Oh For Goodness Sakes
Well, Celestia wasn't really willing to take any of Aepnet's crap either. Given that Celestia was the princess that Aepnet had to deal with his entire reign for the most part, I can't see why Aepnet would be surprised that Celestia wasn't willing to listen to his nonsense. He should have dealt with the raiders before they tried something like this, plain and simple, and Celestia didn't seem to be willing to believe otherwise.
Well, it was fun watching him flounder under Celestia's stern glare. He is nervously poking at the ground while Celestia and Luna glare at him. Kathyrine is simply facepalming him, and I can't blame her. I'd be pretty embarrassed if I showed up and this was how my father was acting too.
While they were dealing with the garbage that had come to us, I decided to come and look at the trash I was about to take out. I trotted over to the collection of POWs and looked down at all of them. Most of them cowered before me, refusing to make eye contact with me. The ones that had been knocked out by the knockout darts my soldiers had fired had come too and were sitting there, staring at me with wide, fearful eyes. The one who interested me the most, however, was Sinosis. He wasn't looking so scared anymore, even though I was fully aware that he was at least a little. It's hard to just get over the kind of fear that you feel when you're so scared that you can't even move. Like I said, though, he didn't seem so afraid now. He was staring at me with a smirk on his face and his arms crossed. I returned his smirk and trotted up to him.
"You seem calm."
He snorted and idly examined one of his claws. "I don't think that I have anything to fear."
"Indeed?" I chuckled and sat down in front of him. "You realize that you're in deep trouble, yes? We're going to be doing a lot of digging about your activities in the very near future. We're going to find out just how extensive your actions are."
Sinosis shrugged and began cleaning out his head feathers with his talons. "Yeah, well, I won't worry too much about that. You see, I have some interesting information that I think you especially would really like."
I raised my eyebrow and tapped my hoof on the ground. "Do tell?"
"Ah ah ah." Sinosis wiggled his talon at me condescendingly. "I'm sure royalty knows how this kind of thing works. I tell and I go free. That seems like a fair deal, doesn't it?"
"Oh not remotely." I shook my head and looked over to Celestia who was still chewing Aepnet out. "A few words won't erase the psychological damage you inflicted upon a hundred ponies, Mr. Sinosis. You can certainly get your sentence lessened if your information proves useful, but don't think that anything you're going to say is going to let you go free as a bird... no pun intended."
"Izzat so?" Sinosis' smirk widened and he leaned in closer to me by a few inches. Captain Blaze and Lieutenant Rapids took a few steps forwards, but I waved them off. "What if I told you that I didn't exactly act of my own accord? Like, somegriffin hired me to take your precious ponies?"
Well, that was certainly new information. Something that I hadn't considered before given the natures of the raiders. Of course, if money did drive them, then why wouldn't they kidnap and enslave for hire? Maybe he was talking out of the other side of his face, but it was worth spending a little attention on. It didn't hurt me any.
"I'm listening."
"That's all you’re getting from me until I can go free." Sinosis' expression hardened into a glare. "I'm not one who is easily bullied. I'll grant that your trick in the forest was a good one. A very good one, but it is a one-use thing, Antares. It won't work again. You can't force the answer out of me."
"And I'm not letting you go completely free unless I know what the information is," I retorted, "so we'll go quid pro quo on it. You tell me a little bit, and I'll decide if it’s worth my time. The more I like it, the lesser your punishment. I will not let you off in one go, understood? You accept this or I walk away."
The corners of Sinosis' mouth curled into a snarl, but he knew as well as I that he was in absolutely no position to deny my request. All I had to do was say no and walk away and he was left at the mercy of the Equestrian government. But if I said that I might ease up punishment, I couldn't go back on that any more than the other princesses could veto me.
"It's a deal. The first little tidbit that I have for you is that I had no real reason to go out of hiding to pull this job."
"No reason that I know of doesn't mean that you had no personal reason. Not good enough."
"I'd need a trump card in case I got caught, I'd need a real reason to risk my entire organization and all of my men to get a few slaves when I knew that there was a new princess right on my doorstep with a fresh five hundred pony strong army that could be down on me in a few hours if I was hiding in the most likely place, which I was."
Hmm. Okay. Interesting point. He had piqued my interest, and he knew it. His glower turned back into a smirk and he idly examined one of his talons again. "When you think about it, what I did seems pretty stupid when you consider where you are and how fast you lot tend to respond to these scenarios. It also seems pretty clumsy of me to let one of only a hundred ponies escape all of the way to one of your major cities, doesn't it?"
Okay, now he really had my attention. I slowly nodded as the cogs in my brain worked. "We won't tear your wings off or declaw you."
That made his smile falter. He hadn't realized that he was sitting in that kind of a fire, I'll wager. Truth be told he wasn't, but I had to start that high so that he didn't reveal so much information that I was forced to let him go after a short amount of time. I spun my hoof to indicate to him to keep going. He weakly cleared his throat and did so.
