Michel stared down the mountain from which Canterlot castle was built. It was an impressive sight, to be honest, but of course, his thoughts drifted elsewhere. "I would rob the hell out of this place." He said, to no one in particular, of course Twilight Sparkle had raised an eyebrow to such a statement

“Um... What exactly do you mean by that?” She asked, more than a little worried.

“What? OH! No, not really, well I would, but I’m not going to. What I mean to say is, if I were to try to, I could easily destroy that port down there, and take out those ships. Then I’d sail in and fire on the city. Someone should look into fixing that.”

Twilight was baffled, her brother, and Prince Blueblood had assured everyone that the port was untouchable. “Um... Ships wouldn’t be able to aim low enough and still get an accurate shot if they were close enough to see the docks, plus they’re protected by mana crystals which generate a constant shield around the port.” She explained.

“Not constant.” He responded. “You’ve been making me sit here for six hours now, I’ve had ample time to watch the sea. Those shields cycle once every forty-five minutes, with a thirty second down time. Enough time for me to fire from about a mile out using the retrofit artillery on my frigate.”

Twilight was shocked, she hadn’t thought he would notice the mana cycle, seeing as how he wasn’t sensitive to magic. “How did you figure that out? I’m a powerful magic user, and I still can barely feel the change.”

“I don’t claim to know anything about magic, but the water, that I know. Every forty-five minutes, the water ripples, the pattern isn’t natural, it’s a semi-circle, and the ripples go in both directions. Nothing natural causes something like that, and you just confirmed my hypothesis.”

“Wow, you seem smarter than you let on. Are you a scientist?”

“Not on your life, but I’ve seen enough cycling-energy-barriers, set up by the Spanish to know when I’m somewhere important. So what’re you guys hiding here?”

Twilight damn near jumped at the question, and Michel knew he hit the jackpot. “We aren’t hiding anything.” Said, Twilight while calming herself. “We are simply defending our capital.”

“Bullshit, if that were all, you’d have half a fleet of ships defending this place in case the shield failed. Of course, I get the feeling that they’re all off somewhere else playing decoy. Am I right?”

At this point, Twilight’s eyes were wide, with both shock and anger. She made her way closer to him, and put her lips next to his ear to whisper. “Nothing, and I mean nothing! Is going on here. You will not question it further, or I will have your head on a pike. Do you understand me?” An angered Twilight asked.

Michel simply smirked. “Of course miss. Nothing is going on here.” He said, the conversation ended just in time for Celestia’s royal office door to open, and her personal aide to beckon him in. “See ya later Sparkly.” He said, her only response was an angry glare.

Michel walked into the office, he assumed it was mainly used for personal meetings between Celestia and foreign dignitaries ‘No sense in using the royal court for only two, or a small group of people.’ He figured. He saw the Princess spinning in a fancy swivel chair, eyes closed, quietly humming to herself. “The only way you could act less royal, is if you stick your hand down your pants, and sing the Russian national anthem.” He quipped.

“For your information, I only perform actions such as that once a week, and I do not sing while I do so.” She said, feigning annoyance. “Anyway, I’m glad you were willing to speak with me in private.”

“It’s no problem your highness.” Michel gave a slight bow.

“For a pirate, your etiquette is quite impressive.”

“Yes well, I’ve had run ins with queens, and empresses, and the like before.”

“Although, not usually on such good terms I assume.” Celestia said, bringing up a bottle of a brownish red color. “Would you like some?”

“Good god it’s whiskey!” The man’s face lit up like a flare off an island.

“I’ll take that as a yes. I may not know pirates, but I know many sailors. Enough to know when they’ve been at sea for several months, and on a ship a good drink is always the first thing to go.” She said, pouring two glasses. One of which was quickly picked up by Michel. He took a small drink, and tears nearly streamed down his face.

“Thank you. Damn pilot drank our stores dry, bastard’s liver shut down before we could beat him.”

“How much did you carry on your ship?”

“A thousand gallons.”

Celestia spit some whiskey out of her mouth. “Where does your ship even have room for that? It isn’t particularly large.”

“The Olsen is highly modified, most of her systems are automatic, and most weapons are retrofit so we have a lot of extra storage space. She might not be much to look at now, but when she was built, long before my time mind you, she was a terror to go up against.’

