Equestrian Landings

by qwefg

ch22 See No Human, Hear No Human, Speak No Human

Valkyrie

I stood outside near the edge of New Terra, watching a few adventures buying a cart as they planned to explore the Badlands for their next adventure. I couldn’t help but wonder if they were trying to search for bury treasure… maybe slay some local monster or perhaps they were searching for a new site to dig at?

Lucky them, they get to do all the fun stuff.

I couldn't help but sigh, as I was stuck waiting out here while the sun was slowly rising up in the sky. How long had I been waiting out here? We had to stand out here when the sun woke us up… I think that was six maybe seven AM? Then we were stuck waiting outside for an hour… or was it two hours.

“How long have we been waiting?” I asked out loud

Steel took a deep breath as he replied “Just a few hours.”

I glanced at Steel Halberd “Why are we supposed to be standing outside instead of waiting in a nearby building… or near one of those gift shops?”

I didn’t know the correct name for the shop, but it looked like a small hut and it sold various small overpriced trinkets to be used as mementos to remind you of your wonderful experience… preferably when you forgot all the problems and annoyances you had to getting to or being in New Terra. The shopkeeper smiled ready to meet and attempt to (legally) swindle them like a Disneyland Gift Shop.

Steel held his head tall reminding me of one of those nameless background guards in MLP and recited “Because Celestia sent a diplomat and our orders are to render assistance to them.”

“It’s politics, but in your case orders.” Remedy Cross grumbled as she stood off to the side “We needed extra ponies to help transport Brass safely, so why not send a diplomat along with them while they we’re at it? “ She said pragmatically. “Brass was a part of the Tartarus outbreak, so the other nations will want to know what she was looking for, or what they are planning with the escaped criminals.”

I stared at her as she didn’t exactly looked thrilled with what was going on, and having to wait out here certainly wasn’t making it any better. The unicorn was glaring at the ground as if it had offended her in some way, as I could almost swear she was muttering underneath her breath.

I looked over to Steel Halberd “Hum, What other nations are involved in this and what does Tartarus have anything to do with them?”

Steel shook his head “Tartarus is also a jail used by other nations and races, and other groups. They just want to make sure that one of their ancient villains and monsters was not freed during the prisoner break.”

Preferring not to learn anything more about the terrifying monster called politics, I cleared my throat and spoke out loud “So how was your encounter with Brass?”

Remedy kicked the ground as she spoke with a hint of annoyance “Well, When she was knocked out, it was rather civil. I treated her injuries to make sure she didn’t somehow choke on her own spit… and then when the little menace was awake we tried to be civil towards one another as we understood our positions.”

Steel quirked an eyebrow and stared at her in disbelief at the odd statement “You were civil?”

Remedy groaned in annoyance “I didn’t harm her physically… or mentally, if that is what you mean.”

A small smile appeared across her face as there was an almost…cheerful tone to it “I followed the medical textbook procedures… and dislocated one of her legs.” she caught us staring at her in disbelief as she rolled her eyes “To be fair, she did come at me while swearing up a storm, and the guards did try to rush in to stop her.”

Steel Halberd groaned “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Remedy shrugged as she chuckled a little “A small thundercloud actually manifested itself inside the room and zapped her. It was actually rather funny, seeing the curse itself in action. ”

Steel coughed as he tried to look professional “While we may have found her, we don’t know what she could have came here for. We don’t know how long Brass has been there, or what was she looking for, or more importantly if she found it.”

“So you think she could have been stealing more priceless artifacts or playing highway bandit again, right?” Remedy replied in a firm tone.

Steel took a deep breath as he tried not to face Remedy Cross “We also have four ponies to bring back with us, that’s four prisoners in total.” Emphasizing is words on that last part. ”Beside, we couldn’t exactly just ask Peter if he could carry us back to Canterlot, right after we arrived at their settlement, especially after he was injured just getting us here safely.”

I took a deep breath as that at least did make sense. Even if you ignored who the criminals were… it wouldn’t be a good idea to have a prisoner escort to have the same amount of guards as you did prisoners. It was a long ride getting to New Terra with dragon assistance. and it would be even more difficult to pursue if one of them managed to escape, as we would also have to keep guard on the other prisoners remaining.

It also wouldn’t look good of us to have promised assistance to the settlement, only to leave them on their own, just when we found the fugitives to bring back home.

I sighed as Steel had a pretty good point “Okay… but why do I have to wait out here without my armor when it’s ready to be picked up.” I turned my head down on my backside, seeing only my bare cream coat.

The human turned earth pony calling himself Forge had said my armor was fixed, and I wanted to see how effective his repair job was. And, I had to admit that it felt strange being outside without my armor on. I tried not to chuckle as it felt strange to not be wearing it.

Still, after the last fight with...Steel Tide… one of the members of my old RPG group who ended up as a crazed griffin berserker had damaged it severely… who am I kidding? He practically used his axe as a can opener and tried tearing it to shreds in a crazed fury!

I looked down at the ground as I couldn’t help but remember how… much he had changed. Steel Tide when he was human… he was just another member of my Tabletop RPG group. I didn’t know what he did for a living, but he never really liked talking about his job either. We both hung out because we had fun playing our little RPG and just having fun. You could talk to him for hours about random stuff and just chill out with… there was no judgement or expectations as you could just be yourself.

Now he was foaming at the mouth and had tried to kill me. Was he angry at me? Did he just go nuts from whatever cursed object was affecting him?

I looked back up at the skies as I wanted the ponies from Equestria to come already. I wanted to see some sort of magical doctor specialist fix my old gaming friend, I want him to be back to his old self again. I couldn’t help but scraping my hoof at the dirt, as I hated feeling so… powerless.

I felt a soft tap against my shoulder as Steel looked down at me in concern “Are you alright?”

I sighed “I just hate feeling so… helpless. You also didn’t answer my question.”

“They should be arriving soon.” Steel spoke as he didn’t even seem to believe the words coming out of his own mouth.

“It gives the Equestrian Royal Guard a perfect excuse to inspect New Terra’s armory, as they accompany you to pick up your armor.” Remedy Cross added in a bored tone “This town’s main source of money seems to be mining , refining ore and selling weapons. So, Equestria wants to see what sorts of restrictions they think they should place on New Terra.”

I stared at her in disbelief “Okay, first of all… why do they think they would even need to place any type of restriction on what New Terra can or cannot do? I mean, the last time I checked, the badlands wasn’t even a part of Equestria. We were just coming to render assistance to them… not to do a hostile takeover.”

The unicorn chuckled as she spoke with a hint of annoyance “Try telling that to the nobles. They will end up finding something they don’t like anyway, and naturally, they will want their say in the matter. The only real question will be if they ‘suggest’ it or if they will demand it.”

Steel gave me a quick tap on my shoulder and pointed at the carts being pulled by a squadron of pegasi in Royal Guard tinfoil armor. The group of pegasi had been traveling along with a small swarm of other flying residents of New Terra who were also carrying various carts over to the center of the city.

The cart slowly descended towards the ground as I heard Steel mutter “Not enough guards to carry all the prisoners in one trip. Did they not realize how big some of them were or are they preparing a separate prisoner transfer for the others?”

When the cart landed on the ground a unicorn in a fancy suit walked out of the cart causing Remedy to mutter “Oh this isn’t going to end well.”

I stared at the unicorn wearing the white suit “What’s wrong?”

Remedy shook her head “The diplomat they sent is Regal Script… I mean normally that wouldn’t have been a bad idea, but Regal Script as far as I know has done his best to stay away from the adventurer problems.”

Steel was staring at the unicorn who was straightening his suit “But he’s a good diplomat right?”

Remedy rolled her eyes “He’s… inflexible.”

I nudged Midnight Vixen awake as I whispered back to Remedy “Inflexible!?You mean he doesn’t like to compromise?”

The unicorn doctor groaned “No… he’s good with negotiating with the other nations… but you know how not every griffin comes from Griffinstone or how not every pegasus comes from Cloudsdale? Regal Script… doesn’t exactly deviate on how he interacts with other groups.” She said, unusually diplomatic for her.

Midnight yawned as she slowly replied “Aren’t you a doctor?”

Remedy Cross closed her eyes as she said with a hint of regret “My sister told me all about him, and she is also betrothed to him. Something he has apparently been trying his best to escape.”

I stared at her in confusion “And who is your sister?”

Remedy Cross now stared at me in disbelief “You’ve been working in Canterlot for a few months now, and you still don’t know?”

Steel Halberd groaned “Oh right… Remedy Cross is the daughter of Red Cross and Blue Shield who are both very prominent nobles. Her sister is Blue Cross.”

“In Equestrian, that means I know about politics even if I don’t want to.” Remedy replied with a hint of annoyance “Most of them usually are the same. They all have their own little narrow view of the world and promptly ignore anything that doesn’t fit into it.”

Okay… so we essentially had someone who going to look down on everyone. I tried my best to pray that Regal Script wouldn’t rub anyone the wrong way… or piss them off.

I heard someone clear their throat behind us as I looked back... The dragon mayor of the city was standing behind us… ,wait, was he waiting quietly all this time with us or did he just arrive? Did Peter grab a few points in stealth to sneak up on us? Does the menu allow giant ninja dragons to not be seen, unless they wanted to be seen?

With his massive body sitting up with his long neck curved upward, Peter looked down at the Equestrian diplomat who was trying his best brushing any off the wrinkles in his suit as the dragon mayor tried to speak to him as gentle and friendly tone instead of his normal deep voice that most ‘movie’ dragons seemed to have.

The end result didn’t work out as well as he hoped as he sounded a little bit like Sean Connery from Dragonheart “Hello, My name is Peter, I am the mayor of New Terra, and I wish to welcome you here.” He waved his massive serrated claws in an inviting gesture into the settlement.

Sadly this seemed to have the opposite effect as Regal Script took one look at the dragon before turning pale at his sheer size and seemed as if he was ready to run back to the cart, tell his drivers to fly the hell out of here.

To their credit, The Royal Guards were firmly standing their ground, despite starting at the dragon mayor in a mixture of awe and terror. In his panic, Regal Script seemed to have backed up against the cart’s door as he looked at the dragon that was trying to give him a friendly smile, but sadly, was showing a little bit too much teeth with that same smile.

The unicorn clenched his chest hard with his right hoof, trying to calm his heartbeat. When he finally managed to calm his nerves enough, he adjusted his tie around his neck before awkwardly walking toward the towering reptile. The unicorn was clearly apprehensive at getting any closer towards Peter. When he razed his gaze to him, he took a nervous gulp and quickly staggered out into the open “He...he...hello, My.. my name is Regal Script and... I was sent… Princess Celestia had sent me to be the d...diplomat for this meeting and I… and I need to make sure the prisoners…eh... our prisoners that you have... and… and I need to make sure they are alright.”

Sensing the unicorn’s obvious terror, Peter tried to speak in a calm tone as he slowly nodded his head “Ah yes, Miss Remedy here, that you have sent us, made sure that they are all healthy.” He waved his claws toward her direction.

The Regal Script frantically nodded his head before pausing for a moment “Oh, I also have a few scrolls I need to check to confirm that the prisoners are okay! I have a scroll for a griffin berserker to help! I need to inform Celestia of the results right away! You know, uh, in case something goes wrong!” His eyes darting every which way, planning an escape path in case he need to bolt away suddenly.

Peter wasn’t smiling anymore. I didn’t know if he was unhappy with the diplomat sent by Equestria or if he was annoyed at himself for frightening the Equestrian Diplomat.

The unicorn noble left the area in a hurry, as he was being escorted by a donkey towards the jail, while most of the other soldiers from the Royal Guard started to go their own separate ways. Steel looked as if he was ready to leave, until Peter the dragon turned around and stared at us, his eyes conveying a sense of unease over what just happened.

I tried to smile “Is there anything wrong?”

Peter stared at us for a little while until Remedy spoke up “I’m sorry for Regal Script’s… rude exit. He was told that you were a dragon, but he probably thought you would be around his height.”

The mayor sighed in resignation as he rubbed his arm “I understand… He was just… probably expecting to see a dragon three feet high, instead of three stories high.”

Peter flapped his huge wings, and flew away as I sighed in relief. I wasn’t sure what Regal Script’s reason for skipping straight to visiting the jail first, but hopefully he was just surprised at Peter’s size. As soon as Peter disappeared from sight a Pegasus guard with a Teal coat and an orange mane swiftly flew over to us and presented himself “I am Sergeant Bristol.”

Steel quickly saluted “Steel Wing, and Valkyrie reporting for duty.”

The pegasus stood tall as he stared at us. He had sort of an air of tradition and authority around him as he reminded me of one of those old british army captains in films. His golden suit was kept in an almost pristine condition.

He looked at both of us and nodded “Good work on getting Ms Cross to the settlement under trying conditions.” He smirked as he spoke with a hint of pride “Two of the Royal Guard’s best finally capturing one of Equestria’s top criminals and preventing any civilian casualties.”

