MSL Chapter 3+ 1/2: Illegal High Stakes Bingo Night!
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Ponies. Perhaps the most friendly species I’ve ever seen. When someone is mean to you guys, you don’t respond by violence, you stick out a hoof in friendship, and even when it gets bitten off, you guys stick another one out, and another, and another, and then maybe a wing or a horn or tongue. Its a good thing you guys have a lot of spare limbs….

You have more words for friendship than any other concept in your language. Your magical, social, and technological progress has all been built around equalizing and improving relationships. The unicorns bring the sun and night to help the earth ponies grow their plants, the pegasi move weather and build giant traveling cities to meet new faces, and the earth ponies build castles, houses, grow food, and do the other things that the pegasi and the unicorns can’t be bothered to do because they want to help them.

I mean you guys can’t even industrialize right. Take the steam engine. The genesis of industrialization. Where I come from, it allowed mine owners to drain the mines and move things so they could send people down deeper and deeper to unearth more riches for the mine owners. Here it was invented because an earth pony wanted to clear out a mine for his unicorn friends and so his pegasi friends wouldn’t have to fly far away for water to make weather with.

“Your honor...”

I mean what’s with you ponies, you invest your efforts into bettering each other out of kindness? Where’s the profit, where’s the driving force, where’s the invisible hoof of the market forces! You’re all a bunch of egalitarian socialists even before the great industrial revolution!

“I believe that is enough.” Celestia said, banging her gavel and leering at me. My wings may or may not have been flapping enough to levitate me off the ground throughout the whole thing. “It feels like we’ve been here for months with no progress since you interrupted again.”

“Fine, interrupt my monologue why don’t you.” I said dropping down back onto my seat.

Celestia used leer again. “Now then where were we? I believe Mr. Double Book was recounting the tale of how you two first formed a business partnership.”

“Oh he can’t finish that story.” I interrupted.

“I can’t?” Double Book said from the stand.

“No you can’t because I want to finish that story. See my view point offers the audience a unique outlook on ponykind and the next part it will be more important than yours.”

“OBJECTION, your honor.”

Celestia sighed. “If one of you would please get on with it.”

“Thank you your honor.” I said, taking flight again and coming to rest on Double Book’s lap, which is considerably smaller than my pony behind.

“Now then….”

=-=-=-=-=-

“Alright, Everypony put your hooves and wings where I can see’em and don’t you think for a minute of using any spells, we have the whole place covered in an anti-magic field!” The constable barked.

=-=-=-=

“Wait, hold on….” The stenographer who had been tapping away on her stenotype, which is goofy itself since normal pony typewriters are already basically stenotypes, until now said interupting my riviting tale. “We were just in the defendant’s apartment and now we’re somewhere else? I’m sorry did I miss something?”

Sigh…

“Much later but somewhat earlier than before….” I started again.

=-=-=-=

“What is this place?” My new less than willing compatriot asked.

“Just an underground alchemy ring. Just watch, this’ll be over in a minute.”

We were in the warehouse district near the docks. Since the docks weren’t very well lit yet, and because ponies are a bunch of leftist socialists who only work five hours a day…. Anyways the daily business of loading and offloading those sailboats you consider ships was done for the day.

The warehouse was crammed with mostly earth ponies, not uncommon for the earth pony city really, many sitting on makeshift benches made out of various crates. On the make-shift stage, a pair of unicorns were rotating a cage of balls, and calling out numbers.

“G-48! G-48!” He shouted with his magically amplified voice.

I sat down and unhitched myself from my cart. One of the tougher looking unicorns, the one that judged the competition saw me in the corner and trotted over.

“Oh no, no no no, you’re banned from here!” He said, flanked by two bruisers. His name was Basil Leaf, and he was pretty clear about where I should go last time we had an encounter.

“Banned?” Double whispered to me.

“A simple misunderstanding.” I whispered.

“Bassil relax. This is the guy I was telling you about,” I said to the irate unicorn.

“You the guy?” The leafy unicorn said to Double Book.

“Of course he’s the guy, I wouldn’t have told you he was the guy unless he was the guy. You wanted me to bring the guy and so I went and got the guy and now we’re here and so this is the guy!” I rambled on taking a huge breath in. “So the guy is here and he’s ready to go!” Double yipped as I gave him a smack on the back with my wings.

