Tales from Everfree City

by LoyalLiar

Interlude XVI - The Regency Council

Interlude XVI

The Regency Council

Some six hours after Celestia's death, there was a gathering in an upper dining room of Canterlot Castle. It was an old room, original even (we'll get to that), with smooth green marble pilasters set between tall arch-topped windows, all of which had been drawn shut. Hanging chandeliers aglow not with fire but magic lit the room, casting glittering spots on the wooden tabletop. A few pitchers of water and coffee as well as cups and glasses were provided, but there was no food; this was no time for a meal.

Luna sat at what would normally have been the hoof of the table, in a veritable second throne emblazoned with her mark and decorated in her colors, no matter how they clashed with the rest of the accenture. She was obviously haunted, her mane slightly fraying despite its unusual magical nature, and her eyes often going unfocused as she stared off straight past whatever her head happened to be looking at.

Seated around the table, one could find virtually every pony Luna would trust as contact (and some more besides). Shining Armor, clad in his amethyst armor of office (we'll get to that), sat beside his wife Princess Cadance, in all her glorious pink alicorn-ity. Star Swirl the Bearded had shapeshifted his seat to be more comfortable for what remained of his spine (we've sort of already gotten to that), but his expression was one of intensity that belied his age. Raven Inkwell, Celestia's right hoof, had been offered the next seat at the table, though she seemed rather uncertain of her ability to contribute to such a gathering. To her side, the then Eldest Sister of the Night Guard practically roosted in her seat, so stiff that she looked for all the world like the corpse she was.

Awkwardly serpentine-ing himself into the next seat was by far the strangest invitee of the gathering: the draconequus himself, Discord. I'm not going to delve into the eldritch horror of his being, nor the odd casualty with which he presented himself despite being an elder spirit; I don't intend this record to leave readers gibbering and foaming at the mouth.

Commander White Flag sat two seats down at Luna's other hoof on the opposite side of the table from the aforementioned group, feeling rather awkward and overshadowed by the presence of Soldier On barely squeezed into the next seat yet. Then one could see Tempest Shadow, Somnambula, and finally Dr. Caballeron, with a heavy plaster cast covering one leg.

Nearly the last to arrive were Princess Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash, previously mentioned, who entered the large chamber with some notable confusion.

"This is… a bigger group than I was expecting," said Twilight.

"No kidding," Dash added. "And what's with all the long faces?"

Everypony looked at everypony else to see who should answer. Finally, White Flag said "How did you get here so fast? I only sent Marathon a couple of minutes ago."

"Oh, you sent somepony for us?" Twilight let out a small chuckle. "My magic map said there was a friendship problem in Canterlot, and Rainbow and I needed to come help. And I'd say from looking around the room, it's pretty obvious something is wrong. So how can we help?"

After another round of deferrals, Shining Armor took it upon himself to be the bearer of bad news. This made it somewhat awkward when, as he opened his mouth and took a breath, the awkwardness of the silence caused his wife to beat him to the punch. "Princess Celestia is dead," said Cadance.

"No," was the first word out of Twilight's mouth, instantly, and she didn't say it so much in a tone of denial as if she was chastising a misbehaving puppy. "Of course not. That's…"

Twilight's words drained away as she saw truth in each set of eyes as she swept the room. At last, Shining Armor picked up the silence. "As far as we know right now, Twily, anypony who tries to seance into the Summer Lands loses their soul instead. Earlier today, we had a rash of unexplained comas all across Equestria. It turned out they were all from detectives and therapists who have necromancy licenses. But because they were all from different districts, we only had a few reports from guard messengers by the time Celestia tried to cast a seance. We didn't realize the root cause until it had already happened." Shining concluded the thought with a sigh. "An hour later, and we would have known to stop her. The good news, if you can call it that, is that it's reversible."

"She tried to talk to Sunset Shimmer," Somnambula clarified.

Rainbow Dash lunged over to the side of the table, hitting an as-yet empty chair so hard it rocked. "Sunset's gone too? But… we can fix this right? Right Princess? If we find their souls?"

Luna swallowed, but it was Star Swirl who fielded the question proper. "Celestia and the others, yes. Alas, Miss Shimmer's body is quite dead, not just her soul."

Raven Inkwell gestured to the remaining empty seat at Luna's side. "Please, sit down, Princess Twilight. We're just waiting for one last guest, and then we're going to try and formulate a plan to solve this problem."

"I… but how can we help?" Twilight asked. "I can certainly help try and figure out what happened, but I don't practice much necromancy; I barely even remembered to renew my license last year; the forms were due on the thirteenth, and I only got them in the mail on the sixth!"

Rainbow Dash slapped her own forehead. "How many times have we saved Equestria, Twi? I'm surprised the table didn't ask for all six of us."

"In most circumstances, you would be correct," said Luna. "However, the more I look at what has happened, the more I see parallels to the events surrounding the attempt on my life some years ago. It was for that reason I sent for you, Rainbow Dash. As for Twilight… She is a Princess of Equestria, and I may need her help lowering the sun this evening. Whatever magic guides this enchanted table of yours, Twilight, it seems it agrees with me."

"Oh," said Rainbow, and her bravado vanished into the air like morning mist before sunlight. "You mean… we don't even have a plan to fix this yet?"

In the moments of ensuing silence, one of the dining room doors swung open to reveal a skinny orange earth pony with a fluffy unkempt brown mane, bedecked in a red Haywaiian shirt patterned to be covered with, of all things, bowling pins and accordions and at least one set of moustache-and-glasses foal's disguises. "Sorry I'm late," he said in a particularly nasal voice. "You would not believe how long the line was at the donut shop in Albaquirky."

"Chee—" Twilight barely had a fraction of the name out of her mouth before the stallion stood up on his hind legs, rapidly waving his forelegs back and forth to stop her.

"I'm pretty sure you've got me confused with somepony else, Princess!" When it was clear he'd stopped Twilight, the stallion made his way over to the last remaining open seat, and plopped down into it with the sound of a very sad accordion and the squawk of a noisemaker from the throat of a rubber chicken. "Name's Service. Secret Service. Nice to meet ya, everypony!"

