=== Chapter 16: Nothing gets out of Naraka ===
Pain.
Salrath wanted to curl her body around the zone of pulsing, burning pain that extended from claws to elbow, but the sheath of golden magic held her as rigid as if her muscles were sculpted metal. Why can Salrath still feel her fingers? Out of the corner of one eye -- it was also impossible to turn her head -- she could see the stump, jagged splinters of bloody bone poking out from the cap of light that gripped her wrist like a band of hot iron. The amputated paw lay discarded, thrown against the wall by a flick of the gryphon's head.
In the distance, many hundreds of lengths away, if she could trust the muffled and distorted sounds, were voices. Some melodic, others harsh and grating, but all were equally unintelligible. In time with the distortion, the lights in the corridor seemed to flicker and surge with great waves of colour, like paws were pressing on her eyes.
Why can this one still feel her fingers? The thought came again, as a particularly sharp spike of pain made all the muscles of her chest convulse, driving the air from her lungs. It didn't seem fair to have lost the paw, yet still feel the agony from the crushed and twisted fingers. Gaze flicking forward, she felt an unfamiliar wash of fear at the expression in that long, white face with its overly large and moist eyes.
Eye, singular.
One of the violet eyes was gone, replaced with a smooth globe of white plastic, and Salrath focused on it, grinding her teeth and imagining that the pony's soft muzzle was in her jaws. It was enough to push away the fear, and almost enough to damp down the pain, so she grabbed hold of the thought, using it to drag her mind back to the here-and-now.
"--freedom. Yes, I can understand that," Fusion said, holding Salrath's gaze.
Never. The People will never let the client species go. Salrath tried to spit the words, but the same force that held her head still kept her jaws closed, and all that emerged was a pained, unintelligible, grunt.
Some of the sentiment must have come across, because the pony's ears flattened and her eyes grew wild. The glimmer of active magic about the creature's horn grew fractionally brighter and the pressure across her whole body abruptly jumped. Breathing became impossible in any direction other than out as, in moments, Salrath felt a great weight settle on her chest. There was an irresistible force to the touch, like she was laid out between the jaws of some industrial press, one able to shape the toughest alloys, and she twitched helplessly as her bones started to bend. Something went snap, down between belly and ribs, driving hooked claws up into her left lung.
She tried to cough, but there was no air left.
===
It would take so very little extra pressure to crush Salrath.
A twitch of effort and her body would be smeared like an insect against a sheet of invisible glass, crushed into something unrecognizable and far beyond repair. There was a voice talking to her, harsh and so unlike a pony; it must have been from the gryphoness she'd run into in the corridor. The conversation had been the first part of a negotiation, with the grey cat-bird Ellisif trying to convince Fusion of her good intentions, and that she wasn't a threat to her nebulous plans. Then there was the noise that had penetrated her precautionary sound dampening field, and she'd gone to check.
...and there she was.
Her magic had reached out, almost without volition, and separated the three combatants, but it was Salrath that captured her attention and held it. She'd gripped the Agent gently, like she would a disobedient foal -- until she'd tried to speak. Then the fury had come, and it was a constant battle to not just squeeze.
Breath coming hard and fast, she stared at the Agent's bulging eyes, seeing only the vindictive malice that face had worn so often. Flesh was infinitely malleable under her grip, and even the bones within flexed and strained as her magic closed in on all sides.
"Do it! Kill her; I don't want to waste any time on this… this creature, when we could be looking for our foals," Redshift said, his words thick with hate and nearly meaningless against the roaring in her head. His horn lit, wrapping a contracting circlet of violet light about Salrath's throat.
It wasn't the words, but the touch of his magic that distracted her. She could be useful. With an effort of will, Fusion pushed back at her hate, the desire to crush and maim, pushing it into the future and away from the now. The complex and shifting structure of her plans clamoured for her attention, and she dragged the analytical part of herself to the forefront, looking at the Agent as another asset she could use in this mission. She must know things about this place.
Fusion felt her face go blank as she pushed aside Red's magic and relaxed her own. Salrath inhaled and coughed violently, trying to curl into a ball in her grip. "No," Fusion said, her voice dead and distant, "this Master could be useful." And if I killed you without telling Gravity... Despite everything, Fusion shivered at the idea, which conjured a vision of Gravity jumping straight here as soon as she knew. I think she might hate you even more than I do... perhaps it would be better if she doesn't know, for now. Still watching the Agent, Fusion turned to the gryphoness once more. "What would you do with your freedom, Ellisif, if I gave it to you?"
The magic holding the trooper faded, allowing her to settle to the floor. She seemed to shrink slightly, then took a few little steps sideways to get further away from Fusion. "The same as I think you are doing. My Masters have betrayed me and everyone else in my team; we're brought up to fight and die for the Hive, but..."
"You don't want to die for them anymore?" Fusion cocked her head, studying the bulkier gryphoness.
"I want to live, but that's probably not going to be an option." Ellisif ruffled her feathers and snapped her beak sharply. "I will settle for dying for me, and the rest of my kind, if that gives us a chance to snap the collars that bind us." She tapped a claw against the smooth white band that encircled her throat.
Fusion nodded, relaxing her hold on everyone except Salrath. "An alliance, despite the fact my sister probably killed half your team?"
The gryphoness froze, beak half agape and head-feathers raised. "Yes, she did. More were maimed, and are no doubt either here or already dead... but that was war, and something else I can blame the dogboys for. I am dead to them. What loyalty do I owe them now?" Her gaze lowered, and she sagged slightly. "Especially now that I have seen this place."
Fusion nodded again, then made a sweeping gesture with one wing, momentarily extending it from beneath its armour carapace. "Very well, I agree. If there is anything of the Agent's equipment that you want, feel free to take it. We need to get moving." She held out Salrath's stump of a wrist; Redshift pulled off the comms bracer and started to examine it.
Ellisif picked up the little pistol in one set of talons then, with a grunt, snapped off the trigger guard. "Better than nothing, I suppose. Have to try and rig a holster," she grumbled, half to herself. Sitting back on her haunches, she cocked her head, beak half opening in an avian smile as she lifted the severed paw and held it out to Salrath. "You look like you could use a paw, Agent. You know we live to serve."
Salrath wriggled, violently enough that Fusion’s magical grasp momentarily faltered. "This one will make the gryphon's death slo--" she got out, but the force returned and Fusion gave her a shake, hard enough that her teeth rattled.
They'd passed through another set of doors when Redshift snorted, muttering under his breath, then sighed. "It's no good; I can't get anything from this," he said, waving Salrath's comms bracer in the air. "I stopped it from calling for help, but I was too late to remove the anti-tamper mechanism... the insides are nothing but junk now." He looked at her mournfully. "Must have been related to her injury and me taking the thing off."
Fusion clenched her teeth, then forced her jaw to relax. "That's okay, you'll know for next time. I'll just have to ask nicely."
"The pony isn't going to get anythi--"
"I think I will," Fusion said, using the cadence of her trot to maintain her icy calm. Without slowing, she moved the Agent around so she could get a better view. "You only live because you might be of use, Salrath. How does Security intend to trap us?"
The Dog just clenched her teeth, so Fusion sighed, feeling something cold settle in her stomach. "This is obviously a trap, Agent." She pulled a set of wrist restraints, simple grooved metal bands with a non-return mechanism, from Red's floating cloud of purloined hardware, snapping them about Salrath's wrists. She relaxed her magical grip on the Agent's stump at the same time as cinching the ratchet tourniquet tight. Salrath made a quiet hissing noise, like air leaking out under pressure. "Everypony I know wants you dead, some in more gruesome ways than others. I've seen in the mind of the medic whose filly you had tortured; I'll give you to her. Spiral will be able to keep you alive for a very long time."
Salrath narrowed her eyes. "Go on then. Where is this other servitor?" She made a show of trying to think, then laughed. "Salrath remembers that one; does the pony want to know why it was done?" She grinned bloodily at Fusion's sudden change in rhythm. "Yes, it was all the pony's fault. This one suspected the pony and wanted to force it to act... instead it just sat back and let its friend suffer."
