A pegasus in full armor came in for a landing, carrying a sword with his hoof before he saluted, “Sir.”
“Sergeant,” I answered with a nod as I returned the salute, thankful that I managed to get Swift Spear to teach me how to do it properly. “Report.”
“The troops are setting up a perimeter around the town as per previous orders, sir. What is the situation?”
I sighed and glanced back towards the house, “The threat is contained. Princess Twilight is talking to the prisoner now, but I want to arrange transport for the prisoner to the Canterlot dungeons as soon as possible. Did you bring a suppression ring?”
“Standard equipment, sir,” the pegasus agreed with a nod.
“Good. Right now, she is under a suppression spell, but when fitted with the ring, under no circumstances is it to be removed,” I told him. “Full hoof cuffs, the entire deal.”
The blue pegasus nodded, “Yes, sir!”
“Good. Secure the prisoner and get her ready for transport, sky chariot, all the way to Canterlot. Oh, and send your fastest flier ahead before the Princesses mobilize the entire guard down on this place. The changeling that brought the message to you had orders to warn Canterlot just in case things got out of hand here.”
“I’ll do it.”
I turned my head to see Rainbow Dash trot over.
“I can take the message to Canterlot. Nobody would get there faster than me,” she said with a grin. “I’ll tell them that they can relax, we handled it.”
“Thanks, Rainbow.” I sighed with a nod, “If you can beat Amber there, all the better. She has a head start of several hours.”
Rainbow smirked, “Easy. See you later.” And then she beat her wings and before she was three body lengths off the ground, she was already flying faster than I could at my best.
“You know, I actually believe her,” I commented as I watched her quickly disappear in the distance.
“Me too, sir.”
I looked back at the pegasus, “Your name?”
“Sergeant Cloud Walker, sir. Royal Guard Scout Ranger, Las Pegasus garrison.”
“Thank you. Get the prisoner secured and ready for transport. She is being held in the building behind me, in the basement.”
“Yes, sir!” he said with a nod before taking to the air, moving back towards the rest of the group of guards gathered just outside town.
Once we get back from here, I’m kidnapping a Princess to a tropical island for a month. Duties or not, there has to be some way to solve it.
Maybe we could get a temp. Wonder if Pinkie Pie is busy?
With that thought to amuse myself, I turned and trotted back inside, heading down the stairs to the basement where I was met with an interesting scene. Starlight Glimmer was on the floor, tied up. Sunset was standing over her, her horn lit up while Twilight worked some sort of spell around Starlight’s horn.
“Escape attempt?” I asked as I reached the bottom of the stairs.
“Yes, sir,” Sunset answered with a nod, a hoof on the chest of the unicorn on the floor. “She somehow shook my spell off.”
“Well, relax. The guard is here with a real suppression ring,” I said and moved up. “As for you, Miss Glimmer… why don’t you get some rest?” I asked and lowered my head, tapping my horn against hers.
The unicorn wiggled to try to get away and then just kind of collapsed, snoring.
“You two okay?” I asked and I raised my head again.
Twilight nodded. “We’re fine,” she answered and then grimaced. “I spotted it just in time and disrupted her teleportation spell.”
Thank you, Twilight! I wasn't sure I would have slept well if she managed to get away. Actually, I would, I could have tracked her down that way.
“She said anything?”
Twilight shook her head, “Nothing important. Mostly she tried to convince me to let her go and that cutie marks are evil.”
“She’s nuts then?” Sunset asked and moved off the sleeping unicorn. “How can you hate cutie marks?”
“I don’t know,” Twilight sighed. “That’s something for the doctors to figure out back in Canterlot. For now, we need to get her moved there.”
I nodded, “The guards are getting organized. They’ll be here any moment with a sky chariot. Are you going with her?”
Twilight nodded, “I think I will. You?”
Shaking my head, I looked down at the sleeping unicorn, “I’ll take the train with the rest. It’s going anyway and they need the chariots for more important things than flying me around. Getting you two there quickly is important. Me getting there quickly is not.”
As much as I wanted to get back to Luna, it wasn’t practical to have them fly me back.