"Secret Service?" Rainbow asked. "Do you have a… weirdly identical twin brother? Who you steal shirts from?"

Twilight, who was a bit quicker on the uptake, expressed a different kind of disbelief. "You're the head of Equestrian Intelligence? But, but…"

"You'd be surprised what kind of secret vaults a party pony can sweet talk his way into. But that's not what we're here for right now. I—Oh, hey Stoikaja! Fancy seeing you here. Thanks for looking out for Solo for me."

"She's a good mare," Soldier On answered. "And please never say my Stalliongradi name again in that accent." The fact that the mare still had a southern Equestrian accent in voicing this complaint cannot be understated.

"Yooou got it!" Secret Service nodded up the table toward Luna. "So, I'm guessing this is about what happened to Princess Celestia a bit ago?"

Luna nodded. "I asked you all here to help save my sister's life. We all have been involved in various parts of the events that led up to today, and there have been too many secrets for any one of us to see the big picture of what is happening here. Today, in this room, it is my hope we can speak openly and honestly, and that we might ultimately understand why these things are happening across Equestria, and find a solution to save my sister. To that end…" Luna swallowed. "I will begin.

"About eighteen hundred years ago, a pony named Mortal Coil discovered a way to make himself immortal. Not merely avoiding aging, like Celestia and I, nor perpetual undeath like a lich, but truly, properly immortal. 'Morty', as he preferred to be called, has been involved in Equestrian history in many ways since his birth, but only a few matter to us today. Firstly, Morty fought alongside my sister against me in the Twilight War. I understand that, as Nightmare Moon, I wounded him grievously—but he did survive, and help Celestia to rebuild in the aftermath. Because he is—to some degree—still alive today, we have every reason to believe he should have known to expect my return.

"Secondly, Morty taught my sister a portion of the spell that grants his immortality. To my knowledge, Celestia only ever cast that spell once…" Luna glanced to her side. "Rainbow Dash, would you like to tell this part of the story, or should I?"

Rainbow swallowed, but nodded. "A couple years ago, this pony named Masquerade tried to kill Princess Luna. She had this poison from a gold flower—uh, a 'gilded lotus'—that took away Luna's magic. Since she hit her while Luna was up in the air raising the moon, she started falling. I was the only one fast enough to catch her, but… well, basically, I couldn't pull up fast enough after I slowed her down and pushed her aside. I went straight into the ground with a sonic rainboom. I've walked off a lot of crashes, but that's…" While it was obvious Rainbow's other stuttering utterances were from a failure of vocabulary, this one was filled with repressed emotion. "Because I had kind of figured out something was wrong before Masquerade poisoned Luna, Princess Celestia thought I might have been able to help save her from the poison—cause even though she didn't die from the fall, the poison was still killing her. So she used this 'Morty' pony's spell that we just heard about to bring me back. I guess it's kind of unstable, though. Which means if I were to die again right now, it'd… rip up my soul or something." Rainbow shrugged, trying to feign nonchalance, though it was obvious heavy emotion had built up beneath her facade of apathy. "I got involved in this whole thing with the Honor Guard and Shining Armor, and I even met Emperor Magnus, before I finally figured out what the poison was. We saved Luna, Shining and I and Princess Celestia caught Masquerade, and that was as far as I was involved. Once I found out what the spell Celestia had cast meant, I went back to my friends."

Star Swirl raised a brow in disbelief. "Celestia lied about such a spell?"

Luna nodded. "You would be surprised to learn how often Celestia indulges deception. And her judgment in regards to my well-being is sometimes suspect in itself. That poor choice aside, though, I will not hesitate to take any action necessary to save her. If anypony here cannot say the same, I invite you to leave." After a pause, she looked to the other side of the table. "Anything of note to add, Captain Armor?"

"Well, I don't know if the whole issue with Captain Ink and Soldier On matters or not. Especially since she's sitting right there. But if we're mostly focused on the spell to come back from the dead, I've got nothing to add."

Luna took a deep breath, then continued forward. "I know the choice to resurrect Rainbow with the burden of risk on her soul has weighed heavily on my sister's conscience of late. Alas, Coil has been nowhere to be found for some years—well before my return, even. Recently, however, a necklace which belonged to Gale came to light as part of a failed robbery turned murder from Lord Barnacle." Luna nodded to Dr. Caballeron.

Rainbow raised a hoof, and Luna dipped her horn in acknowledgement of the question. "Who's 'Gale'?"

"Queen Platinum the Third," said Star Swirl. "Daughter of Platinum I and Commander Hurricane. She and Morty were not especially secret lovers."

"What?!" Rainbow turned to Twilight with huge, saucer-like eyes. "Typhoon and Cyclone had another sister?"

"Huh, I thought those were just rumors," said Dr. Caballeron, shifting in his seat to adjust the cast now wrapping his badly broken leg. "That Platinum was unfaithful to her husbands, I mean, not the sibling relationship. You know, Princess, sometimes it is very frustrating that you and your sister… you're first-pony resources to so much of Equestria's history, but you won't even share it with us to make our own histories right."

"You help me get my sister back, I'll tell you anything you want," said Luna. "But we'll get to you and the amulet in a moment. Celestia knew that Coil had solved the problem of his soul getting dispersed when he came back from the dead in such a reanimated body, so she wanted him to come back and help fix what she'd done wrong to you, Rainbow. To that end, because she couldn't send you on such a dangerous quest yourself, she assembled a team. Sunset Shimmer, Somnambula, Tempest Shadow, and Lieutenant Commander Ink of the Honor Guard… where is he, anyway?"

Everypony looked around at everypony else, to the tune of shrugs. Eventually, Secret Service spoke up. "You, uh, probably don't want him and Miss Stoikaja—er, Soldier On in the same room together anyway. That's definitely a One More Minute kinda situation." When several ponies raised a brow, the agency stallion leaned back in his chair. "It's a song; look it up."

