=== Chapter 15: The Wages of Sin ===
(Five's first appearance can be found here)
Light and dark, dark and light. Walk and trot, wake and sleep. Everything blurs together; every light is the same as every other, and I can't tell one from the next, except for the slow accumulation of horn marks I make on the damaged tile. The work chime wakes me from a dream; it is a strange, formless thing that is more smells and sounds than images. Two ponies, both nearly twice my height, their faces, even their coat colours, obscured by the unknowable tract of time between then and now. The only clear impression I have is of their smell, a mixture of clean growing things and spices, and something of their voices. The actual words they speak have gone to the same place as the other details, but I still remember the tone. They are trying to keep their words light, wishing me well as I am steered into the back of some floating box-thing, but there is an undercurrent of fear. It makes me sad to know that I never had a chance to ask them what it was they were afraid of.
There is a sudden glow from the big circular screen. My excitement builds; the memories of the last ponies I ever touched is washed away by the desire to do what I have been training for all these countless cycles of light and dark. There is a twisting pattern of neon orange on the screen, a shape that I fix into my mind. It is complex and ever-shifting, but I'm good at what I do. Ignoring the warning ache at the base of my skull, I build a copy of the pattern in my head, carefully making it cycle through the same repeating shapes. The pain gets steadily worse, but I maintain my focus; my Masters will be angry if I am too slow, but that is nothing compared to their rage if I get the pattern wrong.
The pain is starting to make it hard to breathe, but I am ready now. The orange pattern in my head is a perfect match for the one on the screen; I bite my lips as a distraction, savouring the moment. The glow of pride causes the discomfort to subside and I lower my head, reaching for that well of inner strength to give my pattern the special push that will make it real. Even through tightly closed eyes I can see the room blaze with orange light, and my pain is washed away with the joy of success. I pour my whole self into the pattern, the power being pulled away and joining the efforts of the Others. For a time we are one, joined with a closeness that no mere physical interaction could match.
The pure pleasure of closeness and warmth is what I have been waiting for; it makes the long, lonely turns of light and dark seem like no hardship at all. Use of my power takes considerable effort, but it is worth it so I can be with the Others. I can feel that they have the same desire to be with me -- there are no words, just unconditional love and the simple joy of being close to somepony else. Dimly, I feel my legs start to wobble and I stagger, all of my energy focused on connecting with the Others. There is a warning tingle at my throat -- my Masters are telling me it is time to come home -- but I don't want to go. This task is what I've been trained for; surely something that feels this good is meant to be?
The tingle becomes a shock, then a rolling buzz-crackle of electricity that finally pulls me away from my unseen family. The orange glare fades and I am left standing there, splay-legged to stay upright. Panting and dripping with sweat I collapse gracelessly to my belly, just before I would have fallen anyway. The Master's reward floods through me, filling my insides with a liquid warmth that makes my hindquarters twitch and shiver. This is what I get for being a good filly, for successfully completing the tasks I am set. Heart rate slowly subsiding, I can only think how I'd gladly trade in my reward for another few seconds with the Others.
Soft sprays of cool water emerge from a few points on the domed ceiling, the moisture a welcome relief for my overheated body. It washes away the smell of my exertion and the Master's reward; the sensation is so nice that I throw back my head and let the water pour down my muzzle and soak the fur of my chest. Just as I'm starting to feel cold, the rain stops, replaced by a strengthening breeze. The wind is warm and I stand with my nose into it, nostrils twitching as I try and distinguish individual scents from the mélange of pony smells. There is a new note of excitement present in the odours; it is obvious that these ponies have also been rewarded. Starting to walk into the wind I nod to myself. The ponies I can smell must be the Others.
Now dry apart from the fur under my mane, I trot on in the comfortable daze that the Master's reward always leaves me. Time passes, although I could not tell you how much -- once I experimented by counting breaths, but that was disrupted by the monotony of this place. There are more lights and darks, more little piles of food. Occasionally -- at times that are never predictable -- I am called on to do my job, and these are the moments I live for. The Others are still there and always welcome me, even though no single individual is ever identifiable. Their touch and scent changes slowly, as if individual ponies are joining and leaving the group. This gives me hope that some time, perhaps not too far away, my Masters will be happy with my work and they will send me home. I will go, of course, but with a heavy heart. I can't imagine what life outside of this room and away from the Others will be like.
===
The temperature in the rubble-choked corridor was rising, the air redolent with the scent of burned flesh and plastics. Gravity paused for a moment, one hind leg lifted clear of the ground, listening for the sound of furtive movement amid the crack and groan of falling concrete. She snorted, ears folding back; the other noise, a kind of jet-engine roar, had started a few tenths of a kilosecond ago and was rapidly drowning out everything else.
What is that? I can almost believe it's a rocket, but why would they have one in here? She flexed the elevated leg, trying to work through the pain. Fighting the Dogs through the corridors had seemed like a good idea; as long as she kept moving, they could only bring light weapons to bear. Unfortunately, some group of power-armoured soldiers had escaped her initial attack; she'd been focused on her own targets, so they'd struck at her flank.
Magic had slowed the projectile, but not enough to prevent it from punching through her defences to strike between hip and knee on her right hind leg. Redshift's stolen armour had saved her life once again, but it had been close. Gravity glanced back at the battered section; the once smooth and dark ceramic was bowed in and surrounded by a network of pale cracks, looking like an icy puddle stepped on by a hoof. Lucky I didn't break the leg. She flexed it again, dropping into shadow sight to inspect the surrounding spaces.
The power suits were magically dark and she lacked Fusion's ability to see concentrations of energy, but they were made of high density materials... unfortunately such things were common in the security base. Vague, overlapped forms -- the twisted shapes of buckled reinforcing girders and the ever-present fragments of armourcrete linked with metal cable -- filled her mind with layered shadows. Here and there were the bright lights of crystal thaumic devices, either some freak survivor of Fusion's initial attack or dropped by fleeing Dogs, but they did little more than provide a distraction in her search.
Stowing the pair of knife-missiles on mountings Redshift had added to her barding, Gravity hefted the last remaining segment of hull armour. The bar was a full length long, cut much thicker that the ones she'd used as missiles, its chisel-pointed tips now blunt and mushroomed from constant impacts. They are smart, these Dogs... are they just very still, or have they retreated? She picked a likely shape, something that might have been a figure crouching behind a tangle of roof supports, and jabbed at it with her weapon.
The bar snapped forwards, vanishing in an explosion of concrete dust and metal sparks, punching a clean hole through the twisted mass of alloy. The shape on the other side moved abruptly, darting behind a mass of collapsed partition walls. She grabbed at it, but the purple polygon of an anti-magic field sprang up before the telekinesis could bite, and the thing slipped away. Now highlighted and obvious, Gravity sent a hail of rubble after the fleeing armour suit, punching through the thin fibre board like it was paper. The figure stumbled but kept on running, so she jumped in pursuit, bar-weapon held tightly to her side.
They know they can't face me directly, but they are still here. Little, almost subliminal, movements in the periphery of her shadow sight were a constant distraction. Most of the time they were just that -- the irregular settling of a ruined structure trying to find equilibrium -- but there seemed to be a pattern to some of these. Am I being hunted? Let them try... Gravity smiled, then smashed open a cavity in the angular mess of broken wall material, pushing outwards to form a zone of clear air. Still too much stuff in the way for an easy strike, she thought, expanding the attendant cloud of rocks that served her as a cross between ammunition reserve and smokescreen. Joining them were a pair of violet ovals, seemingly made from softly glowing glass, floating along each flank and reaching from tail to muzzle and hoof to withers.
Absently, the process operating at a near instinctive level, she probed and sorted the rubble around her, adding the heaviest and most compact objects to her retinue, even while she pursued her quarry. The floor under her hooves, swept clean by her magic, was different from the other areas she'd galloped, flown or smashed through. No carpeted office or fused-stone corridor; this was a monolithic slab of high density concrete, laced with strands of interlocking metal. Part of the internal armour for the base? She frowned; overhead was the same material, a great slab that had to be at least two lengths thick.
The bar at her side twitched, then she pulled the strike as her target darted around one of the roof support pillars, built to the same heroic scale as the rest of the area and too thick to get through easily. Gravity snarled and powered forwards, catching a glimpse of something angular strapped to the base of the pillar.
A bright green glare, the pure colour of a new leaf, filled the space between the two slabs with solar intensity. Gravity twisted, the world suddenly pitch-black apart from glowing threads that sought to slice her body like cheese wire. Dazzled by the initial flash and blinded by the sudden photochromic reaction of her helmet's visor, she clenched her eyes tight shut, magic reaching out to feel for the source of the beams.
A high-pitched buzz and matching vibration came from wherever the beams landed, and Gravity thought briefly about flakes of ceramic exploding off the armour's surface as the coherent light burrowed towards her vulnerable flesh. An instant later there was a stunningly loud crack and something struck her left pauldron, just at throat level. She staggered, the force field on that side vanishing as if shattered, then fell as the leg gave way. No! She imagined some Dog soldier, paws wrapped about the grips of a large weapon and taking aim for a final shot, and struggled to clear enough of the pain to focus on the complex teleportation pattern.
It wouldn't work, so Gravity gave up and hunted for a more familiar solution to her problem. Random waves of motion rippled through the matter within her grasp, then she pushed with all her might. Her attendant swarm of rubble exploded outwards with all the force of shrapnel from a thousand-kilo bomb, smashing deep craters into the already compacted walls. The lasers went out, their beams going wild before cutting off, and there was a sense of movement, of vague shapes running away.
"Run! I'll catch you," she shrieked, spitting the words out into the dust-laden air. "You'll never esc--"
There was another explosion, not the whipcrack of that heavy railgun, but the sharp thunder of high explosives. At the other side of her cleared space the support pillar disintegrated, and the uppermost armourcrete slab, all thousand tonnes of it, dropped on her like a hammer onto a mouse.
===
"Master, wake up."
The voice was rough and barely identifiable, and nearly drowned out by a harsh, pulsing whine from somewhere nearby. There were other noises; the hard clack-clack-clack of hoof on stone and heavy, wheezy, breathing from nearby. One eye cracked open, but the view was a close roof of soot-stained feathers connected to a wall of singed fur, flexing and shifting with internal motion. Below, illuminated by a pale radiance coming from his own skin, was the floor, moving past faster than he could run.
Orgon coughed, then sluggishly moved one arm, trying to rub a paw over his eyes. For a moment it was as if he was entombed in concrete, then whatever was holding him relaxed and he could wipe one shaky set of claws through the fur of his face. The sound moved, abruptly getting far louder, and he suddenly recognised it. "Put this one down," he croaked.
The wing shifted, showing the tired and burned shape of Merlon cantering down a dark corridor. Many People were here, but they stepped aside to let his servitor through. The mare twisted her head slightly to glance at him, then turned to face forwards once more, her jaw set and ears folded back. "No, Master," she said in a pained whisper, tremors running down her flanks. "It is not safe here, and you can work just as easily while I carry you."
Orlon opened his mouth, then closed it, nodding. With one claw he stroked his bracer's controls, silencing the priority alarm and opening the call on the little backup display, the only thing that worked after the destruction of its thaumic hologram generator. On the palm-sized span of photopolymer was the scarred and grizzled head of Strategist Faungo.
"So the Sector Chief is still alive; this one was beginning to think he had perished. It looks like it was a near thing." The camera's lens was wide angle and showed plenty of background despite being mounted on Faungo's wrist; the Strategist was walking briskly across a concrete apron, followed by a group of the general staff, both Security and Military. Behind all this were ranks of heavy airtanks, the squat lenticular shapes jumping into the air like they were little more than toys. Delta-shaped formations of the vehicles flicked by overhead, flanking the swept-arrowhead shapes of attack carriers.
"Yes, Strategist," Orgon said, trying to clear his throat. The words brought all the pains of his body into focus; the hot itchy feeling of burns running from head to hip down one side and the throb of bruising at knee and elbow were suddenly distracting. He swallowed, working his jaw, wincing at the sudden sting of abraded flesh. Will there be any part of this one that doesn't hurt, come tomorrow? he thought, eye tracing the patches of singed fur either side of his bracer. "These ones are in urgent need of Arclight support; the rogue--"
"Faungo knows. The closest units are at Naraka, and they are already in position. Others have been diverted from the perimeter patrols, but they will take time to arrive." He smiled humourlessly. "Perhaps this will convince the Synod of the need to construct more."
Then why has Arclight not been activated? Orgon opened his mouth, then closed it again. "Is there still no sign of the second rogue?" Merlon shook her head silently and the Sector Chief sighed.
Faungo paused in the shadows under a delta-shaped attack carrier. "Orgon sees the problem. Lacunae does not have an endless supply of Arclight units, and they are large and fragile things. This one will not risk activation until both of the rogues are revealed."
"Understood," Orgon said glumly. The Strategist will let the Pit and every Person in it burn. "What are the Strategist's orders?"
"Keep this... Gravity Resonance servitor occupied by any means necessary. This one is taking steps to draw the other one out." The camera view changed as the Strategist stepped into the belly of an aircraft, switching from his bracer to a point on the wall. Row upon row of armour suits were spread-eagled against the curving hull, and Faungo started to climb in to the nearest one.
