Help arrived by skyborne chariot in less than two hours. The Guard found the entire populace of Hilltop and Cirrus standing out in the snow, huddled around campfires, staring bleakly at the smoldering crater that had once been Hilltop Village.... after the frenzy of looting and burning, the entire hill had collapsed inward, taking the burning remains of the village with it. Of Cirrus there was nothing left but a few stray wisps of cloud. Some few were weeping openly.

Once again, divine Providence-- or more cynically, Darth Vulcan's meticulous planning-- had spared them. There were no casualties, and while there were numerous injuries, they were relatively minor; bruises, cuts, some few burns and, strangely enough, a copious number of bee stings.

It was only as the rescue workers set to organizing everything that the worst horror Vulcan had inflicted came to light. Wails of despair went up as the citizens realized what had happened. The nursery school, the children's wing of the hospital, the orphanage, had all been evacuated--- but none of the staff or their wards were anywhere to be found. Every single foal below the age of five had been abducted!

Chaos reigned outside. Tender Mercies, nevertheless, stayed at her post and kept at her work. Somepony had to organize the evacuation of the orphanage, and that somepony was her. She was in the middle of tossing the foal's files into a trolley when she felt an enormous clawed paw clamp down on the top of her head and slowly force her to turn around. She found herself face to face with an enormous diamond dog, and a one-eyed mare with a gaze that spoke volumes of how much peril Tender Mercies was currently in. "Where. Is. Twinkle?" the mare enunciated.

Tender Mercies recognized her immediately; the teenage filly whom the welfare board had found to be an unfit mother. It was hard to forget the screaming and crying and ruckus she'd thrown. "I-- they may have evacuated her already--" she stalled. She was a responsible government agent...

"Tell me where my daughter is, or I'll have Mongo here twist your head off." Mongo gave her a toothy grin and flexed his fingers around her skull.

"Oh you mean little Twinkle the unicorn filly back room to the left, third bassinet," Tender Mercies squeaked, eyes wide, face in a panicky rictus grin. That was all Winky needed. She galloped down the hall and shoved her way past the frightened volunteer workers.

"Ma Ma!"

"Twinkle!" The name was almost a scream of joy. Winky reappeared, cradling a little golden-maned, white unicorn filly on her back in her wings like she was the most precious thing in Equestria. "I've got her Mongo, I've got her," she said. Tears filled both her eyes, seeing and unseeing. "Thank you so much, Mongo...Let's go!"

The monstrous brute actually ducked his head and shuffled as if he were pleased. "Um, nope," he growled though. "Not done yet."

It was then that Tender Mercies noticed that the hallways were filling up with a whole lot of diamond dogs....

Eiderdown stood with her friends in Darth Vulcan's observation room, watching events unfold on the glowing screens. They looked on, stunned, as the Dark Lord of the Everfree utterly dismantled their home town with ruthless efficiency, brick by brick, cloud sculpture by cloud sculpture. Chrysalis stood nearby, watching over them in turn. Eiderdown never took her eyes off the monitors. The haunted look in her eyes was unreadable.

Chrysalis spoke up. "So you have your revenge," she said, calm as could be. Eiderdown nodded in agreement. "At great personal cost, no less." Again, Eiderdown nodded. A shiver went through her wings, but there was no other indicator of what she was feeling. The former Queen of the Changelings stepped across the room to stand beside her. "And? Tell me... how does it feel?"

Eiderdown glanced at her. "Don't you know already?"

"I'm an emotivore, pony," Chrysalis said. "For me, this is a meal. And I learned long ago that emotions are... stronger... when the one feeling them tells you what they're feeling." She closed her eyes as if she was savoring some faint aroma. "So? How does it feel?"

Eiderdown kept her silence for a long time. Then her haunted expression firmed into something far more resolute. "How does it feel?.... It feels just about right."

Her pegasi friends were stunned. "Eidy...!"

Eiderdown looked back at them angrily. "What, am I supposed to feel sorry for them?" she said. "Am I supposed to feel guilty that lots of innocent ponies are suffering right now that didn't have anything to do with what happened to us?

"....Well, I do." She turned back to the screen nearest to her. "But we were innocent too, and WE suffered. And who there is crying over what happened to us?"

"But..." Welter Weight started to say.  

"Our town was screwed up, Welter Weight!" Eiderdown stamped her hoof. "It was a town full of bigots and racists and apathetic hypocrites.  The pegasi looked down on the earth ponies, the earth ponies looked down on the Pegasi. And they all the treated poor fliers like cripples and parasites. They saw us as...as sub-standard earth ponies, with feathers.

