"So... uhm..." Spike's voice eventually penetrated the tense silence. "May I say something?"
"Uh... sure..." Rainbow coughed, glancing at Twilight. "Sure thing, Spike."
"Alright. I am... officially freaked out right now."
Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Well put. Good to know that two years of being Ponyville's chief librarian has paid off in wisdom." She stifled a yawn. "Anything else?"
"Sorry," Spike said. "That just slipped out. Uhm... in truth, I have something else to say."
"And what's that?"
"There's... uh... b-barely thirty minutes of moonlight left. And... and this is it, everypony." Spike's breath shuddered. "This is where we get off."
Upon hearing that, Rarity covered her muzzle—letting loose a tiny whimper.
"Awwwwwwwwww..." Pinkie pouted. "Bummer."
"I know I've been in and out a whole lot... b-but that's because I was playing sentry. Moon sentry. And... uh... eheh... I-I couldn't help but listen in on that last part and... uhm... just how doomed are we?"
"Dear Spike..." Princess Celestia's voice took on a soothing tone. "...everything you may have heard just now was spoken in great hypothetical supposition. If there was a legitimate concern for the spiritual fabric of all Equestrian beings, you can easily expect my sister and I to address the populace on the matter."
"Hrmmmfff..." Applejack breathed out the side of her freckled face. "Yer Majesty is lyin'."
"Perhaps so." Fluttershy shuddered. "But can you really blame her, AJ?"
"I doubt there's much that the ponies back home know about Rainbow's conversations with the Princesses," Twilight Sparkle said in a somber tone.
"If they knew even half of the things..." Rarity stammered. "...why... there'd be panic in the streets!"
"Yeah... well..." Applejack huffed. "I downright hate it..." She nevertheless sighed, her frown softening. "Although... ain't much to like about it all neither, I reckon."
"Guys!" Pinkie Pie chirped. "Were you foaled yesterday?! Awesome Dashie here is on an awesome quest to fly around the awesome world and return in time to bring awesomeness to all ponies!" She clenched her jaw. "Why give into despair? Seems like an awfully big party to poop in the end, don't you think?"
Rainbow Dash glanced at all her friends as they spoke in confidence. At last—following a contemplative breath—she spoke aloud: "Spike... I want you to make this crystal clear to the ponies back home. I am returning to Ponyville." Her brow furrowed. "And when I do... they'd sure as Tartarus better roll out the red carpet. Cuz I'll be debuting the return of all my awesome friends! Twilight Sparkle! Applejack! Fluttershy! Rarity! And—you guessed it—Pinkie Pie! And we'll all chillax at Sugarcube Corner with bottles of cider and catch up on all the super snazzy stories that we've missed. Oh... and I'll have restored this plane with the rest of Urohringr too... so I guess you dudes had better start preparing to greet a whole bunch of new neighbors from waaaaaay out of town." She smiled devilishly. "How's that for something exciting?"
When Spike's answer came, it was slightly distorted: "—eesh, Rainbow Dash. I on—...—wish I could transcribe your enthusiasm as much as your words!"
"Mmmmm...!" Twilight sniffled, her ears folding. "It's beginning..."
Rainbow cleared her throat. "Never mind that. Just spread the news, okay? The next time you and the rest of Ponyville hear from me?" She winked towards the lightning-embroiled sky for good measure. "I'll be on the home stretch."
"Heh... sure thing, Rainbow. I'll—...—ews with everypony!"
"Hmmm..." Rarity spoke aside. "Now who's lying?"
Applejack blew her bangs out from before her ghostly face. "T'ain't a lie if the mare believes in what she's sayin'."
"Yeah...?" Rarity glanced aside. "And does she?"
Applejack said nothing.
Rarity squinted. "You know... you're not exactly incapable of lying yourself."
Before Applejack could respond—
"Princess Celestia?" Spike's voice warbled. "Is now a good time?"
"Is now a good time for what?" Rainbow rasped.
Celestia could be heard saying: "Indeed, Spike. We have said about as many things of importance as we can afford to. I suggest we employ the time we have left to good purpose. Sister?"
"Agreed, Celestia. Spike?"
"Cool! Uhm... Rainbow?"
"What's going on, Spike?"
"Look, we—...—n't have much time."
"Yeah." Rainbow nodded. "You're just now starting to break up."
"Whoah, really?"
"Just a bit."
"Okay. Then... uhm... I-I guess there isn't enough time to get any responses. We gotta do this one way."
"Spike... do what one way?" Rainbow moaned.
