--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0550 HOURS
THE HMS ILLUSTRIOUS
NORTH SEA, OFF THE NORWEGIAN COASTLINE, BOUND FOR KARELIA
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David turned over restlessly in his seat. It was obvious that the AW101 he was flying in had not been built with comfort in mind, but then, what did he honestly expect from a military chopper? Gold plated armrests and a tuxedoed man with a French accent to wait on him?
"I swear, this wouldn't be so bad if they’d allowed us to hold on to our damned luggage," Andre grumbled, brushing a few locks of blonde hair out of his eyes. “They didn’t have to take freakin’ everything!”
Well, okay, they had Andre. He was French: that was something! Maybe he could ask the guy to deck himself out in a tux and serve them all drinks at some point, Lord knows the others would gladly approve of the old stereotype of a French waiter. Hell, Andre might even agree to it as a favor of sorts!
Yeah, sure, right after he finished punching him in the face and asking if that "goddamn Kraut" had put him up to this. Maybe that was one idea he could just let pass.
As David wondered around in his thoughts, Anton grinned and reached into his flight jacket, adjusting the shoulder harness holding him to his seat just enough to reach in and pull out the flask he'd been drinking out of during the flight. He held it up like a gold trophy at a sporting event, a grin of victory plastered across his face. “They did not take everything, little ones.”
"Oh my God," David gasped, Anton's grin spreading to his face. "Don't tell me you seriously did the stereotypical Russian thing and worked like hell to save your booze!?"
"Some stereotypes are there for good reason, mine yankee-doodle tovaricsh," The Russian replied, taking a swig from the flask before handing it to Felipe. "Drink up, everyone. I have a feeling we'll need it."
Though it was obvious the young Brazilian wanted nothing to do with it, Felipe uncapped the small, silver flask and tilted it down his throat, wincing and coughing violently, but managing to keep it all down as he passed the flask on with a painful smile plastered on his face.
Yeah kid, I'm not feeling it either, Dave thought even as he took a swig himself. As expected, the drink burnt the entire way down, feeling more like acid than anything alcoholic, but a second later the familiar tingle of being warmed from the inside out washed over his body, radiating out from his chest. His face morphed from a distasteful grimace to a contented sigh, and he passed the flask on to the next person waiting for a drink.
He turned his head, peeking out the round window built into the chopper’s side. The Illustrious, once a long blip on the horizon, now dominated the view. He could even make out the rows of fighters parked on deck, all with little, ant-like dots racing around them, working furiously. “Nothing like a threat to all humanity to get the military’s collective rear in gear,” he muttered, and it wasn’t just the British. Off in the distance, he could make out at least half a dozen more black dots representing warships, probably American, Norwegian and Russian, all hanging out just over the horizon. No doubt a couple dozen other nations would be joining them soon.
“Davey?” He turned to see his Russian counterpart standing there, having slipped out of his harness, holding his flask out to Dave’s face. “There’s still a little left. The others thought you should have it.”
David did a quick scan of the faces around him. Every one of them shared a variation of the same puckered lips and scrunched-up noses, as if they’d all just had to watch a toddler eat one of its own boogers. Even Liu, the only man ever to drink him under a table, had the corners of his mouth turned down in distaste. The American smiled and accepted the final few sips gladly, this time releasing only a contented sigh aimed in the Chinese diplomat’s direction, much to the man’s obvious chagrin. He handed the flask back and kept that smile up until the helicopter touched down, when he used the sudden bump to let loose with a massive gag capped off with a cough.
“Pussy,” Anton snickered, apparently having kept his eyes on David the entire time, just gripping the overhead support struts to stay on his feet.
“No, just not used to drinking turpentine, is all,” Dave spat back, feeling a surprising amount of satisfaction at the grimace that earned from the Russian.
The rear hatch dropped open and a pair of men in flight uniforms with the Union Jack stitched to the arm ducked inside. One of them took a quick look around, then turned to Anton.
“You guys are the diplomats?”
“Who wants to know?” The Russian replied, keeping a steely glare on the pair.
“Who wants…Her Majesty’s Navy, that’s who!”
Anton gave him a look as if to say Is that supposed to impress me? But he followed up with a quick, curt nod, which the soldier was more than happy to accept as a yes.
“Follow us,” the other soldier said, and the pair jogged out of the chopper and waited on the tarmac, turning back to the group as the blades whipped the wind up all around them. The diplomats quickly shrugged off their harnesses and went after them, thudding down the ramp and onto the deck of the Illustrious as one, marching together in perfect step without a second thought.
