Rage Review: Resist and BIte (Chapter 16, Part B)

Chapter 16: Slavery experience (Part B)

It's the Slavery Experience! Get on board the ship for the onerous Middle Passage! Then get auctioned and sold away from all your friends and loved ones for a hopeless life of servitude!

Wow, that got dark fast.

---

So Charlie and Sunburst get to their literal slave labor together.

Which is, really, more weirdly free-form slavery.

In all the open-air slave systems of which I am aware, whether convict labor or plantation field hands, slaves are members of work groups (often called "gangs"), who are in turn assigned group tasks. The point of this is that one overseer can supervise a gang or group of gangs, who in turn knows what they are supposed to do.

This is important because, given their druthers, slaves would rather (1) escape or (2) loaf around. After all, they're being forced to work and don't stand to personally-profit in any sense from their labors: usually, they are motivated by fear of punishment rather than hope of reward.

When slaves are assigned to gangs, the overseers can quickly see if anyone is missing and act appropriately. When gangs are assigned to tasks at locations, the overseers can quickly see if the gangs are at the proper locations doing their assigned tasks.

Without some such system, there is no way for the overseers to tell if a slave is sneaking off to escape from the camp, or simply find a quiet corner to take a nap.

No one actually assigned Charlie to work with Sunburst. And no one is really overseeing them.

Charlie activated his horn and scooped the coal with a large iron shovel. Once he scooped tons of them, he cautiously lifted it above the wheelbarrow's iron tray. Then he poured the coal into the tray, and he kept doing the same exertion until the wheelbarrow was full.

After one minute, the wheelbarrow was full.

Several points of interest here.

(1) Charlie's horn is most definitely not being restrained by any ring, as he's holding "tons" of coal in it."

(2) Between the ability to lift "tons" of anything, and his force field, Charlie could mop up the floor with this whole Chinese reinforced-platoon strength force. (And I do mean "mop up the floor," because some of them would have been reduced to a gooey reddish-white paste by his likely tactics).

(3) How big is this shovel, that Charlie can scoop up "tons" of coal with it at a time? For that matter, since Charlie's using telekinesis to do this, why is he bothering with the shovel? (Possible explanation: it takes less skill to lift the shovel and use it to scoop the coal than to lift all the pieces of coal at once without a shovel).

(4) How is the bin of a "wheelbarrow" holding "tons" of coal at a time? Perhaps Author does not grasp that a "wheelbarrow" is a two-wheeled cart that is pushed around by lifting the near end, and hence must be a fairly small cargo transport. Does Author perhaps mean "minecar" or even "railcar?" (The Equestrians canonically have both).

Then Charlie and Sunburst began to push the wheelbarrow to a large yellow heavy duty bucket with all of their strength. And thanks to Charlie's time in fitness first in Westfield Paramatta and Westfiled Sydney. It was more easier to push, despite the fact that his pony body was making it a little bit diffcult.

Is Story a paid advertisement for these gyms? "Come to Westfield and build muscles, guaranteed usable even if you're transmogrified into a nonhuman!"

This confirms that Author isn't aware that Alicorns canonically have Earth Pony strength, though.

While pushing the wheelbarrow. Charlie looked up and saw that there were some ponies, yaks, dragons, Kirin, diamond dogs, changelings and griffons putting materials like metal plates and strong woods on the large metal walls while standing on wooden logs, and the wall had six floors, and it also had two large elevators installed on the sides. And on the top, there were seven soldiers armed with sniper rifles observing outside of Canterlot.

There's something vaguely Biblical about this description. "And the W had N1 X, and it had N2 Y, and on the top there were N3 Z, yea, verily."

From where did all these "metal plates" come? General Jin's wardrobe?

There are seven soldiers on a wall which is presumably at least a mile on a side, and must have at least two sides. That's one in command and three per side.

Watch-on and watch-off, that's 14 soldiers assigned to wall duty when they're not sleeping. 21 soldiers if it's a more standard three-watch setup, whether two watches per group per day or one long watch per group per day.

That is a big bite out of a 40-60 man force -- at least 24% to 34% of the total strength. This is in addition to anyone guarding slaves or assigned to offensive operations or support duty.

"Why do they need a wall mister Sunburst?" Charlie asked.

"I-I do not know." Sunburst said with a shake of his head "All I know is that they have been pressuring us to finish that wall for the last couple of days." He said with a depressed expression.

I have no idea what the wall is for. Maybe wall-building is as instinctive for Mainland Chinese as hive-building is for bees?

Charlie was very perplexed. Are the Chinese preparing for a war? Or are they trying to renovate this place as a new country?

They are obviously fighting a war, with the aim of conquering and in some way using Equestria. Unless Story is even more perverse than I imagine.

They work some more, then:

"Say Charlie." Sunburst said looking at him "How was your journey with my daughter?" He asked.

"It was okay." Charlie said with a shrug "We walked around the land and gained some knowledge about each other's culture and species." He finished.

"That's good to hear." Sunburst said with a smile. "What else did you guys do?" He asked.

CHARLIE: Oh, went to the movies, had dinner -- I brought her back before 10!

"Well, we tried to get some assistance in the Kirin Village, Griffonstone Cloudsdale, Changeling Kingdom and dragon lands but, they all declined to accept the request we desideratum or asked because of what my kind has done to them." He said in sadness.

"Oh my, then we might not have a chance of retaking our land." Sunburst said with a disconsolated expression.

"Don't worry mister Sunburst, I'll think of a plan." Charlie assured him.

Charlie, it was your last brilliant plan that has apparently doomed Equestria.

Seriously, though, why is Sunburst despairing so? Are the Equestrians so utterly lacking in initiative, that without Charlie The Designated Hero personally trying to organize a resistance with his Amazing Kewl Sooper Dooper L33T Diplomacy Skillz the whole damn country will just let the Chinese capture them one small group at a time, and then be held in slavery forever by one platoon of light infantry per city? Seriously?

Not all authorities would have been in the capital city. There would be provincial and municipal leaders, and commanders of various armies and garrisons. None of them are doing anything? Not Celestia, not Luna, not Shining Armor, nor Cadance? They're all just sitting around waiting on freakin' Charlie Lam, Hero From Another World?

WHY?

Before they could reach the coal pile with the wheelbarrow. A revving noise was heard, Charlie looked to his left and saw a green coloured military jeep driving towards them. But to the creatures, it was a metallic carriage of some sort.

Um ... Story?

A jeep is "a metallic carriage of some sort." So "the creatures" would be absolutely right!

For that matter, the Equestrians canonically have both railroad and road steam engines. We've seen both onscreen.

Colonel Lin gets out.

Lin then walked up to the working area and observed his surroundings and saw that all of the creatures are doing an efficient work, but not too well because he can see that some of them are exhausted. And some were petrified.

(1) If they are "doing an efficient work" then how they doing it "not too well?"

(2) "Petrified?"

"The Lieutenant General is very interested with the three enemies all of you have defeated a while ago. So he is now organizing a sparring match with you all fighting against some of our new recruits in the military. And some are already in there fighting." Lin announced "Anyone want to volunteer?" He asked.

The ponies, yaks, changelings, dragons, diamond dogs, Kirins and griffons all kept themselves silent because they do not want to get injured.

This is a horrible idea from the Chinese point of view, given their limited numbers. Having said that, it's sort of strange that none of the Equestrians, not even of the warrior races like Dragons and Griffons, want the opportunity to hurt Chinese with the permission of the Chinese themselves.

"And whoever beats one men, gets some of their food back, as well as two bottles of clean drinking water." Lin said.

That is a pathetic reward. Having said that, if the Chinese are working their prisoners without giving them food or clean drinking water, this is confirmed to be attempted mass murder.

Why aren't the Equestrians rising?

When Sunburst heard this, he stood up and took the challenge.

"I'll go."

As a research mage Unicorn, with very little physical strength or combat magic, he is the last Pony who should be volunteering for this.

"Mister Sunburst." Charlie called him, and Sunburst looked back at him "Do not accept the challenge. Because to my accounts, it is e very hypothetical."

I'm not sure what Charlie would be saying in English. I think he means "By my reckoning, your chances are dubious."

---

Colonel Lin drags Sunburst around by his horn (for no very obvious reason) into the headquarters. He hands him over to an MP, who (also for no very obvious reason) drags him around by his right hoof.

There is a detailed description of the path they take through the building.

Finally, Sunburst reaches the sparring room.Sunburst began to observe the room. The room was as big as a castle hall and room, he looked forward and saw a square green mat on the floor as well as thirteen invaders in jungle suits sitting around it. There were also two invaders in the same jungle suits standing near the gate while wielding their monstrous weapons. And the room also had four red flag banners with five stars.There are at least 15 Chinese in the room, plus 1 in the Arena of Sport ... I mean, sparring circle. Adding the 7 on the wall, that's 23 Chinese, meaning that a mere 17 to 37 Chinese are doing everything else the Invaders need doing.

Big Mac is also in the arena, and he knocks out his opponent. Note that realistically, the one he knocked out would be unfit for duty for at least the rest of the day.

"Thank you for the resources." Big Mac said with a bow of his head, but Jin disregarded him.

You're right. Big Mac would never say this. At most he would say "Eeyup!" or "Obliged" or something of that sort.

Yes, Big Mac is capable of greater loquaciousness, but he only talks at length to people he trusts. He does not trust the Chinese!

Big Mac returns to his work group and family, and the one big way he's in character here is that he was willing to risk himself for his family.

General Jin decides to fight three creatures at once, as a demonstration. The three creatures he will fight are Sunbust, a Changeling, and a Dragon.

Jin then walked onto the mat and starred at the unicorn, changeling and dragon with no signs of timidity towards the three creature because, he and his army including some swat units and police officers have also killed and enslaved many of their kind which proves that they are very frail.

So Jin apparently doesn't comprehend the force multiplier of firearms. Nor that he is about to fight without firearms.

And even with that, Author is cheating: Jin's reinforced platoon has been so successful mostly by auctorial fiat. At no point has Story given a coherent explanation of how this was possible.

The dark blue female dragon attempted to slash the invader in the face with her sharp and petrying claws. But Jin responded with a front kick to the her face, and the force of his kick knocked the dragon's teeth out and sent her flying off the mat.

How big is this Dragon? How is Jin's kick powerful enough to knock her teeth out, when those teeth are firmly-enough seated to enable her to bite through rock and metal?

And what are "petrying" claws? This may mean "petrifying," but that still makes little sense.

Sunburst and the changeling both worked together when they witnessed the fallen dragon. Sunburst charged his horn and the changeling swung his right hoof back and attempted to blast and punch the invader in the chest at the same time.

When Jin noticed their attacks, he countered the magic and punch attempt with his wrists ...

How exactly does he block a magic blast with his wrists?

... and sent two back kicks to their chests, and the changeling was sent crashing next to the dragon, and Sunburst was sent crashing to where he started.

Note the highly-variable power of Jin's feet.

The green changeling whispered to the female dragon and told her to stop fighting him by shaking his head. And the dragon bregrudingly had to cease.

Why?

Sunburst insists on continuing to fight. Fortunately for Jin, Sunburst inexplicably gives up on using magic and instead fights hoof to hand. Sunburst lasts a surprisingly long time (because he's a Named Canon Character?) before being defeated. Sunburst's "hoof" is broken (whatever that means; Story clearly does not have a good grasp of equine anatomy).

So falls Sunburst -- at least for now.

And so endeth the chapter, with its metal plates, strong wood, floors, elevators and snipers.

Comments

[DILLYbOd]

Yay, a rage review... I shall read it my friend.

[AC97]

No one actually assigned Charlie to work with Sunburst. And no one is really overseeing them.

Since organization is hard with such small numbers on their part, a laissez-faire approach to slavery when the perpetrators are showing signs of being genocidal is definitely the best approach.

There's surely nothing that could go wrong.

(1) Charlie's horn is most definitely not being restrained by any ring, as he's holding "tons" of coal in it."

It's almost like that's a general rule of slaves working, if I didn't know better, because Twilight's reasoning for not being able to use magic was "too injured" and Starlight, when she told everyone to get back to work, judging by the following text:

He looked in front of him and saw a light purple unicorn mare with velvet hair lifting up a giant rock along with an orange one next to her. The unicorn then lowered the rock and looked at all of the creatures behind her.

"Quick, get back to work." Starlight said in an exhausted voice. Then, all of the creatures began to do their work again.

The fact that this apparent policy of "they can use magic while working" hasn't somehow resulted in a good portion of everyone escaping by now, or every last invader dead, or otherwise incapacitated, is laughable.

(Possible explanation: it takes less skill to lift the shovel and use it to scoop the coal than to lift all the pieces of coal at once without a shovel).

I like the explanation that "it's a bit more convenient to use a tool, even with magic, less to focus on" so, meh.

From where did all these "metal plates" come? General Jin's wardrobe?

(It really wouldn't surprise me at this point)

There are seven soldiers on a wall which is presumably at least a mile on a side, and must have at least two sides. That's one in command and three per side.

Watch-on and watch-off, that's 14 soldiers assigned to wall duty when they're not sleeping. 21 soldiers if it's a more standard three-watch setup, whether two watches per group per day or one long watch per group per day.

That is a big bite out of a 40-60 man force -- at least 24% to 34% of the total strength. This is in addition to anyone guarding slaves or assigned to offensive operations or support duty.

More logistics horror stories.

None of them are doing anything? Not Celestia, not Luna, not Shining Armor, nor Cadance? They're all just sitting around waiting on freakin' Charlie Lam, Hero From Another World?

WHY?

And there's Ms. Canonically Grownup Alicorn, who blasted a hole through multiple floors, and shot out of the castle, and shattered an ancient artifact in her infancy, and would have a handle on her powers by now, be able to control them.

(Not trying to downplay any of the others, mind you; I have a soft spot for all of them, especially Cadance the Often Underrated)

Seriously, they wouldn't even need an platoon of their own to win, the extra numbers would just be for good measure, so the Chinese would not be allowed to escape, slip away.

This is a horrible idea from the Chinese point of view, given their limited numbers. Having said that, it's sort of strange that none of the Equestrians, not even of the warrior races like Dragons and Griffons, want the opportunity to hurt Chinese with the permission of the Chinese themselves.

I guess the author is forgetting that the Chinese don't possess physical superiority. Again.

That is a pathetic reward. Having said that, if the Chinese are working their prisoners without giving them food or clean drinking water, this is confirmed to be attempted mass murder.

Why aren't the Equestrians rising?

Okay...

1. Two fucking bottles of water. That's so pathetically meager.
2. I think Luster Dawn outright stated that there's supposed to have been about a month since the Chinese have taken over... why isn't the vast majority of everyone dead? (I think I misremembered that part) Why did they not decide "if we're probably dying either way, we're at least gonna try to take these bastards down" instead? Why hasn't the story addressed the massive amounts of deaths that realistically should be happening/are at risk of happening, if dehydration and starvation are such concerns, leaving rebellion as the only option in their eyes? They'd have nothing to lose and everything to gain, the absolute worst equation possible, if you want control over them.

This doesn't make any sense.

You're right. Big Mac would never say this. At most he would say "Eeyup!" or "Obliged" or something of that sort.

Yes, Big Mac is capable of greater loquaciousness, but he only talks at length to people he trusts. He does not trust the Chinese!

Also, he's thanking them for basic decency, without it being indicated as backhanded/backhooved. Just let that sink in.

So Jin apparently doesn't comprehend the force multiplier of firearms. Nor that he is about to fight without firearms.

Jin's an idiot who only got by in the Prologue because the author decided that Jin barefistedly soloing a dragon and the Mane Six in a straight fight was more plausible than "Twilight gripped Jin's leg with her insurmountably powerful telekinesis, and bent it 90 degrees in the wrong direction." Now, would Twilight do exactly that, unless she's apocalyptically apoplectic and/or corrupted? Probably not.

And even with that, Author is cheating: Jin's reinforced platoon has been so successful mostly by auctorial fiat. At no point has Story given a coherent explanation of how this was possible.

Well, y'see, Jin's "mundane metal pads" make the opponents weaker and stupider than they should be... right? Truly the most astounding military genius of our time!

How big is this Dragon? How is Jin's kick powerful enough to knock her teeth out, when those teeth are firmly-enough seated to enable her to bite through rock and metal?

Because I guess dragons are just oh-so-fragile. Shouldn't they weigh more than humans?

How exactly does he block a magic blast with his wrists?

It's hilarious how he doesn't even get singed from such an attack. Remember when this happened, much earlier, in the third chapter, where they escaped?

But before they could come in on them, Sunburst quickly activated his horn defending his friends, wife and daughter. And the invaders stumbled backwards and fell on the floor roughly with grunt.

"Great work Sunburst!" Twilight said. And Sunburst replied with a nod.

So what gives? Sunburst could knock multiple humans back with a barrier then, yet now, a focused magic blast hitting him doesn't so much as singe his wrist, at a bare minimum? There's no signs it felt like a hefty punch was blocked to Jin, affected him accordingly, he's just so cool it doesn't even scratch him, and he immediately counterattacks with nary a moment to catch his breath.

This doesn't make any sense, the villain is arbitrarily invincible. It's not like he's a superpowered villain that is conceivably that supernaturally durable, ala Tirek, Chrysalis, Nightmare Moon, Discord and so on. He's only human.

Sunburst insists on continuing to fight. Fortunately for Jin, Sunburst inexplicably gives up on using magic and instead fights hoof to hand. Sunburst lasts a surprisingly long time (because he's a Named Canon Character?)

Because using natural ranged weapons? Using telekinesis to possibly throw him off-balance via his leg, trip him? What's that for? Intelligent people? Here's a common sense tactic: blast them until your mana reserves are depleted, go for weak spots if at all possible, then resort to hitting physically. Sunburst showed no signs of any such magical exhaustion, so he had no excuse, other than "the author doesn't quite get how to write fighting scenes, and is blatantly contriving it as they go along to make the villain look so much cooler."

(Minor edits, like striking out "I thought they invaded Equestria a month ago," when no, that's when the backstory apparently happened... which begs the question of "how did they conquer everything so rapidly, and how rapidly?")

[AC97]

Also, even if the Chinese did feed and hydrate them, which they're not, at least not adequately, wouldn't it be a not insignificant logistical concern to keep the food going? Unless the Earth Ponies get to farm inhumanly fast, which is quite possibly not overly practical anyway, between pegasi not being able to bring needed rain, and how the Chinese are operating, because their attention is on that stupid freaking wall, and there's not enough of them to either guard them or distribute food, right?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not sure the Chinese could feed that many prisoners/slaves if they actually tried nonstop. Especially when you remember they're not human, could need to eat more, in a lot of cases.

(And if they took food upon raiding the lands... well, it would take such a long time to handle all of it, for such a relatively small amount of people... even if they weren't dealing with guarding everyone they captured, dealing with counterattacks that would realistically be happening.)

If I had to guess, such a concern never entered the author's mind.

[FanOfMostEverything]

Writers Have No Sense of Scale is a trope for a reason, but that multi-ton coal shovel is as bad as the convention hall arcology.

"We walked around the land and gained some knowledge about each other's culture and species." He finished.

Nothing about proper diplomatic practices or the concept of trial and error, though.

"Mister Sunburst." Charlie called him, and Sunburst looked back at him "Do not accept the challenge. Because to my accounts, it is e very hypothetical."

Then why don't you volunteer in his place, Protagonist Horse? Everyone's waiting for their cue.

Colonel Lin drags Sunburst around by his horn (for no very obvious reason) into the headquarters.

Given how Equestrians are apparently made of aerogel in this world, I can't help but imagine the colonel carrying Sunburst like an ice cream cone.

How big is this Dragon? How is Jin's kick powerful enough to knock her teeth out, when those teeth are firmly-enough seated to enable her to bite through rock and metal?

And why isn't she roasting him alive? All three combatants have ranged capabilities and insist on getting in close because, well, Jin needs to win in order for the story to go as planned, and there's no way to actually make that happen without gaming the system. I would never want to play a tabletop RPG with this author. Those tons of coal are clearly for the railroad campaign.

[Sketcha-Holic]

Lin then walked up to the working area and observed his surroundings and saw that all of the creatures are doing an efficient work, but not too well because he can see that some of them are exhausted. And some were petrified.

And some were petrified.

And once again, I'm given the mental image of the creatures turning to stone from overwork. Somehow.
Please diversify your adjectives or maybe even show their fear (i.e. "They froze and stared at their oppressors like a deer in headlights"), I'm begging you!

"Because to my accounts, it is e very hypothetical."

Hypothetical? Who uses that word in this kind of situation?

Finally, Sunburst reaches the sparring room.Sunburst began to observe the room. The room was as big as a castle hall and room, he looked forward and saw a square green mat on the floor as well as thirteen invaders in jungle suits sitting around it. There were also two invaders in the same jungle suits standing near the gate while wielding their monstrous weapons. And the room also had four red flag banners with five stars.There are at least 15 Chinese in the room, plus 1 in the Arena of Sport ... I mean, sparring circle. Adding the 7 on the wall, that's 23 Chinese, meaning that a mere 17 to 37 Chinese are doing everything else the Invaders need doing.

Jungle suits? Not gonna lie, that really confused me when I read that, so I looked it up to see what the heck story was talking about. This was my first result:

images.halloweencostumes.com/products/54418/1-1/mens-opposuits-juicy-jungle-suit.jpg

And then I got to wondering if they meant safari/jungle exploring outfits:

heavencostumes.com.au/media/catalog/product/cache/3ca7c4de79fd9294a778cbfdebc9dde4/s/w/swe-co5797-mens-khaki-beige-safari-suit-jungle-themed-fancy-dress-costume.jpg

And then I thought, duh, they most likely mean camo, that's the pattern most people automatically associate with militaries. Still, the former two both bring on hilarious mental images.