And what would have happened if I did do something? Fusion wanted to scream it in Salrath's face, but one look at her sneering expression and her mouth clamped shut. I will not give you the satisfaction. "If that's the way you want it," she said, cursing the tremble in her voice. Magic reached out and plucked a metal fastening from the Agent's discarded equipment vest, then heated it to molten incandescence. She brought the blob of yellow-hot metal closer, the heat making the exposed skin on the tip of her muzzle tingle.
Salrath's ears went back and she glared at Fusion. "Salrath doesn't think the pony has the guts to do anything," she spat, "and every second it wastes on this one, means another of its kin is dead. Security is taking revenge for--"
The words sent a chill down Fusion's spine, and she dropped the hot metal, letting it splash sparks across the floor. She pushed Salrath sideways, slamming her into the wall; the Agent grunted in pain, but then just snarled. A moment to check on Lilac and the rest of her friends, and some of the cold was replaced with anger. Of course she lies! It's all she ever does... in that case, what's the point in keeping her alive at all? Fusion looked into that bloody, grinning face and started to feel sick. She might know things that could help, but... I can't do it. I can't match this monster, death for death, even if it might save somepony. She'd find it easy; torture and maim or kill. Her ears went back. I can't. It's what she would do.
She will be nothing but a distraction. Breathing hard, Fusion stopped, then closed her eye and took a firm grip on Salrath's head. I must have killed dozens or hundreds already, so why is this so hard? In her grip the Agent twitched, muscles fighting the magic. Quick and clean, then it will all be over. The deer; think of the deer. Fusion took one deep breath and held it, then--
"If you want her to talk, give her to me," Ellisif said quietly. "There's no shame in not being able to torture."
Fusion gasped, her magic going out and dropping Salrath to the floor. The Agent hit the ground running, but a lunge by Svartr knocked her sprawling. The dog tried to curl protectively about her chest but, with a hiss, the gryphoness planted talons on shoulder and pelvis, beak opening and dipping towards Salrath's throat.
"Svartr, no!" Adigard grabbed her by the wingshoulders, hauling back and making her growl in frustration.
Svartr shrugged him off, but didn't try to bite Salrath again. "Yes, there is!" she hissed at Fusion, slapping the Agent's head with the back of one foreclaw.
Fusion flinched and hung her head, unable to look Svartr in the eye. Gravity was right; I am weak. Slinking away, she stood close to Redshift, then nodded to Ellisif.
"Back off," Ellisif said warningly to Svartr, beak snapping shut with a gunshot crack. She stepped forwards, pulling Salrath from Svartr's grip. Glancing sideways into the nearest window, she glared at the pair of gryphons inside, who were watching the action with interest, then dragged the Agent to the blank space between two cells. Sitting back on her haunches, she pinned Salrath against the wall with one large set of talons, grabbing hold of her good paw with the other.
"Agent, you may have good reason to doubt the pony's resolve, but you shouldn't doubt mine." The gryphoness' tone was disinterested, and she looked at Salrath like she was a piece of malfunctioning machinery. "I have been in Security for over a gigasecond, and I know how this works. The only person here who can stop this is you." Salrath glared back, but was silent. "Suit yourself." Ellisif worked her beak between the digits of the paw, separating out the smallest one, and started to apply pressure.
"Stop!"
The word seemed to force its way out of Salrath's throat, but Ellisif just closed her beak a little more. She cocked her head slightly and made a questioning noise. There was a nasty green-twig snap from inside Ellisif's beak.
"Powered troops in the deep tunnels, at the lower transit hub," Salrath said with a gasp. Ellisif released her paw and let her draw it back. "Don't know the numbers, but at least six reaction teams with heavy weapons," she said quickly. "There were more at the Pit, but..." Her gaze flicked to Fusion.
Reflexively, Fusion looked down, sweeping the darkness beneath with her shadow sight. There, past the ranks of caged gryphons and ponies, were the high-speed tunnels that linked various parts of the Hive. Lights, the characteristic colours of crystal thaumic mechanisms, flowed in both directions, but there was a faint, almost invisible, static haze. That's not magic, Fusion thought, that's charged superconductors. "There's certainly something there... I think it's true, but they are not moving yet." She shook herself, then picked up Salrath and broke into a rapid trot.
===
"This one can help," Korn said, from his floating perch behind and to the right of Fusion.
She ignored him, intent on hunting for the next down ramp that would take them to the primary comms suite, somewhere on the lower levels. They were back in the 'pony' zone of the subterranean areas, another level lower down. While they moved, Fusion was questioning the gryphon soldiers, trying to gain some insight into the strength of their motives, but the effort of not interfering with Gravity's mission by telling her about Salrath was becoming trying. The other mare, currently sandwiched between two immensely heavy layers of armourcrete in the distant Security base, would no doubt find the news highly distracting.
Redshift had spent much of the time going through Salrath's equipment vest and its collection of small and interesting devices. Now they all floated in a halo about his head, some flickering with faint glimmers of his violet magic, and he was deep in conversation with the male gryphon, a red-brown individual called 'Adigard'. Long strips of fabric had been cut from the Agent's vest and were in the process of being converted to a kind of harness that held Salrath's backup weapon close to the gryphon's chest.
"--nasty. We'd never been trained on how to deal with ponies -- Maker, I'd never even seen more than one at once. If it hadn't been for that idiot Gunnulf, none of that would have happened. I hope he ended up in here somewhere, because there are things I'd like to take out of his hide," Adigard said, snapping his beak in an expression Fusion was starting to associate with anger. "...but I hear from Korn that he ended up as an assistant to that... Dog. It sounds like they should have been mates, they were so well matched."
Fusion nodded; the gryphons had their own term for the People's soldiers -- 'dogboys' -- and had liked the ponies more general term. "You won't get the chance... my sister killed him while breaking me out of the Institute."
"Magic sounds like it was too quick," Adigard grumbled.
"She stabbed him--" Fusion waggled her head, waving the sharp point of her horn in quick arcs. "--I was told he bled to death."
Adigard stared at her for a moment, then nodded his head in apparent approval. "I had no idea you ponies had it in you... it takes something to get that close to death. Even some gryphons will hesitate the first time."
"You didn't see her at the Institute. For someone not trained for battle, she certainly showed enough enthusiasm," Ellisif muttered, twisting her neck to try and settle the feathers under her own makeshift harness.
"It helps when the person at the other end is trying to kill you," Fusion said softly, studying Salrath out of the corner of her eye. The Agent was blank-faced and seemed relaxed and watchful. Somehow I expected more from you... you gave in too easily, she thought. The Dog's calm was unsettling in its own way, and Fusion sighed silently. What did I expect, an indestructible fire-breathing monster? Grav will see to it that you hold nothing back from us.
They trotted in silence for a while, the only sound the quiet thump and scratch of hoof and claw on stone. "I'll get over it," Ellisif said finally, as they reached the door at the end of the corridor, "especially if something good comes of it. Your sister didn't go out of her way to kill us, and she certainly could have."
"All clear," Redshift whispered, taking a few moments to fit Adigard with his improvised weapon harness. The springy straps held the undersized pistol at the centre of his chest, dangling just behind his forelegs. The gryphon nodded his thanks and, balanced on three legs, practiced reaching for the gun.
They also know they are trapped by the Dogs... how much would it take to start a general rebellion? Fusion ruffled her wings within the confines of her armour, sweeping the surroundings with her shadow sight as the rest of the group came through. "Ellisif... there is no Blessing for gryphons. Why have you not rebelled already, if you don't want to be the Dog's slaves?"
The grey gryphoness laughed quietly, a single harsh caw of sound. "There have been rebellions, some large and some small, but they don't last long. As you will find out, our Masters don't take kindly to threats to their power."
"How do they stop you? Gryphons seem to be the majority of the military forces." The space they had entered was another of the shallow spiral ramps, and they all started downwards.
"We are." She nodded, and there was genuine pride in her voice. "They built us for war, and we are good at it. They don't tell us the details, obviously, but when you are on deployment you wear a command collar, and that ties into your armour and weapons. They have full remote override... rumour is that it has a self-destruct, too."
"No, it doesn't," Redshift said, pausing from where he was inspecting Salrath's comms bracer. "Fusion, that makes a lot of sense. I had to defeat a whole mess of security systems to get that gun to work."