The pegasus looked at Midnight Vixen and paused for a moment, as the cheerful tone in his voice died out, as he stared at Midnight with slight disdain “The Night Guard pony can stay with Miss Cross while the rest of us can pick up Miss Valkyrie’s repair order.”

I looked at Steel Halberd in disbelief as this pony didn’t seem like any of the other ponies from Canterlot. I mean sure there was some difference between the two groups… but both of them were glaring at each other as if they were getting ready to fight.

Steel took a deep breath “Bristol is from Smokey Mountains.”

Midnight must have noticed my confusion as she whispered “That means he bought his rank with money.”

The pegasus must have heard it as he glared at the bat pony as he replied “It means we care about tradition and distinction.”

Midnight rolled her, eyes as I just kept my mouth shut. I didn’t know what he meant by tradition and distinction, but I wasn’t about to ask what it meant as I could see the obvious friction between the two. That would be a question I would ask Steel Halberd when we were out of earshot of these two.

The two ponies continued their staring match until Steel practically shouted “Let’s go see that blacksmith!”

Bristol broke eye contact with Midnight and tried to pretend as if nothing happened. Steel Halberd seemed to sigh in relief when Midnight started to march after Remedy in the opposite direction.

After a few seconds Bristol said “What is your assessment of the area Steel Halberd? Are there any problems? Does the population have a bone to pick with us… or do they look up to Equestria?”

Steel shook his head “It’s a new settlement. The local population is doing their best to work out the kinks after building everything from scratch… but New Terra seems to be growing faster than they were expecting… or that’s how it feels if you compare it to a normal fledgeling settlement from Equestria.”

The Sergeant Guardspony seemed to sigh as he muttered underneath his breath “Previous reports on Brass Balls suggest that she prefers going after high value targets and stealing trade secrets and this doesn’t seem to fit her style.”

He turned his head as he glanced at me “Are they any pieces of unusual equipment, items, or possibly weapons that this settlement might have that might interest her or possibly her cohort?”

I tried to put on my best smile as I said “Just a few weapons designs you wouldn’t see in Equestria.”

The pegasus guardspony nodded his head as Steel lead him to Forge’s shop where my armor was resting along with the rest of the foreign weapons New Terra was currently remaking for pony use.

******

Regal Script

Regal Script tried not to show the joy on his face as he had escaped his encounter with the dragon. He had mentally prepared himself for such an encounter… but Peter’s actual size was far more frightening than he had ever imagined. The way he moved his claws as he commanded the situation… how he looked down at him… Regal Script shivered as this wasn’t a creature he could strike the fear of Celestia into.

He couldn’t help but smile as he saw the normal everyday and pony sized races who he could strike the fear of Celestia into and force the dragon to listen to him if only through the sheer volume of voices arguing back at him. If this dragon cared about his position in the town than Regal Script had to focus on the ponies in this backwater settlement.

The unicorn noble had to admit that he was marginally impressed that this backwater settlement was not some poorly built jailhouse that had a single cell for all of their drunken idiots to sleep in. There was an actual wall around the prison building even if it was a little misshapen… which was also a little bit concerning.

Why did they build a wall for their jail when half their population could fly over it or dug under it with ease? The wall wasn’t even that tall as it just stood at the height of a diamond dog!

Then here was the question of why the jail house was a two story building. In fact it was actually larger than a few jail houses he had seen in some cities. The guards that he could see were far to relax in their duties, as he could see them joking about and making idle chit chat.

“Slackers.” He thought to himself while entering the building.

Once they stepped inside, he saw a teal unicorn with a dark blue mane munching on a bundle of hay and was in the middle of reading a book. Regal Script sighed in slight exasperation as he was getting tired of following the donkey around as he wanted the actual superior to guide him through the jail, rather than the lowly grunt that had escorted him to the jail.

To his surprise, the donkey shouted “Lucas!” to the unicorn dropped what he was doing and stared at the donkey “Tell Amber, Theodore, and Silver that the schedule had been bumped up.”

The unicorn guard named Lucas nodded “Should I also get Remedy Cross to deal with Matilda?”

The donkey shook his head “I’m sure she has other patients she needs to help before we try restraining Matilda, so that she can turn that crazy cow back to normal.”

Lucas trotted away as all the other guards quickly dropped what they were doing as they went back to work. Regal Script shook his head as he couldn’t believe they were taking orders from all things a donkey! The donkey stared at him as he apparently noticed the unicorn’s expression for what it was… which wasn’t good.

He needed to say something to save face and quick “Who or what happened to Matilda?”

The donkey grunted in annoyance “A native from Equestria who wanted to try her hoof at being a bandit.”

Regal Script rubbed his temple in irritation, hoping that he didn’t hear that right “I’m sorry… what did you say?”

The donkey just sighed “She ran around calling herself an adventurer like us and managed to a few other races together, was running around as a highway bandit.”

The unicorn noble just shook his head. They had a donkey commanding unicorns who struggled to catch a simple bovine bandit. He would have ask how this place was still standing, but having a dragon probably made up for most of the inadequacies their guards had.

“Just take me to Brass.” Regal Script replied briskly as he prepared to get this over with.

******

Maxwell

I looked around the highly ornate room as a couple of pillows filled the room… sort of like beanbag chairs. The walls were painted white as a few tapestries hung on the walls, depicting scenes that probably would have made sense if you knew the story behind them. All that stood between me and Celestia was a large wooden table that seemed to shine as what looked like a china tea set rested in the middle of the table.

I couldn’t help but fidget in one of the rather large seats as Celestia stood in front of me. Booknote, Comet, and Jade Pin had apparently decided to tell Celestia about the… censor problem, so Celestia had me visit at the castle in order to further understand what was going on.

“Would you like some tea Maxwell?” Celestia spoke as she noticed my unease. It was kind of hard to hide when your stuck sitting across from her.

Her white coat and jewelry gave her a sense of majesty… sort of like a mythical deity like Okami or the White Stag… and having a mythic like being staring down at you, as if she knew you stole from the cookie jar, made it rather had to sit comfortably underneath her gaze.

“Are you okay?” she replied with actual sincerity… instead of just the standard question people ask to be polite, but they don’t really want to know or care.

I chuckled nervously “I’m okay…”

White walls surrounded me. The window was just there to let in sunlight, just as the guards standing right outside the room were more for ceremonial purposes. After all, this was the room that apparently she held morning court in… not the one with the throne room. The other morning courtroom.

I never actually knew there was more than one courtroom, and yet being inside this place, made me more nervous than being inside a jail cell or when Celestia suddenly popped in the tavern that Pocket Ace ran.

Celestia cleared her throat “Booknote informed me about your discovery ,that you had made. Could you explain it to me in more detail, please?”

I slowly nodded my head “Well, we just found out parts of our speech have also been censored.”

I took a deep breath, as this was going to be difficult to explain or how badly this could end up. After all, how do you explain something when your very own words are going to be censored in the explanation?

******

Regal Script

The unicorn noble sat in what counted for an interrogation room in this dreary building, which he had a suspicious feeling that it was also used as a break room. There was a single bolted table placed in the middle of the room, and the seating arrangements for everypony were hard crude chairs. Why they didn’t just get a few pillows, or something that didn’t feel like a medieval torture device for non-prisoners to sit in was beyond his comprehension.

Still, it was better than being outside, where the Mayor would be watching him. He couldn’t help but shiver as he remembered those large predatory eyes staring at him, like some sort of quick snack, before the dragon would decide to take his next nap on the town treasury.

The criminal named Brass just kept glaring at the door as he first thought she was trying to escape. She had two rather heavy looking chain balls cuffed to her hind legs, as she also seemed to be chained to the floor… or the weight of the iron balls. She looked healthy enough, at least, in the sense that she doesn’t seemed to have been beaten up and she was being properly fed, but the way she shifted about and tried to hide behind the table. How her stance was getting ready to charge, or tried to flip the table bolted to the floor bothered him.

A side glance at the guards didn’t make him feel any better, as they stood at the corners of the room like cheap poorly dressed statues. Their uniforms at least matched ,as they looked like crude versions of the Royal Guard armor, lacking the standard gold and silver, opting instead for a cheap metallic gray color.

Of course, their weapons… they just showed how incompetent the guards were. They had metal pipes attached to blocks of wood, just so that they could figure out which ‘end’ they were supposed to point at the prisoner. The guards even had little sights at the end of their pipes, so that they could make sure that could line up the shot when they rammed their opponents with the tips of their ‘safety spears’; because of course, the real guards didn’t trust them with actual spear tips!

That just left his guide… it was a donkey. They didn’t even send the pony in charge of the local guard to escort him, how insulting. Obviously this meant they were looking down on Equestria.

If the proper political protocols were followed, he would have the pony or individual in charge of the local forces stand with him. They would bow down in respect, as they would fully know that Regal Script stood not only to represent Equestria, but by extension Princess Celestia herself, who has moved the sun and the moon themselves and had ruled justly and wisely for countless years!

Still, he had to interrogate the prisoner. Check up on the mutt and pigeon convicts, before taking a good look at the dangerous, heavily armored, cursed crazed griffin… and if that damned sun scorched monster isn’t chained to the ground and securely immobilized to the point he couldn’t even blink! Than he would get his own guards to protect him.

Maybe ask for the dragon's help… after giving Remedy Cross the scroll so that she could do it in his place.

Regal Script cleared his throat as he prepared to deal with the first criminal of the day “Miss Brass.”

“Brass Balls.” The mare spat out in hatred “My name is Brass Balls.”

The unicorn rolled his eyes over this, as it was probably just a fake name… or her father wanted a colt instead of a filly. The thought was kind of funny considering how mares were usually held in the spotlight in Equestria instead of stallions… which probably made sense due to Celestia having ruled Equestria since its founding.

The mare stared at the door “Is this it?”

Regal Script cleared his throat again “If you mean we are going to execute you, than no. It is my duty to ask you a few questions, while we finish the preparations needed to send you back to Equestria for your trial.”

The guards looked annoyed that he had presumed that Brass was already going to Equestria ,without him even getting confirmation from their leaders. ‘Of course it doesn’t really matter' he thought to himself. It was just a matter of time before the ponies running New Terra would give him over the prisoners. After all, no civilized pony would actually refuse a request from Princess Celestia herself?

Brass looked nervous as she obviously knew that her time of judgement was about to arrive “So, I’m going to be sent to Canterlot?”

“You are correct, Miss Brass Balls” Regal Script spoke in a smug tone as he prepared to listen to the criminal’s plea “If you wish to strike a bargain before the court hearing ,then all you need to do is simply tell us how you managed to broke into Tartarus and state your reasons for releasing any of those notorious criminals, monsters, and other threats that had been securely imprison inside.”

******

Maxwell

I looked up at Celestia as I began to have second thoughts “This isn’t going to hurt… or tingle… sting…”

Celestia smiled softly “I assure you that there will be nothing to be worry about the spell, Maxwell. At worst, you might hear a small buzz or a whine in your ears. But, if you feel anything, just let me know.”

I took a deep breath to calm my nerves “So... I just start saying stuff?”

Celestia shook her head “Just talk normally… try explaining what’s wrong in your own words and, hopefully, I should be able to detect the magic the moments where things starts to alter our perceptions.”

I tried to smile “Well, we sort of did that already with a phonograph.”

Celestia nodded her head as she stated “If it is a physical change it could be affecting your voice, or possibly your hearing… but that wouldn’t account for the discrepancy with the recording… maybe a combination of spells or...”

I stared at her in confusion, as she slowly began to devolve into a very high tech gibberish that would require a master’s degree to fully understand. There was a small gleam in her eyes, as she was carrying the conversation with herself, and tried hypothesizing the causes behind my problem. She really must have a passion for research… doesn’t she. I couldn’t help but be reminded me of a certain purple unicorn, later alicorn that I was familiar with.

I took a deep breath as I tried to figure out what to say “Okay, hum… first of all… humans tend to get nervous when you start talking about certain things that make sense to you… but we really don’t understand what you say.”

I scratched the back of my mane “I’m not sure how this started… or why anyone hasn’t noticed already. I think some had tried explaining they were humans from earth, but the thoughts… the memories that should so easily come to us. They seem to become foggy when we focus on them.”

Celestia nodded her head “Coming from a different nation can be rough. Though, I still find it a little bit strange that some of you try referring to yourselves by your nations instead of your race.”

I face hoofed… I had no idea what she was saying or what she had heard… or even heard before I was the one trying to explain it to her. Why did a land full of unicorns and rainbows have to be so complicated?

I shook my head as I said “Let’s try something simple like ‘I’m a human turned into a pony from the nation of America, that lies on the planet Earth’.”

Celestia shook her head “You said you were a pony placed in Equestria, from the nation Amareica that lives on the planet Eques.” Her horn continued to glow as she said “While I can see how having a nation be mistaken as a different nation could be frustrating… It doesn’t seem any worse than the ‘cursing’ curse.”

