XI:
The final statement

Dear Great Master,

I know that after the incident with the creatures known as the Undead Knights you have no reason to trust the Crown. But considering the current situation I need to meet you in person, we must discuss this before this gets any worse. I will be waiting you on the Throne Room at 9:00pm.

My sister, my nice and my faithful student Twilight Sparkle will be joining me since the matter to discuss compels us all. Unfortunately our recent mistakes have endangered us all, but you and your knights the ones they want. Please, I want to do anything in my power to avoid this to become a bloodshed.

Please Great Master come to this meeting! If not for you for your Knights’ sake. This is urgent.

PD. You have my word that nopony would follow you or arrest you, but only for tonight.

Sincerely, Princess Celestia Ruler of Equestria.

“Have you looked at this, Great Master?” asked Cream Cone when she finished reading the letter on the morning paper.

East Wind took a sip to her coffee and nodded. “Yes, and I will go. Something tells me I cannot miss this.”

Cream Cone shook her head. “Great Master, we cannot allow you to go all by yourself!”

“And this is why you’ll come with me. Cancel tonight’s meeting, I need you at my side when we see the Princesses. She says she won’t follow nor arrest me but we can never know. I need some backup.”

Emerald Horn shook her head. “No Cream. I go you stay.”

“What? Are you out of your mind? Emerald the Great Master may need the two of us in case something goes wrong!”

But Emerald frowned and shook his head.

“Cream, think. The Great Master is very powerful and she knows the castle like the point of her hoof after picking up Spike for our lessons, it is unlikely they catch her. But in case something happens and we cannot escape, somepony must continue the legacy of the Knights of the Silence.”

“Emerald, stop being an idiot already. We’re all coming.”

“Cream, seriously. You are more powerful than me, and ponies trust you because you are a pegasus who can do magic. If something happens only you can continue keep the Order alive!” protested Emerald.

Cream Cone rolled her eyes annoyed. “Great Master say something!”

East Wind hugged her student. “You are incredibly powerful too Emerald. You can easily beat an A-Class unicorn with your power, but you are right. If something happens we need to keep an agent away so the Order don’t fall.”

“But Great Master, we are in this together!”

“Cream, do as I say. Remember, education is for everypony. If they get us everything we’ve done would mean nothing without somepony to continue. Emerald and I will meet the Princess and you stay. But this time I have a feeling the Princess will keep her word.”

Cream Cone looked at their Great Master and then at Emerald. She sighed in defeat.

“I hope you are right Great Master, because Equestria cannot afford to lose you.”

The rest of the day felt really slow for both parties. They both tried to focus on their regular duties but it was nearly impossible considering the situation.

Nighttime, Canterlot Castle:

In the Castle, the four Princesses and Shining Armor were waiting patiently since the clock marked nine o’clock. But she didn’t show up.

All the ponies sighed in defeat after fifteen minutes of waiting.

“After what happened with the undead knights, this was expected.” said Twilight. “I wouldn’t, those things are terrifying.”

“But they are yourselves, right?” asked Shining Armor.

“Yes and that’s the most frightening part of them.” assured Twilight.

Nopony argued with her.

“We’ll give them fifteen more minutes.” said Celestia. “If they don’t come, we’ll have no choice but dub our efforts to stop them for their own protection.”

Suddenly they heard a fuss outside the Court Room, when suddenly a couple of guards opened the door letting pass two ponies dressed in a black robe, blue capes and a black mask with blue smiles.

The Knights of the Silence have finally arrived.

The guards stared at the Knights, and then to Celestia. The elder Princess nodded. “Leave us. We need to make this easier for them.”

“By your command!” said the guards bowing and leaving.

“Wait!” called the Great Master.

The guards looked at her, as she extended her hoof and made a small gesture.

Much to everypony’s surprise, their shadows raised and materialized in front of them and stand behind the Knights of Silence.

“Now leave us.”

The Guards looked at Celestia who ended up nodding. “It is fine!”

“They have their reasons to be on guard. Let them.” added Twiligth Sparkle.

“I’ll release your shadows when we leave.” assured the Great Master.

And finally the Guards left but they were looking angrily at the two Knights of the Silence but they obeyed their Princesses’ command.

“That type of magic is really interesting, Great Master.” said Celestia to break the ice.

The Great Master made a small bow. “I am more than willing to teach you, as long as you are willing to learn. This is the way of the Knights of the Silence.”

“It is a beautiful ideology, but they ways you are using are not right.” said Celestia.

The Great Master just frowned. “Yeah, I’m not going to waste my time trying to explain you my point of view now. We are beyond the point this can be solved by discussing our ideologies. If you wanted to meet me it means that I can get some answers.”

Emerald Horn nodded. “Yes, because we have lots of questions. What are those things that almost kill us? Why do they look alike the Elements of Harmony? And how do we stop them?”

The Royals exchanged looks in an uncomfortable silence. Finally Twilight Sparkle sighed, and begun. “It’s a long story. But you deserve to know. Everything started with a unicorn called Starlight Glimmer who wanted to make everypony equal…”

Both Emerald and the Great Master sat as they heard the story of how the Undead Knights came to their lives from an alternate future and their mission to massacre every menace to Equestria. Including them.

“But we are not a menace, we are teachers! We fight for education, a fair cause!” said Emerald-

Cadence let escape a small tear. “I am sorry Great Master. At the beginning they ignored your presence, but when you started this, aunt Luna and I went to ask them about the future and the impact you had on their timeline. And you changed things a lot, we needed to stop you before it was too late.”

Princess Luna lowered her head. “We asked them to bring you alive, Great Master. But in their twisted minds that doesn’t apply to your Knights.”

The Great Master’s jaw dropped. She was wearing a mask and no pony saw the anger in her eyes, but her magic aura release. She was livid.

