Catacombs beneath Canterlot, Day 2
8:42AM Local Time
Dusk Light

Sky’s screams were enough to break one’s soul. And De Witt’s smile? That was enough to make even the kindest of souls see blind rage. “You see now? Even standing here you can do nothing to save those in greatest danger!” De Witt chortled, tossing Sky’s wing to the floor between us and him.

Now if I didn’t know any better, I’d say that it was more than enough justification for me to level my pistol and shoot the feathered bastard right in the face. But before I could even raise the weapon, Dawn’s horn flared a deep red.

Then it pulsed.

Immediately the Griffon guards on the periphery of the chamber stumbled. As I looked at one, my rage was replaced with utmost confusion. Before the eyes of all present, the Griffon cronies started glowing through what looked like cracks in their bodies, before collapsing and disintegrating into piles of ash. The look on De Witt’s face was suddenly dissolving, to be replaced with what I could only describe as fear. Behind me I could hear the Guards cock their weapons, presumably aiming at De Witt as they spread out.

Whatever held Luna’s magic at bay must’ve also failed, because as her own horn flared the collar around her neck shattered and fell to the ground.

All the while, Dawn was nodding. “Specters… Got to admit, I’m actually impressed.” Dawn said as she stepped forward, knelt down and ran her fingers along Sky’s severed wing. “But you probably thought that if you walked into this city, you could just trample anypony you came across. Maybe have your creations have some fun with me again?”

“Dusk, what the hell is Dawn talking about?” Flash whispered into my ear.

I didn’t answer as Dawn got back to her feet. “Unfortunately for you that handicap of mine is gone.”

“It matters not, I’ll still win in the end.” De Witt countered.

Dawn shook her head. “See, I doubt that.” She pointed at Luna. “I’m guessing you set my Aunt here up. Maybe to try and mess with her head, maybe as bait. I don’t know. The point is that at the end of the day there’s no throne waiting for you or your sister. Just a dark pit that nopony will ever find. And you know how I know that?” Dawn held her arms out. “Because you just did the one thing no sane being should EVER do. You’ve pissed off two Alicorns, the son of another Alicorn, a smattering of the most elite of the Royal Guard, and a group of Royal Commandos.”

I picked up where Dawn was going with what she was saying as I stepped to her side. “As I see things you’ve got two options. The first one is to surrender, and we drag your sorry ass out of these caves and lock you in a cage. The second one is for you to resist.” I waved my pistol a bit before aiming at the Griffon’s head. “Take a wild guess what’ll happen if you do that?”

It felt like the seconds were ticking by in perpetuity. Everypony in the cave frozen in the same moment, second after second. But in the moment that De Witt grabbed the rune and pulled it out from its hiding place under his jacket, Dawn’s horn flared that same deep red shade that it had previously. But beyond that, there was a blinding flash of light, followed by a scream of agony, only for the light to die and the chamber to fall silent.

“Somepony help me!” Luna shouted as she ran over to Sky’s splayed out body, shattering the silence.

As the guard contingent raced to the Lunar Princess’ side, I stood by Dawn as we both walked over to where De Witt had been standing. In his place were two items. One was the rune that he had tried to draw, while the other was a deep black crystal, easily a foot long and four inches round. “What the hell did you do?” I asked as Dawn knelt down and picked both objects up.

“It’s an old Alicorn Jailer’s spell.” Dawn said as she tucked the crystal and rune into the inner folds of her vest. “From what Faust taught me, it was used by Imperium Jailers to transport high priority prisoners, whether they be of significant importance or know to be incredibly dangerous.”

“Wait, what Imperium?” I asked.

Dawn just held her hand up as if she wanted me to stop. “All I know for sure is that the Imperium was pre-historic. But we’ve got more important things to deal with.” Dawn whistled and waved for somepony to come to us.

Flash, being the ever-dutiful guard, came to our side. “Princess? What do you need?”

“De Witt’s survival does not leave this room. As far as the world knows, De Witt died down here and his remains cremated and disposed of.”

Flash and I must’ve shared the same confusing thoughts. “Why?” The Pegasus asked.