When Jin noticed their attacks, he countered the magic and punch attempt with his wrists ...

How exactly does he block a magic blast with his wrists?

Clearly, he's Wonder Woman.

vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/dccu/images/4/41/Wonder_Woman_theatrical_poster.jpg/revision/latest/top-crop/width/360/height/360?cb=20181005171539

[AC97]

Bonus story excerpt!

Sunburst wasn't going to capitulate to the human that easily. Instead, he stood up again and ran up to the human again with his left hoof swung back attempting to hit him in the back of his head.

"Yaaaaa!" Sunburst yelled.

When Jin felt the attack, he evaded the punch by moving his head to the left. Then he sent an elbow strike directly at Sunburst's head making him grunt and giving him a bleeding muzzle. Sunburst recovered quickly and tried to hit the human with a side kick to his chest. When Jin noticed the rash attempt, he punched the ponies hoof breaking it in the process.

(Because when you "felt" the attack from behind, you definitely could still "evade" it!)

5257771

but that multi-ton coal shovel is as bad as the convention hall arcology.

...Thank you for linking that gem, it was quite entertaining to see.

Nothing about proper diplomatic practices or the concept of trial and error, though.

Or how it was mostly Charlie expositing to Luster, as opposed to her teaching the newcomer things.

Given how Equestrians are apparently made of aerogel in this world, I can't help but imagine the colonel carrying Sunburst like an ice cream cone.

...Such a wondrously strange mental image.

And why isn't she roasting him alive? All three combatants have ranged capabilities and insist on getting in close because, well, Jin needs to win in order for the story to go as planned, and there's no way to actually make that happen without gaming the system. I would never want to play a tabletop RPG with this author. Those tons of coal are clearly for the railroad campaign.

The author's explanation (that I'm not sure if it's ever pointed out in the actual story, but I don't remember seeing it) is that they don't roast them because of shock collars that would activate if they tried. Which... aside from whatever conductive properties dragon scales might have (electricity takes the easiest path to the ground), being possibly semi-metallic or whatever, runs into the question of how they're handling voltage for varying sizes, intensity, and collar sizes, when they had time to measure and produce said things. It's not like Sunburst's magic was bound for this fight (And was the changeling's? If they had a horn?), so...

(I still have no idea how long it's supposed to have been since the Chinese first entered Equestria)

5257831

And then I thought, duh, they most likely mean camo, that's the pattern most people automatically associate with militaries. Still, the former two both bring on hilarious mental images.

Not gonna lie, I think I wouldn't mind having either of those outfits.

(Are they supposed to be wearing ghillie suits in the story though? If that was the intent, why? They're not being camouflaged here.)

Clearly, he's Wonder Woman.

Jin's a filthy hacker and needs to be banned from this server, bringing in banned gear like that.

[DILLYbOd]

5257750

5257771
Made my day...

[Jordan179]

5257831

Management tip: if your workers are literally turning to stone, you're working them too hard!

Wait till you see what he uses "petrified" to describe next chapter. Let's just say it's a reaction no girl ever wants to get from a guy she likes ...

(keeping in mind that in this conext "petrified" means "frozen in shock or horror").

[AC97]

5257921

Hmm... thank you?

:)

derpicdn.net/img/view/2013/8/8/394317__safe_artist-colon-mn27_princess+cadance_princess+celestia_alicorn_pony_aunt+and+niece_auntlestia_cute_female_filly_hug_leaning_looking+at+each+other_ma.png

(because hey, you're not gonna complain about something cute, right?)

[DILLYbOd]

5258066
Maybe... lol... Its sad the rage review group is not as active as it use to be.

[DILLYbOd]

5257953
you must show never tell, well sometimes... but mostly show.

[Ardashir]

Are the Equestrians so utterly lacking in initiative, that without Charlie The Designated Hero personally trying to organize a resistance with his Amazing Kewl Sooper Dooper L33T Diplomacy Skillz the whole damn country will just let the Chinese capture them one small group at a time, and then be held in slavery forever by one platoon of light infantry per city? Seriously?

In their petrified forms, Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy Glow are seeing this and thinking, 'Why did we fail. More to the point, if the Equestrians are this spineless, how did we fail?"

That fight scene as described was -- well, I hate to say 'cringeworthy' given how the word has been overused but yeah. It was not good. And why did the Chinese commander even decide to try it anyway? Did he read any of Edgar Rice Burroughs' approximately 500 stories where gladiatorial pits were used and decide 'I am so doing that'? I mean, it's better than trying to seduce the local princess into making you her consort and ruler of the country. At least here. Unless you're into horses.

Such a strange chapter.

[Ardashir]

5257880
I was thinking myself, if you feel an attack, isn't it too late to evade it?

[AC97]

5258072

Yeah, I really miss that group being active, too, I must admit. This sort of thing Jordan's doing kinda scratches that itch, a good bit.

5258078

In their petrified forms, Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy Glow are seeing this and thinking, 'Why did we fail. More to the point, if the Equestrians are this spineless, how did we fail?"

_{If they're actually thinking in there, that is, as opposed to being like Cryosleep because they're not some Spirit of Chaos; interesting as the former may be as a concept... I'd rather think it was actually "Stone Sleep" for them}

But yeah, I'd imagine Chrysalis especially would be Laughing Mad if she had any awareness of this, possibly getting to witness Starlight (and others she hates, Twilight especially) having had their spirit(s) broken by anyone that wasn't her.

Or she could be kind of thinking along the lines of Mojo Jojo in this clip (sorry, "camera on screen" was the only thing left for that scene, to my knowledge, YouTube possibly nuked the rest), where the Alien Invader was outperforming his ideas, outsmarted, beat him and the Girls at every turn up until that point.

Definitely would be an... interesting POV to get into, lol.

It's especially strange/jarring because the story seems to directly allude to them, in this very chapter:

"The Lieutenant General is very interested with the three enemies all of you have defeated a while ago. So he is now organizing a sparring match with you all fighting against some of our new recruits in the military. And some are already in there fighting."

Just... to think this is supposed to be the very same world that had The Ending of the End happen, or at least something quite similar?

I guess Jin maybe really is a bloodthirsty Blood Knight, though that was arguably kinda obvious since the Prologue. It perhaps would be more admirable, if it made a lot more sense, and he wasn't a sadistic murderer.

[DILLYbOd]

5258100
I guess my stories survived the group's wrath... HA! ...... For now.

[AC97]

5258502

The main reason for that is because Sunburst was infuriated at that time and decided to do hoof to hand combat with him. Trying to make him pay for what he and his men has done to his wife, daughter and friends.

How does that in any way override what should by all rights be an instinct to use magic against them? When skilled Unicorns and other magic users get very pissed off in the show itself, do they typically default to physically attacking them?

Yes, it is in part due to the rating, but no, they do not (also, a good reason not to is that their physical strength might be subpar if they're not a physically fit soldier, which Sunburst would know) Emotions also are heavily implied to fuel magic, make it stronger, as a general rule, so it also has the benefit of "being pissed off makes your magical blasts stronger" (in a similar vein to how Top Bolt outright has Rainbow Dash say "Flying is like thirty percent skill and seventy percent confidence" regarding Pegasi, and the same also presumably applies to Earth Ponies), and there's how dark magic probably works, being fueled by negative emotions.

Furthermore, firing raw magic by all rights isn't all that complicated, so it'd be easy to do when you're pissed.

It would make sense if Sunburst was born a human, and isn't used to being able to use magic, but he wasn't.

That dragon is about the same height as a human as well as Jin, about six feet tall.

...So why can he kick her around when she's covered in thick scales that make her more durable than any human? Probably heavier, stronger bones as well? Why can humans even bruise dragons in this story, knock out their teeth, physically?

During the sparring between Jin, the dragon, changeling and Sunburst. He was unarmed, he was just wearing a standard white business uniform. He doesn't have a helmet, shin guards, metal pad or a vest on him. He is just wearing a normal white business uniform and jeans.

He was only wearing a uniform?!

5258525

The chinese have been here for about two weeks.

So, how much time do you think it would take to transport troops, equipment, across the country? Systematically sweep cities (of which there are multiple) like Manehattan? How much time to travel across the country in the first place, before you even get into the surrounding areas?

All of this, without anyone having the time to organize an army, or guerrilla fighters, against you, have shapeshifters try to infiltrate your ranks? You'd at the very least be spread thin. (See below paragraph for why this would be even more relevant)

Do you really think someone who's supposed to be as intelligent as Twilight Sparkle wouldn't, as the leader, the highest authority of a nation such as Equestria, have the foresight to have Magical Dragonfire messaging (as Spike did at the ending of almost every episode for the first two seasons) on standby with the leaders of other nations, some mayors of her own cities, and such, so they don't get caught off-guard, like "Hey, Ponyville got attacked, if you don't hear from me in X amount of time, I've lost, prepare accordingly, against technologically advanced invaders," or "please help us fight them?"

Also, Equestria quite possibly has radio invented (look right above the stallion's ear), from before the timeskip, so that would expedite communication as well.

Well shock collars does have a high chance of knocking you out unconscious around 42 volts. If it reaches to around 100 volts, it can literally kill you.

Is that for humans, or legendary/mythical dragons of varying sizes, weights, and such?

[AC97]

5258644

Muscle power, mainly from gyms and years of training in the military.

Why do you keep defaulting to that explanation when superhuman strength would have to cut it? A human wouldn't be stronger than a dragon of similar size, no matter how much they worked out.

Only dragons that are the same height as humans like around six feet tall. The larger dragons have been killed by apache helicopters, tanks and towed artillerys.

And did all of the larger ones just let this happen easily, die with nary a fight, or an act of token resistance? Did they all just stand there while they were gunned down, or charge on foot, forgetting that they can fly?

Yeah, mainly because he was underestimating them during the fight.

He wasn't subjected to any consequences though, as he should've been, if it were truly an "underestimation." He blocked a magical attack with his freaking wrist, and he was completely unphased.

[Sketcha-Holic]

5258516
Then call it an Army Combat Uniform. The term "jungle suits" implies safari adventure, tacky leaf-patterned suits, or looking like Swamp Thing.

I know what you were trying to say in that "hypothetical" scene, and I repeat, nobody uses the word "hypothetical" in this situation. That word is used when people are pondering theories and "what if" situations. A word that would fit better is "doubtful" or "dubious".

[AC97]

5258661

Uh no, Sunburst was readying his magic, and Jin countered it with his wrist before he could blast him and that made Sunburst move his head in the incorrect area which left an exposed area on his neck.

Aside from the narration being too vague for that to be the obvious interpretation, that still runs into another issue: Why is Sunburst in range for that to happen in the first place?

Let's review the scene:

Then, the three creatures got into a battle stance and prepared to fight the invader. And Sunburst was also readying his magic. After starring at each other for five seconds, the three creatures all charged towards the invader and prepared to spar.

The dark blue female dragon attempted to slash the invader in the face with her sharp and petrying claws. But Jin responded with a front kick to the her face, and the force of his kick knocked the dragon's teeth out and sent her flying off the mat.

Sunburst and the changeling both worked together when they witnessed the fallen dragon. Sunburst charged his horn and the changeling swung his right hoof back and attempted to blast and punch the invader in the chest at the same time.

If Sunburst isn't trying to fake Jin out by teleporting, like Twilight did in the series premiere, against Nightmare Moon (and no, Sunburst cannot teleport, and Twilight did get much better with teleportation), and he doesn't have comparable physical abilities to Jin, as a sorta Squishy Unicorn, what does he have to gain by charging Jin in the first place? He can attack from a distance. That's part of the point of having magic, so the opponent closing in on you and hitting you can't happen easily.

If he were fighting remotely intelligently, even if he had zero combat training/practice in his life (which would be in probable contrast to Starlight Glimmer, who is probably smart enough to do just that generally, like her fighting against Twilight Sparkle in S5, her Teleport Spam when faced with the cockatrices in Student Counsel, or Chrysalis in S9 [Chrysalis really outclasses Starlight physically, hard, and the reason she didn't use her magic then, in S6, is because she couldn't, because of an artifact Chrysalis had]; she is a rather talented battlemage), he would've been supporting the other two's attacks from a distance, backpedaling if need be to stay out of range. Sunburst is supposed to be an intelligent character, he would've plausibly studied unicorn combat tactics at least once in his life, via books, or combat tactics in general, being as much of a bookworm as he is, and "keep your distance if possible" by all rights should be included in that.

I'm pretty sure if I had magic, and especially if I had it my entire life, I would keep that in mind, and not inexplicably lose all brain cells and wisdom upon fighting someone.

In addition, while charging up a magical attack for a period of time has the probable benefit of building up power, it's been shown in canon numerous times that unicorns can fire magical blasts in less than half a second (do note that Sunburst was outright disoriented from hitting his head on the last one, too, and still pulled it off that quickly), if they need to, so Jin probably shouldn't have had time to react to this, even if Sunburst wasn't keeping his distance (also, you explicitly said he had at least five seconds of free time to charge that attack, during the standoff, right before the fight, even if charging it was a pressing concern).

In short: he'd practically have nothing to gain by charging towards an opponent who is physically superior (more plausible for a human to be such over an MLP Unicorn, moreso than an Alicorn, Earth Pony, Dragon, and to a lesser degree, Pegasi too), and it wouldn't fit his personality, so you only had him do that so Jin could do something "cool," in the vein of some action movie scene where the character is fighting multiple people at once, in hand-to-hand, and dominating, at the expense of all plausibility.

Also, it doesn't make sense as to why the other two stopped fighting so easily and quickly (and they're not even named characters). Jin shouldn't have been able to dislodge dragon teeth (they can chomp through metal and crystal without dislodging, so General Metal Plates has nothing on that durability, or sheer jaw strength), and he shouldn't have been able to even hurt her, quite probably even on a superficial level; it's a similar problem that defeating Spike in one blow had (knocking his teeth out, as well): it should have never happened, it's completely implausible.

When Jin's fighting other characters in this story, what happens is one or two of the following things, and they're not mutually exclusive by any means, because they sometimes happen at the same time: Either the character(s) are made stupider/less competent than they should reasonably be (that "stupidly charging in" thing happened with Rarity too), and/or they're less powerful than they should be, to make Jin look good. And either way, there's no valid justification for this, and it's been a problem since the Prologue, to the point that it's a plot hole.

A very similar thing happens with how Charlie outperforms characters like Twilight Sparkle in this story, and the entirety of her group of friends (including her pupil, Luster Dawn), except he's not directly attacking them.

Also, it happens for the entire premise, because even aside from everyone being implausibly being curb-stomped by the Chinese (no matter how much you try to hand-wave it away, it's still denial on your part), they should've realized that the Chinese are acting with genocidal intentions (taking away food and water is exactly that), and they therefore have nothing to lose by resisting, except they won't die slowly of starvation and/or dehydration, they'll die quicker, which if they've been enslaved for weeks...

And before you say "but they can spar for food and water" again, well, there's far too many of the Equestrians, and far too few of the Chinese for that to appease them (all of Jin's men would get tired out sparring with them, before they sparred with even a tenth of them, even if they invariably lost to his men; it does not solve starvation and dehydration by any stretch), and the sparring thing would realistically be "too little, too late" to begin with, from the perspective of the Equestrians, if any of them could do the math.

[AC97]

5259213

The way how Jin managed to knock the female dragon's teeth out was because of the muscles on him mainly from gym times. And the way he knocked out Spike in one blow was with his, you know Metal elbow pads. I think that's the reason why you named him Lieutenant General Metal Pads right?

Is Jin's strength enough to just kick straight through a concrete wall, or road?

No, it shouldn't be. I don't think freaking Arnold Schwarzenegger could do a feat like that. Metal pads aren't that much of a freaking multiplier against a six-foot tall dragon, and either way, Spike inexplicably didn't have time to react to Jin when he had him at a distance with a spear, so it's an uphill battle for him to close in.

Jin is too adroit in combat,

Right, that explanation:

"He's that good against supernaturally strong opponents he didn't even know existed a month ago, and have only fought them in the last two weeks, just because I say he is."

But, he's no better than Charlie.

So equally unworthy of being portrayed with that much competence?

And that gave him a good chance to use the Avengers Endgame line on him and his men, am I right?

I guess we'll be the judge of that one later, then.

I know that all of them should have been able to curb-stomp the Chinese when they witness huge amounts of genocide and resources stole from them but, the ponies couldn't stand up against rifles with strong calibers.

When they're that horribly outnumbered, if that was having realistic consequences? Yes, I believe they could.

Wonderbolt flyers wouldn't be able to match the speed of a 5.56 bullet which is three times their speed.

But can humans aim their rifles quickly and accurately enough to keep up with them? There's a reason you use birdshot against birds, instead of say, a .22, and this example would be that, but so much worse. It's been noted by experienced skeet shooters that actually hitting an RC plane going a maximum of 80 MPH (128.7 KPH) is hard, and skilled Equestrian fliers, like Rainbow Dash, or the Wonderbolts, can go faster than that.

You don't know what you're talking about, and it shows. The bullets are faster than them, but the shooters are only human.

And changelings can be easily spotted with thermal heat signature cameras.

If a Changeling shapeshifts into being say, a squirrel, or a dog, or a lot of other things, how does that mean you're detecting them as actually being Changelings? How and why do you think know none of them would be using stealth tactics like "shapeshift into a small animal, stalk them until they're spread out from the rest, then kill them," followed by possible impersonation, or at least equipment theft?

And bullets can easily outmatch their shapeshifting speed. Because, bullets are much faster than magic spells.

...That doesn't even make any sense.

If a Changeling is say, in an urban environment, and they hear gunshots going off (they're very loud, need I tell you, and cause permanent hearing damage without ear protection, if you're too close; can be heard at least a Kilometer/Mile away in a lot of cases), they can shapeshift then and there. This isn't like some video game where they'd only shapeshift upon seeing you for the first time, after you shot at them.

Griffons and dragons couldn't stand up against explosions from towed artillerys, apache helicopters, rocket and grenade launchers.

But they wouldn't just stand there and let themselves die. They should've at least been trying to take some of them with them, and succeeding. Also, airbases are vulnerable to sabotage, wherever the makeshift area for such is.

[AC97]

5259272

That's mainly because he keep underestimating all of the creatures in Equestria.

Then why isn't he dead, no Charlie needed? If he's "underestimating them," then he should've suffered the consequences in the Prologue, and have suffered a crushing defeat, when he fought the Mane Six, alone and personally.

You keep saying he "underestimated" them, but you've protected him from all plausible consequences up to this point, for the sake of the railroaded plot.

To put it into gaming terms, you essentially put a Terraria Player Character equipped with only a Copper Shortsword, Wood Armor, and 100 HP (Lieutenant General Jin), and proceeded to put him up against a Player Character with 500 HP, top-tier post-Moon Lord Armor, multiple top-tier magic weapons, accessories, and the best wings, and maxed mana (The Last Problem!Twilight Sparkle)... and somehow had the Player Character with the worst gear and lowest HP in the game come out on top, in direct PvP, without ever going to yourself "is this insulting to anyone who likes to see this character be portrayed as competent, strong."

That's before you even take her friends into account, who were almost equally insultingly curb-stomped.

Why didn't Fluttershy use the Stare on him, as opposed to the OOC charging attempt? Since when would Fluttershy be the one to charge in for "try to directly hit him," as a first resort?

Well, the average time for a person to react to movement is a quarter of a second.

You have no idea what it's like to aim at a moving target, if you're just taking it for granted "oh, just plain reaction time numbers obviously covers it if they're not a world record setting competition shooter." Most shots fired in combat miss for a multitude of reasons.

But there is a downfall, and that is a fighter jet is more faster her, and a fighter jet has a maximum speed of 400-2000 miles per hour which is three times her speed.

And where would these "fighter jets" be taking off from in the first place, then landing? Where's the runway?

sniper rifles bullets that can silently kill them,

"Silently?" What are you talking about? If it goes faster than the speed of sound, even if the gun is suppressed, there will be a sonic boom, caused by it breaching the sound barrier, which makes a very distinctive noise.

I don't know if you got that from some movies or video games, but that's how it works in real life.

And dragons even Torch can like destroy artillerys with their dragon breaths but, heat seeking missiles from attack helicopters can easily prevent that from happening, as well as explosive shells from large tanks.

You're taking it for granted that he'd never have the time to do anything before he died, which is a boring explanation, and a cop-out specifically designed to make dragons look more pathetic.

Plus, the government and the military can simply come up with an attack plan for the invasion.

That doesn't help if the attack plan is actually really horrible and only works because the author thinks it would, as is portrayed here.

And Equestria does not have a government, that's the main problem. Equestria only has princesses, Kings and Prince , they do not have the experience to outsmart a government.

That is a "government" though (again, Mayors exist), and the Princesses are all intelligent, and they've heard of the concept of "delegating duties." Twilight could've effortlessly escaped Canterlot in the Prologue, with all of her friends (by teleporting out of her castle; see The Last Problem for proof of this, where she directly went to Ponyville in that exact way), and proceeded to use Guerrilla Warfare tactics, that is to say Hit-and-Run tactics, against the Chinese, which they would be very, very vulnerable to, considering the Chinese Army's small numbers, and her ability to teleport. It would be a brutally short war of attrition.

She's practically a sapient weapon of mass destruction on her lonesome, so good luck fighting her if she has her eyes set on sabotage, to say nothing of those who would be helping her.