Basil leaned in, nose to nose, but Double stood his ground. “He’d better do what you said he could. We’re all waiting in the back. You’d better not flake out.” He said before turning away, his tail intentionally whacking my nose, which in zebran culture by the way, is considered an invitation to go to the nearest hut and rut but I doubt that’s exactly what he was going for, in any case, all I could smell for a while was dirt and hay because these floors are dirty and he really needed to wash his tail more.

“Phew, that could have gone worse. I think he thought you were a unicorn,” I said, “Which is really funny because you being an earth pony will really surprise him.”

“But I AM a unicorn,” Double said.

I took another good look at him, doing a bit of mental math. Looking over the slim built earth pony from fetlock to the brim of his hat, and didn’t see a horn.

“You sure about that?” I said.

He sighed.

“Promise not to laugh?” He said, looking slightly uncomfortable.

“Stick a knife right in my eye and beat me up until I die.” I said, going through the motions.

He shot me a look of concern for my morbid promise but lifted a fetlock up to his hat.

I nearly squee-ed. Underneath, in the part of his hair was the most itty bitty baby carrot sized horn I had ever seen.

=-=-=-=

“I mean look at this thing!” I said, ripping Double out from underneath me. “Its a widdle baby carrot!”

“I have a condition your honor.” He said solemnly. “Can we go back to the story, or are you going to sit here all day poking it?” He said resigned to the obvious.

A squee leaked out as I poked it. Even after all these years it still was fun to boop the tiny thing. It had gotten bigger but still it was no bigger than one of the frogs on my fore hooves.

“Ahem.” Celestia said.

“Oh sorry, you can poke it too your royal sunbottomedness, he really doesn’t mind.” I said, with a cocky smile.

=-=-=-=-=-=

“So… The guy?” He asked me as I started unpacking my cart.

“You’re the guy!” I said emphatically.

“I-73! I-73!”

“Please stop saying that, and what is this place, why do you keep calling me the guy?”

“This,” I said, gesturing to the room. “Is but one part of the seedy underbelly of the Manehatten underground. Here, there’s everything that stuffy princesses deem socially unacceptable. Sea salt licks, illicit potions, uncensored tomes, ALCOHOL, illegal gambling, and did I mention alcohol; because they have a lot of that here too.

“B-32! B-32!”

“And tonight is uh… bingo night.” I added.

=-=-=-=-=

“Ahem. Less social commentary if you would,” Celestia said.

“Oh come on! You know how long it took me to find a good bottle of gin in the damn dry mess of a country you were running? Why the hell would you ban everything but wine? Honestly, just because you’re a teetotaler doesn’t mean the rest of use have to suffer for it. Best thing I ever did was get them to abolish that stupid law.”

She banged her gavel once again, this time hard enough to sending little chips flying. “Would you just get on with it.” She said rather out of character. I must have struck a nerve.

“Fine, but I think I’m owed an answer to that question!”

From the bench, Celestia leered at me with her meanie face.

“So anyways...”

=-=-=-=-=

“And how does this involve me, what are we even here for?” He said.

“So I was in here last week, and there was this mare running her mouth about how she could transmute zinc to copper and bragging about how she’s the greatest alchemist in the world.”

“But successfully transmuting any element is incredibly difficult, at least that’s what they said in school. If she did discover a new transmutation, that would be an incredible break through.”

“Oh pshaw. Zinc to copper? Give me a break, not even zinc wants to be zinc! Its the lamest metal on the periodic table, all its good for is melting exactly at 419.56 C. So naturally I called her out, and she bet I couldn’t do better, me being a pegasus after all. As if that was an impediment. Maybe if he didn’t have a stupid horn sticking into her brain!-”

“Hey!”

“Right, sorry,” I said. “So long story short, I told them I could make gold out of lead.”

“But that’s-”

“Impossible?” I said with a wink.

“Dangerous, incredibly illegal, and completely impossible! Even if you could actually make gold, why the value of the bit would crater, the economy would collapse, you’d have celestia herself kicking in your door and dragging you off to the dun-” I fopped him with a wing. “Sorry,” he said composing himself. “So what happened?”

“At the time I might have been bragging a bit so instead I tried to to make something that would have fooled them. Instead I ended up with a mixture of iron pyrite, elemental cesium, and a few flakes of lead iodide .” I said.

“You think?”

“Have you ever seen a piece of sodium in water?” I said, he started at me blankly. Equestria lacked some spaces in the periodic table, but at least they had pieced one together by now, even if things weren’t quite what I was used to. Something about chemistry here, it works perfectly fine until you add magic to the reaction. Then logic goes out the window with little bits of glass from your shattered glassware. Also fun fact, most carbon weighs 13 grams per mole here! But that’s all later in the story.

