Consequences

by shallow15

Confrontation, Suspense, and the Truth

“This is ridiculous!” Rarity said, dropping her arms.

The girls had been tearing up the lobby ever since Sunset and Twilight had sneaked upstairs. The place was a shambles. And yet, no STORM agents or soldiers had shown up to deal with them.

“Somethin' ain't right here,” said Applejack.

“I agree,” replied Rarity. “We should have been fending them off like mad almost as soon as we started.”

“Maybe we're just that awesome,” said Rainbow with a grin. “We blocked them off downstairs and they're all too chicken to come up here from outside!”

“Or there's something else going on,” said Fluttershy. She as sitting on the floor, leaning up against Frank, who had curled up in one corner of the room.

“Most likely,” came Sunset's voice. The girls crowded around as she and Twilight emerged from the stairway. “So let's not be stupid about this. Okay?”

---

A few minutes later the front doors to the building opened and the seven girls and the bear emerged onto the steps leading down toward the parking lot.

Five seconds after that, spotlights blazed to life, freezing the girls in place. Out in front of them wwere several armored vehicles and a plethora of agents and guards. All with weapons trained on them.

And in front of them was the Director, who grinned widely.

“It's been amusing, ladies,” said the Director, “But it's time for you all to be good girls and go back to your cells.”

“Fat chance!” Rainbow snapped.

Stormking laughed. “Look around you! There's two dozen highly trained agents here all with itchy trigger fingers. It's very simple. Fight and they turn you all into a smear on the pavement. Or you can surrender and serve your country.”

“Don't you mean 'serve you?'” Twilight asked, her face hard.

The Director's smile turned into a frown. “What?”

“We found your laptop,” Sunset explained. “You really should have torn off more post-its from the pad you wrote your password on.”

“At least you were smart enough to use random characters,” Twilight added.

“Some very interesting stuff on there,” Sunset continued. “Especially in that second hard drive you have. You have a lot of people who owe you favors, don't you? I wonder what the press and some of the other members of Congress would think if they saw that.”

“Not to mention the long term plans,” Twilight said. “Detention centers, dissident re-education programs, the abolition of term limits, and a whole bunch of other stuff that violates the Constitution.”

“And that's just what we had time to look at,” said Sunset. “We transferred a whole bunch of it to the cloud. Not everything, but we're pretty sure we grabbed enough to keep you occupied with subcommittees and investigations for years.

“Oh, and in case you think you can just kill us and that information will just sit there, we sent the link and the password to several trusted people with explicit instructions.”

“Basically,” said Twilight, “If we don't show up at Canterlot High on Monday morning, they're going to access those files and send them to as many members of Congress and the media as possible. You might have enough time to start running in that case, but either way, everyone will know exactly what you are, Director Stormking.:

Stormking's teeth clenched and his expression turned ugly. “No one will believe you.”

“I think they will,” came a voice. Tempest Shadow came into the spotlights. “Especially after what happened to Glitter Drops and the nurse comes to light.”

Stormking's nostrils flared. “I told you before, you have nothing concerning that!”

“I have Spring Rain. He's currently in one of the detention cells,” Tempest replied. “He's more than eager to save his own skin. And then there's all the missions you sent me on.”

Stormking let out a bark of humorless laughter. “Do you really think you're going to escape unscathed from all this, agent?”

“No, sir,” Tempest said. “But I'm pretty sure that the things Agent Rain and I have to say about you would get us some leniency.”

Stormking snapped his head to the side. “Open fire!” he barked to the troops.

There was silence. Then, Lightning Dust turned and pointed her sidearm at the Director.

“I'm sorry, sir, but I don't think we can do that,” she said.

“I AM IN CHARGE HERE, AGENT!” Stormking bellowed.

“Pursuant to investigation of the charges Agent Shadow is proffering, I'm afraid I have to relieve you of duty, sir,” Lightning Dust responded.

Stormking stared as the rest of the troops trained their weapons on him. Then, faster than anyone expected, he had his own gun out and was swinging it toward Tempest.

“YOU TRAITOROUS LITTLE BITCH!”

The gun fired and Tempest instinctively threw her hands up to cover her face.

Then there was silence, and Tempest opened her eyes. A large crystal shield was in front of her. The bullet had embedded itself halfway through. The crystal disintegrated and the bullet fell to the ground. Tempest turned to see Rarity smiling at her.

“Thank you,” Tempest said, a little stunned.

“Think nothing of it, darling.”

Stormking yelped as he was tackled to the ground by three agents and restrained. Lightning Dust got up and turned to Tempest. “Orders, ma'am?”

Tempest blinked. “What?”

“You're the senior agent on site, ma'am,” said Dust. “So, for now, you're in charge. What should we do?”

Tempest looked from Stormking's hate ridden face to the seven girls who had caused her so much trouble over the past week. They all looked anxious, uncertain if they could trust her. Even the bear seemed unusually contrite. Tempest's gaze narrowed on Sunset Shimmer, who folded her arms and gave her a compassionate look.

“It's your choice, Tempest.”

Tempest took a deep breath, rubbed the bridge of her nose, then turned back to Lightning Dust. “Put him in the cells.”

The troops restraining the now-former Director hauled him to his feet and dragged him off. Stormking spouted obscenities as he was frog-marched back into the building.

“And secure that laptop!” Tempest shouted to them.