[AC97]

5259331

And they do not have anywhere to land the jets in the land except for the helicopters, so Jin just had to send the jets and the pilots back to the air force.

So, what, did they teleport the planes into Equestria mid-flight in the first place, if they had nowhere to land them? If not, how did they take off? What are the limitations of that technologically implausible teleporter, if any?

Bullets can be easily stopped by the scales on the dragons which are like two inch thick armor plates which is more durable and strong than vests. But, they can't stand explosives from heat seeking missiles from helicopters, artillerys and tanks.

Are you willfully ignoring what I'm actually trying to say?

And again, Twilight won't even be able to use her magic along with Rarity, Sunburst and Starlight because, there are suppressor rings on their horns which disables their ability to use any magic.

That would be quite the amazing feat on the part of the Chinese, considering that I outright stated I'm talking about the Prologue, from before they got captured the first time. Twilight and Rarity did not have magic suppression rings on their horns in the Prologue, unless you're not telling us something.

I repeat: there's nothing that would've stopped Twilight from escaping then, to plan her next move, along with her friends.

So try again.

And guerilla warfare?

How can that work? And as far as I can tell there is no way that Twilight and her friends can rush towards soldiers wielding guns and rocket launchers.

They don't need to just blindly charge in, when they'd have Twilight Sparkle and quite probably other powerful mages blasting them into oblivion before they can react, for the above reason. Twilight could say, sneak to some concealed position (especially when Master Mages like Twilight can presumably cast Invisibility Spells), strike in the dead of night (which, Twilight also has control over the day-night cycle), burn their barracks to the ground, or destroy their vehicles, or their encampments, then teleport away before they can retaliate, if she didn't just get them all, being as powerful as she is.

Rinse and repeat, until they're all either incapacitated, captured, or dead, they unconditionally surrender to her, or until they capture or kill her, neither of which would be an easy task if she's being careful, she's being paranoid, hiding in caves, forests, underground tunnels in her downtime.

She would also probably make an effort to determine however they entered Equestria (they attacked Ponyville first, so she'd have a probable lead on "Everfree Forest"), so they can't call for reinforcements, disable whatever means they used to enter, and failing that, set up guards around it so they can't easily get in, until she can take the measure of disabling it.

Any pegasi helping them could create heavy rain to make stealth be an easier task, as needed, along with lightning strikes as far as being destructive goes. And perhaps you could have Rockponies like Maud to create tunneling systems, for discreet movement, or Diamond Dogs (how do you round up tunneling experts? How do none of them slip away?).

Also one inquiry if you don't mind. And that is, how are King's, Princesses and Prince considered to be a government? Don't they just rule and protect their kingdom?

Have you never heard of a Monarchy? How did you not know a Monarchy, or Diarchy (in the case of what Celestia and Luna were) are actually by definition forms of government? That's what it sounds like you're telling me.

[AC97]

5259382

The jets just took off in the people's liberation army air force and flew through the portals.

...Portals? Well... that's... odd. I'm still wondering how the Chinese achieved this level of technology so quickly.

(and I think Jordan179 will have more to say on that topic later, perhaps)

But, what about snipers that are hidden in tall areas? Or helicopters that are controlled by pilots who can easily evade the rain, and potentially the lightning strikes if they are careful.

You're again, missing the point. They can't stay airborne forever, they don't have the resources, and it's not the easiest thing, sniping in the dead of night, especially when they're in the sky, and I really want you to find snipers that can perform the task of say, "shooting at flying targets, that are moving, hidden behind clouds, and 900 meters in the air," the latter of which is... a large distance to begin with. It would be a rather unprecedented scenario, for marksmanship... (How much of the PLA have even seen a real war, anyway?)

And I think I'll call it: "Schrodinger's Jin," where he's supposed to be underestimating them, per your word, while allegedly directing the most expedient measures to be taken against them, in warfare, while the Equestrians simultaneously do nothing to oppose them competently, because you won't let them do so.

As for helicopters, well, they have to land sometime, and refuel, at which point they're definitely vulnerable to attack, and destroying them, or otherwise taking them out of the equation (also, capture or kill their pilots, depending on what you have to do, that's another strain on them, in multiple ways), is part of the War of Attrition, straining their resources, and helicopters are typically for ground targets, not small flying pegasi amongst the clouds.

Also, if the rain is going, the logistics of providing actual air support is less than ideal, even if they can avoid it the rain. Helps obscure the ground, and even if some pegasi did die in the process via helicopter (and I'm not sure that's practical, hunting flying pegasi down via helicopter)... it could very well be worth it, for the damage to the intended target they allowed to happen, the opening provided.

[Jordan179]

5259506

I think I first mentioned it in my post on the Prologue.

[AC97]

5261941

The first reason why he keeps underestimating the creatures of Equestria is because, he and his men views them as very frail, cretinous and soft species(except for yaks of course, which weighs more than a pony and an average human.)

Do they ever suffer actual consequences for throwing around any number of them like an actual human child/lightweight woman? Are they portrayed as suffering manhandling all of them, in the routine acts of enslavement, throughout?

Yes, or no?

(Also, I strongly believe that Dragons weigh significantly more than a Human of an equivalent size, and Diamond Dogs would quite probably weigh significantly more on average, and adult Griffons quite possibly weigh more [has someone else done the math there? Hmm...], but they do have a multitude of physical advantages, either way, over humans, so it's not just Yaks, and there's still other cases to consider, regarding "sapient races stronger than humans," like the Buffalo)

A mundane, but useful advantage many of the races in their world would have is that, unlike humans, they naturally have good night vision, with no technology, which for Diamond Dogs would likely be the case (like real dogs), same for Ponies (like real horses), so that's something that would be exploitable, in a variety of cases.

But what he doesn't knows is that their magic is also very powerful compared to some of their technologies. And that proves that Lieutenant General Jin An Rong, is practically unintelligent when it comes to studying their true strengths. And he thinks that he and his army are very husky and adroit compared to the ponies, dragons, yaks, changelings etc.

If and/or when Jordan gets around to covering the chapter "Revelations" (I sincerely hope that he does, considering it's fun; I might end up reviewing it myself, if he doesn't continue this soon), I... will have words about that chapter, shall we say, about how it fits into the context of this story, because there's really quite a bit to say about that, about what it all means when you take that backstory into account.

---

Jordan, if you're reading this, a certain part of an earlier chapter, "Questions," will be relevant, regarding something Luster Dawn says, past the halfway mark; I think it would be an interesting topic for later, if you continue this, probably...

(relevant quote from that earlier chapter is below)

"It all started out like this. I was having another normal lesson with my mentor Princess Twilight Sparkle. We were conducting some magic spells with some portal combinations technique. Everything was going well until I did an accident that I don't even know what happened."

[AC97]

5262012

Oh they will have a very daunting ramification when the 'Friendship vs economic superpower' chapter is reviewed right after Charlie said the famous Avengers Endgame line.

i.imgur.com/ejuTHOn.png

It's about the fact that they get to throw all of them around like children as their general enslavement MO (push them, drag them, grab them by their horn, etc), and don't suffer realistic consequences, as seen in multiple chapters.

For diamond dogs, they are very tall compared to an average puppy and military and police dogs. But, they are not taller than humans. So the soldiers can immediately intimidate them and make them very compliant like a pet doggy.

...well, uh... beat a dog too much, and they bite back, like in this case, the Chinese have been doing with their genocidal confiscation of food?

(Each and every one of the Equestrians should've realized that the Chinese not giving them food and water is tantamount to attempting mass murder long ago, and be acting accordingly, and they'd know you might die for whatever arbitrary reason anyway, as has been demonstrated multiple times by Jin and his goons)

I mean, even if they're smaller than humans on average (not like we have much to go on, admittedly), perhaps even lighter, let's say (I'm guessing inaccurately) that they cap out at 150 lbs, they're still capable of being physically dangerous to humans.

So, does that mean that you know who's fault it was since the start of the invasion?

Yes... and I'm aware of what this means for the story... especially considering some of the things that didn't happen before. But it's a talking point or three for another day.

[AC97]

5262888

But, military and police dogs can change that, because they are more daunting, fast and adroit compared to the diamond dogs.

Lol, what? Are you kidding me? Can real dogs dig that quickly, from what we saw in canon? Why'd they be meaningfully slower?

The Chinese troops will supply them with food and water to keep them working. But only on one condition, and that is to spar with some of the new recruits in the military. If they beat one, they will get a bag of their foods back, as well as two bottles of clean drinking water.

And how long did this... proposition take to make in story time?

And in any case, how have none of the Equestrians (especially somepony as smart and explicitly as good at it as Twilight Sparkle is) done the basic math to realize it's mathematically impossible to spar with all of them quickly enough to have this condition for food and water actually save even half of them in the long run, thus making an uprising rather appealing?

They highly outnumber the Chinese Army, the Chinese would get hurt, or at least exhausted while doing this, thus it'd be impossible for them to keep up with the sparring requests if they tried their best, even if they were doing it 24/7, in part due to the exhausting fashion with which they handle the slaves in the first place, that isn't being taken into account.

5263110

And of course a diamond dog will attack if they are attacked but, they are not as fast as a velociraptor, so some of the Chinese troops can outmatch them in speed and combat.

...wut? How did you come to that conclusion, that "not as fast as Velociraptor" means "humans can outperform them in speed and CQB?" What?

[AC97]

5264047

And if someone by any chance has a riot shield with them, they can instantly block the diamond dogs attack and smack them with a baton.

That'd be great... if they don't have the strength to pull you around with the riot shield, or aren't seriously outnumbered, or if they're quite probably physically inferior in at least one way.

They only get someone to spar with the new recruits twice a week, not all the time so they can get some rest if they are fatigued or beaten up which I think the Equestrians would win because, those are new recruits in the military. And the Chinese did keep their promise on giving them food and water to them if they beat one men, and they proved it in the chapter.

...That makes it even worse actually.

Think about this from the perspective of the Equestrians: You get someone to spar with new recruits twice a week, and there's at least tens of thousands of you, minimum (Equestria is a big country, as are the surrounding lands), and they don't even get that much in return.

It's highly blatant that the Chinese at the very least want a lot of them dead through starvation and/or dehydration, and I'd argue it's quite possibly worse than Nazi concentration camps, how transparent it is, and they don't even have the same sorts of numbers going for them.

Hell, Jin outright says in Revelations, two chapters from now, that he has genocidal intentions, does he not?

[AC97]

5265469

I'm not sure why Charlie never seemed to make it a point of telling anyone anything like "Jin told me that his end goal is that he wants to kill you all, he made it perfectly clear," then. Imminent plans or not, that's kind of vital information.

---

_{selfish part of me is impatient regarding Jordan continuing the reviewing, but the generous (and realistic) part of me realizes he has no true obligation to do so, really, other than whatever satisfaction talking about it can bring.}

So for no reason, other than "fun trivia someone could use as part of stories or something," aside from the "I hope the reviews continue" talk (I probably do still have it in me to do MSTing still, if I wanna do it myself), I guess I'll talk about an underrated magic user in the show, by all appearances, because why not: Sweetie Belle. I strongly suspect she's rather good at magic by unicorn standards, especially for her age, to say nothing of the hypothetical prowess of her adult self post-timeskip, considering I think she does have an interest in magic for its own sake.

Why, might you ask, do I think that? Well, aside from Flurry Heart, I'm pretty sure she's the only (or at least, among the very few) child unicorn in the show who was shown creating a magical barrier (Campfire Tales, in S7), even if it was rather weak, a season later, in S8, in a very easy to miss moment in Surf and/or Turf, she was shown casting Accelero, it wasn't "cartoon physics," she can actually use her magic to go that fast (timestamped that video), and in S9, she managed to pull off a teleport, even if it was rather unrefined and it seemed to hurt after, when temporarily aged-up artificially.

I dunno, I just thought that was an interesting, if mostly unrelated topic, because I'm not quite sure how commonplace it is, for Sweetie Belle to be portrayed as quite comfortably adept with magic, especially when she's older.

(Also should note that she did canonically have Twilight teaching her magic at at least one point, per "Twilight Time")

[AC97]

...y'know, why not, it's been a while since I've MST'd this.

(Where we last left off with our intrepid heroes, Sunburst got his "hoof broken," after he and the other two fought so unrealistically poorly against a human it's not even funny, because Jin is just that awesome apparently, that he knocks dragon teeth out with his only human strength, and manages to deal with magical attacks without issue, because they're not allowed to keep range advantages in mind, by virtue of authorial fiat)

Chapter 17/18: Alicorn combat

(formerly known as "Ten on one" or some such I think)

In Charlie and Luster Dawn's cell. Luster Dawn was crying uncontrollably in her and Charlie's cell room, and the reason is because her father was severely injured from his battle against the leader of the invaders.

What, nooooo, I'd have thought she'd be happy because the chapter we just got off of was all sunshine and rainbows, no violence whatsoever... it basically just happened from a narrative perspective, so reminding us that it happened like that feels... off, in multiple ways.

And Charlie was desperately trying his best to cheer the disconsolated unicorn up but nothing seems to be working, he even tried to offer her the Kit Kat he has in the cold area in his custom built backpack but, Luster Dawn declined his generous offer and Charlie knew what the reason was behind it.

"Oh wowza, she's crying, Imma offer her a chocolate bar! That oughta fix it if nothing else will!"

Also... why does he still have a backpack? No, really, why? Why wouldn't the Chinese have confiscated that from him, food included? They don't have any logical reason to let him keep it, because it gives him that much more opportunity to subtly be in possession of "potentially hazardous to the captors in the event of revolt" items. This is reminding me of how thoroughly stupid the Chinese have been in doing basic things, like them not confiscating Applejack's lasso, way earlier, with predictable results.

"I...I d-don't even... k-know if h-he is go-going to m-make it... Because of his wounds!" Luster Dawn cried.

"He will, don't worry." Charlie assured her "He is a strong man. And also, if I am lucky enough to come across him and your mother. I will immediately provide him an aid." He told her with a smile.

When Luster Dawn heard this, she stopped crying and looked at him witha surprised expression.

"Y-you are willing to do that?" Luster Dawn asked with sparkling eyes.

Not really sure what you could do, even with that magical healing spray (if they didn't inexplicably decide not to confiscate it), but okay.

"Besides, this is what friends are for am I right? And remember, I also kept a promise in protecting you and your friends as well. And I will never rest until I save your land." He told her.

You'll never rest until you unjustly one-up everyone we actually care about, while also being incompetent at the same time.

When Luster Dawn heard this, she began to tear up again and close her eyes. She was truly grateful for all of the succour and support that Charlie has given her through the journey.

You really shouldn't be; you could've easily been written to be competent enough to deal with the threats Charlie dealt with while you stood by on the sidelines and did nothing to attack the Chinese (which is especially pertinent, considering the next chapter, but we'll get to that), and not fallen into diplomatic pitfalls, to say nothing of the other characters that stood by and waited like pissants in Ponyville until their recapture, instead of being allowed to do anything like accompany you on your journey, or split off to find help elsewhere, or a combination of both, with say, Twilight and a few others going one way, and such.

There's little to nothing to thank him for. He realistically wasn't irreplaceable on the journey.

But unexpectedly, Luster Dawn lunged forward and tackled Charlie on the floor and on his back. Then, she pushed her lips with his and kissed him.

Charlie was traumatized when the kiss happened, it was not anticipated because he and Luster Dawn only know each other for only a few days. He muffled but sighed softly and kissed back but he did not close his eyes, instead he placed his hooves on her back and began rubbing her.

Ugh... there just isn't much of a basis for a romantic relationship here. Especially considering "few days."

It's not like they've had time to grow closer, get to really know each other over say, a training arc where Luster Dawn taught Charlie how to use magic (because he got to instantly know what he's doing, moreso than Luster), or even had any occasion where Luster's taught Charlie about much of anything other than "exposition," whereas Charlie's gotten to Wikidump verbatim from Wikipedia multiple times to Luster, have her just wow over his technology, have both of them be ungodly prudish, and have Charlie be someone who'd realistically have built resentment on Luster's part on multiple occasions, but hasn't, by authorial fiat. She was supposed to be his guide, and she's taught him little about the fantasy world she lives in, including places she's lived at.

She's had little agency in the story. She rarely if ever contributes to fights, reduced to cheering on the sidelines, when she's supposed to have powerful magic (more on that later...), she can only be allowed to teleport after Charlie reminds her in the story, and she's not been allowed to say anything like "I really don't think we should go to Canterlot seeking diplomacy, the Chinese are murderous scumbags, haven't you been paying attention?! They cannot be reasoned with," because then that would prevent them from getting captured the way they did earlier.

...anyway, moving on.

"So, how does it feel to be kissed and having a special somepony?" She asked between breaths.

"The kiss was nice but-"

Charlie stopped in his mid sentence when he heard the words 'Special somepony'.

"Um pardon me but, what's a special somepony?" He asked with a perplexed expression.

...I thought you were supposed to be smart? You could've figured it out effortlessly via context.

"How come you do not know what a special somepony means?" Luster Dawn asked with a bewildered expression.

"Well, usually from my world we call a woman as a girlfriend, and a guy as a boyfriend. And my kind are not ponies." He replied with a chuckle.

"Oh wow, your kind is great at naming things."

I'm afraid the words "girlfriend" and "boyfriend" canonically exist in Equestria, and someone as studious as Luster Dawn should presumably know this.

But because I'm guessing the author didn't know that... that's more time to compliment humans for no reason.

(Moving on to tomorrow in-story)

Outside of the Chinese military headquarter's, Charlie and Luster Dawn were lifting up large rocks and bringing them to the right side of the metal wall. And Luster Dawn was having a difficult time in trying to carry the rock because she was feeling so fatigue, but thanks to the sweet potato that Charlie provided for her, she was able to get some of her strengths back, and Luster Dawn was again very grateful for his generous offer.

...do what? Why did he have a sweet potato? Why didn't he have his food confiscated? Is he some "special guest" of Jin's? Why? Also, food doesn't magically remove exhaustion, this isn't a video game.

After that, Charlie and Luster Dawn turned back and began to walk back to the large rock pile to bring two more to the left wall but then, somepony not far from their location called them.

"Hey! Luster Dawn!"

Luster Dawn turned around and saw her mother and father. And her father was wrapped in white bandages by Charlie.

Suddenly, Wild Parents appeared! (again, it's a big place, so it's awfully convenient)

Once Luster Dawn has arrived to her parent's location, she immediately embraced them softly because her father was still healing up from the conflict he had yesterday with the Lieutenant General.

Why is he even there? He had a broken limb.

"Why hello there Charlie Lam, it is so great to see you again." Starlight said with a smile.

"It is good to see you again as well miss Starlight." Charlie said with a smile, then he looked at Sunburst "How are you feeling mister Sunburst?" Charlie asked.

"I'm still feeling some stings all over my body but, I'll live." Sunburst said "And thank you very much for your aid." He finished gratefully.

"You are very welcome sir, and remember not to push yourself too hard." He told him.

"I won't." Sunburst said with a shake of his head.

Oh Starlight, how I feel for you in this story, your power, intelligence, and skill not being respected...

Also, why did Charlie have to be the one to bandage him, as opposed to anyone else? From where did he get the bandages? He really is the only one allowed to do anything.

Then, a revving noise was heard again. Charlie looked behind him and saw the same jeep that the Colonel drove, and the way he knew that he was the Colonel of the army is because he overheard one of the riot police units calling him that, and he could understand Chinese. The jeep came to a stop near two riot police units, but these officers were not the same ones from yesterday.

We get it, he speaks Chinese.

One of the riot police officers gripped onto the door handle with his right hand and pulled it open. Then, the Colonel stepped out of the jeep.

"Lín shàngxiào! (Colonel Lin!)" The riot police unit said with a salute.

Then, Colonel Lin Bing Wen walked past the two riot police officers and began to observe the ponies, changelings, Griffons, dragons, diamond dogs, yaks and Kirins hard work. After ten seconds, he gave them a score of D- in his mind because they were working too leisurely as if they were in a fancy hotel swimming pool. Then, he gave them an announcement.

What, do you have experience with watching others work like that? You're fortunate that the Equestrians inexplicably haven't gotten an A+ Score on exsanguination via tearing your throat out by now, because of what they should've realized.

"Alright listen up all you creatures!" Colonel Lin exclaimed and all of the creatures ceased their work and looked at the second leader of the invaders. "The Lieutenant General was satisfied about the sparring match yesterday. And he wants to get some more of you to our sparring headquarters to spar with some of the rookies, and if any of you are lucky enough to beat some of them, you will be provided with some food and two bottles of water. Anyone want to volunteer?" He asked.

He was "satisfied" because he wasn't allowed to have his opponents use more than half a brain cell, by authorial decree. Also, still quite the pitiful offer.

All of the creatures hesitated when they heard the invader's words, all of them kept their muzzles shut because they remembered what happened to Sunburst and a few of their friends yesterday.

Funny that you say Sunburst, because that brings a thought to mind, which I'll elaborate in a bit.

Charlie also kept his mouth shut because there was no way that he wanted to reply to the Colonel's vile and brusque request but then, a rumbling sound was heard.

Charlie turned around and saw that Luster Dawn was rubbing her belly with a sad expression.

"Are you okay Sweetie?" Sunburst asked.

"I'm okay." Luster Dawn replied with a nod. "I'm just a bit hungry, that sweet potato Charlie gave me must've lasted pretty quick." She said in a sad tone.

Charlie looked at Luster Dawn and asked "Luster Dawn, are you hungry?"

"Yeah." She replied with a nod.

