The rebel leader Agent Snake in the Grass, cloaked with eyes glowing red, sat upon the great solar throne normally occupied by Princess Celestia during the daytime, two armored guards wearing the eight-headed arrow of chaos beside him in the place Celestia's personal guards would normally be posted. All three were insistently shouting numbers into the echoing cavern of the hall - 15 digits at a time, forward and backward, backward and forward, with no seeming pattern of timing or digit choice in the echoing numbers.

This seemingly pointless and pathetic display, however, did have a reasoning to it. Agent Snake, following a traditional belief passed down by his predecessors leading the Agents of Chaos, believed the cacophonic shouting of three different irrational numbers - what humans would call "pi", "e" and the square root of 2 respectively - all at the same time while the leader sat upon Celestia's throne would ritually summon "the chaotic one" to appear and retake rule of Equestria from the alicorn sisters that had displaced him all those centuries ago.

This belief, however reasonable it may have seemed, had serious downsides. The echoing noise not only alerted Princess Luna to what the rebels were intending, it also concealed the movements of her and her supporters; it also concealed the fact the rebels inside the throne room had been cut off from any support. Not that Agent Snake seemed too concerned about that last point, however.

It was some minutes before the loyalist force Luna led was ready, but as soon as they were the counterattack began with great vigor. Luna herself smashed open the great doors into the throne room - locked behind the rebels when they had entered previously - stopping the echoing numbers dead in their tracks. The princess of the night glared in fury at the rebel on Celestia's throne as the two rebel guards rushed toward her.

Luna's horn crackles with a blue electrical energy, and she fires out at the two approaching guards. The bolts shock them both, causing them to tumble to the ground with temporary paralysis. Behind Luna, previously out of sight of Snake on the throne, the four lowest ranking members of her force spring out in pairs - Lieutenant Aldebaran and Guard Upper Class Spearhead to the left, Lieutenant Skyver and Guard Upper Class Flash Sentry to the right - to pin down the rebel guards and keep them from getting back up once the temporary paralysis wears off.

Snake is surprised but undaunted as he steps off Celestia's throne and walks, each step forceful to indicate his unintimidated state, meeting Luna in the center of the hall close enough to feel her snorting breath. The contempt in those glowing red eyes is unmistakable, and certainly speaks of deep-seated treachery.

"You are in no position to condemn me, Nightmare Moon. Nor are you in one to stop me." Snake spits out as he stares straight into Luna's icy blue eyes.

"That name is not our name, and you are wrong on both counts." Luna replies, returning his contempt with her own.

"Your little rebellion is over, Aten. Your forces have been chased away, and you have not summoned your Tartarus-worthy monster to save you." Captain Gibraltar's voice sounds out from Snake's left, prompting the latter to look in that direction.

Snake spins around in place as he very quickly realizes he is surrounded by angry glaring figures in the center of the hall: Luna in front of him, Captain Gibraltar to his left, Lieutenant Captain Shining Armor to his right, and Princess Cadance (still messy-maned and bleary-eyed from her sudden awakening) behind him. A quick glance shows he will get no help from his two subordinate guards, who have already been bundled up by the junior-ranked loyalists and stashed in a corner of the hall under guard, unable to do anything more but watch the fate of their leader.

"This is the last chance you will get, Aten. It doesn't have to end in pain and death, if you surrender right now. Come quietly, and I'm sure the princess will exile you instead of executing you." Gibraltar offers, hoping that the prospect of not potentially immediately losing his head would convince Aten to come around.

"NEVER! I WILL NEVER AGAIN BOW TO THE LIKES OF YOU!" Snake screams out, dramatically whisking off his cloak using the faux-unicorn magic to reveal his true identity in full battle armor, also wearing a severed unicorn's horn attached to a headband and a collar with a glowing red jewel that worked together to give him the delusion of alicornhood.

The rebel leader Aten immediately charges for Princess Luna, but a blast of electrical energy let out by the alicorn princess knocks him back down to the floor of the royal hall. Shining Armor's horn glows with magenta magic, and a bubble of the same color encases the downed Aten. Aten presses against the bubble, growling as his red faux-unicorn magic glows trying to break the shield bubble. Cadance's light-blue magic now glows, layering her own shield over Shining Armor's bubble and temporarily backfeeding a pulse of magic energy into Aten's faux-horn, stopping the attempt and causing a wincing pain typical of a unicorn's magic being overwhelmed.

This wince gives a window of opportunity Princess Luna takes full advantage of, ramming the bubble Aten is encased in to send the rebel tumbling end-over-end. The other three surrounding Aten now rush in, providing the horrified rebel subordinates with a show of kicking the encased rebel leader around like an oversized buckball, limbs flailing every which way and armor pieces being dented from the impacts. Eventually, with armor weakened, the shield bubbles come down and the impacts land directly on the armor, causing it to crack and shatter, metal pieces flying every which way as Aten continues to be kicked around helplessly.

Finally, Luna lands a mighty kick with both rear legs that sends Aten down the length of the royal hall. As the rebel pegasus tumbles, his fake unicorn horn finally cracks from the stresses of repeated impacts, and as Aten rolls to a stop the band which held the horn in place slides loose from its position, causing both the jewel on the collar and Aten's eyes to cease glowing red.