“What? And what kind of future came from our intervention then?”

“A lot of ponies who wouldn’t have access to forbidden knowledge in normal circumstances got it. It started a new era of heroes, but villains as well. With magic and forbidden knowledge available for everypony you shattered the basis of our society!”

The Great Master looked at the two regretful Princesses and then at Celestia.

“You knew about this?”

“Until yesterday when they told me what they’ve done. But believe us Great Master all we wanted to do was to stop you, not killing you!”

The Great Master shook her head in disbelief. “What? Capture us? But as Emerald told all we want that all knowledge is free! Make everypony equal!”

“You sound like Starlight Glimmer.” said Twilight.

Emerald kicked stumped the floor. “No, that idiot forced everypony to not to highlight in anything. Because knowledge is a right not a privilege. Why is everypony so afraid? Also we never wanted this to escalate like this! All we wanted was for you to change the education system to not so elitist and they accept all the ponies who apply. Period.”

Emerald continued with his gestures getting more and more aggressive.

“If a student is worthy or not that’s up to the student, not to the teacher. We fight to change the system for good! Our only goal is our motto, education is for everypony! EDUCATION IS FOR EVERYPONY!”

The Great Master called him back to his senses. “EMERALD!”

The young unicorn looked down but he was still angry.

“Please be civil!” asked Celestia.

The Great Master glared at her behind her mask. “You sent those creatures to kill us and have the nerve to ask us to be civil?!”

“You stole from us!”

“We never keep the knowledge, we gave it for everypony. We did not sell anything, we just proved our point that the secrecy is nonsense. Are you actually this afraid of an educated population n?”

“Your goals are noble but your methods are criminal and dangerous. It was only logical for us to be suspicious around us?”

“And considering what the undeads told us…”

The Great Master’s eyes twitched behind her mask.

“So you trust those killing machines more than a group of ponies who haven’t hurt anypony yet! Those things were looking for an excuse to kill! They are undead monsters! The fact that they are self-aware just make them worse than the regular undead monsters!”

The Princesses looked away unable to refute the argument.

“You are right, we were fool to trust the Undead Knights. But we can make it right, we can protect you and your group if you turn yourself in.”

“No deal!” said Emerald defiant.

The Princess of the Sun ignored the knight and stared at the Great Master.

“We made the biggest mistake by trusting the monsters, but you broke the law in a childish attempt to force us to embrace your ideology. We promise to be benevolent with you all, and we will implement some of the changes you suggest to our educational system. But you have to pay for the crimes you’ve made.”

The Great Master made a small bow. “When the time comes, we will accept our part of the guilt of this mess. Maybe a ten percent. Fifty percent goes to that things, and twenty to Princesses Luna and Cadence for sending them against us.”

Princess Luna could not see the face of the Great Master thanks to the mask, but she had to admit she would like to do it. Despite being in opposite sides, she liked this pony.

“So does this mean you won’t turn yourself in?” asked Celestia.

The Great Master shook her head. “No, I won’t. And if you honor your word, you’ll let me and mi Knight to leave without being disturbed.”

The Royals sighed, but this was to be expected.

“We will honor our word but only because we owe you for sending those creatures against you.” said Celestia. “But if you choose to leave, we won’t be able to protect you and you’ll have to respond for the lives of your fallen Knights. Are you aware of this, Great Master?”

“And I will take all responsibility. This is my duty as a teacher.”

“Understood. Captain Armor.”

Shining Armor walked and gave a scroll to the Great Master. “Here, this is the spell to seal those things. But it only works temporarily with those six, if you choose to do be on your own, at least have this with you. Take this knowledge and transmit it to your Knights, but there’s no guarantee it will protect you. Please, reconsider.”

The Great Master accepted the scroll. “Thanks but no thanks. There’s no guarantee you can protect us from then neither. Let’s go.”

Emerald gave a last disapproving look to the Royals and then disappeared inside his shadow along with the Great Master.

“What do you think?” asked Twilight after she watched them leave.

“We all knew they would never turn themselves in. They are too committed to their cause.” mumbled Luna.

“And this made them more dangerous, they are convinced they are not doing anything wrong and they would die defending their cause.”

Twilight nodded. “Yes, this is getting out of hoof. And now to make things worse, the Undeads are releasing the other undeads making us busy. But this was a trap far too simple to be planned by us. This is only half of the distraction. What are they actually planning?”

A drunken pony was getting out of one of many bars on Canterlot, tripping around the streets when a firm and powerful hoof came from darkness and forced him to turn around.

“Huh?”

Two red lights and an unnerving smile greeted him.

“Howdy! And good bye!”

Next thing the pony knew was that the monster cut his neck and left him to die on the street. Then the monster took the pony’s wallet and left. What was left of Applejack did not agree with this tactic of executing ponies and make it look as robberies. But she made sure she chose her targets wisely. She only killed corrupted nobles or their equally corrupted kids.

Out of sudden she saw to twin unicorns she haven’t seen in a very long time.

“Hey! Aren’t you Applejack Apple?”

“What are you doing in Canterlot? I though you were busy on the orchard you took away form us.”

Jack the Reaper grinned evilly making Flim and Flam realize she wasn’t the pony they knew.

“Oh, ma’h favorite part of scammers! It’s been a while. Ya’ know? A’ was having slow night, but you just changed that.”

The two unicorn twins looked at the monster who looked like Applejack, and tried to run away. But it was already too late. She took them by their shirts’ neck and dragged them to the sewers where her laugh sounded too loud that completely covered their cries for help.

Author's Note

So this chapter was only to set up the next arc of this story. The Knights of the Silence are a stubborn cult.

Anyway, the next chapter would be a time skip, just to let you know.

I hope you liked it and, Read ya’ later!!