"Celestia is dead, spymaster. I do not care about petty rivalries. Eldest Sister, go and find him."

The Night Guard gave a sharp salute, rose to her hooves, and slipped out of the room.

Luna took a deep breath again, and then continued. "While we wait for the Lieutenant Commander, Somnambula, would you summarize what you learned on your trip hunting for Coil?"

Somnambula put on a small, rather forced smile and began to speak. "Let's see… Morty apparently knew Nightmare Moon was coming back. I mean, I guess that's obvious since he was there when you got banished, Luna. Er, Princess Luna, sorry. Still not used to that. But anyway, he and Celestia got in a fight about what to do when you came back. Celestia had a plan to… well, basically what actually happened, if I'm understanding correctly: teach a student to make friends, and have those ponies wield the Elements of Harmony to save you."

"Heck yeah we did!" said Rainbow Dash, earning less enthusiasm and more than a few glares than she'd been expecting.

Somnambula continued "Morty wasn't very optimistic about that plan, so he made his own, in case her plan fell apart. Which it also sort of did."

"What? No it didn't," said Twilight. "Like Rainbow just said, Princess Celestia's plan worked perfectly! Even if I thought it was a bad idea at the time, because I didn't really 'get' friendship yet—"

"You were her backup choice," interrupted Tempest, causing a great many heads to turn in shock in Tempest's direction. "Before she ran off to her… hairless monkey world or whatever she was trying to tell me, Sunset was the student Celestia wanted to get to use the Elements."

"I…" Twilight swallowed very heavily. "I guess that kind of makes sense, then, why she only sent me to Ponyville with one day of time to make friends before everything happened. I always wondered what her plan was if I didn't make five great best friends in that single afternoon."

"Assassination," muttered Tempest. When, again, all heads snapped in her direction, she continued. "I mean, we don't know that yet, but it's so obvious, right? Morty's behind this whole assassination plan to kill Luna, because he thought the Elements of Harmony were going to fail, and he was going to be saving the world from Nightmare Moon instead."

Star Swirl quirked a brow. "Morty never struck me as the sort to make somepony else do his dirty work." Then, patting his back, he added "Believe me on that. If he'd appeared himself, I would be more inclined to trust that hypothesis."

"I don't think we can say either way right now," said Somnambula. "We do know that Morty split himself up to hide from Nightmare Moon."

"Split himself up?" Princess Cadance asked. "Like… his legs and horn bouncing around on their own? Surely that wouldn't be useful."

"As far as I understand—which isn't that far with this magic stuff—he broke his soul into seven pieces and scattered it around in various places," Somnambula explained. "A magic necklace, a tattoo… We don't know what all the parts are yet. I guess he planned on having somepony put him back together once everything was clear again—either Nightmare Moon was gone, or she gave up on looking for him. I think Mentor—um, that's one of the parts of Morty's name—Mentor said he did leave one of the seven parts with his body, so that it could go fight Nightmare Moon and at least look like he'd tried to stop her, so you, er, she wouldn't get too suspicious."

Soldier On grunted. "But this pony wasn't there that day in Ponyville."

"Yeah," agreed Rainbow. "It was just the Commander, and Deadeye, and Morning Star, and Loose Cannon."

Shining Armor, White Flag, and Soldier On all turned very slowly to stare at the stunt flier-turned-schoolteacher with confusion. The latter asked "How could you possibly know that?"

"When I was in Zebrica looking for the cure for the poison Masquerade used on Princess Luna, there was this weird undead elk, and I kinda saw some of Deadeye's memories."

"Deadeye?" asked Princess Cadance.

Shining Armor nodded. "Dead Reckoning; an Honor Guard cloud artillerist. Most of his file was classified, but I know he died helping Rainbow cure Princess Luna."

Rainbow nodded. "He was a great stallion."

White Flag spoke up at that point. "Reckoning's memory aside, the point is that Coil never appeared in Ponyville at the Summer Sun Celebration. Not even one-seventh of him. How do we explain his absence?"

Somnambula picked up roughly where she'd left off. "While we were searching the ruins at Onyx Ridge, looking for Daring Do, Morty—or at least his body—attacked us."

"He did?" Star Swirl leaned forward. "How on earth did you survive?"

"Well, Stalliongrad didn't," said Tempest Shadow. "The magic medallion thing had to put his soul back in for us."

Somnambula nodded. "By 'Stalliongrad', she means Mr. Ink. But yes, Star Swirl; Morty cast the 'Razor' spell and killed Mr. Ink, and Mentor had to help Sunset Shimmer put him back. After that, we ran into Morty's body again in Klugetown, and he killed Sunset. Celestia had given us magic charms to protect us against the Razor—" Here, Somnambula lifted hers to show it off.

Tempest cut in "I'd bet twenty bits that's why Sunset got her neck broken—because the easy spell didn't work."

Somnambula sighed, but as she did she nodded. "What we do know is, he was there because he was collecting Grogar's bells in both places. We think Grogar must be related, and maybe he's controlling Morty or something, but we don't know that for sure."

"Grogar?" asked Star Swirl. "The goat lich of Tambelon? Troubling."

"You know of him?" asked Luna. "Celestia and I had heard of him from the stories of our grandparents and the village elders where we grew up. I think Megan may have mentioned him once too."

"Then you probably know more than I do," Star Swirl admitted. "But the coincidence sticks out to me. Not so very long ago—well, not from my perspective at any rate; it was eighteen hundred years as the clock flies. But Luna, you'll recall when Celestia sent me in her stead to the Crystal Union, to help Coil deal with Wintershimmer's belongings?"

Luna scrunched up her muzzle in thought, then shook her head. "Too long ago for me."

"Ah, understandable." Star Swirl swept his gaze across the table, and he ran a hoof along his back as he spoke. "Would that I could forget that disaster too. Still, this very same subject came up between Coil and I. As my studies teach, Grogar the Grim was a mountain goat lich who enslaved the crystal ponies and created the crystal spire that makes life in the north possible during the chill of winter. He was eventually defeated by a group of ponies led by Gusty the Great."