What a stupid question, if you heard her stomach rumble, and if she literally just said she was hungry.

Then Charlie began to think whether he should go to the sparring headquarters with the Colonel. He does have some food on him but, he doesn't knows if it would be suitable for a pony like her since it was human food, and she looks like a vegetarian considering her flat teeth. He then stood up and looked at the Colonel.

Well, Equestrian ponies do have a larger diet range than real horses (and can vomit, unlike real horses), and in any case, real horses can eat meat to supplement their diets, on some occasions (not really by default, though).

"I want to volunteer."

When the Colonel heard the intimate male voice, he looked to his right and saw the infiltrator Charlie Lam volunteering to spar with some of the rookies.

Then, Luster Dawn gave Charlie an anxious expression.

"Charlie, what are you doing?" Luster Dawn asked worried.

"Don't worry Luster Dawn." Charlie said while looking at her with an assured smile "Besides, I can get some food for you to fight your starvation." He finished.

"No, it's alright Charlie." Luster Dawn tried to stop him "I can tolerate it." She told him.

What's wrong with this picture?

Starlight didn't volunteer to spar, for her own family, her friends, and out of a desire to avenge Sunburst's loss. She would probably volunteer to spar, after she found out that Sunburst's magic was unbound for that fight, and gone for the "oh, but we're so frail and weak, why are you so afraid of my magic" manipulation tactic if they don't immediately agree to let her fight with magic, try to play to their egos, which with Jin, if he's supposed to be underestimating them, would be so easy, it's child's play. (And don't get me wrong, I know merely winning a sparring match with a good number of soldiers around is... thinking too small, because it would be ample opportunity to bring down the basement ceiling down on top of the invaders, kill them all, after at least stunning them, which for a unicorn as powerful as her...)

But since Charlie is so much cooler, smarter, and braver than Starlight, who's fought with enough skill and power to cause problems against alicorn level threats on more than one occasion, has had powerful magic for something at least approaching three decades... he gets to do everything.

That is a disgrace to her character, that she isn't trying to plot against them like that. She does not fear death enough to have risking her life like that stop her from trying, as per canon. And it's not like she's the only one who this is disgracing by any stretch whatsoever.

Once Colonel Lin has drove to the car park in the military headquarter's in basement 2, he parked the car and tucked the car key in his right pocket. After that, Lin got off the jeep as well as Charlie. Then he grabbed Charlie by his horn like the way he did to Sunburst and began to drag him to the elevator.

Once they have arrived, Lin pressed onto the up button in the panel, and the elevator began to go down to his and Charlie's location.

Fifteen seconds later, the elevator doors opened and Lin dragged Charlie into the elevator. And finally, Lin pressed onto the basement one button and the elevator doors closed and it began to go up.

(What even is it with dragging them by the horn?)

So now they're there, and...

After he has finished that, Charlie saw a red coloured male earth pony fighting against a soldier, and the pony seems to have an upper hand. After five more seconds, the pony kicked the invader in the chest and it fell roughly onto the mat, then a single bag of nourishment and two bottles of water were dropped 11cm from the gate entrance.

Big Mac is there again.

"Thank you again for the resources." Big Mac said bowing his head, but Jin disregarded him.

Then Big Macintosh looked up at the leader again.

"Can I fight three more please?"

(And it's still not even backhanded, and he shouldn't trust them enough to speak with that amount of length, as Jordan said)

[one fight scene that ultimately ends in a loss later]

He slowly stood up and began to stagger back with the three invaders locking onto him while in fighting stances, but Big Mac couldn't fight anymore.

"That's enough for me." Big Mac said in a pained voice.

Then, the three soldiers bowed and walked back to their seating place.

After that, Big Macintosh picked up the single food bag and two water bottles and began to leave with them. But suddenly, a gun was fired.

*BANG!*

The creatures behind the gate all flinched and panicked when they heard the loud noise from the invader's metal weapon. Charlie looked in front of him and saw that the red pony was shot in the back of the head by a pistol bullet. Then, Big Mac's hooves gave away and he fell on the floor dead with blood pouring from his head. And Charlie including the creatures were traumatized.

...and Big Mac is dead now.

"Why did they open fire?" Charlie asked quietly.

"Shéi yǔnxǔ nǐ shèjí? (Who allowed you to shoot?)" Jin asked Colonel Lin angrily.

"Hǎo ba, jíshǐ tā mílùle, tā háishì ná zǒule tā de shíwù hé yǐnyòng shuǐ, suǒyǐ wǒ gěile tā fǎnxiǎng. (Well, he took the bag of his food and our drinking water even though he lost, so I gave him his repercussion.)"

Jin An Rong looked down at the dead pony and saw that two soldiers armed with assault rifles were dragging the dead pony to the dungeon. Then, he looked back at Colonel Lin and gave him a glare.

"Zhè jiān fángjiān jǐn yòng yú péiliàn. (This room is for sparring only.)" Jin told him in a menacing voice. He then grabbed his hand and pointed the colonel's own pistol under his chin. "Bùyào ràng wǒ kàn dào nǐ zài zhèlǐ zàicì kāi qiāng. (Do not let me see you firing a gun here again.)" He warned him in a hazardous tone.

"Shì, zhǎngguān. (Sir yes sir.)" Lin said quietly. After that, Jin let go of his hand and Lin holstered his gun back into his belt. "Qǐng lěngjìng yīxià jīn zhōng jiàng, wǒ jiāng wèi nín ānpái xià yī chǎng péiliàn bǐsài. (Please calm down Lieutenant General Jin, I'll arrange the next sparring match for you.)" He told him in a nervous tone.

So Lin, in all of his infinite wisdom (it's not Jin this time, for once, lol), decided to immediately jump to murdering Big Mac, instead of doing anything non-lethal? Not even asking ordering him to stop? Are you shitting me? This would only make the Equestrians more likely to rebel, because Big Mac won the first fight, lost the second, and took what he earned the first time, and this asshat arbitrarily killed him, without him being adequately punished (though I'll note that Jin doing that exact thing Lin did would not have been surprising).

Also, dragging Big Mac's corpse to the dungeon? Why is that, exactly? To burn the body?

After that, he walked up to the gate to pick who will go next. Then, the infiltrator Charlie Lam banged onto the gates.

"I want to fight! Open this gate!" Charlie demanded menacingly.

The soldier obeyed him and unlocked the gate. After that, Charlie walked into the sparring headquarters and looked at the fourteen soldiers for a second and looked up at the watch balcony where Lieutenant General Jin and Colonel Lin were standing.

So, guess you're just undeterred from seeing someone die for no reason, because you're that cool?

"I want to fight ten!"

When Jin and Lin heard this. They were surprised, can this teenager really take on ten soldiers on his own? Is he hiding some tactics?

He's a Gary Stu, don't question it.

Then ten Chinese soldiers stood up and walked onto the mat. Charlie took off his coat and threw it on the floor off the mat, then he walked onto it, and the ten soldiers bowed and got into fighting stances.

Why did he have that thing still?

Charlie studied all of them for a while and bowed as well, then all of the soldiers charged up towards the infiltrator.

So they get into a fighting stance only to charge? riiiiight...

A soldier behind him attempted to hit him in the back with a back kick. When Charlie felt the kick, he turned around and grabbed the soldier by the leg and threw him on the ground and stomped on his face which gave him a pained grunt in return.

Probably should've pasted his head.

(gonna skip forward a bit, not gonna lie)

The three remaining soldiers charged up towards Charlie at the same time and began to send punches and kicks at him but he was able to counter and block all of them because Charlie has mastered a very powerful martial art before since he was ten years old.

(because he's just that good, that there's never any muscle memory difficulties)

And finally, he finished soldier by delivering some excruciating punches to his face, and every punch he landed, the soldier let out some pained grunts.

After three more punches, Charlie ceased his attack and let go of the soldier and saw that he has gave the soldier a bloody face.

Just a bloody face?

Then, Colonel Lin threw down ten bags of food and twenty bottles of water from supermarkets in China onto the mat. Jin kicked one of the bags and water bottle near Charlie's front hooves.

Victory, which are any of us surprised?

Charlie looked at him and said "I didn't come here for the resources."

You did though, so what, are you trying to come across as a tough guy now?

After that, he turned around and picked up his laboratory coat and wore it. He then walked up to the blood stained food bag and two clean drinking waters. And finally, he stood up and began to leave but the Lieutenant General called him again.

Seriously, Big Mac died for little to no reason this chapter, other than for shock value.

"Hēi, nǐ hé wǒ yǒuyītiān yìng gāi yǒu yī chǎng xiǎo péiliàn bǐsài, nà zhēnshi lìng rén gāoxìng. (Hey, you and I should have a little sparring match one day, it would be merriment.)" Jin suggested.

Charlie disregarded his request and suggestion and walked up to the sparring room's gate. He then pulled it open and walked past the creatures lining up and to the work area in Canterlot, and the creatures were astonished by his moves. They tried to call him and ask for some information on how to teach the invaders a lesson but, he has already left, and was returning to working area with a black suited invader pushing him with it's scary metal weapon.

How insulting, the notion that they'd need him to remember know how to fight anyone. How's he fighting flawlessly with human martial arts in the body of a quadruped? The author just says so, and so it is!

[AC97]

(I've been waiting to either do this, or for Jordan to do so, whichever came first, though the latter doing it is still definitely most certainly something I wouldn't mind happening)

Chapter 18/19: Revelations

"Look at your hooves Charlie." Luster Dawn said with a sorrowful expression "I told you not to go with the other leader of the army." She finished.

What, did anything bad happen to him? Last I checked, no, he was not injured. What's with this overblown concern? Is it about the blood that isn't his, on his hooves?

"It's fine Luster Dawn." Charlie assured her "Besides, I am one tough human. I dealt with lots of stuffs back in my world." He told her. "Really?" She asked raising an eyebrow. "Yes." Charlie replied with a nod "I dealt with diseases myself with my adroit medical skills, handled an altercation between my friends, as well as inventing gadgets." He told her, and Luster Dawn was astonished.

Aside from gadgets not being anything new, how is any of that supposed to be overly impressive as worded? Is he saying he treated himself after contracting the regular Flu, the Common Cold? Also, what altercation? A debate over what movie was better that never got violent, just raised voices?

It's never explained why we're supposed to be impressed.

"Did your parents help you with anything?" She asked again. When Charlie heard her asking about his parents. He immediately sobbed and shed a tear.

Pretty sure we all know where that's going.

"M-my parents died Luster Dawn." Charlie said between sobs "My father was a firefighter captain who sacrificed himself while fighting a skyscraper fire. And my mother is a police tactical captain who died while protecting me and her team from a terrorist attack with her team. And I had to be on my own since I was six years old." He finished.

Okay... what? Protecting him? Are you trying to make us feel disgusted with a stereotypically tragic OC backstory that doesn't factor into the plot very well? Why isn't anything Charlie's experienced in the Story dulled by the fact that he's seen violence before (not saying it'd be likely to be the case, but it could be a possibility), or factor into his overall psyche, his character, in a tangible way, in general? Also... "on his own?" How does this factor into his backstory coherently, with the "unrealistic genius" parts, like if he's ever had to deal with any financial difficulties, hindering his opportunities? Anything of the sort?

Luster Dawn was shaken when she heard about his backstory, she didn't know that Charlie has lost both of his parents. And being alone at a very young age must be very rough and distressing experience for him.

She then shook all of that out of her head and embraced Charlie in a hug and began to comfort him.

"I'm so sorry Charlie." Luster Dawn said nearly shedding a tear "I didn't know that you have went through all of these sad and painful moments since you were eight years old. And six years old is still very young." She finished.

...how does "eight years old" factor into anything he said? What?

(One kiss and rubbing in the salt of Big Mac's stupid death later)

"I can't believe that they would do this, I had hope in redeeming the Lieutenant General and his platoon because of their exertions but, it looks like everything is clear." He finished.

"What is clear?" Luster Dawn asked perplexed.

"The Lieutenant General is definitely not going to have a simple negotiation with me." Charlie said feeling vexed "So this means that I have to find a way to get all of you out of this prison and out of Canterlot. Then, we will fight back against them." He finished sternly. And Luster Dawn gave him a nonchalant expression as if she wants revenge against the Chinese PLA.

"Agreed." Luster Dawn said with a nod and a smile "Since all of them killed many of my friends, they deserve a painful and daunting ramification. No mercy, no peace, this is war." She finished sternly. And Charlie gave her a proud expression.

You really had to wait until now to realize this? Was the fact that she witnessed a mare getting executed for no reason among many other things not enough for Luster to realize this? An uninvolved dragon?

It's implausible both of them didn't realize this before. Luster should've known in the Prologue they can't be reasoned with, let alone before Charlie's brain-dead plan to negotiate even got past the Canterlot city borders, before they got captured, but because it's only Charlie's ideas that matter narratively, she doesn't get to have an opinion/thought process that doesn't line up with his meaningfully.

Luster Dawn leaned her muzzle close to his and gave him a gentle nuzzle. And Charlie began to nuzzle her back, and the way he knows was because he saw animals mating in Wildlife Sydney back in his childhood. And he never knew that a nuzzle could be so soft and comfortable.

"Mating" huh?

What a disgusting mental image, all things considered (because one of them is Charlie, and both are poorly written).

Thankfully:

But the lovely event eventually ended when the metal door to their cell is being pulled open by someone.

So Captain "Imma throw muh tracker to the ground dramatically, and charge in alone after kicking down the gates to capture two people" Zhou interrupts the moment to take Charlie to Lieutenant General Jin, because he wants to speak to him. Luster Dawn is left behind in the cell.

2 minutes 28 seconds later, Zhou has officially arrived at the debriefing room doors. He let go of the chains between Charlie's cuffs and pushed the doors opened.

Oddly specific amount of time.

So now he's in the debriefing room.

"If you disobey my instructions again, I will begin to slaughter all of the creatures one by one because I need that wall as well as recording their combat skills to receive some more data of their kind, and what they are capable off." Jin warned him.

That wall is still stupid beyond belief, and you already want them dead judging by your previous actions.

Also, how'd you win if you don't comprehensively know everything already, or at least most things that mattered? Why are you performing this research on their home turf? It takes a special kind of stupid to do that.

"The creatures need to be supplied with food and water." Charlie told him kindly.

"They'll get their food and water after they have finished their work." Jin told him in a neglecting tone.

"You have to supply them with food and water now, or they will die of starvation and dehydration, which means that they cannot finish their work." Charlie told him again, and Jin scoffed in irritation when he heard him restating the request.

"You know, you are very emotional." Jin said "What makes you think you are in a position to make demands and deals with me?" He asked, then he looked back down on the table and resumed his work.

Genocidal egomaniac, Charlie, get it through your thick skull, idiot.

So Zhou almost removes him, but...

But he was stopped when Charlie talked again.

"The walls your coercing the creatures to do, are they for protecting you guys in case of a dire and hazardous situation?" Charlie asked him "And are they also for keeping some other creatures outside from infiltrating your headquarters?" He asked again, and Jin was startled by his knowledge, he kept himself silent to see if he knows more about that wall.

"Because I saw men outside on those two walls armed with QBU-88 sniper rifles capable of firing 7.62 millimetre rifle rounds, observing the outside of Canterlot and preparing for a battle." Charlie said.

Well? You going to ignore each and every logistical problem with that stupid wall? Considering the facts that are true of this land and its various inhabitants? ...yeah you are, aren't you?

Jin An Rong was really amazed at the teenager's details he elaborated. He then turned around and looked at him.

"The Colonel told me that you are smart, but that is very impressive." He said.

No, it's really not "impressive." I'm sure Twilight could've figured this out, and quite probably at least one of her friends, barring maybe the technical details of the guns.

After Charlie recaps the beginning of the Story, and what the wall is for:

Jin was truly amazed by Charlie's specific detail about him and his men's raid in Equestria again. It was like he is a mind reader, or maybe he has been gathering some information from the wanted fugitive Luster Dawn.

"Holy moly you are sagacious." Jin said with an impressed expression "Tell me kid, what do you picture me of my supremacy?" He asked as he turned around and focused on his work again.

I mean, really, what's complicated about any of this? I'm not sure I'd be fazed.

"You came here to kill me." Jin said "Were you gonna show me leniency?" He asked.

"I showed you leniency when I spared your men." Charlie told him, and Jin remembered how they all returned with a few minor bruises "I offered you peace, as well as a pacific negotiation. But you kept sending more men after me and Luster Dawn, and she got injured by one of the police officers as well." He finished, and Jin was showing no signs of pity or sorrow towards Charlie.

And again, it was unrealistically stupid to think that could ever work, to think that a peaceful outcome would've ever been the go-to option, under these circumstances.

"Besides, what is the point of all of this savage brutality?" Charlie asked "The creatures here are loving and peaceful, they did not even do anything to you guys." He told him.

When Jin heard this, he sighed and walked to the table. Then, he opened his window 8 laptop and turned it on. Once it was on, he clicked on 'my computer', then typed in my files. Once his files was shown, he began to type in a video for Charlie to watch.

Hmm... we're finally getting there, to what I've been waiting to bring up/see brought up (does said laptop have internet in this foreign land, one wonders, or if they're running off of a localized intranet)...

"Loving and peace, do you have any idea what their loving and peace has done to us?" He asked while scrolling down to find the suitable video. And Charlie was perplexed by his words.

"What do you mean?" Charlie asked feeling bewildered.

Almost there...

"It is quite obvious that you never heard of the news of what has happened in our country because, our government has forced foreign reporters out of our country and telling them to delete every footage they have recorded. Maybe this video that only the Chinese government and military have access to will reveal everything. And you will know why we are invading this land." He said. After that, he clicked on the touchpad and a news video was played.

Charlie saw what looks to be like the intro of TVB news from Hong Kong. After two seconds, a lady was shown sitting on a chair while starring at a screen.

"Tú fā xīnwén, zhōngguó dàlù de shǒudū běijīng bèi bùmíng shēnfèn de wǔqì yǎngài. Zhè shì zhèngzài fāshēng de shìqíng de jìngtóu. (Breaking news, mainland China's capital Beijing was obliterated by an unidentified weapon. Here's a footage of what is happening.)" The news lady said, and Charlie got confused, but what was shown next traumatized him.

A video of an obliterated city was shown in Beijing with many firefighters, paramedics, soldiers and police officers moving debrises desperately trying to look for survivors. Then, the news lady was shown again.

An "obliterated city," huh? Is this why Beijing didn't show up on the teleporter before Charlie arrived? _{(I know the answer's "yes," it's a rhetorical question)}

Wouldn't dealing with the internal fallout of what happened to Beijing be a very pressing concern, like if any people in power died, any such political difficulties that arise, like to put forth a worst-case scenario (for the Chinese), if Xi were to die? Story never mentions this, or any of the other myriad of things this could or would mean, with the Capital of China essentially being nuked, with the inherent, unaddressed repercussions therein.

Also, because satellite images are a thing, no, you're not hiding that something happened, if it's that major, aside from any information quite possibly, nay, probably leaking on the internet, at which point it's too late, the rumor mills start running, if nothing else, among things like "nobody's been allowed in Beijing for X amount of time" or "I haven't heard from my relative(s) that lived/visited there for the same amount of time."

Still think the cover-up is that simple, even before you factor in that being on Hong Kong's news as described, nobody trying to record it, like on their phones or whatever, upload any of that anonymously?

(The damage has resulted in taking over thousands of lives as well as over hundreds of wounded people childrens included as well. We are going to take a short advertisement break for now, stay tuned for more.)" The news reporter finished. Then, the video ended.

So, "obliterated city," "thousands died," which is it? Also, just "hundreds wounded?" That's quite low on both counts.

"It was the creatures of this land who provoked all of this havoc to themselves." He said while looking at him. Then, he began to specify more about the incident.

"Once we got reports that Beijing was obliterated, the General sent me and his men there." He said "And once we got there, it was all rubble and toppled buildings. We then began to look for survivors, we moved debris and found no one. Then, one of my men contacted me in my radio and told me that he has received reports from a paramedic instructor from the paramedic academy told him that my son, who is also a paramedic was in Beijing along with his colleagues, and they said that he must be gone. When I heard this, I denied to believe because my son is a strong and smart paramedic, but the police force confirmed my worst nightmare. And he was just like you when he was about your age, kind, brave and generous." He stated.

That, my friends, is a pitiful attempt to humanize your villain who's been a complete shitbag the entire Story with very few, if any redeeming qualities shown or implied thus far. It's a bad sob story, the "my son died, so that's why I'm such an asshole" song and dance.

And now... for the Magnum Opus of an utterly nonsensical backstory, from here on out, and hoo boy it's a long paragraph, figuratively and literally:

"It all came down to the moment that I have to track down the source of this attack to avenge my son and the ripped families, so we began to do a quick sweep." Jin told him "After searching about an hour and a half, one of my men called me and said that he has found something very intriguing. I ran to his location and saw that he was pointing at a very bizarre glowing pink substance.

Since when does magic leave anything behind physically, in MLP?

Based on what in canon? Why wouldn't it dissipate?

The soldier grabbed a sample of it and gave it to one of our scientist's to do some studies on it. After three days of waiting, the scientist got some results, and he stated that this newly discovered substance was magic.

That doesn't make any fucking sense.

How did they figure out that a substance that they have never seen before is magic within three days?! That has more holes in it than Swiss Cheese.

At first, it was a bit unbelievable but, when we placed the substance on a scanner, we found out that it belonged to an unknown land called Equestria, a place filled with ponies, unicorns, weird eagles with a lion body, large insects, yaks and many other unique and bizarre creatures.

