The return

“Tia dear I’ve finished fixing you sister’s brain ahead of schedule, but there was a slight problem…” Discord’s voice sounded inside her head dragging Celestia away from her lunch. She quickly excused herself from the table and went to her room where nopony could wonder why the Princess was staring blankly off into space with a glazed look in her eyes. As she entered the mental realm of Discord Celestia noticed that there were more of the floating jellyfish creatures flying around Discord’s castle then there normally were. As she landed inside of the main courtyard she was met by Discord who bowed exaggeratedly.

“As per your request Tia I have spent the last week or so repairing your sister’s mind, and I must say that it was truly an interesting experience. Alas I seem to have made an errm…slight mistake in regards to her language skills.” He began to lead her inside and up the stairs that led to the room where Discord had been treating her sister’s mind

“What do you mean?” Celestia asked him uncertainly, stopping in front of the door to her sister’s room.

“Well I attempted to make her speech patterns more modern…I succeeded, but I might have succeeded a little too well.” He said as he pushed the door open. Luna sat in bed reading a book, she looked remarkably better; she also looked a good deal taller and sleeker. As her sister entered the room Luna jumped to her hooves and grabbed her sister into a large hug.

“Like sister, it’s like amazing to see you and junk, Discord’s like a total bore and he’s like whatever.” Luna said while she hugged her sister, Celestia turned to stare at Discord, her gaze would have been deadly enough to kill a dragon.

“Discord…” Celestia said threateningly causing Discord to gulp in apprehension “…I swear to Faust that if you don’t fix this I’m going to make being trapped in here seem like a walk in the park.”

“Like sister what’s like wrong, I’m perfectly like fine and stuff?” Luna asked uncertainly, Celestia thought about trying to explain it but thought better of it.

“Tia dear calm down, I’m sure it’ll make her more popular in the court.” Discord stammered as Celestia advanced on him threateningly.

“You have two minutes to make her talk normally or I’ll send you to the inside of the sun.” Celestia told Discord while she charged her horn, which is when Luna started to laugh hysterically.

“I’m fine Cely, it was a joke” Luna said when she finally regained her composure enough to talk “I thought that you could probably use something to lighten your mood so I asked Discord to play along.” Celestia looked at her sister for a second before she started to laugh as well and she embraced Luna in a deep hug as they both laughed.

“Thank you Luna I needed that.” Celestia told her sister truthfully when they had both regained control.

“Don’t thank me; thank Discord from keeping me from being a vegetable, I think that you owe him something Cely.” Luna whispered the last part, Celestia sighed, perhaps it had been long enough to try again.

“Discord…” She said as she cleared her throat “…I think that thanks to your exemplary service towards the Royal Family that once this whole mess is over, I could see fit to remove you from your prison on the condition that any chaos that you cause while free doesn’t affect Equestria.” Celestia told the draconequus.

“Thank you Tia, that means a lot, but I suggest that the two of you leave quickly, the enemy has decided to remove me from the equation. I almost feel bad for his troops…almost.” Discord told them before he vanished in a flash of light leaving Celestia looking at the space that he had just occupied in confusion.

“The enemy is here in his mind?” Celestia asked Luna.

“Yes, it was thier mistake, unsurprisingly their losses number in the hundreds.” Luna told her sister nonchalantly “could you go to the hospital and get me out of there please, I’ll meet you in my room?” Luna told her sister before she to vanished in a flash. Celestia rushed back to her body and teleported to the hospital appearing right outside her sister’s room, startling House.

“Your sister just came out of a weeklong comma; no you may not take her back to the castle yet.” He told her without looking at her while he scanned a chart.

“House it was magically induced, she’s not contagious.” Celestia said in annoyance.

“Did you go to medical school and practice medicine for years before getting drunk and ending up as a pony who was immediately offered a job at the biggest hospital on this sugarbowl planet too…No then don’t tell me how to do the job that you kidnapped me to do!” House told her in annoyance.

“I hardly think that kidnap is the right word for it House.” Celestia told him in her defense.

“Oh I’m sorry I didn’t mean kidnap, I meant forcibly relocate.”

“I did it so that you wouldn’t get in that car and end up killing yourself, you idiot!” Celestia told him her tolerance for him was at breaking point.

“It was still against my will; regardless your sister is far too weak to leave the hospital for at least another day or two.” He told her dropping the subject, he knew she was right but he would never tell her that.

“May I at least go in and see her?” Celestia asked him her temper cooling back to normal levels.

“Sure, I have a sexy blue coated mare to go and treat for a bullet wound anyways.” House said as he walked away. Celestia stepped into her sister’s room and was surprised to see that Luna’s body had increased in size just like her mental avatar had.

“Did you have a nice chat with House?” Luna asked Celestia as she looked up from the book that she was reading.

“Yes, he’s a real charmer.” Celestia replied dryly, Luna giggled in reply.

“Oh you just don’t know him very well; after you brought him here I helped him adjust. He really is charming once you get used to how much of a pain in the flank he is.” Luna told her, Celestia rolled her eyes; her sister had the oddest taste in friends.

“So how are you feeling?” Celestia asked her sister.