"Wait, you have gryphon weapons? You didn't bring any with you, did you?" Svartr said suddenly, a gleam in her dark eyes. "I want something I can use to make them suffer for what they have done--" Adigard laid a claw carefully on her shoulder and she went silent, beak clicking shut.
"We do -- we took all the equipment we could carry when we left the Institute..." She trailed off, staring at the three gryphons. Do I trust them enough? I know nothing of war, and I think that lack will get ponies killed. She stole a glance at Salrath, who stared mutely back at her. Adigard bit off her paw... if this is a trap, then the Agent can't have known about it. Fusion bit her lips. Can she? "Trust," she muttered, then sighed. "I will bring them here, right now. We have magic that allows instantaneous transportation."
Ellisif looked uncertain. "Is the pony serious? Such things cannot--"
Fusion smiled. "The ceiling here is high enough, so I can show you." Lilac, she thought, into the sharing, can you move to where you can see the equipment we took, please? Out of the corner of her eye she saw Korn shift uncomfortably, mouth open as if he was about to say something. She paused, but he stayed silent, so she closed her eyes and focused on the sharing.
The remote tunnels of their refuge were still and cold, and the only sounds were the ragged breathing of Ogive and the irregular cadence of Lilac's clumsy steps. It took only moments for the young stallion to reach the store, and Fusion had him pull out one of the clawed armour gloves to act as a test. I think I have the velocity vector worked out, but... She built the pattern, gently steering Lilac's magic into the correct conformation.
"The pony must not use that magic!" Korn burst out.
Fusion's concentration slipped and the pattern disappeared, wiped away by a near-instinctive obedience. He'd barked out the order, and there was such urgency in his tone that her mind effectively froze for an instant. The insistent need to obey an order from the Dog who'd been her Master ever since she'd entered their service was very strong, and she took a deep breath, feeling some of her anger return. "I am not your servitor any more, Student Korn!" she snapped, ears folding back as she pulled him around and glared at him, muzzle to muzzle.
He gave a little cry, shrinking back as far as her confining magic would allow. "T-there is a machine... Korn helped to build--"
"Korn is a traitor to the People; he will--" The glow of magic about Salrath's chest and head intensified and her words cut off, eyes bulging like they were trying to burst free of her skull. Her jaws twitched against Fusion's telekinesis, unsettling choking sounds escaping from between her teeth.
"Salrath tried to have this one eaten!" Korn shouted at the Agent, voice ending in a squeak as Fusion frowned in his direction. "Korn just wants to go home," he whimpered, hanging limply in her grip.
None of us can go home. Fusion stared at Korn, an odd tightness in her chest. Lilac, we need to do something first, she sent, then gently let him stand on his own paws. He staggered, sagging to the floor. "Tell me, Student," she said softly, features relaxing, "what machine?"
"Korn and Vanca have been working with Security--" He paused, watching Fusion with frightened eyes as her ears folded back briefly. "There was no choice! Korn was kept in isolation until Vanca convinced Security that this one would be useful. There were threats..."
He tried to move, tried to reach out, but the telekinetic field prevented it. Fusion relented, relaxing her grip about his upper body. "I know all about Security's way of working. What do you think you can do, Korn?"
"Vanca solved it... there were unexplained signals from the accelerator's gravity wave suite, matching the time the ponies escaped from the Institute." His speech accelerated, the words tumbling over one another. "These ones designed a machine; a collection of interferometers sensitive to short wavelength disturbances in space-time, distortions produced when the exotic matter at the throat of a wormhole manifests. All theoretical, but--"
"You can detect the teleport jumps." It wasn't a question, but Korn gave a jerky nod. Maker, and we've been using that spell to travel everywhere! Do they know about our refuge in the mountain--? Fusion started to breathe fast, attracting worried glances from Redshift; out of the corner of her good eye, she saw Salrath smile, a nasty, vindictive thing that vanished with a gasp when she gave her a squeeze. The faint mutter of Lilac's mental efforts expanded and leapt into focus, and Fusion spent a few moments watching through Trocar's eyes as pony after pony materialised in the cold glacial valley, deep in the mountains. Nothing... not yet, anyway. "What is the range?" she snapped.
"D-don't really know," Korn squeaked, "never had a chance to test--"
"Guess!" Fusion growled, the magic that held the Dog shifting to harder colours, "my friend's lives depend on this!"
"Maybe as much as twenty kilolengths, but it depends on the amount of exotic matter--" He gave a gasp, paws scrabbling at his chest as if to relieve some crushing weight. "Please, this one cannot breathe."
Fusion relaxed, letting Korn gasp and shudder in her arcane grip. That is something, at least. Wormholes... yes that makes sense, she thought, rooting through what little she had been allowed to learn. Just enough to do what was asked, and no more. It could be worse... at least there will be no easy global surveillance. "Where is this device?"
"There are three t-to get full location. Korn only helped install the first, but he knows where the others are. The pony needs to go to the primary and secondary communications hubs, on the lower levels, and the satellite antenna farm on the top floor."
===
They bypassed the three remaining levels, gliding rapidly down to the bottom of the spiral ramp. Here were high-ceilinged spaces used for bulk storage and the machines to retrieve whatever was needed from the shelves. The majority of the free volume was given over to the automated retrieval system; levitation-drive platforms, each two lengths on a side and equipped with thaumic machinery showing the simple colours of kinetic manipulators, moved in three dimensions around towering stacks of crates and modules. The air was filled with the scent of food, mostly the vague, musty smell of the Master's pellet-supplement, and Fusion found herself salivating at the prospect.
Along with the nondescript supplies were big insulated boxes the size of shipping containers, finned with heat sinks and humming with the quiet flow of coolant. From these came the odour of multiple species: mostly sheep, rabbit and cow, but there was a faint hint of pony and even gryphon, hard to pick out amid the scents of their companions. "What do they feed you?" Fusion said to Ellisif, eyeing the nearest refrigerated container as they trotted past.
The gryphoness seemed oblivious to the odour. "Meat. Raw... stuff that looks like it was blasted off a carcass by a pressure hose. It's not exactly the best, but there was enough. Why?"
"You can't smell that? I mean, do you know what kind of... meat." The word stuck in her throat and her stomach lurched. They come in but they don't come out... and why waste the protein? The smell did something to her legs, and she accelerated into a canter, running away from the idea. Fresh anger started to bloom, igniting into a point of heat that flooded her body and made the world swim. No, it should be no surprise that they would do this. We are animals to them.
"I don't have your long nose, Fusion," Ellisif said, beak twitching in what Fusion was beginning to recognise as a smile.
"I can," Redshift said in a small voice. "I can smell pony and gryphon in with the cows and sheep. Fusion, we can't leave anypony here if this is their ultimate fate."
"We won't, Red." Although quite what I'm going to do with so many ponies and gryphons...
Ellisif, wings half open and taking low gliding leaps to keep up with the longer-legged ponies, narrowed her eyes. "Every time I think I have come to grips with the level of this betrayal--" Her beak snapped shut, and she exchanged glances with the other two gryphons.
===
"The camera says no movement," Redshift said, his horn glowing faintly, "I've looped the buffer like all the others, so we should be okay for a while."
Fusion studied the room with her own shadow sight. It was at the end of a long and twisting maintenance corridor, far enough from the core of Naraka that she thought they'd have had trouble finding it at all in the uncertain time they had available. Have I been too hasty with Korn? He can scarcely be completely trusted, but for as long as we keep him from Security's clutches... She frowned, muzzle wrinkling. Having a tame Master might be just what we need to prevent panic. She sighed, then realised everyone was staring at her. Pushing away the desire to pick through the implications of that idea, she closed her eye and really looked.
Her first impression was of a small room cluttered still further by masses of equipment. Ordered arrays of crystal thaumic devices were stacked up and down the walls and in columns around the perimeter. The hazy glow of electrical, rather than thaumic, power flooded the spaces between, resulting in a chaotic spider's web of connections that came in from all over the complex before merging into a single, brilliant line that descended into the depths to join the deep tunnel network that connected Naraka to the rest of the Hive.
