“A better suggestion?” Twilight Sparkle laughs as she stands, a harsh cackle incommensurate with the audacity of the Storm Commander. She shakes off any reluctance at leaving Doug and her fellow alicorns’ sides, striding forward to the stage. “I doubt I could come up with a worse one! Where do I even begin?”

If the alicorn’s words meant to cause a stir among the assembled creatures they fulfill their purpose with aplomb. Tempest Shadow contains her fury with gritted teeth and narrowed eyes as Alira belatedly signals that it is the Equestrian’s turn to speak. The Storm King isn’t fazed in the slightest, leaning on the Staff of Sacanas without a care; he reacts more as the sharp crystal tip spears into his underarm, wincing and glaring at the inanimate object with a vengeful look that suggests he would boot it overboard were he on his ship.

“First.” A lavender hoof jabs at the powerful artifact. “Do you even know what that thing does? Or how to use it?” Her eyes glow white with a practiced raspberry flare, studying the inner workings.

A pale-blue unicorn mare from the Realm of Clouds steps up. “We conducted tests when the Staff was brought to us. The activation is-”

“-Slamming it into the ground,” Tempest Shadow finishes with a voice like ice. She dares not glance at the buffoon holding onto the lynchpin of their plan. She dares not anger him with her loathing. They had gone over this! And the last thing she wants is more disunity over an already tenuous plan. “There is no activation phrase. It will siphon the strength of any and all alicorns within ten strides, allowing the wielder the ability to control the sun and moon.” She sneers, gloating over putting the alicorn in her place.

“Mm, that’s not what I’m seeing.” Twilight frowns at having to counter the glowering unicorn’s assertions. “The range is at least a hundred strides, if not a thousand. And…” She squints, peering closer into the spell. “It’s nonlethal. It has some genius methods in place to keep from draining too much. And then release the power later. Like whoever made it was worried about it being used on them. So…” Her face falls at the admission. “It’s probably safe.”

“Satisfied?” Tempest Shadow drawls.

Twilight Sparkle scowls, wanting to buck this whole Council off an airship. She studied up on the legality of them taking out King Sombra and defending their actions with Discord, not hypotheticals with no solution! She stalls, demanding, “Who even built this thing?”

Celestia clears her throat. She would rather not answer this question, but her observant student would notice the familiar spellcraft soon enough. At least it draws her out of her despondency over how irreconcilably dangerous her actions could have been, and still might. “...That would be me.”

Twilight Sparkle spins fast enough to whip her tail into her side. “You!? Why, why would you even think to make something like this? You had to know it could be used against you!”

Celestia sighs, morose and subdued. “Because this is not the first time this discussion has arisen. It was asked of me if an artifact could be made that duplicated our,” she nods at her Sister, ”power over the sun and moon. I undertook the challenge, and that is the result. I declined to make one that could be powered by anycreature less. Yet, for all my craftsponyship, it is inefficient. Or, perhaps, our cutie marks allow us to be more efficient. As well, the Staff requires four alicorns to be present; fewer, and nothing will happen at all.”

“But there are nine alicorns present,” Doug interjects. His eyes, and those of many others, dart from one lithe belly to another. They aren’t bulging, not yet, and he dreads whatever might keep that from happening. “What happens then?”

“Um,” Twilight says, gulping as she surveys the workings of the Staff. “Technically, because of how Doug interacts with our magic, conceiving copies of our thaumic cores? It might think there are only four.”

“Five,” Cadance corrects with a worried glance at her husband. He returns a quick, reassuring nuzzle. “Our signatures no longer line up perfectly. We think it has to do with Shining Armor’s magic returning and being integrated into her core.” She tries to smile and quell the betrayed look Twilight is giving her. “We just noticed a few days ago, and wanted to make sure before we told anypony.”

“...Right.” Twilight wipes a bead of sweat from her brow. “We did know Tirek’s spell might do that. We’ll need to monitor the progression and make sure that she develops safely.” She levitates a quill and parchment. “I’ll write up a schedule for a battery of tests. Weekly? No, biweekly, at least until we get a good feel for how she’s progressing. Or should it be triweekly?”

“Twily,” Shining Armor asserts with a calm chuckle. “We’ve set that up already.”

“We are grown ponies,” Cadance adds with a wry smile.

“...Right.” Twilight slowly rests the quill on the blank parchment. She sighs at not being able to make a checklist. And at having to come back to this discussion. “So, if the staff drains seven to nine alicorns instead of four? It might explode.”

Raikou, who has been toying with the idea of just slamming the Staff into the ground and avoiding all this talk, carefully lifts and holds the Staff horizontal.

