A Renewed Ending

Saturday, January 15, 1008 A.L., Gryphonia

“Are you sure you’re okay coming with me, Bonny?” Lyra asked the earth pony mare.

Sweetie Drops sighed. “For the hundredth time, yes,” she replied. Ever since Jason had arrived in Gryphonstone, Lyra had been on edge. Not out of fear, but out of guilt at her own actions. It made sense, she thought, because Sweetie Drops had been feeling the same way, only she had a better handle on her emotions than her best friend did. She watched as Lyra paced the room they’d been assigned after the princesses left. It was a rather nice room in the Eyrie with two comfortable and warm beds, a private bathroom, storage for their stuff, a fireplace, a couch, and a table with two chairs, each the perfect size for them. The window looked out over the city and with the sun lower in the horizon, it caught more sunshine as the window faced south.

“You want to talk with him, too?” Lyra asked hopefully.

“Well, sure, I’d like to talk with him, too,” she replied, “but it might not go the way you hope.”

Lyra paused and looked at Sweetie. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“Ly-Ly, think about it,” Sweetie replied. “If you were treated the way he was for three years, would you want to talk to the creatures responsible?”

Lyra winced, but then shook her head. “I guess not,” she said, “but I think I’d appreciate the effort.”

“That’s the thing: you would,” Sweetie said. “I’m not going to discourage you from trying, but just remember that if he doesn’t want to see us, we need to respect that. Seeing us is likely only going to open old wounds for him.”

Lyra looked heartbroken at this, but then seemed to steel herself. “It’s driving me crazy, though!” she shouted. “Ever since Pinkie left after he didn’t show up for the party, it’s driven me more and more insane! I need to at least say I tried-”

“To make yourself feel better, right?” Sweetie said. Lyra froze, and Sweetie knew she’d hit the nail on the head. “We can’t just go and apologize because we want to feel better about ourselves. We need to really mean it.”

“You think I don’t?!” Lyra slammed her hoof onto the table, her eyes wide. “Bonny, I shot MAGIC at him! A defenseless and magicless creature! No magic! Do you know what the hypothetical reaction would be if a magicless creature got hit by magic??”

“Severe burns and lacerations,” Sweetie replied instantly, “not to mention potentially scrambling the brain and nervous system of whatever creature was struck.”

Lyra looked a bit surprised. “How do you-?”

“I was one of the few earth ponies in my former agency,” she said, “and as such I needed to know how to defend against magic.” She thought back to those classes she’d taken with some fondness, but then shook it aside. “My point,” she continued, “is that a real and true apology has to be genuine. No excuses, no explanations.”

Lyra considered that, but then nodded. “I see your point,” she said, “and I intend on doing that.”

Seeing that her friend was serious, Sweetie could only sigh and nod. “Let’s find our guard detail and see if they can lead us to where Jason is,” she said.

As it turned out, Jason had left the Eyrie nearly half an hour ago. The guards said that the changeling envoy had pretty much all left. That had doused Lyra’s spirits quite thoroughly, but Sweetie had comforted her. “Come on,” she said as they retreated back into their room, “why don’t we go and grab something to eat that’s not Eyrie food?” Not that there was anything wrong with the food they’d been provided, but some variety was nice.

Lyra looked up with sober eyes. “Where?”

“The Green Dragon,” Sweetie said. When she and Lyra had been keeping tabs on Gregory, she’d noted his fondness for the establishment, and after tasting some of the pony safe wares, she had grown fond of it, too.

Lyra smiled a bit, perking up. “That sounds nice,” she said.

With that settled, Sweetie told the guards their change of plans, and they escorted them down the stairs and out into the cold Gryphonstone afternoon. The sky was clear and the air was cold. It had taken them a few days to get used to the altitude and even longer for Lyra to get used to the lower magic in the air, but once they had, life had been easier for them.