Hasty work had obviously been carried out: the ordered spacing of the machines was disrupted to make way for something large and angular, a tetrahedral shape that was taller than she was, with the impression of a device constructed with speed, rather than beauty, in mind. Just like Korn described. Next to that was something she'd never seen before.
A compact ovoid, only a quarter length along its longest dimension, and half that wide, it contained mostly material dark to her energy-sensitive shadow sight, except for at one end. There, at a spot that was exactly aligned with one of the egg's foci, was a point of extreme brilliance, but one that was vanishingly small. How did I miss that? The answer was obvious; even at this distance the radiant object was tiny to the point of being nearly dimensionless. Vague memories from her training at the Institute tickled the back of her mind, but nothing surfaced.
"Go," she whispered, nodding to Redshift. The other pony's horn glowed again, and the door retracted silently into its frame.
The room was exactly as she'd imagined, lined with racks of instrumentation that glowed softly with electronic and thaumic light, all bound together in a loom of optical cables. Despite the quiet hum of ventilation, it was very warm, and the equipment was covered with arterial networks of brightly coloured liquid coolant lines, all pulsing like they were connected to a giant heart. In addition to all that, were two Dogs. The first, a mid-brown male, had his back to them and was leaning against a panel halfway into the room; the Master's eye' Security decal was a discrete grey-on-black pattern on the rear of his equipment harness. The other, dark-furred and wearing next to nothing in the close warmth, was head and shoulders under the tetrahedral teleport detector, and paused to look over at the door when it opened.
He froze, staring up at Fusion, shock written across every whisker on his face. No no no-- With a shout of warning, the Dog rolled out from under the tetrahedral device, reaching for a comms bracer that was laying on a discarded equipment harness. Still locked in a kind of paralysis, Fusion felt all her thoughts move in slow motion as she fumbled with her magic to grasp him, but just managed to drop Salrath and Korn instead. The first Dog flinched as if the cry had been a shot, paw reaching for something on his belt; Fusion watched the movement and knew what was going to happen next, but there was almost a barrier between her mind and body. She scrabbled for her power, but its effects came with aching slowness.
Grey feathers and fur pushed between Redshift and herself, hard enough that she staggered and fell into the door frame. Svartr leapt across the cluttered space, mantled wings brushing the bright web of coolant lines, flicking and twisting with millisecond adjustments of her trajectory. There was no snarl, no battle cry, just an impression of a terrible eagerness in her expression as she surged past and collided with the Dog, right at the same moment as his paws closed around his bracer. Talons, lacking their needle points where they had been cropped for her confinement, closed with crushing force on the Dog's upper body and knocked the bracer from his grasp. Her head dipped, and there was a sudden, convulsive, movement from his legs, then nothing.
The rush of motion shattered the glass wall in Fusion's head, and she grabbed for the second Dog in clumsy panic. The blaze of magic filled the room, and she knew that she'd put far too much power into the grip; his body collapsed with a multitude of snapping sounds. She dropped the corpse, now lumpy and jointed in far too many places, captivated by the surprise in the crushed Dog's eyes and the red stains covering his white teeth. There was a roaring in her head and shadows collected in the corners of her vision, and it suddenly became hard to breathe.
"I thought you ponies were supposed to be efficient."
The words came from Svartr; still crouched over the body of the dark-furred Dog, the gryphoness had twisted to stare at Fusion. Blood was smeared across her beak and had stained the grey and black feathers of her chest. "I..." Fusion said, then swallowed, pushing back the whirl of thoughts and images. Is this what it was like for Grav, after she broke me out of the Institute? I need to be better than this. "No, she actually seemed to enjoy hitting back," she murmured, then shook her head, finally noticing the stares she was getting from everyone else. "No time for this. Redshift, you--"
"I've done it, Fusion," he said meekly. "Communications will be accepted without errors, but won't actually be sent on. I can even reach the secondary and satellite comms rooms from here... they are all linked together and I can force them to all work through this one." He nodded his head at the tetrahedral machine. "This thing is tied into the comms, and I can see another two like it... they still work, but can no longer talk to the outside world."
"They will get suspicious," Ellisif said to Red, but her gaze stayed fixed on Fusion.
"Yes, but..." He shrugged. "I left the low level stuff alone -- it's easier to fool the cameras and let this room just send on the looped feeds. Everything coming in is unaffected; it's just the outgoing 'person to person' stuff that is actively blocked. I'm surprised we've not been discovered already, to be honest." He bent forward, brushing the unknown ovoid with his muzzle. "I don't know what this thing is, though." It was sitting on a small wheeled trolley, and looked like it was supposed to be moved somewhere.
"This one does," Salrath said, in a strangled tone.
Fusion wheeled about, realising that she'd completely forgotten about the Agent, then relaxed. Salrath had not gone far, and was being watched by Adigard a little way down the corridor. The immediate urge to grab the Dog and wrap her in bands of force and squeeze until there was nothing left came back, so strong that the power rose almost without conscious thought. She has never said anything that was without malice, but this... The tone of the Agent's voice was something she'd rarely heard: fear. "What is it?" ...and why should I believe a word you say?
"That is a nuke; a megatonne or more." She was trying to back away, only to be shoved forwards by the gryphon. "These ones have to get away from here; Orgon won't wait to fire it if he thinks Naraka has been compromised." Her muzzle twisted, like she had bitten into something rotten. "This is the Sector Chief's way of removing inconvenient loose ends."
Everyone, gryphons included, flinched. "It can't be triggered now," Redshift said. "Although I suppose it could have a timer." He frowned, glimmers of light condensing about his horn. "Oh!" His eyes went wide, wings flicking out, and he inhaled sharply. "Something just tried to turn off... right here." He tapped the casing with a hoof, just over the point of light. "I think it's a magnetic trap for antimatter."
"It tried to detonate?" Fusion said faintly.
"I can see the trigger pathways... no, just the superconductors in the trap." Legs flexing, he gave a little stationary jog, then looked over at her. "It was just an anti-tamper mechanism, I think. That wouldn't be so bad, right?"
"Bad enough for everyone in the room," she muttered. "Is it safe for us to leave it, or...?" Fusion stared at the smooth-shelled machine, studying that point of energy-dense brilliance. Antimatter... makes perfect sense. She'd never seen the stuff before, but it was obviously nothing like the small blocks of uranium-235 she'd used in training.
"I put a temporary block on the firing circuit before I did anything else... now, though, only a pony with my speciality could fix what I've done." He started to calm down, making a conscious effort to refold his wings. "...or someone with the tools and spares to replace the modified computronium. I must have done something that the machine didn't like, and it decided to self-destruct." He looked doubtful, then his gaze went distant. "No, that must be it. Makes sense; you'd want a way to disable a weapon like this... and nothing is reaching it from the outside."
We caught them before they were ready... if I had waited, or if Grav hadn't pushed so hard for this attack, this weapon would have been hidden away... "There would have been nothing left of me or any of our foals." She gently picked the weapon up and gave it a careful shake; the spot of antimatter stayed in the same relative position. That's something... after all, this is designed to go into battle. "Right. Let's get you those guns," she said, passing the bomb to Redshift with a nod. "See what you can do with this... carefully." If Red can make it work, would I have the nerve to send it somewhere?
===
They used the central spaces as a receiving point. High-ceilinged and dimly lit with only a few of the lights active, this large room was outfitted like a section of desert, full of sand, gravel and rocks, with complex-looking exercise equipment around the perimeter. Doors led off at intervals, likely to the corridors containing the stalls for the experimental subjects, something confirmed by the gryphons.
"They just let you mingle?" Fusion said, while expanding her link to Lilac. The distant pony was still next to the pile of weapons, and he quickly rebuilt the teleport pattern she'd aborted earlier.
"The times are staggered, so contacts are controlled. You could refuse to return to your cell, but that is what the collars are for."
Lilac's magic pulsed, sending a distortion through the sharing, and the claw-glove she'd selected arrived with a thump of displaced air, slamming into the ground hard enough to kick up a deep crater in the gravel. The gryphons flinched, wings flicking out, and Fusion grinned at their shocked expressions. Of the Dogs, Korn seemed fascinated, the look of fear that had settled on his features ever since they'd met was gone and had been replaced with curiosity. Salrath, though, was preternaturally calm again, her face a still and smooth as if she was asleep; the only hint of deep emotion were the tremors of her paws and the racing thunder of her heart, made obvious by vibrations transmitted through her telekinesis. "...and that's why we do test shots." Shifting the teleport terminus, she asked Lilac to cast again.