"What does the Strategist intend? This one already has significant forces in the deep tunnels under Naraka, which should at least slow the other servitor, even without the Pit's reaction teams."
"This one has had servitor psychologists working on the problem, and they suspect that the corral may be a fertile place to recruit others." He frowned at the camera. "Especially after what Orgon's Agent did. Salrath maimed one of the servitors in full view of the whole herd while Arclight was operational. That could have undone much of the Blessing's conditioning."
And this one knows that the rogues have already recruited others. Orgon swallowed, ignoring the pain in his throat, and his ears folded back. How many in the corral are already subverted?
"Faungo sees that Orgon understands. Good. Keep it occupied, Sector Chief." The chest of the armour closed, leaving only the Strategist's head, looking comically small against the bulk of the suit. "These ones go to threaten the creatures’ chance of building a power base. Time is short; the World Court's audit teams are in the air, supported by units from Soro and Baur Hives. The Synod would very much prefer it if this problem was contained before they arrived... or at least, before the Hammer comes over the horizon."
===
Spiral Fracture watched as ponies materialised out of the dark amid the orchards surrounding corral twenty-seven, their wings flaring as they cantered into landings amid the leaf-litter. The night, already cool enough to make her breath steam, seemed to grow a little colder. Right now, Fusion and Gravity are about to kick the Masters where it really hurts. She fidgeted, playing with the now less-than-comforting bulk of her communicator where it sat amid the fur of her chest, waiting for the six ponies to gather together. The afternoon, during which she'd left the little rebellion to carry out her normal duties at the corral, had been a horrible mix of routine and a ghastly, creeping tension that built unbearably as the time to act approached.
Scalar Product trotted up to her, nodding in greeting. "Everything quiet?" he whispered, eyes and ears sweeping the sky. "How is Elliptic coping? Fusion has kept me so busy that I haven't had a chance to really think."
Not stupid, that pony. There was an underlying nervousness to the stallion's normal bullish tones, and Spiral nodded with sympathy. "Your mate is fine," she said, then flicked a wing to encompass the whole group. "All of your families are doing as well as can be expected. I did have to pay a few a visit earlier to make sure they were asleep, but given everything else that has happened..." Spiral shrugged, then jumped into a silent hover, the only sound the rustle of leaves in her downdraft. The others followed suit, and the little herd flitted between the trees towards the corral's shelters. "Any last-kilosecond changes?" she whispered, flying just over Scalar's head.
The orange stallion flicked his ears. "No. My team will go in and disable the labournet comms repeater, then empty the feedstock bunker and keep watch, while Triple Point goes with you to start on the sleepers."
Too many ponies, not enough time. "Under the guise of helping ponies ward off bad dreams, I've already made a start." I spent the evening lying to those I was sworn to protect, and then carried out unnecessary medical procedures. The needle of guilt was nearly as bad as the simpler pains of Punishment, and she shivered, ears folding back. This better be worth it.
The flight reached the edge of the corral and split into two, Scalar's group arcing up to land at the tip of the Church, right on the landing platform reserved for Priests attending the foal's Blessing ceremony, while Spiral dropped silently between the shelters, alert for any sign of movement. Still asleep, thank the Maker. She nodded to Triple Point, who reached out with her magic.
The green glow of horn light was startlingly bright to her dark-adapted eyes, but the pair sleeping quietly on the wood-chip floor didn't stir. Quick touches first deepened their sleep, then stunned the nerves in each hornbed. Examination of the actual horn came next, identifying the zone of modified material at its base and targeting it with a carefully controlled pulse that filled the volume with tiny cracks. Spiral watched every step in the process, biting her tongue at the slightly clumsy technique of the other mare, but neither pony did more than twitch during the procedure.
"Excellent, Triple. I know we're on the clock here, but don't be tempted to rush; it would be easy to maim a pony just by accident. You know which ones you need to do?"
The green and yellow dappled mare released the breath she'd been holding, seeming to sag a little. "Thanks, Spiral. Your sharing was very realistic, but to actually do it..." She shook all over, then walked quickly to the next shelter.
Spiral watched her go, then headed to the next shelter on her list, probing with her mind for the distant feel of Lilac. The sharing opened with a rush, bringing with it vague sensations from other bodies.
...the taste and scent of burned plastics in Gravity's mouth. A near-subliminal image of Fusion walking past a long row of glass-fronted rooms, each holding one or more ponies. The feel of Scalar casting complex, unfamiliar magic in an angular room lined with mirror-polished black stone and filled with communications equipment--
Spiral damped down the sensory leakage, focussing instead on the mind connected to all those other ponies. Lilac; we are underway. How are you coping? Don't let those others overwhelm you.
I'll be fine, Spiral, came the youngster's thoughts, although they were a little faint and seemed to blur slightly in time with some particularly intense event occurring in one of the other minds. Fusion is in Naraka now, and Grav seems to be happy digging through the Security hub.
There came an intense image of a Security aircar, boxy with armour, breaking apart under the lash of metal accelerated to speeds that rendered it invisible. Lilac, please focus. We are relying on you to keep us in touch... I know it is tempting to watch, but you must leave Fusion and Gravity to work. Spiral swept the three sleeping ponies ahead of her with her magic, applying gentle touches to their brainstems to keep them unconscious.
Sorry. His tone sharpened and the leakage of other lives faded away to a barely identifiable murmur, only obvious if you knew where to look.
Spiral kept a gentle touch on his mind, letting the background whispers steady her with the knowledge that she was not alone, and dipped her head to scan the next family on her list. Together with Triple and the two other ponies, they went from shelter to shelter, working through the corral.
===
A kilosecond later, when they had freed perhaps three-quarters of the ponies, Spiral was shocked out of her focussed state by Lilac's sudden, urgent thought. Scalar says there are loads of airtanks and at least two attack carriers coming, with more close behind. Five hundred seconds max. Too many; he can't stop them.
Spiral ignored him for the moment it took for her to finish the pair she was working on, then allowed the full meaning of the words to sink in. I thought we'd have more time! Her eyes flicked out along the row of shelters that she'd not visited yet, catching a glance of a panicked Triple Point staring back at her, ears flat back and wings flicking with agitation. "I'll keep going and get as many done as I can." Should have had everypony working to remove the Blessings, she thought, or Trocar here, or something! "Get to the infirmary and get the wounded out, then get ready to help me with the teleports. Stay out of sight until then!" Can't have the dead coming back to life just yet...
The mare nodded and galloped off, followed by the other two, and Spiral bent her head to stripping the Blessing from the next pony. No time for a light touch, no time for anything, other than burning that ugly spell from as many horns as she could. Ponies groaned or cried out, jerking awake as she cauterised little patches of horn material without numbing the nerves first, and the rising noise started to wake those ahead of her.
At the next shelter the stallion of the pair was already on his hooves, his eyes and ears sweeping the surroundings and unfocused magic making firefly patterns over the surface of his horn. "Hey, Spiral, what--"
# All ponies at corral twenty-seven will evacuate the area immediately. Spiral Fracture CW8002 has delegate authority for the duration of the emergency. #
The message, transmitted from every labournet communicator, shocked him into a stunned silence. "What do we do? Can't we stop whatever--" he said, gaze locking onto hers. Around him gathered other ponies, all staring at her, little whispers passing on her location to those just emerging from their shelters.
She shook her head, mouth suddenly dry. Come on, filly, treat it like a drill. She was the corral's emergency manager, a job that went hoof, horn and wing along with her medic duties¸ but the idea of actually ordering all these ponies about... No, it has to be you, Spiral. All the others that came along are dead, remember? Oh, Trocar -- I wish you were here! "Everypony! We have been targeted by an enemy hive; we have to get out of the area. I have been given new magic to help us escape."
"It's not going to be like the Three Day War is it?" a voice cried out from the middle of the throng, full of fear and tension.
Spiral shivered. Few ponies had made it out of that stricken arcology; most had been killed by Baur Hive's gryphon death squads hunting the Masters they protected, or were lost in the collapse after the reactor complex blew. The memories of those that had were legend, and required experiences for the older foals during schooling. "I don't know, Doppler." Oh, Maker, I hope not. Tension twisting her insides, Spiral galloped to the edge of the corral, then wheeled to face those who had followed her.
Lilac? Is Trocar ready?
Her mate's thoughts broke in to the sharing, his senses expanding into her own and bringing a feeling of rushing wind and cold, icy mountains towering above the deep valley they'd selected as an initial destination. I am... but I won't be able to stop them from leaving again.
I know. Get ready to play catch. "Ears up and eyes forward! I have a special spell just for this." Oh, Maker -- please let this work... two jumps is hardly enough! Spiral brought the pattern to the front of her mind, modifying it just so, then gave a little push--
~~~discontinuity~~~
--appearing ten lengths away in a flash of green light, swaying drunkenly. "I can send you anywhere, as fast as I can cast the spell." Everypony was staring at her, open mouthed, then the air was filled with an excited babble. Not enough time for this! Spiral pushed again--
~~~discontinuity~~~
--jumping back to her original location, just as the herd rushed forwards. "I'll explain everything when we are all safe," she cried, and it was no effort at all to colour her shout with fear. "Form yourselves into four lines and I'll get to you as quickly as I can. This is very important -- when you appear you will be high in the air and going fast--" The mare lay on the grass and folded her legs and wings in. "--do not open your wings until you slow down!" The assembled ponies stared back at her with wide eyes, confusion on every face. "Just do it -- or I'll be repairing dozens of dislocated wings!" she snapped, voice near hysterical with panic. "Remember and pass it on to the ponies at the back -- legs in, wings in, eyes shut."
The shift in her tone must have convinced them, because the nearest ponies leapt forwards, colliding with each other in their haste to comply. "Trocar and his rescue team will be here in moments to help, so everypony must get into position right now," she said, in a slightly calmer tone
Ponies fell to the floor in a disordered wave that spread out through the herd, each pony following the lead of their nearest neighbours. That's right; follow-follow-follow. Keep them too busy to think, too busy to realise that the Maker is no longer talking to them, too busy to notice that the other ponies helping me should all be dead. Spiral took a deep breath, filling her mind with the sight, sound and smell of Trocar's distant mountain valley and funnelling that information into the teleport spell. Finally ready, she picked the closest pony, a trembling bundle of feathers and fur, his muscles so tense that they were like iron.
Okay, Prismatic, you get to go first. This specific teleport was one she'd practiced with Fusion, drilled it time and time again until the arcane patterns seemed to be carved into the surface of her brain. The presence of Trocar, holding position at the arrival point, reinforced the memory, and keeping the complex arcane pattern in the front of her mind actually seemed easy. Spiral took a deep breath, pulled off his communicator disk, and twisted the world--
--the stallion appeared in the dark air, barely a length from Trocar's muzzle, flicking away like he'd been thrown with all her might. There was a sudden scream, doppler-shifted and fading fast as the range opened, then Prismatic cautiously opened his wings, curving around in a wide arc, eyes wide and head whipping from side to side as he tried to take in everything at once. "Come and fly behind me, help catch ponies as they come through," Trocar called out, and the pony nodded--
Spiral broke into a huge smile. "He's safe," she said, then cast the spell on the next pony, pulling off his communicator as she did so. At the back of the herd there were sudden shouts of 'stay down, keep your eyes shut and your wings in', as Triple Point, Scalar and all the other 'dead' ponies teleported to the periphery of the herd, their horns already glowing.
===
Gravity panted, eyes shut tight against the glare of her own magic, breath warm in the small space she'd managed to keep open in between the collapsed armourcrete layers. "Stupid filly... didn't you learn anything?" she muttered, then groaned. There was another string of explosions, distant, quiet things more felt by their shockwaves through the material overhead than by sound, and the weight she was holding up abruptly became punishing. "Want to make sure, eh? Very sensible."
She reached for the teleport pattern, but it wouldn't stabilise, blurring in and out of focus in time with the pulsing pain in her shoulder and hind leg. More effort, this time to keep the details of her plight from the ever-watchful Lilac. It seemed that the youngster was otherwise occupied, focussed on the images coming back from Spiral as she stripped the Blessing from everypony at the corral, and the little traces leaking through from Fusion in the cool, white corridors of Naraka.
Her magic probed the thickness of material around her, hunting for something she could use. The only space within four lengths in any direction was the void she occupied, a low, domed cavity kept open by the singular force of her own power. The armourcrete layer the Dogs had brought down on her head had not cracked in a single place like glass over a pebble, but had fragmented and sagged, the individual tetrahedral subcomponents held in place by endless tangles of embedded fullerene cable. If she relaxed it would close the little gap and crush her like a hoof on an insect.
Can't dig out; there's nowhere to put the spoil. The mass below was a little thinner than the one above, especially since the Dogs had collapsed still more material upon it, and she sharpened her telekinetic pressure, changing the shape from a sphere to something more cone-shaped. The narrow end of the field started to push into the tough material below, pushing the tetrahedra apart. Overhead, the scarred roof pressed closer, and Gravity wriggled and twitched, forcing her legs down into the funnel forming beneath her while tucking her head into her chest.