" The ones that didn't do anything to us... they stood and watched. Their Mayor and their Guard and their judges shafted us, and they didn't raise a hoof or a horn or a feather to help us. They framed us and betrayed us and lied to us and nopony cared. Anywhere else in Equestria, the horseapples that went on would have been the scandal of the century!"

"And do you think we were the only ones? If it happened to US, it sure as Tartarus happened to others. I've heard stories about how the donkeys and mules and cows got treated.. Bigots and jerks don't just turn it on and off like a faucet.."

She stared at images of the last scraps of Cirrus blowing away, of the burning coals of Hilltop vanishing into a gigantic diamond dog sinkhole. "Maybe a couple of innocents got caught in the backwash. Maybe. But when does saying "I didn't do anything myself" start becoming a pile of horseapples? When do you START being responsible for what happens in YOUR town, on YOUR watch?

"This isn't just me getting even. This is them, reaping what they sowed. The scales finally balanced. I'm not happy that ponies are hurting.... but I won't lie and say I don't feel better."

Nopony made any comment.

They stood stewing in their thoughts, when suddenly they heard the faint sound... of foals crying. Chrysalis held up a finger. "...Hold that thought." She left the room, the door booming shut behind her.

She followed her twitching ears and her empathic senses. What she found nearly floored her. One of the vaulting chambers was filled with babies. Babies babies babies. Baby unicorns, baby pegasi, baby earth ponies, even a few baby donkeys and cows. Dozens, maybe hundreds, ranging from nearly newborn to nearly five. They were everywhere, crawling, toddling, sitting on their diapered bottoms staring at nothing in particular. And a sizable percentage were crying. There were a few terrified looking pony nurses scattered among them, trying to tend to them all--- though as for that she had to reassess their expressions as a mix of terror and plain old fashioned overwhelmed.  Most of the diamond dogs, with their sensitive ears, were fleeing the room with their paws clamped over their heads. Those made of sterner stuff found themselves being roped into lending a paw by the harried nursemaids. As she watched the percentage of babies who were crying went up by a few voices.

She looked over to Darth Vulcan, who was standing in the middle of the room, impassive. "What IS this?" she said, waving her arms.

Vulcan looked at her, then held up his hand. He reached under his helmet and pulled out two balls of cotton. "Augh. What was that?"

She marched over to him. "What is THIS?" she waved her arms again, indicating the room.

"We retrieved the child-- but circumstances prevented us leaving with just the one."He waved a free hand. Tiny fluttering clusters of light floated from his fingers. They danced over the foals' heads, glimmering and sparkling; nearly all the foals ceased crying and stared, entranced.

"You couldn't tell which one she was," Chrysalis said dryly.

Vulcan growled but didn't deny it. He waved at a corner; Winky sat there, cradling a tiny blonde and white unicorn foal in her forelimbs. "By the time we regrouped, and figured out that the mare had found her foal herself, we couldn't exactly turn back and return them."

"Do you have any idea how badly Celestia is going to freak?" Chrysalis hissed at him.

"Calm your temporary tits," he said. "They'll be gone within the hour. Oh don't give me that look, I won't harm a hair on their heads," he went on, annoyed at Chrysalis' expression. (Changeling or not, she was female. Never stir up a woman's maternal instincts.) "They will be returned to the ponies, and reunited with their rotten, bigoted, irresponsible parents and/or caretakers. But I intend to milk one last thing out of this entire situation."

"And that would be?" Chrysalis said.

Darth Vulcan waved his hand. The circling sparkles drifted down over the foals, cloaking them in color-changing glitter. "An object lesson."

"That monster," Celestia said. "That sadistic, heartless monster!" Luna stood next to her in silent agreement. Messengers had flown back and forth between Canterlot and the rescue site, each incoming one a bearer of bad news. The latest one had left them both reeling in shock at the ruthlessness of it; Darth Vulcan had kidnapped every foal in Hilltop and Cirrus. Not a trace was to be found of any colt or filly below the age of five. The refugees of Hilltop and Cirrus were already on their way, via train, to Canterlot. They would receive sanctuary there till better arrangements could be made-- and until the frightened, grieving parents could learn of the fate of their children.

Celestia remembered the cruelty with which the warlock had handled his earth filly hostage and shuddered. What would that brute do to those poor, frightened babies?

"Look, I said no."

The diamond dog bitch looked up at me with sad, huge eyes.

"No! It's a bad idea."

She held up the wriggling bundle in her arms.

"I don't care if it's one of the ones from the orphanage. Ponies are going to be looking for it."