This isn’t good. Last night… the word ‘turned’ was still ‘turned’… but now it had also been altered. Was this censor curse learning or was it modifying the context of my sentence?

******

Regal Script

Brass chuckled as she stared at him “Really?” he couldn’t help but shiver as she stared at him with an almost predatory like gaze “I thought this was about the problem of the ponies in this city trying to turn back to normal?”

Regal Script rolled his eyes “That is what we are doing right now. Now, stop trying to evade the question. Do you have any idea how dangerous some of those criminals are, that you helped break out?”

Brass shrugged “Tirek eats magic. The spider ate ponies, and the unicorn was a stuck up racist.”

Regal Script frowned at the rather overgeneralization she gave him. She made it sound like they were common criminals.

Anypony condemned to in Tartarus are not placed there because they had committed a crime, like robbing a bank or burning a city down. They were placed into Tartarus because they are trotting, talking, cataclysms of their own!. Each one of them had enough power to be a threat on their own, that could wipe out a civilization individually, and some of them have just done that, and they lacked almost all of the moral restrain that made civilization possible.

With the looming danger hanging over Equestria Regal Script tried to focus back on the problem at hoof “Why did you cause the prison break?”

The crazed mare shrugged “Money. A place to rest since Celestia was sending her hounds to go after me, due to me stealing a magical artifact.”

The unicorn noble stared at Brass in disbelief. He was expecting some sort of self justification, or an attempt to shift the blame onto one of her cohorts, maybe even a tragic backstory about how mommy didn’t love her enough. As he had prepared to kick whatever ‘moral’ standing she was using to justify her action, and help prove to the idiots in New Terra that she should be tried by Equestria’s courts.

He didn’t expect her to just… give it to him.

******

Maxwell

I could feel myself growing more frustrated as I tried to explain it to her “I’m worried that what could be said could be taken completely out of context and lead to a panic.”

Celestia frowned “I’ll admit it is a little bit disconcerting that this ‘curse‘ seems to somehow also be altering parts of your speech patterns.”

I groaned in annoyance “What about all the people trying to say their humans, only to get odd looks from everyone else? What if they try to warn someone… or say something? What if people start panicking because someone understood something different or misleading?” Heck, why would anyone bother to go through all the trouble of altering our words like that? Why can we hear everything we say without censure to each other, while the natives hear a censored version? And why didn’t we noticed all of this before? Why can’t we even draw what a human look like? Why is it so important that Equestria doesn’t know about humans, but lets us show them our own ideas, culture, inventions or concepts? It’s like someone wants us to become a part of this world, but is making up rules and exceptions without any sense to them, almost as if there isn’t any reasoning behind all of this!

Celestia was silent for a little while, as she seemed to be thinking about what I said “Then wouldn’t it make more sense for them to try talking it over with each other, while making sure that everything is clear to everypony thus fixing any misunderstandings? If somepony heard something different, then the adventurers would calm down and talk to the other Equestrian ponies and try to explain what they had meant like civilized ponies until both sides understood each other.”

A small smile formed on her lips “Besides if a major incident has yet to occur since all of you have arrived in Equestria than it would be safe to say this is a minor if not frustrating inconvenience at best.”

She had a point. Hell, I didn’t even realize there was a problem until recently, when it was shoved right in my face. It wasn’t until an artist that was desperately trying to recall how to draw a human looked like that I began to realize that something was wrong. Was I really freaking out over nothing?

“Of course, if it helps I could always try a reform spell…” Celestia replied to my horror

“No mind magic!” I shouted in a horror! Why in the world did Celestia just casually offer to tamper with my mind!

Celestia flinched as she seemed genuinely hurt by my response “I’ll admit I am kind of surprised that you are willing to take an extensive magical scan of your very being without a second thought… and react so strongly to the suggestion of a reform spell.”

I kept shaking my head as there was something fundamentally wrong with what she had just said “I don’t know about you, but mind control is a very messy and scary subject from where I’m from. I’m not sure anyone would be comfortable with the thought of having their thoughts altered… or twisted…like that”

Celestia frowned for a moment as she tapped her hoof against the pillow underneath her “What exactly do you think a reform spell is and how exactly does it count as mind control?”

“Overriding or subverting someone’s free will.” I nearly shouted out in terror.

Celestia sighed as she tried to clarify with a lecturing tone “A reform spell, under the most common example, is a spell that reminds you of something. If you were taking a diet and thought about eating a cake, then it reminds you about the diet. If you were about to steal something and promised not to break the law, then it would remind you about the promise.”

Celestia then smiled at me as she continued. “Of course, the pony in question can still ignore it, as it doesn’t remove a pony’s free will or turns them into mindless slaves. If anything, it’s more like that lovely story from one of the adventurer groups about the cricket and the puppet… the one called pinocchio if I’m correct.”

“Are there any uncommon examples that are a little bit more forceful?” I replied with a hint of fear.

Celestia took a deep breath “Nothing that breaks any legal laws from any nation that values free will.”

Okay, so the Reform spell isn’t the same as the common evil mind control or turning a person into a blank slate or superimposing another personality… and I should probably ask just what makes the spell Celestia is using worse than using a reform spell… after she is done.

******

Regal Script

Regal Script hit his hoof against the table “Can you not realize the severity of your crimes? The numerous thefts of dangerous and priceless artifacts, acts of wanton destruction, petrifying a member of the royal guard to stone...”

Brass, to his surprise, broke out laughing “Yes the earth pony used her fancy magic to turn someone to stone. Then, her victim just walked it off.”

The unicorn hissed in slight annoyance. Unicorns born, bred, and raised in Canterlot did not sneer, growl, not hiss like lowly common street thug! He brought himself to his full height and firmly replied “You captured a cockatrice from the Everfree Forest which I might add is a highly dangerous and endangered species. You used it against Private Guardspony Valkyrie. It was only through the hard work and efforts of Celestia were we able to turn her back to normal.”

Brass had a smug smile plastered across her face as she had the audacity to smile, as if it was all one big joke “Oh yes the solar tyrant...”

The unicorn noble was now sternly staring at the criminal low life in front of him. “And what makes a pony who specializes in fillynapping and theft have any right to judge her?” He certainly did not growl, ignoring any pretense of civility or composure at the moment no matter what any other misguided pony said.

Brass pretended to sigh as she then looked up at him smirking “Because Celestia already knew about the ponies in her kingdom. She knows all about Equs and ponykind and right now she is doing her best to make all the ponies into happy little ponies.”

Regal Script blinked, as he had no idea what she was saying. While he hadn’t personally dealt with a lot of the so called adventurers himself, he had heard of a few crazier rumors… like sending foals to fight alongside them, or how some of them pretended to be insane so that they wouldn’t go to jail.

He shook his head “And what’s wrong with that?”

The room grew deathly silent as the mare didn’t look worried in the least. She didn’t seem to care that she was being interrogated, or realize the level of severity of the crimes she was being charged with.

Regal Script straightened his tie as he decided to play hard ball “You could be given a life sentence trapped behind bars, or perhaps stuck outside in some Celestia forsaken patch of land, and be forced to do hard labor for the rest of your life.”

Brass rolled her eyes at his threats. She didn’t seem the least bit bothered by them. Maybe she was already expecting that to be her punishment? All he had to do was give her a way out… or show her how much worse things could become if she continued to be so belligerent.

He decided to switch to the carrot and the stick approach. First he would present a chance for her to save herself with a light punishment. Then when she refused he would show her the stick and make her regret ever being born.

“Of course… you may have a reformation spell be placed on you.” Regal Script replied in a soft tone “A skilled unicorn could…”

“Keep your twisted magic away from my head or I’ll tear your head off!” Brass shouted in rage.

Regal Script nearly fell out of his seat, as the chains around her legs prevented her from jumping over the table and strangling him with her own bare hooves! The guards behind her rushed forward, in an attempt to restrain her as she lashed out striking dents into the table, and before trying to hurl one of the iron weights at Regal Script.

The guards did their best to restrain her, as she pointed her right hoof at him and spat at him “Maybe this pony doesn’t want to be a happy little pony.”

Regal Script did his best to stay calm, as he pulled out a small white cloth from his breast pocket and wiped his face clean. It took a few minutes for her to settle down as she was now glaring at him., He just only wished they had strapped another pair of weights to her legs.

Brass spoke out loud “In case you haven’t noticed there is a rather prominent pattern that whenever Celestia makes a mistake they tend to be swept underneath the rug rather quickly! Everypony thinks she is a great happy leader, without questioning anything she does. Anyone who disagrees with her almighty judgment quickly disappears forever, or reappears a few days later acting completely different!”

She looked at Regal Script and frowned “I told Valkyrie what was going on before and she agreed with me. The next week I’m told she in being placed in intensive care because apparently I turned her to stone.”

******

Maxwell

I shook my head as Celestia continued “I can understand your worries, but most ponies and civilized races tend to be good souls. If we weren’t as loathed to seeing the sufferings of others or feeling their pain, than we wouldn’t have come as far as we are now.”

I couldn’t help but sigh “I just want to make sure that nothing bad happens. I mean… the whole Everfree Incident started off as an attempt to go home. There was nothing sinister or evil about what we wanted.”

The memory of how that one idiot started trying to turn people into copies of the mane six. Grabbing a strong willed girl, and tearing her mind apart, until she acted like cheap copy of Fluttershy because Fluttershy could use the elements of Harmony. Then, how it slowly devolved into brainwashing anyone who didn’t agree were then turned into puppets for his little theater show.

My ears started to droop as I remembered the disaster “And yet all it took was one person to twist it around.”

Celestia walked around the table, and placed a hoof on my shoulder, and said out loud “I know it may seem bad… but when it comes to situations of abuse, or actively trying to subvert the inherent good in anypony, those who try usually fail. Even if they somehow manage to succeed, their so called ‘reign’ tends to be rather short.”

I looked up at Celestia as I couldn’t help but ask “All it would take is one person at the right moment to cause a riot.”

Celestia nodded her head “And it would easily be solved by one pony coming fourth in to fix the problem, unless dark magic or something forcefully alter one’s emotions or judgment.”

I stared at her as I felt a nagging feeling in the back of my head “You really believe that?”

Celestia smiled in that wise all knowing (and some would say smug) smile “I have yet to see a moment in my entire life to have proved me wrong.”

I wanted to believe her after seeing how peaceful things have been these last few weeks… but I just felt like it was only a matter of time before the other shoe dropped.

******

Regal Script

Brass sighed as she wore a soft and almost tired looking smile “I know I’ve done some messed up stuff that probably doesn’t make any sense… but I’m not the villain here. I haven’t done anything illegal or dangerous in New Terra before they decided I should be placed in a jail cell.”

Regal Script spoke in a harsh tone “I think the various crimes you have caused, and even admitted too, are perfectly good reasons to throw you in jail.”

Brass chuckled softly “But they’re not a good reason to kill me.”

The unicorn frowned “You are going to be tried for your crimes in Equestria.”

Brass shook her head “No, what is going to happen is that there is going to be a tragic ‘accident’ that will happen during the prison transfer where I will have died before even setting foot in Equestria. Then all of the little nagging truths, that I kept trying warn people about will be swept underneath the rug, like countless people ponies before me.”

The donkey sighed in what seemed like regret “You still have to be pay for the crimes you had committed.”

Brass raised her head in pride as she looked over to the donkey as a hint of pride entered her voice “And I’m willing to face whatever judgment that may be, as long as the court hearing is done within New Terra, and I’ll tell you everything I know during the trial.”

******

William

I tried not to sigh as escorted the Equestrian diplomat out of the room. He seemed much more relieved and happy that he was no longer in the same room with Brass… but he was still rather upset with his encounter with the mare.

I didn’t like how he kept glancing at the ponies each time we stopped or how he seemed confused whenever they let us through. Were things different in ponyville with the Royal Guard or was he not expecting a donkey to be in charge?

I took a deep breath and tried not to think that he had something against donkeys. It was probably more likely that he is trying to figure out how the guards operate in New Terra vs how they operate in Equestria.

I continued to listen to the Equestrian diplomat vent as he continued “I can’t believe the nerve of that prisoner!”

“I know.” I softly replied as I tried not to think about the greater implications she had spoken of.

Celestia couldn’t have already known about humanity… or us. I mean that would just be silly right? Wouldn’t it be more likely that Brass was lying since she didn’t want to go to jail, especially after being threatened to have a Reform spell used on her?

I bit the inside of my cheek as I glanced at the unicorn who had recently threatened to alter someone’s mind with magic. Maybe he was bluffing. There was a good chance he was just threatening her in an attempt to make her talk, because the ponies in Equestria certainly didn’t use mind control to ‘reform’ the criminals in Equestria, right!?.

I took a deep breath and said “So Celestia already knows about humanity?”

