Chapter the Ninth: Hotel Maretonia
Doing His Duty
A My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fan fiction
by Wolfram and Hart
CHAPTER NINE: Hotel Maretonia
The squeaking was going to drive him mad.
Back at Pretentious Name Hotel- or whatever it was called -the prince and his corps were standing once again in the confounded metal contraption called an elevator, listening to its inner workings squawk and squeal as they climbed the sky itself back to Blueblood’s suite.
“We’ve got to do something other than stand around with our hooves rammed up our plotholes!” Cotton shouted, all the blood rushing to her face from both her frustration and the dizzying height they had reached.
“What would you have us do?!” the normally mild-mannered noble shouted back. “Commandeer a skyboat and fly back to Equestria with just four ponies who haven’t the slightest clue how to operate one of those things? You can’t even look over the edge of one without passing out!”
Cotton wasn’t even paying attention to the outside. Her apparent phobias were forgotten in a split second. “Well excuuuuse me, Your Worshipfulness! It’s a better idea than waiting around for somepony to slip a dagger in your throat or a rock of rat poison in your coffee!”
Flash stared at the two feuding ponies going back and forth with an annoyed scowl. “If you’ll let me interject-”
“You would like that, wouldn’t you?!” he hissed. “You’d finally able to get a job that doesn’t require you battle the forces of estrogen on a daily basis!”
“That’s assuming they don’t throw me in the same shallow grave as you, sleazeball!”
Flash cleared his throat. “We’re not going to die here, we just-”
“Sleazeball?” Echoed the prince, a stream of hot steam nearly coming out of his ears. “You know better than anypony that I’m not the lying sex-junkie I used to be.”
“Sure, you’ve gotten over the physical addiction just fine, but in every last addict to ever see the light of day, there is always that nagging desire in the back of their mind. Always a little voice telling you how Sisters-damned badly you want another drink, another smoke, another snort, another mare.”
He gasped. Flash didn’t think that Blueblood had ever been surprised enough to gasp.“How dare you insinuate that I’d ever consider luring another innocent mare back into my bed!”
“Yeah, they sure are innocent all right!”
Something inside of Flash snapped like a raw spaghetti noodle. “Would both of you bickering foals shut your jabbering jaws for one solitary moment and let me concentrate before I throw you both through a window!”
The only sound remaining was the squeaky elevator.
Xander stared at Flash like he had just met his foalhood hero.
“Look who grew a pair.” Cotton nickered.
“Shut up.” Flash rubbed his nose. “Arguing will get us nowhere. You’ve all been in tighter binds before, correct?”
Cotton Swab, Xander, and BB exchanged glances. Hesitantly, they all nodded.
“And those were just with the three of you, and now you have me.” Flash took a deep, cleansing breath, closing his eyes and putting a hoof to his breastplate. He moved his hoof off of his chest and let out the air at the same time, clearing his head as best as breathing could. Nopony could say that he never learned anything from guarding Cadenza.
“Everything will be all right.” He murmured slowly, almost in a meditative state.
Screech. Rumble. Ding. The elevator stopped.
“Now,” Flash said, sliding open the gate “we sit down and unstick ourselves from a sticky situation before it all gets out of hoof.”
And then it got out of hoof.
“Freeze!”
And just like that, four ponies with suspiciously identical coat colors and shiny silver-coated armor not dissimilar to Equestrian Royal Guard’s design surrounded the elevator in a semicircle. Each and every one of them directed a spear and an unhappy grimace towards the corps.
“By the order of His Grace, Prince Gabriel the Second, we are to escort you to a holding cell for your crimes against the people of Maretonia.”
Here we go.
“On what charges?” Blueblood instantly asked.
The lead guard leered at him. “He didn’t say.”
“Hold up.” Cotton Swab said. “We can’t be arrested without any charges against us. Anypony with a fifth grade education knows that. What about due process?”
One of the guards, a bit younger-looking than the rest of them lowered his spear for a moment to scratch his head. “What’s due process?”
The leader shot him a nasty glare and a barely audible growl, snapping the colt right back into shape.
“Right.” Cotton groaned. “Equestrian law doesn’t apply. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do this today.”
“Do what?” Flash made the mistake of asking.
Cotton’s horn burst into flame.
“Oh.”
“Hit the dirt!” The unicorn screamed through gritted teeth, and, lo and behold, Xander, Flash, and Blueblood hit the floor.