Getting back on track though, He nodded.

“O-56! O-56!”

“BINGO!”

The warehouse was filled with whines and groans as dozens of cards were kicked over and chips went flying.

“Think a bit bigger,” I said. “Anyways, with you being The Guy here, nothing is going to go wrong at all!”

“Quit calling me the guy!” He said, stomping a hoof. “I am not the guy!”

“Oh but you’re the guy who showed me exactly how to make lead into gold, the one who works at the bank. You know, like all the tabloids say. Oh you told me it yourself one day, accidentally letting it slip that all the banks make their own gold to fool the masses. Then I convinced you to teach me how to do it in secret, and tonight you’re going to demonstrate it to a small gathering of like minded individuals, because your boss secretly instructed you to do whatever it takes to get me to go to the bank tomorrow and deposit a huge heap of gold in his vault,” I said. The seedy underbelly of Equestria was certainly very gullible.

“But you!-” He said exasperated. He paused, took a deep breath, and steadied himself. “Look, I don’t know what buisness you are wrapped up in and I don’t want to anymore, I’m out. Peterbit can fire me if he wants,” He said, turning to leave.

“Oh come on, you’re already here. Plus if I could make gold, wouldn’t it be a good thing to warn your boss about, maybe turn me in to the police?” I said slyly. “Think, they’d promote you, give you a raise, why they might even make you a partner because you single hoofidly stopped a mademane who might have destabilized the entire foundation of the modern economy! Celestia might even give you a medal.”

He stopped in his tracks and grumbled to under his breath.

“You’ll have to stick around to see.”

“Fine, but what am I supposed to do then? They expect me to do it!” He said, turning to me.

“Thats defeatist talk!” I said, “Did Napolion stop invading Germany when Britain told him not to? Did Ceasar stop at the Rhine and say ‘I guess its not worth my time’, did George Washington Carver say ‘No I’m sorry I can’t make that out of peanuts!’? NO They did not! They manned up and turned lead into gold! And you will too!”

“You’re nuts aren’t you?” He said.

“Probably. Look you’re a banker guy, you’ve given presentations to big wigs before. Here’s all you have to do.” I said, leaning in to quietly explain my plan.

=-=-=-

“Ahem, I present, the guy,” I said to the small gathering of thugs and ne'er-do-wells.

“This is it?” The mare, one Aloe Verra Estipone said. She was the one who had been running her mouth about being the best alchemist in Manehatten. Basil had arranged this whole thing. “These two here look like they couldn’t tell the difference between barium and a banana!”

Double cleared his throat while I started setting up a cauldron. “um good evening mares and gentlecolts. Tonight I’ll be-”

“Get on with it already!” One of the thugs shouted.

“Yes get on with it!” Another said.

“Um right… first step… First step...”

“Try lighting the fire.” Aloe said sarcastically.

“Yes, the fire.” He said nervously. Fortunately I had already brought out a small gas burner and had it ready to light.

“Ahem,” I coughed. Pointing to the bogus recipe that he had been reading off of. The real magic was tucked away between the pinions on my left wing, a small vial, prepared ahead of time. I’d just put a drop in by accident, and that’d be enough. Hopefully anyways. That was the main issue with Equestria’s chemistry. Big and magical didn’t mix.

In fact, that’s why potion cauldrons were as far as I could tell, the standard measure of one’s skill. Brew a vial’s worth of something successfully, you’re a novice alchemist, brew a cauldron and you’re a journeymare, brew with a five-cauldron and not blow yourself up, you’re a master. Me brewing with a re-purposed soup pot? Ya its about as impressive as a science fair volcano.

“Now then, my assistant will uh…”

“I’ll melt the ingots up and skim the oxides,” I said.

“Right! Melt the lead. And as it is doing that, I will uh make the-”

“Your voice is really annoying,” Aloe interrupted. “I’m sorry I thought this was a demonstration, not a lecture.”

“Uh yes, as I was saying, stir in two table spoons of-”

“Tablespoons? I thought you were supposed to be a professional at this.”

This went back and forth for some time. Double Book was doing as good a job as could be expected, having been tossed into this situation that is.

“And uh, let set for five minutes and the gold will condense from the lead and… that’s it?” He said, reaching the end of the scroll. “Oh um, that’s it, the gold will now condense.”