The unicorn groaned “Of course she knows. Why wouldn’t she know?”

I couldn’t help but flinch as I guess it made sense? I mean someone would have opened up that can of worms and told someone that we were human. It would actually be silly to even think that the big secret of humanity would be kept a secret for so long.

“And Celestia sent Remedy Cross to turn the humans into ponies?” I couldn’t help but ask.

I mean it was silly. Celestia isn’t the Tyrant Celestia some of the others in New Terra kept raving about. Princess Celestia was not rewriting the history books making her out to be a peaceful ruler. She was not trying to keep the population under her iron hoof, as she made her ponies complacent and ignorant of the world so that they would believe every word she said, as they blindly worshiped her as if she was the ‘God Empress of Ponykind’.

She did not right her sisters out of the history books, so that she could get all of the credit. She did not make the Crystal empire into a myth, to ensure that nobody knew that she failed to save a kingdom. Star Swirl the Bearded was not left in obscurity because he had helped Celestia stop a lot of ancient villains!

Regal Script grumbled before he spoke out loud “Yes. Yes Celestia is trying to turn them all back to into ponies.” I stopped dead in my tracks as I stared at him in disbelief “I can’t believe she sounded so proud of her actions. That smugness…”

I looked back at the others behind me who also seemed to be staring at me in disbelief. I shook my head as I must have misheard that. All of us must have somehow misheard that. Maybe he just meant turning the humans who were turned into ponies, that had been turned into something else… back as humans turned ponies!?

I rubbed my aching head “Just one more stop and then this will all be over.”

Brass was a criminal. That native unicorn doctor who had been claiming that Equestria already knew about humanity was right… And yet, like that mare, he was also a criminal. You couldn’t trust a word from a criminal, because they would say anything just to avoid prison time. And… It was his job just to keep them in their cells, and he had to make sure that they didn’t break out of jail, or cause any major problems. Morals, questions, or debates about right, wrong, innocent, or guilty didn’t matter. He had to keep them in prison, until someone else figured out what to do with them.

Besides if anything did happen, I would be the one blamed for the disaster.

We walked into the basement, as the guards on duty made sure to check us for any weapons or reflective objects. All we knew was that this… cursed trader had apparently escaped by walking through a mirror. It sounded crazy in my opinion as I didn’t actually believe it... but it was better to be safe than sorry.

The Equestrian seemed to glance at the riffles as he shook his head. Was he unhappy with that we had made guns? I mean it took a lot of work trying to make the gunpowder and harness to work since most of us lacked hands.

The ‘battle saddles’ were made so that the humans who were turned into ponies could still use guns. All they had to do was bite down on the bit of the bridle to fire the gun. And honestly, a few of us felt a little bit of pride that we were actually able to make them.

I just hoped that this wasn’t going to cause any problems down the road as we walked into the room. I glanced at the former equestrian turned science experiment as Rover the diamond dog grumbled in his cage. Remedy had managed to help return him to normal, for the most part…

What I mean is that he was now (mostly) turned back into the size of a normal diamond dog. Still, he had a few patches where his fur was still missing, where there were a few grey scales that were still clinging to his body. His eyes however, still had those slits… those creepy reptilian pupils that stared back at us. His arms were clenched to his sides as one could almost see the outline of the diamond dog’s ribs.

The unicorn was shaking his head, apparently upset at our treatment of the diamond dog. Sure, placing him in a steel cage like a wild animal seemed a little bit harsh, but we had to make sure he couldn’t break out. Remedy Cross was trying to help the others who had been affected by this disaster, and Rover the diamond dog was refusing to eat his meals.

“Hello William.” a inhuman voice replied.

My body couldn’t help but shiver as I couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from. It felt as if I heard the voice all around me… I could hear the sounds of someone or something breathing on me as it rested on the edge of my vision.

I turned to look at the second prisoner who looked as if somepony had taken one look at Discord, and tried to imagine a similar creature, but one that was more… orderly so to speak, if that could even make sense at all.

Her body was mostly avian, as her bird like talons scraped across the floor, as green scales sparkled across her legs. Her tail slowly swept from side to side, as the hybrid feather and fur tail seemed to continue all the way up back, like a horse’s mane. She stared at us with those inhuman eyes…

These were not the large and ‘daw’ adoring pony or kitten eyes. These were large solid red eyes with no pupils in them as her face… her face didn’t have a mouth, nose, ears, or any ‘features’ besides her eyes. Instead all that was left was the creepy alien like wrinkles where her mouth should have been… like if she was a sectoid from Xcom or a Protoss from Starcraft.

To put it simple... she didn’t look as if she belonged in Equestria.

She stared at me as if she was a statue as the inhuman voice surrounded me once again. “So you are bringing in another Equestrian to deal with the problem?” She kept staring at me with her unreadable gaze as her mouth didn’t move at all “Are you upset that you are not playing the hero… that you are just another helpless townsperson waiting for the lead character to save them?”

“Shut up…” I muttered in annoyance

No one liked her. Every time a human walked into the room she would toy with them. She would taunt them… she would say things that would get underneath your skin. How she would try to make it a game… make them doubt themselves as she would make them seem worthless… helpless… just an extra in someone else’s story.

“What?” The unicorn nearly shouted in surprise

I stared back at him as I forgot he couldn’t hear her “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

He grunted in annoyance “What happened to them?”

“The diamond dog’s a native and the avian is…” I paused as I stared at her “Well we think she is an adventurer.”

“You don’t want to call me a human because it would mean that humanity is the cause of all your problems. That all the problems caused to this world is not because of some ancient evil or dark spell… but because this world was cursed with humanity’s presence, as we are the ones tearing it apart.” She spoke as I couldn’t help but grit my teeth “You do realize he isn’t going to say anything to you; being the ugly stupid, smelly worthless mule that you are. He is just going to talk about magic, knowing you your simple little mind won’t understand a single thing he says, before walking out of here leaving you.”

I shook my head as I stared at the Equestrian. I didn’t know what it was about our second prisoner… but humans could hear her voice. Amber claimed it must have been some function of the menu… She was one of the people trying to study the menu and figure out how it works. She claimed that since there was a message system in the menu that there might even be a call function.

I tried not to let her get underneath my skin. We didn’t know her name and she wouldn’t tell us. She just kept being an annoying prick as she tried to taunt us because she was stuck in her own personal bird cage while her ‘ally’ had ditched her.

“You do realize he thinks less of you right? I’m not saying this being you’re just a side character.” she replied in a mocking tone, as I swore she was smiling “Of course you do know that. You could have been a different race… something else than a donkey, but you were too much of a coward about the possibility of your new and better form being linked to dark magic. It scares you that there is a force taken here for granted while you know nothing about it, doesn’t it? You don’t know how to stop it or how to deal with its problems, and you would rather bury your head in the sand then try to understand it.”

Regal Script looked at the diamond dog in a clinical curiosity, blissfully oblivious to what the avien was saying. “I thought Remedy Cross was helping deal with those who had been afflicted by this curse?”

“You left him like that because you wanted him to be punished.” She whispered insidiously to me “He was an Equestrian native who betrayed your settlement, and caused so much damage to one of the fledgling outpost. You want him to leave a freak like this. You want to watch him suffer… to feel ashamed and disgusted at his own body, knowing he will never have the power he craved, or the normality that was torn away from him.” Then like the little devil she was she gleefully replied “You wanted to make him into a copy of yourself that you could freely hate.”

I felt my body tensing up at her accusations, as I firmly replied “He’s not a dragon anymore, and there are more important cases to take care of.”

“Like Brass.” The prisoner continued to whisper “Did you hear what you wanted from her? Did she tell you the truth? Did she tell you that what you were doing here was meaningless?”

I felt my hooves start to scrape against the floor as I tried to ignore her. She was just trying to take her frustration out against me. She was trying to drive me mad, since she perfectly well knew that Regal Script couldn’t hear her voice.

I turned to glare at her only to see that she had tilted her head to a perfect ninety degrees to the right. I couldn’t help but shiver, as I wanted her gone. She could be left in an Equestrian jail, where she could scream all she liked, without anyone being able to hear her.
The unicorn was now staring at me with a hint of unease

I took a deep breath “I’m sorry I couldn’t hear you over her. Could you repeat what you just said?”

Regal Script just shook his head in disbelief as he muttered under his breath “Daft donkey.” Before replying in a calm tone “I said why hasn’t this… individual been treated by Remedy Cross?”

I frowned as I could hear her chuckle “He doesn’t believe that you couldn’t hear him. He thinks you’re lying… slacking off on your job. Apparently he thinks you’re more suited to be a background character instead of a side character.”

I shook my head “Because, according to the medic that you sent us, there are so many overlapping spells, and some magical gibberish … that if we were attempting to fix, alter or remove any parts of it without how it works as a whole, could end in a very painful death for her. I mean… she doesn’t even have mouth or a nose to breathe with, and yet she is still alive somehow.”

Regal Script looked back at the prisoner, paying more attention at the aforementioned area, and his eyes widen at the impossibility of what he was seeing, as she really didn’t in fact have a nose, or a mouth. It was kind of unsettling to just stare at the slightly wrinkled area, where the rest of the face should have been, as the only things on her face were her eyes. It was hard to even see the line of fur/feathers that was on the back of her head, when you stood in front of her.

“And why hasn’t the diamond dog been treated?” He asked once again while he looked for something in his suit.

I tried to calm him down from his false assumption, “He was a full grown dragon before your medic treated him. Right now she is busy trying to help… fix everyone else.”

“What is he doing?” the pest spoke in annoyance and what almost sounded like a twinge of worry inhuman “You already had that evil mare say she didn’t know what she was doing!”

I looked over at Regal Script who had now pulled out a scroll from somewhere in his jacket. I had no idea what that thing was, but if our house guest had stopped bothering me because she saw it, then it might actually be dangerous.

“What are you doing?” I shouted as I had no idea what he was doing

Regal Script licked his lips “I’m just casting a simple spell.”

“Didn’t you hear what William just said?” a voice shouted behind us.

The unicorn noble turned around to see a Pegasus and one rather irate looking earth pony. I tried not to flinch, as Amber and Silver had just arrived. I didn’t want them here to cause a scene… or react without thinking. I could only imagine what Amber would have thought, if she misheard Regal Script wanting to turn everyone into ponies.

Amber was now glaring at the Unicorn as she spoke with growing hatred “Why is he even down here if Brass aka the ‘real criminal’ he is looking for is upstairs?”

I tried not to sigh “That’s because both of these criminals were working with the cursed trader, who they were originally after.”

Silver shook her head “But didn’t Miss Remedy claim she couldn’t do anything for her… she had no idea what our prisoner even originally was before… this?”

The unicorn rolled his eyes “She was examining the criminal for conventional magical spells.” he replied in a slightly condescending tone “What I am doing is verifying her condition for spells that don’t fall under the normal or conventional casting methods.”

“Being changed into another species overnight counts as unusual for us!” Amber snapped “Or are you saying that is common in Equestria?”

I bit my lip as I pulled her aside and whispered “What do you think you are doing?”

Amber nearly snapped at me as she harshly whispered “Mort the Equestrian doc already knew about humanity? I think you should have told us about that before the Equestrian jackass arrived!”

She nearly spat at me, as her harsh attempt to whisper grew louder “Why the blazing fuck does Celestia already know about humanity, and why did I have to hear from one of your guards, that apparently, Celestia is trying keep us from turning back to normal!”

“What are you doing?” Silver spoke out loud.

“It’s just a more extensive scan.” Regal Script replied as he pointed the scroll at our avian prisoner.

She started flapping her wings as she screamed “No! No! No!”

Anyone who used to be human, covered their ears as she screamed in terror. I could see her eyes widened in horror, as she flapped her wings frantically in some sort of vain attempt to escape. Silver tried to stop the unicorn as he ignored her protests, completely focused on his spell.

The scroll glowed as the arcane text turned blue, a light struck the caged prisoner, causing the avian’s head to suddenly jerk to the right. There was a faint smell of smoke coming from the scroll, as they could hear the caged prisoner scream at the top of her lungs, before everything disappeared in a puff of smoke.

******

Regal Script

“Fuck! Fuck!” shouted a mare in a un-lady like tone, which certainly wasn’t helped by the rather loud gagging and subsequent hacking sounds she made.

Paws, hooves, and wings moved about trying to dissipate the smoke as they tried to see what happened. The doors opened up as guards came rushing along with a breath of fresh air. The mule squadron stood ready behind him with staffs tied to their armor… no they were spears without tips, since apparently the donkeys couldn’t figure out how to properly line them out, without an improvised device to help line up their shots.

Still, he should be at least grateful if they rushed to their positions in a quick and orderly time. More importantly, they moved in front of him with the spears ready in the air, so that if the bird tried to escape it would charge into them instead of him.

