Author's Note

This will be my first instance of providing a song link in this chapter, weirdly enough. I just could NOT pass it up. For those unwilling to click the link, it's William Tell's Overture finale.

Chapter CVII—Chariots of Chaos

Thunderlane was on map-sitting duty, and watched with a bored expression as the Redpine Flock went outside to graze off their island once more. The volcano hadn't changed much, sagging a little more around the Illicit Instrumentation, as though it were trying to stave off total collapse. Matt was with him, as well as Blue Crow and his squadron. The pipes and vents studding the outside and inside of the volcano, they found, had been stuffed to the brim with asphalt at some point, which burned the metal the longer it sat in those particular holes.

"I'm willing to start calling bets," Thunderlane said, frowning as he smooshed a cheek into a hoof, itself attached to an elbow propped upon the desk.

Matt, boasting a similar expression and posture, glanced up at Thunderlane. "What kind?" he asked.

"Over whether the grand and glorious hobos are gonna start murdering each other before the volcano does," Thunderlane retorted. "Bonus points if their attacks glance at members of their flock with their fighting."

Matt shook his head. "Sorry, betting on military operations is illegal here… or at least, the passing of the money part," he said. "Guesses are fair game, though."

Thunderlane blinked. "Are you serious?" he asked.

Matt nodded. "It's been illegal since the Aerie was built. Professionalism and all that," he affirmed. "Especially since we had to make our own damn bits, system and everything."

"... what do your bits look like?" Thunderlane asked. Matt promptly summoned some money from the ether, and laid it out before him. The first bit was hewn of a gold alloy, reading '1 cent' and bearing the bust of a changeling. The second was hewn of a silver alloy, reading '10 cents' and bearing a gryphon bust, the third was '25 cents' and bearing an equine bust, and the last was '50 cents' and boasting a figure sporting a beak, a changeling's horn, and a pair of pony's ears on its head. This was just for the smaller coins of the batch.

The larger ones proved more interesting; the smallest of them was hewn of a copper alloy, reading '1 bit' and boasting Anna's head on them. The second smallest, also a copper alloy and one bearing Natalie's face, read '10 bits.' The third, silver alloyed-coin boasting Matt's head read '25 bits' and the last, of silver alloy bearing Lance's head, bore '50 bits.' Thunderlane flipped these coins over, and found the other sides studded with the cutie marks of the ponies they represented. There was also a gold alloy '100 bit' coin, with a stylized horseshoe, pair of wings, and unicorn horn adorning it with a picture of the Aerie on its backside.

Thunderlane whistled. "If you guys started trading with Equestria, there might be some confusion over your money," he said, turning to Matt. "We'd have to make a currency conversion rate. Does Fantasia use bits otherwise?"

Matt shook his head. "Nope, the other provinces barter," he answered. "Sometimes, gold and gems can be used as money, though." He turned back to Redpine's projection, and found that already, a fragment of the island had been stripped absolutely bare through grazing alone—in fact, not even the trees' leaves were spared from the assault. "Sweet baby Godcat, the fuckers really are like a locust swarm…" he muttered, shaking his head.

Thunderlane turned back to Redpine as well, and nodded. "Tell me about it…" he agreed.

Blue Crow propped his claws up, and laid his beak atop them as the digits intertwined. "Oh, I am not jealous of these dunces at all… I'm impressed they still have their feathers attached, all things considered," he said, shaking his head. "They probably have Bruce's Jinx as well, seeing as they've kept breeding slaves—wouldn't put it past this miserable lot."

"Bruce's Jinx? How… how common is that, over here?" Thunderlane asked, turning to Matt.

"Common enough, that we had to test Anna and Sarah for it," Matt answered, shaking his head unhappily. "They wish they had it, and would've taken it as a boon for built-in birth control if they did." He sighed. "Natalie doesn't have it, and we have tested to confirm that, so we've just chalked it up to her yet-to-be-found family tree consisting of crystal ponies."

"So… if Anna and Sarah were to want foals, and if they had the Jinx…" Thunderlane paled as he trailed off. Matt nodded.