Within a pawful of seconds the structure seemed to have stabilised, and she relaxed her grip on the armourcrete, sensitive to the slightest movement. The cramped volume left to her was too small to even turn her head, and her gasping breaths took the limited air and turned it into something damp and smothering. "But at least I can think," she muttered, pushing aside the teleport spell for the familiar power of her telekinesis. Without the need to support a length-square section, she could focus it down to something smaller than a hoof, forcing open cracks that extended through the material and out the underside.
That done, the slightest twitch of her wings -- all she could manage in the tiny space -- set the air moving, pulling away the foul exhalations and drawing fresh, although it was still tainted with the scent of powdered rock and explosives. The magic was only a fraction of her capabilities, even before she'd been connected to the moons, and hardly noticeable unless another pony was close by and watching carefully. Gravity did her own check, noting the distant glimmer of the only other pony in the Security Hub, small and barely visible, even against the depleted thaumic background. She really has been moving... I honestly thought she'd try and stop us. At least then we could have spirited her away from this place.
Her attention drifted onwards, into the dark cavity at the bottom of the central shaft. Here were the shapes of armoured vehicles, mostly flattened spheres with thick, high-density hulls. They were larger than the pair she'd destroyed in the depths of the Institute, and Gravity struggled to resist the urge to break into the hangar levels and see how tough they really were. They will be waiting for me when I go through the main doors; no chance of surprise... The idea of being caught at the focus of one or more of the lasers with no defence made her shiver. I'm actually safer here than anywhere else. She smiled and laughed quietly, the sound close and strange in her cramped bolt-hole. They'll have to nuke the site to catch me off-guard.
"Which they just might, if this goes very badly for them." Gravity shook her head, forgetting the close confines and striking the armourcrete with the side of her muzzle, and looked again. There was movement in the shadow world, heavy shapes lining up within the complex support structures below the main doors. She stared with interest; there was already a lot of fallen rubble at the bottom of the shaft, and it was possible that they just wouldn't be able to launch the things.
The rumbling groan reached her even buried under all that thickness of armourcrete, a sound like the grinding of two giant boulders. I guess that answers that question. "Lilac," she said, sending thoughts into the sharing, even as she murmured the words out loud. The sense of being somewhere else intensified, enhanced by the youngster's similar subterranean environment.
I'm ready, Gravity, he thought, body twitching unconsciously as he felt the confinement of her own. The square-sided chamber had an unfinished look, and was filled with neat stacks of half-length cubes of granite; all the spoil that they hadn't dumped at the bottom of the lake. He must have felt her interest, because the room was clearly illuminated by a floating point of white light, magnified and reflected countless times by the frosty, mirror-finished walls.
Just relax and let me guide you. Gravity reached in through the sharing, twisting Lilac's magic into the correct shapes. That's it. Now all you have to do is...
A pair of those lens-shaped airtanks squeezed out through the still-opening doors -- there was no laser-pure crystal thaumic glow, so Gravity imagined the dusty insides of the shaft being illuminated by the hard glare of plasma drives -- and started to accelerate towards the surface, bodies rotating to sweep the damaged walls.
--push!
In Lilac's darkened cavern there was a pulse of purple light, and a stack of blocks vanished--
--to reappear on one side of the shaft, with exactly the same velocity as when they were at rest in Lilac's cavern. Moving at over a hundred lengths a second, the two-and-a-half-tonne cubes of granite sprayed across the airtanks' path, but managed to miss them completely. A momentary correction and she had Lilac, his magic essentially just an extension of her will at this point, cast again and again.
The vehicles, only really visible as slightly darker silhouettes in her shadow sight, staggered under the rain of boulders, but did not go down. Too tough. Lilac, I'm going to have to go in directly -- are you okay to continue sending the rocks?
Y-yes, I can do it.
There was enthusiasm in his tone, but also fatigue. Don't try too hard; keep some magic back in case you need to move. Gravity registered his assent with a fraction of her attention, her excitement already building. She formed the pattern -- without the added strain of holding up a kilotonne of armourcrete, adrenalin was doing a wonderful job of holding back the pain from her injured leg -- and pushed--
~~~discontinuity~~~
--materialising in the wrecked hangar. There was a hoarse cry from somewhere behind her and she wheeled, magic snapping a half dome of violet light over her body, only to be greeted by the trembling form of the tech, still clinging to the skeletonised tail fin of one dropshuttle. She grinned in his direction, then quickly ripped more material from the downed aircraft, something that made him cry out and hug the fin even more tightly. Pipes, bars and panels tumbled through the air, forming themselves into a quintet of crude pony-shapes.
Fur, then feathers and armour, congealed over the metal debris, and Gravity lowered her head to the life-sized dolls, smile widening as they bowed back in return. Are you ready, Lilac? Assent came back through the reopened sharing, so she pushed her decoys over the edge and followed them down into the dusty air.
===
Three circular aircraft, little more than patches of deeper darkness against the midnight sky, flicked overhead in complete silence. At the midpoint of their track, each released a rain of darts that fell with far greater velocity than mere gravity allowed, spreading out to cover the remains of corral twenty-seven's herd.
The endless stream of teleports stopped and polychromatic magic stabbed upwards to sweep the projectiles from the sky, but at the slightest touch they detonated with stunning violence. A tiny part of Spiral's mind, in the bare milliseconds before the blast struck her, fought to assemble a force barrier to protect herself and as many ponies as she could reach, but the tangle of teleportation magic took too long to dismantle. We've killed them all, she thought, just as the shockwave hit.
Actinic flashes strobed across the whole width of the sky, flickering and pulsing in rhythms that reached in through her eyes and scrambled what little sense she had been left by the concussion. Near sightless, her body reacted, legs and wings churning up the grass and it tried to take her away from the technologically induced madness; she only faintly registered the rain of heavy, multilimbed shapes crashing to the ground around them all.
The flashing stopped and thought started to return. The need to escape was still filling her mind and, body not yet responding, she reached for her magic. A bare whisper of power, not even enough to jostle the nearest gryphon, was all she managed, before the world caught fire. Invisible flames covered her head, back and anything else exposed to the sky, a searing, blast-furnace heat that should have left her convulsing with lethal burns. Instead there was just the pain, pouring down from the heavens like an a rain of acid, as bad as from the Blessing at its worst but without the nuanced and well understood reason for its existence. She screamed, loud and ragged, and the others screamed with her. There were gunshots, things she'd only heard by proxy in Gravity's memories, but horribly recognizable despite that.
Her will vanished under the onslaught, taking with it the arcane power and the patterns that wished it into existence, but the pain carried on for a subjective lifetime. Then, as if it had never existed, it was gone. Gasping and gaping like a gaffed fish, Spiral looked out over the grassy lawn she'd picked as a staging area. Lit by harsh lights that moved in orbits high above, ponies covered it with a varicoloured pastel carpet of pain and distress, looking around in confusion at the angular gryphon-shapes that stalked among them.
Here and there were the dead. Ponies with bellies ripped open or heads smashed by high velocity projectiles, painting their nearest neighbours carmine. But only a few. Why didn't the Dogs just use real weapons and slaughter us all? Spiral tried to get her mind to focus on that question, but thoughts came slow and uneven, when they came at all. The gryphons were working their way through the herd from the perimeter inwards, attaching something to the horn of each pony.
About half way into the herd there was movement; a pony lifted his head, a glimmer of magic congealing about his horn. It was Axiom, one of the many ponies that worked in the local power complex, lying next to the blood-splattered body of his mate. Maker, no! Please don't do it, you can't win-- Spiral let out a moan, willing the stallion to submit. An instant later he was screaming, but the pain in his cries was tempered with fury, and his power built anyway. The nearest gryphons all turned, their weapons at the ready, and brilliant points of green dancing over Axiom's body. Spiral reached for her own magic, feeling his efforts and trying to disrupt his power. "Masters, please, I can stop--" Her shout ended in a high pitched wail as the burning wind found her once more, blowing out her magic like a candle in a hurricane.
The gryphons fired, and Spiral was left staring at the ruined remains of Axiom, as hard, scaly talons gripped her head and slid something onto her horn that shackled her power and drowned it under an endless ocean.
===
The gritty, smoky and overheated air whipped past as Gravity fell into the pit in the midst of her own little herd. Careful magic let her slice through the air, keeping out all but the faintest hint of burning flesh as she dropped through some energetic plume of combustion products and approached the half-opened doors. They were huge things, extending the full width of the shaft and made of the same armourcrete as the more hardened sections of the base, spaced into layers designed to absorb or deflect the heaviest fire. The Dogs below -- Fusion's thaumomagnetic pulse had obviously been attenuated by distance and intervening matter -- had found a way to get the big doors open, at least enough to slip a their airtanks through.
At this distance she had a better view of the main hangar decks, an overlapping mess of high density armoured hulls that stood out against the more normal armourcrete and steel. There were a scattering of antimagic fields, hard-edged polygons of purple light that were only really large enough to hold a single trooper, but very few considering the numbers of vehicles.
A whisper of unease stole up the mare's spine. I can't believe I've killed all of them down there... most of the damage is above these hangars. A flick of wings and she steered away from the relatively small opening, sending the flock of doppelgangers in her place, heading instead for a patch of armourcrete close to the edge of the doors and ignoring the pair of battered airtanks still twisting and searching for her. They were flying, but only just; even though the teleported projectiles had not killed them, it was obvious that the barrage of rocks had stripped most of the sensors from their hulls.
No lasers on these machines. The airtank's main guns cracked, shockwaves pummelling the dense air as they fired nearly blind, and several of the decoys dissolved into a spray of burning metal fragments. The others, manoeuvring violently in a simulacrum of desperate evasion, dropped past the gauntlet and through the doors, then vanished in a converging barrage of laser, railgun and hypervelocity missile fire. The whole bottom of the pit lit up with green, blue-white and orange flashes at the same time as arcane feedback made her head ache, thunderous detonations rolling over her moments later.
There was that trap laid for me... they obviously had contingency plans, for all that we surprised them. All the decoys were gone and the floor of the shaft, those giant hangar doors, the bright landing pad markings on their upper surfaces now half buried in rubble, was getting close, so she folded her wings. Her power reached out, narrowing to a needle point and potent with force vectors that all pointed at right angles to her direction of motion, striking the tough surface at the same instant as the rapid flicker-flash of force fields diced it into neat mirror-faced cubes.
There was a large mass, directly in her path. One of the heavy airtanks, held in an oversized rack that no doubt served it as a launching rail. It was one of many; each was stacked one over the other like a column of artfully balanced river pebbles. A zone of magic inhibition sprang up around it, and she fell through the shell of purple light. Her magic faltered and everything abruptly became more difficult; what was once near effortless was suddenly a struggle. Unable to sustain the tricky balancing act required to generate her cutting fields, Gravity slammed hooves-first into the upper hull, wings stroking furiously to kill her velocity.
Gravity's injured leg gave way and she tumbled down the smooth curve, feathers biting air as she went over the edge and fell past the prow, down the stack of lenticular aircraft. They were larger than the ones she'd encountered in the ruins of the Institute's transfer hub, but not massively so. Flattened spheres about three lengths across and two thick, studded with sensors, intakes and drive nozzles, weapons, and other unidentifiable devices. Like the pair that had escaped, these had long railgun barrels in place of the laser mirrors she'd seen before. The armour was also heavier, nearly as thick as her foreleg was long, and composed of a myriad of tiny tetrahedra, all tightly bound together and visible as complex detail to her density-sensitive shadow sight.
Twisting, she spun in the air, turning the fall into a dive and passing out of the airtank's antimagic field. Effortless power came back in a rush, only to die again when the next airtank's field came alive. A glance showed her all she needed to know: throughout the volume of the main hanger, a space five hundred lengths across and two hundred and fifty deep, the polygons of magical defences were springing up. So dense were the fields that there seemed to be no free space left at all.
The mare snarled, swooping past a gantry and yanking free one of the girder-trusses. It was harder to work but, although similar in function, these fields did not have the same power as the machine that had attacked her at the Institute. That device had been a general purpose suppressor, while these were more geared to simple thaumokinetic strikes, and seemed unable to keep her pinned down, as long as she kept adjusting her arcane tempo.
Gravity reached for the teleport pattern, trying to jump free of the cluttered environment, but the interference was enough to stop the complex magic from becoming real. Intentional or not, this is a trap. The delicate touch of fear became stronger, and she dove between a pair of the airtanks, just as a stream of projectiles punched dents in nearby support structures and whined off the much harder hulls. Lilac! The thought was met with silence, and she fumbled for the sharing, hunting along the rapidly fading pathway for the familiar touch of the youngster's mind. Mustn't-- They had fall-back plans if contact was lost, and if Fusion abandoned her far more important mission to protect her...
Suddenly, there was panic, but it wasn't hers. The babble of the stallion's thoughts flooded her own, near incoherent with desperate urgency. Thank the Maker! Lilac, I'm still--
You have to help -- they are killing them!