Even if you somehow figured out that was magic (assuming anything was left behind, which is itself questionable), how do your Omniscient Scanners figure out it came from another fucking dimension, at the very least another planet?

This is the 21st Century. This is extremely unbelievable, on multiple levels.

It's not like magic has a legible "Made in USA and here's how to get there" or "Made in Equestria and here's how to get there" label on it, and if it did, literally how did they figure it out, when they just discovered it existed?

This sort of thing would be the job of something/ someone like, a forensic thaumatologist, who actually grew up in Equestria, if it is possible to figure this out, not some nonsensical fantasy science on the part of the Chinese, unless you have a damn good reason for them being able to do these things.

After that, we reported this to the General and he got infuriated when he heard that it was the creatures of Equestria who destroyed the capital and taking away many innocent lives, he then ordered me to lead some of my men to the land since I was the one who reported to him. I then agreed and began to ready my men for the upcoming fight ahead of us, we did firearms, combat, field and many more trainings as well as sending some spies to the land to gather some informations first about the land's creatures as well as the ruler Princess Twilight Sparkle with our teleporter, and it was her and her kind and friends who caused all of this destruction to our capital, as well as taking away many innocent lives. After one month of training, me and my platoon were ready. We armed ourselves with firearms, melee weapons, protective vests, helmets and many more. We then got on tanks, attack helicopters, trucks, technical vehicles and jeeps and drove into the land through some portals with some teleportation devices our engineers and scientists have invented, which is very ridiculous. And that is when all of the mass destruction started."

He's right, it is ridiculous... very ridiculous. (oh, and only now is the paragraph over)

They, out of the blue, got their city "obliterated" (which feels like it should've had more consequences for the Chinese, but we don't get to see any beyond "they invaded Equestria"), yet when they somehow found out it was from another dimension, they didn't just do nothing out of fear, because they have no idea that it was anything anyone specifically did, and if they assume someone actively did it, that they wouldn't nuke their world repeatedly out of sheer terror, assuming they didn't realize how fucked they could be if they retaliated.

That backstory is completely nonsensical, especially for Jin's character, with how horribly liable he is supposed to be to underestimate others, when his backstory is entirely predicated on "Beijing got magically nuked."

The viewpoints of "Equestrians are frail," and "they destroyed a city of ours" are mutually exclusive to anyone with a functioning brain, and he'd have never defeated them if he was narcissistic and/or stupid enough to truly believe this was the case, that they're "frail."

A month of concurrent spying and training, and they were ready to fight another world's country, and the lands beyond it, with those types of numbers, as invaders ("platoon"), after only knowing magic existed for about the same length of time, with their first experience with it being "city obliterated."

Need I say more, or is it not self-evident enough how many holes in logic exist here, how suicidal everything about the Chinese's battle plans are, to say nothing of their methods of holding down territory were and are (or "nonexistent" in the case of "occupying territory"), with their strong emphasis on "enslave them," only being protected from logical consequences by the will of the author, in lieu of any plausibility?

And how fast was the R&D on that stupid teleporter that makes no sense? Why do horn rings even exist (like, could you even get it to work with any earthly materials? The answer could be "no" for all you know), let alone so rapidly? Neither of these questions could have sensible answers.

Also, this excerpt from an earlier chapter is very important to discuss, with the outlined backstory:

"It all started out like this. I was having another normal lesson with my mentor Princess Twilight Sparkle. We were conducting some magic spells with some portal combinations technique. Everything was going well until I did an accident that I don't even know what happened." She told him.

Luster Dawn accidentally "obliterated" a fucking city. Why is she, and others logically a lot more powerful than her so useless?

She should be killing entire companies like it's nothing if she did that by accident, not cheering from the sidelines while Charlie fights them, and she surely could've effortlessly defeated Jin in the first chapter, same goes for Twilight Sparkle and her friends. Luster Dawn could've pulled off multiple squad wipes effortlessly, putting Charlie's comparatively feeble martial arts to shame, in numerous chapters, but she didn't.

That the above fact plainly wasn't considered is terrible, and it doesn't even have the excuse of not following canon because ponies got nerfed here, because that's the Story's internal logic.

And Luster has no idea she did this at all, obliterated a city, so it's not something she feels crippling guilt over.

And how do you obliterate a city in another world by accident, while trying to make portals? What's the canon precedent for that?

"I understand your pain and agony but, will revenge bring your son back?" Charlie asked in a logical sense.

Jin scoffed and said "Of course it won't bring my son back but, at least he will be avenged by the time I decide to kill all of them."

And there it is. Jin is genocidal, folks. Which we already knew, mind you.

"I didn't mean to get my men to hurt your girlfriend Luster Dawn." He told him with no signs of sorrow "But if it was her destiny for her and her kind to be inherit by us, then I'm glad I did." Jin finished in a careless tone.

And it's apparent Jin does not know Luster did this, either.

When Charlie heard this, he got angry and pushed Jin back, and Jin fell on the floor roughly. Charlie attempted to walk up to him and hit him again but Zhou grabbed his cuffs and aimed his pistol at his head.

"Hey! Hey! Hey!" Zhou yelled.

Jin slowly stood up after that unexpected attack and glared at Charlie.

So Charlie attempts to attack Jin, doesn't get very far due to Zhou, he gets called emotional, and...

"Bǎ tā dài huí láofáng. (Bring him back into his cell.)" Jin ordered.

(Finally)

"The creatures of the land did not establish this war." Charlie told him "But I will put an end to it." He finished sternly.

Jin scoffed and said "Good luck with that."

After that, Zhou grabbed the chain between his cuffs again and began dragging him back to his cell.

And with that boast, the chapter is over.

That was supposed to be the backstory. But it made no sense, and the Story somehow one-upped itself in being nonsensical.

_{(Multitude of minor edits and additions have been made, like the bit about "thaumatologist" to elaborate, how implausible it would be to cover that up regarding Beijing, and de-emphasized a few words throughout [like deitalicizing].)}

[AC97]

5267999

A good and adroit adventurous person is always prepared for situations like these. And Charlie bought them from Chinatown in Australia.

You couldn't have missed the actual point any more if you tried, which is that he shouldn't have that stuff anymore, because he got captured.

I know but, a devoted husband and wife wouldn't leave each other alone when they are injured or in a hazardous situation like this. Plus, she also has a suppressor ring on her horn which prevents her from using her magic.

Even if they actually have something to gain?

Also, "suppressor ring" leads into...

Well, it's mainly because he thinks he is more adroit and skilled in battlefields and combat compared to them.

So, if he thinks he's so much better, which would be obvious to literally anyone who's been around him, witnessed him, Starlight included, why wouldn't she think trying to goad him into sparring with her without the horn ring on has merit?

"Humans are supposed to be so much better than us frail ponies, right? Then why not let me fight you, at my best? Unless you're too scared, too much of a coward to prove it... you already beat my husband, what's one mare to you?"

That's especially relevant because he actually did that without being goaded in a later chapter, so it would've worked.

But you don't actually care about respecting any of the characters that aren't named "Charlie," as has been apparent from the beginning, since everyone else is a mere pawn in the grand scheme of making him look so much better than they are, for the sake of a very thinly-veiled power fantasy.

Luster could've helped too, for a similar reason, but Charlie just had to get all the glory to himself in your eyes, for no good reason.

And also, he has defeated ten soldiers by himself.

You're telling me this as if I don't understand it, which I do understand. Stop insulting my intelligence by talking as if I don't understand.

the Colonel gave him his repercussion by killing him, which makes no sense at all.

I repeat: you, from an author's perspective, killed Big Mac for shock value, in a transparent attempt to piss us off regarding the Chinese. That's why you did it from a meta perspective, end of story, optimistically.

Well, Taekwondo is a martial art that focuses more on kicking and uses hands for back up and uses a different leg stance because the body needs to be ready to perform fast kicks. And he is an alicorn, so it would be easy for him to kick and defend himself with his hooves am I right?

Say it with me: alicorns aren't bipedal humans, they're quadrupeds. He's suffered zero adjustment difficulties with a martial art designed for bipeds, and he's never had to actually work for victory in any of the fights he's been in, he's curb-stomped every opponent in every "real fight," whether it be because he's inexplicably better with remembering to use magic than the native inhabitants who grew up with it, whereas he learned it existed very recently, or because he never had to relearn how to walk, let alone fight. You hand him every last victory he's had on a silver platter, the same with all of his skills, for his convenience.

So in short, no, it doesn't hold up as an excuse, and you don't have to be a martial artist to see why.

[AC97]

(After the last chapter, which showcased a... highly questionable backstory for the story, we now pick back up on Charlie being taken back to his cell.)

Chapter 19/20: Challenge

Zhou Chang Min has been dragging Charlie back to his jail cell for two minutes now. And to his great surprise, he never spoke. He kept himself silent during the whole walk.

I mean, really, this guy murdered Changelings on his way to trying to capture him. What is there to say? Trying to manipulate his sympathies? Because that'd be unlikely to work. What would he have said normally?

While walking, Charlie's mind was filled with dread, depression and inquiries after the meeting with the Lieutenant General. The ponies the ones who started all of this havoc? Did they really destroyed Beijing? How many were killed?

"What is the meaning of this? Did the creatures of the land really destroy China's capital Beijing? How many did they kill? Is this vengeance?" Charlie asked in his mind, but he pushed that out of his head and began to find himself "Even if that is true, The Chinese shouldn't have invaded the peaceful land. Retribution never solves a problem like this, I have to put an end to this war." He finished sternly.

He's right, they shouldn't have invaded the land... but not for the reason he listed; there's a laundry list of reasons as to why it shouldn't have happened, least of which is "it's stupid from a pragmatic standpoint."

So now he's back in the cell with Luster Dawn, they kiss, she asks him how it went, and...

When Charlie heard her inquiry, he decided not to tell her about what the Lieutenant General said to him because, he doesn't wants her to be disconsolated or demoralized over what he had watched on the Lieutenant General's laptop, as well as him giving out some details on why he and his platoon were invading the land.

"Not much, just gave me a warning about what will happen if I neglect or defy his orders." Charlie lied.

Luster Dawn giggled from his remark.

"Now that's funny, and there is no way that you will comply with him right?" She asked.

"Of course not, I am not like him and his platoon. And I am definitely not from his country." Charlie stated with a shake of his head.

"I am glad to have a special somepony like you." Luster Dawn said as she embraced Charlie in a hug, and Charlie hugged back.

...While I'm not criticizing his decision not to tell her in and of itself (though it could make for an interesting character moment, her finding out what she inadvertently did without his input and/or at an inopportune moment), there's a problem with this: Charlie isn't telling her about something important. Jin told him to his face that his plans are genocidal. I guarantee you that a majority of people you put in this scenario would've made telling the other that a top priority, let alone someone who's supposed to be a supergenius like Charlie.

This goes beyond what both of them should've known by the time the 14th chapter was over, how anyone with a lick of sense would've realized that the Chinese can't and/or shouldn't be peacefully negotiated with, at least when they're not on the backfoot, or beyond how terrible Charlie is with diplomacy.

So anyway, moving on, Charlie and Luster decide to go to bed for more slave work tomorrow, when...

After that, they stood up from the floor and began to walk to the bed. Luster Dawn climbed on it first and had her muzzle against the wall. Charlie was going to climb on after her but suddenly, he felt a small slab move ride under the bed. And the sound also attracted Luster Dawn.

Well...

"Huh? What was that?" Charlie asked looking under the bed.

"What is it Charlie?" Luster Dawn asked looking under the bed.

Charlie pulled out his flashlight from his pocket and aimed it forward. He then pushed the switch forward and the light shined forward. Charlie began to scrutinize what was under the bed, when his eyes traveled down, he saw six lose slabs that probably leads to the sewers where they entered. He then turned off his flashlight and looked at Luster Dawn with a smile on his muzzle.

"Luster Dawn, there are six lose slabs under our bed that probably leads to the sewers." Charlie told her.

Who told you that Charlie, the narration that just said it, verbatim?

The Chinese would be stupid to overlook such an obvious hole in security, it goes without saying. Then again, their security track record has been horrible thus far, considering what happened early on.

Also, why is he allowed to still have a flashlight? Why would the Chinese let him keep it? It's not like they care about his convenience.

So Luster, instead of trying to do any thinking for herself, to show off her intelligence, or planning alongside him, complementing him, asks him what the plan is:

"Okay listen up." Charlie said, and Luster Dawn began to listen "By tomorrow after we are finished with our work, we can remove the slabs under the bed at night and jump back into the sewers. After that, we can break everypony else out by going under their cell's faulty slabs and removed them silently. We'll start with Princess Twilight Sparkle and her friends first, then the rest. Then, we will exit Canterlot from the place where we entered through the planks. And then, we can try and recruit and confront the others across the land again with the help of Twilight Sparkle. And finally, we can gather together and fight back against the Chinese and take your land back." He stated.

Luster Dawn was truly astonished by Charlie's field of study. His IQ level is like straight off the chart.

"That's a great plan Charlie." Luster Dawn said with a smile.

"Thank you, we can commence it tomorrow. But first, we will have to tell everyone about it tomorrow as well." Charlie told her.

...What? No, no it isn't a great plan. How do you know that their cells would also have faulty slabs, that it would be that easy to remove them? How do you know yours isn't a freak occurrence? How do you know for sure it leads to the same sewers? That they lead there anyway? You're not even certain they go there.

It's also hilarious that only now is the plan to use Twilight Sparkle in the process of gathering allies, instead of, oh, I dunno, the 4th chapter of the story, after Twilight got healed up with Healing Spray? Nobody ever suggested that staying in Ponyville just to get captured again just might be counterproductive, because it involves doing absolutely nothing, and even if Twilight had a horn ring on and couldn't get it off, since Luster didn't have one (or it got removed, in which case Twilight's could've been removed, same for Starlight's), she could've reminded Luster to try to leverage her teleportation to help them escape.

I guess the author thinks Charlie is smarter and has more common sense than Twilight and all of her friends combined, when no, he really isn't smarter, and he doesn't have more common sense. This is artificially infantilizing all of them.

So Luster and Charlie go to bed, but not without sharing another kiss (that's twice in this chapter).

Charlie and Luster Dawn began to spread the news to everyone working in Canterlot. They started with yaks first and they were very exhilarated. For second, they told the changelings and they couldn't wait to return back home to the Changeling Kingdom. Third, they told the dragons, and they just couldn't wait to claim revenge against the invaders along the Kirins and diamond dogs. And finally, they reported this to the ponies, and they had the same reactions as everyone else.

And how long would it take to spread the news realistically, one wonders?

"Wow, really?" Twilight asked with an exhilarated smile.

"Indeed Princess Twilight Sparkle." Charlie said with a nod "We can instigate the escape tomorrow." He told her.

"Nice, I can't wait to kick the invaders butts." Rainbow Dash said contentedly.

"Charlie Lam, I appreciate all of the help that you have given us." Twilight said with a grateful smile "How can I ever thank you?"

"Eh no sweat." Charlie said while rubbing the back of his head "Besides, I endow succour and support to those in need." He finished.

"Thank you for everything." Said Twilight's friends, and Charlie replied with a nod.

"I really can't thank you enough Charlie, for reminding us of the idea that we can escape like we did the first time."

Seriously? Twilight hasn't been plotting an escape? Disgraceful.

And then...

But suddenly, two riot police units wearing gas masks and armed with anti-riot guns walked up to them and aimed their metal weapons directly at the ground near them. Then, Charlie stepped forward in front of Luster Dawn and sent the two units a glare.

"What do you two want?"

The two officers disregarded his inquiry and one of them talked.

"This is not a tropical resort. Get back to work, or else you will have to breath in these tear gases." He said gripping onto the trigger.

When Charlie saw that the two units were about to fire out some tear gases from their anti-riot guns. He slowly activated his horn to prepare for a fight, but then, a loud yell was heard.

"activated his horn," huh? Yeah, Jordan's already talked about that in this very blog post, along with why less-lethal is stupid on another occasion. Really, you'd think they'd have interrupted him earlier, too.

This confrontation is interrupted by Jin:

Charlie looked in front of him and saw the Lieutenant General walking towards him and his friends. He stopped 4cm in front of Charlie and gave him an assured smile, but Charlie found it awkward because he was very scornful yesterday.

"What do you want?" Charlie growled.

"Ease it out kid. I just want to talk." Jin told him "Since the day you've infiltrated the land and resisted the Chinese army and police force, you have been a dead man. But, when I witnessed the sparring event you had with ten of the new recruits, I was impressed, and you sure are talented. So I will make a fair deal, if you edify my platoon of your martial arts you have learned, I will tell my men to open up the teleportation machine we have invented and let you go back to Australia like none of this has happened. Sounds like a great deal eh?" He asked.

When Charlie heard this, he replied by sending him a menacing glare.

"You think that I will accept that vile deal? After what you and your platoon have done to this land and it's creatures just for some selfish revenge?" Charlie asked in a hazardous tone "I would rather stay here and die." He said.

"Sure, I'll teach your bipedal men how to use martial arts that I've been using while utilizing the body mechanics of a quadruped."

Really, even if you somehow believed that his word meant anything, it would be an exercise in futility, trying to teach them, and just because you're an expert at something does not mean you'd be an expert at teaching it.

I'd wonder if you could also find a way to use this deal against them, too, considering.

When Jin heard his reply, he chuckled vily.

"Then your wish will be granted." Jin said as he reached out for his pistol in his holster.

Bloodthirsty Jin at it again. What's the exact purpose of killing him now?

This is then interrupted with:

When Twilight noticed the invader reaching out for it's metal weapon, she immediately stood up and looked at him face to face. And her exertion made Jin cease his attempt. The two riot police units were about to aim their tear gas guns at her but Jin stopped them again by raising his right hand.

"I wasn't talking to you Princess Twilight stupid." Jin insulted.

When Twilight's friend heard the invader insulting Twilight, they stood up and attempted to fight him but Twilight stopped them by raising her hoof, and her friends sat back down.

"Insult me all you want invader. But I will make sure that you will never harm my subjects ever again." She told him menacingly.

Oh look, only now Twilight's trying to do something. Where were you in the Prologue, the 4th chapter? Did Charlie's nonsensical reason to exist get in your way?

Jin laughed at her remark.

"Hahaha! Like you've got guts to stand up against me, your just a dumb Princess with low education in technology and combat fields." Jin mocked "Besides, it's not like you have the guts to fight me, you've lost to me once." He finished, and his sentence earned him a glare from her.

"You think I don't have guts?" Twilight asked "If you want to see my true power, then why don't you witness it with a one on one fight against me?" She asked again, and her friend starred at her with so much anxiety in them.

"You want to fight me?" Jin asked with a surprised expression. And Twilight replied with a nod.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that the mare who's fought powerful supervillains on multiple occasions by definition has combat experience, knowledge, and she wasn't even a Fledgling Alicorn at the start. A nonmagical human is nothing to any of that.

"Twilight! What are you thinking? You're too exhausted to even fight." Rainbow Dash told her.

"Yeah, not to mention how the invader beat you the last couple of days since his arrival and the slavery experience." Pinkie said feeling neurotic along with Cheese.

"Twilight, this is not a good idea." Sunburst and Starlight said in unison.

"You'll get wounded again." Fluttershy and Applejack said in unison.

"Please don't go Twilight." Spike and Rarity begged in unison.

Twilight then turned around and looked at her friends and gave them an assured expression.

"Don't worry girls, I've fought worse along with you all remember?" She asked.

I'm pretty sure this is out of character, for at least most of them.

You think the likes of Rainbow Dash and Starlight would advocate she give up without fighting? If anything, it would be more realistic that they'd encourage her, and/or try to exploit Jin's overconfidence to be in a position to fight alongside her for those so inclined, which the majority of them are.

Twilight should've never lost to Jin in the first place, but that's another topic.

"You are confident Princess I'll give you that, so if you want to fight me, then you can fight me for free." He said.

Twilight turned around again and looked at the invader with no fear towards it.

"I guess you have accepted the challenge then." Twilight said "If I win, you'll have to let my subjects go." She finished.

"Okay, but if you loose, you will continue working along with your cretinous and weak subjects." He told her.

"Deal." She said.

Pretty sure she'd be aware that she can't trust him to keep his word, if that became relevant.

Jin scoffed and said "Then let's go."

After that, Jin grabbed Twilight's chain between her cuffs and pulled her up on her hooves. Then, he began to drag her to his jeep.

Once he got there, he gripped onto the passenger seat door and pulled it open. Then, he pushed Twilight inside and closed the door. After that, Jin got into the driver seat and began to drive to the military headquarters.

Twilight's friends as well as Charlie and Luster Dawn were very anxious towards Twilight, because the invader would immediately knock her down if she tried to fight. But with her magic by her side, it would be more feasible. But they still don't know of they have enough energy to use them. So for now, they have to wait and see.

And with that end to the chapter, Twilight will duel Jin, with none of her friends having even tried to play to Jin's gargantuan ego and fight alongside her, which even if she could effortlessly wipe the floor with him without help (realistic scenario), is inexcusable OOC cowardice.

[AC97]

(from where we left off, Twilight is going to fight Jin...)

Chapter 20/21: Jin An Rong vs Twilight Sparkle

Lieutenant General Jin An Rong has drove his jeep to basement 2 of the military headquarter. The sliding gates automatically opened, and Jin drove in, he then parked his car in an empty place right next to a technical truck. Then, he got off his jeep and dragged Twilight Sparkle off as well, and finally, he walked to the elevator and tapped on the up button.

The author still thinks they could sell the idea of dragging a full-grown alicorn, when ehhhhh... not really no.