Lyra and Sweetie had gone through the city through their time there and had met with a few ponies they’d known from Ponyville. Most of the Ponyville transplants had started living in the smaller town of Gryphonville on the valley floor. Time Turner had not only begun crafting pocketwatches again, but had started a herd with Derpy Hooves and Roseluck as well as welcoming Dinky, Derpy’s younger sister, into their household. A young pegasus filly named Cozy Glow and her mother, a pegasus mare named Snow Glow, had moved after escaping the abusive unicorn stallion who Snow had married after Cozy’s biological father had passed. The three flower mares were starting to make names for themselves in Gryphonville despite it being the middle of winter.

Sweetie had seen many of the ponies actually making changes to their lives, and she wondered if she and Lyra could start over here. She knew that the Convocation accepted dual citizenship and living in the cozy looking town was tempting, but she feared she was likely unable to escape her former life.

“I hope they have that salad with Parmesan,” Lyra said, her words bringing Sweetie out of her reverie.

Sweetie Drops chuckled and nodded. “I’m sure they will,” she replied. “Their supply chain doesn’t seem to be cut off yet despite the snowy weather.”

Lyra smiled back, then wrapped her scarf around her once more, shivering. “This place is colder than Ponyville,” she said.

“Well, we are higher up,” Sweetie reminded her close friend. “That tends to happen.”

“I know, but even Gryphonville is colder,” Lyra said.

“Ly, the gryphons don’t control the weather like we do,” Sweetie reminded her friend again.

“Yeah, true,” Lyra said, falling into thought. They walked in silence, still flanked by their guard detail before she spoke again. “What would happen if we stopped controlling our weather?”

Sweetie looked at her friend with confusion. “Then the weather would get out of control,” she explained. Everypony knew that.

“That doesn’t stop other nations from surviving,” Lyra replied. “Before the Gryphonian Imperium fell, they didn’t control their weather, right?”

Sweetie had to concede the fact. “I suppose,” she said.

“I actually meant what might happen to the weather outside of Equestria,” Lyra clarified.

Sweetie paused. “Why would it change if we stopped controlling our weather?” she asked, confused.

“Think about it,” Lyra said. “The weather here happens on its own, so that means it can happen elsewhere, too. What if when we control our weather, we’re affecting the natural world, and not in a good way?”

That did give Sweetie pause, but only briefly. “Ly, there are weather experts that tell us that our control of our internal weather has very little effect on the rest of the world,” she said.

“Have they stopped controlling our weather to test that?” Lyra asked.

“That would be dangerous,” Sweetie said.

“Why?”

Lyra’s simple innocent tone caught Sweetie off guard. “Well, because…” she trailed off as she tried to think of a reason. She wasn’t a weather expert by any means, but she trusted the experts. “Because the experts say it would be.”

“Why?” Lyra asked again.

“You’d have to ask them,” Sweetie said, beginning to get exasperated. Lyra sometimes would get hyperfixated on a topic and would research it for days, sometimes weeks. She was a traveling musician, so she had the extra time for that. The best way to get it out of Lyra’s system was to get her talking about it until she got distracted. “What are you thinking?”

Lyra’s response chilled Sweetie. “What if we’re affecting the world more than we realize by controlling the weather?”

The thought passed through Sweetie’s mind like an arrow. She wasn’t sure if it made sense or not, but clearly it made sense to Lyra. Or at least it made sense for her to question it. Especially after ponies had begun to question everything about themselves. Truth be told, Lyra wasn’t wrong to question the weather thing. She had trusted the weather experts, the pegasi, but perhaps there was more to weather than-

She stopped suddenly as they reached The Green Dragon. Lyra and the guards continued for a few steps before they paused and looked at her. “Bonny? What’s wrong?” Lyra’s face was full of concern.

Sweetie took a few steps forward, standing between the door and Lyra protectively. She was no unicorn, but she had finely honed skills. Skills that might have atrophied slightly since her forced retirement from S.M.I.L.E., but ones she’d continued to try and keep active since her retirement. And she felt something. Presences she hadn’t felt since-

The front doors to the tavern and inn opened, and out walked the last three ponies she’d expected to see here. Dusky Heart, Jade Seed, and Dark Desire.

Dusky Heart’s day had started out rather well despite once more waking up in the filth that passed for an inn earlier that morning. Even the cheapest inn in Equestria was better than this, but he had been trained rigorously for the sort of harsh conditions that plagued other less prosperous nations. He’d woken after a surprisingly good sleep well rested and ready to continue his observation.

