Well, I instructed my guard to not reveal anything about the conversation that Kathyrine and I had under penalty of being fired, but I didn't feel that I had to worry about that. My guard was loyal to me. Kathyrine gave her guards the same order, but under the penalty of de-clawing.

Yeah, she was kind of upset at the moment. I can't really blame her. If I found out that my dad pulled something like this I don't know what I'd do, but I definitely would not be happy, that's for sure.

Well with the documents found, I ordered my guard to go out in teams of six to search the woods for the presumably griffin or griffins that had set the fire in the fort. I instructed them to shoot up sparks the moment that they found somebody, as it would draw the rest of us to the spot where we could capture the offending party. I left Tracer Arrow and two other guards in the fort to search for any more documents, or anything else that could help us out with this. Lieutenant Rapids would be back with reinforcements, and likely another alpha alicorn, in a few hours. Until then it was just Kathyrine and I relatively alone. Each of us had a guard or two watching us from a small distance, but aside from that it was just the two of us sitting next to each other. Kathyrine was staring contemplatively at the ground and I was idly dragging a small stick through the dirt. I felt no need to force her to say anything. She would talk when she was ready, whenever that was.

I can't say that I blame her for being upset, though. I mean, I'm not quite sure what we're going to do to Aepnet because of all of this, but I can't imagine we're going to slap him on the wrist or the wing or whatever and let him be on his way. Chances are there are going to be some serious repercussions for this kind of thing. If Aepnet has to leave the throne at all, yeah, Princess Kathyrine becomes Empress Kathyrine who isn't sure that she can control dukes who she thinks will want war because of all of this.

Long story short, if I turned back into a human and asked Kathyrine if she wanted to come back to Ponyville with me, she'd probably jump at the chance.

It turns out that we don't have to say anything. We don't have to wait more than half an hour before I hear a small explosion behind me. I turn my head and instantly shoot to my hooves when I see what it is: sparks. Somebody found something. Kathyrine stood up too, but she was slower about it. There was a look of resignation on her face. She looked like she was about to go to the gallows and knew that she couldn't do a darned thing about it.

I have to say that I really felt sorry for her. I could imagine what it was like being forced into a leadership position, but not like that. Mine was an accident, I think. Hers... well, even with the gender loss I still think that she had it worse. Her dad betrayed her and might have just started a war. That's a bit worse.

Both Kathyrine and I took off, her griffin guards following behind us. There was still a token force guarding the fort, and I hoped that we wouldn't be gone too long. Whomever had shot the sparks had done so from a relatively close distance, so we reached it fairly quickly. I landed next to one of my sergeants when we reached the force.

"Sergeant Stones. What's the situation?"

Sergeant Stones grimaced and motioned around us. "About thirty of us have checked in so far, Princess. They know we're here, but they're not running. They couldn't if they wanted to."

"Okay. Who is the 'they' in this situation?"

Sergeant Stones scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Baby bunnies, Princess Antares. A whole herd of them carrying matches and gasoline over their heads chanting 'burn the fort down, burn the fort down.'"

I snort and give a small smirk, noting that Kathyrine is not so amused. "Okay, so griffins, then. How many?"

"Four in the clearing in front of us." Sergeant Stones pats his crossbow which has a sharp arrow loaded into it. "We've got the whole area surrounded, and they know that. They so much as open their wings and look to the sky and we'll put an arrow through one of their wings."

"Sounds like we've got this whole scenario in the bag, then." I take a deep breath and look towards the clearing. "Okay, I'm going to negotiate terms of surrender. Are they armed?" Sergeant Stones shook his head. "Good. I'm going in, then. They still have claws, I suppose, so cover me in case they try anything funny."

"I'm coming too!" Kathyrine growled. "I want to see them for myself."

"If you must." I beckoned Kathyrine to follow me, and she walked behind me with her guards flanking her. We entered the clearing and immediately saw four griffins with their claws over their heads, looking around fearfully. Turns out Sergeant Stones wasn't being sarcastic about the gasoline, though. We had our arsonists. When they saw us enter, one of them squeaked and curled into a ball, but the rest stayed sitting where they were.

I opened my mouth to begin discussing their surrender, but I was cut off by a loud shriek of pure emotional agony from behind me. I wheeled around and saw Kathyrine on the ground, staring at the griffin in the middle of the pack, pointing one of her talons at him.

"YOU ROTTEN SON OF A FEATHERLESS STRUMPET!" she wailed. "HOW COULD YOU?! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?!"

I turned my head to look back at the griffin in question. I didn't see anything special about him at first glance. He wasn't dressed like a noble or anything like that, so he didn't look important. He didn't seem to care that I was there, though. All he could do was stare sadly down at a screaming, sobbing Kathyrine. He quietly sighed and took a small step forwards.

"Kathyrine, I'm sorry this has hurt you. I was merely following your father's orders."

Kathyrine let out another loud wail and put her talons over her ear holes. I could only look between Kathyrine and the griffin. Not being intricately familiar with the Griffonian political system, I wasn't quite sure who this guy was. I fluttered my wings with a hint of nervousness and turned my full attention to the griffin.