"Ooh, I read this as a foals story when I was little," said Twilight. "She stole his bells and hid them in secret, dangerous places, right?"

Star Swirl let out a small sigh. "Princess Twilight, with respect, I doubt a foal's story from today will be a high quality source. I can dig up some old books, if they survived the destruction of the Everfree academy."

Silent up until that point, a surprisingly well-oiled voice entered the conversation. "Perhaps I can shed some light on this conundrum without having to go delving in the old forest, eh?" Discord, at one time the greatest and most powerful of the world's spirits, leaned forward at the dining table and formed a scholar's cradle with his mismatched forelimbs. "Though I suspect you won't like what I have to say, it is the truth."

"Go ahead, Discord," said Luna.

"Of course, of course." the snaggle-toothed spirit smiled. "You and Celestia grew up in that little village in Dream Valley, surrounded by the ruins of greater civilizations, didn't you, Loonie? I'm sure you remember that. Well, as it turns out, not all of those ruins and monuments were from human settlements. Some, quite a few in fact, were the remnants of a far more respectable pony civilization. It wasn't quite the Equestria of today, of course; it had nowhere near as long to develop. My bad on that, I guess. But to liken it to old glorious Cirra or the heights of, oh, Mistmane's dear shogunate… well, that wouldn't be too far off the mark.

"Grogar was almost single-handedly… well, single-hoofedly at any rate—responsible for the fall of pony civilization at that time. Not just ponies, of course; he was a conqueror. But he hated ponies in particular. I never really understood that. I mostly stood back and watched, because he made good chaos for a while. But right when it was starting to look like he was going to turn the whole world into a perfectly orderly tyranny—absolutely disgusting, in other words—this wizard named Gusty showed up. Gusty had tried to beat Grogar before with some other ponies from that day, but it hadn't gone well. So this time, she gathered a few allies she had left, and then reached forward in time and tried to grab the unicorns who could best help her defeat Grogar." Discord began to rub his hands together as he let the anticipation grow in the room.

Finally, Luna snapped. "I will not keep Celestia waiting to satisfy your storytelling, Discord."

"Right, right, sorry." Discord frowned. "The help she got was Megan Williams—a human, for those of you in the room who have any idea what that means—Mortal Coil, of course, King Amethyst the Lightbringer, and most importantly, our very own Starlight Glimmer, aka Archmage Hourglass."

"Hold on, hold on," Star Swirl protested. "Spirit, you're telling me this lich was strong enough that it took King Amethyst, Hourglass, and Coil to best him?"

"Well, Gusty was no slouch either. But to be clear, the right order of being surprised there is Hourglass, then Morty, and then Amethyst. Megan mattered to how it turned out too, even though she wasn't magic. I had to hand it to that girl, she was clever." Discord shrugged. "But basically, yes. Grogar at his full might is… shall we say 'unpleasant at best', my dear archmage? Thankfully, there is more to the story."

After about a single beat, Luna glared, and Discord ran talons through his mane. "Yeesh, tough crowd. Well, Morty and Starlight and Amethyst and Gusty fought Grogar all the way back to the crystal spire, and they basically had him surrounded. So Grogar cast a time spell of his own, saying that he'd return when his four foes were at their weakest and most vulnerable, so he could have his revenge."

"Which is when Morty's split himself up into seven pieces, Starlight can't know she's Hourglass yet, and Amethyst and presumably this Megan person are both already dead." Twilight completed, before taking a short breath. "So that matches too. It explains the timing, it explains why Morty disappeared for so long, if Grogar got him, and it explains how Grogar's bells are involved. But why would Grogar be using Morty's body? Why not his own?"

"That is the nature of a lich," said Luna. "While they reanimate themselves into undeath, it is not an undeath tied to a single body. Apparently quite unlike Coil's immortality, they do not regenerate the same body, nor is that body spared from aging or decay. In that regard, I suspect Coil had the better body, even if Grogar has the more ruthless soul."

"It'd also be a better way to get revenge than just killing him," said Discord. "You know, if I was into that sort of revenge thing. Which I'm not, anymore. For the record."

"Unfortunately, it means that regardless of his soul, Grogar now has Coil's brain," observed Luna, ignoring Discord's mutterings. "Hence, he has Wintershimmer's Razor, functional immortality, my Night Guard spell…" Luna sighed. "Right, Somnambula. The last part."

Somnambula swallowed. "Grogar raised Typhoon as a Night Guard."

"Like, Commander Hurricane's daughter Typhoon?" Rainbow asked, leaning forward. "The one who kicked Cyclone's ass when he tried to take over the world?"

Star Swirl coughed heavily in his hoof. "Miss Dash, I'm sure given this is ancient history for you, it must seem very 'cool,' but some of us lost good friends in that conflict."

"Oh," said Rainbow. "Oh, sorry! Um… yeah." The already relatively small pegasus mare did her best to sink into her seat.

Star Swirl then turned to Somnambula. "Typhoon? You're certain, Somnambula? That should be impossible, given how much time has passed."

"I asked her to her face," Somnambula answered. "Even if I hadn't though, you remember that whole disaster when I thought she was Hurricane and I tried to propose to her? I'm pretty sure I remember what she looks like. And she could hold Heims."

"That poor mare," said Star Swirl, and visibly gritted his teeth. "We will set her free."

"That's horrible," agreed Cadance. "But I don't think it changes much."

"Hmm?" queried Luna.

"I'm pretty sure we can't fight Grogar head on. Giving all our magic to Twilight like we did with Tirek seems like a bad idea if he's just going to get back up even if Twilight hits him. So if we aren't trying to fight him head-on, I think it's a better idea to focus on what we can do, than continue to try and talk through solving the problem with violence."

At about that moment, Eldest Sister re-entered the room, with Red Ink following—head hung low, barely raising his eyes enough to recognize the rest of the ponies in the room. Eldest offered him her seat, and he took it in total silence. The stench of gin and the unkemptness of the little stallion's mane were not subtle.