The foal, a scruffy brown earth pony colt, waved his hooves and made baby pony noises.

"Look there's just no way a diamond dog can adopt an earth pony! Thats---"

"Mama!" the foal said. "Wuf Wuf, Mama!" He giggled and crowed.  Oh that was dirty pool.

The bitch whined faintly.

"OH FINE!" I yelled, exasperated. "Keep him! But I'd better hear you took proper care of him-- ask one of the pony roughnecks what to feed him and junk..." I facepalmed over my helmet. "Dodger, add a postscript to that letter..."

Celestia returned to the palace with a heavy heart. It had been painful beyond measure, greeting the ponies that had been so horribly exiled, trying to comfort the ones fearing for their children with false confidence and empty words.  She could only hope that her presence had inspired some small crumb of hope with them.

She alighted at the front gate, only to find Luna waiting for her with a most peculiar expression on her face. "Sister! Do we have further word from the Guard on the search?"

Luna's expression was indecipherable. "One might say that..." she said. She turned and led Celestia back to the throne room... then wordlessly passed it, heading for Celestia's private quarters. "Shortly after your departure, another of Darth Vulcan's boastful missives arrived in the throne room," she said. "He informed us of many things behind his recent actions, mocked us for our inaction and incompetence-- the usual one would expect."

They entered the royal tower and began ascending the stairs. "He meandered for some time before I realized that it was a ruse... a flamboyant distraction. When I finally dispersed the sending, I scanned the castle with all due haste, fearing he had breached our defenses in some manner. He had."

For some reason there were a number of servants and nurses in the stairwell. They raced past with barely a 'your highness'. "Sabotage?" Celestia said. Luna shook her head.

"A delivery," she said. "And a message." She opened the doors to Celestia's suite.

Celestia goggled. Her opulent quarters were filled with foals. sitting, standing, crawling, being fussed over by nerve-wracked nursemaids. They were on the bed, on the floor, everywhere; through the doorways to the rest of the suites she could see even more. One of the nurses, a haggard, stressed out looking unicorn mare, came up to Celestia, curtseyed shakily, and levitated a sheaf of parchment up to her. "It's from Darth Vulcan himself," she stammered. "H-he told me to give it directly to you, and nopony else..."

Celestia took the stack of loose pages and began to read.

Greetings, Celestia.

In case you haven't guessed, I am hereby returning the "kidnapped" foals of Hilltop and Cirrus to your care, personally. You see, unlike your wretched, corrupt, self-righteous agents, I would never steal a child from its mother's arms... at least not permanently.

But, In the face of the callous ingratitude and cruelty of the citizens of Hilltop-Cirrus, I felt the need to subject them to a little object lesson.  You see, some five years ago a handful of your little ponies were subjected to the tender mercies of judicial corruption and bureaucratic incompetence. (detailed in the following pages for your amusement.)  As a consequence of that, an innocent mother-to-be lost her fiancee, her home, her job, and her child. Were it not for my intervention--

That's right. MY intervention. You useless cow.

---she would have spent the rest of her life grieving, looking into the face of every foal with just the right color of coat or mane, wondering if it was hers. Her so-called fellow villagers subjected her to the worst agony a mother can know. So I decided that it would only be fair that they suffer, for a short while, the smallest inkling of what they tried to do to her.

Have assloads of fun sorting them out, bitch.

Sincerely,

Darth Vulcan.

While reading she had laid down on the bed; several of the foals had curled up along her side, nuzzling close. Puzzled at his final sentence, she looked down at them. Oh, they were sweet. A little unicorn foal with a white coat and gold mane... And another little unicorn foal with a white coat and a gold mane... and a pegasus foal with a white coat and a gold mane...

Her eyes widened as she looked around and realized that every last one of the foals had the same coat, mane-- and yes, even eye color! "That sonovabitch," she blurted out.

Luna was lying on the floor, playing with three of the foals. "Iss widdle piddy went to market, iss widdle piddy stayed home--- Tia! Language!" she scolded, putting her hooves over the nearest foal's ears.

"Augh. He cast an illusion on them. They all look alike!"

"We know," lamented one of the nursemaids. "We tried to dispel it, but we can't figure out how! We don't want to try any stronger disillusion charms, they might hurt the baby!"

Celestia faceplanted in the mattress. "We'll never figure out which foal goes to which parent. They're perfectly identical!"

One of the nursemaids looked up from changing a diaper. She looked down, then back up again. "Well, um, not perfectly identical..." she said, snickering a little.

