Solitair Reads The Immortal Game: Chapter 22

The final battle for the fate of all ponykind continues, and I’m not liking this chapter as much as the last one, probably because it seems like there’s more of that bladecasting and anime fighting in it than the previous one. I’m just skimming over that now to get to the good parts, much like how I ended up skimming through much of Fallout Equestria’s action scenes. I cared about the characters in Fallout Equestria and I wanted to see them succeed and bring about a better world, and while my emotional attachment to these iterations of the mane six and the princesses isn’t quite as high, it still exists and I want to know just how the hell they’re going to beat Titan, and how they’ll end up recovering from the end of the war. Anyway, onto the good parts.

Rainbow Dash’s section at the beginning is my easy pick for the favorite moment of the chapter, and not just because it has the least amount of combat in it. Dash has been absent from the battle against the Everfree monsters that her other friends have been taking part in, because she and all of the other pegasi in the army are focusing on redirecting a storm sent Ponyville’s way. There are a couple of great things that I can remember about this section. First there’s the fact that among the harpies that attack the pegasi, there’s also a siren that draws Dash away. But at the last second, Dash resists her song and kills her. Yes, ironically enough, the same corruption experience that only recently caused her to be triggered by hearing about Terra’s experience with the same spell ended up saving her life here, and probably saving the effort to redirect the storm and thus the battle as well. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure what to think about there being a silver lining to such a horrific experience, so I might change my mind about this being a great moment. Howerver, the part at the end of the chapter, in which Spitfire, captain of the Wonderbolts, the team that Rainbow Dash has hyperventilated in front of multiple times, asks Dash for her autograph, made me grin from ear to ear.

I should probably mention the duel between Titan and the team of Luna and Celestia, since it started in the last chapter and I forgot about it entirely, but there’s not much I find all that interesting about it. Titan is dual-wielding and fighting on two fronts all while he’s channeling a spell that will eliminate free will forever and ever, because shut up he can. They are talking a bit about the same old talking points with the only really new thing I learned being that alicorns aren’t born from sex, but… I dunno, Build-A-God Workshop? The process still requires one mare and one stallion for some reason, so the incest in this family is still creepy and Celestia and Luna are still technically inbred. Really, I don’t want to hear another word out of Titan until he gets smacked down.

I was actually able to enjoy the fight scene with the anonymous dragon, because it focused just as much on Rarity’s care and concern for Pinkie Pie and Applejack as it did combat logistics. Twilight’s description of how the battle was wearing down on her, how the creeping dread and knowledge that the battle was going against the ponies and her discomfort at being so revered by her army was alright too, especially when Twilight’s friends treat her like the same mare she used to be.

As for Fluttershy’s return, I had no doubt that she had actually succeeded in convincing Exakktus to man up and fight (to the point where I didn’t even mention that the last chapter cut her off before Exakktus said yes), but her new transformation… I’m not too sure about. It’s cool that she’s got vines growing out of her and all, and I’ll even accept a crown of thorns with the bleeding and everything, and riding on Exakktus’s back presented just about the most metal image in the story, but having her dispassionately take up the practice of animal savagery for this battle makes me scratch my head a little. It reminds me of the DC event comic, Final Crisis, in which Batman, who abhors guns for the role they played in his parents’ death, breaks this vow of his to wield a special magitech gun, because Darkseid is just that much of a threat. If she was displaying the aggressive side of her personality as displayed in “Putting Your Hoof Down,” that’d be one thing, but she’s acting more imposing and calm than angry. Then again, Titan is the only being Fluttershy has ever wished death upon, and in a recent issue of the official comic she watched two herds of monsters tearing each other apart with fascination whereas her friends looked on in horror and nausea, so who the hell knows. It is just for the day, after all.

The final chapter will be finished tomorrow, and then the day after I will be covering the epilogue and posting my final thoughts on the entire story as a whole. Stay tuned until then.