"So I guess the question you have to ask yourself is why would I do it? Why would I risk my organization, my men, potentially my life all for a few gryph*-a-dozen slaves? What exactly was I offered that would make that particular spot worth it? I could have gone literally anywhere else, that's the best part of being a slaver like I am: I'm mobile. I could pick up more valuable slaves somewhere else. Why did I pick that exact spot?"
"You won't get life in prison. Keep going."
More griffins and snarcasti-guards around us were listening in now. I have to wonder how many of them knew about what Sinosis was talking about, but most of them seemed to be curious, which made sense. The less griffins who know, the harder it is for the secret to get out.
"I'd need the backing of somebody really powerful, somebody who I could count on to get me out of the inevitable mess that I'd be in. I knew that I'd be safe since Equestria isn't a warlike nation, but it is still one that I would have to surrender to given who leads it."
"Give me a name. Who hired you?"
"I want to go free!" Sinosis snarled. "I'll give you every single detail including correspondence letters which I kept for exactly this reason if I get off completely free!"
"I can't make those kinds of promises here and now while we're sitting in a field," I snapped. "How the heck am I supposed to know that any of what you're telling me, or would be about to tell me is true? You could have made a tactical mistake that you're trying to cover for."
Sinosis snorted and crossed his arms. "I could be. Or I could not be that stupid, and let's be honest. I'm not."
"You let an alicorn princess walk into your camp and captured her without thinking that she had a backup plan." I smirked at him. "Yeah, I don't think you're the tactical genius that you think that you are. I don't think that you're completely dumb, but you're not a paragon of brains."
Sinosis' smirk fell and his eyes narrowed. "Nevertheless, I know what I'm doing, and I constantly make plans. The second that I was approached by my benefactor I made plans in case this very thing happened." He pointed a claw at me and my guard took another menacing step towards him. "I know that I am not lying, Antares. I know that I was hired to foalnap your precious subjects. Lower the sentence some more and I'll tell you why."
"Down five years. More."
"You have somebody, a political rival, we'll say. This somebody wanted to test your mettle, to see what kind of ruler you would be. Somebody who wanted to see if you could be strong armed or bullied; bought or intimidated. Would you be weak? Strong? Useless without your guard around you? This somebody wanted to know. Lower some more and I'll tell you why."
"Give me a name and we'll skip right on down to the lowers possible sentence. Name and proof."
"And what is the lowest possible sentence, hmm?" Sinosis slammed his talon on the ground, sending flecks of dirt flying. "Ten years in a pony prison? Deportation to a Saddle Arabian prison? Oh I know all about how you are on good terms with dear old Sultan Mesud over there. He'd be happy to take any war criminals you got, wouldn't he?"
"Look just give me the name of the guy who hired you and we can talk!" I looked over at Celestia who was still talking to Aepnet. Or at the very least, they were talking. They were all currently looking at me like I was mad. Everybody except...
Oh hail no.
I stared open-mouthed and wide-eyed at Aepnet for a solid thirty second before my brain started to function again. Maybe it was just the fact that I hadn't dealt with him before, maybe I was misreading this, maybe I was just too used to Celestia and Luna who would, possibly, never pull this kind of thing but... wow. Good golly gee willikers wow.
Well, Aepnet looks absolutely terrified, solidifying in my mind that I drew every possibly correct conclusion based on what Sinosis told me. The princesses weren't really sure why I looked so stunned, all except Kathyrine who was starting to piece it together if her growing smile was any indication. After a few more seconds she let out a single laugh and facepalmed.
"Dad, did you seriously hire that Sinosis dude to kidnap those ponies?"
Busted.
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Well that was fast. I'm impressed.
Lol Apenet.
hrrrm. interesting
oh, wow, just finished the last chapter and BAM new chapter
I wonder if TD will teach the ponies how to cook fried 'chicken' wings now...
Well... That was unexpected.
so many emails saying this updated
Magical mind rape would've been a hilarious card to play with this bastard, too bad TD doesn't know that spell. Maybe he an learn it in the future?
And next should come the morality questioning decision, everything was set up so that all of the captured ponies would be set free, but it was by force. The guy was just a hired goon, but he is a slaver...Is that illegal wherever he calls home? Should someone pay for their occupation when entering somewhere it is illegal? But he wasn't really trying to enslave those ponies...So he technically didn't commit that crime in Equestria.
On the other hand, once he realizes what's happened, he'll realize he never told TD, so he has only bargained down to "Not life in prison, minus five years."
NOW WRITE THE NEXT PART
Well looks like no matter what unverse he is in karma is out for that griffin (griffon?)