"Show me," Gravity snapped, jabbing her hull-alloy staff into the gaping muzzle of the nearest airtank turret that was trying to get her in its sights. Her staff-weapon, made of the same high density materials as the vehicles around her, was becoming increasingly hard to wield with any real force, and she nearly lost her grip at the jarring impact. It must have been enough, though, because lightning flashed within the long barrel, turning into a shrieking plume of incandescent gas as the superconductors failed and shorted out.
She flipped over, bringing her wings in and darting under the belly of the damaged tank, planting her hooves on the turret of the one below. It was also moving, but these machines were obviously not designed for agile opponents at such close quarters. More motion, this time from eyeball-like sensors on the underside of the one above, and Gravity distractedly smashed each one in quick succession, before doing the same to the airtank below her.
The vehicle she was standing on had another of the long-barrelled railguns, and this close to the mantlet she was within the sweep of the weapon and sheltered from the rest of the hangar. Starting to sweat inside her armour from the effort, Gravity resharpened the end of her staff, protected it with a force field, and then, with a grunt, drove the tip between the hull and the turret. There was a loud groan and a crack, then the whole bowl-shaped mass lifted up a tenth of a length.
Slightly safer for the moment, Gravity reached back down the sharing, grabbing a hold of Lilac's magic and pulling in the clairvoyance images. Dimly, she felt his body shudder at her less than gentle usurpation, but paid it no mind.
--a grassy field lit from some harsh overhead source and strewn with bodies, many obviously still alive and cowering, others screaming and writhing as if under the Blessing's lash. The flare of magic, vague and uncertain, a pony trying to strike back at his tormentors, followed by the harsh crack of gunfire--
Lilac's thoughts cut across the imagery, making everything waver and blur. I can't talk to Spiral or Scalar any more, and there are no ponies being pushed to the rendezvous point, and-and--
Lilac's thoughts were almost indecipherable, and Gravity relaxed her grip. Does Fusion know? In the real world, the hull shifted under her hooves, vibrating and twitching like a live thing as the drive lit and spat needles of blue plasma from multiple nozzles. She strained against the bar, using its leverage to increase the force she was applying to the turret, and something gave inside the aircraft, the whole mass abruptly tilting upwards as the bearings sheared. Brilliant pulses of green light struck nearby and Gravity flinched, but the shooter didn't seem to have line of sight.
No, I couldn't get--
...her attention, Gravity completed, keeping the thought from the sharing, then reached for her sister. Fusion, there are Dogs and gryphons at the corral. I think they will know where you are very soon. The gun barrel wedged against the underside of the tank above and she pushed harder and twisted, jamming the upended turret into the gap. The whole vehicle shuddered as something struck the other side, sending fragments whining in random directions. Her force field caught the ones heading for her body, although the effort made her head swim. More gunfire, a continuous sleet of small stuff that was obviously unable to penetrate the hull and only served to stop an easy escape. They suspect I can't jump... well, they got that right.
There was a moment's pause, as Fusion digested the images she'd sent, then: I'll go, I can see you are--
No! Gravity thought, cursing for not suppressing her own sensory feed, then clamping down so Fusion couldn't see what she was doing. You must not leave without our foals. She reached into the space left by the turret mechanism, pulling out and discarding tangled clumps of machinery, then poked her head through the hole. They are repositioning to get a clear shot, but I think I can slow them down... Eyes narrowed, she grinned.
But they'll slaughter half the corral -- what's the point in saving a few if the rest die? There was frustration in Fusion's mental tone, and the sensation of magic being formed was obvious.
If you go, they will move the foals and any future trap would be that much harder to circumvent. More to the point, to come home without them... Terror, carefully controlled, stole back down the link, and Gravity nodded in satisfaction.
Very well, but if you don't get out right now...
I will. I've got a plan. Past the internal structure of the airtank's core was a small stall just large enough for a pony -- fortunately empty -- and either side of that were gimballed spheres, each holding a Dog. "Nice doggies want to play a game?" she shouted over the sounds of gunfire and drive motors. The words were private, blocked from the sharing. One was frantically working, paws dancing across great swathes of controls that the internal systems had coloured the bright red of failure, while the other had twisted in his seat and was shakily pointing a stubby pistol in her direction.
"None of that," she said, pulling it from his grasp and ripping open the meshwork that separated the two Dogs from the rest of the airtank. A flick of magic pulled them both, kicking and shouting, onto the hull with her, then she pushed them further out, holding them in clear air above a fifty length drop to the floor below. Their protests died at that point, as did all the gunfire. "What do you know... they do want to keep you alive," she called out. "I lost my bet."
"Why is the servitor doing this?!" one of them shouted back, her voice high and distorted with panic.
Gravity didn't answer, just held them steady while she dug around in the mass of hardware, hunting for the thing she needed. There, in the thinnest hull section, right out at the rim of the lens, she found it. A quick twist and the magic defences failed, leaving her in a zone free from magical interference. Jumping now. One last look around, and her gaze alighted on the stacked ranks of silvery darts that were obviously the railgun's ammunition. These liberated, she stuck her muzzle out of the turret opening and waggled her ears at the floating Dogs.
"You gave wings to all your creations -- it's a pity you didn't see fit to do the same for yourselves," she said, smile widening as realisation struck the airtank pilots, then pushed--
~~~discontinuity~~~
===
A hundred seconds later and a suppressor ring was on the horn of everypony present. The numbers of gryphons had swollen dramatically, until there was at least two for each of the captives. Spiral tried to breathe steadily, ignoring the trip-hammer beat of her heart and the constant urge to move, to run, to fly, to do anything to escape the corral. Her own guards, three bulky gryphons so covered with scaly armour and equipment that she had no idea of their subspecies, stood around her, one holding each wing and the third pointing its shoulder-mounted gun at her head. They had not been gentle; the sharp surfaces on the undersides of their talons were red with blood, and more ran sluggishly from cuts where they gripped her.
They want Fusion and Gravity, that's why all this is happening. The assembled mass of ponies was mostly silent and still, cowering and fearful, with only the occasional quiet whinny or snort, quickly silenced by back-taloned blows from the cat-bird soldiers. The unnecessary aggression spoke volumes about the gryphons; there was as much fear in their movements as there was in that of the ponies, and they twitched at the slightest movement. We are bait, hostages just like our foals were. The realisation made silent tears of fear and rage run down her cheeks, blurring the harshly lit scene into a distorted chaotic swirl of glare and bright colours. How could it have been any other way?
Something howled overhead on jets of air; an arrowhead-shaped aircraft that was only visible in the reflected light from the orbiting airtanks. Bipedal shapes were dropped from its belly, looking like fat spiders on their arrester lines, clawed paws digging deeply into the grass as they landed. They stalked through the assembled herd, four with weapons drawn and the fifth acting like it was hunting for some particular pony or ponies.
The Dog found what it was looking for, and rough claws pulled Spiral, Triple, Scalar and the others involved in the little rebellion out and dumped them away from the rest. Little gasps and wordless exclamations, quickly beaten into silence, rippled through the rest of the ponies; in this moment of relative calm, any chance they had of not being recognised was long gone.
The lead Dog made its blank-faced helmet open, revealing a black-furred and scowling face. "Where is Fusion Pulse TC4668?" she demanded, with a snarl that showed a startlingly-white set of canine teeth. None of the ponies answered; some looked away or lowered their heads, while others, Scalar in particular, stared back defiantly. "This one has given the servitors a direct order! Where is TC4668?" She made a gesture with her right paw, making blue-white sparks crackle between the metal claws at its fingertips.
"Never, we'll never--" Scalar howled as the Dog's paw gripped his throat, his body vibrating and twitching as if being prodded by hot needles. The electricity vanished, leaving the stallion gasping and shivering, but his ears were flat back and his eyes wild. "I have felt the lash of the Maker's Test, Dog, and there is nothing you can do to me that will make me tell--" he spat, teeth snapping shut and the tendons of his neck standing out like cords as the sparks leapt once more. After a count of ten the paw relaxed, but Scalar just glared up at the Dog and panted, great, gasping breaths that made his sweat-soaked flanks heave.
The soldier's eyes narrowed, and she glanced down at a display on her wrist before returning her gaze to Scalar, then smiled nastily. "Bring this one the pony Elliptic DD2206," she snapped, studying the stallion intently.
Scalar's eyes went wide and he made to stand, but one of his gryphon guards slammed a fist into the side of his head and he dropped back down, stunned. "No! She's got nothing to do with any of this..." he said, trailing off as Elliptic was pushed to the grass in front of him.
The mare, her delicate green coat and feathers marred by flecks of red, didn't fight the gryphon guards, but just looked back at Scalar with an expression of utter confusion. "But you were dead! I-I saw your body and scattered your ashes, and-and now you're back and-and--" She cut off when the Dog made a sharp gesture with one paw. "I'm sorry, Master, I don't understand any of this. W-what are your orders?" The last words came out sounding hopeful, even through her trembling tone, and Elliptic twisted to look up at the soldier, ears forward and attentive.
"The pony will convince its mate to tell this one where Fusion Pulse TC4668 is." She held up one paw, making electricity crackle between the claw-tips.
Elliptic's eyes went wide and she tried to shy away from the blue-white snap-crack, only to be prevented from doing so by gryphons who held on to her head and wings. "Scalar, talk to the Master. I don't know what's going on, but you must t-t--" She gasped as the paw came closer, hooves making unconscious little running motions until those too were held still.
Scalar surged forwards, only to be beaten down again, and was practically buried under his own gryphon captors. "I'll kill you, I'll kill you all if you so much as touch--"
The Dog placed her paw gently on Elliptic's neck, and the mare convulsed, screaming high and loud in time with the flicker-pulse of electricity. A moment later the touch was withdrawn, and Elliptic slumped in the talons holding her, making great, gasping sobs interspersed with a faint keening sound. "Please, Scalar, please..." she whispered. The paw approached again and Elliptic closed her eyes. "The Masters are the paws of the Maker," she babbled, over and over again. The electricity bit and her words dissolved into a series of grunts and squeals, her wings thrashing hard enough to knock her guards off balance.
Scalar just stared at his twitching, writhing, mate, his mouth opening and closing. "No," he said finally, his throat so closed up that the word was nearly incomprehensible, "I can't."
The soldier shrugged, then reached back to draw her laser from where it was clipped against her backpack. She hefted the device, making the thick connecting cable sway slightly, then pointed it at the fleshy part of Elliptic's shoulder. "This could cut right through the pony's body... but it doesn't have to." Muscle exploded in a flare of green light, leaving a bloody crater the size of a foal's hoof. The mare screamed again, ragged and full of shock, her cries muffled when the gryphon holding her head transferred its grip to her muzzle. "Lasers don't penetrate well. The pony's mate has a lot more hide this one can burn," she snarled, moving the laser a little further along and firing again.
Sprays of atomised blood had coated Scalar's head and chest, and more was pouring down Elliptic's side to soak into the grass. Spiral twitched, earning herself a sharp squeeze from one of the gryphons holding her wings, and settled for silently probing the nasty band of crystal thaumic machinery that was locked at the base of her horn. "Let me help her; she'll bleed to death if I don't--" She cut off as the soldier fired a third time.
"Stop!" Scalar cried, "she's at Naraka. Fusion has gone to Naraka to get our foals back."
"See? That was easy, wasn't it?". The soldier straightened up, closing her helmet visor and muzzle guard, then turned to the gryphon waiting at her side. "Load these ones," she said, waving the laser over the little group, then leaned towards Spiral, tapping her sharply on the muzzle. "Command suspects that this pony is the leader of this little mission," she said, "and is wondering if the rogues from the Institute are watching through the pony's eyes."
Ears still twitching at Elliptic's fading cries, Spiral shifted her gaze to the confused mass of ponies still huddled under the gryphon trooper's guns. "No," she whispered, "that's monstrous."
"This is the price of treason, servitor." Her voice was suddenly amplified, booming out over the herd. "Kill one at random, every thirty seconds."
Hard claws closed on her body, holding her head still, but she didn't try to move, instead watching as the first unfortunate pony was dragged away from their companions. Where are you, Gravity? You were supposed to be watching us, Spiral thought, tears running down her cheeks. Panicked whinnies and frantic neighs cut the air, nearly drowning out the mechanical noises of the orbiting airtanks, then there was a single, sharp, crack.
Don't hit me! I know what you expected, but it should have been obvious that you weren't going to get it.
Yet.
5744496
There was a lot in those chapters I liked (which is probably why it went on for that long!). Chapter up!
5730412
Unfortunately it was a horrible amount of effort; I'm not the world's best reader, and the amount of editing...
I wonder who's counter-play is stronger? The Arclights are the Dogs trump card, but they seem to be holding them back, and they only have the one set at the moment.
The dogs know about teleportation, and are clearly far more militarily prepared than anyone could account for (To a frankly... Stupid level considering...), but it seems like they didn't take that into account?
It seems like the dogs knew that an attack was going to come, but didn't really know where or when, nor does it seem that they expected it to be at Naraka, in addition to the distraction. Granted... they've been stealth so far at Naraka, so maybe that helps?
Ouch! The Dogs are striking back, it seems... the pony rebellion's best advantage -- the fact that their masters weren't aware of it -- is gone, Gravity and Fusion are separated and under increasing pressure, and the Dogs have finally started to understand just how dangerous this situation is, and are using both smarts and overwhelming force.