"Okay, who are you, again? I take it you know each other."

The griffin tilted his head in a single nod. "Yes. Yes we do. My name is William. I am the head servant of Emperor Aepnet. It was under his orders that I burn the fort. I must say, I did not expect to be captured so quickly. I thought we would have a little more time to get away."

Ah. Yes, I can see why Kathyrine would be even more upset now. She couldn't deny that her father was behind all of this even if she wanted to now. Sinosis saying that it was Aepnet was one thing, but documents with his seal and his staff confirming it? Yeah, things were going to get very ugly in the next, oh, I'd say four or five hours.

It sucks being princess sometimes.

The griffins gave up without a fight and allowed us to tie their wings and bring them back to the fort. Once Tracer Arrow confirmed that there was nothing left in the fort for us to use, I ordered us to pull out and go back to the main force. Boy would the other princesses not be happy about this one.

We were about fifteen minutes out of the fort when I saw Lieutenant Rapids flying back with a group of fifty pegasi. I waved them down and Rapids landed next to me.

"Did you have a nice time, Princess?"

I grimaced and shook my head. I glanced back at Kathyrine whose wings and head were so low to the ground they were nearly dragging. Lieutenant Rapids must have followed my gaze, because when I looked back the trace of amusement she had before was gone. "That bad, huh?"

"'Fraid so." I jerked my head back towards our latest group of prisoners. "We found the arsonists. Turns out that they work directly for our good old friend Emperor Aepnet. The one in front is his head servant."

Rapids flinched and flattened her ears. "Oof. That's not very good, is it?"

"No, it's not," I muttered. "Kathyrine is absolutely devastated because she thinks that we're going to arrest Aepnet which would make her empress. On top of that, she thinks that the dukes might want war now."

"Well..." Rapids subtly glanced back to Kathyrine. "Aren't we going to arrest Aepnet now? I mean, if he is behind this we can't just ignore that."

"I don't know." I quietly sighed and grimaced. "I have to ask Celestia and Luna about this. We have to talk, but I can't imagine we're just going to let this one go like nothing happened."

"We'd have a public outrage on our hooves."

"Precisely."

Man, this is why I wanted to be a teacher, not a politician. Far less drama behind it. Note how I didn't say that there was no drama like this. Take an education class and you'll find that it can get pretty political sometimes, so I did have some background in dealing with the system. Not like this, though. I didn't expect to have the fates of two entire nations hinge on my decisions when I took any kind of power. Ideally the most difficult decisions I wanted to make was who would get to be the line leader when my class went to lunch. Not this kind of thing.

The journey passed in relative silence for the rest of the time due to our smaller group. We didn't have hundreds to transport, so that made everything easier. I kept Tracer Arrow in my sight the entire time, as she was the one with the documents in her saddlebag. The trip was uneventful, but each of us was wary. My pegasi guards were constantly scanning the forest, their crossbows loaded and ready, waiting for anything to pop out of the foliage to ambush our little group. One would think that the griffins had enough sense to not attack a convoy headed by a goddess, but Sinosis had proven that he wasn't the smartest of beings when he decided to capture me without a second thought.

I was quite relieved when we reached the main group again. It was getting close to evening, and I can imagine that everybody just wanted to go home at this point, the griffins included, but that wasn't going to happen right now. I did see that the villagers who had been captured where nowhere to be found, as well as Cadance, so I imagined that she had taken them back to Baltimare for the time being. There was no need to keep them here. I saw my guard still standing watch over the griffin prisoners, while the princesses guarded Aepnet. He wasn't quite under arrest yet, but he would be shortly, I imagined.

William and the other three prisoners were put with the rest of them away from Sinosis while I walked over to the princesses. Tracer Arrow, Kathyrine, and Lieutenant Rapids followed closely behind me. I had to admit that I did not look forward to this. You know that feeling that you get in your stomach when you go get a shot from the dentist because they're complete sadists about it and you know it's going to hurt like heck no matter how much you mentally prepare for it? Yeah, I had that feeling. It's pretty hard to ignore the evidence that we had just gotten. Aepnet would have a much harder time refuting this.

We reached the small group and felt the eyes of everyone fixed on us. This would be a conversation that could change the political outlook of both of our nations for quite a while. I didn't like it. Not one bit, but it had to be done. It would be worse to just burn the papers and let Aepnet get off for this.

"Well, what did you find?" Celestia asked when we got close. "Did you discover the documents that Sinosis was talking about?"

"More than that." I motioned back to the new prisoners. "I take it that you were told that when we arrived we discovered that the fort was on fire. We caught the guys who did it." I turned my attention to Aepnet and my gaze hardened into a glare. "The one who was behind the arson was your head servant William."

Aepnet quietly squeaked and brought a claw up to his mouth. "I... I don't know what to say, Princess Antares! I do not know why my most trusted servant would set fire to the fort?"