The smell of ozone gas filled the room in the blink of an eye as not just a single bolt, but a tangled web of lightning bolts streak from the unicorn’s forehead and danced across the four guards’ bodies, sending them into an embarrassing mess of flailing and pained screams. Getting electrocuted was not a dignifying experience.
With the four ponies spasming on the ground and everyone else with their fur standing on end from static electricity, Cotton turned around, looking very pleased with herself.
“A-are they…?” Flash started to ask.
Cotton rolled her eyes. “They’re fine. The voltage was only high enough to knock them out-cold for approximately fifteen minutes, give or take.”
“Now,” she said. “I say we lock them in the stairwell and then get our asses-”
Thud. Cotton Swabs eyes rolled into the back of her head, followed by the rest of her collapsing to the floor. Standing over the newly comatose medic was a mightily pissed and out of breath unicorn guard with a baton in his magical grasp, the other three standing behind him like they hadn’t had hundreds of volts coursing through their bodies a second ago.
That was a mistake.
“RAAAAAAAAAAAA!”
The Maretonian’s eyes widened as if three hundred pounds of angry zony had let out a eardrum-damaging warcry and was charging right at him. Which, incidentally, was exactly the case.
Whump. Hoof met face. One unlucky guard was sent flying into another, knocking her over like a baseball hitting a milk bottle at the county fair.
The other two stood with dumb looks on their face for a millisecond before remembering they they were actually royal guards and that meant that they had to sometimes fight big, scary things. The two thrust their spears in unison at the raging hulk, one glancing off and another getting stuck in between the plates of his armor, only giving him a shallow wound.
Flash sprang forward and unsheathed his blade in one swift motion. He slashed the first goon’s wooden spear handle clean in half, part of the haft still protruding from the zony’s side.
The first pony, a pegasus stallion, spat out the useless pole and went for his sword, he had his mouth around the hilt when Flash threw a left hook his way and smacked the guard right on his silvery helmet, ringing his proverbial bell. He stumbled back a bit, but still managed to ready the weapon. Their blades clashed with a cry of steel on steel. Flash parried a stab to the left, then ducked a follow-up slash.
Xander, on the other hoof, was having a much better time hitting everypony that could stand to be hit. Down went the second guard with a headbutt before he knew which way was up. The zony didn’t even feel the armored skull colliding with his naked head. By then, the two he put down earlier were back up and ready for more. With a wild grin, Xander shoulder checked the mare guard into a wall, shattering the thin planks like twigs in a hail of splinters and putting her right out of commission. Guard number four- the apparent senior officer -levitated his sword in a spring green aura, holding it in between him and Xander defensively, matching the hulk step for step. They danced for a while. Xander would move forward, and he back. One goes left, the other goes right.
Step. Xander crept closer.
Step. The guard shied farther away.
Step. Closer.
Step. Farther.
Step. Closer still.
Step. The guard’s flank pressed up against the wall.
Xander grinned.
On the other side of the room, two ponies pitted blade against blade. Their pieces sang a metallic song of nothing but soprano notes as the twin shafts of steel spit out hoofulls of sparks with each crash.
“Mmmf mphfmrrk!” (Nice hoofwork!) the guard mumbled at Flash through the hilt of his sword. “Mff mf mrr mm mmr?” (Who was your master?)
“Mm mmn mnnk mnn mnn!” (You wouldn’t know him!) Flash grumbled back.
Flash beat his wings once, giving him enough lift to maneuver his piece and strike from above the guard, aiming for the stallion’s exposed side. The silver swordspony twisted his neck and shoulders just enough to deflect the blow onto his armor, leaving a deep scratch on the surface of the plating.
One. Two. Three stokes in quick succession by Flash forced his foe against a tall window that spanned nearly an entire side of the room from floor to ceiling. Desperate to gain lost ground, the Maretonian switched his target from his foe... to his foe’s weapon, knocking it aside with the flat of his blade. Flash was stunned and confused for a split second, which was all the guard needed to spring around one hundred and eighty degrees and deliver a powerful two-hooved buck right into Flash’s center of mass, knocking him off balance and sending him on an intimate date with the floor. Needless to say, he would be the one paying for dinner.
The silver guard thrust his weapon downward, embedding the sword in the floorboards. “No so fancy now, are ya?”
He rolled Flash onto his back and grabbed him by his armor straps with one hoof, using the other to throw a quick series of jabs right into his jaw. Punch. Punch. Punch. Flash struggled to roll the stallion off of him, but the beating his face had been taking made it a little hard to concentrate.