You should know by now this bodes poorly... for Twilight.

(Staff sergeant Wong, I need you to go to the canteen and gather all fourteen of the new recruits and get them to the sparring headquarters so that they can see how a true soldier fights.)" He ordered.

So Jin wants there to be a decent audience for this.

(Good, and make sure you go and get someone to record our battle with a camera so that either the General or the President can see our satisfying job.)" Jin added as he dragged Princess Twilight Sparkle to the sparring headquarters.

...And have it recorded.

So they're gathered into the sparring room, sat down, and Jin has the following preparations, which will be a point of discussion later:

Five seconds later, the Lieutenant General entered the room with Princess Twilight Sparkle behind him. He then folded his green suit and placed it off of the mat, then, he wore a level three vest, riot shin guards, metal knee and elbow pads, shoulder pads, and a dark helmet. Then, he began to talk to all of the rookie soldiers.

(right, as if any of that could save you)

(I'm trying to be a fair man. So since Princess Twilight Sparkle of Equestria here so desperately wants me and all of you to show some leniency to her subjects by letting them go. I'm happy to get off my rack time and give the Princess here a chance to prove, that she is worthy to give me demands.)" Jin said.

Okay then...

Jin looked at one of his men guarding the gate and began to give him an order.

"Yong Zheng Liang, dǎkāi tā de xiùkǒu, qǔ xià tā jiǎo shàng de yìzhì qì huán. (Uncuff her and remove the suppressor ring on her horn.)"

Yong nodded and ran up to Twilight Sparkle. He then removed the metal suppressor cuffs on her hooves and removed the suppressor ring on her horn, but her wings were still cuffed. And finally, he ran back to his place.

Twilight was very disorientate when she saw that her cuffs and circle pressure thing being taken off.

"Why did you-"

"It wouldn't be fair if you had your advantages locked away right?" Jin asked.

Twilight tried to add something else but Jin cut her off.

"Anyways, one on one combat match, no rules, you fight till you drop." Jin told her. He then looked at the cameraman on his left.

"Quèbǎo zài shìpín shàng huòdé suǒyǒu zhèxiē xìnxī. (Make sure you get all of this on video.)"

"Shì, zhǎngguān. (Sir yes sir.)" The soldier said as he began recording.

"I really appreciate you giving me a sporting chance. That's all I needed," Twilight said, before igniting her horn. In a flash, before anyone could react, she was gone... leaving her wing restraints behind to clatter on the ground, to which Jin was dumbfounded. The building was demolished in the next twenty seconds, killing them all before they could escape.

...Nah, that's not what happened, sadly, here's what actually comes next:

After that, Jin got into a fighting stance, and Twilight began to charge her horn. None of the two were making any movements, but then, Jin decided to make his first move. He ran up to the Princess and jumped in the air, attempted to front kick her in the face. Twilight responded by blasting him in the chest, Jin was sent flying back when the magic blast collided with his chest, but he didn't get injured because of his vest, and he fell on his back on the mat roughly.

Oh, really now, you think his vest could save him from being injured from a demigoddess, not even severe blunt force trauma, if he's being sent flying backwards, if it more realistically didn't kill him by piercing his body, or blowing him up?

Word of God on the previous excerpt, and the text to come is as follows:

And the reason why here magic was futile was because Jin was wearing a very protective vest as well as riot gears.

...Yeah, I think I should continue on, I think you know where this is going.

Jin looked up at Princess Twilight Sparkle with a vexed expression. He then pushed himself back up and ran up to her in an incredible speed. When Jin closed his distance between her, he drew his right leg back and attempted to hit her with a front kick, but Twilight responded by side stepping the attack, but Jin reacted quicker and attempted to hit Twilight with a round house punch. When Twilight noticed the attack, she evaded it by ducking her head. Then, she charged her horn again and blasted the invader in the chest again with her magic. And Jin was sent falling on the mat, but he recovered quickly and kicked himself back up.

"What in Equestria? How could an invader like him be able to get up from two of my blasts that quick?" Twilight thought while breathing heavily.

Because the author is arbitrarily nerfing you into oblivion, Twilight. Never mind the fact that you temporarily bodied someone supernaturally durable, caused them to lose a tooth, when a shovel shattering against their leg did nothing, when you were less powerful than you're supposed to be here, to say nothing of it being all but certain you're supposed to be more powerful than Luster Dawn, who "obliterated Beijing."

But sure, someone who's only human can get back up after attacks that would easily shatter every bone in their torso, if not vaporize them, depending on how pissed off she is, which she's watched him murder others on numerous occasions, which would fuel her magic with anger.

Jin then ran up towards Twilight again and attempted to side kick her in the face, but Twilight managed to block it with her hooves. But suddenly, Jin landed a reverse turning kick to the side of her face. And the force of his kick made her fall roughly on the mat.

Twilight moaned and looked up and saw the invader lifting it's right leg up in the air and attempting to finish her with an axekick, when she took noticed of the attack, she evaded it by rolling and the foot was slammed on the mat. Then, Twilight pushed herself back up and got into a battle stance.

No teleporting out of reach immediately upon or before block? No shields so he'd hurt himself trying to punch or kick you?

The two fighters circled around each other for a moment. None making any moves, Jin clenched his fists, and Twilight activated her horn.

Then, Jin made his move. He ran up to Princess Twilight Sparkle and attempted to punch her in the muzzle. When Twilight noticed the attack, she paralysed the invader's hand with her magic, and the punch was ceased. But unexpectedly, the magic grasp broke apart and the punch landed directly at her muzzle, and the force of the invader's punch made Twilight grunt in pain and stagger backwards with a bleeding muzzle.

It's embarrassing how nonsensical this is.

Twilight's telekinesis is powerful, it really is, unless you think a giant Ursa Minor and a water tower filled with milk that weighs many, many tons would be outperformed by a human's punching, at even a tenth of S1 Twilight's power. You think Jin could lift this, or punch with more power? There'd be nothing Jin (or any of his men) could do against a Freeze Spell, because he doesn't have the super strength and/or magic to make that not work, there's nothing he could do about being trapped in a crystal, there's nothing he could do if Twilight trapped him in a shield, there's nothing he could realistically do about how innately durable and innately strong she is supposed to be as an alicorn of Celestia's stature.

But sure, Jin's just so kewl he can outperform Twilight's magic, with his non-magical strength.

"How is this possible?" Twilight said quietly with her eyes closed because of the contusion she received.

"You should invent more stronger armour Princess Twilight, and I would also recommend you to engage more in hand to hand combat instead of using your feeble magic." Jin insulted.

No, how about you stop being protected from logical consequences by the author's railroading that's been in play since the Prologue?

This isn't possible. This is complete bullshit.

Then, Jin ran up towards Twilight Sparkle again.

Twilight managed to open her eyes in time and noticed the invader charging towards her. She then swung her right hoof back and attempted to punch him in the face.

When Jin noticed the temerarious attack from the debilitated Princess, he grabbed the hoof and twisted it.

"Ahhhhh!" Twilight screamed in pain.

After that, Jin bent down and grabbed Twilight's back left hoof. And finally, he lifted her up in the air and slammed her roughly on the mat which made a loud thud.

So what, you expect me to think he can outperform an alicorn's supernatural physical strength that goes beyond how big she is, that Twilight, instead of aiming for his limbs to disable them one-by-one, then proceeding from there, or showcasing more magical variety that we know she has (like teleportation) other than "just shoot at them," would drop all of that in favor of trying to physically hit him, when goaded?

This is terrible, and I find it doubtful that he'd be able to get the chance to body slam her without her casting any magic to stop this. She could've defeated him long before now by throwing him up into the air, then just letting gravity defeat him, after he's slammed into the ceiling, or just casting a gravity spell on him and winning that way.

But this isn't a logical or sensible story, where Twilight's allowed to be intelligent against a foe without magic, or at all.

You can't tell me Twilight wouldn't have been thinking about how best to fight someone if she by any chance got her magic unbound, if she's had any time to properly plan, even as a fantasy.

Jin then stood up again and looked down at Twilight Sparkle with a vile smile.

"Is that it?"

Twilight coughed out blood on the mat, then she placed her hooves on the mat and slowly began to push herself back up which made Jin shake his head in disappointment. Then, Twilight activated her horn again.

When Jin noticed this, he immediately ran up to the Princess and jumped up in the air. Attempting to hit her with a flying front kick to the face. Twilight responded by side stepping the attack and blasting the invader's waist, and Jin crashed onto the mat roughly but his vest managed to protect him. He turned around and saw Twilight Sparkle running up towards him and attempting to kick him in the face. When Jin noticed the attack, he grabbed Twilight's hoof and punched it which made a loud bone cracking noise. After that, Twilight fell on the floor in pain.

"Auughh!" Twilight grunted in agony.

Bull. Shit.

If Twilight was having this much trouble in close range, she would be keeping her distance, constantly harassing him nonstop with her magic, disabling his limbs as previously mentioned, if she inexplicably couldn't get through his vest (which is complete hogwash, lest we forget so soon). Why couldn't she transform him into a frog, or a potted plant? An egg so she could squash him?

Jin stood up again and sent the Princess another vile smile.

"You know I just realized, you and your subjects look a hell of a like, when you beg for mercy and resources." Jin told her.

Twilight placed her hooves on the mat again and attempted to stand up and fight while disregarding her broken back hoof.

Jin wasn't going to let her get up again. He gripped onto the Princess's horn with his right hand and slammed her face first onto the mat which gave even more contusions on her. Then, Jin wrapped his arms around her neck and kneed her in the chest four times, and the attacks made Twilight cough out blood. And finally, Jin released his grapple and reverse kicked the Princess in the chin. And the force of his kick sent Twilight crashing roughly into the gate, with a bleeding muzzle, bruising back, chest, two broken hooves and two bruised hooves.

After the battle, Jin looked at all of the soldiers.

"Nín bù juédé wǒ yīnggāi dédào zhǎngshēng ma? (Don't you think I deserve a round of applause?)" Jin asked.

Then, all of the soldiers began cheering and clapping.

"Huáng cānmóu zhǎng, jiāng mù guāng shǎnshǎn dài huí hùwài jìxù tā de gōngzuò. (Staff Sergeant Wong, bring Twilight Sparkle back outside to continue her work.)" Jin ordered.

"Shì, zhǎngguān. (Sir yes sir.)"

After that, Wong stood up from the floor and ran up to the wounded Princess Twilight Sparkle. He then grabbed her by her hooves and began to drag her back to the working area.

This is pathetic, insulting. Not only did you fail to possess the decency to make her loss plausible, but then you have her be severely beaten down to rub in the salt.

You really don't care whatsoever about respecting any of the characters that aren't named "Charlie," and as such, this is one of the most disgusting things I've had the displeasure of reading recently.

If it were Chrysalis doing this (under certain circumstances where she'd have enough power), I could understand it, if it were Nightmare Moon doing this, I could understand it, among others I didn't list, but not a fucking mundane human, who doesn't have super strength, who doesn't have superhuman durability, who doesn't have magic.

This? This is character assassination.

This villain shouldn't have been able to beat Twilight here, nor should he have won in the Prologue against the Mane Six and Spike, and I don't care how you try to "rationalize" it, because there is no reasonable explanation for this. You don't care about Twilight being appropriately competent, and it shows.

Twilight realistically didn't need Charlie to defeat Jin, or the absurdly small force that invaded Equestria, and nothing will change that fact. The entire premise is terrible on many levels.

...So anyway, Twilight is taken back to the work area.

But suddenly, a revving sound ceased them. They all looked at the source of the sound and saw another large mechanic beast, but to Charlie, it was a military truck.

Then, an invader got off the truck and walked to the back. Then, Princess Twilight Sparkle was thrown onto the ground.

"Twilight!" Her friends and Charlie screamed in horror. Then, they ran up to her and began to scrutinize her condition.

The invader who dropped her here got back into his truck and drove back to the headquarters.

"Twilight! Twilight!" Her friend screamed trying to wake her up, but she was unconscious.

Charlie surveyed her with his eyes and saw that she had a bloody muzzle, a left black eye, a bruised back and chest, a broken hoof and three bruising ones. And the sight made all of the creatures feel a huge melancholy.

Hmm... "a broken hoof, three bruised ones," so Story can't even keep up with exactly how it's tortured a character, like, literally one scene ago, unless only now does she have a healing factor, which I doubt.

"Princess Twilight." Luster Dawn said shedding a tear along with all of the creatures.

When Charlie noticed Luster Dawn crying, he embraced her in a hug and began to comfort her.

"Shhh shh shh, calm down Luster Dawn. I promise that we will get out of here tonight, and after we have done that, I will make the Lieutenant General pay for his exertion towards your ruler." Charlie whispered to her.

I hate your entire existence as a character specifically designed to eclipse Twilight and all of her friends, that are all vastly more interesting than you could ever dream of being, and all the power and alleged smarts in the world being given to you won't change that. You will always be an overpowered idiot given too much prominence by the narrative, and the same applies with Jin.

And with that, the chapter is over.

That wasn't the easiest thing to review, because my word did that go out of its way to be as insulting as humanly possible, especially coupled with the previous chapter, and how none of Twilight's friends tried to exhibit a shred of bravery, to back her up.

[AC97]

(In recap, I'd gotten through... one of the most insulting chapters in this story, and that's saying something, because Jin curb-stomped a Master Alicorn Mage, even with her using her magic.)

Chapter 21/22: Escape

All of the creatures of Equestria including Charlie were now being sent back to their cells in cuffs by some riot police officers.

Once they got there, all of them got thrown back into their cells roughly, but Charlie fell roughly on his back with a grunt, and Luster Dawn fell on top of him. Then, the door closed behind them.

"Jeez, what jerks." Luster Dawn said while looking down at Charlie. "I've been waiting to say that for a while now." She told him.

Stop it, this isn't going to be appealing no matter how many times you contrive "fell on top of them."

Also, "jerks," you couldn't come up with anything better?

Charlie chuckled and said "Don't worry, at least we can instigate the escape now."

Luster Dawn giggled and leaned closer to his muzzle. Then, they shared another tender kiss. They held each other for ten seconds and released while breathing heavily.

"Alright, let's do this." Luster Dawn said as she got off Charlie, and Charlie sat up "What do we do first?" She asked.

The kiss was ten seconds long two chapters ago, as well, I should note, as a useless tidbit. And poor Luster, waiting for this guy to take initiative, instead of doing something independently. I mean, you know the floor's loose, you were there.

...I think I'll post a nice Luster Dawn ship image, as a palate cleanser, if you don't mind.

I think that helped.

Charlie replied by walking to the bed and activating his horn. Then, he slowly and quietly moved the bed to the side to prevent the riot police from hearing. After he has finished that, he grabbed the faulty slabs with his hooves and moved it aside. Then, a large hole led to the sewers appeared.

"Step one, go into the sewers." Charlie said as he stepped aside "Ladies first."

Luster Dawn blushed and said "Oh my, you are such a kind gentlecolt."

Then, Luster Dawn walked to the large hole and jumped down into the sewers. After Luster Dawn, Charlie slowly jumped in and sealed the hole with the slabs.

So, in summary... the Chinese didn't fit Charlie with a magic suppression ring, even when it's nighttime. Need I say more about how inconceivably stupid this is? Even aside from how laughably easy it was to escape from the cell, even if he didn't have magic? This is terrible video game logic, on multiple levels.

And no, that isn't a good cause to blush, Luster.

Once they were in the sewers, Charlie pulled out his flashlight from his pocket and pushed switch forward, then the light shined forward and Charlie and Luster Dawn saw a straight path.

"Okay, so what's step two?" Luster Dawn asked.

"Step two, we break the creatures out." Charlie said.

"How are we going to do that?" She asked.

What did you think "Step Two" was, Luster? It's common sense what happens next.

But the "how" is a decent question.

Charlie replied by pulling up the left side of his pocket which made Luster Dawn bewildered. Then, Charlie gripped onto the flashlight with his mouth and tapped on his wrist or hoof computer. And finally, three small drones flew out of his pocket and hovered in the air awaiting for Charlie's command, and the three drones made Luster Dawn's eyes go wife.

"Whoa, what are those?" Luster Dawn asked.

"These are called drones, can be either used as a toy or on military purposes. It can either be remotely controlled or fly autonomously through software-controlled flight plans in their embedded systems, working in conjunction with onboard sensors and GPS." Charlie delineated, and Luster Dawn was truly astonished.

"Wow, just wow." She said with wide eyes.

Charlie then looked at the three drones and began to give them some commands.

"Drone one, drone two, drone three. Can you three please look for the other creatures cells?" Charlie asked.

Once the drones heard the command, they immediately flew forward. Charlie wore his goggle scanners and got visions on what the three drones were seeing.

Okay then...

1. There is no GPS in Equestria, if you do any amount of thinking, which is not addressed by Charlie.
2. The Chinese confiscated none of that? They may as well have let Charlie keep a loaded gun in his cell while they were at it (aside from "magic").
3. Luster, can you stop being wowed so much, it got old so long ago.
4. How much noise do those drones make, one might wonder?

After following for ten seconds, the three drones came to a stop under a large and long hole which lead to a sewer cover at the top. Charlie looked up and activated X-Ray scanning mode, then he saw Princess Twilight Sparkle, her friends including the giant purple dragon sitting in the cell.

"Activate claw mode."

Then, the two claws of the drones were replaced by tiny and sharp claws. And they flew up to the slabs and began to drill the screws loose and dig the soft areas underneath it.

No, really, why does he still have them?

Inside Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Fluttershy, Spike, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Lil Cheese, Sunburst, Starlight and Cheese Sandwiches cell room. The ponies and one dragon were patiently waiting for the escape to commence.

"Don't worry guys, I'm sure that Charlie is going to break us out right now." Twilight assure them in a pained voice.

"How long will it take?" Rainbow Dash asked impatiently.

And on cue, the sewer cover in front of them began to shake.

"Huh? What's going on with the sewer cover?" Pinkie asked perplexed.

Five seconds later, the sewer cover was slid opened. Twilight crawled forward to see what was down there, she looked down and saw Charlie and Luster Dawn.

Good God, what? There's a direct sewer passage in their cell? And they crowded all of them into the same cell? What would've stopped Spike from clawing his way through there, exactly?

So they all leave the cell, through that escape point.

Once they were in, Sunburst and Starlight immediately embraced their daughter in a hug. And the ponies including Spike were showing gestures of appreciation towards Charlie, but Rarity was a little disgusted when she saw the sewer water. But, she managed to tolerate it.

"Nice, I am glad that we have escaped our gross cell." Rarity said.

"Agreed." Rainbow Dash said with a nod "I can't wait to make the invader's pay for what they have done to us." She finished with a vexed expression.

Twilight then looked at Charlie and asked "So, what do we do now?"

"Alright, back in the saddle with step two." Charlie told them. "We break everypony out." He finished. And the ponies and Spike nodded.

Then, he looked at the three drones again.

"Locate the other creatures cells and break them out."

I'm pretty sure you could've done that part of the step yourselves, with that pitiful ease of getting out, with Twilight and her friends, on their lonesome. This is disgusting, how little agency they possess.

And it's sad how Rarity had less of a protest to entering the sewers than Luster Dawn did in an earlier chapter (which I'll note the distinct lack of hesitance here, in this chapter, on Luster's part), even if I do believe she would've done it, either way.

Then the three drones began to do what they were told and flew to the other creatures cells. And the drones astonished Twilight and her friends.

"What are those strange machines Charlie?" Twilight asked.

"Those are drones, for military and fun purpose. Can be remotely controlled, but if you want them to fly automatically, it would be more complicated." He told her. And Twilight was blown away by his statement.

"Wow, you humans do know how to make such contraptions."

"Pretty much." Charlie said with a shrug "Anyways, shall we continue with saving the other creatures?" He asked her.

We get it, they're oh-so-impressed. It's not like Twilight's dealt with magical AI before or anything, that the Chinese would have no counter to Luna targeting them with something like that, by the by, because they'd have to sleep sometime.

Then Charlie, the ponies and Spike all began to follow the three drones. And the drones began to free all of the dragons, yaks, ponies , changelings, Kirins, diamond dogs, and griffons free from their cell by drilling the sewer cover's screws and breaking some faulty slabs. After ten more cells, all of the creatures have been successfully rescued from their cells. And they were all very grateful for Charlie and Luster Dawn, but they just told them not to be too grateful.

"I mean, I decided to hoard all of the initiative to myself, so you're less proactive than a mountain, so don't be too grateful, guys."

So they all leave through the area Charlie went in.

Two minutes later, all of the creatures have successfully been evacuated from their occupied capital. Their cuffs and suppressor rings have been removed by Charlie and Luster Dawn's magic.

"Phew, we made it out." Charlie said.

Then, Luster Dawn immediately hugged him. And everypony awed at the sight along with Sunburst and Starlight.

"Aww, our daughter looks so cute with Charlie." Said Starlight.

"Charlie may be the most suitable husband for her." Sunburst whispered to his wife, and she let out a giggle.

So you didn't put a magic suppression ring on either of the two? Holy shit this is stupid on the Chinese's part.

And he's only "suitable" because she isn't allowed to possess brain cells around him, allowed to rightfully take offense to anything he says or does, and you're (Sunburst and Starlight) not allowed to possess any for that matter, stuck shilling him as you are.

Then, everypony turned around and began to walk to the other Kingdoms. But just as they were about to advance to the Everfree forest a gunshot was heard.

*BANG!*

"Auughh!"

Everypony flinched and panicked when the loud shot was fired.