Then, several hours later, something happened that had made his day go from decent to worrisome at the very least. He had arrived, completely unannounced. Him. The apostate changeling Emperor himself. Jason Wright. Even worse, he’d come to speak to this new Convocation. Clearly, he knew about this second human who was also in an unforgivable position of power.

Once he’d reported this to his employers, they had given him the go ahead to enact the Isis Protocol. That had certainly made his day and he relayed the instructions to the other two with a sense of satisfaction. After this, he and the others could finally go home with a reward bigger than anything they’d ever gotten as former agents of S.M.I.L.E., and he planned on finally retiring and living the good life somewhere. He didn’t know what Jade or Dark had planned, but he suspected they’d get out of the merc game.

Their plan to get close to one or both of the humans, preferably the latter, had hit a snag when they were unable to figure out a way into the Eyrie. That wasn’t the end of the world, though, and they waited patiently until both humans had left. Of course, their orders had been to leave as very few witnesses to their impending disappearance as possible. The three kept close tabs on them, and when both made their way to a small tavern, they watched from inside as the two humans, along with several others, made their way back into a private room.

They decided to strike at that point, but the moment they had stepped out into the street to go behind the Green Dragon to find the back window, they’d run into another snag. There, standing in the snow covered streets, was an earth pony that they hoped not to run into. An earth pony with several gryphon guards and a teal unicorn mare next to her.

Dusky’s glare would have been fierce enough to melt the snow. Sweetie Drops, despite the initial surprise on her face, narrowed her eyes at him and the other two. “Dusky Heart,” she said with a glare. “I should have known you were here. I detected your foul stench when I came into town.”

“Sweetie Drops,” Dusky snarled back. She was clearly trying to get a rise out of him with that statement. He wouldn’t let it work any more than it already had.

When Jade Seed stepped forward, Sweetie Drops’ eyes focused on her. “Ah, there’s the loyal dog,” the earth pony sneered. “That eager to suck on some Dusky stallionhood, are you?”

Jade went red with fury. Dark Desire stepped forward next, a seductive grin on her face. “Charming, to the last,” she said to Sweetie Drops before turning and looking at the teal unicorn, licking her lips. “And who’s that tasty morsel there?”

Sweetie’s demeanor became icy as she stepped between the unicorns. “That is none of your Celestia-damned business, whore,” she said.

Dark put a hoof to her chest in mock pain. “Ah, you wound me, old friend,” she said. “Did our night in the Everfree mean nothing to you? The rawness of nature, nothing but the delicious wild air around us…” She licked her lips and bit her lower lip.

The teal unicorn looked at Sweetie Drops with horror, but the earth pony regained her composure. “You and I both know nothing happened during that mission,” Sweetie Drops said.

“But you wanted it to,” Dark Desire said. “Oh, how you wanted it to, I could tell. You’re the only one I couldn’t get. Just makes me want you even more.” Her tongue slid across her upper lip.

The gryphon guards, who had been watching this, began to approach, their weapons at the ready. “Now now,” the lead gryphon, an older tom, said in an attempt to be disarming, “let’s not escalate. Why don’t you all find a private spot to talk about whatever’s going on, or just agree to go your separate ways?”

“Enough of this,” Dusky said, noticing a crowd forming around them. He turned to his companions. There was a silent look between all three of them, something he knew Sweetie wouldn’t miss, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that. He turned back to Sweetie. “I don’t care what you’re here for,” he continued, “but we’re just trying to get through.”

Sweetie Drop’s eyes narrowed at him. “Get through to where?” she asked with a frown.

“Back to our inn,” he lied.

“What for?” she asked.

Sweetie Drops wasn’t so easily fooled, Dusky knew. Still, having her out of the way would be better than fighting her. There was a reason she was one of the few earth ponies who made it through the academy. “To rest,” he explained.