“Unlikely,” Celestia counters. She doesn’t like her work being called into question, especially with regards to something that might rob her of her power and then not be able to give it back. It isn’t enough to lift her dour mood. “Though the matter of the foal being targeted is a disconcerting one, as is the possibility of the drained dam being unable to fully provide for her growing foal.”

“Indeed,” Luna growls, finally breaking her silence. She scowls, both at her Sister and at the gathered creatures who wait with flexing talons for any misstep. Her Sister seems to get the message. Rather than say more the cobalt alicorn goes back to her gloom, not reacting when her stallion tugs her against him.

“So we don’t know if it is safe.” Twilight nods, confident in her assertion. “I worry about testing it, too.”

“You want to know what worry is?” Gruff declares, raspy voice booming. “Worry is when you look up at the sky and see the sun going up and down like a chick about to become a hen! Worry is when somegriff asks if the world is going to end, and you can’t tell them that it ain’t! You ponies tell us to not worry about things we can’t change. Well, this is us changing things!”

Delegate Gruff roars as he takes to the air, a taloned fist raising high. Except his no-longer-present compatriots are not there to provide cheers of their own, the echoes dying to an otherwise silent auditorium. He growls at the others who only offer tepid support, unwilling to provide direct and potentially isolated assistance. He plops back down, fuming.

“Princess Celestia has smoothly run things for over a thousand years,” Twilight states, gaze focusing on one creature and then another. “Who would you propose to take over?” She pauses as if a name might be thrown out. There isn’t. “Who has as good a track record? You want to change things, but you don’t even know if you are changing the right things in the right direction!”

“But Celestia failed,” Gruff sputters. “She might fail again!”

“And you want to eliminate the backups in case she does! And as your excuse?” Twilight shakes her head slowly, just like when she had to explain to Spike that he couldn’t have a bowl of ice cream just before bedtime. “You speak of a single incident that was directly caused by Discord. We stopped him, and righted things as swiftly as we could.”

“Who you then let go as swiftly as you could,” Ember echoes. Her arms cross against her teal chest, claws clicking against her scales. “And he proceeded to doom the entire planet! The only reason it didn’t work is because he got caught in his own trap.”

“Would you prefer we not offer any second chances?” Twilight glances at Luna as Doug holds her tight. She even returns a rare affectionate nuzzle. Twilight turns back to Ember. “That would be the dragon way, right?” She scowls at even making the suggestion. “Or would that be burn first, devour later, and not even offer a first chance?”

“Why, you!” Ember bellows, wings snapping open and claws outstretched. Only being outnumbered ten to one keeps her from suicidally charging. “If my father were here, he’d-”

“Burn this place to the ground?” Twilight snarks.

“Burn this place to the ground!” Ember shouts, fury venting from every orifice with clouds of steam. It makes the room, if not for Celestia’s filtering bubble, reek of sulphur.

“So much for no rash declarations of war,” Doug mutters. Luna snorts in amusement before returning to her normal stony visage.

“Declarations?” Ember laughs, high and shrill. “I see it now! You have already declared war, and we are too blind as to see it! With your talk of democracy, of letting the ‘majority’ rule. When you fully intend on flooding our countries with your ponies and broodlings! Why march with an army when you can force us out of our homes one plot of land at a time?”

Twilight’s pupils shrink to pinpricks. “T-that’s not…”

She glances around at her Friends, her herdmates, her family. Her or her brother’s broodling, however Chrysalis ends up… relating to her. All with the expressly stated desire to expand their family. Her heart hammers in her chest, her hitched breathing trying and failing to restart in time with the pounding in her ears. Would it stop after a generation? What even was a generation to an alicorn? Or even to Applejack, who might keep pumping out foals alongside her fillies and grandfillies? What would she do? Or Celestia?

“See?” Ember sneers as she motions to the Equestrians. “This is the existential threat we need to be worried about!”

Alira bangs her gavel on the lectern. Her calm, firm demeanor is lost in the commodition of everycreature standing. “We’ve gotten off track.”

Ember ignores her, raising her voice. “If Yak worried about losing Yak culture, look no further than your neighbors to the south! How long will it take for them to encroach on ancestral Yak land?”

“W-we wouldn’t-” Twilight starts.

“Appleloosa did it to the buffalo!” Iron Grip bellows, slapping a fist against the other. The two goats next to him nod, looking pleased one pulls back a sheet of paper. “Minotaurs will not be treated like cattle!”

Prince Rutherford takes a full second to stand, his full height towering above even Celestia. “Yak not allow incursion into Yak land! Yak go to war with ponies! Yaaah!”