Punch. “Had enough?”
Flash sucked in as much air as he could and spat a wad of crimson phlegm out, right into the other guard’s face.
He let out a guttural, wordless roar. “I’ll take that as no!”
Punch.
“Say uncle, bitch.”
Punch.
“Say it!”
Flash coughed up even more red saliva.“Xander!”
Getting a bit bored with tossing three guards around the room like a foal with a collection of ragdolls, Xander twisted around to take notice of the predicament that his fellow guard had caught himself in.
Xander narrowed his eyes and let out a wet snort.
Another half-raged, half-gleeful roar exploding from the zony’s throat, Xander casually tossed the youngest of the guards over his shoulder and charged over to the two.
His foreleg cocked back for another blow, the guard looked up the moment Xander’s roars reached his ears.
“Uh oh.” was all he could muster before it was too late.
Next thing he knew, the guard got a taste of his own medicine times ten. The world almost turned to slow motion as Xander put all of his weight, all of his strength, and all of his momentum into one single hoof. Flash watched in horrified fascination as the zony’s hoof met the steel plating of the guard’s chest, forcing the metal to buckle as if it were nothing more than tinfoil.
Perhaps it was the ringing of his ears, but Flash could have sworn that Xander broke the sound barrier with that punch.
It was like watching somepony play tee ball. One instant the ball was there, the next it was already far away. The nameless guard was sent screaming across the room and then some, crashing through the broad window with a shrill shriek and a hail of broken glass, then the next thing anypony knew, he was gone - disappearing into the thick canopy of Thicket. If one listened carefully, then one would notice a constant “Aaaaahhh”, quickly fading into silence as a few moments passed.
Struggling to regain his composure, Flash was helped up by the same hoof that sent his attacker flying. He murmured his thanks, wiped the coagulating blood off of his face, and brushed the glass shards out of his coat. By the Sisters, did he have a headache that could surpass even the worst of hangovers.
Taking a few steps forward, Flash peered out of the brand new hole in Blueblood’s suite and into the thickness of the jungle’s branches. There’s wasn’t even a trace of the guard. Being a pegasus, the sheer height shouldn’t have made Flash dizzy at all, yet he felt like he would’ve fallen over if he looked any longer.
“Sun and stars, Xander,” Flash tried to shake the temporary vertigo from his head “I asked for help, not for you to punt him like a hoofball.”
Xander rubbed the back of his head, a shy grin on his mug.
Flash laughed. Whether it was from the lingering hysteria of what had just happened to him, or actual humor, he didn’t know.
Flash looked around. “Uh, where’s Blueblood?”
The two guard’s hearts both stopped at the same time.
“Celestia’s tears, where is the prince?!”
Then he noticed how there were no guards left in the room anymore, only one unconscious Cotton Swab and a scattering of broken furniture.
Flash’s entire body suddenly felt very heavy as the realization hit him like a zony.
“Tarsus in a handbasket.” he said. “We really screwed up, didn’t we?”
Hesitantly, Xander nodded.
Flash sighed. His head felt like it would pop like a melon under the wheel of a carriage. His heart didn’t feel too far off either. “Okay, okay. Don’t panic. All part of the job. So, sitrep time. The prince is gone, the guards are gone. It’s safe to assume they took him. Now, they’ll be headed down to take him Luna knows where. The only way to do that is either down the stairs-” He involuntarily glanced where the pegasus had been a minute ago “-or out the window.”
Gears grinding. Mind thinking. Plan formulated. “Okay, I think I got it. I’ll fly down and meet them at the lobby. Xander, you wake Cotton up and follow them down the stairs. We’ll come at them from both sides. Classic pincer strategy. Got it?”
Xander gave his brother-in-arms a salute.
“Good. Meet you down there.”
* * *
Somewhere in the twisting, turning halls of a posh hotel, three guards and a noble were having a very bad day.
“HEEEELP! SOMEPONY FOR THE LOVE OF- Urp!”
Captain Garrison Grey, leader of Alpha Squad Three of the Maretonian Duke’s Guard, used his telekinesis to pluck a stray pillow case from a room service cart, wad it up, and forcibly insert it into the captive prince’s piehole, rendering his words little more than unintelligible noise.