Once the smoke died down, the mare quickly replied “Oh you’ve got to be fucking kidding…”

There was a sound of something falling, or splashing, on the ground behind him, but Regal Script didn’t pay attention to it, as his focus was on the cage in front of him. He was expecting a fireball… burnt remains lying on the bottom of the cage, or ashes set out in a grim pattern of a skull. Instead, it looked as if… it looked as if somepony had placed a small piece of fireworks into a pot of oatmeal… except instead of oatmeal it was meat… and feathers… and lots of former pieces of the unknown creature now stained the room.

In fact, if it wasn’t for the two bird talons, almost left comically standing with smoke drifting off them… he would have never guessed there was a large bird that was standing in the middle of the cage. Well, there was certainly enough bits carpeting the floors, walls… and sweet Celestia it was even dripping down from the ceiling!

He turned his head only to see the donkey, earth pony, and pegasus staring at him. The donkey seemed to be waiting for an explanation. The pegasus was looking at him, as if she was ready to throw him in jail. The earth pony trying to shake bits of… avian off her, looked as if she was about to kill him.

“What did you do?” The earth pony spoke in a low tone… a low raspy tone, normally reserved for griffins in dark alleyways with butcher cleavers. “What caused her to suddenly go pop, like a balloon?” She even had the same kind glare, as she kept growing at him.

“We don’t know that she dead…” The donkey spoke with a faint hope “maybe she’s alright?”

Regal Script looked down at the scroll as… it was currently a pile of ashes on the floor. The scroll shouldn’t have been reduced to a pile of ash as it was… alright it wasn’t a simple, but more of a complex magical spell used to do a detailed analyzed scan of the pony/subject. It would then only react to one type of problem… but it certainly shouldn’t have made the avian prisoner explode, or be reduced to a pile of ash.

One of the key points of making magical scrolls like it was to ensure that the process could safely be reproduced and carried out by any unicorns, if they lacked the necessary skills or knowledge to cast the spell properly in the first place!

The pegasus that stood near him shouted “She’s dead! He was told about her condition and decided to play around anyway. And, unless he can show me where her body is, than he’s going into one of those jail cells!”

Regal took a step back, as this really was a bad problem. He lost a very old scroll and, somehow, caused a major diplomatic incident. What he wanted to do in that moment was just to send Celestia a letter so that she could explain what happened… wait what did the pegasus just said?

The donkey glanced at him “Still, maybe we should get a copy of the scroll to have our experts take a look at it. Then, he turned to the other ponies in the room… maybe it was just some sort of teleportation spell or…” he said in a placating and hopeful tone.

“Certainly! I’ll send you a copy of one later.” Regal Script replied as he was quite certain that they would never see a copy of the scroll he promised. He knew they didn’t have any experts. They were just saying it so that he could promise them a copy that he would never give them.

He focused on the ashes of what used to be the scroll. He certainly didn’t mis-cast the spell, as it was a very old and very valuable piece of ancient pony history... an historical relic of an ancient era... that was now a pile of ash upon the floor. Maybe he would be lucky as there would be another copy of that scroll in some vault in Canterlot?

“Why can’t we use the one you used?” Hissed the earth pony, who was currently being restrained by the reasonable and friendly donkey.

Regal Script started to adjust his tie as it now felt like it was strangling him “Because… apparently there was some sort of magical backlash.” Everyone in the room stared at him “Look, the scroll was reduced to a pile of ash on the floor. That pile of ash on the floor is… no it was the scroll that I was using. It had suffered from the magical surge.”

The Pegasus looked at him as if he had claimed the moon was actually made out of cheese. The donkey didn’t believe him. The earth pony on the other hoof judging by her venomous glare she is casting on him, seemed to be planning his execution in the back of her mind.

He glanced back at the guards, the jail employed as they had started to point their spears towards him. Even if they were ‘non-lethal’ spears, all they had to do was simply beat their victim unconscious, and the unicorn noble was certainly feeling like a victim at this moment.

The donkey quickly stepped in-between him and the guards and spoke in a firm tone “Listen, this might have been an accident… a very untimely accident.” He paused just a moment before continuing “One that just happened at the worst possible moment. Still, do you want me to bag up the remains of the prisoner to be shipped to canterlot, or should we take care of the mess you left behind?”

He was about to say something else, until he noticed the donkey quirking an eyebrow at him, as if he was signaling him to give the ‘right answer’ to start making amends.

Regal Script really wished he had taken some more members of the Royal Guard with him, or that he hadn’t left them to ‘inspect’ New Terra. Guards in general were meant to protect him from accidents… not brandish their weapons at him or accusing him for being the one responsible for the disaster. “I’ll have to check with Princess Celestia… and it might be a good idea to have Remedy Cross check to ensure the remains are safe.”

The Pegasus quickly muttered “Isn’t she suppose to help you out when you check on Brass? In fact why wasn’t she with you?”

Regal Script straightened his suit “She had other duties to attend to and her presence could have aggravated Brass during the interrogation.”

The earth pony spoke with seething hatred “So he was left to walk around, ignoring our rules… killing someone… and we are just going to pretend nothing happened?”

He felt himself starting to sweat, as he gathered up the remains of the scroll, and placed them in his suit’s pockets. He could still do this… things looked bad right now, but he could still pull it together.

First, he would see how their weather operations went. He would then be able to help suggest that he could send a few Equestrian weather ponies, to help the citizens of New Terra work out some of their settlement’s weather snags.

Then, he would send letters to Celestia. She could help explain what the scroll was suppose to do, or help address some of the issues they were having… and hopefully help smooth things out.

He could still find a way to succeed, despite this rather painful setback.

The donkey spoke in a firm tone “We don’t know what happened yet. For now, we should just take him back to a room… a regular room and try to figure out what had happened.”

Regal Script tried not to sigh in relief. He tried his best to pretend to be the innocent noble of Equestrian nobility that he was, as he allowed himself to be escorted out of the jail, while he tried to figure out some way to salvage this.

******

Steel Halberd

Bristol looked around the shop as the dust gray earth pony named Forge placed the rest of Valkyrie’s armor out on display.
He smiled as he cheerfully replied “It took a bit of work trying to get the right mixture, but it should be fine.”

Valkyrie started putting on her armor as Steel was once again reminded of the almost mythical feat of strength of watching Valkyrie be able to walk around in the armor without any strain or unease. He rubbed his sides as he remembered his brief moment as it really felt like wearing a lead coffin when Steel Tide was trying to tear him apart.

He shook his head as he preferred something that didn’t restrain his movements so that he could avoid the attacks instead of taking them head on. Still Steel Halberd couldn’t help but smirk as he noticed Bristol staring in slight disbelief as Valkyrie seemed unhindered by the armor as she trotted around the store.

Valkyrie took her helmet off as she shook her head “It feels a bit lighter.”

Forge rubbed his chin “We tried going for an earth pony tank variant so it should stand up against most conventional weapons.” He looked down at his notebook “Though if you want something heavier we could try making a new suit if only to test how durable we could make a suit of armor.”

Valkyrie just shook her head “Maybe next time. I’m just happy you managed to fix it.” She tapped her breastplate with her hoof “So what did you test it against?”

Forge closed his notebook as he replied off hoof “Gun fire.”

Steel noticed Valkyrie’s eyes shrink as she stared at the smith in disbelief. Bristol who had been going over the wide array of weapons had stopped to turn around as he noticed the odd pause in the conversation.

Steel Halberd glanced at Forge as he couldn’t help but ask “What is gun fire? Some sort of flaming arrow or a device that spews fire?”

Forge chuckled “No that would be a flamethrower and those are too expensive to even try crafting right now.”

Bristol spoke up as he watched Forge “Can we see this gun fire?”

Forge nodded his head as he didn’t seem bothered “Sure, but just remember that we haven’t finished working out all the kinks. If you have any questions about prices just let me know.”

Bristol quickly followed the earth pony out of the shop as Steel quickly moved beside Valkyrie as he whispered “What is gun fire?”

Valkyrie looked bleak as they heard the sound of something going off in the distance. Steel felt a small shiver down his spine as the sound reminded him of Lockheart’s makeshift weapon that harmed the changeling from the Everfree forest.

Valkyrie shook her head as she muttered “What do you know about Bristol?”

Steel Halberd shrugged “He’s a Sergeant from Smokey Mountains and has helped fight in a few skirmish battles. I doubt he is going to cause any problems as he’ll just want to see what type of weapons and armor that is made in New Terra before filing a report to his commanding officer.”

They heard the sound again in the distance as Steel felt a small bit of unease as he continued “Most likely he’ll just dismiss most of the equipment or he might try and buy a weapon or piece of armor for himself. Whether it will be for decorative purposes or combat use I don’t know.”

They stepped out the building as they saw a dozen citizens standing behind a row of sandbags. Each of them held odd yet slightly familiar weapons as they took aim at a few suits of armor. Then the sound rang out in the air again as Steel recognized what should have been obvious to him.

The sound of gunfire went off as each crack of the riffle unleash it’s fury upon their targets as Forge spoke in a cheerful tone “We’ve built a few reliable riffles and so far they are working like a charm without any major problems.”

******

“How could it have all gone wrong so fast?” Steel asked himself in the back of his mind.

Bristol and Forge were getting into a heated argument. Valkyrie was banging her head up against a nearby wall and Steel Halberd barely understood what was going on.

“Do you have any idea what you are doing!” The pegasus sergeant shouted out loud

The dusty gray earth pony pointed a hoof “This town wasn’t built in Equestria. It wasn’t built by Equestrians. So naturally, you don’t get a say in what we can or cannot do!”

Steel closed his eyes as he tried to figure out what he should do. He had already tried thinking up ways to help deal with the fact that the citizens of this town figured out a way to produce better quality steel, at a much faster rate than Equestria knew of.

He was even prepared to help try to deal with any cultural… and inevitable misunderstandings, or talk of how their foreign brands of armor were different, compared to than the traditional suits of armor that the Royal Guard wore.

Bristol was a traditionalist and if the armor his grandfather wore when he was in the Royal Guard was good enough for him. Then naturally the same standard of weapons and armor were good enough for Bristol. Seeing ranged weapons that he knew nothing about that had also been built to render his armor useless that Forge was planning to mass produce naturally didn’t set well with the pegasus sergeant.

Steel Halberd looked at the various suits of armor that were being used as target practice… as the ‘gunners’, as Valkyrie called them, were testing out their new/old invention called the rifle. It was an odd and slightly frightening device, that looked like a pipe with some odd bits of wood and metal attached to it, as they put small oddly shaped bits of metal into the device.

Sure, he knew of the weapon Lockheart used in the Everfree forest… but that was used nearly at point blank range, and the weapon itself didn’t last that long. These rifles were being used to shoot targets at the distant, with a frightening amount power.

The oddly shaped pieces of metal called ‘bullets’ pierced the armor, leaving holes or sending helmets flying off their stands. What was unnerving was that these weapons didn’t even use enchanted ammunitions, like the bows and arrow the griffins tended to favor.

Bristol saw this as a dangerous weapon, since ponies needed a type of harness to fire the weapons (unless they were unicorns), and the fact that the weapons were tearing through armor. The Equestrian Pegasus thought they needed to be restricted and regulated under Equestria’s laws, if not out right banned.

The dusty coal gray earth pony named Forge who had repaired Valkyrie’s armor saw this as some random foreigner trying to enforce ‘their authority’ on some place they didn’t even own. Forge was making weapons meant to help defend other ponies, and now some stranger was telling him what he can or cannot do?

Steel glanced at the riffles as he noticed some of the odd changes in their designs “How did you even make them?”

Forge rolled his eyes “Some diamond dog named Tracy or something gave us a few of them. He wanted us to help make replacement parts and we just made cast copies of the various components. I mean sure it’s easy to build gun… all you really need is a few pipes, a spring, and a welding torch.”

“Where is this diamond dog? Why are you making replacement parts for him?” Anger started to seep into his voice “Where did he get the weapons? What are his plans for the weapons!” Bristol spoke with a tone of suspicion

Forge shrugged “I don’t know and I don’t care. ”The earth pony spoke with growing annoyance “What you don’t understand is that riffles need ammunitions, as you can’t just pick up a bullet off the ground, and stuff it back into the riffle. It needs a powerful propellant to create the force needed to send the bullet flying forth. It needs maintenance, so that the barrel doesn’t warp reducing the gun’s power, or some other problem that could cause the rifle to explode, hitting the user with a shower of shrapnel in the process!”

“So you are giving out weapons that can also kill it’s user!” the pegasus shouted back in fury.

The two ponies continued to argue with each other as everypony had started to take notice of the shouting match. Steel Halberd glanced over at Valkyrie as she was the only one who really seemed to understand the weapon that he could safely talk to.

Steel glanced back at Valkyrie as he whispered “Is there any sort of protection against it?”

The mare shook her head as she seemed nervous “Well there’s Kevlar… but no one knows how to make it… or they can’t make it. But, If those guns work like musket rifles, than getting the weapons, or the powder, wet would render them useless.”