“Let me have a look at that!” Aloe finally running out of patience said.

Yanking the list out of Double’s grip with her magic, she stomped up to the cauldron. “This isn’t gold! This is complete gibberish.”

“THIS IS THE ROYAL GUARD. THIS IS A RAID. EVERYPONY FREEZE!” An armored unicorn shouted, his voice easily overpowering the crowd which in turn tried to bolt. Stun blasts flew left and right, dropping everypony that was brave enough to escape.

The door, which was little more than a flimsy piece of scrap wood, was ripped off its hinges as several armored guards charged in, their enchanted armor glowing in the sparsely lit room, followed by an assortment of blue clothed police.

“IT’S NOT WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE!” Aloe shouted as the guards filed in.

“Alright, Everypony put your hooves and wings where I can see’em and don’t you think for a minute of using any spells, we have the whole place covered in an anti-magic field!” The constable barked. “Ah what do we got here lassy? An illegal transmutation demonstration?

“You!” She said, pointing at me. “This was all a set-up! I’m being framed.”

“Tell it to the judge. We caught you in the act, recipe in hoof, cauldron steaming.” He retorted.

“I’m not going anywhere!” She shouted before tossing over the table, causing the constables and guards to jump backwards. The thugs taking advantage, kicked the nearest guards, sending them sprawling. In an instant, stun spells, glass bottles, and crates started flying left and right.

“You two stay right there!” The nearest constable shouted at us.

Innocently, I let the vial slip from my pinions into the smoldering cauldron in front of me. The vial shattered when it hit the molten lead. The whole room erupted into smoke as the guards and thugs all jumped at each other.

=-=-=-=

“Why me!?” Double Book sobbed against the bars. “They’ll jail me, then tell my boss, and he’ll fire me and then-” A snowball pelted him in the head. “OW would you stop that! This is all your fault.”

“A very green pony once said ‘don’t worry, about a thing, cas every little thing, its gonna be alight!’” I said from the bench.

“… Look I told you, I was just there delivering my friend’s wallet, honestly!” Basil barked as he was lead past our cell. “You got the wrong pony!”

“Save it for the judge in the morning.” The not-royal guard said as he stopped and undid his chains.

“Oh hey Basil, you manage to hide your stash under your manepiece? I bet they didn’t even notice its a fake!” I blurted out.

“Why you!” He started to say before the guard levitated off his toupe, revealing a small linen pouch tied up under it.

“What is this?” The guard demanded.

“Nnnothing! Just some sunflour seeds, honest, I keep’em there as a snack!”

The guard eyed the pouch. He pulled out one of the seeds, and took a bite before spitting it out in disgust. “Pfff, these are awful. Nice try though, I’ll add it to your charges,” He said, tossing the whole thing into the trash. “And quiet down you!” He said barking to our cell as he sat down behind his desk.

It was at that point, another pony came walking down the rows, and stopped in front of our cell doing a double take. “Guard!” He barked, causing the guard to jump up from his seat.

“SIR!” he shouted in salute.

“Can you explain what this upstanding citizen is doing here?” He said, pointing to me.

“Uh sir, he was uh caught up in tonight’s raid at the docks,” the guard responded. “He’s still being proce-”

“I want him released immediately. This is a fine hard working pony!”

“But sir, he was-”

“I’m sure he was accidentally apprehended in the raid. This lad is merely guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“But he was-”

“No buts! I want him out of there immediately or do you want to be bumped down to latrine duty?”

“N-no sir.” He grumbled as he pulled out his key ring.

“Hey can you let my assistant go too? He was accidentally caught up in this too.” I said to the constable.

The guard just sighed. “You’re both free to go,” He said opening the door. “On behoof of the Manehattan Constabulary we are sorry for the inconvenience, would like to formally apologize for this accident, and hope you have a wonderful evening,” He monologued.

“You too,” I said, “Come along Double Book! We’ve got important business to do,” I said to the stunned unicorn. “See ya around Basil.”

-=-=-=-=

“What did I do to deserve this?” Double mused as I picked through the trash. While we were released right away, it still had taken a couple hours just to get out of the city jail

“You let your concern for your job and employer overwhelm your personal life.” I said, tossing another pile of trash to the side. I kept digging.

“They’ve got my flank-print and know I was at the scene of a crime, and they’ll tell my boss tomorrow and then he’ll tell his manager and-” Another snowball pelted him. “HOW ARE YOU EVEN DOING THAT!”