Luna largely ignored the new arrival, at least for the moment. "I concur with Princess Cadance. As long as Grogar has Coil's immortality, it is a waste of life to face him head-on. What other options do we have?"

"Well, Morty probably knows how to undo the immortality," said Somnambula. "Or do something. So we probably still want to get the other pieces of him together. Mr. Ink already has one, though it looks like Grogar took the one Sunset had when he killed her; the amulet was all broken and burnt out when we brought her back."

Soldier On spoke up. "We should still prevent him from getting the rest of the bells that we can. I don't know what he needs them for, but they're part of his power."

"My primary concern is for the souls of Equestria," said Star Swirl. "Grogar, like all liches, and many spirits, is able to feed on mortal souls to supply himself with mana. The fact that any attempt to cast a seance means one's own soul is lost suggests strongly that Grogar has control of the Summer Lands."

"Which seems especially likely given Morty knew how to go into them physically," Somnambula added.

"Wait, what?" asked Twilight. "That doesn't even make any sense. The Summer Lands aren't a physical—"

"Trust us, Princess," said Star Swirl. "I helped cast the ritual once myself. As counterintuitive as it sounds, it works." The ancient wizard then turned across the table. "We need to assume that, the longer we take to stop this Grogar, the more innocent souls he'll be feeding on. Possibly including Celestia's." Luna visibly twitched at that suggestion, and only too late did Star Swirl realize what he'd said. "I… I mean… I'm sure she'll be fine, Luna."

"We've got literally the best wizards and soldiers and spies in Equestria all on the job," added Secret Service. "We'll get it done, or my name won't be Secret Service." (The stallion leaned across the table and whispered to Ink "Because I'll resign in shame, get it?" The joke failed to raise the red stallion's spirits.)

"Brass tacks, then," said Shining Armor, after a moment of heavy silence. "What are our objectives, and who can best handle each? Somnambula, you know the shards of Morty? Their locations?"

"Regrets, Genius, Ego, Cunning, Compassion, Burden, and Essence. Mr. Ink already has Cunning, it's a magic tattoo. Regrets is apparently with Commander Hurricane."

"What, like his tomb?" Twilight asked. "I think that's in the Everfree Forest somewhere, but—"

"He's immortal too," muttered Ink. When the room went somewhat quiet, the stallion lifted his head (making the stench of gin unmistakeable to those closest to him on his breath). "Hurricane. Morty made him come back to fight you, Princess. Then he stuck around. 'The Commander'—Mentor, to Stoikaja and me, he's Hurricane."

The room was totally silent which made it all the more dominating when, in the process of lowering his head once more in shame, Ink bashed his forehead quite loudly on the table's edge. "Cyka."

"That's ridiculous," said Twilight. "Both for Typhoon and Hurricane; their souls wouldn't have lasted that huge gap of time between the founding of Equestria and the Twilight War. Souls only persist a few hundred years, at most, after death. Right?"

Luna sighed. "Normally, yes. However… Because of what happened to Gale, neither Morty nor my sister ever forgot as they normally would. That is, I assume, how they were still able to be reanimated after all these years. It also explains why the stallion never liked me." Luna let out a very sad chuckle. "And here, I thought my sister just had what the ponies of this day call 'a type'. I had not realized it was literally him."

"You didn't recognize Hurricane?" Somnambula asked.

Luna shook her head. "Coil's magic made Hurricane's body much younger than he was when I first met him in life. At the same time, his mane and coat did not revert from their fading and graying in his old age. Instead of nearly black, the stallion who met me in this era was more visibly blue. Also, necromancy of that magnitude does warp a soul, and as a side effect, it can change one's cutie mark. Mostly, though, he never spoke to me enough to give me any suspicion. He just… lurked behind Celestia. Constantly. Weirdly."

Rainbow raised a wing as if it were a classroom, and then took it as a sign to speak when everypony looked her way. "So, what, do we have to un-stone-ify—"

"Petrify," was the interrupting correction, only humorous in that it came from both Star Swirl and Twilight Sparkle.

"Whatever," said Dash. "We need to 'fix' Masquerade and ask her where he went?"

"Celestia and I interrogated her, several years ago," said Ink. "She claimed she brought him to Khagan for a bounty."

Luna's eyes swiveled to Soldier On. "Ah. And now it all makes sense. If we assume Khagan learned what you did, that he was behind the horn rot, then it all fits together. He wanted revenge on Hurricane."

"And we just assumed he was dead," said Armor. "But if he's magically unkillable…"

Cheese Sandwich sighed. "Then we have to extract him on foreign soil. An act of war."

Soldier On let out a scoff. "Maybe if Equestria is behind it. But I'm still wanted for treason and conspiracy to commit regicide, right?"

"You're willing to risk your life for such a cause?" asked Luna.

"If you let Polnoch go free," Soldier On answered. "And you give me back the Honor Guard's guarantee."

"What's 'the Honor Guard's Guarantee'?" asked Cadance, glancing between the big mare and her husband.

Commander Flag answered the question. "A blank check for our souls. Celestia doesn't judge us; she doesn't even look at what we've done. Just straight to the Summer Lands."

Luna frowned amongst the ponies in question in the room. "I will forgive you, Soldier On. But I cannot spare Third Brother in a time of such chaos—"

"I'll do it," said Ink, slowly. There was some confusion in the room as to what he even meant, until Ink clarified. "I'll be your… undead monster thing. Take me instead. Let him go."

"Mr. Ink!" said Twilight. "Are you drunk? You can't be serious—"

"It's the only thing I can do," he interrupted. "To make any of it right."

Soldier On raised a brow and sat back in her seat, but said nothing.

"We will discuss this later," said Luna, visibly uncomfortable facing the fairly natural consequences of her policy. "For now, it appears that, however unpleasant the politics, we must rescue Commander Hurricane from the boars. Soldier On will, hopefully, lead that expedition. Who else do you need?"

On shrugged. "Ideally, a unicorn who can teleport and a pegasus scout."

"I'll go," said Rainbow.