“Or that’s how it works in the movies at least.” she muttered underneath her breath.

Steel sighed in relief, as it wasn’t completely bad. If there was a group of ponies using such weapons, than all it would take would be a simple spring shower to stop them. It was still a dangerous weapon, but there was something that could be done against it.

“What about the ammunition?” Steel replied hastily “Are there any enchantments on them or… or enchantments on armor that could hamper or stop them?”

“None.” Valkyrie replied slowly “I mean no one had made any enchantments… to use with the ammo or to stop them with.”

Steel felt that was a strange answer to give, but then again other nations can operate in strange ways. Before Equestria pegasi relied on their gifts of flight and staying bound to their cloud made homes for refuge, where their enemies had to be able to fly in order to reach them. Unicorns would seek tall peaks like mountains where the paths would limit their opponent’s movements, while they cast a variety of spells to slowly whittle away their numbers. Diamond dogs used their tunnels and broken terrain to avoid their opponents and launch sneak attacks. While the buffalo preferred open plains to simply charge into battle.

Steel shook his head “So… no enchantments… it’s just a small piece of metal, being propelled forward due to a small contained explosion behind it.”

Valkyrie nodded her head “That’s pretty much it.”

Steel looked at the armor that was being struck by the hail of bullets… and then how the weapons were being reloaded. Some used something called ‘black powder’ was poured into the riffle. Some simply slid the ammunition down the barrel only to be shouted at by the ponies in charge. The ones who didn’t, get shouted at were using bristled sticks to push the bullet down to the bottom of the barrel… and after each shot they used the bristled sticks to clean the barrel before preparing to fire another round.

Some of the ‘gunners’ were slipping in tiny oddly shaped bullets in the center of the rifle, before pulling a level sealing the opening up then opening fire once again.

Apparently, they were busy trying to make a bullet design that wouldn’t be affected by a heavy down pour or where a good rain storm would render their next shot useless. He took a deep breath as that would mean the bullets would also be expensive, and if you couldn’t reuse the ammunition, than you would have to buy more bullets, which in turn would cost more bits.

“How do they determine how much force is used… or where the bullet hits?” Steel asked as he tried to figure the weapon out.

Valkyrie shook her head “You don’t really determine how much force is behind it. As for aiming you just try to line up your shot.”

Steel nodded his head as these rifles sounded like a stronger version of a crossbow… except they didn’t have enchantments. A good rainstorm could render them useless, and they were expensive to use or to maintain.

With that Steel just sighed in relief “Well that isn’t too bad.” Now it was Valkyrie who was looking at him strangely. “I mean sure they are stronger, but it shouldn’t take too much trouble to update or inform Equestria on how they work and, more importantly, the different flaws they have.”

Valkyrie blinked “I thought you would be acting more like… him.”

Steel shook his head “I’ll admit they are unsettling, but if they can’t be enchanted, or the amount of work to enchant a single bullet is extremely costly… then yes it will be a dangerous weapon, but it won’t be that bad.”

Valkyrie stared at him in confusion she muttered “Are you telling me this to calm me down or…”

Steel shrugged “An ice arrow with at a cloud and the result will be a large cart sized chunk of ice falling from the sky. A few ice arrows with a large cloud can end with a small iceberg falling down from the sky. Can a gun do that?”

Valkyrie was now staring at him in disbelief “You’re kidding!”

Steel Halberd couldn’t find it how odd it was that a pegasus wearing a suit of armor, that would be counted as a lead coffin to any other type of pony… one who seemed quite skilled at fighting, didn’t seem to know one of the more basic techniques used by pegasi during the Three Tribe Era.

Maybe it had to do with their crazy weather hampering their natural weather manipulation techniques, or the lack of magical expertise that caused them to diverge from the Equestrian standard of what counted as normal.

Valkyrie seemed frustrated by his lack of worry as she replied “But what about fire lines? How easy it is to learn how to shoot a gun?”

Steel rolled his eyes “The same could be said about crossbows. The only difference is that we have griffins trying to help make versions that ponies can use.”

Steel shrugged “I’ll admit that a few ponies back home will be nervous, but if their guns cannot be integrated with magic… then they will just became another normal, if rather dangerous, types of weapons, like a crossbow or a ballista.”

Valkyrie seemed to relax, from his threat assessment. “It can’t be that simple!?”

Steel shook his head “Equestria may want to limit the amount of guns made… Princess Celestia would probably just negotiated a contract or something to allow Equestria to be the exclusive buyers. Then, while the weapons are being tested, it will be done under careful management without causing too much restriction for New Terra.”

Valkyrie stared at him in a mixture of confusion and surprise “What makes you think that?”

He couldn’t help but chuckle “I’m a member of the Royal Guard. We are more than just pretty faces who stand still outside the castle gates. Sometimes, we also help pull Celestia’s cart, or stand by her side, while she negotiates with other groups who also have crazy ideas.”

Steel moved a hoof in front of his mouth as he whispered “You can learn a lot from that.”

This actually earned a chuckle from the mare as he smirked “Yes, one day too you may be graced with the honor of standing in a room bored out of your mind, while listening to Princess Celestia trying to convince a bunch of ponies the importance of restrictions while, offer them a lucrative contract to continue their research.”

Valkyrie shook her head “I just wish Bristol wasn’t making such a big deal over it.”

“That’s because he’s a member of the Royal Guard… just like you.” Steel reminded her “It’s our job to protect Equestria and when a new weapon is being mass produced right in front of your doorstep…”

Valkyrie’s ears flattened against her head as she looked down at the ground “I can see your point.”

Steel Halberd glanced at the rifle range “Still, I can’t help but wonder why they are even building these things? I mean their method in steel production should be enough to solve their money issues.”

A nearby diamond dog spoke up “It’s because a gun is simple and everyone knows to be afraid of it.”

Steel frowned as he looked at the diamond dog cleaning a rifle “I don’t see how showing your enemies that you have guns would frighten them considering most of us haven’t even heard of a gun.”

The diamond dog shook his head “They’ll figure it out quickly. Besides it’s not like everyone here can lift boulders or hurl lightning bolts. As for our secret for making steel… it’s not a good idea to place all of your eggs in one basket. Guns may be crude, violent, and dangerous, but they offer us protection while earning us some money.”

Steel nodded his head as he kept his mouth shut. They were out in the badlands all by themselves only to have a rogue diamond dog get turned into a dragon and nearly destroy one of the outposts. They couldn’t exactly stand by and wait for the Equestrians to swoop in and save them. They needed protection that they could reach or rely upon.

Grabbing hold of a weapon you know that can protect you while a dangerous criminal was still on the loose would be a comforting thought. The only question was if the ones making the riffles were trying to profit off the fear of the common citizen, or if they were trying their best to protect their home in their own ways.

Bristol shouted at the top of his lungs “When the Noble houses hear of Equestria hear of this!”

“We’ll tell them to buck a cactus!” Forge shouted as he somehow managed to make what felt like a rather rude jester as he held up his hoof.

Steel took a deep breath as he looked at Valkyrie “Now get ready for one of the most important lessons you can learn while being in the Royal Guard… learning how to pull away your superior officer before he stabs himself in his hoof.”

He moved over to Bristol, and tried pulling him away, while Valkyrie tried to apologize, and smooth things out. All he needed to do was calm the pegasus down… help explain the rather glaring flaws of the riffles, while Valkyrie could somehow manage to assure the adventure/weapon smith that Equestria wasn’t coming down to tell them what he could or could not do.

“This is what I think of your weapons!” Bristol shouted at the top of his voice.

Valkyrie’s eyes widened in terror as every hair and feather on her body stood out. Seeing her in wide eyed terror, Steel turned around in panic ready to see a monster or that cursed griffin ready to attack. Instead he saw Sergeant Bristol holding one of the riffles and… the nozzle was pointed straight at his face.

Steel and Valkyrie rushed forward before Bristol could make the display of smashing the butt end of the rifle, against the ground in a vain attempt to break it… without realizing that he could accidently end up blasting his own head off.

Valkyrie managed to tackle Bristol to the ground, as the gun hit the floor and went off. Everypony ducked for cover, as the round went off without hitting anypony. Bristol was shouted various curses, as he tried to shove Valkyrie off him, while Steel quickly went to apologize to Forge over the mishap before getting ready to escort Bristle to anywhere else.

Hopefully they could help smooth some ruffled feathers and explain the other side of the story to Bristol and Forge… and hopefully they would talk again, like civilized ponies tomorrow.

******

Peter

The council was convened once again to discuss our current predicament. I tried not to groan as I was expecting the usual issues, like the Equestrians wanted to ‘suggest’ a few restrictions on the importation of steel, trade deal, or on our production of firearms or perhaps even providing assistance in moving Brass to Equestria.

The normal boring council politics that you only want to smash your head against a wall until you have finally been rendered unconscious. Of course that wouldn’t stop the small, simple, and irritating problems that always would start building up on the unforeseen issues on planning larger projects that would crop up, all the while trying to solve all the logistical issues that was being dealt with.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath… why was I still stuck doing my old job with the same old problems that I had back in earth, but now it was in land full of magic, unicorns, and rainbows? I opened my eyes as I tried to focus on the current problem.

I was not expecting for everyone to say that we should close our borders with Equestria. I mean, we haven’t exactly talked with Equestria previously, or really interacted with them, as New Terra wasn’t big or important enough to warrant Equestria’s attention, until now.

I looked down at the council in dismay “Okay, what happened with the ponies that Equestria sent to us?”

Amber growled “Equestria is the source of all our problems.”

I bit my lip as that didn’t seem possible. I looked at the other council members, as I was expecting for someone to quickly argue back like usual. It was a bad sign to see them being unusually silent which said a lot more than what they usually say. Sure some of them didn’t believe what Amber had said… but they were not denying it either.

Theodore spoke up “That weird bird looking adventurer turned monster… The unicorn delegate named Regal Script blew her up.”

I stared at the human turned griffin in disbelief “By blew up… do you mean shout or…”

“Nope…” Theodore replied shaking his head with a semi melodramatic pause he finally said “She just blew up.”

I stared at him in disbelief as he continued “One moment she’s there playing her usual mind games and making everyone angry. Then the next moment… well… we are still scraping off bits of her remains off the walls. Silver saw it. Amber saw it. A couple of other guards on duty saw it.”

I bit my lip as William simply nodded his head in confirmation, which only made me feel worst. Personally, it felt wrong to even think that a pony just out right killed someone… but thinking that this place would be just like the TV show was wrong.

I tried to stay calm over what looks like a crisis situation “Okay… how did this happen? Did she antagonize him or maybe provoked him to retaliate… possibly out of fear? I know that there have been plenty of complaints from the guards who have brought her meals.”

William shook his head “He couldn’t hear her. He’s an Equestrian native after all. We did warn him about her medical condition, as Ms Remedy herself claimed that messing around with her whatever spell that kept her in that form could be fatal.”

Silver slammed her hoof down on the table “He ignored our warnings, and used a scroll on her that caused her to explode. The scroll that he used was ‘left’ as a pile of ash on the floor, and he ‘claimed’ he could send us a copy of the spell from Canterlot.”

Amber huffed in annoyance “Which could be a fake for all we know.”

I looked over at her in surprise “Do you think he actually did it on purpose?”

There were a few grunts of agreement from some of the others, but Silver’s ears fell to her side as she looked down “It doesn’t matter if it was accident or if it was on purpose. That’s not the main problem. I mean, sure she wasn’t a member of New Terra… but she did have a menu system, so she was human. I could see throwing her in jail or letting the courts pass judgment due to her crimes on what she did with the ‘cursed’ trader.”

Silver looked up at me with a hint of anger in her eyes “But, what if that was one of us? He blatantly ignored our warnings about her serious condition. They went ahead doing whatever they wanted because ‘we’ were not as advance in the field of magic as they were, and dismissed us completely for it. When she died he claimed he would try to get us a copy of the scroll. He didn’t say what the spell was about, only that the spell was to check for a unique condition… or something ‘magical’ and he didn’t even say what he was looking for!”

I grimaced as Amber replied “He... he didn’t even show any remorse over what happened. He didn’t say he was sorry or offer his condolences about his spell ‘accidentally’ murdering her. All he did was try to escape the blame.”

She sighed as it looked as if she had just aged years before my very eyes “I’m not sure we can trust them to look out for our own well being. What if they want to test another spell on one of us, and see what happens next? Does the fact she was a criminal make it ‘alright’ that she was experimented on, or worse since she was in our jail surrounded by our guards and now reduced to paste on our walls, simply because we let a unicorn walk in with an unknown spell, which we have to take his word for what it actually did! For all we know, Canterlot might send us a scroll on how to check for the chicken pox, and we wouldn’t even know if that was the actual scroll he had used!”