"Yep, they'd have to go through the bullshit conga line," Matt said unhappily. "And we're testing the villagers of Greenwood now, to see if they have it—a few of our soldiers walked in on a wedding taking place, and… well, there was a conga line present. We want to stamp out that horseshit and punt it into the past, where it belongs."

Thunderlane nodded. "Good attitude to take. During Equestria's early years, Celestia had to do the same thing," he said. "Not the testing part, the stamping it out part." He shrugged. "Her explanation was that it was a curse fueled by hatred and despair, and she couldn't let it fly in the face of harmony."

Matt put a hoof to his chin. "If it's really a curse…" he mumbled, rubbing his chin as gears tumbled in his head.

"Either way, it's good that your magitek can detect it; it'll make phasing it out easier in the long run," Thunderlane said, turning back to Redpine and its antics to see what they were getting up to now.

"True," Matt agreed with a nod.

Red Barrel piped up, peering over Blue Crow's shoulder to watch Redpine as well, "Is it just me, or are those two knuckleheads doing what I think they're doing?" Matt and Thunderlane turned to the grand and glorious hobos, and blushed in unison upon seeing them starting to go at it in plain view of Godcat and everybody. Even worse, the rest of the Redpine Flock sat on their haunches, began hanging in the free and easy, and… started servicing themselves accordingly.

Matt buried his face in his hooves at the sight. "Oh, for the love of fuck… they're trying to make another tin-pot wannabe…" he grumbled in dismay. "As if Lance and his little sister weren't enough for them…"

Thunderlane wanted to look away from the trainwreck, but could not muster the strength to do it. "Suddenly, I am very glad Lance is out there training…" he mumbled, too shocked to be scandalized. Then, he saw Discord popping in over at Redpine again, clapping in glee as he separated the hobos, put chastity equipment on them, and further equipment clamping down on the rest of the Redpine Flock. Somewhere in the distance, and he wasn't sure how, he could faintly hear jovial, and weirdly chaotic classical music playing as this went down. "Do you hear that, or is it just me?" he asked, garnering a nod from Matt as his answer.

Discord vanished once his work was done, and yet somehow, the music kept playing. The grand and glorious whackos turned to regard their chastity equipment, which clamped down on sensitive bits with impunity, and tried to remove their new fittings with hooves, claws, and magic. Once they tried, though, their manes and tails frizzed up and their feathers puffed out as the belts and cages spat out what looked like confetti and candy.

Matt peeked his head from his hooves. "... alright, who cockblocked them?" he asked.

"Discord," Thunderlane answered.

Matt buried his face back into his hooves and groaned again. "... that motherfucker… reminds me of the time he cockblocked me…" he grumbled.

As Matt grumbled obscenities under his breath, the male of the grand and glorious buffoons tried bucking his hips to dislodge the blasted cage. Instead of sending the thing flying, he spasmed in place like he was undergoing an explosive orgasm, and sent out a wave of lightning from his crotch that impacted his partner in crime. As soon as she overcame her shock therapy, she turned to him and started ranting his ears off about being stricken by lightning on a clear day. She was struck again by the rest of the Flock ejecting lightning from their caged crotches, and stood there for a moment, blackened and blinking in indignant shock over how poorly her day was going.

The music gradually rose to a crescendo as fire exploded out of the Redpine Flock's collective rear ends, setting their tails ablaze. Everypony panicked, and raced to stomp the fire out of each other before it could consume the rest of them. It was an intricate dance to see who could put the flames out, without trampling over one another in the process. When the flames were put out, ice grew over everypony's fun bits, and formed into elegant ice sculptures featuring Discord in various salacious poses, many seductive and others grinning evilly as he reclined on various sofas.

Everypony of the Flock freaked out and smashed the ice sculptures with their hooves and claws, looking at their chastity gear in bewilderment. Rose Windmill and Golden Chalice peeked over Blue Crow as well, snickering at the sight they beheld, a motion echoed by Red Barrel. And as soon as the ice sculptures were no more, poison ivy sprouted out of the chaos-infused metal and set to work making everypony hop about in a mad tarantella, frantically scratching as they tried making their unusual STDs stop itching.