"Really?" I ignited my horn and levitated the saddlebag off of Tracer Arrow's back. As I did, I noticed that Kathyrine's legs were shaking like an earthquake was going through the field. Man, her situation just made this whole thing worse to me, but it had to be done. "Then how about these documents asking Sinosis to kidnap the ponies?" I took the documents out and showed him the topmost letter. "That is your seal at the top, correct? And your signature at the bottom?"

Aepnet's eyes went so wide that they seemed to take up his entire head. His mouth flopped up and down like a fish out of water. The instant lack of denial left no doubt in my mind that yes, they were his seal and signature. I turned the parchment so that Celestia and Luna could see, and they nodded.

"They are." Celestia turned her head to Aepnet, who was staring blankly at the paper. He looked to me like he hadn't registered it yet. "Aepnet, do you have any evidence in your defense? Any reason for us to believe that these documents are forgeries? Sinosis has named you the mastermind, we have documents from you to him ordering the raids, and your head servant was captured trying to burn down the fort holding the evidence."

"And he also said that you did it," I chimed in. "He said that you were the one who ordered him to burn the fort."

That snapped him out of his stupor. Before any of us could react, he spread his wings and took to the sky as fast as he could. Not a good idea. We were stunned only for a brief moment before Celestia ignited her horn and fired a beam of magic at him that completely encased him in the same spell I had used on Kathyrine and her guards earlier. Aepnet's guards did not move to his aide. There was no point once Luna turned on them, her wings flared and her expression just daring them to try something.

As for me? I just wanted to go home. All of this sucked. I didn't want to be this rough with Aepnet, but he forced our hooves here. The overwhelming evidence and then he tries to run? Sorry, buddy, but we can't ignore that.

I was not looking forward to dealing with this in the coming weeks, let me tell you that.

With Aepnet subdued, Celestia lowered him to the ground while some of my guards moved in to secure him. He was thrashing about the entire time, but it was no use. Celestia slowly walked up to him, her expression grim.

"Aepnet, son of Attchune, I hereby arrest you in the name of three crowns of Equestria for the act of invading our lands for the purpose of enslaving our ponies. You will be given a fair trial, but should you be found guilty you will be punished to the full extent of our laws."

"Let me go, Celestia!" Aepnet screeched as my guards tied his wings. "This is an act of war! I'll see Canterlot burned to the ground for this!"

I looked back over to Kathyrine who was sitting on the ground, tears streaming down her face. Yeah, I didn't like this any more than she did, but it had to be done. What her father did could not be ignored, and even she knew that. Otherwise I think she'd be fighting it harder.

With Aepnet down for the count, one of his guards looked over to his fellows and nodded. They nodded back, and he turned to address the captured griffins. "Emperor Aepnet has been arrested by the Equestrian scum and can no longer fulfill his duties as emperor. As our laws dictate..." He pointed his spear straight at the being who wanted the least to do with this. "Kathyrine is now empress! Long live Empress Kathyrine the Fifth!"

A piercing scream split the air, and Kathyrine held her head in her claws and collapsed on the ground, sobbing loudly. The guard who had spoken ran over to Aepnet and before my guards could do anything, he took off Aepnet's cape. His crown had long since fallen off, so he collected that from a few feet away before flying back over to Kathyrine. Two of the guards had lifted her to her haunches, allowing the first guard to secure the cape around Kathyrine's neck and place the crown on her head. He backed away and bowed low. "Hail Empress Kathyrine."

Kathyrine wrapped her forelegs around herself and began hyperventilating, thick tears streaking down her face. "N-nuh, nuh duh wanna be e-empress," she whimpered. "Duh wanna be e-empress. Nuh, nuh not nuh now. Not l-like this!"

"Empress Kathyrine, if you refuse your responsibilities then you will bring eternal shame upon your family and your crown will be given to one of the dukes," the head guard said. He gently grabbed her by the foreleg and lifted her to a standing position. "We have to get you home. We shall deal with the Equestrians very soon."

I looked over to Celestia and Luna who watching grimly as Kathyrine was led to the chariot that her and her father had come in. If what Kathyrine had told me about griffin law was true, and I had every reason to believe that as the crowned princess of Griffonia, Kathyrine would know, then this coronation was completely legitimate. I walked over to them and leaned in close to Celestia.

"Now what? What are we going to do about this?"

"What do you propose we do, Antares?" Celestia mumbled back. "Kathyrine is the next in line, and we have no cause to arrest her. Whether you or I or she likes it or not, Kathyrine is empress of Griffonia."

"Yeah." I glanced down at Aepnet who, like us, was staring at his daughter being taken away. "What about him?"

"He will be tried, as will all of them. Kidnapping a hundred of our ponies and sacking two border towns is an act of war whether they admit to it or not."

"They will want war for this, Sister," Luna muttered. "You know this as well as us."

"Would you prefer that Aepnet be released?" Celestia shook her head as we watched the chariot with the new empress take off. "No, we must use all of our resources in the coming months to make sure that this goes down as smoothly as possible, but given the actions, I feel that we did what was necessary."

As somebody who has only been a goddess for a few months, I can only hope that she's right.

Author's Notes:

Next chapter is where it gets really interesting. I'm hoping that the wait time is shorter. It's my top priority right now.