated. "Golden eggs? Faberge eggs? Those overpriced chocolate eggs they sell at Easter? Which?" He had at one point stolen all of those different types of eggs.

De Gauss looked down again, sighed and said, "Griffon eggs."

Dan's confused expression turned into a frown. "You sold your own eggs?" He was about to be appalled, facial muscles already beginning to contort into pure disgust, when he felt another claw on his shoulder- Gust's.

"We've been doing this for years, bro. It's not new."

Dan slowly turned. "You... you SELL YOUR OWN PEOPLE. TO DRAGONS." He didn't have to ask what the dragons did with them.

Gust gave an apologetic half-smile/shrug. "Hey, I mean, the dragons consider them a delicacy."

Stomach now churning angrily, Dan nearly spit with disgust. "Yeah, I'm sure they make one hell of an omelette."

"It's not like they're fertilized," Gust added. "It's what my species does, man. We've shared a border with the dragons, dinos and reptiles for years. They eat meat. Sometimes rocks. And when they're tired of fish, they trade steel, ore, coal and other stuff for eggs and feathers. We've got lots of those."

"And we were keeping them in cold storage for safe keeping," De Gauss said. "You resetting the world... wiped out our storage. Dragons get hungry, Dan. If we don't give them something else to eat..." Again, a sentence he didn't have to finish.

"You'll be on the menu. And all my chicken sandwich jokes will be a little too true for comfort, hmm?" Dan asked. Gust nodded timidly. "That's why you needed the Crystal Empire. Dragons can eat gems, too, don't they? You're going to feed them the Empire in lieu of the eggs you've lost."

"That was the plan, yes," De Gauss said. "Obviously, we need something to trade with them or our goose will be cooked. And then devoured. Stealing your gold and everything else, well, that was just added benefit. An opportunity too good to pass up."

"Yeah, well, your plan never would've worked in the first place," Dan told him.

Gust raised his claw. "To be fair, you would've tried the same thing if you even remotely thought you could pull it off."

"He's right," Pinkie agreed.

"Shut up, both of you." Dan thought. Dragons eating griffons, even griffon eggs was an unpleasant thought. But that's how things worked in Equestria; food was scarce, there were a lot more sentient creatures and those ate more meat than non-sentients. A lot of species evolved ways to utilize other food sources and some didn't. Dragons, being more timeless and mythical just stayed the way they were. They let the rest of the world do the changing.

"I have a way to for this to work," Dan said. He paced the room for a minute. "A way for us to be square with everybody. And nobody has to get eaten." That last part was especially relieving for De Gauss to hear. Dan tapped a finger to the side of his chin, pondering. "We're gonna need to send a few messages." He'd already sent a few of those, which was the reason for this display. Now, he needed to send a few other ones.

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