She placed a hoof against her forehead as she continued “We claimed we had experts that could look over the scroll. We don’t have experts. All we did was send Regal Script back to a hotel room so that we could discuss what he did!”

I bit my lip as Silver was really upset, and the others were worried. Come to think of it were they even allowed to just send the Equestrian diplomat back to his room? Did they just tell him and he didn’t refuse or do they have guards standing outside of his room preventing him from leaving?

I glanced at William “Why didn’t you place Regal Script in a jail cell after all of this?”

William scoffed at the question as he bitterly replied “Because he didn’t invoke that escorting him to his room would be a violation of his ‘diplomatic immunity’. He sighed in relief “And we all know how that could have made things even worse when Equestria would have found out about it.”

I think what is bothering me the most was how… casually all of this had happened. We didn’t know who our dead prisoner was or even what her name was. We were keeping her in jail, if only to check which crimes she had committed… and if they were big enough to warrant her to be shipped straight to Canterlot. Instead, we had one single pony make all the decisions without our consent, and by the time we realized something was wrong it was already too late.

I looked back at William, quirking an eyebrow “Why did you allow him to bring the scroll with him?”

William hung his head as I knew my old friend was ashamed to have let this disaster happened under his watch “The guard that searched him was only looking for weapons and mirrors… not sheets of paper. Even then, considering some of the tricks the humans turned into unicorns can do, with just their magic, it was easy to forget what a normal unicorn could do. I mean, it’s not like we have any anti-magic rings laying around that can prevent a pony from casting spells or something.”

I stared at William, as I knew he was holding something back “Is there anything else…”

He sighed as he slowly nodded his head “That… and from the reports, he didn’t seem that bad with the other humans turned ponies… but I could feel the chip on his shoulder when he addressed anyone who wasn’t a pony.”

I took a deep breath as I tried my best to smooth things over “I wasn’t there, but from what it sounds like to me… you have a slightly arrogant diplomat who screwed up.”

“And got someone killed for it.” I thought in the back of my mind,

Ashley shook her head as the human turned diamond dog looked the worst out of the entire group “There is also the issue of Brass’s interrogation, before he made the bird … I mean a human explode.”

I sighed, as I knew this didn’t have a happy ending “What happened?”

Ashley shook her head “That’s the odd part… it was rather… civil.”

I blinked in disbelief at what I just heard, as I couldn’t help but ask “Civil?”

Amber nodded her head “When Remedy Cross was there we kind of had to force the guards to drag her away… after she dislocated Brass Ball’s leg with her magic.”

Theodore stared at her in disbelief “The doctor pony who is going about treating anyone who was afflicted by the cursed trader?”

Amber coughed as if uneasy at that reminder “Yes… and Brass… she just kept kicking and screaming about how she was going to kill her even after Remedy Cross dislocated one of her legs..”

I held up a claw “Brass was going to kill Remedy… or Remedy was going to kill Brass?”

William coughed “Brass trying to kill Remedy… but Remedy wasn’t exactly thrilled to see Brass either.”

I shook my head as I tried to prepare myself “Was Regal Script upset that we were keeping Remedy Cross from the interrogation room to prevent another fight?”

Amber groaned “If only… the others were sent to help figure out what Regal Script did as the unicorn just went out and admitted that Celestia is behind it all!”

I stared at Ashley who slowly nodded her head “Well… he started asking Brass a few questions and her responses were sort of… strange.”

Amber slammed her hooves onto the table “She said and I quote ‘You want to turn all the humans back into good little ponies’ and he replied by saying yes… not some sort of arbitrary statement that could be seen as saying yes, but he literally said the word yes for all of us to hear. He didn’t even act as if there was anything wrong with her what she said!”

William rose his voice “You weren’t even there, at the interrogation!”

“The guards told me what happened.” Amber coldly countered as she stared at him “But that was what the Equestrian diplomat had said wasn’t it!? I dare you to say otherwise!”

I looked back at the others and most of them were either looking at the floor or slowly nodding their heads. It wasn’t an attempt to just let Amber rant… but looked as if their parents told them that Santa Claus in the mall was just a hobo with stuffing down his shirt, and the real jolly man had died ages ago as ‘Santa’ was just an excuse for rich people to claim their children were better because ‘Santa’ always gave them the best toys.

I pinched the bridge of my nose “He just said yes… just like that?”

William sighed “Not to get off topic, but Brass Balls is a confirmed criminal. Maybe she didn’t do every crime Equestria claims she did, but she is a criminal. We shouldn’t believe anything she says.”

“What about Mort!” Amber viciously countered

William frowned as it was obvious he didn’t want to talk about it “Her… ‘friend’ named Mort… he just kept asking me a bunch of questions, before the delegate arrived. It was just small stuff, like how was earth… , or the concept of magic and how it worked for us, since humans don’t have magic, and how those who have adjusted to magic have reacted to it, or did they switch to the Equestrian brand or possible little bit of a mixture between certain theories of magic from earth and the magic they learned from Equestria.”

I stared at him in disbelief “Her friend… you mean the Equestrian native unicorn?”

William nodded his head “I just figured he was well… an oddity. I just thought that maybe he was the exception to the rule, since you don’t really hear anyone else from Equestria talking about all the humans that fell from the skies and changed overnight.”

I rubbed my temples as this… this sounded absolutely crazy. I mean sure there hasn’t been a lot of talk about why none of the ponies seemed to be talking about humans… but you’d be surprised at the levels of denial people can make up for themselves. I mean, for some people still refuse to believe humanity even landed on the moon, despite all the evidence that proves that we had in fact landed on there.

“Was there some sort of magic… maybe a spell that altered his perception?” I asked as I felt like I was grasping at straws.

William shook his head “He was escorted straight to Brass and she didn't have anything on her. We asked him the same question when he was away from Brass and Regal Script still have us the same answer.”

“He also threatened to use a reformation spell or mind control on Brass if she didn’t cooperate.” Amber spoke with growing disgust “I can understand being thrown in jail or serving hard labor… but having someone go into your mind and trying to make you a ‘better pony’ is wrong no matter how you cut it!”

Her entire body shivered as she shook her head “If the diplomat uses the threat of mind control on a prisoner than I dread to think of what the actual verdict could be.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose as that was what I just needed to hear. Regal Script… murderer, saboteur, and he freely admitted that Celestia wants to turn us all into ponies and if we refuse than he’ll screw with our minds until, we are all happy little ponies, who will go along with whatever they want.

I really don’t want to believe what they are saying… but it’s getting a lot harder to refuse the facts so to speak. As much as I hate to admit it… I was starting to entertain the thought of closing all borders with Equestria.

Theodor spoke up “Forge along with a few other concerned citizens had a few complaints about the Pegasus named Bristol… apparently he demanded that we are not allowed to make anymore guns.” He rubbed his temples with his talons in frustration “He was really up in arms about it. Even claiming about how the nobles in Canterlot would react when they heard about this. A lot of people are rather upset about Equestria wanting to ban guns right after we were attacked by a dragon.”

I took a deep breath “And what about the other four… the ones that didn’t accompany the unicorn diplomat that just came to visit us?”

Theodore cleared his throat “At this point does it matter? I know I wasn’t exactly onboard with the prisoner trade without… compensation, but…” He scratched his neck as he looked nervous “No offense, but they are friends with a human. Either they don’t know… or don’t care.”

Ashley spoke up in disbelief “How could they not care if Celestia wants to turn us all into ponies?”

Theodore coughed “I mean if you look at it from a technical viewpoint…”

“Technical?” Amber hissed in fury “We were turned into ponies almost like one of those creepy Equestria takeover fanfics… except that the solar bitch screwed up on her fucking potion since we still have free will!”

A piece of the ceiling fell as I quickly moved my hand over to protect her. The stone fell against my hand instead of on top of Amber as everyone looked up at the ceiling, as if expecting another stone to fall on one of them.

I released my grip and brushed the dirt of my hand, as Amber was shivering in fear as if expecting another attack. I just simply sighed in relief as that… moment of bad luck ended without any problems other than making everyone else nervous.

Theodore was the first recover from the scare as he said “Let’s face some of the facts… A pony can look at a sunflower as a light snack instead of a decoration. I’m a griffin who can fly and push clouds around… that is not something you associate with humans.”

He sighed “I’m still human… but I could see how some people might not… well they might not care anymore. Heck Celestia may have just given up and figured if we are happier as ponies in Equestria than humans on earth… why should she try to change it?”

“Because we are human.” Silver replied “Let’s get back to the main issue here. Equestria sent a pony to look up on our criminals. He blew somebody up. The other human called Brass Balls has a bone to pick with Equestrians, and the pony sent to talk apparently knew that we used to be human and he doesn’t care.”

She took a deep breath “We don’t have any real ties to Equestria and quite frankly… we don’t want them here. The only question is if we kick them out of New Terra with the prisoners they asked for or without them?”

Amber raised her hoof “Kick them out. The rest doesn’t matter just as long as we close off our borders.”

Ashley sighed in disappointment “Kick them out and give them the prisoners if only to make sure they don’t come back. Closing our borders might be for the best.”

Theodore shook his head “I vote kick them out… but we should keep the prisoners. Give them a court hearing or see how Equestria reacts to see if we are dealing with Solar Tyrant or unwanted ‘assistance’ version of Celestia. As for closing our borders right away… that might invite more unwanted attention.”

William nodded his head “We know how to deal with humans as the sad truth is… we kind of govern ourselves. The fact that we had a human die in jail … Honestly I always thought it be from another human or more likely a wild dragon …”

He glanced up at me “No offense.”

I rolled my eyes as when my growth kicked in there were a few questions about how I would… adjust. Spike’s episode had him act like Godzilla and dragons can be territorial. We were just lucky that the dragons don’t seem to care for the badlands either.

William shrugged “I vote to remove the prisoners and have them leave. If they want to wait for more guards to arrive… we’ll have to let them know that they can either leave with the prisoners or leave by themselves.”

Silver shook her head “I vote we let them keep the cursed griffin, but they don’t get anyone else. We need someone with Equestria’s knowledge of magic since we are kicking out our only expert. Maybe they had their own reasons for killing our prisoner or maybe it was really a mistake.”

Silver frowned as she looked at the table “But deciding that we would be better as whatever they decide instead of who we are is not something that I can agree with. If we want to be human than let us be human. If we want to be a pony, or a zebra, or whatever we are going to be stuck as then we should get a say in that decision since we are going to be stuck with it.”

The council now looked at me as they awaited my decision which of course had been already been made. Sure, I could be able to veto them under the grounds that they were making the decision too fast… maybe they were being emotional or that it had only been one day.

On the political end, it would be like shooting myself in the foot. I would be isolating myself from the rest of the council and claiming that I didn’t respect or care about their opinions. There was also a very good chance that it wouldn’t help the case against Regal Script anyway.

I didn’t know what had happened, so I have to rely on their reports. We don’t know if the scroll had accidently killed someone, or if it was done on purpose. We have one pony talking about humans and another pony that was acting strangely as they didn’t seem to find anything wrong with what was going on.

I looked back at them “I will agree with closing our borders for a short time… under the excuse of trying to ‘search’ for the cursed trader or any possible places he may have fled to. In the meantime we should send a few people out into Equestria had wait for them to come back.”

I had no idea what these people would do or what they would look for out in Equestria, but I’m quite certain everyone else was already drawing up plans or starting to form a list on exactly what these individuals would do.

I focused my eyes on them as I firmly stated “Then depending on what they say to us. Then we should make the decision on if we should keep the borders closed or if they should open them back up. Does everyone agree with that decision?”

They all nodded their heads as those didn’t want to close our borders would have to hope that the people we sent came back with good news… as for those who didn’t seemed to be sure that their suspicions would be confirmed.

“And the prisoners?” William asked out loud

“We’ll tell the ponies sent by Celestia that they will have to leave in the morning.” I calmly replied “If nothing bad happens than we can listen to what they have to say and take it from there. If they don’t ask for them then they already got what they were looking for and ‘giving’ them the prisoners would be pointless since they will not want them.”

There were a few grunts as I could swear one of them whispering that I was stalling… but I would like think about this decision after hearing what just happened. All I know is that one prisoners has a grudge against one of the Equestrians and another prisoner blew up.

If I just toss Regal Script out and the rest of the Equestrian natives with the prisoners then I’m certain they would blame me for any accidents that happened due to me rushing them. It would also make us seem like ‘jerks’ for throwing everyone out just because we had a problem with one (maybe two) people, but Equestria (as a whole) wouldn’t care anymore because they had the prisoners and we were no longer worth their interest.

If I toss Regal Script in jail, on charges of murder, than I’d be breaking several diplomatic laws and even ‘if’ they didn’t exist in Equestria everyone who lived in New Terra wouldn’t be comfortable with that decision.