“How long ago is before your time?”

“About a millenia and a half.”

Celestia wasn’t shocked, nor was she completely unphased, she was simply questioning. “Why wasn’t she dismantled? Over a thousand years seems a long time to keep a ship around.”

“Poor bastards didn’t have time before they died.”

That, had gotten Celestia’s attention. “What do you mean, before they died? Who killed them?”

“Not who, what. The world itself, I reckon. Water exploded from the ground, and tidal waves came crashing down from north and south. A global cataclysm, sparing only the very skilled, or the very lucky.”

Still Celestia didn’t make any conspicuous moves, only practiced and precise movements, if only to show she was still listening. “So, what happened after the cataclysm?”

“Anarchy.” Michel said, grinning. “In the first few years after it all, the world was hell, squabbling city states, fighting over resources, until 61 A.C, After Cataclysm, a new government came about, and decided, what we see, is ours. The Nuevo Imperio Espanol. The New Spanish Empire. To be honest, I’d have preferred anarchy.” Michel downed the rest if his whiskey, after finishing the spiel. “So, somehow I doubt that you asked me to come here so I could tell you stories.”

“You are correct.” Celestia said, Michel could tell that she was almost saddened by what she was about to say. “I wanted to ask you a favor, and based on the conversation I heard between you and my student, Twilight Sparkle, I fear I may have good reason to ask someone such as yourself.”

“What are you saying, your highness?”

Celestia inhaled deeply. “I’m saying, Twilight Sparkle has been put under investigation, we believe she has become corrupt, and has been plotting treason.”

“So, I was right.”

“I believe so, yes. My nephew Blueblood was the first to notice her change. At first, I didn’t want to believe it, she’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to a daughter, but everyday, I see more and more of her slip away. So, Blueblood, my sister, and I, devised a plan to get some kind of evidence against her, and to a point, it worked.”

“What did you do?”

“We moved our fleet to the north, away from Canterlot, her response was strange, especially for someone such as herself, instead of asking me what was happening as she normally would, she got angry, and ordered five more mana crystals be installed in the port, to strengthen the shield.”

“So we know she’s hiding something, but we don’t know what. So where do I come in?”

“I want to see, if you can get a confession out of her.” Celestia said, somberly.

“I believe I can, my father passed down some interrogation techniques from long ago.”

“Thank you.” Celestia said, eyes closed, standing up. “Now, if you please, I must rest, it’s hard for me to talk about such things, you may sleep in the castle, or aboard your ship, if you wish to stay here, follow me, your quarters will be next to mine.”

“Thank you, Celestia.” Michel said, following her.

-

Lieutenant Spike Drakovich was not a happy Drakin. His first day off in over five months, and his sister shoved him to the side, to work on some gods-forsaken project that she wouldn’t even tell him about. The only good part of the day was that he got to spend more time with his fiance Sweetie Belle, and their friends Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo. “It’s good to be back in Ponyville.” Spike said sitting on bench with the girls.

“I’m glad you’re back Spike, I really missed you.” Sweetie said, snuggling up to Spike, making Scootaloo roll her eyes, and Applebloom d’aww.

“Yeah, we are too, we heard about what happened with Twilight, sorry man, it must suck.” Scootaloo said.

“It does, but on the brightside I got to come back here and see you guys a couple days longer.” Spike replied, smiling.

“Say,” Applebloom began questioning. “How long are you gonna be in Ponyville anyway?”

“About two weeks, the ship I was serving on got pretty beat up. It’ll take a while to fix them all, but mine is number one on the list.”

“Well then we have to do something special!” Sweetie exclaimed.

“Why? I’ll be back.”

“Yeah, in six months! Do you have any idea what that does to a girl? I get lonely, and the dog can’t talk to me! Sweetie yelled.

“Okay, okay. What do you wanna do?” Spike said, acceding to the girl.

“Uh-uh-uh!” She exclaimed, standing up, swirling around, and bringing her index finger up to her lips. “Spoilers.” She said with a wink, before running off to parts unknown.

“That girl confuses me sometimes.” Spike said, chuckling, and shaking his head.