Thunderlane winced in sympathy, still unable to look away from Discord's antics. The grand and glorious plotheads made to rip the ivy off of the metal with their mouths—big mistake, they learned all too late as they made to scratch their tongues with one limb, and their crotches with the other. The situation over there was rapidly rising from bedlam to complete anarchy, without seemingly any end in sight. And yet somehow, even then, the geas over the rest of the Flock failed to break to throw the pecking order into total instability.

When the ivy was removed, the metal became red-hot to the touch, and smoke wafted off of cooking flesh. Now, everypony was reduced to screaming, on both Redpine's island and within the office as they beheld the magnum opus, the glorious odious of pain. If Redpine's destruction wasn't assured as a community before, well, now it was since their breeding privileges were being revoked with prejudice. They tried to pry off the metal once more, only to have hooves and claws scorched with impunity.

A bright neon sign lit up over Redpine's sole remaining female, pointing at her specifically with a great big arrow, reading loud and clear: INCESTUOUS FOAL FUCKER! to anyone seeing it. Matt paled at the implications. "Discord's saying that this cunt…" He wilted as he trailed off. "No wonder Lance wants her dead…"

Blue Crow faceclawed. "Akron on a stick, I think I'm going to have to go to the watering hole tonight…" he grumbled, garnering nods from his companions.

Once everyone had read the great neon sign, it came crashing down on Redpine's sole remaining female, shattering into rotten fruits and vegetables as soon as its arrow made contact with her body. A tsunami of such produce erupted from the strike point, drowning everypony in a sea of awful smells and browned pulp. The tsunami spun around as though it were contained in a fishbowl, rising higher and higher until it became a foodnado that launched the Flock skyward. Everypony of the Flock flailed, squawking like scalded chickens, falling back down into the sea of sin and agony that let them have a somewhat cushioned landing back onto ground.

The island, meanwhile, was also coated in rotten produce, which sank into the plants and rendered everything inedible for consumption. The only thing that was spared from the assault was the volcano itself, and even its foot was covered from top to bottom in hot, stinking garbage. The Flock grumbled and rose onto their hooves, noses curling and faces going green at the stench.

"Well, they look as rotten outside as they do inside now…" Golden Chalice said, shaking her head.

"If that chimera fellow keeps this up, we won't have any scraps left for ourselves," Rose Windmill added, frowning at the sight. As if the situation could not get any worse for the denizens of Redpine, ectoplasms swirled above the massive island, all adorned with little snowflakes on their ice-cube-shaped heads as they converged on the continent.

Snow and hail and sleet rained down, not washing away the garbage, but adding to the collective agony as it crashed down with hurricane-like force. In seconds, it piled on, and piled on thick, assaulting the Flock as they scrambled for shelter that would hold against the onslaught. The desolate, long-abandoned town at the foot of the volcano failed to help them, because sprites with cloudy, swirling hair on their heads came onto the island as the Flock approached to blow the town away to its foundations with hectic tornados that sent useless furniture and stinking produce everywhere.

The members of the Flock that were caught in the blustering gales could not fight back; the tornados threw them into the rockface with impunity. Others tried to kick at the sprites, but were blown away with the same horrific force that they abused their late mares with. Matt watched the growing bedlam, frowning. "... Discord got the ectoplasms and elemental sprites to stage a mutiny against these assholes…??" he asked.

Thunderlane shuddered, still unable to look away. "Seems like it…" he said. He noticed the ponies who had been sent flying making to stand up. "... but he's also leaving them alive, somehow…"

Then, as if it could not escalate somehow, the sprites began doing a choreographed dance, little fingers extending from their stubby arms as the rest of their stubby hands curled in on themselves. They bent their lower bodies like knees, formed an arc over their heads with their arms, fingertips touching briefly before light consumed them and swirled around them, exploding in showers of gummy bears and cotton candy to reveal a massive sprite taller than all of the dilapidated houses combined. One punch from the massive sprite sent the rest of the Flock flying with another blustering gale, sending them up into the air to be assaulted with cold and hail-bullets from the ectoplasms up above.

Thunderlane paled. "Do you think we'll have to clear that out when we get there…?" he asked, turning to Blue Crow.

Blue Crow nodded. "If the sprites don't leave, then we'll have to," he answered.