“I’ve had worse, but I agree with House I’m not ready to go back to the castle yet, I’m still too weak.” Luna replied looking at her sister regretfully.

“Don’t worry sister take all the time you need.”

***

As he sat on the seat of the train to Ponyville Shepard viewed the surrounding countryside his mind wandering from one topic to another, there was one topic that his mind just wouldn’t drop.

“Ash did Arsenal seem familiar to you?” Shepard asked Ash who was leaning against him reading a book.

“Now that you mention it, he seemed like a carbon copy of Anderson” Ash mused “You don’t think…?” she trailed off.

“Yeah, yeah I do.” Shepard replied.

“Well this changes things.” Ash said.

“I wonder who else is here.” Shepard said before returning his gaze to the rolling countryside. When they left the train they were greeted by a large crowd of journalists who started yelling questions in Shepard’s direction as cameras went off in bright flashes.

“Commander Shepard!”

“Commander Shepard!”

“Can I get an interview please?”

“How do you feel in about the attempted assassination of Princess Celestia?”

“Is it true that you are the one responsible for the large number of bloody Griffin corpses recently found both outside Canterlot and inside the Everfree forest?”

“What’s your opinion of the palace guard?” Garrus leaned over to Shepard and whispered.

“Let me take care of this. Ponies, ponies please settle down the Commander just finished saving the life of your Princess, I would think that the least you could do would be ask him your questions one at a time!” The crowd of journalists quitted down, Shepard looked at Garrus questioningly. “C-Sec taught me how to deal with journalists Commander.” Garrus told him quietly.

“Commander Shepard, I’m Moondiver from the Equestria Daily News, how were you involved in the shootings in Ponyville a week ago?” asked a blue coated white maned unicorn wearing a fedora.

“I was the target of the shooting.” Shepard answered

“So it was your fault that they took place, how could you put the public in danger in such a disrespectful way?” Moondiver asked Shepard accusingly, Ash stiffened next to him but Shepard touched her on the shoulder steadyingly.

“At the time I wasn’t aware of the fact that somepony had put out a hit on me, it certainly wasn’t my intention to get other ponies injured, including two of my squad mates.” Shepard told her.

“Can you confirm the reports that you broke an unarmed pony’s forelegs for your own sick pleasure?” Moondiver asked him, her voice accusatory.

“That ‘unarmed pony was leading a hit squad who planned on killing Celestia, I did what I believed was right at the time in order to keep the royal family safe.”

“So what you are suggesting is that if I believe that something is bad will happen I’m, allowed to break somepony’s forelegs to prevent it because I think I’m right, is that the kind of lesson that you want little foals and fillies to learn?” before Shepard could answer Twilight stepped forward.

“Miss Moondiver I understand the type news that sells papers is sensational, but Shepard and his team are the only reason that Luna isn’t our current monarch, I think that the least that he deserves is a thank you.” Twilight told the reporter forcefully, the reporter instead of being cowed turned to Twilight.

“Miss Sparkle I’m so glad to be talking to you again, I believe that the last time you and I talked we were discussing the disastrous results of one of your experiments, something to do with turning all of the water in Ponyville into fruitpunch.” Twilight blushed remembering the debacle.

“Moondiver you have exactly five seconds to stop asking my friends personally invasive questions before I lose my temper, you don’t want that.” Fluttershy told Moondiver, fixing Moondiver with one of her more minor stares. Moondiver flinched, before she started to back away slowly. “If there are any other questions to be asked of us I would appreciate that you all ask them politely.” Fluttershy told the assembled journalists, most of whom followed Moondiver’s example. One of the few that stayed was a white unicorn whose coat was streaked with purple lines.

“Commander Shepard, my name is Mirage I represent a small newspaper that hails from Manehattan, and I was wondering if you could be bothered to take a few minutes of your time to tell my readers the full story of why you’re here and what you’ve been doing since you arrived. My bosses look down on the type of journalism used by the other companies so I promise you that your word will not be twisted in any way, shape, or form.” Shepard smiled, finally a friendly journalist, he’d all but given up hope of ever finding something so elusive.

“I’ll gladly answer your questions Miss Mirage.” Shepard told her. A few hours later the group found themselves in Twilight’s library looking through the various books that she had on display in an attempt to discover what they were supposed to be doing. Suddenly Spike came running into the room.

“Twilight I just received a letter from Princess Celestia, apparently Luna is awake again!” Twilight let out a sigh of built up stress that had been weighing heavily on her mind all week.

“That’s great news Spike!” she told the small dragon.

“Oh and apparently Pinkie popped back in and told her to tell you to check under E.” Spike continued with a slight smile on his face.

“But what could possibly be under E that would relate to this?” Twilight asked Spike who shrugged. Twilight went over to the section of the library and looked under E; sitting on the shelf was a book that looked like it hadn’t been opened in a hundred years. The title read ‘When dealing with mysterious Enemies’ underneath that was a sub title that said ‘we can solve all of your mysterious enemy related problems’ Twilight looked at the book for a few seconds before she said. “Oh you’ve got to be kidding me!”

Next Chapter: Exposition and uneasy implications Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 38 Minutes