The men in camo led the group away from the helipad and back towards the bridge, jogging past men loading up weapons, performing systems tests, and rushing equipment from one part of the landing strip to the next. A civilian might have been impressed by the sheer effort being expended for a war that hadn’t even occurred yet, but Dave kept his mind focused, his eyes on the massive tower jutting out from the otherwise flat landing strip. He hadn’t always been a civilian, after all, and it was easy to fall right back into that old line of thinking from his days as a marine, back during a time when he’d stood on the deck of a carrier not too unlike this, when…when…
God above…Christ alive…don’t tell me that’s her! Please, Jesus Christ almighty…
He shook the memory off, shoving it right back down to the furthest reaches of his mind, as far from the light of day as he could bury it. There was a time and a place to deal with shit like that, and now wasn’t one of them. Problem was, as a psychiatrist might have found, it had been neither that time nor that place for the past five years.
He had just about finished shoving the memory back into the hellish pit from which it came when the group reached the tower. A large, steel door was opened for them, and they all ducked inside, panting with the quick jog they’d been treated to, though not as heavily as one might think a bunch of diplomats would pant. The soldiers stood at attention next to a door at the far side of the small, metal room the diplomats found themselves in, standing ramrod straight and in complete silence.
“Well, nothing like a brisk jog to get the old heart movin’,” Lisa joked once she’d caught her breath. Which was just before I did, David noticed, she must jog. Well, I guess, duh, with a body like that.
“Speak for…yourself…Limey…” Anton huffed, his hand reaching for his coat out of habit, then pausing when he remembered the pair of men watching them. “Cripes…haven’t done that in a while.”
“Yeah, and it shows, tovarisch,” Liu joked.
“Shove it up your ass.”
“Atten-SHUN!” The soldiers cried, somehow standing even straighter than they had been. David had to force the urge to follow suit back down, not wanting to explain why he was standing in the perfect posture drilled into him by the Marine Corps to the rest of the group. In a few moments, the door between the soldiers squeaked open, and through it stepped a large man in the pure-white uniform of an admiral, and again David had to suppress the urge to salute. Foreign navy or not, the uniform of an admiral, especially one as highly-maintained and decorated as this guy’s, was an impressive sight.
The Admiral surveyed the group with a pair of weathered, old eyes, set beneath a cap that only revealed a few strands of red hair that had escaped beneath its brim. He would be the perfect stereotype of an old sea commander if he just had a massive set of whiskers, but nope: his broad chin was as clean as a baby’s bottom, to David’s semi-disappointment. When he spoke, it was with an old, gravelly rasp combined with his British accent, making him sound like the sort of guy who sat alone in the corner of a pub, just daring someone to start something.
“Hello, and I am Admiral Peters,” the gravelly rasp said. “You lot are the UNCDI reps for the Isles?”
“That’s correct, sir,” Lisa said in a timid little tone that, to Dave at least, fit her about as well as clogs on a duck. She offered her hand, which the Admiral took with a firm shake, causing everyone in the room to release a collective breath they didn’t know they’d been holding. “I’m Lisa Townshend, for London, and these are my associates from each of the other Security Council nations.”
Those weathered eyes scanned them, seeming to pierce right into each person’s soul as they passed over. They dwelt on Anton for a moment, the Russian returning the look, each man just looking at one another. Not glaring, per se, but more like sizing the other up. Then the Admiral moved on to David. “You the Yank?” He asked.
“Uh…yes sir,” Dave said, a bit taken aback that he’d been pointed out so quickly and with such ease. In a flash, he had the image of the Admiral having him thrown overboard because of some deep-seated grudge with Americans that nobody dared question. But the Admiral simply nodded, a quick thank you for offering up a simple fact, nothing more. Then he turned to step back through the door he’d walked in through, his hands folded neatly behind his back.
“Try t’keep up,” the old navy man said. He didn’t have to repeat himself. The group was practically on top of him, remaining at his back as they walked at a pace just barely slower than the jog they’d just been put through. Their heels all tapped on the metal plating, the Admiral keeping the pace up as they rushed past rows of closed doors with muffled voices coming from inside, some jovial, some argumentative, a few obviously drunk.
“Sir,” Lisa said, remaining at the Admiral’s side. “If I may be so bold…”
“No questions.” The Admiral said briskly. “I’ll tell you when you can ask, but not here. Too many ears.”