Red Barrel sighed. "I'm starting to pity those poor bastards…" she muttered. "Only a little, though."

"I concur," Golden Chalice said with a nod. "This might be a bit much, even for them."

A sign erupted into existence over Redpine, and it bashed the Flock back down to the ground before its words became visible: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS TOO MUCH CHAOS FOR THESE POMPOUS TWITS! Then it turned into a swarm of gummy locusts that went around the continent, eating everything in sight and secreting foul, sugary sewage from their rear ends that arced up into the air and landed back onto the Flock to stain their coats in further sin.

As soon as all the stained greenery was stripped down to the soil by the gummy locusts, they converged over the Flock as if of one mind, and rained stinking sludge on them that the sleet could not wash off. The Flock tried to run away on hoof, only for many members to slip and trip on the grunge, leaving themselves prone to further assault. The grand and glorious idiots were at the head of the formation, galloping frantically and screaming at one another as they were pelted with as much sin as their actions had warranted.

Some sludge got into their mouths, and for perhaps the first time in their lives, they stopped to puke their guts out at the taste. The rest of the Flock did this as well, allowing themselves to be pelted further in liquid, smelly humiliation. As one final insult to their so-called pride and privileges that were afforded to them because of their alicorn status, the massive sprite marched up and picked up the leaders of the Flock by their tails with one massive hamfist, and brought them up to its face to glare at them with all the hatred it could muster in its gaze.

It then spun them by their tails, over its head in a dizzying whirligig that would've put the Dizzitron to shame. The pair of malcontents screamed as they were sent for the cruelest swirl of their lives yet, all the while battering them with the hail and sleet that still rained down on them that also glanced off of their tormentor. Once it was done spinning them, it let go, letting them sail into the volcano's side face-first with what was probably going to be one massive bill for facial reconstruction surgery. As soon as they landed, rocks tumbled over them, seemingly burying them alive.

Then, the sprites, gummy locusts and ectoplasms dissipated of their own will, leaving snow, sugary sewage, and a battered battalion of sodden, injured, and humiliated ponies in their wake. The sun shone on the scene once again, and after a while, the leaders of the Flock managed to muster the strength to shove aside the rocks burying them, the pair of them boasting bleeding snouts and scratched horns as they looked over the mess they now had to clean up.

As soon as the enormity of the catastrophe hit them, which was around the same time the music in the distance finally came to a complete halt, they started griping at one another once more, screaming their ears off instead of doing anything worthwhile to even attempt to fix the mess that lay at their hooves. For a pair that Lance had said would be close-knit, they were displaying signs suggesting otherwise—then again, that closeness must have only been visible when things were going their way, which… for once, they weren't.

Rose Windmill shook her head at the sight, unable to muster even a tiny smile at the chaos she had witnessed. "I'm surprised that Lance didn't turn out like those losers," she said, frowning. "I mean… once we got him out of his geas, he was a completely different pony, aside from the occasional bouts of perviness…" She looked at the desk as a wireless, box-like television set appeared upon it, with a black rectangular reel tape with 'For Lance~' written on the white sticker of its frame. The tape boasted crystals and the sheen of metal in some places, very much like the magitek the Aerie used.

Thunderlane frowned at the anomaly. "... that tells me Discord recorded everything over there…" He turned to Matt. "What do you think Lance's reaction will be?"

Matt shrugged. "Chances are, he'll be too stunned to even comment," he said in response. "That is, if he isn't laughing his ass off."

~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~

The rest of the Wonderbolts, and the other Mythonian diplomats for that matter, weren't expecting to watch a recording of Discord utterly screwing with the Redpine Flock in such a way as to revoke their breeding rights without using his bare limbs to do the job as night graced Fantasia. They hadn't expected said recording to have audio of everything that went down, including the bitchfits. They… also weren't expecting Lance to completely keel over laughing once the recording finished, curled up on his stomach with front hooves clutching it, howling like a demented schoolfoal who had been exposed to a bad joke for the first time in their life.