I foresee dark times in the near future of this story!
Confound it, Luna-tic! I love your skill in weaving a story, but I'm starting to get burned out from how the combat is getting drawn on and on, and the tension ratcheted further and further. When will the carnage finally be over?
Cliffhanger
Caaaaan't waiiiit! Keep going please
Cliffhangers
got to love them.
5744747
Oh yes.
5745234
I know.
At this point I'm guessing that Salrath got to live an additional half hour, being used to open doors and stuff. I also keep my fingers crossed that the Student and the gryphons will get recruited.
At the moment I also happen to be shitting myself at the Arclights about to slam on at Naraka any moment now. This story could very easily reach a bad ending in the coming chapter.
At the very least, I'm glad that you currently revealed three very significant weaknesses of the Arclight devices:
1) They are apparently very delicate.
2) They need to work in groups
2) Rather than project their null fields around themselves, they project the null fields between each others.
Why you do this?!? Now we have to wait another month to know how things pan out!
It can be inferred by the lack of Dog technology resurfacing in the modern era that this rebellion ended in the complete and total decimation of the Diamond Dogs' everything. My eagerness to watch that happen is growing.
Also, I think this is playing up to the destruction of at least once Arclight, and I'm similarly eager for that - we're getting close to the point where its continued existence messes with the story.
Wow, what a counter attack from the dogs. I wonder how Salarath has been teasing Fusion during all this and I hope Gravity's plan will work in the end, whatever it is. It seems to have been doing something with the ships, but I don't know anything further than that.
Darn it and here I thought this chapter will be about Korn and Fusion, but it seems like this is what the next chapter is like as the meanwhile for this chapter.
Holy crap. I know she's wearing Plot Armor (not to mention literal plot armor), but even that would be hard-pressed to shield her from this. Maybe if she got a telekinesis spell or shield up at the last moment?
My Minecraft sense is twitching again.
HA! Now you are thinking with portals! I was looking forward to this trick.
Argh. I guess their recent streak of victories was too good to last. I hope they can get Spiral back, at least.
(Also, what in the world is that "burning wind" thing? The sensation is described completely differently from Arclight...)
I'm guessing that's "a few of their".
Aww, no Fusion interacting with everypony's favorite doggies. Oh well, you gave us some good stuff regardless.
And now the heat is about to turn up for Fusion. Stuff should be getting even more interesting next chapter.
5745596 "The Dogs are striking back, it seems" Indeed. However, they still don't understand it seems. So far the ponies have been defencive. Protective. But slowly the dogs are pushing them, pressuring them. And when the ponies snap.... When they don't care and just want all the dogs dead period no matter what.... The Dogs will learn just how totally fucked they are...
5748366
It was used before in the first story in chapter 7. It appears to be some kind of microwave weapon similar to the Active Denial System.
Thanks for the comments, folks!
===
5746116
And there I was giving you a chapter of (mostly) respite to catch your breath!
5746737
5746839
Ah, I know you love them! Seriously, though -- at bits like this, there are remarkably few places to pause and keep the word counts reasonable (assuming you want regular chapters, that is!).
5747165
It's not kind, but barring running multiple instances of my mind, it's the only way (at least you you know there will be a chapter next month).
5748234
The instant I decided to have momentum conservation, it just had to happen. Inevitable.
5749438 Oh, no worries. It's not actually a complaint, as I love your story too much for that. Keep up the good work!
...oh, dear.
The Dogs are going to have fairly serious cause to regret this when Fusion and/or Gravity get to the Corral...
Ah, more of Five. She's clearly being called upon to do something, part of some grand communal casting, but what? Could she be part of Arclight?
In any case, Gravity has learned that no plan survives contact with the enemy. Now, let's see if she can teach the same lesson to the Dogs. Of course, there's no telling which side will look worse in the eyes of the corral in the aftermath...
Okay so when we last left off, Gravity was tearing the shit out of the security hub, Merlon wascsonfrimed to be fully on the Dogs' side, and pretty much every dog except Orgon is toast there.
And THEN! Fusion gets a little.. personal time.. with Salrath.. after the bitch gets her hand ripped off by a griffon who just earned an endless amount of bonus points from the future Princess. Complete with the possibly of her actually getting some griffons on her side, plus maybe Korn.
SO! MUCH! HYPE!
Now to see if this lives up to it.
Hmmm, open up with more of that 'five' pony? Well, figured you wouldn't spring right back into the good stuff.
So, his parents, watching as he was hauled away for whatever fucked up experiment the Dogs are using him for. Still no idea what that might be.
Others? Wait... multiple ponies? All being used to perfrom the same task at the same time... chenneling their power together, given the key to a spell, just the most basic thing that would activate the right magic.. then all of them merged together to enhance the power... but what spell are they casting? Have a few theories but, nothing more then a total wild ass guess.
Oh and also..... are you SURE you haven't read FoE? Cause you just made a somewhat crude Megaspell. More and more this story proves it's really a prequel to FoE.
I.. I just.. I don't know how.... just so.. sad and powerful and beautifully done... I have no idea what they are doing beyond the most basic. No idea why, how, just that.... when we find out.. it's going to be big.... Poor five.....
Okay and over to Gravity... you are going to keep teasing us and keeping Fusions reunion till the very end aren't you?
Damnit Gravity, this is why you don't take risks like this on your own. Hole up, stay somewhere they can't flank you, and just keep them distracted. But also, yeah it's how she is, so no surprised. Maybe she'll learn from this. At least it's not bad.
Oh for the love of..... you... don't get cocky, and pay attention!
Cutting charge? that Dog is leading her into a trap where they are either going to try blowing her up directly, or collapsing that heavy ass slap of support metal on her...... right?
... yup trap... though not the kind I thought.. automated laser turret? Or just a dog with a big ass laser weapon?
Ah both. Well we knew she gets out of this, but how? Not being directly attacked at the moment, and don't think that thing will fall THAT quickly. So time to teleport out?
Guessing Merlon trying to wake Orgon up....
Again, one of the most dangerous and most interesting things about Merlon. That ability to disobey direct orders, even from the pony she holds above all others, if she is sure that following them is not in his best interest. Love it.
And it shows how good Orgon.. oh sorry 'Orlon' hehe... is. Being willing to listen, to simply accept Merlon's word that she's right. That what he wants isn't the best idea. And trusting her. Not even the smallest hint of anger, or anything but knowing she's right and going along.
In other words... time to get the fuck out of there regardless Gravity.
..... already have arclights in position at Naraka.... and not pulling those ones out for...... well fuck.
Ah, anticipating... wait wait... okay so they are waiting til they know where both targets are, to make sure one isn't hiding outside the arclight range to take out that units once they power up and reveal themselves. BUT.... they don't know about the rest of the ponies. The ones that we have no idea where they are.... Oh.... OHHHH!!!! If this is the plan.... very, VERY smart.
Oh... so... distraction.. is to attack the corral. And they DO know others have been turned. But NOT that its the ones reported dead, or that they've been trained to fight. So still unexpected ploy. DAMNIT TENSION STOP GETTING SO THICK AND BUILDING UP MORE.. ahem.. sorry, things are just getting a bit intense. Come on, give us some happy!
Ah, okay, so the others are doing what I thought they were at first. Rescuing those in the corral they can.. maybe grabbing supplies.
Nope, something he Dogs really need to stop forgetting. No wait.. actually, something they need to keep forgetting.
It is. But, just, the look into her head.. again these perspectives are so amazing. And finally gotten a good balance to them. But.. get to Fusion already!
Something else the Dogs will be surprised at, and fail to account for. The ponies being able to communicate, even faster and more efficient then their own comms in some ways. And having one single pony acting as a coordinator for all of them, with real time telemetry from every pony. Just, the shear tactical advantage hat could give....
In other words... get the fuck out of there NOW! Yes you'll have to leave a few behind, but you got what you could.
Quickly getting to the point. Working out how to salvage what they could, AND keeping the secret they still have secret. Scared, but not panicking. Damn I love how Idiot Ball free this story is.
Ohhh... OHHHHHH!!! That... that is GOOD! Holy fuck that is smart!
.. and getting them out quickly. Though.. they still have their communicators. So, taking them to the main base? Won't they be beacons to it? Or, are they short enough range that the hideout is outside the area they can connect to anything. So they just need to to break them before the Dogs start searching?
Apparently not. So, just quick force field/gravity well to keep a hole formed in the collapsing ceiling.. that works too. Now get out of there... and get out of there.
And they want to save her. And can understand why/ How fully shes been twisted to the masters.. yeah I really REALLY want to see those three have a good, long talk.
Oh for the... Gravity, GET OUT! hit and run. Pop in, mess them one more time, then get out before they DO find a way to trap you. They will still waste times trying to scour the site to make sure it IS empty.
Seriously, you can teleport again, don't waste it...
....... well..... fuck...... This is.... not good. They got many away, but waited to long. FUCK!
I.. I need.... it... I.... to intense.. had to stop... just see...... shaking..........
FUCK! Just... Gravity.. smart... kill.. torture.. Fusion..... you...
OKay, I'll have to say more later right now.. to.. to.. on edge to.. shaky...
5749438
I think of it sort of like the golden age of radio. Radio serials like 'The Lone Ranger' or 'Little Orphan Annie' those types of radio plays our grandparents grew up listening to.
5750797
I personally think of it, addicted as I am to the story, as a teensy bit tiring.
Really, I think it's not so much cliffhanger itself that's bad - like last chapter was, but it was at a point that felt comfortable to stop at - as it is the cliffhanger that ratchets tension up. For example, if the crack is meant to be Luna - ending it on 'Gravity had arrived' would be much more narratively satisfying, at least to me.
Overall, this chapter was quite pleasant. The counterstroke has been expected for a while, and given we know where this all ends up, all our other alicorns are going to end up dead or somehow turned into the three races we know today; either way, an effective genocide is certainly imminent, with it being a when, not an if.
The other wild card is what will happen when the Hodgepodge manifests himself.
5749199
Oh, I got confused because it sounded like it inherently hurt Spiral because she tried to use magic. Clearly they were just actively targeting her to keep her down.
5751432 Yeah agree, the one weakness to the story is how it handles tension. It keeps things TO tense, to on edge. Never lets things down enough. Drags the fights a bit to long, and then stuff like this.. ending with SUCH a huge amount of "Oh FUCK!" No release from it. And not just the direct tension like this, but building up all the things that could go wrong, all the ways the dogs are working to stop them, showing plan after plan, and just letting it all build without showing any clear cut "this is going to work" hints on the ponies side. It just keeps things to hypes, to tense, for to long.
Even in the lighter chapters, where there isn't any direct tension, the way the whole story is put together, you still have the growing dread of something going wrong, that something is building. At this point, it's hard for me to go into each new chapter because I know things will just get ratcheted up even further. And pretty much the only reason I can keep reading is I KNOW this ends with The Sisters victorious. Even then, it's hard sometimes. Especially with the month wit before we might... MIGHT get a solution to this cliffhanger... and that is another MAJOR issue. When you end on something THAT fucking huge, you need to end it immediately after the cliffhanger, get right to it and get that tension released. But as with the last one, odds are we'll go to some other perspectives, leave this one waiting.. and so the tension from it will distract from what else is going on. It will be hard to impossible to care about what is being shown, because the whole time you are stuck worried about that cliffhanger.
Like with the whole last bit with Gravity and the tanks. I didn't but anything in the commentary because, I could barely focus on it. I was to "OH FUCK!" from the ponies back at the corral. That whole scene, could have been pretty good, but being in the middle of so much other tension.. I simply did not have any feelings left for that part. I just got through it as fast as I could to get back to the major issue.
To much tension can really hurt stories, eventually, readers just get burnt out, stop caring at all. Or like here, one thing is so tense, so emotional, that cutting to anything else just results in no feelings for that since the reader is just wanting a release to the early tension. You can't have to much, let it fester for to long. Or it just breaks the story.
Luna-tic I love ya, this story is SO amazingly well written, but for the love of Faust.. give the tension a break now and then. I'm sure you've seen the narrative flow graph, climbing action, climax, falling action. With this, the climbing action just takes off nearly hyperbolicly straight up and doesn't have anywhere near enough climaxes that end the immediate growing tension, or falling action to give the reader time to relax, unwind, get their emotions reset, reengage with the story. Before starting to slowly... or at least not so rapidly, ramping things up again.
Daaamn, that was rough to read. As others have commented, it probably was about time that the streak of pony victories was interrupted, but what a way for it to be so. Here's hoping that the chapter ending crack was Luna showing up with the railgun ammo she stole to ambush the ambush. Depending how much gear she liberated from the pit, she could be quite a threat at enough of a distance to be hard to counter, especially if she makes clever use of that teleporting projective technique.
5752491
A plea from the heart, I can appreciate that. To do what you ask is probably possible, but you need to understand the consequences of such an action.
I don't plan, apart from in the broadest sense, I put the characters in the board and let the situation evolve (so-called 'discovery' writing). This is likely why the story is so 'full on' all the time; to the Dogs, Fusion et al are the ultimate terrorists. What they can do could bring down a civilization, so they would not, could not, be given a moment's peace. And they know it, so in return, cannot rest.