Twilight surrounded Starlight in her magic field, lifting her off the floor, “I’ll take her out to the guards. Thanks Page.”
“Thank Sunset. She is the one that actually took her down.”
Twilight glanced at the yellow unicorn and smiled, “I intend to,” before she trotted up the stairs, floating the would-be villain behind her.
I turned my head and looked over at Sunset, “Sunset?”
“Yeah?” she asked, looking away from the stairs as she turned to me.
“Good job.”
TOOOO SHORT!!!
Sunny you are the best and this confirms it!
"Sleep?! Who needs sleep?! I don't!"
....
"No I don't care that I have collage tomorrow morning!"
Okay kiddies, reset the clock. Here is hoping our boy is back in Canterlot next chapter for a reunion with a certain Princess, and perhaps a surprise?
Well, it looks like Sunset is getting herself an alacorn after all.
Such a reversal of circumstance, not long ago, it was Sunset on the receiving end, let's see how things go from here. Can Page's conversion streak win out or another divergence in canon awaits?
Hmmmm, how modern is Canterlot's Dungeon? With Celestia around we could see it not being funded properly at least, though someone having less than Twilight's skill in magic may not see further escape attempts or may be persuaded to her ideology at worse..
While in the prior stories the shorter chapters worked out well, but in this one it seems to detract ever so slightly this time around.
Love the canon break, keeps things fresh, interesting, and certainly unpredictable.
7965296
true but still I believe that even so he is still a delightful author don't you agree.
7965171 skipping a lecture won't hurt
I really like Page when he just a simple author living his live in Equestria and writing his books. The more he started to participate in canon events (and change them) the less I liked him. Up to a point that when he become an alicorn I simply lost all interests in Blank and his story. Kinda tried to see if new story about him can bring past interest back... But obviously no.
7965504 Same for me, but I do keep reading just for curiosity on where this will end up, start asking myself if I should stop reading on Consequences
7965296 I can agree there.
Okay, you have a bad guy that can remove/steal cutie marks. You are (quite reasonably) worried that her using this ability against the princesses could result in the end of the world. You specifically ordered that neither Celestia or Luna get within a hundred miles of this place for just that reason.
And then, when you catch her, your first action is to lock her up... in Canterlot? The heart of the nation and home of the Princesses??
Page, Page, Page... That is so not genre savvy of you...
7965601
I'm really, really, really disappointing in "Consequences". Way back to first story Hiver put an interesting conflict between Blank love for immortal Luna and his obvious mortality. But the way he resolve it in "Consequences" in my opinion are extremely lazy.
I just realized something...in this universe, the cutie map doesn't exist so Starlight can never make the time spell to work. That's mean that I have NO idea where the story is going related to the canon!
Ummm...I hope you have a set plan Hiver because otherwise I worry you will paint yourself into a corner and you won't be able to progress your story.
Also...why is it SO HARD for you to have one scene where Starlight is punched in the face?! Seriously it is very easy scene to create....grrrrrr....
7965295
I would think Starlight will be sent to a mental hospital.
7965624
Where else are they going to put her?
7965636
I'm waiting for the inevitable conflict between Page wanting to keep his ascension hidden and his relationship with Luna will have as well as his royal duties as well when he has to finally face the music.
7965433 that's what I said. But nooooo, my mom tell me I got tone responsible and shit.
7965640
to be fair, chrissy isnt going to be taking over the world soon either since her daughter is learning how to princess from the princesses so cannon got tossed into a cannon
7965640 I'm kind of glad it diverged from canon. While it is nice to have a nod to canon (like the Discord incident in the first book), I think Hiver does a lot better with original work than canon recreations.
7964885 To be honest, I hope the first part is true. And the latter would be an unique way to break it to Page lol.
Very Short. But also, as usual, very good.
I look forward to seeing it happen.
7965182
hmm... I don't what you thinking but I like the comment nonetheless.
7965296
I does feel shorter than the rest (but I still enjoyed it).
7966069
Good point.
7965232 You really think that is what they are implying? Not totally against it, but I was hoping Cloud, His Pegasus friend with large wings, was gonna get set up on a blind date. She seems to like guys with big wings.