Lisa looked a bit surprised at his quick admonition, but nodded and kept pace with him, keeping her eyes locked straight ahead and her mouth shut, all the while allowing the men a decent look of her behind as it swayed in front of them all, like a carrot at the end of a string. Even Dave couldn’t help but chance a couple quick glances from the bottoms of his eyes while keeping his chin raised.
The Admiral led them to a large freight elevator and swiped a keycard, produced from one of his many pockets. Then he removed his hat and leaned in as a retinal scanner worked over his eyeball, which revealed a numeric keypad from a small slot in the wall, into which he entered a long, impossible-to-follow code. At last, a section of the wall next to the freight elevator opened up with a pneumatic hiss, revealing yet another elevator.
“Clever,” Franz remarked. The Admiral didn’t even look over his shoulder, only stepping into the elevator with the full expectation that the group would be right behind him. He wasn’t disappointed. Once they had all crowded together, the Admiral pressed a large, red button on the far wall and the door slid shut. The elevator jerked once and began the long descent into the deeper underbelly of the ship, machinery humming away somewhere beneath them.
“I apologize for my brashness,” the Admiral said. “Time is of the essence, however, and military protocol strictly prohibits me from discussing this matter someplace where there could be even a chance of eavesdroppers.”
“And this elevator qualifies because…” Dave said.
“Of the amount of money we poured into making this entire part of the ship just that sort of place,” the Admiral replied, a knowing smile on his face. “I’d go into details, but then I would have to kill you.”
“Sir,” Lisa interrupted, again in the uncharacteristic, mousy tone. David couldn’t say he cared for it, deciding right then and there to bring it up with her at some point. “If I may be so bold, what is this all about? We were taken from our headquarters rather abruptly, and nobody seems willing to divulge any answers, especially in the face of the…uh…the anomaly.”
Sure. Anomaly. That was a fair enough name for it. Dave might have gone with “harbinger of man’s doom,” but that was just him.
“The anomaly is exactly why we’re here,” the Admiral explained. “As I’m sure you lot have already been made aware, an SAS platoon was on maneuvers off the Isle of Man when the new portal appeared.”
Anton nodded once again, as curtly as he had before, and the Englishman took this as a sign to continue. “Well, that platoon managed to get their hands on some Tachyon Inhibitors and subsequently launched a top-secret raid into the other side.”
“Oh my God…” David gasped, along with the rest of the group. “What did they find!?”
The Admiral sighed, peeling off his hat and running his fingers through his thinning hair. “There is no simple way to put this,” he explained. “So I’ll keep it brief: the SAS managed to capture this other Equestria’s version of Target Alpha.”
The elevator fell into stunned silence. “The Princess of Day…” Chen muttered in a tiny, childish voice. Everyone recognized the Princess’s old codename on the International Court’s most wanted list. Chen followed up with a long, mumbled string of curses in his native Han.
“Y-you’re serious,” Anton stammered, his eyes wide.
The Admiral nodded, this time throwing in a smile that lit up his whole face. “I am.”
A loud thump filled the room as Franz’s eyes rolled back in his skull and his body slammed into the floor. Felipe stooped to help him up, his eyes wide with disbelief.
“Thank you…” an uncharacteristically small voice said. Lisa again, keeping herself supported with one of the rails lining the elevator’s walls. “Thank Jesus…Thank Christ! Oh, thank you, thank you,” she cried out in relief, sinking to her knees, sobbing the words over and over again.
Anton was the first to reach her, patting her back as she bawled into the stainless steel floor. Everybody understood. It was one thing to know the evil bitch was scheming thousands of miles away from your home, but when your entire country was under threat? Especially considering what she had done the last time, just when humanity thought they had been on the verge of beating her? That was something else altogether. Lisa had just gone from wondering if her home would be a radioactive wasteland tomorrow to knowing it would be safe for another day in less than twenty-four hours.
“Oh my God,” Andre gasped, looking up at the Admiral. “That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? This is where you’re keeping her.”
“For the time being,” the Admiral shrugged.
“Mother FUCK!” David yelled, suddenly snapping out of his stupor. “She’s here!? On this ship!? Why aren’t we evacuating and nuking her from orbit, then!?”
“Relax, kid. We have enough Tachyon Inhibitors on her to fight the Collision Wars all over again. We could keep both her and the original Celestia locked up here, and they’d still be about as powerful as a gnat. In fact, we are sort of doing that right now.”
The whole group exchanged looks. “What do you mean by that?” Anton asked, ever the fearless leader.