The mass of disparate equipment appeared with a bang and a flash, but this time Fusion caught it, decelerating the weapons and armour to a relatively soft landing amid the rocks. The gryphons fell upon the pile with soft, delighted little bird noises and, with Redshift adding everything to his orbiting cloud of mechanisms, started to don the hardware of their trade as they walked.
Ahead was the central core with its odd collection of soft pastels that they'd seen earlier, visible here as a wide column embedded in the tip of the wedge-shaped exercise room. Those lights, now discernable as close-spaced triplets embedded in a matrix of harder magical glows, filled the core, reaching nearly to the surface. There was a door in the partial column, and that too yielded under Redshift's influence.
The circular chamber inside looked, for a moment, like a collection of more specialised exercise machines. A second's more inspection and Fusion froze, breath stuck in her throat. There were a dozen square lifter platforms spaced around the perimeter, each supporting a shallow perforated trough about the size of a pony's torso. Armatures supported the metal at body height, descending not as straight columns, but in shapes that mimicked the profile of fore- and hind leg. Clamps of the same polished metal were mounted on the armatures, halfway between where the joints would be on a living limb. The place was spotless, bar a few strands of purple hair caught in one of the mechanisms.
At the centre of the ring of platforms was a lift shaft, going both up and down, flanked by a pair of robotic surgeons, much like the one she'd been fed into. The ceiling in this room was significantly lower than the one in the exercise chamber behind them; the extra space above was occupied by the pastel glows in their regular grid. Fusion walked in, stomach churning, and looked down the central shaft. "We are above the food storage level," she said softly, half to herself. There were shadowy mechanisms below the floor, a tangle of conveyors and transport tubes that fanned out from this central point.
"I didn't believe it, but it's true, isn't it? How many meals did we have, Ellisif?" Svartr said in a strangled tone that was more squawk than speech.
"Don't think about it," the gryphoness said grimly, "just add it to the list of reasons to fight. You know the stories... nothing comes out of Naraka." She turned to Fusion, who was peering up the empty shaft. "Tell me you will get them all out."
That wasn't a question. Fusion twitched, wings brushing the insides of her armour's carapace panels. "I've known for a long time, ever since I saw this place in Spiral's memories, that I'd never be able to stop at just my kin," she whispered, voice sounding hollow in the empty shaft. "We need to get to the central controls; it will take too long to open the cells one at a time." Her wings came out, and in short, quick strokes she leapt to the level above.
The first impression was of being encased in a pointillist rainbow. The hard colours of the Dog's crystal thaumic machines surrounded her in a regular grid, stacked cubes of lights each containing three pastel glows with disturbingly familiar shapes. Two were gently curved, mirror images of each other, the last a stubby cone with hints of spiral detail in the hazy colours. Breath caught in her throat and she shut off her shadow sight. Feeling weak, she stared at the rows of grey metal boxes, piled in columns throughout the circular space. Little indicator lights glowed on each, a collection of red and green points.
At her side, Redshift moaned. "I thought I was seeing things..." he said, voice trailing off into a whimper. "Do you think they are still alive in there?"
Maker, I hope not. Ignoring the confused glances from the gryphons and dogs, now crowded in the narrow spaces around them, she fumbled with the front panel of the closest box.
"Don't... please don't," Redshift said in agonised tones, "what else could it be?"
"Got to know; got to be sure." Fusion's tongue felt heavy in her mouth, and the words were barely recognisable. The panel came free, folding down on silent hinges. Within, there was a mass of thaumically active mechanisms, all crystals and ordered splinters of computronium, linked to liquid feeds that vanished into one wall of the container. At the centre of all that was a cylindrical tank of clear liquid, perhaps a tenth of a length across. A horn and two lengths of slender bone floated in the little tank.
Fusion made a strangled hissing sound, leaning forwards to brush the glass surface with the tip of her muzzle. The horn was small and stubby; the kind of shape found on a foal no more than two tenths of a gigasecond old. Wrapped around the horn, like it had been driven through it, was a small disk of bone, capped with a layer of fine orange fur. Tubes, branched things that were obviously natural blood vessels and nerves, extended from the rear of the skull fragment to join with an isolated lump of material, all covered with complex folds. Brain tissue, but not a whole brain... just some small fragment needed to keep the horn and wings active.
The air grew hot, and Fusion struggled to hold back a flood of sick rage that threatened to submerge any desire to stay covert. Shadows moved and formed, spreading out fan-like, centred in Fusion's body, as a golden haze condensed from the air. Korn and Salrath fell to the floor, not dropped but pushed down and held there by the thickening magic. There was the faint odour of burning fur, but neither Dog made a sound. Fusion stumbled backwards, rump striking another of the pillars, and she wheeled, shaking her head violently to try and lose the pictures her mind was throwing up.
There was a touch on her cheek, something hard and curved that still managed to seem gentle. "Come back," Ellisif said, "don't let this-this--" The gryphoness' beak opened and closed, but whatever word she was looking for wouldn't be found, and she settled for gesturing with one wing at the silent pillars. "Don't let this divert you."
Fusion closed her eyes, and took a deep breath, fighting back the fury and trying to recapture the state of cold calculation she'd had before they'd started this expedition, but it wouldn't come. Gently, she closed the hatch, then nodded to the gryphoness. "A friend once told my sister that it's okay to get angry, just so long as you direct your anger at the right place." She lifted her head and opened her shadow sight once more, trying to estimate the number of the pastel lights. Before this, it was just life and the cruelty of one Dog, but this is death... this is murder on an industrial scale. "By the time we've finished here there will be nothing left."
===
They passed through floors packed with more medical storage, many containing horn and wing samples, others packed with little packets of tissue or fluids marked with cryptic codes and stored in heavily insulated compartments. At the highest level of these, just below where the ground would be and right under the centre of the pyramid-building, was a compact room filled with computronium. Redshift, silent and withdrawn after their passage through the biological stores, seemed to come alive in the presence of so many machines.
"So complex," he breathed, shifting violet hornlight playing across his face. His eyes closed and he turned full circle, trying to take it all in.
"Can you--"
Fusion, there are Dogs and gryphons at the corral. I think they will know where you are very soon.
The thought burst from the sharing, along with images of dead and wounded ponies, all surrounded by Dogs and their gryphon forces. Fusion stared at them silently for a moment, unable to really comprehend what was happening at the distant corral. Buck up, filly, she thought privately, what did you think was going to happen? Along with the second-hoof images, obviously from some unfortunate still at the corral, were flashes of Gravity's own situation; the mare was in the middle of a pitched battle and tangled in some vehicle's antimagic field. That she wouldn't be able to teleport was obvious. I'll go, I can see you are--
No! You must not leave without our foals.
The visual feed from Gravity died, but the other mare's mind was still there. Probably means she's doing something I'd object to. That thought should have brought worry, but the horror from below was still fresh and strong. But they'll slaughter half the corral -- what's the point in saving a few if the rest die? Fusion reached for her magic, assembling the required pattern and holding it in her mind. Redshift paused whatever he was doing and stared at her, surprise on his face.
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...
Fusion let out an involuntary whinny. Very well, but if you don't get out soon...
I will. I've got a plan. A glimmer of a smile stole down the link, then it cut off as Gravity jumped.
You'd better. Fusion sent the thought out into the void, knowing full well that the message wasn't going to be heard, then nodded to Redshift. "Well? Can you do it?"
"From here I can do anything..." His voice trailed off, and he did another slow circle.
"Good, because Security is at the corral; they did not manage to get everypony out in time." She ignored his sharp inhalation, turning to the gryphons. "Security will be here in force very soon, so there is no time left to be subtle. What will happen if Redshift lets out all your people?"
Ellisif exchanged glances with the other two. "Violence, I'd think. There is a lot of pent-up anger here, only held in check by the collars and segregation. You are going to get a lot of 'settling of old scores', real or imagined."