His laughter continued for a solid ten minutes, little breaths taken in between gales of laughter to prolong his amusement. He was pounding and kicking the floor, rolling, flailing his wings and even crying tears of pure joy, he was howling so much. It was as if a giggle ghostie had possessed him, and would not yield its hold on him. None of the diplomats spoke, even as he eventually picked himself up off the floor and wiped at his eyes with his wingtips.

"L-lightning… from their breeding sticks…" Lance wheezed, leaning against his desk for support. "All… hitting that… that fucking cunt…" And it looked like he was working himself up into another gigglefit, sagging against the desk as wheezing laughter escaped him.

Spitfire turned to Natalie. "Did he… give you an entire spiel on what went down at some point?" she asked, somewhat confused.

Natalie grimly nodded. "As… perverted as he is, it… is one of the factors that keep him from…" She pantomimed something with her hooves. Spitfire turned green upon registering her unspoken meaning. "He… can't even…" Natalie shook a hoof in the air, up and down in a highly suggestive manner. "Without losing his marbles afterwards."

Soarin and Thunderlane winced in unison. "That poor bastard," they muttered, turning to Lance as he collapsed on the floor to start another round of laughing his ass off.

Blueblood shook his head at the information. "In that case, we should let his laughter die down first. He obviously needs it," he said.

It took another few minutes for Lance to return to the realm of the current, standing up once more and wiping his eyes on his pastern. "Y-you have no idea h-how much I…" he trailed off as his body reminded him to breathe. Blueblood trotted up to him to pat him on the withers, gently of course; no need to topple over the General when he already was wobbly.

"Trust me, if my father had undergone something as humiliating as what Discord had done to your parents, I'd have had… similar reactions," Blueblood said assuringly. "Of course, that would have required my father to have the same lack of standards as yours did."

Shining sighed. "If my parents had heard about all of this, they'd be chomping at the bit to legally adopt you," he said, looking at Lance squarely. "They hate it when kids get abused to the extent that you did, and… let's just say their reactions to hearing about such things haven't been very pretty."

"Are… are your folks keeping Parliament in line?" Lance asked.

"They're part of the few sane nobles there, so they're trying their best," Shining answered. "Their level of success depends on who lets their reforms pass." He smiled warmly. "But they also help Celestia keep her sanity in dealing with the dunderheads, so there is that."

Lance laughed again, a small laugh, but a genuine one nonetheless as he envisioned himself being adopted by good nobles, and pissing off much of the rest of the nobility that way. "Easy there; you still need your lungs," Shining said, his smile growing.

"Take away all the bad stuff and the geases, and all your meany-pants family is just a bunch of big bullies who never heard 'no' in their lives, silly!" Pinkie said, with a grin of her own. "They'll probably have the biggest tantrum you've seen yet, when we finally show up on their doorstep, and that'll just prove to you that they need to be knocked down a peg—like every bully in the history of ever!"

"Pinkie's right; they're powerless without geases to run the bulk of their army, and even more so, now that they have no food to feed that army with," Twilight agreed with a nod. "Sure, they're still dangerous, but against all of us? They have a snowball's chance in Tartarus." She turned to Natalie. "And I heard something about a Geasbreaker spell… do you think I could copy it, in case you're unable to cast it for whatever reason?"

Natalie summoned her grimoire, a book emblazoned with her cutie mark, and opened it up to a specific spell before handing that over. "I don't see why not; the more ponies learn this spell, the better, in my opinion," she said. Twilight nodded and took the book in her magic, studying the spell intently, even as she noted that it had used a more modern runic system that she could decipher far easier than ancient alicorn.

"Trust me, that was… a spell I thought wouldn't work the first time I cast it," Natalie said, smiling sheepishly. "I only had a day to cobble the workings together, as well as its runes."

"And yet, the spell functioned," Twilight said dryly. "It shows that you know what you're doing with this thing." NoLegs meowed and jumped up to sit on her head, purring away as he watched Twilight study the spell. She glanced up at him. "I assume you had a helping tail in this?" she asked, to which the cat nodded.

Spitfire grinned and turned to NoLegs. "What is he, magical?" she asked, albeit jokingly. NoLegs waved his tail, wreathing it in a blue aura as he conjured a sword and shield of his own. Spitfire's smirk widened as NoLegs made the weapon and protective gear vanish back into the ether. "Welp, now I've seen it all. If we get lucky, we might get a cat as a Wonderbolts member," she said, garnering some laughs from the Wonderbolts.