“What about them?” Lightning Dust asked, gesturing to the girls.

Tempest looked back at them, then sighed. “Get the bear back to the woods. As for these seven, give them their stuff back and take them home. We'll get their statements later.”

Again, she focused her gaze on Sunset Shimmer.

“It's over,” she promised.

Author's Note:

As mentioned before, I like falling action, so no, we aren't quite done yet.

Comments

[Admiral Q Ponyform]

what card does King have planned left? doubt he has no loyal guys left.

and honestly term limits do nothing.

[Wild Stallion]

Out in front of them wwere several armored vehicles and a plethora of agents and guards. All with weapons trained on them.

Extra W here.

[keroko]

I wonder if they're going to spill the true beans now that they're in a more peaceful setting.

[Forevermore]

10663947
I'm pretty sure that was about term limits for the presidential office. Former-Director Stormking was probably planning to make himself president for life with phony elections every couple years so it would look like the people still supported him. A lot of real life dictators do the same so it's not a far-fetched idea.

[CapNTilfy]

Huh. Didn't think that was how it was all going to go down, but since it's not really over who knows what's going to happen next?

[Pr1deM0rn1ngstar]

And that pretty much ended the way I was expecting it to happen for the Storm King people like him are always overly cocky and arrogant to the point where they have everything saved on their damn computers but there's always one tiny slip up and they really get screwed up the ass

[Spiritus Arcane]

Kinda disappointed Stormking didn't go out in a hail of gunfire after he shot at Tempest.

[WhitewolfStormrunner]

10663947 For Congress, probably not.
But if you're talking about Presidential ones, Congress passed the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution on March 21, 1947, and it was ratified on February 27, 1951:
Amendment 22

Section 1

No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.

Section 2

This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.

The reason being this:
How We Wound Up With the Constitution's Only Term Limits Amendment

"On this day in 1951, the 22nd Amendment was ratified, limiting the number of terms served by the President. The move ended a controversy over Franklin Roosevelt's four elected terms to the White House.

On February 27, 1951, Minnesota became the 36th state to approve the proposed constitutional change, pushing the 22nd Amendment over the three-quarters threshold needed for it to be ratified. The approval process started nearly four years earlier when a Republican-controlled Congress championed the amendment after Franklin Roosevelt won four consecutive terms in the White House.

“No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once,” the amendment read.

For generations, Americans and politicians veered away from the concept of a third-term President. George Washington had set an unofficial precedent in 1796 when he decided several months before the election not to seek a third term.(The concept of term limits was discussed at the Constitutional Convention but not enacted in the Constitution.)

In 1799, a friend again urged Washington to come out of retirement to run for a third term. Washington made his thoughts quite clear, especially when it came to new phenomena of political parties. “The line between Parties,” Washington said, had become “so clearly drawn” that politicians “regard neither truth nor decency; attacking every character, without respect to persons – Public or Private, – who happen to differ from themselves in Politics.”

Washington’s voluntary decision to decline a third term was also seen as a safeguard against the type of tyrannical power yielded by the British crown during the Colonial era.

Between 1796 and 1940, four two-term Presidents sought a third term to varying degrees. Ulysses S. Grant wanted a third term in 1880, but he lost the Republican Party nomination to James Garfield on the 36th ballot. Grover Cleveland lacked party support for a third term but was a rumored candidate. Woodrow Wilson hoped a deadlocked 1920 convention would turn to him for a third term.

Even the popular Theodore Roosevelt couldn’t get by party objections to a third term. Roosevelt passed on running for office in 1908, fully aware of the Washington precedent. But after a fallout with President William Howard Taft, he sought a third nonconsecutive term in the 1912 presidential election. He lost the election as a third-party candidate but came in second ahead of Taft.

Franklin Roosevelt broke the third-term unwritten rule in 1940 after World War II broke out in Europe and Nazi Germany overran France. The move caused some key Roosevelt supporters within the Democratic Party to leave his campaign. Roosevelt insisted that he was in the race to keep America out of war in Europe, and he easily defeated Wendell Willkie on Election Day.

After Roosevelt died in 1945, momentum built quickly for a presidential term-limits amendment. But even after the 22nd Amendment was ratified, two Presidents held aspirations of a third term within the amendment’s limitations. Harry Truman was President when the amendment was proposed and ratified, and its language allowed for Truman to run for office in 1952. But a loss in the New Hampshire primary led to Truman’s withdrawal from the race.

And in 1968, President Lyndon Johnson was eligible to run since he assumed the presidency in late 1963. Johnson also dropped from the 1968 presidential race after a disappointing showing in New Hampshire amid poor poll numbers.

Since 1951, some members of Congress have introduced efforts to repeal the 22nd Amendment, but they haven’t made it out of committee."

So if this was what Twilight meant by what she said, yeah, abolition of Presidential term limits would be a VERY bad thing, indeed.

Just the idea of a lousy piece of crap like Donald Trump being in office for four terms like FDR was?
I get sick just thinking about it.

[Admiral Q Ponyform]

10664901
yes. still issues there. freankly it just gives them i can do what everthe fuck I want because I can't be relected

[WhitewolfStormrunner]

10664978 This is true, sadly.

[lazyreader19]

Well now that's a couple of nails to a coffin....
now watch him escape, team up with a still loyal secret agent, or get arrested for real but pull strings from jail