Fusion looked down, past the ordered ranks of the tissue banks and past the cells containing ponies and gryphons. There, in the deep tunnels, was the shifting haze she'd seen before, like a mass of vehicles or other non-magical power sources. Unlike the traffic in the big transport tunnels, it didn't move in regular lines, but rather stayed in one place. At most of the Dog's large installations, this was the interface to the main transit network, and there was normally something visible there, even if just in passing.
There's more there than Salrath said... what a surprise. That faint haze of stored power, all recognizably from superconductor banks, and no thaumic signature at all. Just like back at the training centre, that first time. The view changed, a ripple of bright pinpoints appearing amid the haze. They were a deep violet in colour, and again only apparent because of her energy sensitivity. That colour meant something, and she suddenly remembered where she'd seen it before: specks of deuterium plasma in the backpacks of the Dog's powered armour.
"What if I gave them a target and a chance to get even?"
===
Ellisif dropped down the central shaft and into the surgical suite. The sound from outside, just through the door, was already loud, a screeching and shouting that she'd not heard outside a food hall riot being put down by the military police. The door itself already bore a number of deep dents, and rattled in its frame from another impact even as she watched.
Well, I see they have figured out the collars are not working. She glanced at Adigard and Svartr; their faces were unreadable behind the armour, but there was a set to their stance that spoke of readiness. The other two moved forward slightly, guns in their close-quarters 'locked' positions, placing her at the rear point of a triangle.
A twitch of her beak opened the local command interface, a simplified version of the systems that Redshift had been messing with, the context-sensitive tactical software highlighting the networked devices visible that she could command. There was far more than the occasional security camera or door she was used to seeing, and it took a moment to identify what she needed amidst the visual clutter. A glance and a squint flicked the door from locked to open, and it popped inwards, damaged hinges squealing.
The gryphon on the other side was sitting back on his haunches, a rock the size of his head held in both claws. He was obviously just about to bring it down on the door, and fell forward to sprawl in the dust at her forepaws. Behind him was a varicoloured mass of fur and feathers, all in shades of brown, grey and black, and mostly in motion. There were the inevitable fights, rapid swirls of movement that propagated through the crowd, jumping from gryphon to gryphon like a wave across water. Along with these were islands of stability; rings of gryphonesses surrounding the small shapes of their chicks, snapping and hissing at any male who came near.
Oh, Maker, this is going to be fun. Ellisif tapped an armoured talon against the stone floor, staring down at the fallen male. He looked up at her with wide eyes, a hint of fear just starting to replace the shock in his expression, and silence rippled out from the doorway. Every head turned in their direction, fights and screeching arguments forgotten. Here it comes...
"Kill them!" he screamed, jumping to his paws and lunging at her, a cry that was echoed by the hundred nearest throats.
She stepped into his charge, dipping her shoulder to get beneath his gaping beak and knock his forelegs out from under him. A quick twist and she slammed a fist into the side of his head, and he fell at her paws, only moving weakly. An instant later the air was filled with thunder as Adigard and Svartr's guns fired.
Explosions stitched the air above the crowd's heads, pale dust cored with bright flame, shocking them into immobility. The echoes died and left the big room in silence. "Is that it? Is that the best you can do?" Ellisif shouted, her time as a training sersjant for new recruits coming to the fore. It was easy to pull up the synthetic, overblown rage, and she marched into the crowd, shoving aside any who didn't move fast enough. "You are gryphons, Maker dammit, built as soldiers, not rabble."
"Easy for you to say, flysoldat, behind those guns and without a collar."
The voice came from somewhere in the crowd and was full of resentment. Inside, Ellisif smiled. "I can't get you any armour, but how about I get rid of the collars?" She tapped twice on her communicator, then held her breath. You better be able to do this, Redshift.
From somewhere nearby, there was a quiet click, then another and another, rippling across the assembled flock. The silence, hostile with the sharp stares of many aggressive eyes, became filled with little gasps and inhalations. A white and tan gryphon, only a few paces from her, lifted a foreclaw to his throat, pulling away his collar with a sudden, sharp, tug. "There's no way you are Naraka Security," he said with a disbelieving tone, "they'd never--" He looked from her to the collar, then threw the thing away. "What does this mean?" Behind him, others were doing the same.
Ellisif half opened her beak in an avian smile. "We have a chance at freedom," she shouted, picking up his discarded collar and waving it above her head. "I have friends who broke me out, but if we want to stay free, we are going to have to fight. Security is coming, and they are going to kill every gryphon, every pony, in this place."
The white-and-tan snarled something, snapping his beak loudly. "They will slaughter us; we wouldn't stand a chanc--"
"Coward's talk! They are coming up through the tunnels; sight lines are short and there are many chances for ambush. Besides..." Ellisif stared at him and laughed. "...I told you I had a friend."
With a thunderous crack and a flash like the roof had been ripped off to let the sun in, Fusion appeared above her. Hot air blasted down from her rapidly stroking wings, and she glowed with an internal radiance, random sparks and spidery flickers of lightning dancing from her primary feathers. Her mane and tail streamed in the downdraft, coiling and twisting like ink dripped into water.
She dropped, and the gryphons fell back, those that were not fast enough being pushed away by irresistible pulses of magic, landing with a solid thump in the sand and dust. "The rule of the Masters can be broken."
Remember, keep it simple, Ellisif thought, then flinched as a twist of blue-white light materialised above Fusion's head.
"They are coming to kill us all; I will help you, but I must see to my own people. They are not as strong as you."
The twist collapsed to a star-like point, then blurred forwards to strike one of the large boulders that littered the false desert floor. It exploded with enough violence to make Ellisif's ears ring and she dived to the floor with the instinctive motions of long experience, but the perfect dome of a force field caught all the razor-edged rock fragments and dropped them in a neat circlearound the fresh crater.
"If you want it, there can be no more Masters!" Fusion's voice, already a shout, grew louder, bellowing out like a jet-engine at full power. "Do you want to fight, or do you just want to die?"
Probably both, Ellisif thought, but she flared her wings and roared her reply along with the crowd.
Glad to see this updated. Story is still going strong. Keep it up!
Things are really started to heat up. I can only hope the Salrath lives long enough to endure Gravity's wrath. I wonder how much longer it will be until Orgon truly appreciates the magnitude of his errors.
I thought this story would have something to do with the Holocaust.
Disappointed.
5983883 If you had read the first story, you would have understood a bit better about how bleak this universe is. But why am I wasting my time talking to someone that uses dickbutt for their avatar?
5983915
Bruuuh
Savage af
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!
Two months, and you couldn't put this up a day earlier while I was off? Now I have to go through an extra long day at work with this on my mind..... this is revenge for all the flak I've been given you about the tension lately, isn't it?
Well, judgeing by the title, it's back to Fusion... hopefully not entirely and we get something to give Gravity's group some hope as well. As to the actual title... yeah the titles tend to be abstract enough that it doesn't really mean to much for her chances. But still.... hopefully the tension is a lot better, or even any better this time, well find out later tonight I guess.
That is how you get your troops fighting spirits up! Short, sweet and to the point.
5983883
Well, it is a holocaust, just not the Holocaust.
Is there much of an unmeet need for Holocaust stories. Must confess to a certain amount of surprise.
5984047
Gotta tailor that speech to the audence!
5984039
Vengence is mine. Perhaps it will make the day go quicker(?).
Why do you always seem to write stuff between when I last check and posting. Then again it does give me some surprise in the fic still.
In a word, epic.
We've been seeing most of this from Fusion and Gravity's perspectives, and other ponies', and it's kind of interesting to see these gryphons witnessing Boss Mode Fusion. Giving the Braveheart speech. I say Braveheart because, let's be honest, Spartacus wouldn't work.
Oh god. I've waited two months and now I'm kind of scared to read what happens.
On the other hand...
Certainly starts out great.
I get that Salrath hasn't been listening (she's a bit distracted right now), but I'm still wondering what Fusion was just saying. (The retelling of events is a bit confusing - it sounds as though the first thing Fusion heard was Ellisif talking to her, but two chapters ago it looked as though the ponies appeared and restrained Salrath, Korn and the gryphons before anyone had time to talk.)
To quote Order of the Stick... "Yeah, and I'm gonna drop a house on you and sing about how I represent the Lollipop Guild. C'mon, let's keep our threats realistic shall we?"