The rebel leader groans as he tries to push himself back on his hooves amongst the broken pieces of his battle armor, but slumps back down again as the band with the cracked unicorn's horn falls off completely, leaving only the now-useless collar still attached to his now-unarmored form.

"Have you had enough yet, traitor?" Lieutenant Captain Shining Armor asks Aten with unmixed venom in his tone, he and his fellow attackers having backed up temporarily as Aten struggles again to get back up.

Pressing through obvious pain, Aten does manage to get back on shaky hooves, and then lets loose with feelings it was suspected he had suppressed for a very long time: "I HATE YOU! I HATE EVERYPONY WITH A HORN ON THEIR HEAD! I'LL HAVE THE CHAOTIC ONE KILL EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THEM, AND MAKE THE ALICORNS BOW BEFORE THE REAL KING OF EQUESTRIA! I'M GOING TO SEND EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU TO TARTARUS, OR THE MOON!"

Aten's ranting never got any farther, though, because the loyalist "trump card" finally acted according to a previously-worked out plan. What could only be described as a walking fireball - Princess Celestia's flaming form barely distinguishable amongst the flames - now passes through the open doors to the royal hall. Aten whirls around upon feeling the heat and seeing the light coming from behind him, and for the first time his face shows fear, a quiet gasp being the only sound coming from his throat now.

A great wave of fire blasts forth from Celestia's position, picking up Aten's form and pushing it hard into a column, scorching Aten's entire bottom half and burning off the collar he was wearing, which falls away and is shattered under a hard hoof of Celestia's. The smells of smoke and burned hair fill the royal hall, and Aten is wincing in pain from both his burns and hard impacts. Before he can react again, Celestia's bright yellow unicorn magic glows around his wings, forcing them to open fully against Aten's will. The yellow glow intensifies, and a mighty scream echoes across the hall as the feathers on Aten's wings ignite in furious flames!

Everypony else watches in grim horror as the rebel leader writhes in pain - his wings are literally burned off by Celestia's magic, quickly leaving only charred stumps sticking out just behind the withers. When the flames finally burn out, Aten is in so much pain that he can no longer put up any effective resistance, and now Captain of the Guard Gibraltar works with Lieutenant Captain Shining Armor to restrain Aten's badly-damaged form.

Celestia lets out a loud, blowing sigh as she finally tamps down the flames previously wreathing her form - the rebellion of the Agents of Chaos was essentially over. Although some of the rebel force had escaped the city, they were no longer in any position to do what she had feared they would do - release the old draconequus enemy currently petrified as a statue in her castle's statue garden.

She wanted to be absolutely sure about that, though, and so as soon as Shining Armor was securing the unresisting Aten to be transported to a hospital, she very firmly summoned Captain Gibraltar over to her side, glaring down the whole time as she did so. When he finally stopped in front of her, looking up in the same manner as a young foal wondering if he had done something wrong, Celestia spoke down in a tone very reminiscent of a stern mother: "Captain, I want you to do something, and do it straight away. Go to the statue garden, and check over the Statue of Discord there. If there are any cracks or breaks whatsoever, report it to me immediately. Do you understand, Captain?"

Captain Gibraltar thinks it a very odd order to be given when there's clearly higher priorities for him to deal with right now, but Celestia's recent display and continued sternness convince him to not question the orders, and immediately the Captain of the Guard rushes through the doors leading into and out of the royal hall to follow the orders given to him...

The echoes of Gibraltar's hoofsteps had barely faded away when more commotion was heard coming from the hallway leading to the royal hall. The work of transporting Aten to the hospital and the other rebels to a holding cell is temporarily stopped, the alicorn sisters moving to stand side-by-side near the open doors leading into the hall. Just moments later, an unexpected group of ponies skidded into hall - the battered and exhausted lead trio of Wonderbolts, escorted by the duo of Guard Upper Classes 8-Bit and Gaffer!

The Wonderbolt group pauses for only a moment observing the site of the impromptu battle against Aten, before reflexively dropping down into a cowering bow against the glaring princess duo. They already knew from the condition of the hall Aten had been stopped, and it seemed there would be no delay in taking the brunt of the response of the princesses.

"We see the leaders of the Wonderbolts - Captain Spitfire, Lead Wingpony Soarin' and Second Lead Wingpony Misty Fly - cowering before us." Princess Luna begins preaching to the prostrate figures. "We see you have suffered much during this rebellion now defeated, but this is suffering you brought upon yourselves by what you have done before."

"The Wonderbolts were created for my protection and to keep peace in this kingdom, and yet you have collaborated with and accommodated traitors!" Princess Celestia picks up where Luna left off. "I cannot overlook this, and you should know THERE. WILL. BE. CONSEQUENCES."

The last four words would both encapsulate and dominate the aftermath of the now defeated rebellion of the Agents of Chaos, and the consequences would be mighty indeed, but that story will be told later, another time...

Author's Note

(An appropriate depiction of Celestia's rage in this chapter: http://mykegreywolf.deviantart.com/art/Commission-Hell-Hath-No-Fury-649540532 )