"Fabulous." Celestia groaned. She did a delicate scan of one of the foals crawling on her. Yes, it was a complex and knotty spell; it would disperse on its own in about a week... a week of the foals' parents going spare with worry as to whether they had the right child. She looked at the note, hoping for a clue.

P.S. deduct three foals from the headcount-- two fillies and a colt-- for the orphanage.  They have found adoptive homes with members of my horde, listed on the back of this page. You'll excuse them if they don't file the proper paperwork --D.V.

Celestia stared. "You've got to be kidding me."

The haggard nurse who'd delivered the letter spoke up. "Nope," she said. "He even had me give them a new baby care package and a copy of 'Your New Foal and You.' "

Luna scrutinized her curiously. "Thou seemest strangely unperturbed."

The mare shrugged. "Compared to some of the real parents I've seen? They could have done worse."

Luna turned to her sister. "We hath made the strangest enemies over the years," she said.

Celestia scowled at the quip. She began reading the rest of the missive, hoping to learn more of this incident that had provoked Darth Vulcan's wrath. Her silence lengthened and her face grew thunderous as she read. "Luna," she said in an all-too-calm voice. "Is this account of what happened... correct?"

"I know not, Sister," Luna said. "But Vulcan believed it enow to raise his wroth."

Carefully extricating herself from the napping foals, Celestia got to her feet. "I believe I am going to send for Twilight," she said. "I think it would do her good as a Princess to conduct an inquiry into the events surrounding this." She paused. "Because I do not trust myself to remain in control, should I start asking questions of those responsible myself."

Down in the throne room, much to the fury and vexation of the Captain of the Guard, a pony was found. It was Lieutenant Sundae Sprinkles. Nopony saw him brought in, and nopony saw whomever brought him leave. It was clear that he had been brought, rather than arriving under his own power: nopony could walk on four broken legs, or fly on two plucked wings. He lay at the foot of the throne, whimpering and twitching, his eyes staring into nothing, curled as far into a fetal position as the splints on his leg would allow.

He would recover in time for the hearing. But he would never be the same.

"To begin at the beginning, I don't think I can even list all the laws, codes of professional conduct and internal regulations that were violated in the course of these events," Twilight Sparkle said, glaring down from her throne. Her investigation had been thorough, and her shock, disappointment and outrage had been unflagging.

Gathered on the bench before her were the ponies she had determined were the most direct culprits; the former mayors, judges, city councilponies, weather bureau authorities--- let it be cut to the chase and state that she had basically all of Hilltop and Cirrus' former City Hall sitting in front of her while she read them the riot act. none of them looked defiant or confrontational: after the devastation of their towns they didn't have the energy for that. Their defensive bluster stripped away, they sat silently while the Princess of Friendship flayed them with her tongue.

"I can't even start to list them all," she repeated. "But I can darned sure give you the highlight reel." She got down off her throne and began pacing in front of the row of erstwhile public officials.

"First off your Remedial program is a farce. It was funded by the Crown and was intended to be a fallback class for those who, due to physical handicaps or other hardships, were struggling to learn flight, rudimentary magic, or elementary Earth pony skills. Instead it has become a dumping ground for your juvenile delinquents, truants and worse. So much so that the class itself has a stigma that clings to the few who manage to survive it. Upon further investigation it was discovered that this was due to underfunding and apathetic hiring practices on part of your school board-- the teacher's slot itself was a dumping ground for those with tenure, but dismal educational skills, who could not be fired. Those few good teachers who worked there were given the dregs of the school budget, and expected to work miracles with it. The Remedial Flier's teacher at the time of this incident is to be commended for her near-heroic efforts in getting those colts and fillies airborne under those circumstances.

"The next in this parade of incompetence was your local weather bureau--- which was understaffed, undertrained, and undisciplined. Weather Bureau regulations state that the lookout post be staffed with at least six ponies at all time. This was more than you had on the ROSTER. When the reports of the rogue storm rolled in they took off to the last pony to respond, abandoning their post and leaving the students in question there alone... so when part of the storm deviated and turned into a cyclone, nopony was there to take the report.

"The students in question acted in good faith-- knowing that they were the only ones on hand, and that if the tornado was not diverted or stopped, homes would be destroyed and ponies would die. They managed to jury-rig a funnel depth charge, flew over, and dropped it inside--- dispersing the tornado and saving your town. This of course violated a laundry list of safety regulations and laws..."