This is why he should have added Torture,Interrogation,Explosions,Fire,And sharks to his list of domains
Well, that was fast, but ruse is not over. I wish Antares was omnivorous, she got predatory mentality and ubtly name (Antares = Red Star, Eye of Scorpio, Gates of Scorpio). Her heraldic symbol should be an scorpion, not vase with flowers
(why this has not come to my mind earlier?).
Well, saw that coming a mile away
.
. . . just painfully obvious.
It's still great
3664703 That... would have been kind of cool. I didn't think of it either. My cutie mark was worse, so don't worry too much about it.
Excellent, a break from the series, when will TD get ack to being a guy?
HOLY FUCK HE GOT OWNED!
3664724 When I can fit it into the story and not have it be contrived or shoehorned. It has to fit into the natural flow.
3664714
Well. Scorpions have well-developed maternal instinct...
Fuuuuuuu! We need rebranding here. Give me several hours.
3664755 Nothing is set in stone if a truly better option is given.
Now how obvious was that? ...I'm going to give you one word. Very.
There's a little button called "Edit"; all of your chapters have it. Use it gratuitously. There's no fics but what we edit ourselves.
3664840 Huh?
Well, someone is clearly good at his job.
Also, I feel like TD promised a lot of things that s/he didn't need to. The only places where reductions really needed to be made was at the beginning to get him intimidated and at the very end to get a name because most of what was said really was just him reiterating the same points over and over again. TD also could have thrown execution into the list of "things not to do" along with some other creative punishments to get him to tell without ever actually conceding anything.
3664876 I think the message was "feel free to edit previous chapters". I would also like to request a blog post clearly stating what you changed because it can be infuriating to have authors leave a little note at the end of a chapter saying they edited something vaguely in the past without bothering to mention what they changed and where they changed it.
3664876 In the non-canon Mane-iac chapter, there's a repeating word. It goes
3664752
Ehh, I'm rather fond of TD having to be a mare. Things can easily be more hilarious that way. You would have a much broader range of jokes to use not matter how bad they could be.
3665020 god damn it, were were
3665052 Well, it should have been 'we were'.
3665077
mrwgifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Joke-Goes-Over-Your-Head-Star-Trek-Gif.gif
3665257 No, simply the previous episode, "Flight to the finish".
And it could be much, much worse, even though I can't be arsed to think of examples right now. I kinda like superhero stuff in general, even though I don't read superhero comics, and I was pretty entertained by Power Ponies. I guess to each his own.
Kinda funny how you despise superheroes and all your username makes me think of is Darkwing Duck.
Aepnet got last in line in terms of political brains, didn't he?
Aepnet...not cool bro.
Kidnapping is bad , dude
3665396
Oh. Right. I forgot. Hehehe.....he. 
3665370
Yep.
Unfortunately for him, they ran out right when Aepnet got to the counter.
still shooken up over the whole "power ponies" chapter but this one is really good! Sinosis should have the death sentence though, or at least wings and claws cut off and life in prison.
3664681
TD: "Good. The sharks won´t have lazers attached to their heads".
This is my favourite fic I've read so far!
Please do keep them amazingly sexy chapters coming! 
3665268 ...As in a plot or butt of the cannon? ...Gun Humor, Bringing odd references to porn in many ways since 1703.
3665212 ...That's pretty much the gist. Now explain what you were trying to say. ...Without improper grammar, memes, or porn references. ...I'm so sick of the porn references. Nice gif, by the by.
I bet it was Kathyrine who hired him...
Ah Aepnat, TD foils you even here.
3665026
Agreed. All it takes now is for a guy (possibly drunk?) to hit on TD - and then e watch the hilarity unfold.
Oh, wow, something for Discord to do. Lookit that...
You know, I'm starting to like this Sinosis dude. I kinda hope he shows up more later down the line
I guess he's never hear of political shat storm or grounds to start or getting puplic execution
I vote public execution of Aegnet and displaying his corpse at theequestrian/Griffonian border.
GG Apenet. No Re.
real
It should be I knew since he's talking in the past tense
I'm thinking this is suppposed to be you instead of I since he is talking to TD.
Should be willikers (I'm really nitpicking now
)
Aepnet did a much better job hiding from his crimes in Wanderings. Then again, there wasn't a hostage to tattle on him either.
3664681 well sharks at the very min.
3664752
Such a thing as an Alicorn Prince appears to be unheard of in Equestria, so if TD manages to become one it'll a whole new & different can of worms that could have loads of story milage in it, but that's precisely why I agree you should do everything you want or need to do with the 'Princess' angle first.
I would love it TD somehow discovered how to restore his gender & went ahead & did it without realizing the chaos that the emergence of Equestria's first & only Alicorn Prince would bring, something that Celestia herself was trying to avoid & was the reason why she'd been dragging her hooves on the subject.
3666637 Well Spike already learned this lesson twice. No need for me to re-hash it with him here.