So, to manage the tension profile, I'd have to finish the story, then go back and edit the whole thing. This would mean putting it on hiatus for a year -- or more -- while I do that. I'm unwilling to do that, because the feedback is a vital part of the process.
All that said, I'll see what I can do (but I run a buffer, so any effect won't be immediate... and the last few chapters have already been an attempt to alternate high and low tension, which obviously did no good).
5753475 I dunno, the tension seems fine to me. I was expecting a little more victory this chapter since the last one certainly got my hopes up, but if it starts to chill out a little next chapter or the one after, it'll all be good. I think you were on the mark when you said the Dogs cannot rest; given that right now we're following one huge action scene, it makes sense for there to be continued action and tension.
5753475 Just got home from work, tired, late, exhausted, but this thing has been on my mind all day, so some clarification I've worked on over the day to that.
First in direct response to the trying to manage the tension and why it didn't work so good. Yeah I did notice that, and.. it's a good try but, yeah it didn't really work. Because while the last chapter wasn't AS tense, at least as actively tense. It was still filled with more passive tension. We KNOW the Dogs have a trap planned, we know they are ready, we know at some point shit's going to hit the fan, that Fusion won't be able to sneak in, grab the foals, and get out without shit going down. That their plan won't go off perfectly. So the entire time, there is that tension that... when is it going to go wrong, when is shit going to hit the fan, when will this blow up.....
And then, any relief that might have come from the last chapter. Was obliterated by just how insanely BAD this was. (as in the situation became bad for the ponies, not badly written). Added to that, what should have been a high point, a perfect point of release for the story, for the reader. Something that would change all the built up nervous tension, all that pit of the stomach dread. The fear. All that energy built up waiting for this to go wrong, and turn it into exhilaration. Into one giant fucking HELL YES! ... has been ruined. Ending last chapter on such a seeming high note. And then leaving that alone. Going and doing this... ending it with.. with... that. Taking all that pinnacle of the height of awesome energy, and then all of that build up, just makes the ensuing.. "No.. No.. please no... oh fuck NOOOOOO!!!" All the more painful. It's giving hope, hope that something GOOD will happen.... and then not only removing that, but adding something even worse then ever on top of that. And now, even if we next get Fusion fulfilling every fantasy we've had about making that bitch suffer and pay. It's lost that build up, and the whole thing will be tainted by knowing this is going on. By knowing how bad this is. It's lost the chance to really hit a pinnacle of release for the readers. So added to the pain and tension of this, is that lose of that moment we have been waiting for for so, so long.
Next is of course just HOW bad this went, how serious how "Oh FUCK!" which is part of another issue that leads to the tension always being so high. The Dogs... are just to damn good. Yes I get they can't let up. This is MAJOR, and yet.... they are just to damn good. Right now, they are still shocked, still scrambling to react, still trying to work out everything that went wrong and what they can do. And on top of that, trying to do this with a minimum of fuss, while still keeping it as contained as possible. Without a full on, every single thing we have, mobilization, and even THEN just from one hive. Then add onto that, not only did they get completely blindsided by the attack on the pit. But they are still underestimating just how powerful The Sisters are and what all they can do, and how smart they are.
All that, all those factors going against them. And they STILL manage to pull this off. Get that massive a force, to just the right place, at just the right time. Have this much in store. Do that good a job fending off Gravity. (And without ANY magical systems, and a large degree of chaos, and so many wounded, and being FULLY blindsided.) Are in postion to ruin Fusion's attempt to save the foals. And now, have taken out most of the rest of the rebellion without even a bit of a fight.
All of this, with all those limits and issues from above. They still manage to be THIS fucking good. It's just, to that point... you don't even bother believing ANYTHING will ever work. That no matter what, at most, the Dogs will be rocked back for just a few minutes, before sweeping back and doing even more damage. It's.. to levels where you can't ever feel like this has a chance. The dogs are to good, to smart, to able to pull off stuff like this this quickly. And they aren't even bringing their full might to bear yet. This is just the first battle, meaning as bad as this is, it can only get WORSE!
There is.. not one single sliver of hope being shown for the ponies. No matter what they do, they suffer more and more. Yes maybe a few victories but... they stand no chance of this going on to the end, other then their own. The ONLY reason this isn't so depressingly overwhelmingly, "Why even bother reading because it will just end in pain." is that we KNOW, KNOW for a solid, certain, 100%, not a chance it will not be that way fact, that they do win in the end. Based on Meta knowledge. Based on knowing something from outside the story. If it wasn't for that.. I'd be close to giving up on the story at this point because things are just so hopeless... and it's only the first battle against the dogs at their weakest. Things can only get worse from here. So that added dread permeates everything, adds to the already overflowing tension.
Yes you have to make the Dogs a threat. But, I think you've gone to far, done TO good a job of that. Made them SUCH a threat, SO good, that.. everything seems utterly hopeless. That nothing will come of this but more and more pain and suffering. And the story... just.. doesn't offer that hope, doesn't have anything you can cling to as a lifeline, other then the meta knowledge.
Okay, tired, and I tend to ramble when I get tired but... I understand your point, and what you are trying and hope this makes sense for why it's not quite working.
There' more but.. that's enough for now.
Typo... Or suddenly ponies are bad italian stereotypes.
Why is it that I always manage to find at least 1 more typo when I read on fimfic or on my e-reader?
5750009
I would have thought it was obvious.
Luna-tic wouldn't be giving us this if he didn't think it wasn't relevant.
What sort of spell would they not want the servitors to know but would require the power of multiple ponies?
They are raising the sun
5757183 I thought about that one. Though given how this world is made... is it just keeping the sun moving in orbit? So many questions, but yeah that would make sense.
5754899 The Operative phrase there being "If it chill's out." But right now, we have the forces in the pit recovering and being ready to join another force if needed. The Dogs in the corral torturing and murdering everypony, and in position to do far far worse, waiting for one of the Sisters to show up. And it's unlikely from the way the story has gone before that it will be simple and Gravity just shows up and creams them. Meaning that will be dragged out. AND THEN, on top of all that, we have Fusion in Naraka. With a pretty large force just waiting for her. Salrath right in front of her, Arclight ready at a moment's notice to active on the site, AND having to not only find the foals, but deal with all of that, AND whatever Orgon is having random do, or whatever trouble Random will cause. And with all of that, every, single time the ponies make the tiniest bit of headway, catch the smallest break, have the least glimmer of hope of not failing horribly. The Dogs are either one step ahead of them, or react within minutes to hit back even harder, robbing any sense of accomplishment. All of this is what makes the tension so bad, that everything seems so utterly hopeless. Plus more I'll get into later down here. And as to "expecting a little more victory here" That's kind of at the core of WHY so many are having issues with this I think, but it's something I was planning on elaborating on anyway.
EDIT: Also, yes it DOES make logical sense for thing to be going this way. But... and this is a rare, RARE instance of me EVER saying this. The Logical thing.. simply is not the right thing. At least, in this way. It does not make Narrative sense. And... it's hurting the story overall for it.
5753475 Okay, less tired, and had another workday to have these thoughts refuse to get out og my head, so hold on. First off, I love ya, this story... your writing.. it can be so damn GOOD. I would not be putting this much effort, this much energy into doing something like this, doing all this explaining, all this thinking, obsessing over the story as much, if I didn't freaking LOVE IT! Wasn't so damn involved, so captured, if it wasn't just, so damn GOOD that i want to see it be as great as I know it can be. Second, all of this, all of it, is meant 100% as constructive criticism. You are awesome, and this is just.. trying to help polish it, point out points that could be better, while still overall LOVING the story. Third, just for context and elaboration to add a bit more wieght possibly. Overthinking, analysing, picking apart and finding the best parts, and the parts that need work, this kind of thing... I kind of do this a lot, so not just talking out of my ass here.
Okay basics down, more elaboration on what I think the very root of the problem is here. Yes I do think it's mostly how.. hopeless it seems. How overpowered the Dogs seem, how it feels like there is no point to this, that nothing will work. But, more on why that is. And why most people simplify it down to "To much tension." First that's likely just the easiest way to describe it. Second, it's also a mark on how good the story is. How detailed, how engrossing, how much it brings you in, makes you care, feels so real. It's SO good, that the emotions it triggers tend to be stronger then average. It can more easily tap into feelings, more easily sway emotions, and so everything stands a good chance of being magnified from the readers point of view.
But, above that, the hopelessness. Now to explain what I think is the root cause, I'm just going to put out to terms, and what I mean by them, cause I'm not sure how else to explain this. Tension, and Exhilaration. For this purpose, here's what I'm meaning by them. Tension, is when the story makes the readers tense (Duh) but more to the point, it's when, the readers are feeling "Oh no" "Please don't" "What's coming now" those types things. Anxious, worried, concerned, uncertain what is coming next. It mostly, especially in this story, stems from the actions of the antagonists. Is a response to their attempts to thwart the heroes. A reaction to threats. It builds and builds. Even if there isn't something happening directly, but we know there is something in wait. Like that Dogs plans and knowing they are ready and have a trap waiting. And it's this that makes those people having issues, have those issues, being to tense, all the rest I already went on about. Keeping this up to long, just burns people out.
Now the second term, and what I think might be a major part of the issue. Because seldom is anything looked at in just a vacuum. Or only effected in one. So it's not JUST the tension, it's how the tension plays into the rest of the story. Exhilaration. It's a feeling of "Fuck yes!" "Oh HELL YEAH!" "go go do it!" When you are just sitting there cheering. When the heroes are on top, or fighting back, where things are at the peak, where the heros, the ponies in this case, are actually winning, or at least putting up on hell of a fight, where things are just GOOD, just going great. It's the peak of the climax.
Okay terms defined, mostly. Ideally, and on average (Yes there are exceptions, and you can play with it, but this is just overall average.) You'd want the tension to build, to build and build, get stronger, keep the audience on the edge of their seats, and then, before it gets to high, keeps them there so long they start to burn out, before it overwhelms them. The heroes make it out, the trap is sprung, they break through, break their bonds, turn the tables. however it's done, the heroes take back control, all that tension, all the anxiety and worry, ignites into a surge of massive enthusiasm. All of it is just fuel to make that "HELL YES!" all the more powerful.
Now again, yeah you can play with it, have other ways of doing it. But, you still need some balance, unless you are trying to make a story that meant to be dark, depressing, dank, and all that dreck. Where there ISN'T any hope. Where it's all about that tension and suffering and bleh.. yeah don't like those types of stories.
So the issue is, this story simply does not have a good balance between Tension, and Exhilaration. Everything is about Tension, about the Dogs schemes, about how the Dogs are one step ahead of the ponies, or when they are caught by surprise, able to respond absurdly quick, and turn the tables. It's always tense, there are so so few moments of Exhilaration, moments where the ponies are just kicking ass, where the readers aren't concerned about what will pop up in a few minutes to screw things over again. Moments where we can just let go of all that tension and feel like it's worth it, like things will work out. Moments that burn off all the nervous, anxious, tense energy, leaving it to pile up higher, and higher. Even when the scenes given aren't tense themselves, without some outlet for that tension for the reader, it won't go away. Which as above.. or below.. adds to that sense of hopelessness.
There are few "OH HELL YES!" moments, few points where we are not worried, anxious, where there isn't some looming threat. And it just keeps getting worse. And even worse, the few we get.. Gravity using Salrath as a ping pong ball, the epic speech before the assault. The initial surprise attack. All of them are so soon followed by even more.. no chance to relax, to rest. Or are so short, they don't give enough release. And then the tension just gets redoubled. Their attack turned meaningless. That speech, led to this. And as the last post, the potential moment of Salrath getting her payback, such PERFECT build up... was ruined by then skipping it and going with this chapter.
So all of this, it just adds together to make the story start feeling bleak, hopeless, to tense. And that it's been that way, just leads to believing it WILL be that way. This could still work out, this could end, SO great. There is something here that would.. take all that tension, make it WORTH IT! But because the story has yet to do things that way... it feels pointless to even hope it will. That it won't just keep on having the dogs beat the crap out of the ponies. Give them 'victories' where the real victory is simply making it out alive. But, it could work, Gravity showing up with that crack... just demolishing the Dogs at the corral, showing they DO have a chance, can fight back. Just ripping them apart, freeing the 'free' ponies, them joining in, jus showing how much damage the ponies can really do. Leave the Dogs realling, stunned, not able to just bounce RIGHT back within like, five mnutes and undo all that.
And then Fusion, Just, rip apart the squad there. Arclight gets activated? Sense the field going up, and instantly teleport out of range, find the arclights, break them, and pop right back in to mop up the rest of the dogs. We've had fight scenes, we've had Sister versus dog, it's also getting repetitive. Especially since there is a much MUCH better point of drama and tension here, one that really shouldn't be given the added tension of an attack. Fusion dealing with Random after whatever Orgon talked her into doing. Trying to deal with a pony that is working agsint her, believing she is helping Fusion. Trying to save the foals, through THAT, no THAT is something to see. That would be new, not the same tension we've had for so so long. And lead to one massive FUCK YES! A point of pride, a showing that yes, they can win, they CAN fight back, the Dogs aren't unbeatable.