I shrugged. “You don’t have to worry about any of that if it makes you feel better. Our early release wasn’t by chance.” Nope still not what I was looking for.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that there’s two sides to this city, and nobody said you can’t work both of them.”

“The bribes.”

“Sometimes bits to look the other way, sometimes they come to me for information. I do the same for the other side too.”

“Are you talking about…. The Herd?” He asked in a hushed tone.

I chuckled. Even after being a pony so long, there are still ridiculous things in this world that you never get over. Yep, in Equestria, pony mob you! The mafia, the don, the various families, all of that still existed, just ponified in the same way that this whole city was really. The Gallopino’s, the Pinkie Gang (no relation), the Genhoovese, the Loofhese, and probably a few more I hadn’t heard of.

Granted, they weren’t the “break all your legs” type of gangsters, this IS Equestria after all, but you still didn’t want to mess with them, especially with the sometimes cartoon physics of this world.

“I’m talking about both sides, and not a word more,” I said. “Aah ha!” I said triumphantly as my hoof reached the linen bag.

I opened it up and carefully dumped some of the seeds on the frog of my hoof. “This is what all of tonight was all about,” I said.

“That’s it? ALL OF THIS, the gold, the speak easy, the guard, all of it for a bag full of seeds?”

“Well, the guard was a surprise. If I had won the competition, these would have been the prize. I normally keep my alchemy under wraps, but this time I made an exception for these. These are worth more than all the gold in Canterlot.”

“What’s so special about them?”

I carefully put the rest of the seeds back in their pouch. “I’m not sure you want to know, but out here’s not the place to talk,” I said as I examined one in the gas light of the street lamps. From a distance, indeed they would be indistinguishable from normal sunflower seeds that ponies enjoy all the time. Up close though, they were something to behold. They were almost completely black with impossibly blue stripes running down the seams, terminating in a multicolored starburst at the base.

I slipped them back into the bag and looped the string around my neck.

=-=-=-

Celestia banged her gavel interrupting my story. “This has been enough for tonight.”

“Aw cmon it was almost over,” I said. “I was just about to tell him everything about the seeds.”

“Everypony is dismissed, and the transcript of the defendant’s description will be stricken from the record.”

“Your honor!” Lawyer whatshisflank protested.

“My decision is final. The court will resume tomorrow. I remind everypony gathered, the proceedings here are to be kept secret and shall not be repeated outside this court. Guards, take these two to the dungeon for holding until then.” She said before turning and exiting through the door behind her bench.

=-=-=-=

“They just look like sunflower seeds.” Double Book said looking over the seed in my hoof. “Why are these worth so much?”

Famished and in need of someplace to talk, we went to a nearby soda shop I knew of. Like its historical counterpart back home these places were all the rage right now, what with pony drinking culture being non existent thanks to most ponies being conformists, probably due to the fact that we as a species are herd animals, natural socialists, something that will need to change.

Pony science progresses in weird spurts. Ponies seem to adopt and perfect a technology before advancing anything else. The soda fountain was a recent adoption, having exploded into popularity because, I kid you not, Celestia was offered a drink and found it interesting.

“What happens when a pony gets sick?” I asked over my root beer float.

“I guess they go to a doctor and get healed by a unicorn,” he said.

I shook my head. “No, what happens when a pony gets really sick. Sick with something magical that a healing spell won’t fix.”

He scratched his head in thought. “I guess, they put them in the hospital and give them the Medicine and then they get better, usually.”

“Right, but its more than that. Medicine in Equestria is really great. Its the best in the world. Magical even. This,” I held up the seed, “is the reason behind it all. This is a seed of what the Zebras call the starflower, better known here as celestials. Everything about this plant is magical. The seeds are ground into the most powerful medicines, the leaves of this into the most potent magical cures in the known world. The stem is used in the creation of the most powerful forms of alchemy and the roots are said to be able to reverse any poisoning. Only one crop of these are grown each year, personally planted by Celestia herself. All knowledge about how to grow these, where to grow them, even what they look like is kept a secret, and all written works on it have been either locked away in secure archives or have been heavily censored,” I said. What I didn’t say was that possession and smuggling of the seeds were one of the few high crimes on the books.

These were some potent flowers, all I had to do was exploit them.

“So why go through all of this, why the gold, why this scheme, why put yourself in so much trouble?”

“Look, have you ever had a dream?” I asked.

He looked down wistfully into his drink. “Once,” He said with a hint of bitterness, taking a sip of his rootbeer.