“After spying on who?” Sweetie Drops asked. Then her eyes widened in realization as the teal unicorn whispered something into her ear. “Jason Wright…”

The magic blast erupted from Dusk’s horn before she could complete the sentence. Sweetie Drops, however, was prepared. She shoved the teal unicorn aside with a swift kick then leapt into the air, barely avoiding the strike. She’d barely landed before Jade shot her own deadly blast at Sweetie. She rolled to the side, once more barely avoiding the blast before she reached into her mane. Dusky knew that move and he hissed in anger. “Don’t let her-!” he began, but it was too late.

Sweetie Drops slammed something to the snowy ground. Smoke erupted from the spot, obscuring the area almost instantly. Dusky swore and didn’t move, swiveling his ears around as he listened for the crunch of hooves and paws on snow. The gryphon guards around them were shouting in confusion, unable to see in the sudden fog. What he heard next, however, was a distorted voice. “You’re here for him, aren’t you?”

“So what if we are?” Jade Seed asked with venom in her tone.

“You think that’ll make things easier?” the echoing voice of the earth pony asked.

“And why, pray tell, are you defending the human who destroyed your town and caused so much harm to our kingdom?” Jade Seed asked as she shot another magical blast into the smoke. “You should be thanking us! He destroyed your miserable little town!”

“Who hired you?” Sweetie Drops asked instead.

“Now why would we tell you that?” Dark Desire retorted.

“Come come, now,” Sweetie taunted them. “It’s not like I have a real chance against you. It’s three on one.”

That angered Dusky more, but he held his temper in check as the smoke began to clear. He thought he saw a dim figure in the clearing smoke. Gotcha, he snarled as he shot a blast at the vaguely pony shaped creature.

It exploded upon impact. A taunting laugh echoed around them before it solidified from one direction. He heard Dark’s cry of pain before the sickening snap of what sounded like bone. Dark was tossed into the snow in front of Dusky, holding her back leg in pain.

“Tsk tsk,” the echoing voice of the former agent taunted him further. “You destroyed a beautiful snowgryphon. Some poor gryphon hatchling probably worked on that for hours.”

A shadow moved in the clearing haze and he blasted at it. There was another flash, and the smoke doubled in strength, but this time a nasty stench was added to it. A stink bomb, he realized as he put a shield up to defend against the stench. He started hearing the confused and alarmed voices of the gryphons who’d been around. He inwardly swore. Those damned cats needed to go! “Jade! Now! Wide dispersion!”

“Yes, sir!” Jade called from nearby. A few seconds later, he heard somepony casting magic. The smoke was pierced by light and was blasted away, revealing not only the location of Sweetie Drops, but of Jade and Dark. Jade held a cube shaped crystal with a spherical indent on one side with her magic. It was pulsing with ever increasing light as she fed magic into it.

Sweetie Drops looked at it briefly before her eyes widened in horror. She quickly turned to Dusky. “How did you get that?!” she asked, the distortion of her voice gone with the smoke.

“It won’t matter soon,” Dusky grinned. “We’ll have completed our mission!”

The light continued to increase in intensity. Time seemed to slow as the inevitable began to arrive. Sweetie’s desperate lunge at Jade moved so slowly for Dusky that he could see the way her cotton candy mane and tail moved, the individual hairs moving in a strange dance. A harmonic dance, he thought serenely as he accepted his fate-

A sharp blast erupted from nearby, and Jade screamed as she went down, her front leg suddenly gushing blood onto the snow, staining it red. The growing crystal fell to the ground, dimming quickly until it became nothing but a cube shaped clear crystal, almost like ice.

“Damn, I was aiming for the bitch’s horn,” a voice said with a hint of disappointment in it. Dusky turned quickly only to find a smoking barrel of what was clearly one of those new guns directed straight at his face. A gun held by none other than a stone faced Gregory Graystone.

Behind him, the changeling emperor held a larger gun in both his hands while a couple of changelings flanked him, their own guns ready. “Now then,” Gregory said, pulling back on something on his gun and causing it to make a clicking sound, “who the fuck are you and what the fuck are you doing in my home city?”

Dusky was frozen in shock as she stared at the still smoking gun barrel. He knew the damage these could do. They were much more dangerous than anything on Gaia if they could kill the Lord (or God depending on if one belonged to the Brotherhood of Discord) of Chaos. They were a much better version of a crossbow or arbalest. He heard the groans of pain from Dark and the wails and screams from Jade.