So, I hope this helps explain things. And, yeah I doubt it's going to be anything close to that.. after this.. I'm expecting several more chapters of the Sister simply slugging it out with the Dogs in pointless back and forth that only serves to show the Dogs as to smart, to quick, and to unstoppable to be beaten baring Deus ex Machina and getting more and more ponies killed in the crossfire without.. any lasting release from the tension.
Wow.. that got dark and depressing and pessimistic fast... sorry. But.... maybe I'm wrong, maybe the story will surprise me. Hell I'd even argue it would be worth another delay if the existing buffer chapter has something different, has more Ponies getting beaten and suffering and just more of the same "Dogs are never more then momentarily unbalanced for a few minutes by anything and spring back harder then ever." More endless, pointless back and forth, more building tension with no release. Becuase.. I honestly think another chapter like this, another ending like that, another dose of tension this huge, this early in their campaign, with NO sign of ever getting that release, of EVER having the ponies come out on top ever. If it's more of this... it could start to kill the story. Just, lose all momentum, start to fray people's ability to engage with the story. Stay connected. It would be worth another delay to be redone into something that would.. take all this so far, and make it WORTH IT! Give that catharsis, that release that the story, and readers so desperately need right now.
5757719
I agree with you about the constant tension, though at least Luna-tic isn't replaying the same scene over and over again now. And we knew that it was going to get really messy at some point. We're reading a story about a world-spanning advanced civilization that uses ponies as slaves and experiments. If the ponies want to be free of that sort of situation then they're going to have to carve their way out because there's no potential for meaningful dialogue between ponies and the mass of Diamond Dogs.
It's just that it's getting messy now.
Though, as to your predictions, there is a faint glimmer of BIG hope. There's a giant experimental anti-magic device on top of Neraka (named after the town from Dragonlance?). There aren't many dogs in the control center. Korn is with Fusion, is nominally sympathetic to her, and he knows the device. Salrath has access to the control room and is in Fusion's control.
Fusion's in the perfect position to coopt the device for the ponies.
It may not be that difficult for Fusion to possibly find a way to use it on the dogs at the corral. Or even on the rest of the reinforcements.
5758189 Yeah it's mostly.. we know things would go bad.. but things have gone SO bad, SO quick, even while the dogs at at the most disadvantaged they are likely to ever be until the rebellion gains enough momentum to put them on the defensive for awhile... Them being able to get THIS insanely good and precise, and quick a response... and it can only get WORSE!? The attack on the corral is overkill. it's to much, to heavy, to quick. To perfect. It pushes the dogs from "Competent, dangerous foes that can still be out manuvered and overcome." to "undefeatable perfect foes that will always be ahead of the Ppnies and always get the upper hand in the end."
But as to the device, it wasn't an anti-magic device. Those are the Arclights. That device was simply something Korn developed to detect the use of teleporting magic in the vicinity. it's an alarm, nothing more. (Might be able to pinpoint, or give an idea where the port was, but not sure.) But yeah it's just something to warn the Dogs of one of the rogues teleporting into the region. Lucky thing Fusion ported in far away and flew in. At least as far as I understood it.
But yes there is hope things could come out better then ever, that all this could spring around. it's just... going by how the story's worked so far.. it seems unlikely.
Also yes, gotten better about replaying the same scene from multiple perspectives, that has gotten REALLY good. Now the issue is having to many fronts operating at the same time. Fusion, Gravity, the ponies at the corrals, plus the Dogs opposing each of the groups. Each one given the same level of detail. but that's just a factor of the story
5758189
Naraka: taken from the term for the Hindu/Buddhist/Jainist 'hell'. This might make you wonder if there is a Tartarus somewhere...
5757719
So to boil it all down: too much NOOOOO! and not enough YES! I'm guessing you are not a fan of Lovecraftian stories.
You might be going a little 'glass half empty', to be honest. Look at it another way: They have, without training or experience, rescued most of the corral from the dogs. Did it go to plan? No, but plans never survive contact with the enemy. The death count has been very light; so far 'just' the few who resisted the shock troops (don't forget, they are considered to be a cross between livestock and factory machines).
The speed of the dog's response. They are a large nation state, locked in a six-way cold way with their neighbours, and they have been subject to surprise attacks before. They have forces on scramble alert for their conventional foes (and actually in the air -- a bit like Operation Chrome Dome for the US, back in the 60s). They suspected the ponies would try something, so were ready to hit Naraka with conventional forces (to confirm the Sisters were there) and Arclight (to stop them from fighting back).
The dog's plan suffered, too. Gravity hitting the Pit slowed their response enough so that Spiral was able to unBless and evacuate most of their friends and family. They know where Fusion is (Naraka), but the Arclight cover was taken away to trap Gravity, so it's going to be tricky to actually stop her. The stuff that struck the corral were redirected military units, and at the moment there are not that many there (an handful of dogs and a few dozen gryphons, plus the airtanks providing active denial cover).
There's stuff coming up that should help with the YES! quotient, at least I think so (I'd like to say more but a) I'm still writing it and b) spoilers!).
Also, I wonder how much is down to the serialised nature of the story, and how much of your issues are down to the delay in getting the next chapter (I'd guess not all, but some). For interest, PaulAsaran recently did a review of Wasp; he liked it, but objected to my level of descriptive detail and my tendency to POV swap.
5753475
Hi there, thanks for uploading another chapter of my favorite fic on this site.
While I did notice that the story is somewhat tense, but I don't really mind. Perhaps you could include more sections about ponies like Five to ease up on it. Or maybe short pieces about ponies (or gryphons) that are mostly unaware of the brewing revolution, but are hearing rumors about the rebels. Perhaps they live in other Hives, yet all live life under the Dog's control.
Anyway, what happened to the dragons? Or is that a spoiler for future things to come?
Can't wait to read more about whatever Discord's putting his talons on...
5760664
I'm not surprised. I'm also thinking the Dragonlance town is actually Neraka, but that that origin makes perfect sense. Neraka was a mountain basin town surrounded on three(?) sides by volcanos, if I remember correctly. And was the seat of power for the main evil. So, very hellish.
Some of it may be a feeling of helplessness. I know for myself I often on edge with the need to jump into your story to help the ponies when they get in particularly bad straights. Both the desire and feeling tend to linger because the story is just that engaging.
5760664 Actually, I love Lovecraft. Reading a massive collection of his stories (Again) right now. (Well 'right now' as in it's the book I'm reading when I'm not able to get to a computer to read pony fics I.E. at work.) But, those are a specific type of story. That sort of thing works for those stories, because it's what they are meant for. To be creepy, unsettling, it's the whole basis of that genre. Plus, the things you are going NOOOO over, are less tangible.. it's not about some definitive foe that wins over the heroes, it's about some force, something so horrible it defies description, something vast. Yeah Lovecraft is awesome. Also, you know going in shit's going to happen, and don't tend to get as connected to the characters, plus they are no where near as well developed as yours are. So yeah, that type of thing CAN work in stories that built with that in mind. But it's very tricky to get it right.
As to the "glass half empty" bit. A lot of those things you pointed out as good points... make sense but didn't really come off that way to me. Okay elaboration.
See that did not come through good. That they had saved "most" of the ponies. I can't recall it making clear just how many were still there, it didn't show just how close they might have been to getting away, and how few were left. I got the impression it was still the majority of them, not only a few stragglers. Or just how widespread the deaths were. And that they might be going easy, trying not to kill them all.... what? that REALLY did not come over at all. It seemed more like they were going to just execute all of them. Hell the Dog flat out said "Kill a pony every half a minute" So with that... at no point does it at all come through that they might be sparring any of the ponies. And, even with saving most of the corral.. it's hollow if they lose all the ones that are already free, most of whom it seemed were completely at the dogs' 'mercy' and unable to do anything but die now. Barring Gravity being awesome without some Dog trick popping up to keep things from getting to "YEAH!" So, yeah that would be an attenuating factor in this.. but it didn't really come through good that was the situation. in fact that applies to a lot of these.
I get this. But also, again it didn't quite feel that way. The impression I had was Orgon was trying to keep this close to the chest. Not involving those larger scale military forces. Just the Security ones he had direct control over. And yeah, that something was ready to hit Naraka was obvious, and was why the Fusion chapter really didn't do anything to ease the tension. Because we knew the whole time those forces were waiting, and one wrong move would spring the trap. It was them so quickly hitting the Corral that pushed things a bit to far. Especially since it was done pretty much on a guess. If it was that obvious, why didn't they plan for it already? The sudden decision to do it, just at the right time.. felt a bit forced and overdone. Especially since there IS an easy way to fix that. Instead of just guessing, given they were paying close attention to the Corral anyway.. when the pony who took over the com system took it over, it caused a blip, some system error, some glitch that the Dogs were able to detect, only because of the increased scrutiny they were giving that area. Which tipped them off that things were going down there.
See that this slowed them down that much.. that wasn't really apparent. That, again an issue with a lot of these, yeah those do help, but none to few of them were apparent from the story itself. It came off more like the Sisters best hit, a surprise attack that appeared at first to cause a massive blow to The Dogs, just momentarily inconvenienced them and barely at that. that the only ones that were at all put out, where the ones directly in The Pit, and even those seemed to be rallying pretty quickly. And see again that it wasn't clear they had saved most of the ponies, or that it doesn't mean a whole lot if the ones who are already willing to follow The Sisters all die.
Arclight. I just double checked.. and NOWHERE was it mentioned that the Arclight units at Naraka were moved. Far as we know, they are still sitting there waiting to trap Fusion, and still another layer of tension to worry about for her. The dog leading the attack specifically said there was an Arclight unit at Naraka, and that more were being pulled from perimeter patrol, but would take awhile to arrive. Giving the impression that the ones at Naraka were staying for the trap, in case the ponies were heading there. And more would be coming from elsewhere. Not the ones at Naraka were moving. Now that... THAT.. that would actually have helped things a bit, it would reduce one source of tension. knowing Fusion didn't have to worry about those at all. And be unlikely they'd arrive fast enough to trap Gravity given how quick she's likely to wipe the floor with the Dogs.... hopefully.
The troop size.. again.. that IS something that would have made things a bit less tense, knowing this was a small, hasty attack force. Just so few in number, even easier for Gravity to pick off and smash without even trying. But also again, it wasn't made clear it was a small group like that. I had the impression it was a MUCH larger force. Making things seem even bleaker.
So yeah all of that... if that had been made clear in the chapter.. it would likely have attenuated some of this. So, I'm thinking that might be another issue cropping up here. You know all the details, you know this surprise attack really did cause some chaos, really was a success. That this is playing out as a desperate scramble, them just lashing out to try and salvage this. The the force attacking the Corral is just a small squad, not a massive assault force. And just how many of the ponies got out. And how many of the 'free' ponies managed to escape as well. But how it came off, was the hit just surprising them, but not really doing anything beyond causing a bit of confusion, and that the Dogs were very, very quickly getting over it and striking back in full force as if nothing had happened. You know that's not that case, so might not have noticed it. Or just filled in the gaps the story left with what you know, not realizing others would have different ideas of what was going on to fill the gaps.
Basically, you are thinking it is going to come off one way, thinking this is how things are happening, and that it shouldn't be TO bad. But it's really coming off another way, that IS that bad because some things aren't made quite clear enough.
I'll be hopeful..... but, yeah it likely is me being a bit pessimistic, but that's mostly because so far.. the story has been very bad at giving the Ponies those YES! moments. And.. looking back.. a lot of time does tend to be spent on the Dogs, mapping out how they are preparing to neutralize any advantage, staying on step ahead of the Sisters, laying traps, and just showing us how hard this is. But not that much of showing the reverse. Showing us the Ponies outwitting the Dogs (Until the surprise attack, but see above about how the way the aftermath was presented blunting that feeling.) But we haven't gotten that level of detail about how bad this attack screwed them up. So, it's just, the pattern of the story so far.. makes it hard to anticipate it changing. Especially after taking away that golden moment we've been waiting so.. SO long for, and putting this in it's place. It just adds to the feeling that the story is just going to jerk us along, give us one small glimmer of hope, just to crush down even harder.
The amount of tension.. I think it's not just a result of the monthly thing. Hell.. as intense as this is, it might HELP. Cause it does allow the readers to cool down a little. Keeps the tension from bottling up as bad as it would if you were reading straight. And again, just in the chapter itself, the tension reached points it was affecting my ability to pay attention and stay engaged, just within the chapter itself. It got so tense.. I started skimming, just wanting to KNOW what was coming. Meaning that whole tank sequence with Gravity really didn't have any impact, because all my emotions were on over drive from the Corral. And looking back, the whole tension thing has been building a LONG time, without barely any release. As we spend so much time watching the Dogs make plan after plan to counter The Sisters.
As to the review... he pretty well hit the nail on the head. And you HAVE vastly improved on the POV swapping. Just, might have had a few to many areas active at one time here. With so much, the tension from each one gets dragged out.