“Because should the Griffons believe that De Witt lives, they may attempt to rescue him. More importantly, if they have a watch on the catacomb exits, they would know full well if we walked out with him in tow.” She patted the spot in her vest where the black crystal was hidden. “All the better that I can walk out with a crystal and avoid arousing suspicions.”

“Dawn, as much as I agree, we can’t just keep De Witt in that crystal forever.” I whispered. “He’s a major source of intelligence, and eventually he needs to go on trial.”

Suddenly Flash hit the side of his helmet. “Captain Sentry, go ahead.” After a few seconds Flash’s eyes went wide. “Who ordered it?”

I looked at Dawn, and we both must’ve shared looks of confusion and dread. “Flash, what’s wrong?”

“I… I don’t even know what to say.” The Pegasus lamented. “The entire Imperial Griffon Army just laid down their arms and surrendered.”

The words came like a punch to the gut. “What?” Was all I could managed to ask.

By this point Storm Cloud had limped over to our small coalescence and heard the same report. “Under who’s orders?” He croaked. Dawn immediately moved to his side and got under the half-breed’s left arm to prop him up.

Flash immediately went back to the transmitter button built into the side of his helmet. “Who gave the order?” Whatever the answer came back as must’ve been a surprise, because Flash furrowed his brow in confusion. “Can you… You’ve got the confirmation already?”

“Captain, can you key us in?” Dawn asked.

“The order came down from the interim Imperial Head of State.” Flash replied, still looking confused. “But who the hell is Commodore Van Galen?”

*---*

Canterlot Castle, Day 2
11:00AM Local Time

It had taken almost an hour for us to get organized in the palace. And even then, Commodore Van Galen was so obscure that the analysts only came back with their file on him half an hour ago. Suffice to say the chaos of me having a hole blown in the floor of the great hall, and the chaos that followed as we extracted most of Polaris Team from the catacombs likely didn’t help.

Van Galen had been the commandant of the Imperial Naval Academy in Hoorn for the last fifteen years. He was evidently highly respected in the Imperial command for the excellent training regimen he oversaw and perfected, but otherwise wasn’t a noteworthy officer. He went to work and did his job.

“So just how did Van Galen manage to pull off a coup?” My father asked, putting down his copy of the Commodore’s file on the dining hall table where we had set up shop. “Every time we spoke he was never came even close to ambitious, let alone being able to pull something like this off.”

“Wait, you know Van Galen?” I asked, putting my own copy of the file down.

Dad nodded. “I’ve given some guest lectures there over the years. The last one was what, six years ago? We’ve regularly stayed in touch in the times between lectures.”

The dining hall doors swung open, and Celestia and Twilight both stepped in, a quintet of Guards on their heels. “Seriously, Van Galen?” Celestia asked, obviously just as surprised at the reports as my father.

“I know, right? How the hell did he pull this off?” Dad asked as he tapped his fingers on the table.

“No clue, but you could ask him.” Twilight replied as she stepped aside and motioned for the Guards to part. Through the two neat columns came a procession of Griffons, headed by a older golden feathered male, who was clearly nursing a broken arm and some stitches.

My father immediately rose from his chair and saluted the Griffon officer, a courtesy returned by the wounded bird with his good arm. “Duke of Canterlot… I must admit Meteor, I always pegged you as a pony who was standing well below his true station. I never would’ve expected that you would’ve gone so far so quickly.”

The two shared smiles, as my father pulled out a chair for the Commodore. “To be fair, that was a decision that my wife and I had made a long time ago to actively avoid.” Both Princesses grabbed chairs on either side of me and sat down. “Now, you remember how I told you about my son, right?”

Van Galen looked over at me across the table, a wise smile crossing his beak as he nodded. “Your father has always spoken very highly of you Prince Dusk, as he has of your wife as well. My only regret is that we meet under such poor circumstances.”

“I wouldn’t call this terribly poor.” I countered. “You ended a war between two major powers before it spiraled into abject madness. It may not be how I would’ve liked it, but you’ve made one hell of an impression Commodore.”

“What about terms?” My father asked.

“All Imperial soldiers in Equestrian territory surrender their arms and return home. In return for our soldiers being allowed to return home, where they will be demobilized and stood down to reserve status, the Imperium will provide full restitution and damages to the affected citizenry, as well as funding the repairs of any damaged property and infrastructure.” The Commodore explained. “Thankfully, there is ample funding available after seizing the Autarch’s private treasury.”