"Now that I think about it… why hasn't Faust taken away the legs of the Mythonian cats, even though She took away the legs of the Fantasian ones?" Rarity wondered, putting a hoof to her chin as she pondered.

"Maybe Godcat prevented that from happening, though given what we've heard, it might have been a near thing," Twilight mused, even as she worked to translate the runes of the Geasbreaker spell in her head. It helped that there had been helpful diagrams of what the spell looked like in action, and illustrations of what it did when cast upon afflicted ponies. "At this point, we'd have to summon Godcat just to get some answers from Her."

Lance made to sit down on his haunches, and he began preening his wings. "Either way," he said in between mouthfuls of loose feathers, "we might not get answers from the divine hairball right away."

Rarity glanced up at Lance. "Does Godcat mind such language, when She's not around?" she asked.

Lance nodded. "She hasn't smited me yet for it," he answered, pausing to spit out another mouthful of loose feathers at his own hooves. "I assume She's more concerned with the state of Fantasia."

Spitfire nodded. "Would make sense for Her to be more concerned with the state of the sister worlds, as opposed to some name-calling," she agreed. "Also: aren't those things a pain in the plot to preen, with their sheer size?"

Lance nodded, but still tucked in nonetheless. "If I don't, she does," he said, lifting a hoof to gesture to Anna.

Spitfire grinned. "What's so bad about having preening help? Even you can't reach every single spot," she pointed out.

Anna grinned and pranced over, taking hold of Lance's other wing and preening with gusto. She purred as she did so, getting the spots he couldn't so easily reach. Shining sighed. "Welp, now you've got her going… she's going to be doing this for the rest of the night if we let her," Natalie said, shaking her head. She turned to Anna. "Just get the spots he can't reach, and then lay off." She got a nod of understanding, and Anna resumed her work with another purr.

Spitfire shuddered, her smile falling. "Preenus Absentia…" she muttered. She turned to Natalie and elaborated a little, "Equestrian medical term affecting pegasi who no longer have their wings. They… preen others obsessively to abate their own longing for the skies…" She frowned sourly. "Those kids in Redpine, the ones who had their wings cut off? They're going to be suffering from that for the rest of their lives…"

"The same condition that my late wingless servant suffered from…" Blueblood frowned, and shook his head. "Father fired him for it, and watched with glee as he more or less died on the streets afterwards. He said it's the fate that should befall all disabled ponies."

That made Anna jerk her head up from Lance's wing. "And lemme guess, he doesn't count because he's special?" she hissed through a mouthful of feathers.

Blueblood nodded. "Although, your gelding and horn removal might have made him… less special than he thinks himself to be," he said bluntly.

"Honestly: fuck that blighted pompous piece of shit; the more I hear about him, the more I want to turn him into a pincushion," Anna hissed, before resuming her preening of Lance's wings with a purr that somehow sounded upset.

"In your terminology, with the standards you have? I dare say he's unfuckworthy," Blueblood stated, again with that same bluntness.

Shining smiled at that. "At least somepony is telling it like it is," he said.

Lance looked at Shining with a neutral expression. "Lemme guess, the twit hackled you, too," he said.

Shining nodded. "All the way back when I was just a Private in the Guard," he affirmed. "'Nobles shouldn't train to be Guardsponies, they could get killed and end their bloodlines,' 'meme, mememe,' and my least favorite when I managed to get married to Cadence, 'Fighting nobles should be geldings, fit only for death on the battlefield.'"

Lance managed a facehoof at that one. "What kind of mental gymnast is he, a gold medalist?" he grumbled.

"... do you have ranks for that sort of thing?" Shining asked.

Lance unhappily nodded, and parted hoof from face. "Yeah; we have them outlined in our laws and everything, as part of Fantasia's catalog of its rampant idiocy issue," he said. "Bronze medals can be swayed if convinced enough, silver medals might need a punch in the face, gold medals are brick walls and should be treated as such, and platinum medals are kill-on-sight, if they do not somehow off themselves first." He shrugged. "The three stooges would count as platinums, that is, if the other two have not become wraiths already. Even then, I don't think they'll be unliving for long enough to enjoy the perks of it."