"There are... uhm... some ponies here who want to say 'hi'... and 'good-bye,' I guess. Since it'll be their last time and all. They've been waiting outside the sarcophagus and... and I promised I'd get as many of them a chance as we could—"
"Oh gosh oh gosh oh gosh!" Pinkie Pie spun in circles, beaming. "Our families'n'friends'alligators'n'stuff!"
"Land's sakes!" Applejack sat up straight, tipping her hat back. "Can we even make it happen?"
"Rainbow? You there?"
Rainbow coughed, then fluttered her wings, attracting attention from Enix and her flock from several meters ahead. "What are you waiting for, Spike?!? Roll 'em through, ya melon fudge!"
Okay, so who wants to bet that the denizens of the Dark Side are all totally chill with each other, or at the least, in a state of ceasefire? There's been so much worry in this batch of chapters on the bloodlust of the three sides that the irony would be palpable if the crew didn't get much fuss from the people there.
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.......
What have I said about giving IC ideas?
And the last meeting with Rainbow and friends friends and family, this is going to be something, but I don't know what.
In this reality, Rainbow has no family. Unless Daring is somehow related to her.
What's with the nervous tone, Spike? Do we get a surprise guest(s)?
.
.
.
.
.
.
I NEED TO KNOW!
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If IC hadn't said that the next books were going to have a gore tag and be dark I would completely agree that all of this was a huge swerve. However I guess the dark and gore stuff could be in flashbacks or something.
I wonder who is here? Fluttershy's parents perhaps!
GOODBYE TIME!
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Anne Frankly, I did Nazi that joke comming
So, ordinarily I'd pick out some of my favourite moments from these chapters and comment on them, buuut...
It's 4 am, I read these chapters in 14 minutes, and the sheer scope of things that were discussed and revealed and stuff...
I need time, more time, time when I'm awake, to go over these in more detail and actually remember them.
-Companions are abound, frozen spectres hound. Utaan.
Either everything is dead and its all Dark Sand Deserts to the edge of infinity,
Or, given the exponential increase in souls being drawn to power something, I highly suspect Rainbow Dash will have to go up against the God Empress and destroy the Onyx Throne.
Load up Timberwolf Chapter.
We prepare for Death and Glory.
In the Future, There Can Be Only War.
Time telling me to say farewell
but I knew that I would fight hell
and I knew: We will
go for another time we can see,
for another time we'll be free,
for no more farewell.
No farewell could be the last one.
If you long to meet again
Wow, how did you know?
7580399 Chrysalis was back there pretty recently, and the war was going on same as always. I doubt we'll have a truce, I doubt it'll be pretty. I do think Rainbow won't be hunted by an entire nation this time, though, at least not at the beginning- it'll probably be more like Ledomare where everyone's too concerned fighting eachother to worry about her except for a few nutjobs who think she's the key to victory. We'll probably even run into some reasonable types who will be happy to leave her alone. Her getting in good with an entire faction isn't strictly impossible, but I'm seriously not expecting it.
Although, with Chrysalis recently gone (and the fact that she had to leave in the first place), there could be a shift of the balance of power in the works. There're too many unknowns and plenty of hype. Get to the Dark Side, already!
I bet ):( is shooting for 300 chapters.
Oh, hey. I guess I'm back... Again. So... who needs a drink?
I wonder if the "Shards of Endrax" are in any way related to the potential soul-sucking scheme. Seems like essence of a powerful Divine miiight make a pretty good catalyst to a supervillain doomsday device.
Welp, the era of the moonchat is drawing to a close. That's a shame, but we all knew it was coming eventually.
Learned a shitton of new info. The two big takaways I got were: 1.) I assume the Book of Saros and Nightmare Moon's armor will play an important role at some point. Rainbow might even get some use out of them; and 2.) I can't help but think that whatever is causing the disruption of the souls involves Endrax in some way.
Hmm...so only particularly harmonic beings--or ones carrying a bunch of harmonic energy--can possibly enter the Armory, right? And souls are harmonic energy, right? So what if this soul-sucker effect is someone charging up a big ol' soul-battery to try and end the Trinary War?
As for the rest of these four chapters, hmm...Tia and Lulu seem rather pessimistic. It's like...racism, but between sides of the plane or 'harmony'/'chaos'-people instead of races. Not that I think Dash will necessarily be able to accomplish much over there, but...it just seems a bit extreme.