If I keep the prisoners and sent the Equestrians out of New Terra then, I am certain Celestia will want to send a letter asking me what is going on, and why I was closing my borders while keeping the prisoners. Maybe Celestia will be able to provide the answer I am looking for, or maybe she will just lie to get what she wants… and now I’m stuck thinking like a full blown (and possibly a little bit corrupt) politician once again.

Either way I want some time to think about this decision and hopefully… Alarms filled the air as I quickly took flight towards the alarms as I had a feeling that things were about to get much worse.

******

Mort

The unicorn turned criminal wiped the heavy amount of sweat from his forehead, as he tried to unlock the jail cell door. The guards in the prison had sounded the alarm far sooner than he would have liked. They were in a panic, trying to figure out just where the nefarious criminal Brass Balls had escaped.

Mort muttered to himself “Fifty, Forty nine, Forty eight.”

He smiled as the gate was unlocked before he held the jail cell door to prevent it from swinging open as he put away the makeshift lock picks he had managed to create in his cell. The other prisoners were either running wild trying to reach where the first portal had appeared, forcing all the guards to pull out their billy clubs to beat them up… Thank Celestia that they weren’t resorting to using guns for now.

He looked at the second group of prisoners who were leaning against the jail cell doors in anticipation for the second portal. Lets the first wave of idiots tire out the guards so that they could use the confusion of the brawl to escape without their notice.

They knew that there had to be a second portal only because the Equestrian Natives had picked up that both Brass and Mort would be escaping. Brass was gone, so naturally Mort was going to be the second one to escape.

The floor shook as the fighting continued, while various criminals were being beaten due to the fact the guards had better equipment, or because there were more guards than prisoners. Mort licked his lips as he kept counting down “Thirty, Twenty Nine, Twenty Eight.”

He could feel the slight feeling of pinpricks as the portal was starting to form. His eyes darted to the center of the room until the ground shook as they heard the draconic mayor roar “What is going on!”

Fear coursed through him as he screeched for the portal. He needed to run. He had to run before the dragon caught him… before the Equestrians caught him.

“Twenty, Nineteen, Eighteen.” He whispered in horror as he heard the door get kicked open.

More guards came rushing through. Soldiers from Equestria flew in trying to contain the perceived riot as the rest of the prisoners were about to be taken out.

Mort kicked opened his cell door and bolted as the other half of the jail went into a full riot. The slightly smarter groups of criminals moved to join him or they were the new focus on the jail’s reinforcement. Various races were knocked aside as the guards came towards him. He knew they were after him as he had to open his mouth.

The air flicked for a moment before the portal appeared. That’s when the other criminals rushed forth as the air smelled of smoke and ash, causing Mort to stop. Another explosion went off, shaking the entire jail as dozens of parasprites flew out, apparently confused by their new surroundings.

A claw wrapped around his side as a rather large… and odd white griffin with brown spots like a cow said “You’re my ticket out of this jail or my name isn’t Matilda.”

Mort stared at the griffin in disbelief “What?”

The griffin rolled her eyes “I was a brown cow. Now I’m a griffin. Being an adventure is a lot more fun than working on that old farm in Sunnydale.”

Mort’s eyes went wide with terror as he said “Not another crazy human.”

The griffin laughed “I was a cow! Not a pony so you better hang on tight!”

The griffin plowed through the rest of the criminals laughing, as they both went through the portal before it closed shut.

******

Peter

I shook my head as the jail break had ended… It took a couple of guards, a little bit of help from the Equestrian guards, and playing the old ‘Do you really think you beat a dragon?’ card in order to quell the riot, but the damage was done.

Brass and Mort had escaped by some unknown means that no one could figure out. A few prisoners managed to escape the jail during the confusion either with Brass and Mort… or they were currently hiding within the town waiting for the heat to die down or taking their chances with the bad lands.

A few of the guards were pointing the blame at the Equestrians. Adventurers could teleport, do great feats of magic or strength… but making a portal was not in the standard playbook that anyone in New Terra knew about which ‘naturally’ meant it was the Equestrian’s fault for this rather sudden jail break.

The Equestrians… they started to shift the blame back at New Terra. They claimed the guards were slacking or ‘ill equipped’ to deal with actual criminals. They pointed out our ‘security’ was just a few iron bars and a poorly made dirt wall to hold prisoners who could teleport, fly, or dig underground.

The only thing I could tell was that neither side had no idea how this disaster happened and they were starting to descending into a mad mob as both sides kept shouting arguments, complaints, or barbed words at one another. Both sides had their reasons for wanting the prisoners or not wanting to take blame in the unexpected… and unknown means which the jailbreak was created.

I took a deep breath and cleared my throat loud enough to get everyone’s attention as they went silent. I could see them staring at me as they were waiting to see what would happen next.

I looked down at the two Equestrians who were the source of my grief…the outraged prison guards… the council that had grown to mistrust Equestria… and shook my head “Regal Script. I am sorry to inform you that most of the prisoners have escaped.”

There was an utter look of terror on the Equestrian unicorn’s face as he stared at me “I demand…”

He was making demands at me after killing one of the prisoners, insulting my staff, and trying to place the all the blame on the guards without hearing the full story?

I glared at the little pony who promptly shut his mouth as his fear over took his arrogance as I said “But as I was saying… you may take back the griffin and the diamond dog named Rover back to Equestria right now if you wish, but I must ask you and the other to leave while we sort this out.”

The pegasus named Bristol shouted “We demand to look into the cause of this prison break!”

“And we demand to know what that fucked up scroll did and you won’t tell us!” One of the prison guards shouted back in a venomous tone.

The other guards began to voice their agreement… and their discontent. Something had riled them up. They were far too eager to come to blows with the Equestrians.

Regal Script spoke out loud “I promise you Princess Celestia…”

“Screw her!” shouted another guard “She knew about humanity and she didn’t do fucking anything! She knew and she didn’t fucking care!”

Normally the guard should have been reprimanded for interrupting or even preventing Regal Script from finish his sentence, but most of the room was angry at the two Equestrians in charge.

Regal script spoke in a slight panic “She heard about the transformation problem, and tried to turn you back to normal.”

Something seemed to have snapped within the crowd forcing me to slam my hands into the ground stopping them from doing anything foolish. I looked down at the two Equestrians in spoke in a firm tone “You may leave with the Steel Tide as we can’t do anything for him here. You can take the criminal named Rover if you wish, or you can leave him to face his judgement in New Terra. Either way, you have to leave now.”

Bristol had his ears flop down as if he was dog who had been told ‘no’ after they did something bad. Regal Script seemed to be trying to muster the courage to say something… only for his own fear or incompetence to keep him silent.

The rest of the crowd was still angry… but they didn’t refuse or argue against my judgement as we exited the council room. Outside stood the rest of the Equestrians and a small crowd of disgruntled citizens as I repeated my judgement.

It didn’t take long for everyone prepare the armored berserker griffin and Rover for transport. The one called Steel Tide was left wrapped in chains within his cage unable to move as Remedy Cross used a spell to render him unconscious. The diamond dog was left in chains as his ‘cage’ had been attached to the end of Regal Script’s cart.

I couldn’t help but feel a small amount of pity or regret as I watched the other Equestrians go about their work. The Equestrians who came to New terra first help them with their problem looked hurt… but knew I couldn’t help them.

Something caused this these people to nearly come to blows and I wanted to figure out the cause behind it. I also needed to figure out how Brass had escaped, before thinking over what I should say to the Equestrians if they even bothered to send me a reply after this disaster.

Maybe they will just wash their hands of this entire situation. If I’m lucky they might apologize and try to make amends… but if they wish to send another team to look around the jail to figure out what we did wrong… Was this all on purpose?

New Terra was small and having a prison break would give them the perfect excuse to undermine our autonomy while ‘helping’ recover most of the prisoners. They didn’t have to wait to hear our response on the prisoner situation since Brass and Mort were ‘missing’ on our watch. The Avian was a smear on the ceiling and they didn’t really care too much about the last two prisoners.

Of course this could all be an accident. They might have nothing to do with the prison break… but I highly doubt that the guards they sent to help ‘assist’ us would be in our best interest. They would still undermine our independence or start trying to find more ‘problems’ that we needed to fix.

Closing our borders with Equestria might be a good idea for now.

******

Celestia

Celestia sighed as she prepared for her next case to be presented. Hopefully this wasn’t another noble trying to pass some half finished bill or proposition. Brown Muzzle had wasted far too much time arguing about the fact that anything the Night Guards had found was not in any way connected to him and that the papers they had forged were ‘obviously’ an attempt to smear his clean name.

If it wasn’t for a small idle threat Celestia had left… something about an inspection team having possibly gained a warrant to search the noble’s house before he came in, than he would have never left.

If only all of her problems could be solved that easily. Still she felt good about helping alleviate Maxwell’s concerns about the latest problem he ran into. She couldn’t help but smile as the earth pony seemed to be a lot more chipper these days. He was a far cry from his self-doubt plagued self that constantly blamed himself for the disaster in the Everfree Forest.

Celestia sighed as she wished she could solve everypony’s problem that easily.

Booknote cleared her throat “Princess Celestia… there may be a problem that…”

A burst of green flames appeared right in front of them as Celestia sighed retrieving the note “One moment.”

She skimmed over the scroll before shouting “How did Regal Script get kicked out of New Terra in less than a day!”

Author's Note:

Chapter is finally up.

Sorry for the delay, but had a lot of things going on. Going over some of the earlier chapters and trying to help clean some of them up.

Big thanks to Mix-up for his help with the proofreading and editing process.

here is a link to his work down below and thanks for the new cover art that he made.

https://www.fimfiction.net/user/Mix-up
http://amalgamzaku.deviantart.com/

Comments

[RandomName1]

Well, if it comes to open blows, New Terra is screwed. Celestia managed to beat Sanguine without effort, and he was probably the one with the highest level out of all humans, and an Unicorn just proved it can murder someone without problems.

Then again, that sorta was the point of the game: The only ones who can stop this are those on the Changeling team because they can move without trouble. So it really is "Changelings vs. Everyone else", because even if the humans aren't initially against the Changelings, the mindrape will change that the moment they ally with Equestria.

[Miro]

Nice chapter.
The change of scenes, where Celestia was optimistic to where things were spiralling out of control, was a nice touch here.

[ferret]

“Besides if a major incident has yet to occur since all of you have arrived in Equestria than it would be safe to say this is a minor if not frustrating inconvenience at best.”

She knows all about Equs and ponykind and right now she is doing her best to make all the ponies into happy little ponies.”

He shook his head “And what’s wrong with that?”

And there it is. Celestia, you fool.

The characterization in this story is amazing! I love Valkyrie and Remedy Cross and Maxwell and Brass, and even Lockheart I guess when he's not being too emo, and Peter and Gaichu is just despicably evil, and in general everyone in this story really sings, quality stuff.

The plot is... an intriguing concept. Humans thrown into Equestria with vidya isn't new, but the way that they're being set up to destroy stuff. I thought it was brilliant how we just accepted "Discord did it" and now it's looking like some entity with a vendetta against him (gee, I wonder why) has been setting him up this whole time. The actual execution of the plot kind of... drags on in places. I was just paging down through the lists of various medieval weaponry, and the self-professed boring trade negotiations. Any time I saw Celestia I was like "Oh boy, more complaining about the burdens of nobility." The actual battles were really well paced, edge of your seat sort of stuff. I just felt that in the more elaborate scenes, a lot of the details were just being thrown at us to try to distract us from the actual thing going on. There was more than once that I was reading something like, "But little did they know, I still had the thing!" and I'd have to go back a few chapters, trying to find where that character did what they were talking about, hidden in between grimjaw descriptions of the rough life in the penal system, and how Griffonstone was having trouble with their budget for loofahs.

The romance was about as tepid as used bathwater. All awkward posturing and insecurity, and beating around the bush. But that's not unusual in our culture, so I don't really blame you for it. Just something to watch out for if you're gonna have the characters attracted towards one another.

...their where alot of typos.

I did enjoy the story, skimmed a bit, loved the characters most of all, and their experiences. There were some devilish twists, like I never would have figured out that Discord secretly wanted to rip out that guy's heart and replace it with an Element. The censorship thing was amazing, as it seems so innocent, but then it went and gave Brass Balls complete and total justification to send Celestia and her diplomats down into Tartarus. Some stuff just plain didn't make sense (why was Lockheart just randomly casting a memory spell?) but it might have been something I missed reading, as a lot of this story was really dense prose. I love your concept of Equestria, just the perfect balance of primitive medieval stuff, fantastic magic, and practical engineering. It doesn't whine about how lyffe ys hyrsh with all the peasant slaves wallowing in dirt while their pigheaded leaders complain about the upcoming/previous war, but it still gives an impression of a society still in touch with its roots, which really hasn't lifted itself out of the environment and sealed it behind barriers of plastic and soap.

So... yeah. Good job. I'd throw away my ability to always know when to use "they're" "their" and "their" in a second if it meant I could write this good.