Case 2: In which briefly lowering the OC number to Sixth produces no moral improvements whatsoever

"Is it always a Seventh?" Carmina asked. "I mean..."

The trailoff was a rather awkward one, and represented the natural hesitation of a mare whose question had been honest -- and who, in the middle of asking it, had abruptly realized that the query could be perceived as Seeking Advice On How To Get Away With It Next Time. There was a line which could be drawn between those two states, but she wasn't entirely sure that the griffon knew where it was.

The pegasus was still trying to get out of this. She didn't need to look as if she was actually guilty of something.

Septimus simply looked her over, with those great yellow owl eyes. A certain tilt of the head suggested a reeve who was only temporarily keeping the preening on the inside.

"There's two ways to treat that, numerically," the division's head casually noted. "Up or down. Can I save some time by assuming you were asking about both?"

The pegasus managed a nod, and feathers rustled on both sides of the desk.

"For higher..." Septimus began, "yes. We've had people claiming to be Eighth on up. But from everything we've seen, most of the temporary successes for claiming to be a previously-unknown virtue come at Seven. Ponies -- and everyone else -- can sort of accept that there might have been one thing they missed. A book they didn't read, or forgetting to take a single note during a crucial class. And they want to believe in secrets. That there's great truths out there, hidden, and they get to be the first ones let in on the real. It's part of the reason conspiracy theories catch on: the most ridiculous explanation isn't going to automatically be the real one -- but don't you look smart for figuring it out before anyone else?" The owl head slowly shook and because griffons took a lot from their component parts, nearly completed the circle before coming back the other way. "There's sapients out there who want to believe in a Seventh. But as the numbers go up... maintaining belief gets harder. Okay, so you missed one detail. Two is harder to swallow, but a few people have managed to sell it. For a little while. Ninth on up is just about impossible. Keep raising the number, and you reach the point where you'd basically need an entire extra set. And once you're there..."

The tail lashed. Claws briefly extended, retracted again.

Neither action could be missed. "...what?" Carmina nervously inquired.

"Recurring problem," the griffon sighed. "One we haven't been able to catch yet. It's a six-pack of offenders, operating as a team. They call themselves Element-Bearers Dark, of all things. Each one claims to represent a pony vice -- only their fake necklaces somehow allow them to invert sins into virtue. And from all indications, they might actually believe in what they're saying..."

Another, faster head shake, and then the yellow eyes were fixed on Carmina again.

"But for lower numbers?" The beak clacked with amusement. "That's not claiming to be an unknown Bearer: that's impersonating a real one. And the answer is still 'yes'."

"They get away with that?" The pegasus was now wondering if rapid blinking came across as suspicious, especially when she was doing it in front of a reeve who barely seemed to blink at all. "I mean, everypony knows Princess Twilight --"

The right forepaw languidly lifted from the bench, waved back and forth a little: wait. "And that's the problem."

Personnel moved by in the hallway. A clock ticked.

"...I don't get it," Carmina finally admitted.

"They know Princess Twilight," Septimus agreed. "Now. That wasn't always the case. For the first couple of years after the Return, the average pony on the street could probably tell you that there were six Bearers, they were all mares, and there were two from each race -- if that pony paid a lot of attention to what little news we got. Learning anything else could require a very long hunt and unless they were doing it on Ponyville ground, they were probably going to fail. That didn't really change until after the wedding and even now, when someone thinks of the Bearers -- they think of the Princess. For the most part, the ponies who could pick all six out of a lineup either live in the same town or have personal experience with the group. It's why we can still get situations like the Maretha's Vineyard Incident."

"The what?" felt like a natural question.

Technically, the edges of a beak couldn't twitch with amusement, but this one gave it a go. "The real Bearers were arrested after crashing a Nightmare Night costume party."

"...they..." eventually made its way out between blinks.

"They were claiming to be disguised as themselves," the griffon lazily waved away. "And the guests believed them. After the fight broke out, so did the police. Six charges of Impersonating Government Personnel." He shrugged. "It's a long story, and the palace stepped in before we got involved. But that goes back to what I was saying. They know the Princess -- and with the Vineyard, they knew it was a rather small pegasus wearing a really good fake horn. Even in Equestria, you still won't find a lot of citizens who can reliably describe any of the other five. Go past the borders, and the recognition percentage drops off a cliff. And there are ways where having a little information can be worse than having none. If somepony looks like they're close enough..."