Really, who needs Starlight Glimmer when you have Sunset Shimmer? From a storytelling-perspective, I mean.
Nicely done.
My shipping senses are tingling!
7965710 Six feet under.
Well, that or do something to permanently remove her magic since she has demonstrated that she is far too capable and dangerous to risk getting loose, especially since she has already tried to escape once.
7966549 It's certainly possible, but there's really no way to be sure. That said, just because Twilight seems to be interested doesn't mean Sunset is, and there's certainly a lot of storytelling potential to Twilight getting shot down which would be fun if only because we don't usually see it happen.
7965802 sounds like you should move out.
7965182 *starts fidgeting in his seat* Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease!
We cannot have this story/series end without it!
7966749 I know. It makes me sad though because we won't get a Page jr plushie
7965710
Well, d48's suggestion is a TAD drastic... But I'm fairly certain that Manhattan or Los Pegasus or Baltimare must have a decent prison in there somewhere. Hmmmmm.. I wonder if there's a pony version of sing-sing...
Point is, I doubt that Canterlot is the only place with a proper dungeon... Heck, just stuff her in the basement of a house out in the middle of nowhere with a few dozen guards to keep an eye on her! At least if she escapes from there, she won't be standing right next to a target with world ending potential!
7967381
*in a thick Scottish accent*: We are going to have to amputate!
Do beter than the canon. Please.
Page *deadpan*: "Seriously, do you guys have ANY idea how girly it is call asstats that? How can you not hate 'cutie marks'? Even Starlight Glimmer 'gets it'. "
8068191
Walker, Royal Guard Scout Ranger
https://m.Ohohoh, I smell love in the air. This is my second favorite ship.
Hmm. The shipping intensifies.
even a child's cartoon says communism is bad
10731850
it wasn't communism, it was a dictatorship cult that built its power on mind control around an extremely uninformed ideology.
Communism doesn't want to force everyone to be equally bad at everything, it presumes that because every job(that is needed for human life to flourish) is more or less equally needed for a society to function they should all offer the same payment for having been done.
A doctor can't put in the time to learn about medicine unless there are farmers to grow food and cooks to prepare it and cleaners to tidy up the messes, and all of them depend on the doctors to keep them healthy.
the whole system works great when everyone involved wants to live that way, but falls apart when you start adding greedy people willing to exploit others.
Starlight Glimmer is besides Discord the most dangerous Villain. She better is very tightly guarded...
10921006
You sorta make it sound like greedy everyday people make communism fall apart. As if it would hold if people were just nicer to each other, or something.
In a way, you're right - but that's mostly because the people governing the thing are the greedy bastards that make it fall apart. The everyday people are genuinely much nicer to each other in such conditions, by the way... they have to be, or otherwise you wouldn't get anything done.
But aside from all that, you don't mention that there's a very different investment into some skills than others, and some very different requirements as well. The system, in its naive approach, simply cannot work long-term without everyone agreeing to it - and by agreeing, you'd also have to agree to the idea that you'd be putting way more work into the welfare of the system than some others, for the exact same benefits. In the end, the difference has to come from somewhere - and if you have no such "somewhere" handy, it eventually collapses on itself.
I do agree that Our Town wasn't "communism" in the strict sense, but I also agree that it has very similar underpinnings, in the broadest sense: make everyone equal in some way, to eliminate some perceived strife. Making everyone equally bad at things is rather a side-effect more than anything else - though this very effect would've eventually lead this little "project" to collapse just the same, and for the exact same reasons (no source to make up the difference - here, in skill - and thus a crippled economy no matter how you'd slice it).
ohhhh my ....
hoove
Noone destroyed more lifes than Starlight Glimmer in canon. Not going to lie, that mare is a scary sociopath.
Aww, dangit, someone beat me to the Walker: Texas Ranger reference.
cdn.ebaumsworld.com/mediaFiles/picture/14694/80455636.png
I feel like I wasted the "I Approve of This Ship" meme with CeliDash earlier, but I do approve of SunLight.
Of Starlight Glimmer upgrade instead of down grade everypony she be a hero of sorts. To bad she try the easy way to power.