Grey didn’t exactly like how visible he was being right now. What he would have given just to slip out a back door and disappear into an empty building until everything was calm again. The trio had no less than four pairs of eyes on them at any given time. Said eyes mostly belonged to fancy ponies with deep pockets and the service ponies that kept them comfortable. A few stern glances and the general reputation of Duke’s Guards kept anypony from opening their mouth.
The captain trailed behind his two underlings who shared the task of carrying the bound and gagged unicorn on their backs.
“I do apologize for doing this.” Garrison said to the prince, who could only shoot a red hot glare back at him.
Unperturbed his captive’s obvious non-acceptance, he went on. “I’m sure, as a royal, you know that what we do is just following orders. Can’t exactly ignore them when they come from the prince of Maretonia himself. Kind of. Boy could never really make decisions on his own.”
The unicorn rolled his eyes.
“Hey, I’m not exactly a happy camper myself. You think I wanted to go from sitting around in nice comfy chairs and watching the world go by to getting zapped, beat up, and thrown around by your buddies?”
There came a crashing from further down the red-carpeted halls.
“Speaking of which…”
There was a flash of black and white as a pony-shaped blur cut across from one hall into another. It was followed by a less blurry grey unicorn with a shock of rose-red hair struggling to keep up. She disappeared behind a wall, but a millisecond later just her head reappeared from around the corner.
“I got ‘em! They’re over here!”
Garrison clenched his teeth. “Hang on to your undergarments. Time to pick up the pace!”
Shuffle. The guards’ armor clanked together even harder as they sped up from a trot into a canter. Alpha Squad Three couldn’t help but glance back at the pair of ponies charging at them in a full gallop.
Zap. A bolt of pink electricity left a black scar on the tastefully tacky wallpaper.
Zap. A bolt of pink electricity left a black scar on Grey’s already roughed-up armor.
“Okay, this mare is really starting to piss me off!”
Doing a one-eighty and planting his hooves firmly into the carpeted floor, the captain's horn lit up with emerald mana. Gritting his teeth in concentration, Grey Garrison let loose his own bolt of energy, but it was no destructive spell. The wad of power stopped mid flight and rapidly expanded to cover the area of the hallway, creating a magical barrier as clear as glass and thin as paper.
Zap. A bolt of pink electricity struck the shield and dissipated harmlessly.
Crash. The unicorn rebounded off of the glowing green shield like a bird hitting a particularly clear window .
“Uhhnn....” she mumbled, lying on the ground as she had been not minutes earlier. “Bad day.”
“Indeed it is.” Grey said before turning to catch up with his squad, who had disappeared down a flight of stairs. “Nothing personal!”
“I hope you fall down those stairs!” she called back in a shrill voice.
* * *
Cotton Swab threw another forceful blast at the shield, even harder than the last time. Her spell had managed to crack the surface, only chipping it like a Celestia-damned gravy boat. The blowback from such a strong burst of energy nearly swept the guard off of her hooves.
“I only like it when I’m the one who screws people with magic!” she yelled at the inanimate wall.
Xander merrily trotted alongside her, gently nudging the unicorn to move back a few paces. Cotton reluctantly stepped aside, a sour grimace on her face.
The zony stretched all four of his legs for a few moments, as if he were warming up for a hoofrace. He cracked his neck, his joints making quiet pops with each movement. Realizing what he was about two do, Cotton took a few more paces back just to be sure.
Pivoting on his front legs, the zony raised his rump in the air toward the shield and let loose a wild buck that could have crushed a lump of coal into a diamond.
A spiderweb of cracks appeared on its glowing surface.
Xander grinned.
Another buck.
Poof. The wall went down less like a window pane and more like a cloud of smoke, losing all of its remaining energy and vaporizing into the air, leaving behind no evidence that it had ever been there.
Xander turned back to Swab with his trademark crazed grin, then jerked his head in the direction that the other guards went.
“Don’t have to tell me twice.” Cotton said.
* * *
In the lobby of the hotel, Cotton Swab was still having a bad day.
She didn’t particularly care for this place’s choice of decor. Red on gold on even more gold wasn’t the most creative of color combinations. For some reason, ponies thought that particular pairing gave one a feeling of “royalty”, like they were special if they were given the proverbial red carpet treatment. All it did was make her eyes hurt.
And what was the deal with those paintings covering the walls anyway? Back when she was a filly, the artists painted great scenes with intricate details that chronicled something they deemed beautiful; sometimes they were important battles fought in the name of Equestria, sometimes they were vast tracts of land that spread out for miles. Nowadays, ponies painted these weird, simplistic shapes that had no real form to them. It was as if the artists smeared paint all over the canvas with their hooves at random and called it a masterpiece.