“Oh, dear,” Applejack mutters, clenching her Stetson against her head as Prince Rutherford begins smashing his already smashed desk. “Ah remember cousin Braeburn tellin’ me ‘bout some problems they were havin’. But Ah’d been so busy with the farm...”

“Order!” Alira shouts, to no avail.

“Ponies think they are the best!” Ember roars, releasing a gout of flame toward the ceiling, though it comes dangerously close to the Equestrian side. “They are a cancer that wants to replace all cultures with their culture!”

“That’s because we are the best!” Rainbow Dash shouts back, flapping her wings to send the cloud of smoke back at the dragons. “About time somepony realized that!”

Enraged at the brash assertion, Ember takes to the air. She menaces Rainbow Dash with unsheathed claws, daring the smaller pegasus to come at her. They circle, snarling, edging closer and closer to charging.

“I do believe,” Celestia says with a forlorn sigh, “that it is time we followed the most time-honored of pony traditions.”

Twilight retreats from the stage while doing her best to keep Rainbow Dash from engaging. She spares a questioning glance at Celestia.

Cadance returns with a smirk and wink at her aunt. She takes a deep breath. “Very well.”

“Ahem.”

The regal voice clearing draws everything to a standstill. Prince Rutherford stops smashing, Ember and Rainbow Dash land, and Alira stops banging her gavel. All eyes turn to Princess Cadance.

“The Council of Creatures was instituted to keep us from devolving into violence.” The pink alicorn smiles, nodding exactly once. “I propose a recess so that we might collect our thoughts and better formulate our arguments. This has been quite a… trying subject for many of us. We can reconvene at dinner so that we might again share a meal in peace.”

“Seconded,” Raikou says. He looks bored, given that he didn’t hit anycreature during the chaos.

Alira looks over the remaining creatures. “Any opposed?”

“We demand some assurance,” Gruff bellows, “that you will not run away! That you do not intend to warn your comrades! Because if you do not return as stated, if you flaunt the decision of the Council? This means war.”

Celestia stands, deep sorrow etched into her features. “You have my word,” she states, a leg sweeping to indicate all of her fellow Equestrians. “That none of us will attempt to contact any not present in Klugetown, and will all return at the stated time.”

Gruff sits back, satisfied though not content, and brusquely waves a wing. No other creatures object. Alira dismisses the Equestrians.

To say they are overjoyed would be to miss the low-hung heads, the scuffling hooves, the apologetic looks they give everycreature they pass. No words are exchanges, just soft and resigned glances before they immediately look away. Fluttershy can barely see past her hooves for how her mane is in the way, stumbling into those around her and thankful for the wall of bodies blocking her sight.

“Take your break,” Tempest Shadow whispers to herself as the last Equestrian leaves. “It changes nothing.”

“We are in agreement?” Gruff asks once the Equestrians are gone, more of a demand as he scans the other creatures still present. He frowns as the Storm King slips outside without saying anything, turning to Tempest Shadow. “If they refuse, it will take all of us working together. Or we will be defeated in detail, the stragglers picked off at their leisure. What says the Storm Realm?”

“If they refuse?” A sly smile crosses Tempest Shadow’s muzzle. “Then the Storm Armada will sail for Canterlot. A tempestuous… distraction.”

“Saddle Arabia does not like it,” Alira states, tugging at the ceremonial garment she wears. She glances at Haakim; her stallion shares a similar distaste, but nods. “But if the Equestrians refuse, I see no alternative. We must force their hoof, or our entire foundation will crumble. We will ride on Appleloosa and Dodge City with all haste.”

“Manehattan is ours,” Gruff says with a sneer, glancing at Ember. “You can take both Fillydelphia and Baltimare?”

“Hah!” Ember snorts. “What the Dragon Lord commands comes to pass. And I will make sure he commands it. We shall dine on pony flesh!”

“The minotaurs will take the Hollow Shades,” Iron Grip booms. He grits his teeth at the dragon’s assertion, his discomfort shared by all but the griffons. He stammers, having to convince himself of the words. “We… we must all work together to overwhelm the alicorn’s defenses. But only if they do not submit.”

“The Realm of Clouds stands ready if that is the case,” the pale blue unicorn states. She shakes at the thought of losing ponies to keep the sun in motion. But if it must be done? “We can only hope they see reason.”

“Of course,” Tempest Shadow cackles, itching to get power restored to her horn.

Next Chapter: Ch. 42 - Pugilist, Part One Estimated time remaining: 25 Hours, 21 Minutes