Not to mention the fact that, despite Dashie being a stubborn blamey-pants, there's definitely a strong vibe building around the idea that Discord was just...well, not an innocent bystander, but certainly not Ye Olde Dark Overlord of Doomy Dooms. Frankly, Dash showed more personal 'chaos' when she straight-up murderfaced him (while he was helpless) than he explicitly did just playing around with them. One could venture to make an analogy between Dash and Luna here: that just as Luna's own character faults and slow decline left her open to her final, complete corruption, it was Dash's character flaws--manifested in the act of striking out and killing Discord--that allowed his chaos to find a home inside of her.
And I wonder if there isn't another analogy to be drawn, there. The darksiders are certainly not 'innocent', if there even is such a thing to any significant degree over there, but if Discord Himself was made into a tool of Urohringr, who's to say the darksiders, whatever's left of Endrax, and even the Trinary War itself aren't another set of tools, providing something necessary for the Eschaton? Maybe even our mysterious soul-sucker is a part of The Plan.
Of course, 'the best laid plans' and all that...
Time for the (hopefully not) final goodbye...
ಠ_ಠ
I have lost count of the number of times that I have checked for updates for the past few days. The wait though, as always was worth it. Thanks for the new chapters sir :)
7581137 From where I'm standing, there's only so much failure and angst you can have before something gets boring. I'm not opposed to Rainbow taking losses, but right now she's on a big losing streak and it's gone on further than it needed to to achieve maximum effect. And I wouldn't say her victories have been forceful or shoehorned- no more than her losses, at least.
And about those victories and losses, it's not 95%. She's had minor victories in Windthrow, Darkstine, Blue Shelf, Searo's Hold, and Rust/Shoggoth, major victories in the Xonan front, Stratopolis, Amulek and Val Roa, minor losses in Grey Smoke, and Lightning Bearer, and major losses in Ponyville, Foxtaur, Lerris, The Quade and Rohbredden. Places where she both wins and loses, like Silvadel, Deep Ridge (Imre), the Sacred Hold, Durandana and Blue's farm I'm not counting.
If you add all that up and treat minor and major the same, she's got a 9/7 win rate, or 56.25%. Considering that most of her losses tend to be really significant and haunt her for a long time, while most of her victories she just flies away from (only the big four have ever helped her later; Blue Shelf and Shoggoth came back to hurt her), that's a really bad track record. And when you consider that she's currently sitting on two major losses in a row with a third being threatened...
Fingers crossed for something from the Jury, even if its just a passing mention that the Sword of Solstice will be used to contact them with a final message from Dash, and a heads up about the incoming bat ponies that'll be journeying towards Val Roa.
YESSSS! You did save room for one final goodbye! I don't know whether to cheer or cry!
7580896 everyone.
...I wonder what Axan is like drunk.
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I agree that Endrax is probably involved in someway with souls sinking into the ground. However, it could also be the Harmonic Prism sucking souls to stay working on the dark side. Kinda like the golden throne the Emperor uses in 40K.
7581631 I don't think we'd live to tell the tale.
7581190
My reaction too
She knows too much!
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They actually have the Harmonic Prism and they've been gathering the souls to power it up and restore everything back to normal. Just waiting on Dashie.
7581456 The Durandanans won't know about the need to deliver the sword to Val Roa until the daytime period following the original suggestion of the Bleak's Plummet migration at the earliest, and the expedition was delayed according to Austraeoh Abridged. Anything the Jury hears will be second-hand information.
7581399 Likewise.
The last goodbye until hello.
Didn't we just do this?
No. but we did foal yesterday if that is any consolation.
"Please don't panic everypony. Your souls will be lost, I repeat: your souls will be lost. About that grandma you lost the other day? Yeah, she's shafted. Your old friends? Shafted. Your ancestors? Shafted. Your dog? Yeah, you guessed it. Please remain calm, there is nothing to be worried about!"
7580896 Unfortunately, I have recently decided to not drink anymore.
That will probably stop once my birthday hits. If anything I'm just trying it out.
Blue lantern Pinkie Pie. It needs to happen.
Is it time to break out the tissues for the final goodbyes?
That discussion and Evangelion picture from last chapters comments are causing komm Sussex Todd to play during these existential crises
I think the technical term is yaerfaerda'd, Pinkie.
You know... I think they were
Man...this is gonna be a sad goodbye. They don’t know if this really is goodbye or they’ll hear from them again. And after this, Rainbow will not hear any of their voices again for maybe years. Although if there is a next time they talk, it’s gonna be awesome. And there will be a TON of things to catch up on.
I can't help but think Rainbow Dash will never return to Equestria....
Maybe everyone else will....but not her...
Austraoeh: Rainbow Dash says goodbye
The last roll call before we dive.