"Does this… apply to the uneducated?" Shining asked.

Lance looked at Shining evenly. "We don't have schools here on Fantasia; every single native on this damn planet is in that category in some form or another," he said bluntly. "How else do you think the ponies here were able to keep the cutie markless tradition going for so long anyway?"

Shining flinched as though struck. "Sorry, sorry…" he mumbled.

"The uneducated can still be smart, Shining," Blueblood said, smiling ruefully. "After all: the military here has the most common sense on this planet, do they not?" Shining nodded weakly, unable to argue with that.

"Alright, let's not take anymore jabs at the military's lack of official schools here," Spitfire said, fanning her wings out to redirect the discussion. "Besides, if they had to set up their own system and everything, they have the means to sort out the schooling situation at a later time."

"Yeah, we're still kinda having to hold that off anyway," Lance agreed with a nod, shifting a bit to let Anna move to his other wing. "We still have a few things to sort out before schools can be built."

Spitfire nodded. "Exactly; now then, by your estimates, how soon do you think Redpine will crack?" she asked.

Lance grinned. "I think they'll start cracking tomorrow, if they're not doing so right now," he answered cheerfully. "And that's also assuming Discord started putting little chinks into the geas holding the Flock over there, which… let's be real at this point: he totally would, for shits and giggles."

"I kinda wanna watch that video again," Anna mumbled as she pulled away for a bit, to dislodge some loose feathers from her mouth. "Only this time, with popcorn."

Natalie turned to Twilight. "You got the basics of the spell down?" she asked.

Twilight nodded, and cast the spell to be sure. A cross of light, with wings and runes, lit up before her in their own custom spell circle, and she grinned as she made it vanish. She returned the grimoire to its rightful owner. "Yep, just about," she affirmed. "And if Discord doesn't break the geas the rest of the way, well… we have our advantage."

Natalie nodded, grinning at the prospect. She made her grimoire vanish, eyes sparkling. "I swear, not many ponies can replicate spells as easily as you do; Anna's tried in the past, and her first attempt gave me a mustache."

Twilight snickered at that mental image. "Tell me it was red like your mane," she said.

Natalie conjured a photograph from the ether and gave that to Twilight. She took a looksee, and found a bewildered Natalie in it, with the biggest, reddest, fanciest mustache ever seen on a pony, sagging down to her chest and curling up in front of her shoulders like a secondary pair of wings. At her side in the photo was Matt, who held a small knife-like razor blade in his magic with a smile on his face, and Anna on the floor laughing her ass off at the sight. "It took quite a lot of effort to shave that thing off, and we learned that it was best that Anna craft her own spells instead of trying her hoof at replication," she said, still grinning. "Lance couldn't stop laughing once he heard of it."

She conjured another photo, of a similar vein to the first, except in it Lance had a beard trailing all the way down to the floor. He looked disgruntled as, again, Anna pointed and laughed at him, while Matt was at his side with the razor blade ready for round two. Again, he was smiling. "Lance's beard was even harder to remove; it would not cooperate," Natalie said. "We had to hold him down to remove it."

"Oh hush, or I'll have Anna give you a beard to see how you like it," Lance hissed, although he was smiling in jest. Natalie laughed and rolled her eyes as she made the photos vanish, causing everypony in the room to laugh at the mental image of her with a beard.

Spike grinned. "But I thought you ponies didn't have hair spells? What's so wrong about needing a haircut every once in a while?" he quipped, garnering some laughter from Twilight as she wrapped her forelegs around him.

"I love you, you little smart alec," Twilight said with a giggle. Spike hugged back with his grin widening. "No matter what happens on this kooky planet, if someone needs mouthing off, you can mouth them off until the sun rises." Spike nodded, unwilling to clap back to that proposition; even so, he got a little feeling in his gut that told him something would go wrong with Redpine, somehow. He wasn't sure what his gut was telling him, but he was unwilling to ruin the current mood of the room.

Still, he made a mental note to tell Princess Luna before waking up tomorrow. Perhaps she could offer some insight of her own on the matter.