Swab wasn’t too fond of the ponies that patronized the place, either. She would bet money that ponies from Equestria wouldn’t run around screaming their heads off when a minor rumble between a couple of guards suddenly erupted in the hotel’s lobby. It was like they had never seen a three-on-three skirmish in a public place before. What a bunch of lightweights.
Swords clashed with swords, spells clashed with spells, and hoof clashed with hoof as the guards fought tooth-and-nail for the still helpless prince tied up in a corner. Ponies not involved in the battle busied themselves by getting as far away from it as possible, or those not smart enough to do so merely chose to gallop in circles, calling for help that was not likely to come.
“What-” Cotton Swab ducked under a blast of pale green fire “-in the six levels of Tartarus-” she let loose a swift beam of sub-zero ice magic, covering the unicorn guard in a layer of frost and stifling his fire magic “-DO YOU WANT WITH HIM?”
The leader guard shook off the numbing cold and summoned forth a laser-horn-sword-thing with a hiss of raw mana, prompting Cotton to do the same.
“I haven’t a clue!” The two of them galloped forth and their horns met with a shower of sparks and a shrill crack as two beams of light perfectly equal in power tried to repel each other like magnets.
Back and forth they jousted, their energy weapons of fire hissing and snapping with even the lightest of contact. It was almost rhythmic, the way they switched from attacking to defending in a flash, stopping briefly to circle each other and wait to see who would chose to strike next. Up, down, left, right. Left, up, down, right, circle. It was only a matter of time before somepony missed a beat and lost the rhythm.
Clash. The ponies found themselves locking horns, both green and red blades sliding down the length of one another with a hail of sparks that singed tiny bald spots into their fur. They ended up pressing forehead to forehead, faces not inches away, eyes locked, both pairs of them filled with the rage of battle.
“Listen, sweetie,” the dark grey guard grunted, his hot breath curling Cotton’s nose hairs “it doesn’t have to be like this, all right? I’m just doing my duty, you’re just doing yours. Why don’t we just drop our shit and talk about this like responsible adults before somepony has to go home in a wooden box, all right?”
Cotton hesitated. By the Sisters, she didn’t want to die for the prince. He wasn’t that bad of a pony but neither was he the patron saint of fluffy kittens and lollipops.
“You drop yours, I drop mine.” Cotton said slowly.
“Done.”
“On three?”
“Sounds good.”
“Three.”
And just like that, the two laser swords dissipated. Both the unicorn stallion and Cotton signaled their fellow guards to stand down. Xander planted his hooves firmly in the floor, Flash let his blade roll off of his tongue, and the others did the same.
“Theeere we go. Nice and friendly.” the leader said.
“So what is it you wanted to discuss?” Cotton’s voice was icy as ever.
“Hey hey, let’s not start off on the wrong hoof here-” he said.
“Too late for that.” one of the guards commented.
“Okay, yeah, we’re past the point of the “lovely weather we’re having” smalltalk.” He let out a genuine chuckle, relaxing the mood just a smidge. “My name’s Grey Garrison, Captain of this squad of ah, well, foalnappers.”
“Cotton Swab,” Cotton deadpanned. “Queen of bad days. Get to the point.”
“Ohhh, not a trusting pony I see.” He spoke as if they weren’t trying to stab each other with light swords sixty second ago. “Fine, fine, I have but one thing to say, and I’m pretty sure that it will convince you to allow me to make off with the prince unscathed.”
“Over my dead body.” She snapped, her horn erupting into another bout of red light. While she wouldn’t lay her life on the line for Blueblood, she had no problem doing it just to contradict some random plotface. Cotton was fickle like that.
“Funny thing is, it’s only a single word.”
“What word?!” Cotton shouted louder than she meant to.
“Backup.”
She furrowed her brow. “Back up to where?”
“Oh hell.” Flash sighed, performing a particularly defeated facehoof. “Backup.”
And then it got even more out of hoof.
At once many doors- really nice doors made from bamboo bundled together and painted red -were blown apart in succession like somepony lit the fuse on a bundle of dynamite. One, two, three, four, an entrance on virtually every side of the building was made, and a swarm of silver-plated guards flooded in like locusts, their collective armor plates banging together like a symphony of tin cans.
In the time that it took for a pony to say “This sucks”, the hotel lobby had vacated to all tourists and been filled by a miniature army of Maretonian guards. One, two, ten, thirty, Cotton couldn’t have counted them if she tried.