But wait, isn't she telling the truth? Security is killing the ponies who are still with Spiral at the corral right now, if I recall.
The attack on Spiral's end hasn't happened just yet. Just about to...
... did you just shake a megaton nuke?
SOYLENT GREEN IS PONIES
Urrrrgh
This kind of reminds me of the Rainbow Factory.
5983966 I don't pull my verbal punches for people that are disappointed that they are not reading about The Holocaust.
Definitely worth the wait. Nothing else to be said about the quality.
Also, I think Ellisif is my favourite character now - just the right balance of snark and dark humour, with a coating of awesome.
Okay, so... how bad will this one add to the tension, or will the ponies actually get a break for once? Luckily, two months has pretty much killed the remaining anxiety and just all around meh right now. Well more then 'meh' excited, but, more cautious and... all around mood I really don't like much for a story this good. Hopefully his chapter can give something to hook into again without feeling overwhelmed by things.
OHHHHHH Story, you know how to make me happy right off the bat... please do go on.. I think an entire chapter of nothing but her writhing in agony in intense detail would be just the thing to brighten the mood. Please, do go on.
Phantom pain, the actual nerves are so long, that you didn't lose the whole thing, just the endings of some, so they still transmit random data as if they were still there. OR... simply because the universe does have a sense of karma and knows how much you've earned it.
Awww boo-hoo. 'Fair' requires much, MUCH more suffering from you bitch.
And I am enjoying this way, WAY more then is healthy, but damnit, we've earned it after all her shit, and all the darkness and tension of the last few chapters.
She really does just not get it, does she? Either how fucked she is, or why.
Who said anything about 'let'?
Now now Fusion, don't go and waste your new toy by breaking it to fully to quickly. You want this to last. Just a little bit at a time.
Plus, we know it's true, and just what fusion was hoping for so, way to go on that one. Still waiting on the other horseshoe to drop on this though.
Hmmm recap is kind of.. sketchy, just feels a little.. off.. forced... not as smooth or well done as normal for this story. Just, feels.. off.
Oh in character, well, it would be fun but, you know you want to make it much MUCH more painful then that. But on the other hoof, you really don't want to take to long here, or risk her messing things up.
Or you could keep her aline long enough for everypony to have a chance to get in a few hits. Though he does have a good point about not wasting time.
And I look forward to you 'convincing' her to tell them. Granted, you really better not believe any of it you can't confirm. Though you do have Korn for that.
HEY, Gravity already got her turn to have fun with the bouncing Salrath. She has to learn to share.
Well Fusion can certainly understand that sentiment. So yeah she'll take them along, likely just wants to be sure about them first.
A very mature, sensible way to look at it. Wonder if a lot of gryphons feel that way. Simply understand it's war, and not anything personal against other gryphons when they have to fight them.
Ohhh I like her. Snarky, and awesome already.
Wow you re a moron. You really just do not get what is going on and why. You know.. as much as she needs to die.. painfully.. it might actually be doing the dogs a favor to put her out of their misery. but, don't let that stop you.
Are you trying to make her squish you?
Well, at least she realizes it and will be on the lookout.
I have the biggest, most evil, most "please oh please oh please do" grin on my face right now just thinking about it.
Okay... so.. trying to hold back the overwhelming squee of joy at the prospect of this going on, but.... I do like that Fusion can't do it. Crush her on instinct in a fit of rage without thinking about it, yeah. But not deliberately torture or murder her. Even with all she's done, even knowing she deserves it, that leaving her alive will just result in more pain and suffering. She simply can't do that. And for exactly why she said, it's what Salrath would do, it's what the Dogs do. She is fighting for freedom, not vengeance. She won't sink to their level. Killing in self defense is one thing, but like this... or deliberately causing pain... Yeah I do actually like that she can't do that. Is to innately peaceful, to caring. So, very good for you Fusion.
Now of course Salrath will see this as weakness, as her being soft, cause her kind always do. But it's clear by now that bitch is just fully incapable of understanding anything but her own petty desire to inflict pain.
Okay, the gryphon saying it, didn't see coming, but does make sense. And no, you are not. Salrath is weak, unable to control her own petty impulses. You, it takes far far more strength to withhold that type of vengeance, then to indulge in it. And you are right, it is what they would do, it does not need to be your way.
that said, having those under you willing to do so, and not being against them doing so when needed.. given the stakes you are fighting for, and the enemy you are facing... likely a regrettable, but ultimately useful thing.
SQUEEE.. yeah that whole, "It's fine not to" bit, it's true, and is right overall that she isn't willing to do this. but doesn't mean I won't enjoy every moment of Salrath's agony and every new injury. What can I say, Fusion's just a better person then me I guess. Now, snap away please.
Okay, so she can detect them, again mostly because of her almsot unique ability to spot pure energy. But the signals are so far away, clustered, faint, whatever, that even scanning, she wouldn't quite notice them without knowing what she was looking for. Makes sense. But now that she knows they are there. Well, an ambush only works if the other side is caught by surprise.
Funny how such tiny things can lead to such world altering consequences.
At least she realizes it.
Again, Grav got her turn. I'm all for the give her to Spiral option.
Likely even less then the ponies. the Ponies are bred, condition, and forced to LIKE their slavery, and see it as the proper order. Gryphons at least realize it for what it is, and only follow out of fear and because they know the punishment for not doing so. Though also likely there are more Gryphons willing to side with the dog anyway, out of fear, or simply because they like the power, or some other reason.
Sadly.. very true, and yet another reason to get some gryphons on your side. Also, good news that there have been rebellions before. So shouldn't be to hard now that the ponies can overcome all the fail-safes the Dogs have to prevent it.
See, and luckily, we know enough about these gryphons, it's not yet another added source of tension. We know they are at least mostly serious. Granted not sure i would fully utterly and completely trust them, just because while they aren't double agents, can't be sure one of them might not react in an unexpected way that risks your plans. But, hell the dogs already know about that trick, and have to extend some trust to get some. So good job Fusion.
... oh SHIT! Yeah I totally forgot about that... damnit and good job Korn, get back on her good side. Best Dog is still best Dog.
Holy sweet Faust you are a MORON! And now you just confirmed for Fusion that Korn is telling the truth. If you weren't so loathsome, and so so in need of a good killing, I'd half say let you live, simply because you are pretty much the ponies single biggest asset among the dogs.
Well, that option is right out but, at least the ponies should be able to help you somewhat.
And I can just here him giving all that technobabble in a really high speed, yet treating it as completely normal tone. Also, speak in words they can understand.
So, did she get that from the technobabble, or just figure that was what he was getting at and tuned out how.
Well, at least some of those were already on their itinerary. though that last on will be rough and pretty much announce she is here anyway.
But, it makes sense. And yeah is exactly the type of things the Dogs would do.
That... is going to really REALLY complicate matters. Things are bad enough as they are, don't add issues you dot need. Yes get them out ASAP, but this isn't ASAP. Get the foals, and come back later for the rest.
Yup, and you know he's not like the rest. He has his issues, but they are every bit as much a result of conditioning as Ponies own issues with heeding Masters. Not him being evil, or bad, or even cruel in any way.
Well fuck. Though at least given they didn't show up, no power armor or any real major high tec gadgets. So likely just technicians and also likely just as startled as the ponies..
Granted, doesn't matter for much if the ponies take longer to react. Good thing the gryphons are trained for this kind of thing.
..............................................................................................................
Well....... FUCK! I mean knew it was a possibility but.... that he would actually do something that big.... okay so how much overkill is he going for? Just the one? Also, hello tension.. I haven't missed you.
So she JUST now realized she is a useless bit of scrap he's trying to get rid of as quickly as he can? Well, seems to have shocked her pretty well at least.
Wait, is it a Nuke, or an anti-matter bomb? Granted, either way they are fucked if one goes off but...... then again.. now that the teleport thingies are under your control... hey Grav, how long till you are out of The Pit? Fusion might have a gift to send in after you.
If needed. okay so, that was the only bomb then? I mean again, there's is overkill, then there is just plain ridiculous. One nuke, could be explained but multiple? The Dogs do like their efficiency as well. But, now the ponies have a nuke.