“There was something else,” the Admiral sighed, twirling his cap on one finger. “The SAS squad that captured the Princess captured another Alicorn.”
“Jesus…” Andre moaned. “That can happen? There can be more than one at a time?”
The Admiral nodded. “It seems as though our Celestia wasn’t entirely honest with us, or with her own people. Big surprise there.”
“That’s where we’re going,” Andre mused, his face suddenly growing pale. An inane look crossed his face, a sudden smile that David found all too unsettling. When he spoke again, his accent became almost stereotypically thick, as if what he had learned had turned him into a cartoon version of himself. “We’re going to see ze pretty pony pwincess.”
The Admiral nodded. “You lot are supposed to be the experts on international relations and how these four-legged bastards are supposed to react to us. You’re probably the only people in the entire European sphere even remotely qualified to deal with this.”
“That’s an utterly terrifying thought,” Dave muttered dryly. “So, who gets to chat up the evil, genocidal, bitch?”
“We’ve decided on that, actually: the Princess appears to possess the capability of English-speaking, much like the ponies of the first Equestria could speak Mandarin immediately upon entering our world.”
“Actually, it was simplified Han,” Liu put in.
The Admiral waved him off and continued. “It’s obvious that whatever magic voodoo bullshit was in play at the start of the Collision Wars are in play here, just like it’s obvious that whoever goes in now should be able to speak the language.”
“That’s everybody in this elevator,” Andre quickly pointed out.
“Well, maybe ‘speak’ isn’t the right word,” the Admiral turned to Lisa. “We were thinkin’ it might be best if a native speaker, someone who spent their whole life around the language, went in there first.”
She stood on a pair of shaking legs, pressing herself to her feet with Anton’s help. “I-I dunno,” she said, still supporting herself on the rail. “I-I can try…”
“Lis, you just learned your country isn’t going to be a crater tomorrow morning, when everything in the last twelve hours said it would,” Dave pointed out, stepping up. “You could use a breather. I’ll do it.”
On the outside, he made sure to spend every effort he could on appearing cool and calm. On the inside, every one of his instincts screamed to him how bad of an idea this was. How absolutely he was signing his own death warrant. How completely this would be painting a target on his back for one of the most powerful creatures in the universe to hone in on. But he just had to take one look at Lisa to know he was doing the right thing. She was just regaining the ability to stand; Lord knows she was in no shape to face down Hitler reincarnated as a talking horse princess.
The Admiral scowled, evidently not keen on switching out one of his countrymen for an American, but relented easily. “Just so you know, we’ll be right in the next room while you talk to her. She’s restrained, but that doesn’t mean you should approach her or try to pet her or any shit like that.”
David’s heart dropped into his stomach, had a nibble of the donut he’d eaten for breakfast, and catapulted itself right up into his throat. “Wait, you’re saying I’m gonna be in the same room!?”
“We want this first meeting to be face to face,” the Admiral replied. “We’ll record everything and hopefully, from her reaction to you, we’ll be able to gauge how much she shares with her counterpart. That’s the deal. That won’t be a problem, now, will it?”
Yes, it will be a big fuckin’ problem! Dave almost screamed, but one more look at the way Lisa still trembled allowed him to hammer his jaw shut at the last moment. “No. It. Won’t.” He managed to squeak with a little smile. Sure. Who wants to see their 30th birthday anyway?
“Excellent, then it’s settled,” the Admiral said just as the elevator came to a halt. “And just in time, too. Ladies and Gentlemen, we’re going into the lair of the beast.”
The doors whined open onto a long, stainless steel hallway that looked like it hadn’t been touched until recently, and even then in passing. Dave took a whiff of the air, and his nose wrinkled with the scent of engine oil. “Huh. The lair of the beast smells kinda like my grandma’s house.”
The entire group turned on him, their looks telling him they were honestly questioning his sanity. “What?” He asked. “Grandma was a bit of a car freak.”
“Way to kill the mood, yankee-doodle,” Anton smirked, though his tone suggested that he wasn’t joking.
The group set out along the empty hallways, passing vacant bunks and empty cantinas with darkened vending machines that hummed in an atmosphere that otherwise would have been eerily quiet. “Where are the guards?” Lisa asked aloud, breaking the silence for a blessed moment.
“On the floor above us, behind a few layers of heat-proofed metal and sitting upon a pile of inhibitors,” the Admiral replied. “Trust me, if they are ever needed, that’s where they need to be to even begin containment. Everything down here, from the doorways to the prisoners’ water supply, is controlled from up there. If this Princess is even a fraction as powerful as the first, she would just slaughter any man we have down here before the guys upstairs had a chance to react.”