“Welp,” Cotton let her horn sword dissipate “we surrender.”
The still bound and gagged Blueblood let out a muffled scream of protest.
Cotton unhooked that straps that kept her scarcely used shortsword on her side and threw it to the floor.
If Flash Sentry were drinking something, he’d have done a spit-take.”What? Just like that?!”
Cotton scoffed bitterly. “Didn’t they teach you math in the third age? Three of us versus enough of them to start a marching band.”
“Not good odds.”
“Hey you!” one of the guards yelled, thrusting a hoof at Xander. “Stay away from the fugitive!”
Xander put a hoof to his chest and raised an eyebrow at the guard.
“Yeah you, stripes.”
Xander, a completely cool look upon his face, let his hoof hover an inch away from the prince’s face.
“What did I just say?!” He drew his sword and took a menacing step toward the zony.
Xan had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. He poked Blueblood lightly multiple times in multiple places, making direct eye contact with the guard and not once breaking it.
“All right smartass, you asked for it!”
Whump. It’s like ponies never expect the hulking half-zebra to punch them in the face.
If ever there was a time where things were as far out of hoof as equinely possible, this would be it.
Quick for his size, Xander grabbed Blueblood by his bonds and flung him onto his back like a sack of grain, eliciting a series of surprised mumbles from the prince. He lowered his head and bolted for the thinnest part of the crowd, the zony guard’s thick skull knocking them aside like bowling pins. He didn’t even bother with using a door, choosing instead to make his own and crash straight through the wall, leaving a Xander-shaped hole in its side.
“Aaaaand he’s gone.” Garrison said. “Smashing.”
“Well set me on fire and call me the sun.” Cotton breathed. “That zony never ceases to do something I didn’t see coming.”
“Yeah.” was all Flash could say.
He was then suddenly aware of a white unicorn horn in his personal space.
“Hey, watch-”
Poof. A cloud of powdery substance coated his face.
“That smells kind of nice act-”
* * *
“Hey.”
“Waaake uuuup.”
“Heyheyheyheyheyheyhey!”
“...”
“WAKE UP!”
With a snort Flash Sentry was rudely yanked out of his slumber, flailing like as fish out of water.
“Ah! Whuh? Hmmm?” Was the witty reply Flash made to his newly-acquired state of consciousness.
“Yep. I think that dun woke ‘im.” somepony with an accent like a banjo remarked. “Gall darn it, Pinkie, any higher pitched and only mutts could’a heard ya.”
“Sorry!” replied another pony whose voice sounded like she had been sucking on helium.
The first thing that Flash noticed about the room was the severe lack of any decent light source. The only thing that kept his world from being pitch black was a flickering orange tiki torch that caused all of the ponies shadows to dance on the walls.
Oh, and then there were the ponies. Lining the sides of the ten foot-by-ten room were five strange ponies with neon colored coats, an alicorn princess, and one very familiar unicorn guard, all snugly tied to their chairs with heavy-duty rope. It was like one of those situations that always ended in a punchline.
Flash groaned. “So, did we win?”
Why do I always leave these chapters on cliffhangers?
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Ok I'm sorry but does diplomatic immunity not exist cause if it does then the government of maretonia is possibly guilty of several international crimes. Like enough to start a war
5996931 Just wait. All will be revealed.
5996931
That... is completely irrelevant. In any era, in any political climate, under any set of laws... government agents attacking a foreign royal in country by invitation of said government is an act of war.
...
I am, of course, ignoring the assault and abduction of Her Royal Highness Princess Twilight Sparkle for the purpose of this comment and only referring to Blueblood. The blatant treachery inherit in the attack on Twilight and the other Bearers is the sort of thing that would completely destroy a nation on the international stage. Maretonia has proven to all the other nations that they are warmongers that can not be trusted.
fair enough
5997112 Yeah, their asses are toast, especially because there is absolutely no way Luna is not going to find out about this and send a message to Equestria to call for immediate reinforcements with her dreamwalking. Equestria will be at war in a matter of hours, and there is no way in hell Maretonia is getting out of that without taking huge losses.
5997397
5997112
I'm going to not do that just to piss you both off.
Remember: This isn't medieval Germany, Ponies don't exactly have a history of mounting heads on pikes.
