A Pegasus Horn

by Ignimbrite

Reunion

Eleven ponies were gathered around the circular conference table at the precinct office.

It had been several hours since the Reporters of Vengeance had been brought in. Much of the time since then had been spent with their parents and aunt alternating between nuzzling them and threatening every punishment imaginable.

The threats had thankfully been tempered slightly by the sight of Obsidian sprawled across Lawful Good's back, still unconscious. Already, a unicorn officer was levitating him off of Lawful Good's back and gently setting him down on a bench while an earth pony with an EMT kit looked him over.

"It's just a bit of magic burnout," the doctor reassured them. "Don't worry. When he wakes up, he should be fine."

Indeed, he had woken up about an hour ago. He was still dizzy, but he at least felt better than that time he hit his head playing extreme golf. Unfortunately, his vision was still blurred from the magic burnout, something the doctor had said would take anywhere from a couple hours to a few days to clear up. From what he'd also said, Obsidian also wouldn't be flying or performing levitation anytime soon. He would have to wait a few days, or preferably at least a week, for the magic to build back up; otherwise, he could black out again from even less strain.

Fortunately, he had at least recovered enough to join that meeting that Lawful Good said he had to go to. Thus, here he was with everypony else.

Here, at the table, he sat between Feldspar and Kind Face. Past Kind Face sat Masquerade, Lawful Good, and two Equestrian Intelligence Service agents with rather familiar sounding voices. Past Feldspar sat their parents and the two reporters from the Horse's Mouth.

Lawful Good slipped a pair of plastic evidence bags over to the two EIS agents.

"Here are your badges back. The technicians just confirmed that these are the real ones, not duplicates or forgeries."

The two agents opened up the bags and examined their cards. Sunny Skies put hers away, while Moonlit Night levitated hers an inch away from her eyes.

"Who crossed out 'Female' and wrote 'Male'?"

Sunny Skies snatched up the card to look at it, then immediately started snickering while Obsidian shrank deeper into his seat.

"So to begin," Officer Lawful Good announced, "the missing foals have been found with no injuries beyond a bit of acute magic strain and several bruises.

"However, I do have official confirmation that you three admitted to trying to pass off the ID badges as your own, which puts you three under the charge of impersonating a government agent."

All three of them shrank.

"That one's federal, which puts you in their jurisdiction." He gestured to the two EIS agents.

"They already told me that they legitimately lost their bags before all this happened, so they aren't going to claim theft. That still doesn't get you off the hook for the fact that you used them while claiming to be federal agents."

"And we will speak with you three about this matter when this meeting is over," Sunny Skies added. "For now, be glad that you're too young to be tried as adults."

Lawful Good shuffled through his papers again and peered at the next one.

"Strong Bone and his wife Big want to file assault charges regarding their son being knocked out."

"No fair!" Feldspar piped up, "he attacked us."

"He tossed her into some trash cans," Kind face added.

"Well either way, the file lists assault charges against," -he adjusted his glasses- "'that alicorn twerp.'"

"Uggghhh..."

Everypony looked to the source of the outburst.

"How many times do I have to tell ponies? I'm not..." he thumped his head against the table and groaned again. "Oh forget it."

"Anyway, we've got pictures showing what happened. Some Unreliable Narrator sold them to the Tribune. Should be easy enough to prove who started it.

"Last but not least, we have Muck Raker and Mud Slinger."

"Yes," Mud spoke up. "Why did you bring us here?"

"Well, first off, those two insisted on seeing you. Something about defamation against the Crown itself."

Lawful Good flipped a couple papers to them. "Also, courtesy of his honor Blind Justice, two restraining orders." He pulled out a couple more papers. "Finally, the Stone family is pressing charges."

They looked down at the papers.

"You know," Mud smirked, "we could claim that there's technically nothing illegal about anything we wrote."

As Sunny Skies and Moonlit Night noticeably bristled, Lawful Good held up a hoof.

"Of course. We do have free speech after all. You could write that the world is round and that it orbits the sun if you want, and nopony would stop you.

"However, what you wrote was clearly intended to cause harm to your former employer in retaliation for his lawfully letting you go, and we do have laws about that. Fortunately for you, they're all civil laws, not criminal ones.

"Not that I would get my hopes up if I were you." He pulled out a copy of the original article and flipped it open to reveal the pictures inside- "we do have criminal laws against stalking, planting remote listening devices on a pony without a warrant, and unauthorized access to medical records, personal identification records, and educational records."

He pulled out another evidence bag, this one containing Feldspar's tape recorder.

Their faces fell rather drastically.

---

"How long have they been in there again?"

Gneiss, Quartz, and Masquerade looked at each other, then at the doors to the conference room. Beyond those doors, the two EIS agents were speaking with the children and the reporters in private for what must have been at least an hour.

After a few more minutes, the doors opened. The three kids stumbled out, looking like they had seen a ghost. They were followed close behind by two smirking agents.

The children stopped near their parents and aunt, while the agents continued outside.

As they passed, Sunny Skies grinned towards the parents.

"I don't think they'll be committing any more identity theft any time soon."

Shortly afterwards, the two reporters stumbled out, making the kids look like they had been on a trip to the beach.

Lawful Good could swear he heard one of them muttering to themselves.

"We're banished. We are so banished..."

Comments

[Sudrian Engineer]

Time for the truth I hope, finally! lol

[Da Fennec]

Things seem to be wrapping up

[tsaukpaetra]

All is well that ends well?
But hopefully this mini adventure is just the beginning.