“Good enough for us diplomats though, right?” Andre smirked. The Admiral said nothing, only leading them to the next set of metal doors.
“This is where we part ways,” he announced, pulling a keypad out of a hidden slot in the wall and punching in yet another long, overly-complex code. He stood to the side, shouting over the pneumatic hiss and grind of another hidden door sliding open, a flashing warning light casting his face in a strange, orange glow. “We will be watching everything from upstairs. A few guards will be sent down later to help you all settle in. Are there any questions?”
There wasn’t.
The Admiral nodded, and saluted once, standing perfectly straight. “Godspeed to you all,” he said, then dropped his hand and strode back to the elevator, his back still as straight as could be.
The group eyed one another, standing in silence until the door opened fully and the warning light stopped blinking. Anton was the first to step forward, a determined look in his eyes while he ducked through the entrance and into the dim light beyond. The rest of the group still stood there, nobody wanting to be the next ones through, and then Anton’s hand appeared from the other side. Swallowing his fear, David took it, grasping the aging Russian harshly, and then he held out his hand. Lisa followed suit, laying her hand in his and offering hers out to the next person, and so they continued until everybody held a hand in a long, unbroken chain. Then, holding their breaths, the group ducked through the portal and into the unknown, some praying, some hoping for the best, all holding onto the hand in their grip for dear life, hoping that the next person in line maybe had a bit more courage than they did.
Aaaand here we go! Like I said before, I hope that cooler heads will prevail and that, after much shouting, cooler heads will prevail. Hopefully before humanity gets their war machine back online and points it at Equestria, because that will result in a lot of people dying.
4487811 ponies too![:pinkiesad2:](https://static.fimfiction.net/images/emoticons/pinkiesad2.png)
Pick up the pacing a little and it will! For God's sake man, there's building suspense and there's getting lost in the little details. This happens to be the latter.![:ajbemused:](https://static.fimfiction.net/images/emoticons/ajbemused.png)
4487818 Next chapter! Pinkie promise!
Dammit, quit dragging this OUT.
Oooooh man, I wonder how the first meeting will play ouut~~
But i also wonder how the news of canon Equestria appearing is handled in TCB Equestria, more then 'The Prince' finding out.
(especially supporters of the original plan)
Leaning in my chair here, man! Don't leave us hanging for too long!
4487834
4487841 Week or two at most! Promise!
4487816 Eh, the term 'people' becomes vague when you have multiple species in the mix. In fiction I just refer to anything sapient as 'people' to make it easier on myself. So yes, ponies were included in that mix.
4487852 Oh, I guess that makes sense![:pinkiesmile:](https://static.fimfiction.net/images/emoticons/pinkiesmile.png)
4487873 Trust me, I am not letting this one die.
Well, I'm glad to see I'm not the only one frustrated with how long it's being dragged out.![:ajbemused:](https://static.fimfiction.net/images/emoticons/ajbemused.png)
4487883 NEXT CHAPTER PROMISE!
You had exams. That's the standard reason for a lot of late chapters and stories this time of year, and it's perfectly reasonable.
That said, this next chapter or so is going to reeeeeally tweak the diplomacy the wrong way. And let's be honest; it'd be a bad story if it didn't. Amiright?
4487904 u be rite.
4487875
How big was the ship? The way you wrote it, it seemed like the ship was as tall as a skyscraper.
4487950 We're talkin' futuristic aircraft carrier here. I don't have exact specs thought out, but she is a big 'un.
troll.me/images/american-psycho/ive-had-enough-of-these-fucking-cliffhangers.jpg
Oh, you little rat bastard. After that cliffhanger, if you take this long to get out the next chapter I'm going to find you and bash your head in with a giant Twilicane scepter.
4487852
Aye, same with myself.
"People" to me just means "Beings that posses Sapient capacities". You know. People.
It's when 'people' stop being 'people' that's the problem...
4488014
I won't.
4488183 HO! NEXT CHAPTER!
4488183 Well, there is a difference between normal diplomatic missions and the fact the non-canon Celestia would melt all of them in an instant for comparison. The Admiral speaking about guard placement doesn't help either.
4488304 Danke
Oh my word, what the hell? Fictional parts of the government acting civilized instead of a bunch of dimwitted rabid dogs?!
derpicdn.net/img/view/2014/5/13/625420.png
But yeah, we're going deeper and deeper into the first incident and the aftermath. From the comments, I presume you have a very good reason for Lisa and David to act the way they do, and it's gonna get really spicy when Canonlestia hears of it.