When it came to the act of assembling an unruly mob, Trottingham had certain requirements. The majority of them came from unwritten rules. Trottingham's residents loved unwritten rules, because not having any recorded proof of what they were made it so much easier to change a few things on the sly and then claim your neighbor had broken them anyway.

Under non-mob circumstances, 'neighbor' would have been part of the problem. Trottingham wasn't so much a settled zone as a bunch of districts forced into reluctant coexistence, and the only reason none of them had declared formal war against any of the others was because declarations of war had to be written down too. Instead, you had Rules. It was perfectly permissible to trot through enemy territory if you were on your way to work or planning to do some shopping: after all, one of the best victories possible in battle was confiscating opponent resources for your own -- but you did not cross that particular street while wearing that hoofball team's colors and reasonably expect to live. Anypony who did was either committing a rather exotic form of suicide or really, really, really good at fighting. Bleeding Heart Yard had its district name for a reason, and it could take newcomers a very long time to ask exactly who had been doing the bleeding.

(Tourists, who were universally understood by Trottingham residents to be idiots, were exempt. Unless they were wearing Canterlot Express gear, because who didn't loathe the Express?)

But mobs had their own rules. A mob could cross any border, just as long as it had just cause and had gathered a herd so large that nopony was willing to tell it 'No'. And in this case, the mob's target had managed to offend residents of multiple districts. This hadn't created a temporary truce so much as a silent agreement that much of Trottingham was now at war with a single party, and they weren't going to write that down either because some exceptionally stupid police officer might decide it was evidence.

There were just certain formalities which had to be followed.

A mob which was chasing a target would need a few ponies who lived in the districts involved. This was mostly for basic navigation. When it came to (lack of) street design, Trottingham didn't quite match the half-paved confusion of the Tangle within Canterlot's core -- but turning the wrong way would quickly put a stranger into a maze of twisty little passages, all very nearly alike because in Trottingham, you had a little windowsill garden and you made sure everyone else on the street had one too. It was very easy to get lost in Trottingham -- but if it happened while wearing the wrong colors, the experience was also rather brief. Those being chased had an unerring ability to center in on their own districts. Quickly.

A certain percentage of the mob was required to be carrying flaming torches. As this particular throng had assembled at night, the light provided some help in keeping up the chase. It still gave the non-unicorns some issues in holding the things, because a pony with a lit torch in their mouth is usually one bad move away from either setting somepony else alight or having a flame go into their own ear.

There were also farming implements. Most of them had been borrowed. Two pegasi had already come perilously close to harvesting their own tails.

You had to mutter darkly under your breath whenever possible. Anypony doing so was required to repeat "Watermelon rhubarb." Nopony understood why, but it was Traditional and in Trottingham, that was the important part.

(The fact that muttering earth ponies tended to have torches fall out of their mouths was a problem: getting the same result from any pegasus above you could create a rather immediate issue -- although the typical Trottingham fog stood some small chance to extinguish it on the way down. Still, how could you argue with Tradition? Without that, there wouldn't be any unwritten rules at all, and then what would the settled zone be? Manehattan, that's what. And nopony wanted that.)

Order had to be maintained. An unruly mob was required to be angry and violent in established ways, or why even bother having a mob in the first place? There were even assigned roles. Pegasi scouted, got storm clouds together and prepared the attack for when the target was cornered. Earth ponies dealt with the little barriers, such as when the target jumped a low fence and the mob's solution for following was to make sure there wasn't a fence any more. Unicorns spent a lot of time picking up fallen torches.

But they were united. They had a Cause.

"I saw her tail curls!" somepony yelped. "She just whipped around that corner!"

The mob followed. It gave chase. It howled with rage as the pursuit accelerated and purple twists of hair did their best to stay ahead.

It would have been instructive to note the exact composition of the mob. Those within it were either at the point in their lives where they'd just started into what they had hoped would be their first stable adult relationship, or had children of that age who still lived at home. A number of them had a slightly-discolored band of fur around one foreleg, as if they'd recently torn off something which had been there for a while.

There was also a second faction, which wasn't a true part of the horde at all. This group trailed well behind, as if hoping not to be noticed. It consisted of multiple young adults, mares and stallions alike, most of whom were moving with their heads down. Vague expressions of shame flooded out the streets.