Charlie turned around and saw a male pegasus shot in the back of his head and falling on the ground dead. Charlie looked in front of him and saw Lieutenant General Jin An Rong, his men, and the Police force standing at the entrance with three technical trucks behind them.

Oh look, artificial tension, they didn't decide to systematically teleport at least the important ones far away from there, if getting all of the masses out of there was too exhausting, and however the Chinese tracked them down.

"Pretty impressive mister Charlie Lam." Jin said with a smile "You managed to escape with those animals, but I'm afraid that you and your friends path ends right here." He finished.

Charlie then stepped forward with Luster Dawn, and they had their horns activated.

"We will never run ever again." They said with no signs of anxiety.

"Yeah!" Everypony else said in unison and stepping with the two couple.

"You are a very astonishing teenager, you managed to infiltrate the land without us knowing. Defeated four police officers, six swat units, outmatched one of the General's top soldier as well as facing ten on your own." Jin said "But, all of your adventures end here." He finished, then he looked back at his men and the police force.

Like we'd really be fortunate enough to have the "Charlie" in "Charlieverse" taken away forever.

Then, all of the soldiers, swat units and police officers fired their gun, and two fired rockets.

All of the creatures began to take cover, and Charlie, Luster Dawn and Twilight attempted to activate a shield. But unexpectedly, a giant white barrier mysteriously shielded them all.

"Nà shì shénme ya? (What the heck is that?)" Jin asked with shocked expression as well as his men.

Charlie and the creatures slowly opened their eyes and saw a giant white barrier guarding all of them. And it also stopped the bullets from hitting them.

...did you really just...

"What is this?" Charlie asked, then a voice was heard.

"Those are our friends you all are messing with."

When everypony heard the voice, they all turned around and saw the rest of the changelings, griffons, dragons, yaks and Kirins all marching to their friends. The white barrier disapperead and all of the captured creatures ran back to their remaining kind.

"Guys, I thought-"

"We came here to help as soon as possible mister Charlie Lam." Said Gilda.

"Yeah, and we apologize about our attitudes when we first met." Thorax said with a sorrowful expression.

"Yeah, us too. Our friends need saving, so we couldn't keep hiding, we need to fight back against the invaders and claim our land back." Autumn Blaze said with a confident expression.

Story really just ripped off The Ending of the End.

And no, Charlie should apologize, for being a fucking moron with diplomacy, except maybe regarding Thorax, because he was acting supremely Out of Character in that chapter, on multiple levels.

(Although, aside from stupidity, there was that gate incident)

"Zhè shì nín de zhǔyào jìhuà ma? Shǐ mǎshù shèng xià de shēngwù tuánjù lái yǔ wǒ hé wǒ de jūnduì zuòzhàn? Nǐmen zhēnshi kělián yòu kěxiào. (So this is your main plan? Reunite the remaining creatures of Equestria to fight me and my army? You guys are pathetic and cretinous.)" Jin laughed along with his men.

Then, Charlie stepped forward with Luster Dawn with their horn glowing brightly. And the rest of the creatures began to form a line preparing to fight back against the invaders to reclaim their land.

"You and your army may have petrifying technologies by your side, but we have magic and friendship." Charlie and Luster Dawn said.

You shouldn't be laughing Jin, because now Charlie is going to allow them to be competent for once, assuming he doesn't hoard to himself the competence, which I'm assuming will be disproportionately his.

Then, all of the creatures began preparing for battle. The changelings, Kirins and unicorns all activated their horns. The dragons, Girffons and pegasus all flew up in the air, the earth ponies, yaks and diamond dogs got into a charging stance. And Charlie, Luster Dawn and Twilight Sparkle all flew their horns, and Charlie's drones began to charge up their energies, but what he didn't know is that his talisman was glowing brightly as well.

"Equestrians!" Charlie said as he summoned a golden staff which surprised him in his mind "Assemble." He finished.

"Tā shì gāng cóng fùchóu zhě liánméng cánjú jiēguò nà tiáo xiàn ma? (Did he just took that line from Avengers Endgame?)" A soldier asked incredulously.

Oh look, that stupid Talisman That Doesn't Make Any Sense As To Why Twilight Had It.

And how dare you. The sheer gall that Story has, to not only rip off The Ending of the End, but then go on to rip off that Avengers Endgame quote, and then obnoxiously point it out, as if we're going to find him oh-so-awe-inspiring, like you might with Captain America. I'd almost be impressed if it weren't infuriating.

With that, the chapter is over.

[AC97]

(We're almost to the end)

Chapter 22/23: Friendship vs economic superpower

After Charlie has said those words, all of the creatures of Equestria began to charge towards the Chinese while letting out some battlecries. The Changelings, Dragons, Griffons and Pegasuses all flew up in the air, the unicorns, Kirins, Charlie, Luster Dawn, Sunburst, Starlight, Twilight Sparkle and Rarity activsted their horns. And the earth ponies, yaks and diamond dogs charged towards the Army with spears and knives, all of them showing some signs of bravery.

We get it, Charlie didn't deserve to say those words, make such a reference, and he was allowed to do so.

When Jin noticed all of the creatures temerarious movement, he looked back at his army and began to give them some orders.

"Zhè cì shā sǐ tāmen! (Kill them this time!) Jin yelled.

Then, all of the soldiers, SWAT units, and police officers cocked their guns and began to charge towards the creatures in Equestria. Some driving technical trucks with a soldier mounting a machine gun.

Once both sides closed in on each other, many of soldiers aimed their guns at the creatures and attempted to shoot them. When Charlie noticed this, he spread his wings and flew up in the air with his hooves swung back. Then, he slammed the staff onto the ground and a shockwave was produced and the soldiers were sent flying backwards into the trucks, and the sight startled the remaing soldiers, SWAT units and Police officers as well as Jin An Rong.

Oh joy, now his moronic plot trinket is helping him through this one.

We're still not impressed with him as a character.

"Nà shì shénme yàng de gùnzi? (What kind of stick is that?)" Jin asked with a vexed expression.

Charlie was looking down on his golden staff with an astonished expression.

"Whoa, this staff is awesome." Charlie said with a smile.

"Indeed." Luster Dawn said with a nod.

"That staff is very powerful in all of Equestria Charlie, and your the only one capable of handling it." Twilight told him.

"Now, that is cool."

Why is he the only one who can use it? Who made it? This is unpleasantly reminding me of terrible HiE stories where they, humans that have nothing to do with Equestria, have a 7th Element of Harmony.

So Jin orders them to fire at will...

When Charlie noticed the shots, he and Luster Dawn activated their horns and opened up a giant white magical barrier, and the bullets and rockets were stopped, and the soldiers, SWAT units and police officers were traumatized again along with Jin An Rong.

"Zhè zěnme kěnéng?! (How is this possible?!)" Jin An Rong exclaimed in anger and perplextion.

"It is called magic and friendship mister Jin An Rong." Twilight replied simply.

"Yeah, all of us are not vile and savages compared to you all." Charlie said which made Jin growl.

"Now, it's time for us to show you what we are capable of." Luster Dawn said with a confident expression. Then, she looked back at her parents, unicorns, Kirins and Changelings.

Where was this before? Why didn't Twilight do this at the beginning? Why did they need Charlie?

"Let's show them what our magic can do."

All of them nodded and charged their horns, and some of the soldiers , SWAT units and police officers were perplexed.

"Tāmen zài zuò shénme? Tāmen shì zài shìtú dàbiàn ma? (What are they doing? Are they trying to poop on the ground?)" A soldier asked.

Is Story trying to make me laugh? Because it's not working.

All of them got their answers when the unicorns, Changelings, Kirins, Charlie and Luster Dawn fired magical blasts directly towards them.

The riot police officers armed with rectangular riot shields stepped forward and guarded all of them. But, their shields weren't strong enough to protect all of them because the magic beams pierced through. And all of the riot police units, eleven soldiers, nine SWAT units and ten police officers were hit and shot dead, not even their vests can proctect them. And Jin was truly startled.

...What the fuck? Where was this when they first invaded? No, really, why didn't that happen to Jin? Is there a logical explanation, or is this arbitrarily happening because this serves the plot? Take a wild guess which one I wholeheartedly believe.

"Yǒu méiyǒu gǎo cuò?! (What the heck?!)" Jin exclaimed.

"I guess your technology isn't strong enough to stop our magic!" Twilight said with a proud smile.

You know, a thought comes to mind, why aren't your injuries being so much as mentioned here, Twilight? Where was this earlier, when you dueled Jin?

(Get back to the military base and gather every firearms we have! We have taken too much damage!)" Jin said pointing at the military headquarters.

"Dànshì zhōng jiàng, wǒmen zhǐ shīqùle sānshí gèrén. (But Lieutenant General, we only lost thirty men.)" Colonel Lin told his superior.

"Wǒmen chéngshòule tài dà de shānghài! (We've taken too much damage!)" Jin repeated to Colonel Lin "Kuài! Wǒmen yě bìxū hūyù zēngyuán! (Quick! We must call for reinforcements as well!)" He finished.

"Only lost thirty men?" Considering your woefully inadequate manpower as noted on numerous occasions, that's laughable.

Charlie's eyes widened when he heard what the Lieutenant General said, he turned around and looked at all of the creatures and said "Guys! They're going to call for reinforcements from their world, we have to stop them!"

"What?! Oh no, every creatures charge!"

Then, all of the creatures of Equestria charged towards the Chinese. Trying to catch up to them before they call for reinforcements from their world.

Jin's a moron (as we all knew by now), for the following reason: he stationed no one out there, waiting for his word to call for reinforcements from Earth?

He would've been far better off having a base of operations stationed very near the entry point if he was doing that.

Once they were at the entrance, they managed to catch up. Charlie jumped up again and slammed his staff on the ground near ten soldiers and thirteen SWAT units. Then, a shockwave was produced again and more Chinese men were lost.

I'm still not impressed by the Trinket of Plot Convenience. This is a terrible power fantasy. I'd guess the author has never watched a video like this, and taken anything that might be at least somewhat relevant to heart. (I'd take this timestamped part to heart, regarding events set in motion earlier, for one thing)

"Liúwénlì! Yī zhāng yī zhāng de jūjī tāmen! (Lau Man Lee! Snipe them one by one!)" Jin ordered.

"Luō jié, xiānshēng! (Roger that sir!)"

Then, the soldier who was ordered to snipe the creatures was lying on the left side of the metal wall while looking through the scope of his sniper rifle. He then moved the gun and aimed directly at Charlie Lam's head. He took a deep breath and was preparing to shoot. But unknown to him, a blue dragon was sneaking up behind him preparing to slash his face.

The soldier could hear some footsteps behind him, he must assume that someone was trying to sneak up behind him. He instantly moved his Sniper rifle behind him, and aimed it at his attacker, and saw that it was a light blue dragon. Lau wasn't able to pull the trigger when the dragon slashed it away from his hands, and the sniper rifle fell off.

At what range is this? Why would you need to order them to do so if they're probably in plain sight, and the sniper can presumably hear the gunshots?

Back on the ground, a swat unit was aiming his assault rifle at a foal who was showing no signs of anxiety towards him, but the SWAT unit was laughing.

"Hāhā hā! Zhǔnbèi rènshì nǐ de mìngyùn xiǎo nǚhái! (Hahaha! Prepare to meet your fate little girl!)" The SWAT unit laughed.

But, he wasn't able to pull the trigger when a sniper rifle fell on his head which made him fall on the ground with a thud with his assault rifle aiming at himself. Then, his finger accidentally pulled the trigger and the gun was fired. Then, his head exploded and he was killed.

The sniper on top of the wall was traumatized when he saw him killing his own comrade.

"Oh my, you have killed your own friend. You have committed a treason." Said the female dragon.

...Is this supposed to be making us laugh? That the SWAT officer (not "unit") would be prioritizing shooting children, as opposed to those fighting back against him, who are a more immediate threat? Also, "committed a treason," and how cartoonishly stupid and improbable shooting yourself in the head with a rifle when you're not trying to do so typically is.

Lau glared at the dragon and unsheathed his combat knife with his right hand and ran towards the dragon. Once he closed his distance with it, he attempted to slice it in her neck. Ember responded by slashing the knife again breaking it in the process making the soldier stagger. And finally, Ember finished the invader by stabbing him in the chest.

"Auughh!" The soldier grunted. Then, he fell down onto the ground outside of Canterlot.

"That is what you get for killing and enslaving my friends." Ember said.

Where was this physical superiority earlier? In any case, pretty sure your grip would likely be lost before a knife got broken.

Back down in the battlefield, the mane six and Spike were fighting and blasting the invaders one by one showing them no leniency, making them pay for what they have done to them since the day they have arrived.

"Yeah! That's what you all get!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed.

When Jin witnessed that he was loosing, he began to give the colonel an order.

"Lín shàngxiào, wǒ yào nǐ- (Colonel Lin, I want you to-" Jin wasn't able it finish his sentence when he saw Lin lying on the floor with blood pouring from his head, he must assume that the Twilight Sparkle must've killed him.

"Wǒ wèi nǐ ér lái mù guāng shǎnshǎn! (I'm coming for you Twilight Sparkle!)" He said with a pistol in his right hand.

Why didn't this happen to Jin earlier, what happened to Lin?

Back in the intense battle, Charlie was hitting soldiers, SWAT units and police officers with his golden staff one by one. And each hit he landed, he managed to kill them.

He looked to his right and saw the Lieutenant General walking towards Princess Twilight Sparkle. His eyes widened and he began running up to him. But suddenly, he was shot in the waist or chest.

*BANG!*

"Auugh!" Charlie yelled in pain as he fell on the ground.

He turned his body and placed his right hoof on his bullet wound. He looked in front of him and saw that it was Zhou Chang Min who shot him with his pistol.

Y'know, if you're gonna be that ambiguous with where he was wounded, you may as well say "torso" or alternatively, some horse relevant term.

Also, we're not gonna see him die. It's glaringly obvious.

Zhou reloaded his pistol and aimed it at his head, and Charlie had an incredulous expression.

"I just punched you in the chest and showed you mercy by sparing you in the Changeling Kingdom man." Charlie told him in a pained voice "And this is how you repay me?" He asked in sadness.

Zhou disregarded his inquiry and cocked his pistol, then he aimed it at his head.

But suddenly, Zhou was shot in the face before he could shoot Charlie. Then, his legs gave away and he fell on the ground bleeding from his head.

And you were an imbecile to let him live, much less leave the area without being apprehended by the King whose subjects you witnessed him murder.

Charlie turned around and saw that it was Luster Dawn who shot Zhou. And she shot him with a pistol from a soldier she killed. And Charlie gave her a proud expression when he saw her knowing how to use a firearm.

Then, Luster Dawn ran up to Charlie's aid and helped him up, and she was shaken when she saw Charlie's bullet wound.

"Charlie, are you okay?" Luster Dawn asked anxiously.

"I'm alright kid, we have to fight the Lieutenant General over there before he kills Twilight Sparkle." He told her.

Luster Dawn wanted to cease him and tell him to rest but, there was not time to waste.

"Alright." She said with a nod.

"Good." Charlie said as he kissed Luster Dawn in the lips. They held each other for a second and released. Then, they ran up to the Lieutenant General before he can reach Princess Twilight Sparkle.

Y'know, at this point, I think it's condescending to call her "kid."

Also, what's wrong with blowing his head off with magic? If you haven't really been instructed on using a gun, and have powerful magic, it's kind of redundant, adds needless complication, increased probability of missing.

Twilight and her friends were nearly completed in wiping out all of the invaders by killing them.

"We're almost finished wiping all of them out." Twilight said.

"Awesome!" Her friends said in unison.

But unexpectedly, the leader of the invaders grabbed Twilight by her neck and threw her onto the ground with all of his might. And the force of his throw made Twilight grunt.

Jin then cocked his pistol and aimed it at the Princess.

"Shuō zàijiàn mù guāng shǎnshǎn gōngzhǔ. (Say goodbye Princess Twilight Sparkle.)" Jin said with a chuckle.

Story can't even let Twilight have this?

But, he wasn't able to pull the trigger when Charlie and Luster Dawn rammed into him at the same time making him fall roughly onto the ground. Jin recovered quickly and tried to stand up again but the two ponies stopped him by activating their horns.

"Give it up Jin, it's over." Charlie told him.

"Suǒyǒu dānwèi! Shāle tāmen! (All units kill them!)" He ordered.

"I am afraid that they are all gone." Said the mane six and Spike.

Jin was perplexed when he heard that, he turned to his left and saw that all of his men were lying on the ground dead with blood pouring out from their bodies. He then looked up at Charlie and Luster Dawn with a smile on his face.

Magic > ramming into them. Easy.

It was pitiful how he got to one-up Twilight again, only for her to need Charlie to save her.

And what is it with them speaking in unison?

"I guess this is it."

"Yes, and you're going to pay for your crimes against us." Twilight and her friends growled.

Jin replied by aimining his pistol at the side of his head which shocked everypony.

"I will never go to jail." Jin told them with a smirk "I will be with my son, and my family." He finished without fear.

"Wait stop!"

But it was too late, Jin pulled the trigger and shot himself in the head, and all creatures were startled. And he was dead, and Charlie looked down onto the ground in sadness.

You know, you guys could've held him in place, stopped him from doing that. In fact, it'd be stupider not to hold his arms in place. Definitely not satisfying, that end, so anticlimactic.

"What's wrong Charlie?" Twilight asked.

"Yeah, we killed the leader." Rainbow Dash said feeling disorientate.

"Even if he was the villain. He never deserve this." Charie said sadness. When Luster Dawn saw his depressed expression, she comforted him with a hug, and Charlie hugged back.

He was a genocidal egomaniac who murdered others for no sensible reason, killing slaves that weren't noncooperative at the drop of a hat.

In case you thought the nonsense was over, well...

"So Princess Twilight, how can we rebuild this place?" Charlie asked.

"Look down on your talisman." Twilight replied as she pointed at the talisman on his chest.

Charlie looked down at it and saw that it was glowing again which made him perplexed.

"What's the talisman telling you this time?" She asked.

Charlie shrugged and began to reach it with his right hoof. He then taped on it and the talisman flew up in the air which startled all of the creatures.

"Whoa, what is happening?"

Then, the talisman let out a bright white glow which made everyone shield their eyes. After five seconds, the glowing stopped an everyone slowly unshielded their eyes. They then observed their surroundings and saw something unique, Canterlot was back to normal, the houses were back, the metal walls are gone, the bodies of the invaders disappeared, Twilight's castle was back to normal, and the beautiful scenery has returned. Then, the talisman disappeared.

Oh yay! It's gone, finally... where did that stupid thing even come from?

You thought it was bad that it CTRL + Z'd the destruction? But wait! There's more!

"Hey! Sugar Belle! Applejack!"

When Sugar Belle and Applejack heard the intimate voice, their eyes immediately widened.

"Could it be?"

They turned around and saw Big Macintosh and the rest of the changelings, yaks, griffons, diamond dogs, dragons, Kirins and ponies behind them.

Then, the Apple family ran up to Big Mac and embraced him in a hug.

...It's that cheap of a Reset Button. I don't necessarily mind resurrection on principle, but come on, this wasn't foreshadowed in the slightest. It came entirely out of left field, because "yay, Charlie's so awesome!"

Charlie tried to walk and join the fun but, his bullet wound stopped him and he was forced to sit down on the ground.

When Luster Dawn witnessed his pained expression, she immediately sat down next to Charlie and attempted to heal his wound with her magic but, Charlie ceased her by moving her horn away, then he gave her a smile.

"It's no use Luster Dawn."

"But-"

"It's too late, sometimes things are better off forgotten." Charlie told her.

I have a bridge to sell you, if you think this would actually happen, that the story would ever go through with this.

"And remember this, although you and your kind and others are not advanced in technology compared to us humans, but you all are still very strong with your friendship and magic, and with or without me." He finished with a warm smile.

Considering that Story arbitrarily decided you were the only individual who possessed initiative, agency...

So Chapter ends with him being taken back to the castle for treatment, on Twilight's back (did her injuries ever factor into anything, after that chapter where she got them? I don't think so).

[AC97]

(Where we last left off, the Chinese were beaten in such a way that you question why it didn't happen in the Prologue, and the BS Reset Button was pressed)

And now, for the second-to last chapter, both of which are noticeably shorter than a few previous ones:

Chapter 23/24: Prince and protector of Equestria

One week later

It has been one week since Equestria has been saved and retaken from the Chinese and Charlie's recovery. He has been successfully healed by Princess Twilight Sparkle, and the bullet in his waist was successfully pulled out. And he has also made a new life in Equestria since his wrist computer was broken and was no longer functioning which means that he cannot return to Australia, he is now living in a house in Ponyville now with Luster Dawn accompanying him in case he needs an aid with his healing bullet wound.

I'm fairly sure that, y'know, cross-dimensional portals are a thing, as per the premise ("obliterated Beijing"), if he wanted to get back to Earth, which we all know that he wouldn't choose to do so if he could, because that's always how these stories go, with the oh-so-tragic parent deaths in the backstory (as if it weren't often lazily done, as it is here).

It's like I said: did you really think that Charlie was gonna die? We didn't even get one paragraph of the story pretending there'd be tension as to whether he lived or not, in this chapter.

In his new home, Charlie and Luster Dawn were sitting on a couch in the living room. And Luster Dawn was hugging Charlie with her head on his shoulder, and Charlie returned it with a nuzzle.

"Oh right! Charlie, I forgot to tell you something." Luster Dawn said with a huge smile.

"Let me guess." Charlie said with a roll of his eyes "You and your friends bought me something to thank me for saving them?" He asked.