Also, as 5760819 said, a lot of how hard this is, how bad some people are taking it, feeling to drawn out.. is simply a factor of how GOOD the story is, how engaging it is, how detailed. How much we care about the ponies. It makes that tension, those emotions, all the more powerful.. which if we get some HELL YES! moments soon (Like, next chapter please) those will also be, SO much larger, be SO worth it. Just, have to keep in mind not to go to long without giving that release. Because of how quick the tension will build.
EDIT: Oh one other thing that bugged me and made it seem like the Dogs were just engaging God Mode and being unstoppable, always perfect, pulling out OOC knowledge stuff. Knowing that the ponies could see through each others eyes, could communicate telepathically like that over long distances. Just, out of nowhere pulling out this thing that till now, seemed like one of the few trump cards the sisters had in the hole. One of the few secrets they had they could use.
5753475 I think you did done doed good!
I just look forward to chapter, the next!
5749438
Good Lord... Can you imagine a teleport strong enough to pull mass from the OTHER SIDE of the planet!
**Gravity drools**
First, I used spoilers, not because any of my ideas are canon, but just simply thoughts. Some people might not be interested in wild speculation, so if someone wishes to read them, mouse over. if not. No problem. They are in no way guides to this story, just ways that I find it easy to reconcile this story with the show, all the way to season 4....
5641589
And yet, the elements are separate, umm, elements most of the time. No reason to simply abandon the Tree of Harmony. You need only have each of it's "fruit" be held by the six dog hives. The dogs draw power from each stone to fuel their hive's individual purposes, whatever those uses may be. How would the Tree of Harmony work in this scenario, AND keep things stock to the canon story? One way would be that the quest to retrieve the 6 creation stones could lead to finding they are potentially only good for one united use (I'd target the blessing world wide, and possibly zap all the dogs tech, personally), Of course, the Tree could end up being be de-powered by this, after the dogs long abuse of the stones as energy sources. The world would become subject to more wild magic as the Tree of Harmony continues to fade, shifting the quest toward finding why that is... while the decrease in "harmony magic" opens the door for chaos to manifest a physical avatar that holds a REAL place in the universe, and would be more resistant to the "pursuit" against it's existence. In discovering the existence of the tree and tracking it down, Celestia and Luna ultimately sacrifice the creation stones to the Tree. This restores the world's balance of magic, but chaos still remains. With no tool to resist chaos, Discord ultimately takes over and finishes the job the ponies started, snuffing out the once highly advanced dog civilization, rendering them the primitive diamond dogs of today.
Unfortunately, this would also come at the cost of the pony's hard earned freedoms as well, as Discord dominates and... alters them. We DO know that Discord can take your horn and wings... Nothing like adding racial tension to the mix to sow a little chaos... Presuming Discord can't actually HARM the tree directly (just as he can't destroy the Elements of Harmony in the show canon, but CAN move them), he might be able to move the tree, or shift the land around the tree to make it hard to reach again. For Celestia and Luna, existence becomes a matter of surviving Discord's reign, while trying to rediscover the Tree of Harmony. They are forced to leave behind the ponies that they attempted to lead to freedom, so as to recover the Creation Stones... The Elements of Harmony as they will come to understand them... from the Tree of Harmony. Unfortunately, this leaves the now divergent tribes at Discord's whims, and we end up with the foundations for the Hearth's Warming story as the aftermath of these influences. Ponies that have been altered into different races, forced to survive, led to mistrust one another... It would make for some delicious chaos! Heck, Discord might even temporarily go into "remission" and just bask in the chaos of the tribal mistrust... Possibly in the hopes of tempting Celestia and Luna to call off their quest to defeat him. Of course, We know the ponies ultimately make peace on their own, and found Equestria, and that's just the cue for Discord to return... cause, you know... not enough chaos. This would mark the reign of chaos referred to in canon.
Ultimately, once Celestia and Luna rediscover the tree, they are forced to balance allowing the Tree to further keep the Elements long enough to restore enough of it's energy to survive, versus the decision to pull the Elements of Harmony again, to defeat Discord, and protect their fellow ponies... This, interestingly enough, would pair up perfectly with Luna's awed response on the show at the tree (in your story, awe at the progress of the tree's restoration, or awe at finally rediscovering it) and also her expressed reluctance to pull the Elements from the tree (fear that it could harm the tree). We know at this point how everything turns out, within canon, ultimately serving as the conclusion of the story.
So yeah, I don't think the tree's existence would even be hard to incorporate, and could fit the story just fine. There is a LOT that can happen between the events of your story, and those events. Heck, Fusion and Gravity still haven't even realized that they won't age like their fellow ponies yet (I don't think), thanks to their respective celestial power taps. By all rights, many generations could pass between your story and canon. Long enough even, that between Discord's canon reign over Equestria, and his altering of the world... It's entirely possibly that he might have wiped nearly all TRACE of of the dog civilization front he world, leaving behind only occasional artifacts that look meant to be used by creatures with hands. Traditional design elements would keep such objects in existence, into modern times, also explaining the existence of such odd items in modern Equestria.
Furthermore, regarding ascension, the fact that all ponies were once alicorns that were rendered shadows of their former selves by chaotic magic, lends toward the idea that ANY pony can ascend, if they find the power of harmony within themselves to cancel out the chaos that holds them back. This means that Twilight and Cadance were simply able to return to their TRUE forms, thus alicorn Twilight and Cadance! I personally view them as ascended alicorns,,, like Luna and Celestia, because they are not SIMPLY ascended, but have ascended by means of powerful magical artifacts that feed their will, much like the Sun and the moon feed Celestia and Luna. I actually am one of those people who hope the remainder of the mane 6 eventually ascend, possibly for the series finale.
One more thing, regarding other species. Since it seems the dogs likely engineered the ponies, or at least altered existing ponies to suit their needs, it seems reasonable that other dog hives would hold species of their own creation. Lacunae has Ponies and Griffons, and used the blessing for ponies. Other hives might have dragons, changelings, buffalo, bovines, minotaurs, donkeys, etc. Ponies, and their magic seem to be the universal slave though, so I suspect ponies likely exist everywhere. Changelings could be the reason for the existence of the crystal heart. Rather than use a blessing to control them, they receive positive reinforcement by way of food... treats for compliance. Their version of the communicator devices might channel energy from the crystal heart as a reward for compliance. If they disobey, they go hungry. If they obey, they are fed love energy. The hive that operates changelings might be heavy on the espionage/spying game, thus shape shifting bug ponies... possibly a fully engineered variant of the ponies themselves, would serve as amazing spying tools. That and it provides a reason for the crystal heart to exist.
5761530
I'm kind of surprised about Lovecraft, but fair enough. On the subject of knowing what's coming when you go into a story -- you do recognize that I'm aiming for S1/2 canon, so this heading towards a pretty devastating set of events for everyone concerned, right?
The numbers saved: Never explicitly stated, granted. I mention...
...which was intended to imply that 'most' had got out (about 25% of the original 200-odd are left).
Numbers killed, as a proportion of those present at the corral:
Orgon playing it close. I see where you are going with that. In the end, very few actually need to know what is going on. The troops get moved about like troops always are, so they don't count. The folks Orgon is really lying to are Rthar and Salrath; they are loose ends. The hope was to 'quietly' kill Fusion and Gravity as they tried to get their foals; Rthar and Sal would end up as collateral damage and thus unavailable to answer questions before the World Court as to the origins of the problem (there would be no hiding there was a problem, it's just a matter of damage control).
When they knew the plan had failed (the instant Fusion EMPed the Pit), they went after the friends and families. It's just an extension of the same strategy with the foals.
Slowing down the response. Implied, and more indirectly. Spiral had time to unBless the majority of the corral, empty the supplies etc. Considering the speed at which the training centre was hit (waaay back in CH4ish of Wasp), that was a slow response. The force there is actually big, but not directly at the corral. Most of it is around the Arclight units, for protection. They suspect that anything in the corral is going to get hammered in the moments before Arclight can take the Sisters down. It's a bit of a suicide mission.
Arclight cover (from chapter 14):
Arguably this lack of clarity is a side-effect of the reduction in POV swapping; I now have to imply stuff because you don't get that POV... Tricky to fix, because it's all obvious to me!
On seeing through other ponies eyes and the dog's sudden knowledge: This is not an unknown thing. They don't use it, because that's what tech is for (which can be monitored, recorded easily, analysed at a later date etc), but it is there. Foals are taught by the sharings (this was shown when Random taught Fusion, when she was a prisoner at the Pit), and the telepathy is just a single channel version of that. As to the dogs knowing that this was happening -- they actually got it wrong: Lilac lost comms the instant Spiral had a suppressor fitted.
5769087 Depends on your definition of "Devastating." yeah the Dogs are getting wiped out. Their whole society blasted out of exsistance. And ponies will somehow end up divided into the three tribes rather then all alicorns. But we also know.. the ponies win. That they are the ones that become the dominate race in the world. They are the ones the go on, free, alive... while the dogs are left digging in the mud, shattered remnants, imbeciles just grubbing in the dirt for gems out of faded memory of their greatness. And that, above all else, Fusion and Gravity survive, and take over as basically God-Empresses. As well as the ponies as a whole. In the end, they will win. It'll be at a high cost... but it will happen.
The rest... the majority of the herd.. okay it could work that was and it was there.. likely to stressed and tense to pay attention to the little details there. (Also something to keep in mind, once a scene reaches a certain level of tenseness, smaller details will be harder and harder to be noticed.)
The few deaths... yeah that was just over reacting and missing it. So you're right on that one. Though it is still somewhat abated by him then ordering the survivors killed at random.
The slow down, again.. it really didn't come through. One, expecting the readers to compare it to something that long ago, without direct time references. It wasn't clear just how long, precisely, these things took. The first one was the result of a massive explosion that was sure to get everyone attention in scramble formation. This was one guy making a guess and deciding, after an attack somewhere totally different "hey let's check out this area!" plus middle of the night versus early evening. All other factors that could play into it. Without showing explicitly this was a really major blow and delay because of it. So yeah, that could have been shown better.
Arclight.. okay again there was that. Though it was small. But also again, this chapter messed with it. having that Dog specifically refer to the arlight units at Naraka, and that more were coming in from the perimeter. Saying that set was at Naraka still came off far more direct and explicit.
And as to the sharing.. yes the Dogs knew they could do the Sharing, but every time it was used, as is, it involved both ponies pretty much being unconscious for all appearances. Zoned out, completely cut off from outside stimuli. Never being able to both be 'sharing' and conscious and alert. Gravity and Fusion's ability to open a smaller version of it. To have a sharing going on, while still conscious of everything else seemed to be something unique, something they had just figured out. And even if that alone was not.. it was explicitly pointed out it took one of the Sisters to make that kind of connection from any kind of large distance, meaning nopony till then should have been able to. So all reasons that Dogs shouldn't have known.So having the dogs guess at that.. yeah seems out of nowhere.
And yes, now.. this does seem to be more an issue with being a bit to limited... no wrong word... hinting at things to subtly, when we needed some more concrete proof things were going well. And keeping in mind what the audience knows, versus what you know.
Though are the arclights actually AT the corral, or still en route? If on the way.. be easy enough to blast the troops there and escape. If not... still we saw it takes time for them to power up, so the instant they try, Gravity should be able to detect them, port out, and rip them apart from outside the field.
Jesus Christ vampire hunter!!
How much more horror is going to be flooding into this?
"Schindler's List" wasn't this brutal!
I like the story and all, but I'm starting to have trouble reading each new chapter as I know it's going to be more unresolved torment, and end with even MORE torment being set up!
I have been terribly poor at keeping up with comments; it's been one of those weeks where I've been horsing about almost constantly.
5750797
I'm not that old, but I know what you mean. I remember watching re-runs of the black and white Flash Gordon serials; they always end on a cliffhanger, without fail (same for the older Dr Who programs). I suspect that was an influence.
5755804
I'm still finding stuff from years ago! I think they breed, or one of the mods likes to change stuff when we're not looking...
5760721
I can, but not yet. You are right, though. A bit on those as yet unaffected would be interesting. Ah, spoilers spoilers everywhere! I do have to get back to Chaos at some point; it's been too long.
5762917
1.5km/sec deltaV... you could remodel a continent that way. The funny thing is, if the teleport is free, then there's no energy cost (no kinetic or potential energy change). The rotational energy of the planet pays the price, and you get to flatten mountains.
Also, that's an interesting set of speculations you have there! No comment (obviously). You are right, though. There is a large amount of time between this story and even NMM's time; time enough for anything.
5769646
This is a key turning point, right here. Extreme pressure is being applied to keep the genie in the bottle; somehow I don't think they'll manage it.
5773673 Users are asleep. Post errors?
5773673 I'm not that old either. I was just reminded of that one Christmas movie about the bb rifle.
Speaking of 'horsing' around, how is that working out for you?
5775670
At the moment, very well. I'm good enough that I can enjoy it without fear (still get nervous, but that's what keeps your mind in the game), although I do still have moments of realisation that, if things go wrong, there is very little I can do (other than hang on!). At the moment I'm trying to find a horse to buy -- a process that is a cross between going on a blind date and buying a used car -- and the current candidate will be undergoing veterinary checks thursday morning. I really hope he passes; he's a lovely horse, very friendly and willing.