Luna frowned. "Rainbow Dash, I appreciate your willingness to help, but that is a very bad idea. Remember, your soul is vulnerable; that is why we wanted Coil to return in the first place."

"Not to mention you're kinda an internationally known representative of the Equestrian state," added Cheese Sandwich. "Downside of being a Wonderbolt: you do actually have military rank." Then the spymaster looked just past Rainbow, to the regent-monarch at the head of the room. "We could send Solo. Obviously, we know she's one of us, but we'd at least have plausible deniability."

"Absolutely not!" said Shining Armor. "I sent Solo to S.M.I.L.E. from the guard precisely to get her out of situations where she'd be in straight up fights. She's a smart mare, and she works well in Equestria, but what's she going to do against a bunch of boars?"

"Armor's right," On agreed. "I'll take Rainbow Dash."

"Did you not just hear anything anypony said?" White Flag snapped. "Risk yourself all you want, but I will not be responsible for risking the life—not to mention soul—of one of the Bearers of Harmony!"

Soldier On chuckled. "Five years ago, I had almost that exact same conversation with Thunder Crack. We both did everything in our power to get Rainbow to give up on getting involved in trying to solve the poisoning, because we thought Celestia's orders to train her were stupid and emotional, and we couldn't risk the life of one of the Element Bearers. It should have been easy; Rainbow hates guardsponies by her own admission. But she fought through everything we did to try and get her to quit because she thought it was the right thing to do." On couldn't help but break into a slightly wider grin as she added. "And against all odds it even worked. I would bet any of you three bits that even if we forbid her, she'd fly out of Canterlot when the meeting is over and join me on the way south."

Princess Cadance was just about to object when the noise of three gold bits sliding across the tabletop from Rainbow Dash interrupted all thought. As the ponies in the room stared at her with disbelief, the little blue pegasus shrugged. "Well, I was actually just gonna argue with you all until you let me go, but her plan was better."

"Alright," said Luna. "May I ask why?"

"Deadeye would want to save the Commander if he was still around. I owe it to him. And… the Commander and I have history."

"You have history with Commander Hurricane?" asked Star Swirl.

Rainbow nodded silently. "It's… I promise it's got nothing to do with all of this. Otherwise, I'd rather not talk about it."

"Sure. But that still leaves the political risk," said Cheese Sandwich. "Any suggestions there?"

Dr. Caballeron barked out a laugh. "Just powder her up like Daring Do, like they do at the conventions. She's close enough to the right size, and Daring already has no respect for borders or property rights. Or negligent homicide."

"You want her to commit a war crime in cosplay?!" asked Twilight.

"No, hold on," said Rainbow with a grin. "That's actually super cool."

"It's identity theft!" protested Twilight.

Soldier On dryly observed "If she doesn't, Celestia might be dead."

That comment silenced the youngest princess' objections like a hot knife through inter-spinal cartilage.

"That just leaves a unicorn with plausible deniability," said Shining Armor. Then, looking to his right and across the table, he said "Absolutely not" twice.

"I wasn't going to suggest it," said Twilight. "Neither Cadance nor I have a good way to hide the wings even if we did change my coat color or something. But maybe Starlight—"

"You want to send Archmage Hourglass?!" Star Swirl snapped, getting up onto his forelegs. "Absolutely not! Remember, Grogar will recognize her if he finds her. In fact, concealing her identity without giving away her future has to be a fourth mandatory goal of our plan."

"Too bad, given how good of a wizard she is," said White Flag. "But strongly agreed."

"Twilight, what about Starlight's friend? The stage magician one."

Twilight barked out a laugh. "Trixie? The mare wouldn't know subtle if it… did something obvious to her… in a subtle way…" (Not everypony can be Mortal Coil.) "Look, it's a bad idea. Why would you even think of her?"

"When she stole that magic amulet, and put Ponyville in a bubble, I got in a fight with Princess Celestia about arresting her for felony dark magic and for putting you and your friends at risk." Shining Armor sat back. "So she met the 'criminal' criteria."

"Criterion," Twilight couldn't help but correct. "Singular."

A small vein bulged on Shining Armor's temple, even as he smiled at his little sister.

"Okay, hear me out," said Cheese Sandwich. "I know a mare who we should be able to get to work for us, since she works on contract. She already knows exactly where you need to go. And she specializes in sneaking around near immortal giant alicorns undetected."

"Huh?" said Rainbow Dash, in genuine confusion. Most of the rest of the table, however, was dumbfounded at the spymaster's audacity.

Finally, it was Red Ink who spoke up. "Whoever hired Masquerade to kill Luna—"

"Masquerade?!" Dash snapped. "No way!"

Ink hung his head. "What I was saying was, there's magic on her that she can't help us."

Secret Service enthusiastically shook his head. "She can't help us find who hired her. Which, for all we know, might have been Morty. But that's not what we're asking. This is a completely separate job."

"You'd trust her?" Luna asked.

The spymaster shrugged. "Well, maybe I think it'd be a good idea for you to put some kind of a spell on her, just to be safe. And maybe in addition to the stick, give her a carrot, like a pardon?"

Soldier On glared at the lanky, tacky-dressed master of intelligence. "You want me to work with the mare who killed my husband?"

"Sooner or later, you're going to have to decide whether you're going to throw away your whole life for revenge, or whether you're going to find something new and good to live for. Like… being a really big, muscular party pony or something. You've already got the Cheesy… er, I guess 'Secret Sense' for it, if what I read in my reports is true!" Secret Service smiled at the big mare, who only seemed to glare in response. "I'm not saying you have to pretend you didn't get the short end of… well, an awful lot of sticks. But I know you could have killed Mr. Ink in Ponyville and you spared him so he could save those three fillies. And I know you went into the burning building in Baltimare with Captain Armor, even though you were wanted for being part of the poisoning. If I didn't think there was a good pony in there, would I have really lied in my reports to the princesses for five years to say I didn't know where you'd disappeared to?"

"You did what?" Luna asked.