5997454 It is true that this is not Earth, but allowing Maretonia to get away with assaulting and abducting royalty is quite literally allowing them to hold the entire country hostage. No country can possibly allow that or they quite literally cease to be a sovereign state so Equestria is obligated to go to war in order to remain a nation.
Furthermore, even if Equestria somehow does cave to this in spite of all logic, this precedent means no country can afford to allow any of their government officials go to Maretonia for fear of being put into the same bind so Maretonia will be completely cut off from all international relations including trade because no one is willing to talk to them. That will seriously hurt their economy, especially because it seems to rely heavily on tourism, and the isolation will also make them a prime target for invaders because there is no way anyone will be willing to back Maretonia up while the invaders can quite easily pick up allies.
5997544 Can't argue with that. Partially because your right, and partially because doing so would require me to give out spoilers.
5997569 Well, I guess I'll just have to wait to see what happens next chapter and hope it will not be stupid enough to make me dump this story.
5997141
I didn't even see you comment, Guy!
And thank you for the praise. I kind of tried to set it up like, believe it or not, a television show in my head. Just back and forth and back and forth with bits and pieces of characterization until it's time for a swordfight. I love writing dialogue.
5997544 ... Isn't that what I said?
I thought it was... but then I do have a bad habit of not explaining blatantly obvious common sense things that anyone with half a brain would immediately realize.
...
Yes that is a bad habit, it comes up more than you would think... maybe. It's more than I would think anyway, but that might be one of ^those^ things.
5997454
Well you could do that... sort of like you could have Fluttershy suddenly rape Luna with a roto-rooter. (I try not to say "you can't" because technically since you have a keyboard, a basic understanding of the English language, and an internet connection you can literally do anything in your story.) But it would be absurd and completely break any rational person's willing suspension of disbelief and ruin the story.
Neither does America... but you can bet your ass if a nation pulled crap like this we would be going to war. Inviting all the leaders of a nation to come to your capital and then attacking them is a clear and premeditated act of war. There is NO other way that can be interpreted. The only way you could realistically, as in non shitty-ly, is if the Duke and the government of Maretonia wasn't involved. Like if the griffin bride faked the orders and set the whole thing up by usurping her grooms authority.
5997593 He probably wasn't notified of your reply. The site is really finicky with replies that are on different chapters than their targets.
5997569
Hmm, and I thought that they were going to get away with it for the same reason that they became an independent nation. Equestria is to damn far to execute a protracted war. They would have to find friendly soil to stage from, it would cost a lot and losing the wealth from exports to Mareitonia would make it an unpopular war. If the Mareitonians end up giving back the Princess (royal dignitaries) it would at worst become an economic war, high tariffs, export restrictions, and Equestria would likely get Maretonia's neighbors to execute restrictions as well.
5998122 That was what you said, but his reply made it sound like he missed the blatantly obvious so I tried to clarify it.
While you could do that to avoid a total war, it would still ruin Maretonia. The marriage would obviously have to be canceled which is going to have political consequences and Maretonia would have to pay huge reparations up front and eat heavy tariffs which would completely ruin their economy. Then it is going to escalate further because other governments are going to follow suit because of the increased risk in dealing with Maretonia and because it will let them take advantage of the situation to make a lot of money and boost their own economies.
5998207 While the cost of war may be high, the public will be 100% behind it after they assaulted and abducted Blueblood, Twilight, and the rest of the Elements so there will be no problem dropping the hammer on them politically. Furthermore, Celestia is already in the middle of the city with several major warships so there are good odds they can launch a decapitating strike to end the war in a matter of minutes. That or Celestia could just torch the place before she leaves because it is made almost entirely of wood and she has a definite connection with fire.
Of course, even if that does not happen the entire international community will be behind them after an abduction like that so they will have no problem finding allies to stage their troops from and provide additional forces so the cost of a protracted war would be spread around fairly well and Equestria would be able to bring far more troops to bear than Maretonia could ever hope to stop.
5998484
Ahh but you forget this is the land of magical peace loving ponies that believe in harmony and equality. War by its very nature is inharmonious and would be seen as a horrible breach of every tenet Equestria was founded on. So even if the unlawful imprisonment of its royalty and national saviors would be see as a horrible act, war would not be the first go to act of Equestria. Ransom would be their first act. Pay for the safe return of their dignitaries.