I nodded as my thoughts turned to the Commodore’s injuries. “So I doubt that Caprice went quietly.” I said without thinking.

All eyes at the table turned to me, but the Commodore shook his head. “None of them did. The entire General Staff is dead, and Caprice was injured heavily when she tried to detonate a makeshift bomb that was set up in her quarters.”

“Then how did this even start?” I asked. “How the hell does an instructor manage to overthrow the Imperial Griffon government?”

“Simple, the Fleet and Field Commanders came to me once they received their orders earlier this morning.” The Commodore said, his face starting to look far grimmer than had been expected. “The Navy was ordered to bombard coastal targets with specially supplied ammunition. It had been loaded onto the Battleships of the fleet three days ago. Shortly after midnight one of those munitions aboard the Heemskerck began emitting a green gas. Minor traces, thank the gods. It gave the gun crews enough time to bring it on deck and out of the ship. But it was enough for the Master at Arms to investigate what they had been given.” Right then the Commodore’s expression turned to complete disgust. “Four cells were in each shell. All contained the same substance. SM Gas.”

The room was uncomfortably silent. SM, or Sulfur Mustard, was incredibly nasty stuff. The burns that it could cause were known to be quite damaging to any living being. “The fleet was ordered to use those shells, weren’t they?”

“Indeed, and without being told what the shells really were.” Van Galen replied. “Simultaneously to the discovery on the Heemskerck, the Fifth Assault Group discovered that their specially assigned artillery shells contained the same substance. Within hours the field commanders and fleet commanders that knew each other were in contact, and it became glaringly apparent that the goals of High Command were nothing short of genocidal. And when it was discovered by the Fifth Assault Group’s commander that the shells were distributed on the order of the Autarch, the lower officers immediately gave halt orders to their forces, and the Fleet immediately pulled into Hoorn. Captain Ruyter, one of my best students, immediately sought me out. This was simultaneously to my Army Academy counterpart, Van Baer being informed and coming to seek me out. It did not take much to agree that the Autarch had gone mad, and the High Command was just as culpable. So we took a volunteer force of 500 officers, mostly Navy as those where who was available, armed ourselves using the weapons aboard the fleet’s vessels and went to Palas. We arrived there around 7:00 this morning. 100 of the group were taken by Van Baer to bring the Autarch into custody, while I took the remainder to secure the High Command building.”

My father patted the Commodore’s back. “How many?” He asked.

“We lost seventy two all together.” Van Galen said. “Suffice to say there’s also plenty of cleanup required, but Van Baer is overseeing those efforts. The few Autarch fanatics that remained standing have already been taken into custody, and we’ve seized all of the Autarch’s documents and communiques with her brother. This whole disaster was being planned for the last ten years, and only the sudden emergence of your granddaughter and her destruction of one of the munitions dumps convinced them to speed up the timeline, while giving a plausible reason for the offensives. The Autarch’s own projections called for enough SM to blanket every settlement in Equestria once over, and still have enough to remain a viable threat to any subsequent resistance or retaliation.”

“Is there a timeline for disposal yet?” I asked.

“That’s the problem. The last time sulfur mustard was created was over nine hundred years ago, and mind you it was created as an anti-alicorn implement in the aftermath of Nightmare Moon.” Van Galen explained. “The methods that were used to destroy the compound in the aftermath of the first Treaty of Palas was frankly incredibly dangerous. Until the gas can be destroyed safely, all twenty thousand tons of the material are being transferred to Equestrian custody for safe keeping.”

“And what of the Autarch?”

“As soon as she’s fit to travel, she will be handed over to Equestrian custody. As far as we’re concerned, the Autarch is yours.” Van Galen said, almost looking somewhat forlorn. Maybe the last few days had taken it’s toll mentally, maybe it was a combination of what he had gone through and his injuries.

But suffice to say that’s the cruel reality of conflict. It drains every soul. Some can take the drain for longer, but at the end of the day every battle, every war, every siege, they all have to end.

Because the mind can only take so much depravity.

Author's Note

Alright, I've got to admit I'm a glutton for punishment. My writing has been slowed down as I've spent the last several weeks coding a new computer system. Yay!