"HOWEVER! There is a precedent in Equestrian Law known as the Greater Good clause, the Urgent Imperative, aka the Good Deed Law... It states that if a pony commits an unavoidable criminal act in the course of saving a life-- for example, breaking and entering to rescue a pony from a burning building--- they cannot be charged with that crime. There are also multiple laws on the books covering the waiver of various minor laws in a state of emergency...." She spun and stuck her face in that of a humbled-looking pony in judge's robes till their noses scrunched. "Which you should be fully aware of, Judge Weighty Scale. The moment those charges were pressed they should have been dismissed. Instead, you carried the case forward-- and made your utterly laughable and unlawful judgment."

She returned to pacing. "Why? It seems there were a litany of complaints-- petty complaints-- from certain influential ponies about broken windows, disturbing the peace, and other such rubbish. And, from what I've gleaned from internal memos I found in your files---" several blanched--- "A commonly voiced concern that somepony might make note of how understaffed the Weather Office was, and start asking where all the Crown's funding for salaries was going."  She glared at them poisonously. "And hints that you might want a scapegoat. I didn't find anything that was definitive... but I am turning what I have found over to the Equestrian Revenue Agency and recommending an investigation for embezzlement." Several ponies swallowed.

"The colts and fillies were railroaded. They were given no representation, no legal counsel, and were interrogated without their parents or guardians present-- in clear violation of Equestrian law, again-- and bullied into accepting a wretched, crook-shanked "deal" that shafted them twenty ways from Sunday, just to get their names cleared of a crime which they had not even committed, much less should have been convicted. Five years-- FIVE YEARS of 'public service' to 'pay off' their alleged debt.

"If they had been employed by the City at the going wage for that type of work, they could have paid the city off for all the damages, out of their own pockets, after ONE!

"They were then turned over to an old-school Pegasus Ableist-- a sadist and a cretin who was on record from his service in the guard as despising the less-able as "useless eaters and breeders". He is one of those thick-witted brutes who mentally equates physical handicap with being morally defective.  ---He thinks that being lame or sick or weak is proof you're wicked, stupid, and a thug," she translated for the peanut gallery.

"And he decided that, since he could not legally raise a hoof to them, it was his job to emotionally abuse the wickedness out of them. He subjected them to five years of emotional and verbal abuse, with draconian restrictions on their lives and broad-sweeping punishments for any 'disrespect'. In the first year alone, his wards submitted over a dozen documented complaints about his behavior...

"Which, I have determined, were promptly ashcanned the moment they arrived, or sent back with warnings that further "intractibility" would result in them forfeiting the deal they had made. Two of them, in fact, were thrown out of the deal, because of 'violating rules about interpersonal conduct' which were a load of illegal tripe-- yes, Mister Sprinkles," she said over her shoulder to the wheelchair-bound pony,  "it is illegal to forfeit a plea bargain because one of the signees got pregnant."

She stopped in front of her throne and faced them. "Any and all of the above would be enough to utterly screw the lot of you over," she said, eyes blazing. "But the piece de resistance, the rotten cherry on top of this elephant turd sundae, was that after all this was done, you still welshed on the agreement. Mister Sprinkles here arranged for the contents of their criminal file-- which were supposed to be sealed-- to be publicly broadcast to the entire population of Hilltop Town and Cirrus Town, by way of a speech given during a graduation ceremony.

"For which action NONE OF YOU penalized him in any way."

She sat down wearily in her throne, her anger all but spent. "I've never been so angry," she said. "Never been so angry, so furious, so... disappointed. I investigated, I spoke with your townsponies, read reports from those who'd passed through your community. I wanted to scan your entire population for Changeling infiltrators when I was done! The Remedial Class incident was only scratching the surface. Never have I seen a community of ponies with such institutionalized prejudice, callousness, hard-heartedness, corruption, and--- and utter indifference to injustice done in their name." She shook her bowed head. "For whatever reason, at some point, something went wrong. Callous prejudice and cruelty grew where harmony was intended. There was something ugly and toxic endemic to your twin community, and rebuilding it would only be an invitation for it to bloom and fester again." She gave them the gimlet eye. "And anyway, it is my guess that most of the ponies from your civic infrastructure are going to be busy with criminal trials of their own." The ponies in the front row cringed.

Twilight sighed, and lifted her gavel. " It is going to be my recommendation to Celestia and Luna that full criminal investigations be set into motion on the conduct of the leadership of Hilltop-Cirrus township--- and that not one red cent of the Crown's money be spent on rebuilding either Hilltop or Cirrus." The gavel came down.

A hue and cry went up from the gallery. Some few of the civic authorities-- former civic authorities-- of the demolished township tried to protest. Most were too subdued. It was with a heavy heart that Princess Twilight Sparkle left the courtroom.