Secret Service chuckled, and only the slightest hint of terror slipped into the sound. "Well, you see Your Majesty, it's funny. I didn't actually have any proof Soldier On wasn't part of the plot to kill you. I just had this twitch in my ear. Which isn't permissible as evidence in court, believe me, I tried when my cover identity got busted for carrying a concealed party cannon without a concealed carry permit. So, it took a long time to get here, but I think we can both agree I made the right call and you shouldn't, like… turn me to stone or banish me to the moon or something. Right?" A frankly unsettlingly wide smile graced Secret Service's lips.

"That seems like a perfectly reasonable and trustworthy explanation to me, Luna," said Discord, the incarnation of chaos.

Luna closed her eyes heavily, in a show of visible frustration. "We shall deal with this… minor treason later. Soldier On, Rainbow Dash… I will do my best to compel Masquerade into your service. If that fails, we shall send Archmage Mistmane to aid you—if she is willing. You will enter into Suida, avoid any conflict with the boars you can, and rescue Commander Hurricane, and his shard of Mortal Coil. Are we agreed?"

Rainbow and Soldier On both nodded.

"Good. What other shards of Coil do we know of?"

"None," said Somnambula. "Save the locket shaped like Gale's cutie mark, though we don't actually know if that's got one of Morty's soul bits in it or not." The desert mare turned to Dr. Caballeron. "Do you know anything about who would have stolen it? Or if it had any special magic?"

Caballeron nodded. "It was enchanted, certainly, but not in a way any of my usual contacts at the Royal College could identify. They said it had the wrong… number, or something. They thought it might have been enchanted by elk or fey or something."

"Morty always preferred seven-pointed notation to six-," observed Star Swirl. "So that isn't surprising. It can be awkward to act in such a large prime number when our convention lets glyphs be so easily divided in half or into thirds."

"Well, yes… anyway, I got three offers on the thing before it was stolen. One was from some art dealer who just like the aesthetic; he offered far too low a price for something enchanted at all, so I doubt he would be behind the theft. The second was the college contact, who wanted to use it as the basis for some kind of research. I'm an academic, I respect that, but at the end of the day, I could not fund my museum on the offer from a student's pocket, so I had to send him away and tell him to come back with a grant. He seems like a likely thief, since he could not easily get such an item by other means. The third," he said, looking up the table at Ink. "was your brother."

"One of my Night Guard came to you?" Luna demanded.

"Other brother," mumbled Ink.

Soldier On nodded when it became clear Ink was done speaking. "He's the middle of three brothers. The eldest is 'Predvidenie'." (Several ponies around the room were as confused as Ink had been earlier that Soldier On did not speak her own native tongue with its corresponding accent anymore, and instead treated Stalliongradi like an Appleoosan would.) "Secretary Foresight. The ruler of Stalliongrad."

"De facto," muttered Ink.

"Officially now too," said Soldier On. "The tsar stepped down." Then she glanced to Dr. Caballeron. "Why would Foresight want a magic necklace? Is he cheating on the art market like he used to cheat on stocks?"

Princess Cadance raised a brow at that. "Foresight seems like such a nice stallion; what do you mean cheating on stocks?"

Ink lifted his head and let out a tired, defeated sigh. "After we freed Stalliongrad from evil Baron Frostbite, Stoikaja and I had our fight and it turned into rebellion. Most rebels, it wasn't as personal as for us, though. Just about who got Frostbite's money, and food, and houses and… stuff. I tried to stop the fighting by… fighting. Obviously. Predvienie, big brother, he tried to solve the problem by just getting more money. So he would look into the future in his broken crystal ball, short some stocks and buy shares, and then next day… 'Look, I am become oligarch! Destroyer of markets!' I think Celestia knew and looked the other way because Stalliongrad needed the money, and he did actually spread it around instead of hoarding it for himself. Didn't work so well at first, but I guess since our trip to Stalliongrad a few days ago, maybe it is finally working." Ink dropped his face on the table again. "Maybe I am an idiot who just made it worse."

"Oh, for the love of…" Rainbow Dash stood up from the table, walked around to Ink's side, grabbed the bulky stallion by his mane, and hauled him into a better posture. "I don't want you to think I give two craps about you, okay? But this isn't about you, or me, right now. So cut your moping out, straighten up your back, and help save Princess Celestia, or get out!"

Shining Armor glanced across the table to Commander Flag and, with the faintest tingle of a spell, whispered a message over the tabletop. "Do we… need to be working harder to recruit her as some kind of drill sergeant?"

"We both know she's gonna replace Spitfire on the Wonderbolts," Flag answered in similar quiet. "Those skills aren't going to waste."

Luna struck both hooves on the table to recenter attention, even as Rainbow was still getting re-seated. "We should inquire of this college student of yours, Caballeron, and Secretary Foresight. Mr. Service, Archmage Star Swirl, I'll entrust the college to your attention. Princess Cadance, Lieutenant Ink, and… Miss Somnambula, can I send the three of you to Stalliongrad?"

"Stol'nogrod," Ink grumbled quietly.

"Sure," said Cadance. "I went to school with Foresight, so hopefully that will get us off on the right hoof."

"Do you… not want me to fight Grogar?" asked Ink. "At least until Mentor is back, I do not think there is another pegasus who can counter Typhoon, right?"

Luna replied by lifting a wing, which crackled with visible electricity. "There is no pegasus, correct."

"Absolutely not," said White Flag. "Everything we have said about Miss Dash and Starlight Glimmer applies ten times over to you. Equestria cannot risk losing a second Princess."

"Princess Twilight Sparkle, I believe my sister has instructed you on how to use her spark to raise the sun. Is that correct?"

Twilight nodded. "Yes, but—"

"Of the two of us, I am by far the more skilled in battle," Luna interrupted. "And I will not sit idly by while my sister's fate is decided. So, while these other threads are pursued, I, Captain Armor, the rest of the Honor Guard, and the Night Guard will pursue Grogar's remaining bells and attempt to extract them back here to Canterlot, where we can hide them in the crystal tunnels within the mountain. Discord, can we count on your aid?"