He took a step back. “Demon…” he said breathlessly.

Gregory shook his head. “Nah,” he said, “my skin’s not red and I don’t have the horns, wings and pitchfork. Now then, answer my question.”

Dusky regained control and clamped up. “Not on your life,” he snapped.

“His name’s Dusky Heart,” Sweetie Drops said, moving to stand beside the teal colored unicorn. “The one you shot is Jade Seed and the other is Dark Desire.”

Gregory shook his head. “Villain names are so unoriginal,” he said as he looked beyond Dusky. “Put horn restraints on all of them,” he ordered to someone behind the unicorn stallion.

Someone forcefully grabbed him and before Dusky could react, something was slipped over his horn. The reduced magic that he’d felt since arriving in this Harmony forsaken city vanished entirely. He heard Gregory speak again. “Take those two to the Eyrie’s healers. I won’t let it be said about the Convocation that we’re cruel. Take the stallion to the dungeons, however. Keep them all separated and find where their inn was located.”

“What about this, sir?” a gruff voice asked. Dusky turned and, to his dismay, saw an older gryphon tom holding the artifact.

“Bring it to Gwendolyn,” Gregory said as he holstered his weapon. “Let’s see if she can figure out what it might be.”

“It’s the Eye of Isis,” Dusky heard Sweetie Drops explain.

Dusky saw a hint of recognition appear in the human’s eyes. “I see,” he said. He then turned to Dusky, walking up towards him. “Who sent you?” he asked when he was a safe distance away but closer than he’d been before.

Dusky, despite being restrained and unable to use magic, still had enough strength that he spat right in the human’s face. “Go to Tartarus!”

The human didn’t react. He just stood up straighter, wiped the spittle from his face, then turned to the guards. “Take them away and make sure they’re under heavy guard,” he said. “If she knows who they are, they’re more dangerous than they look,” he added, gesturing to Sweetie Drops. “But make sure that you don’t mistreat them. Treat the wounded ponies, too. And search them for anything that they might use to kill themselves with.”

Dusky felt surprise rising up inside him as he was hastily dragged away. Not at the human ordering his companions to be treated, but because of a stray thought that passed through his mind.

He knows who Sweetie Drops is!

Gregory watched the three ponies taken away in restraints, then finally holstered his weapon. He turned to Jason, who was stone faced as he had watched everything go down. He sighed. “That was…exciting,” he muttered.

“Are you okay?” Gabby asked, coming immediately to his side and pressing her body against this in a very catlike gesture of affection and worry. Surprisingly, Gilda did the same thing.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” I said. “I’m not hurt.”

“Trixie has to admit that she didn’t expect you to be so brutal,” Trixie said from nearby, looking a bit warily at him now. Gregory couldn’t help but feel a bit hurt by that, and it must have shown because Sunset lightly smacked Trixie on the backside of the head. “N-Not that Trixie is judging!” the unicorn magician hastily added, looking properly chastened.

“We seriously need to work on your empathy,” Sunset sighed.

Trixie looked down, ears flattened. “Trixie is sorry,” she said.

Gregory smiled slightly. “I didn’t want to kill them, just make them unable to fight back,” he said. “Anyway, now that the exciting part is over,” he added before turning to Jason, “There is a lot more we need to talk about, and not just as fellow humans from the same place.”

Jason’s eyes narrowed. “You’re talking about the Southern Badlands incident,” he stated.

“We do need to go over it more in depth,” Gregory said.

The two exchanged brief glances before Jason sighed heavily. “If I wanted to talk more about this, I’d do it when we were in the Convocation, not in a bar,” he replied.

“…You do have a point,” Gregory conceded. “Not to mention that we won’t be letting you and your companions here communicate using blinking Morse Code.” Jason didn’t react, and neither did Duchess Chrysalis or Nictis, but Eltrya’s lip twitched. Gregory crossed his arms. “Don’t think that we’re stupid,” he added sharply.