But they all kept up the pursuit, and more districts were crossed. Mincing Lane was taken as a suggestion. Mare In Moon Passage hinted at a destination for the remains. There was also The Place Where The Thing Happened (You Know, The One We Don't Talk About) and because that was such a vague description, the residents had mastered the art of keeping up a near-constant flow of hints in order to let everypony know what they weren't talking about.

Hooves accelerated. Wings furiously beat at the air. One earth pony more or less casually trotted along, because she had a folding writing shelf attached to her neck, and was busy mouthwriting on the clip-attached paper in front of her jaw. She was a Trottingham resident in distress, and had reverted to her most basic instinct: the composition of a letter. Because the mob was going to win eventually and after that wrapped up, she had to post her results. The readers for all fourteen of the local papers were going to know about Why This Sort Of Thing Shouldn't Happen In Our Settled Zone And If It Does Anyway, Then Why Don't We Have Any Longer-Handled Torches?

The pegasus who was flying almost directly above her occasionally glanced down to read the latest words. She didn't consider this to be snooping. She was an editor for one of the local papers, and figured it just saved time.

They all pursued the target through the twisty streets and thickening fog. The mob nearly lost her a few times, because even a tourist could get lucky with how they decided to dodge. But she didn't know the districts, Hanging Whip Alley nearly tripped her up entirely, and when she went left instead of right...

Wardrobe Place, which had no way to experience the upcoming irony, was where the chase finally ended.

It was a dead-end street. There was an ancient door at the back and rather than offering access to a magical realm of talking hairless primates, the portal opened onto a brick wall.

The white unicorn mare slowly turned, moving at the speed of Drama. Elaborate purple curls flounced, and blue eyes stared down the world.

It almost worked. The mob, advancing through the twin hazes of fog and rage -- stopped. Just for a moment, they all stopped.

"Do you not understand what you are doing?" the unicorn mare demanded, and a new accent made itself known to a city which had about fifty of the things. "You are trying to punish me for going against my very nature! That which was recognized and enhanced by the Elements themselves! What sort of ponies would ask a mare to defy her core virtue?"

Nopony moved. The mare's head tossed, and her horn almost seemed to shake.

"I am Generosity!" she declared to mob, night, Moon, and planet. "I give of myself, for that is what the virtue requires! Demands!"

Nopony spoke. However, motionless torches were now sending plumes of smoke into pegasus snouts, so there was a lot of coughing.

"And in this case," the mare added in the face of torches and what might turn into two forms of hacking, "my Element demanded that I give of myself. Or rather, that I give my actual self. Freely." Paused. "Repeatedly. And also sexually. To those who were, I would like to point out, more than willing to receive my gifts. You are attempting to assault a virtue, for having been virtuous. And as the Elements do not particularly concern themselves with minor details like 'I'm already seeing somepony' or 'but we've been engaged for three moons', I see no reason why any of you should care --"

Which was when the lead pegasus decided she'd had enough, and blue forehooves slammed into the wrangled cloud.

The unicorn mare, who was rather quick on her hooves, dodged the little bolt: electricity grounded itself in the hinges of the useless door.

The followup downpour was decidedly harder to avoid.

Water soaked into mane and tail, straightened the curls. Touch-up patches of not-quite-dry dye were washed away in an instant, triggering one of the few times anypony in the mob could use 'virescence' as green came into the world.

The fake horn, with its binding glue soaked beyond endurance, simply fell off.

It clattered. Rolled along the street, and came to a stop against the right forehoof of the largest, angriest stallion.

"Er," the not-unicorn mare said.

The mob, which had a tremendous numerical advantage, every exit covered, and could afford to wait a little longer, was now vaguely -- curious. A multi-district herd waited to see if there was going to be a followup.

"Well, you can't blame a girl for trying," the Fillydelphia voice unabashedly decided. "And honestly, if they were that willing to hop into bed with me in the first place, then shouldn't you all be taking a really long look at your own relationships? Because I know I'm attractive -- seriously, I'm even better without the makeup -- you, back there, with the writing shelf, talk to me later -- but Loyalty is another virtue and it looks like none of you managed to inspire all that much of it. Why don't we consider this to be a learning experience all around? And a really good reason to start into couples therapy. Now I'm going to trot towards the mouth of this street, and you are all going to let me go. Except for Shelf Mare. You can come with. And also, if you don't want mares like me going for your stallions -- and mares -- and I almost got that one gorgeous zebra last night -- then work on your accents. Make them worse. Because those lovely sounds are half the reason I was drawn here to start with. And I'm saying that as a mare who had to do a lot of studying for an accent."