"Nope." Luster Dawn replied with a shake of her head "You will be sent to Princess Twilight Sparkle's castle by some Royal guards for her announcement, and she will also give you a surprise." She told him, and Charlie's eyes widened.

So I suppose we start out with Charlie going to Twilight's castle for a surprise.

They kiss, the door is knocked on, and...

After that, Luster Dawn and Charlie began to slowly walk to the golden carriage.

Once they have exited his home, they slowly stepped into the carriage and sat on the comfortable seat. Then, the two guards got to the front of the carriage and began to pull it in a very high speed which surprised Charlie.

"Whoa, the speed of this carriage is almost like a Lamborghini." Charlie thought.

I can't help but still roll my eyes at Charlie's similes.

So Charlie arrives, to much fanfare, which leads to...

When Charlie heard the comments, he waved at the creatures with his left hoof along with Luster Dawn.

"How does it feel to be a hero?" Luster Dawn asked.

"Well, this is great but, I don't see myself as a hero." Charlie replied which made Luster Dawn bewildered.

"What do you mean?"

"Well you see in life there are many ponies or people who are inclined to peace and savage brutality but, there are no heros and villains, just people, and lives are worth saving, that was the reason why I felt disconsolated and ashamed that I couldn't convince and negotiate with the Lieutenant General peacefully." He told her.

Surely Luster Dawn will disagree with that viewp-

Luster Dawn was truly amazed at his beautiful and logical sentence. Even though there are some vile villains outside of Equestria, but everypony is just the same, there are no good guys or bad guys. Then, Luster Dawn rested her head on his shoulder, when Charlie felt this, he nuzzled her and Luster Dawn gave out a smile.

...oh, right, it's this story. Yeah no. Jin, from what her perspective should by all rights be, was a racist, genocidal scumbag, which is basically objectively true.

But if she disagreed with Charlie, that would mean her not being his Yes-Mare that mindlessly fawns over him for each and everything he says for no good reason, and it would mean conflict. She witnessed Jin commit senseless murders, he caused them on a large scale, even if they were ultimately undone, and she doesn't even know the reasoning behind this (that don't get me wrong, inspires zero sympathy either way). Nobody deserves your respect for their mere existence if they're like that.

The carriage came to a stop fifteen seconds later, Charlie looked up and saw that they have stopped at Princess Twilight Sparkle's castle. Then, the two guards opened the carriage door and the two couples stepped off. Charlie took a quick survey around the castle and saw that it was very big and beautiful, it is almost similar as a giant mansion.

"Charlie Lam, Luster Dawn. Please follow me to Princess Twilight Sparkle's throne room." Said a female guard.

"Two couples" huh?

...also, what did he think a castle would be like, since he's supposed to be so smart?

So they've arrived in the castle, briefly admire it (not much of substance), and now, they're in the throne room.

While walking, Charlie looked forward and saw Princess Twilight Sparkle sitting on her fixed throne next to the purple dragon named Spike. The whole throne room was repaired, the Chinese flags were gone, tanks and towed artillerys have vanished from the talisman. The guns storage were cleaned away. And the Lieutenant General's office has turned back to Princess Twilight Sparkle's throne.

Are you gonna keep rubbing in that Reset Button Talisman of Plot Convenience? For which there probably can't be a good explanation regarding how, why, when it existed, and who created it?

So pleasantries, and the announcement:

"Announce what?"

"Wait right here." Twilight told him as she turned around and walked back to her throne. She then picked up a book in a cupboard with her magic and flipped the pages, then she stepped in front of Charlie and Luster Dawn and began to speak.

"Charlie Lam, a human from another world who has came to ours to assist us with defeating his kind. At first, me and my friends viewed him as an enemy or another savage killer but, he was a kind and generous human compared to the others. He transformed into an alicorn because of the golden talisman I gave him which provoked a huge panic from him but, he managed to overcome in just a few seconds. After his transformation, he and Luster Dawn began to go to the Kirin Village, Griffonstone Cloudsdale, Changeling Kingdom and the Dragon lands to recruit the remaining of the survivors but, they all declined to assist because he was human, and he and Luster Dawn were forced to go back to Canterlot. Back in Canterlot, Charlie and Luster Dawn sneaked into the sewer tunnels and into the dungeon of my castle to look for survivors but unfortunately, they have been captured and enslaved on the next day. All hope seems lost but that was until Charlie encouraged us not to give up and loose hope. And after ten days, we have successfully escaped our occupied capital and fought back against the human army and reclaimed it, and Charlie's talisman has restored the whole land as well as bringing the killed creatures back to life. But at the end, Charlie was nearly killed by a bullet wound from a human soldier he spared in the Changeling Kingdom. And he needed urgent medication so I brought him to a guest room and laid him on the bed. And the creatures of Equestria has brought loads of medical equipments like herbs, bandages and many more. And finally, I used my magic and Charlie has successfully been healed and is now making a new life here since he cannot go back home. And because of his bravery, sacrifice, dignity, honor and respect, I now officially anoint him as the Prince and protector of Equestria." Twilight stated with a smile, then she closed the book.

...Holy long paragraph, Batman.

In order: Unaddressed Talisman Origins, which resulted in an Instant Expert Alicorn, Charlie is an absolutely worthless diplomat, no, they weren't forced to go back to Canterlot, you didn't need him to be inspired to have the will to survive, Stupid Reset Button, and a death we all knew wouldn't happen.

"Your the Prince and saviour of the land now Charlie!"

"That's good." Charlie chuckled anxiously. Then, he looked at Twilight.

"Princess Twilight, I don't know if I am fit enough to be a Prince because, it takes a lot of efforts."

"I know, I encountered that challenge as well when I was Celestia's student. But, I managed to overcome it with the help of my friends."

"That's good to hear. And I guess being a Prince will get drastically difficult but, I'll give it a shot."

I'd really hate to see this guy help rule the land and deal with anything diplomatic, judging by his track record.

"That's great to hear." Twilight said with a smile, then she remembered something "Oh right! I need to give you this!"

Then, Twilight activated her horn and summoned a small golden crown with three small blue gems attached to it. After that, she placed it on Charlie's head and every creatures in the throne room began to cheer louder.

"Welcome to Equestria Prince Charlie Lam, you are hereby announced as the element of tactics."

Charlie found it preposterous when he heard that he was the element of tactics but, it was true since he did came up with all of the tactics and strategies to rescue the creatures from the Chinese army and how to defeat them easily.

Actually, Charlie, you were right the first time: it is preposterous.

You're an ignoramus who's only gotten by on multiple occasions by the will of the story wishing you to be above consequences, whether it be conveniently seeing a news report that shouldn't exist based on China attacking Equestria, conveniently hacking into the Chinese teleporter based off of a YouTube video and remotely using it, conveniently being one of the only ones who set out on the journey, despite you being 100% unqualified and there being a good opportunity for the others to come along, conveniently turning into an alicorn with a plot trinket, conveniently being an expert martial artist that can unrealistically fight off multiple opponents after conveniently never needing to adjust your muscle memory in the slightest and relearn how to move, conveniently knowing how to use magic instantly, conveniently being the one to remind Luster she can teleport, conveniently not being executed after walking straight into enemy territory without a backup plan and being captured, conveniently not having your magic restrained by the Chinese, conveniently having an easy escape route due to the sheer incompetence of the Chinese, conveniently not having your technology confiscated when you were captured, conveniently having backup arrive in the nick of time, after you thoroughly botched diplomacy, and conveniently having the plot trinket shift into being a powerful weapon.

So in conclusion, no, you don't deserve this Royal Title, and especially not being declared the "Element of Tactics," and you never will. You didn't earn it, because everything was handed to you on a silver platter, by the narrative that favors you so much.

And so they go outside to party, and the chapter ends with a hug.

Just one more, the Epilogue.

[AC97]

(And now... the Epilogue for the alleged "Element of Tactics." It's been a long time coming, but I've actually finished reviewing this. If Jordan has a good opportunity to finish it [technical difficulties are a plague, and I can empathize with the point of a computer being out of commission], I certainly wouldn't mind by any stretch whatsoever if he continued doing these, if he had a good opportunity to do so in the future)

Chapter 24(?)/25: Epilogue

(because in Jordan's eyes, the "Epilogue" might not count into the chapter numbers, regarding the "?")

10 years later

Prince Charlie Lam and Princess Luster Dawn have been dating each other for ten years now and nothing ever went wrong. They went on adventures, shared knowledge about each other's cultures and capabilities, the human details that astonished Luster Dawn were their languages, technologies and education, but what petrified her was their world wars. And the pony details that astonished Charlie were magic as well as how the ruler Princess Twilight Sparkle fought dozens of villains in the past along with her friends, which was almost like world war one and two.

First off, wowza, that's a timeskip... also, did Luster Dawn ever find out that she accidentally nuked Beijing? I know the answer to that question is either "no," or it's just entirely unaddressed.

Aside from Luster being predictably wowed (she doesn't have a personality here, or at least, not a compelling one), it really rings hollow, considering how easily Charlie utilized magic in this story, very soon after learning it existed, and considering how this story most of the time acts like Equestrians never fought against anyone in the history of ever, judging from how everyone acts. It strongly gives that impression, at least.

Also, as if it's a given their world doesn't have different languages.

Do I even need to explain how boring it is to say "dating each other for X amount of time, nothing ever went wrong" is? No ups and downs in a relationship? Just pure "perfection?" Of which I'm basically certain involved Luster Dawn being Charlie's Yes-Mare in her views, with how much she worships him?

Then, the day came when Charlie decided to propose to Luster Dawn. He went to a jewellery shop in Ponyville and bough a golden ring with a pink diamond attached on the top with some bits he earned from Twilight Sparkle since he was the saviour and Prince. The owner wished him luck and Charlie ran to Luster Dawn.

I really pity you, Luster, for suffering that fate regarding a reality-warping Gary Stu.

Once he found her in Ponyville lake, he walked up to her bent down and opened up the box and Luster Dawn the pink alicorn Princess immediately gasped when she saw the beautiful and shiny ring.

One does wonder how she became an alicorn, if it was just handed to her in the same way that he became one.

So the marriage happens, yada, yada, yada...

"Mares and Gentlecolts, we are gathered here to see the wedding of Prince Charlie Lam and Princess Luster Dawn. This will make a new start to our Kingdom rulers as well as their foal who will replace them in the future." Twilight said, then she looked at her student Luster Dawn "Luster Dawn do you take Charlie to be your lovely wedded husband?"

Heh, ten years later, and "student." Also, "foal who will replace them," what? Are-have you been replaced, Twilight, as ruler?

"I do Princess Twilight."

Or is it a "it will happen?"

So anyway, they do marry, and they dance to one of Charlie's songs that he chose from his world...

"I'm so proud." Sunburst said crying, and Starlight began to pat his back.

"Luster Dawn and Charlie are the most cutest couple ever." Said Twilight and her friends nodded in unison.

One year later

One year after the wedding, Luster Dawn got pregnant and she was going to give birth in Ponyville hospital, and Charlie was accompanying her along with Sunburts and Starlight. After Luster Dawn pushed one more time, the baby was out.

"Waa! Waa! Waa!"

The doctor checked the gender of the newborn alicorn baby and saw that it was a colt.

"Congratulations Charlie and Luster Dawn, you two have a colt." The doctor smiled.

So skipping to one year later I see.

With a child.

"What will you two name him?" Sunburst and Starlight asked.

Charlie and Luster Dawn thought for a moment, then Charlie came up with the most suitable name for him.

"How about Backdraft?"

Luster Dawn thought about the name for a moment then smiled.

"That's a great name Charlie but, why do you counsel it?"

"Well, it mostly represents my mother and father. They both had fire in their souls which shows their bravery to the community back in Australia." Charlie told her, "And it is also from a really old action movie that my father showed me when I was young." He finished, and Luster Dawn smiled.

Translation: the author saw a movie they thought was cool, and made a blatant reference to the title.

Really can't help but wonder just how many ways they're possibly a stand-in for the author, with Charlie.

"Welcome to Equestria Prince Backdraft." Luster Dawn said kissing her son on the forehead.

"This will be a great start." Charlie said with a smile.

If you say so...

But unknown to them, there was a dark coloured drone spying on them through a window, and it was recording them cautiously as well as gathering some information.

Oh no! It's a Sequel Hook!

Hong Kong police station
Year 2032 June 21st

"我哋好快就見了查理·林先生. (We'll be meeting each other very soon mister Charlie Lam.)" Said a male police officer, then he turned around and looked at his colleague.

"聯繫特殊職責單位、防暴警詧和其他警察局. 然後, 我哋可以去征服中國大陸嘅總統的土地. (Contact the special duties unit, riot police and other police stations. Then, we can go and conquer the land for mainland China's President.)"

"Yes sir." The police officer saluted to the chief, then he turned around and exited the office.

"一旦我哋入侵你哋嘅土地, 你同你哋嘅老婆就應該保持高度警惕. (You and your wife should be on high alert once we invade your land for the Chinese President.)" The police chief said with a smile.

Should I even bother asking about the logistics of any of this? Like why the Chinese didn't decide to send more troops to investigate after they had Jin and his troops mysteriously disappeared for good, were never heard from again? Because as far as we can tell, they did not have that stupid teleporter disabled for good. Why the Hongkongers know about any of this?

Why their police force is suddenly becoming an army to invade another world, when that ain't in the job description?

This, like the rest of the story, simply does not work. A sequel would almost certainly arbitrarily nerf Equestrians again, to have an excuse for the story to be a thing, regardless of how little merit it actually has.

There is no way to redeem the "Charlieverse" at this point; it's practically unsalvagable.

And with that (it's the ending of the story)... I am signing off, regarding the "review chapters" part, though I am not saying I'll never discuss it again, like if Jordan did new blog posts on the topic, doing his spin on it, with its respective merits (yeah, unless I'm told otherwise it's not his fault, with the computer thing, and I'd hold no resentment over that either way, for it would be stupid to).

---

...never thought I'd reach this point. It truly is official, how the existence of several powerful characters were ignored entirely in this story, aside from how the ones who did appear were arbitrarily nerfed into oblivion, except when it makes Charlie look good, or otherwise benefits him.

[AC97]

5269800

Well, I am planning to like make the villains lose and the creatures of Equestrian winning in the sequel because, there is no way the guns the Hong Kong police force uses can pierce through magical barriers and dragon scales even if they have grenade launchers.

So... why does that make what's happened here have any more validity?

It's still inexcusable in this story, even if it's not as bad in a sequel. It still means the story it is a sequel to is... nonsensical.

Well, he still does have his wrist computer and mini drones with him which will come in very dandy. And the mini drones are in his custom built backpack, the Chinese weren't aware.

That just raises further questions.

Why would he have them still?

Well, I did say that Jin was also wearing some wrist and shin guards during the duel, and they are made of metal, and some of the gear he wore can easily break through the telekenisis with a little bit of muscle power.

That doesn't make it sensible in the least. The explanation is bunk, end of story. Jin doesn't have the strength of forty ponies, he's physically inferior in a multitude of ways...

But sure, keep telling yourself that she could have her loss adequately rationalized by that, and that it isn't insulting to her as a character, that it isn't insulting to the reader, who might actually care about Twilight being competent.

It's indefensible, whether you like it or not.

She, her dragons and father couldn't fight them because the Chinese attacked them with fighter jets, tanks, apache and towed artillerys. And dragons are no match for any of those technologies and weapons of mass destruction

That totally accounts for and excuses Jin defeating a dragon in one hit, that is to say with one physical attack each, a case of elbowing, and kicking, respectively, on two occasions, or the Chinese not suffering any consequences acting the way they did, with the myriad of logistical concerns they safely ignored...

You don't get it, and at this rate, you never will.

Well Lau did accidentally dropped the sniper rifle on top of his colleagues head which made him accidentally killing himself.

I know what happened. Stop insulting my intelligence.

I was throwing shade at the wording, which is bad on multiple levels, and how ludicrously stupid/improbable that was to the point you can't take it seriously.

Charlie is obviously the only one who know what his kind are capable of, the ponies, griffons, yaks, dragons, changelings and many more do not. So they really do need his help so that he can help them understand what his kind can do.

How often is such a thing relevant in ruling, when he's the only human in Equestria? You don't see advisors being made the ruler just because they might have a niche they fill.

Earth has 6500 spoken languages, that is more than Equestria.

Based on how much we know for certain? It also doesn't really mean much more than "trivia" when the main character is only bilingual as far as we know, and he couldn't know a significant fraction of those.

If I remember correctly, the Hong Kong police force is actually the sixth most powerful, and has a strength of 29,268. Which is really impressive. And there are over 30 thousand police in Hong Kong.

So... who's policing Hong Kong while they squander their numbers like this?

You should've listened to Crimmar when they talked to you about this in a HiE thread. Really, you should've listened to what they said multiple times.

[Ardashir]

5267955
Thanks for taking the bullet and finishing this series up. Hopefully Jordan will be able to cover the rest as well.

[AC97]

5275409

You're welcome, and thank you for thanking me! :)

I sincerely hope so too, that Jordan can cover the rest of it.

While I'm kinda sure my reviewing style has its merits, Jordan is definitely better in some tangible ways (for instance, profanity isn't necessarily the ideal thing to use, even if it may or may not have worked for me there), he's more knowledgeable/experienced, and he unquestionably has a larger audience.

To be honest, I was rather shocked how much reviewing that Twilight vs Jin chapter affected me, how much it got me riled up. I thought that certain prior chapter was something nothing could approach... but damn. There was just something about that which kinda cut deep, in all the wrong ways, when actually reviewing it...

As for a couple notes that I didn't mention regarding the last few chapters, you'd think Starlight would've been namedropped more than once, and actually factor into anything specific at least a few times, for the climax, and you could certainly say the same thing about other characters that were there, but weren't acknowledged (like for just one example of many, a surprisingly adept unicorn, as mentioned above, in the form of older Sweetie Belle).

It was also notable throughout the entire story how Gallus being a Royal Guard post-timeskip was never so much as mentioned, not even in the Prologue, since he didn't fight anyone, including Jin, in hand-to-claw, or anything of the sort, because he was just lumped in with the "Young Six" like "oh by the way they're all captured," and that was basically it, no further elaboration whatsoever. They were just setpieces that meant absolutely nothing. I'm not sure any of them were ever individually named on any occasion, and definitely weren't involved in anything that mattered, as far as we could tell.

There's also how that one joke about the unicorns looking like they're "trying to poop" raises the question if most, maybe even any unicorns had ever tried to use magic against them during the initial invasion, which is... definitely odd. (so what else is new, between tonal whiplash and big questions?)

[AC97]

5275617

I'll admit that my sense of tact perhaps hasn't necessarily been the best in all of this. I've arguably let myself get too frustrated in regards to this.

It's nothing personal, and I have seen authors deal with it in a worse manner overall, but on some level, I do find it a bit annoying, the tendency to double down and explain whenever something... rather questionable happened, and it also not working as an idea.

Even if it may annoy me regarding how it goes in the story (I do find it fun to discuss though, something which I do presume Jordan, and others feel the same way on some level)...

In any case, I'm not looking for an apology from you by any stretch (it would be petty for me to demand one), and I'm not going to browbeat you into making one. You haven't committed any real personal grievances against me, or anyone else really, and I don't have sufficient cause to think you're a bad person based on anything.

I just hope you're capable of internally admitting to yourself some of the fundamental problems with the story, chiefly (but not limited to) that an Original Character protagonist is overshadowing canon characters' initiative, their power, their intelligence, their competence, until it serves the main character's big moments for them to not be helpless, because the world is written to revolve around them by authorial decree _{(and another aspect often seen with this, is how the OC is an empty vessel devoid of a compelling personality and/or character arc, having abilities up the wazoo [meaning large amount] bestowed upon them at will for basically existing in a narrative sense, and also prestige for every little thing they do, whether it's actually warranted or not [see how some characters, Luster Dawn especially, basically worship Charlie, and also how nobody ever disagrees with his plans without being in the wrong narratively, because he's inexplicably basically the only one with the "good ideas"; I can't think of one time where Luster ever say, questioned his plans on the basis of them being foolish, he's just always right, in her eyes, and he never gets called out on his mistakes, in general, even aside from her], which in my opinion [that I think Jordan would agree with] describes Charlie Lam to a tee)}, or that if you're not capable of internally admitting it, that you'll grow to do so eventually, after gaining the perspective to do so, and if or whenever you do so, that you'll end up learning from previous missteps, mistakes, in the writing process, and admittedly, I very well might not be going about this in the most ideal way, because I did let exasperation get to me while addressing you directly, at least once.

(Also, as an added point, if it's needed, doing research to write something... don't just skim Wikipedia [especially not copy and pasting verbatim] and call it a day, you should generally commit to it more than that)

And to be clear, by "internally admit to yourself," I mean to self-reflect on the matter, not just pay lip service and tell us that you've done so, while actually gritting your teeth because "these critics are out to kill my self-worth," and taking none of it to heart (which I sincerely hope hasn't happened, with the self-worth, because I'm not trying to go for that, being completely destructive with criticism).

I don't necessarily expect a reply to this, really, nor do I expect or ask you to nuke the story (in fact, please don't), or desperately try to edit it into being something else as if it's something easily fixed at all (it's like applying Scotch Tape to a leaking dam, kinda, where the proverbial dam is the premise). I only ask that you think about some of this, whether it happens now, or down the line.

You're free to write whatever stories you want, we can't stop you, just don't expect to improve much if you never take the fundamental problems to heart, after coming to realize what they are, and endeavor not to make the same mistakes again later.