“Well, I have a dream, a dream of iron, steel, a dream of capitalism and commerce. This country’s ripe for taking, it just takes somepony with the guts and know how to do it, and I need somepony like you to help me do it.”

He chuckled. “I’m nopony, you, Peterbit, all of you-” His moping was interrupted by a stallion litterally busting through the front door. Outside, bells began ringing and fireworks began shooting off.

“EVERYPONY! THERE’S BEEN ANOTHER ALICORN DISCOVERED! SHE’S TO BE CROWNED PRINCESS TOMMOROW! BY FAUST ITS A MIRACLE!” He shouted, before galoping off to spread the news to the next establishment.

For a brief moment, all was quiet as everypony digested the news. Then the soda shop erupted into cheers, and sugary carbonated drinks were all quickly poured on the ground. Hoof flasks, flank-tankards, beer bottles, and casks all appeared as if by magic from their concealment, and everypony began breaking into song. Something about magic and princesses and friendship or there abouts.

“Huh, I was wondering when Cadance would show her horn.” I said casually to Double Book who was about as shocked as one could be. “Here, you look like you need this more than I do,” I said, tossing out his rootbeer and refilling it with something from my own personal supply.

“TO FRIENDSHIP!” I shouted.

The room cheered.

=-=-=-=-=-=-

Drab, yet spacious, not much of a view, but its probably the cheapest realestate in Canterlot right now what with there being a massive housing bubble (not at all created by my machinations…)

“Why did you have to antagonize her!” Double barked from the other side of the cell. His chains rattled as he shook his hooves at me.

After being muscled out of court and hauled down here, we were essentially alone, the six stallions guarding us were pretty distracted with their poker game after all. In this day and age, the dungeon was probably used more as a drunk tank and for less reputable things by the adventurous noble couple after all.

“I did tell you this day was gonna happen at some point didn’t I?”

“Oh ya, was that before or after the blood contract?” He said, miffed. “What will my father think when all this gets out? What’s this going to do to our company?”

“Relax old friend. We’ve got this in the bag.” I said, stopping short as the door up above creaked open, followed by four pairs of metal shod hooves clacking on the stone floor.

‘Please be Moon-moon princess.’ I silently prayed as I clung to the bars.

Sure enough after an entirely too long descent, it was not sexy moon-moon but instead her quite irritated sister, Sun-butt the inflamed. Oh and she was quite angry with me.

Before anypony but me could see her though she paused and put on that stupid composed porcelain face.

The guards scrambled to attention, knocking over their card game and taking up their positions in the alcoves around the dungeon.

“Guards, you are dismissed,” She said.

“Your maj-”

“Now please.”

Without another word, the two unicorns quietly teleported away, the three earth ponies each pulled seperate hidden levers, disappearing down three different hidden passages, and the pegasis tried to fly upwards, only to banged around on the ceiling before darting up the passageway, slaming the door shut behind herself.

“You!” She said, letting her angry face slip for one moment. “You insisted on making this a trial, then decided to turn it into an endless mockery of my kingdom, my little ponies and myself. I was hoping for a glimmer of remorse, but then you go and admit to knowingly steal one of the closest guarded secrets of Equestria for personal gain no less, all the while mocking my kingdom and my ponies in the process.”

Maybe I had pushed one too many buttons. Was it me or was it getting warm in here?

She took a long deep breath, collecting herself. “You’d better have a good explanation for all your crimes, and I expect it first thing tomorrow when we begin again,” She said calmly, turning to leave. “Maybe there’s still hope for you-”

“OH WAH!” I said interrupting her monologue. “I’m such a bad pony! I only stole Equestria’s greedy widdle secrets, brought about an industrial revolution, and carried out my contract,” I said angrily. “Maybe just maybe if you weren’t censoring all the damn text books, and forbidding all sorts of study, ponies might stand up to you more from time to time. Oh can’t have that now can we? Oh and I fluoridated the water and iodized the salt licks while I was at it because I’m that EVIL!”

She started chuckling, her anger replaced by humor. “Now I think I understand. Quite evil indeed. I look forward to listening to more of your absurd tale, under a truth array of course. Oh and for your information, I only appoint the ponies that censor the textbooks, and I don’t really approve of the practice myself but found it necessary for my little ponies sake,” She said, this time turning to leave for good.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

End of Chapter 3

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Author's Note

Is long and ponderous? Yes
Is there more to come? Yes
Am I really REALLY bad at sticking to a schedule? Absolutely