And yes this assumes that they ignore the fact that Equestria has a small Battle fleet on hand. But whats the first rule of Hostage negotiations? Keep the hostages safe. If Celestia threatens to bombard the city there's a good chance that Twilight, her friends, Bluebloods guards, many many innocent civilians, and Blueblood himself might be hurt (the latter I think half of Equestria might not consider such a big loss). The only action that might be proactive enough would be if Celestia or Luna had some SpecOps units to pull a seal team six, and either free the hostages or capture the Bride and Groom.
While I know paying ransom is a foolish thing to do, and seriously is bad politics I believe, that in the candy colored world of MLP it would be the go to move for the inept government of Equestria. I mean Celestia relies on a magical friendship i-win button in almost every conflict, I highly doubt without her sister running the military she would even be capable of running a war.
5998122
The piss you off thing was a joke by the way. I really do not intend to make my readers mad at me. I was simply reffering to the fact that I liked to bait you guys into assuming the obvious outcome. (ex. You all thought that BB slept with a dragon when in fact it was a dragon rider)
Im also loving these walls of text.
I do wonder if Twilight feels any attraction towards Flash in this story. Being trapped so close to him might make it a little awkward for her if she is, especially with her friends watching.
5998534 Any nation that does that will collapse in nothing flat because setting that kind of precedent means everyone knows they can kidnap diplomats and ransom them for money or other key concessions with little to no risk. If Celestia did that, Equestria would have collapsed in a century or two tops so this is obviously not the case because we know Equestria is at least 1000 years old.
5999996
Again that is where you are wrong. It all comes back to economics. Equestria is a super power despite having shit for military, that means they have economic domination. If a country gets riled up and starts makeing military overtures all Equestria would have to do is make it economically impossible to engage in warfare. Heavy taxes and tariffs would make importing goods and services difficult. If an invasion force has to pay ten times as much to move it's supplies around fighting a war would not be feasible. By using allies doing the same thing it quickly becomes unpopular for the waring nations people who are suffering from recession to justify a war. In the end Equestria's power stems from its economic might and super magical weapons rather than any military supremacy.
6000036 No, that is how you start a war. That kind of economic squeeze makes the country and population desperate and forces them to go to war to get the resources they need to survive. That is exactly the kind of thinking that drove Germany to start World War II and the effects will be even more pronounced in a pre-modern society where weapons do not need anywhere near as much logistical support and you can supply the army by pillaging the land you are invading.
6000191
Yes desperation could cause conflict, Equestria may not be the target since their control over most of their continent suggest an invasion would need a vast naval presence. But attacking Equestria's allies wouldn't be smart either. While militarily they are weak Equestria has an agricultural and pre-industrial arcanoworks that no other country could easily replicate. If directed at an ally, any losses suffered due to military action would be easily bolstered.
Meanwhile every scrap of material, every one, every grain, must be pulled from local resources or paid for in blood. At some point the aggressor will realize that prolonged conflict will weaken them on one too many fronts. Either their agricultural system will fail them and the military won't be able to secure enough to support farther aggressive action or the population won't be able to keep up military recruitment demands. A conflict like this will resonate in a culture for generations, Equestria is not to be messed with, having a strong enough influence in a global economy will insure relative peace and prosperity. This was how America dominated in WWII not by having a superior military, but by out spending everyone else.
6000298 Given that you clearly have no idea how historical conflicts worked and why they were able to last for decades of active fighting, I am not going to bother responding to your stupidity any longer.
6000317
I suggest you read up on WWII America didn't want to go to war so we took a neutral stance. But we still supported our allies by sending them economic aid and weapons. All while ramping up our industrial might. A few years of our allies and the axis tradeing blows, some of our allies getting invaded the war was at a stand still. Our economic superiority could not overcome their resources.
And then Japan made the mistake of drawing us into the war. Truth was we were already up to our elbow sending weapons and independent soldiers to our allies, but Japan gave us a pretense to take off the gloves. Still fresh, and with an industrial might already ramped for war we began to make the cheapest, most easily mass-produced weapons we could. In the end we out spent our enemies simply by having more money and resources. By the end everyone else was scrapping the bottom of the barrel while America's spending power was going strong.
Then like Equestria, America rolled outs it's I-win button, all that money well spent showed it had the power to back up its economic threat.
At the end of it all it wasn't our superior technologies, our men went better fighters, our tactics were on par with each other, it wasn't even that our ideologies were better. In the end it was our Superior economy that won the day, and secured our prosperity for the next 50 years.
I blame Blueblood's penis.
6001393
It's not the size of the boat, but where you sail it that makes you a target for assassinations.
6007509
Story of my life.