Discord winced. "Well, um… I mean yes, but I wouldn't count on me being of much actual use." The draconequus bit his cheek for a moment as he considered his words. "See, the thing is, I can absolutely survive with just a little bit of friendly chaos. You know, the odd prank here and there, little jokes and parties and spontaneous decisions. And I'm just fine with that. But if I don't make big chaos, my powers get… more than a little bit deflated." As he said this, air began to puff out of Discord's antler (singular because its opposite was a more traditional horn), and with a flappy rubbery sound, his entire skull deflated like a balloon. Sticking his thumb in his mouth, the draconequus 'reinflated' himself before continuing. "If I thought beating Grogar would make the world more chaotic, or at least keep it that way, maybe I could do something. But even though Grogar's end-state is a pretty boring world without much chaos at all, getting there would give me a veritable fiesta of chaos to work with. So even if I want to help stop him, my magic is probably much more interested in making him win."

"Perhaps best you help in other ways then," said Luna. "Your knowledge of Grogar's history will be invaluable to locating the other bells so we can go and retrieve them."

"Of course," said Discord. "I'll do whatever I can. I just wanted you to know not to count on Discord Ex Machina."

"Ahem," said Secret Service. As eyes turned, he sort of hung his head at the burden of the words he was about to speak. "There is one other thing we should probably think really hard about."

"Yes?" asked Luna.

"What do we tell Equestria? If ponies wake up to headlines that say 'Princess Celestia, dead at forty-five thousand!', well, it'll be an Angry Unicorn Polka in the streets, if you catch my drift."

"We are not forty-five thousand," Luna answered. "We're hardly over eight. But I take your point." She frowned. "But we cannot hope to deceive the nation indefinitely. We shall announce that Celestia is ill, but in stable condition. That has the advantage of even technically being true. Mr. Service, can I trust you will evolve that into a story with suitable details?"

"That's my job!"

"Then barring any further concern or objection, I shall adjourn this meeting." After a rather short pause for anypony to speak up, Luna nodded. "Harmony be with you all. May we all meet here again in success."

Comments

[CopperTop]

And thus we call this meeting of the Expositing Committee to an end...

In seriousness, this was a lovely lore dump and I thoroughly enjoyed the world-building going on. To say nothing of the subtle hints about what's to come in later chapters. Assuming that Caballeron wasn't misinformed on his history and had his tenses straight...that suggests some interesting developments in Gale and Morty's future and past respectively. Should be an interesting ride!

[Raugos]

Wow, I'm gonna need some time to process all the bombshells and revelations in this chapter.

[Farenth Vega]

Wow, what a collection of heavy hitters from past and present all in one room. Nice to have things laid out in such a straightforward manner and delightful to see a crowd like that interacting. If the story branches out to follow each sub group here things are going to get crazy. Always looking forward to more!

[duckmagee]

the whole rainbow adventure with Luna assassination is that a side story i somehow missed?

[LoyalLiar]

11762642
Honor Guard was my first fic on FIMFiction, and covers the events Rainbow is alluding to; all these modern OCs like the assassin Masquerade, Soldier On and Going Solo, and most importantly Red Ink all originate from there. It covers the assassination plot with Luna, the incident in Baltimare that Ink and Solo and On have alluded to, etc. That said, you shouldn't need to read it for this stuff to make sense.

It also has occasional weirdness with current canon, because I started writing in when season two was still coming out - I think I've smoothed over almost everything, as long as you're OK with the idea that Rainbow is adopted (which perhaps, just perhaps, explains why her canon parents are "like that" (TM) even more than actual canon does).

And to address the full kit-and-kabootle (kaboodle? caboodle? w/e): Honor Guard has a pseudo-sequel that's still "canonical" to the fanon universe, and a true sequel that has been fully usurped by what you're already reading now. To put that more explicitly:

From Stalliongrad With Love is still fully canon, though it almost completely doesn't matter because all the big twists and turns in it have been fully explained in the context of the modern interludes here in Tales already.

Ghosts of the Past was the direct true sequel to Honor Guard, and meanders in a vague parallel with part of the plot of Tales, but in a way that is an absolute trainwreck to track or follow or really process; hence its abandonment both from canon and from being finished. I will issue the warning both to you and to whoever happens to come along: do not read the comment full of spoilers on that fic; while most of those ideas are dead-ends, there is at least one little note I'm holding onto there.

Finally, if you're interested, there is one other canon-to-Tales spinoff that has been vaguely alluded to (and is a one shot, unlike these other fantasy-novel-sized brutes): I, Witness concerns the investigation around the amulet that was stolen from Dr. Caballeron, as well as featuring a couple of the cameo Night Guard we saw WAY back in Interlude 3.

Hopefully that helps!

[duckmagee]

11762672
ah before my time on fim, i give it a read

[RoboRed]

...Gawd, there's a bunch of lore that I hadn't seen since a long damn time. I remember being in the bottom floor of the library at the university a decade ago reading some of this stuff. Damn nearly forgot about Deadeye/Dead Reckoning. Good stallion. And then there's the bit of the Commander totally-not-being-Hurricane-nope-nosirree.

Well, Grogar and Morty's actions certainly have left things in a very, very precarious situation for the world at large. On one hand, big nasty powerful evil that last took an enormous amount of effort to take down. On another: act of war with Suida. War with Suida is not something you want. If there's something that's stuck out to me from previous stories in the Loyaltyverse, you really, really, really don't want to tangle with Khagan. He will fuck your shit up.

Eventually, Secret Service spoke up. "You, uh, probably don't want him and Miss Stoikaja—er, Soldier On in the same room together anyway. That's definitely a One More Minute kinda situation." When several ponies raised a brow, the agency stallion leaned back in his chair. "It's a song; look it up."

HAH.

Also I noticed a few times you bounced between using "Secret Service" and "Cheese Sandwich" and I'm not quite sure whether that was an intentional narrative choice (Mortyvision) or a mistake.

[Farenth Vega]

Was thinking about this story recently and just wanted to say how much I enjoy it and look forward to more. Keep up the great work!