"Princess!" Twilight Sparkle burst into the room, followed swiftly by the other Bearers. "I came as soon as I heard!"
Trotting up to the Princess, Twilight gave a small bow. Raising herself up, Twilight glanced around, taking in every detail of the throne room.
"Twilight," The princess sighed, "What are you doing? Pick your head up off the floor."
"Sorry, Princess," Twilight chirped, "Just inspecting every detail of the throne room." Picking her head up from where she was inspecting a - very suspicious - smudge of dirt, she continued, "So, what is the emergency you called us down here for? Is it Tirek? The Sirens?" her eyes narrowed, "Cadence?"
Celestia glanced to the side, coughing. "Ah, no." Sitting a tad straighter, the Diarch continued, "I'm afraid the threat we face is much worse than any of those we have faced before."
Twilight gasped dramatically, "You don't mean...?"
"Yes," Celestia hissed, "Lawyers."
Rarity fainted. The others shuffled around, because they were there too.
"Impossible," Twilight insisted frantically, "there can't be any lawyers left! Didn't you banish them all to the moon after the Great Paper and Quill Shortage of '83?"
"Indeed I did," Celestia nodded, "Unfortunately, Luna's throwing a hissy-fit about how I'm 'tainting her precious moon'. She has rebanished them all back to Equestria."
Applejack coughed, and the two alicorn glared at the Earth Pony for daring to interupt their diatribe. "Excuse me, Princess. Ah don't want those lawyers hangin' 'round here anymore than anypony else, but what's the big deal with having them in Equestria? They can't be that much worse than other ponies." She flinched from the stares directed at her from all sides.
"You both are overreacting a bit," Rainbow chimed in.
"Um," Pinkie squinted in confusion, "If you can't banish them to the moon, why not banish them to the sun? I could even throw them a going away party!"
Twilight gasped and Celestia balked.
"Banish them to MY sun?" She gaped, "And taint it with their filthy presence? Never!"
"You would throw them a party?" Twilight murmured, "Pinkie Pie, how could you?"
"Well, I wasn't going to invite them. Duh!" Pinkie rolled her eyes, "I was just going to give them invitations with the wrong addresses. I'm not a monster."
The entire room breathed a collective sigh of relief.
"Well, I don't get what the big deal is," Spike spoke, "What's so awful about them?"
The entire room jumped. "Ah!" Twilight yelped, "Spike! What are you doing here? I left you back at the library!"
Spike's eye twitched. "We don't have a library anymore, Twilight. Remember? Tirek destroyed it?"
"Oh right," Twilight tapped her chin thoughtfully, "So then, why aren't you at the Friendship Palace?"
"You won't let me in there, remember?" Spike gritted out, "You're making me sleep in a doghouse outside."
"That's it!" Twilight exclaimed.
Turning back to Celestia, Twilight continued ignoring Spike completely, "Princess what are we going to do?"
The rest of the room turned away from Spike as he burst into tears and fled.
Pinkie tilted her head to the right, "Does anyone hear that? It sounds like...sobbing."
"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about, Darling." Rarity flipped her hair.
"Whoa, when did you get back up?" Rainbow exclaimed, looking between where Rarity had fainted, and where she was now on the other side of the room.
Rarity sniffed, "Please Rainbow, have some class. You never ask a lady something like that."
Their meaningless contribution out of the way, the Bearers fell silent and motionless and the alicorns returned to discussing important matters.
"I was hoping you could use the new Elemental Powers you obtained from the tree to deal with them," Celestia licked her lips, "Hint, hint."
Ignoring the obvious solution, Twilight continued, "But how are they still alive? You banished them years ago, and the moon doesn't have food, or water, or even a habitable atmosphere!"
Celestia scoffed, "Clearly you have been lax in your studies, Twilight." Her eyes narrowed, "You can't just kill Lawyers, not with a thousand pies. I know, I've tried. They're like an idea, and just like an idea, there's no way to destroy them other then systematically slaughtering everygriffin that knows about it. Pesky democracies."
Twilight tilted her head, "What?"
"Nevermind." Celestia shook her head, just as a dark figure drifted into the room, landing gracefully to the side of the group. Naturally, the group continued to ignore the presence, instead choosing to stare blankly ahead.
"A-HEM." Luna's eye twitched, and the two princesses turned to regard the third. The Bearers remained silent in the background, neither moving nor blinking. Because.
"Yes, Woona?" Celestia inquired politely.
"It's Luna, sister," the dark alicorn responed tersely, before shaking off the irritation. "and shouldn't you be explaining the situation to Twilight?"
"Stalling!?" Celestia shot up, horrified, "You dare suggest that I stall?"
She's questioning my authority? Could it be? Celestia thought in horrified realization. Could the Lawyers have gotten to her first?
"What?" Luna raised an brow, before shaking her head in exasperation and turning to Twilight, ignoring her sister as Celestia underwent a minor panic attack.
Twilight joined in with Luna in ignoring Celestia, because princess peer pressure.
Luna sighed, "You see Twilight, after I returned the Lawyers back to Equestria, Celestia failed to make appropriate reparations - or any, really - from banishing them for the past several centuries. Needless to say that they were not amused and are pressing charges against the crown."
"Wait," Applejack's hoof shot up from the group in back, and Twilight jumped, forgetting they were there. "How can they even press charges against the crown to begin with?"
"Ah," Luna's eye twitched slightly, "You see, under Celestia's..." She paused, looking for the right word.
"Rambunctious?" Fluttershy volunteered, getting a smile out of the blue alicorn.
"Yes, rambunctious. Thank you, Fluttershy. You see, Applejack, after Celestia's rambunctious leadership for the past several centuries, the legal code is quite a mess in that regards. I daresay that not even the Laywer's themselves have managed to unravel all the various bylaws they could use, which are admittedly quite numerous, and at this point just OP."
"OP?" Rainbow Dash dashed an eyebrow up. Dash.
Luna blushed and glanced aside. "Yes, well. Ahem. Anyway, the situation is that we seem to... to. To." Luna pursed her lips and looked around the throne room.
"I seem to have lost my train of thought."
BOOM.
The room jumped as the ceiling caved in from the force of a falling transport. Fluttershy and the rest of the group stared wide-eyed (minus Celestia, who was at this point hyperventilating and reviewing the mental list of safe-houses she had tucked away, while wondering how well stocked on pastries they were)*
"Oh," Luna smiled and pointed at the Friendship Express, "There it is." The whistle blasted and the conductor poked his head out, looking quite poleaxed.
And so the Lawyers were spared, thanks to the fact that the conversation was completely...
...Derailed.
Meanwhile, in the back of the room, unnoticed, Discord looked down at the bottle of rum in his clawed hand. He frowned, rubbing his bearded chin thoughtfully.
"So that's why I gave up drinking. Huh."
"EXCELSIOR!"
"No! Fluttershy, wait!"
Author's Note
*They were dual-purpose. Both for defense and for rations.
Well, the original idea for this was that both Tirek and Tartarus would also team up to sue. Tirek for assault, and Tartarus for trespassing, with several comparisons between Mexico and Tartarus. But I lost interest... So, yeah.