“Those gryphon guards…” Eltrya muttered, which earned her a sharp hit in the side by means of her husband’s rump.

“What were you talking about?” Gregory asked sternly.

Jason stared at him for a few seconds before he exhaled. “Good catch,” he said. “There are certain events in Equestria that have caught my attention. And to be honest, they might affect your own negotiations with them in the future depending on how they go.”

“What events?” Gregory asked.

Jason’s lips actually quirked up slightly. “It seems the nobles are trying to stage some sort of coup.”

“What have you found?”

Gwendolyn looked up from her workstation as Gregory came waltzing through the door to her private Imperial Mage workroom. Normally, she would have been slightly annoyed if someone came down, but since it was Gregory, she could forgive him. Especially when she noted the fact that he was distracted by something.

Gwendolyn, not wanting to pry, looked back at the two gems in front of her. “This is the Eye of Isis,” she explained. “Look here.” She pointed to a book she had open.

Gregory came up next to her and peered down at the book carefully. He grabbed the spare magic spectacles and put them on, reading the ancient text in the book carefully. The depiction on the page showed the same cube shaped object that was now sitting on the worktable. He looked back at her. “That’s all you’ve found so far?” he asked in an angry and almost accusatory tone

Gwendolyn nodded. She knew he was a bit testy at the moment, especially after having captured three Equestrian spies who had actively tried to harm him. “I haven’t looked through everything yet,” she admitted, “but that’s all I’ve found.”

Gregory nodded firmly and took the book, walked over to a chair and sat. Gwendolyn glanced over at him multiple times for the next half hour as the human read over the pages over and over. After that half hour had passed, he walked over and put the book back down. “Gwen,” he said, his tone a bit calmer and more subdued.

“Yes?” she asked.

“I’m sorry for lashing out earlier,” he said in a now apologetic tone. “You didn’t deserve that tone.”

Gwendolyn reached up and put her claw around his shoulder, making sure to be gentler than she would be with a gryphon due to his skin being a bit more sensitive. “I’m not upset,” she said soothingly. “I know you’re angry about what happened earlier.” She had actually watched the past events using the Eye of Osiris.

“That’s still not an excuse,” he said.

“It’s really alright,” she repeated reassuringly.

He gave her a weak smile, then stood, taking a deep breath. “I’m going to get out of your hair,” he said.

“There’s no need for that,” Gwendolyn said. “I actually like the company. You’re the only other one who knows where this place is, and it’s nice having somebody here with me.”

He looked at her questioningly for a bit, but then smiled. “As much as I’d like to,” he said, “I have three prisoners to interrogate and I have a pony princess to call.”

“Before you go,” she said, “would you help me with something?”

“What is it?” he asked.

She pointed to the two gems. “I’m going to try using the Eye of Osiris while it’s on top of the Eye of Isis,” she explained.

He took a sharp breath through his teeth. “Isn’t that risky?” he asked.

“I’m not going to touch the Eye of Isis,” she said. “Besides, that book said that if I only use the Eye of Osiris, things won’t be that different.”

He looked a bit hesitant, then shrugged. “I’m leaving the door open in case things explode,” he cautioned as he began opening the door.

“Good precaution,” she nodded.

When things were ready, she placed the Eye of Osiris on the Eye of Isis and focused on activating the former. Like normal, the crystal sphere began to glow. “Let’s see if we can see what that princess is up to,” Gwendolyn said.

“Um, that’s a bit-” Gregory began, but it was too late. The magical projection shot up and they saw what looked like a royal bedroom. Inside, they saw a messy bed, a roaring fireplace, and a tall pale pink alicorn mare with wavy mane and tail sitting at a desk, head in her hooves.

“Okay,” Gregory muttered, “she looks like shit.”

Gwendolyn was about to agree when they both froze. Celestia had quickly begun looking around the room. “Who’s there?” she asked.

“Did she just hear us?” Gregory asked.

Celestia’s head turned towards them, and Gwendolyn paused. Because the princess’ eyes had focused directly on them. “Gregory? Gwendolyn? What are you doing? How are you doing that?”

That’s when Gwendolyn noticed that the Eye of Isis had begun glowing as well.