Now there's one piece of criticism I wanna give: your worldbuilding is marvelous, but you're going overboard with the limelight you're giving your human OCs. We came here to see Canon Equestria dealing with a mutilated human world, not only the human world, dang it!
(j/k, but the point stands)
4488496 Thank you much! And also, next chapter. Srsly gaiz. Next chapter.
Wow. And tachyons; aren't those among the only known particles that can go faster than the speed of light? Theoretically, of course.
This may be the first time I've ever squeed in excitement to see a chapter update in a story and I was not disappointed. Thank you for continuing to write this.
4488665 Not only that, they're also the super-sciencey sounding thing that allows me to cook up enough sciencey-sounding bullcrap to come up with some great human tech for countering pony magic.
4488669 I ain't giving up. That's not my thing.
So we have 2 Shining Armors, one who wants Celestia dead, and one who wants her very alive, and a world of 7 billion humans who are on the tipping point of going to war, again.
Dis gon' be good
![:eeyup:](https://static.fimfiction.net/images/emoticons/eeyup.png)
4488725 Thanks![:pinkiehappy:](https://static.fimfiction.net/images/emoticons/pinkiehappy.png)
so going from this i take it that they are aware that this is not the same Celestia as the one that they hate? i don't think that was brought up earlier in the story, unless i missed it.
This will be absolutely riveting to read. I can't wait for the next chapter to introduce the diplomats to Celestia. I really feel sorry for them, while this Celestia isn't anything like the other Celestia they don't know that. After what they went through I'm surprised they're even willing to talk to her let alone face her, that takes some real guts. Anyways here's to hoping the next chapter comes out soon.
I had just been thinking about this, wondering when it was going to continue. This is just about the last serious-minded TCB story that's going. Keep it alive, man! I'll really be looking forward to the next bit.
4488946 I wouldn't be surprised if they freaked out not from any expected but startling reaction, but because ol' Celly tried to winghug them all together right out of the blue after the whole story is told.
4488725 8 billion.
Yayyyy! So glad this story isn't dead!!! I'm so hyped for next chapter!![:twilightsmile:](https://static.fimfiction.net/images/emoticons/twilightsmile.png)
I'll be very interested to see exactly how they try to talk to Canonlestia. Will they be professional, or will some of their fear & hatred for Tyrantlestia slip into the conversation? When they come face-to-face will Canonlestia be able to 'read' what they've been through in their voices & reactions? If she acts like how we'd expect, (kind, gentle, reasonable) will this merely result in reactions of suspicion, confusion & anger from the Humans?
I can't wait to find out!
4489210
Seven billion.
4487967
So it isn't this HMS Illustrious? I figured that in this universe, she simply wasn't decommissioned due to the war (or recommissioned once the shooting started). After all, aircraft carriers take a long time to build, and a somewhat outmoded warship is better than none.
4488183
For all intents and purposes, to them she's Satan. The sheer terror is understandable. Which only makes me respect the SAS guys who went into Hell itself, from the sound of it mostly on their own initiative, even more.
4488929
They know it's not the same Equestria, because the first one never went away. It's still sitting in the South China Sea, only sporting a few new craters now. We haven't been told yet what exactly happened to TCB!Celestia, but odds are they managed to kill her in the end.
Woo. Two new chapters.![:pinkiehappy:](https://static.fimfiction.net/images/emoticons/pinkiehappy.png)
Time to read. After work.![:pinkiesick:](https://static.fimfiction.net/images/emoticons/pinkiesick.png)
4489660 5 billion
4489779
It's seven billion.
Less if you counted the death toll of a few good nuclear engagements.
Sweet, update
Also I wonder how many more times our dear author is going to promise the diplomatic meeting in the next chapter (I believe you, but still its a lot of apologies), I count six so far
This is a first time i am rooting for the ponies in a "The Conversion Bureau" fic. Seriously, new equestria is innocent and i find myself wanting shinning armor to pull a badass rescue for Celestia and Twilight because of that.
4489181 I could totally see that happening. Once she learned of their suffering she goes to winghug them and they freak out.
Didn't TCB Equestria have a Luna?
4490387 Murdered, cause of death was 'sickness'.
4490416 hmmm. i must have missed that part, because i know i read about twilight getting killed, but cant remember reading about luna
4490416
In which version? Because aren't there like 500 conversion bureau variants?