Well, he is a scientist before anything else. So yeah perfectly natural reaction to imply want to understand more.
Hey Salrath, the ponies might have another use for you!
Okay took me till here to figure out what this was but.. again... And yet... yeah makes far far to much sense for them to do this.
Noble, very noble. And likely good in the long run, but again.... hopefully this doesn't bite you in the ass to hard.
.... so..... not a Creation Stone then... but... if that's what... what it looks like.... I wish I hadn't overused the emote on the food thing.....
Whatever qualms you might have had about using the Nuke at some point..... lose them.
Once again.. I REALLY like this gryphon. And she is quickly trying to surpass Korn in the best not-a-pony rankings. So, The Sister just find themselves a general that actually knows combat for their growing army?
Good.
And hello tension from the plot point we have been skipping this chapter. Well, they are likely to find out, just in time for Fusion to let them know anyway.
See story, it's stuff like this that make the tension so much worse then you seem to think it should be. Take the chance to let us know they already saved most of the corral. So we aren't so worried about that detail.
Oh fuck.... nothing ends well that starts with those words.
Nothing like a good old fashioned prison riot for some great confusion. Make Security work for you.
Again, once the target knows about an ambush, the bonus swig their way. So, bring it on.
Hehehehehehe.. the ponies still have tricks up their sleeves the Dogs don't even know how to start planning for.
[inserted overwhelming maniacal cackling]
Ohhh yes it is.
AND she was a drill sergeant? Oh FUCK YES! New best non-pony
.....................................
OH FUCK YES!
Okay i am way to pumped to say more right now, summarize.. plus just heard the oven beep so dinner is ready.. but
HOLY FUCK YES!
STORY YOU DID IT! HOLY SHIT YOU DID IT! Just, leaving it at that for now.
Also....5984964
You sir WIN! I don't know what, but you win with that.
I don't think I've ever read a story that makes me want to commit industrial-scale violence, but you've done it. I really fucking want these Dogs dead.
Ooooo, it's looking good for getting some gryphon power for this revolution.
That felt too easy. Regardless, keeping Sally alive for the time being is probably a good idea, in spite of how nice it would be for her to not longer be alive.
I bet they'd be more successful with a little pony support.
Come on Korn, speak up!
There we go.
Good job Sally for giving Korn the motivation for giving up a very important tactical advantage. Applause all around.
Ooooo, not just the teleport detectors, but several nukes, too? It really is a good thing they kept Salrath alive long enough to drop that detail, as well as having had Redshift with for some emergency technical work.
On one hand, oh my god. On the other, I wonder what the dogs are doing with what kind of sounds like a server cluster built out of pony magic wielding organs. Is this the source of the magic part of the magical technology the dogs are using? But back to the oh my god, we've finally arrived at the dogs feeling like honest to god Nazis to me. We were probably we already there in truth, but disassembled foals in vats being used for whatever it is they are doing? Oh yeah, kill them all and let the devil sort them out.
But this I can't quite agree with. As horrible as what they've discovered is, it needs to be documented and remembered. Bring samples with for proof, and set off one of the nukes to purify the rest in righteous nuclear fire.
Whatever Luna's plan is, I hope it is good and violent.
*fist-pump*
Glorious! Oh hell yeah, it is on now! This may even be enough of a force to take back the corral assuming the timing works out, the security there is expecting a pony or two, not an armed force of rebellious gryphons being teleported in in force.
Here's to the beginning of what I'm hoping will be a long and productive multi-species alliance.
Wow. Ellisif and Fusion choreographed that entrance pretty well. Nothing quite like having an angry demi-goddess descend from the sky at your command to raise your troops' spirits.
Those dogs are in for a bit of a surprise...
So, I've been thinking about this for about a day, and I can't put it aside. I didn't quite get what was going on in the "exercise room" with the tanks. Were the machines supposed to be butchering tools, and they were saving the horns/wings in tanks? What for? Were they like some distributed computing cluster? And this line: "Wrapped around the horn, like it had been driven through it, was a small disk of bone, capped with a layer of fine orange fur." I don't get why the horn had been driven through it?
I feel like I might've gotten lost in some of the descriptions or missed a key component of some strong implication here, and the answer is terribly obvious.
5985769
Is it really necessary to write out a bloody essay for every chapter? They're like half as long as the damn chapters themselves.
5986984
Yes, they were butchering dead (Or not) ponies to feed to the gryphons, and apparently dead gryphons as well.
Unlikely. I get the impression they were two separate areas. Keep in mind hos that horn was described as small, like a foals. The tanks were likely a second area and the... organic components, selected special for it.
No, to little brain matter, there is just enough to send signals to the horn and wings. It's about them not computer stuff. I'm not 100% but best guess, it's either lab to study pony magic and how it effects their wings and horn, OR some way of generating thaumic energy to harvest. Could be something else, but that's my guess.
The "Small disk of bone" was the chunk of skull the pony's the horn had grown through.
Given the feedback, and there are several that do enjoy them, and far more importantly the author. Yes.
5987328
That's enough from you. Please don't come back.
Everyone else: do not feed.
5987642
My bad, my nigga.
I admit to being a bit baffled by the horn-and-bit-of-brain-tanks, too. The characters seemed to understand what was going on there, so I felt like I was supposed to understand too, but I didn't.
Aside from that, holy fuck yes this has me so pumped.
5989140
I'm sure we'll learn the details sooner or later, but the main impact here is to make it utterly clear to Fusion, and the reader, just how completely callous the Dog civilization is when it comes to the ponies. They breed and magically enslave ponies, yes, but this kind of dispassionate mutilation and experimentation drives home that for the Dogs collectively, the ponies are no more valuable than machine parts in the end.
This chapter simultaneously outrages and satisfies. In short, one I quite enjoyed, because the roller coaster here has both ups and downs, and I hope it continues like this. All those karma houdinis and cliffs to hang from had grown exhausting!
Thanks for all the comments, folks!
===
5984426
Hah. Despite my best intentions to send a 'complete' chapter to you folks, I'm generally editing right up to the last minute. Hopefully it's not too annoying!
5984964
So. Ellisif and Svartr were in the lead, so Fusion grabs them and sound-masks the corridor so she can talk to them; Ellisif ws trying to convince Fusion a) don't kill me and, when if became apparent that was not going to happen, b) "any chance of an alliance"? Half way through that, she hears the fight between Sal, Korn and Adigard and investigates (it's a bit of a flashback; doesn't sound like it worked very well!).
5986545
Thank you for the comment; you have just given me an idea...
5986984
5989140
I won't answer that question directly, but there's no reason why you should be sure what's going on -- after all, the characters don't know, either. All I'll say is that this is a Eugenics Board site, and the aim of the Board is to improve the client species usefulness, and the pony's main use is as components of magical machines. The Dogs don't really understand how magic works, outside of empirical rules (it's magic!).
5991483
I have been trying to reduce the height of those cliffs...
5987283
'Tis true, they are useful. It's rare to get such blow-by-blow feedback. I don't always agree with it (and sometimes you miss the weirdest things!), but it is useful, and I'll quite often get interesting ideas from the different point of view.
5991626 I do always hope to be helpful.
5985769
This chapter had me a little concerned, after all, there is nothing I can really do to Salrath that would balance the scales for what I had her do to everyone else. She's... tricky, in situations like this (at least, until I realised a little more she was like when she was losing).
Korn's technobabble -- Fusion could follow most of it; as a whole, ponies are well trained and educated (they need to be, to do their jobs).
Ah, you'll like Grav's plan for the corral (next chapter!). Probably. Anyway, I certainly enjoyed writing it.
Well, it looks like the ending worked for you, so it makes me glad I added the gryphon POV (was originally going to stop at the scene beore).
5986545 Well on taking samples and preserving evidence of that place, the ponies have their Sharing spell. Fusion and Redshifts memories of it are all the proof they'll need for ponies.
5991626
Well, it worked great on this chapter. So damn good. Only bit that really wasn't good about it was the Fusion recap thing, that was just really awkward and hard to follow, even knowing what she was talking about. The rest, so so good. That we aren't really sure what the tanks are for isn't an issue. The characters seem to know, and we know enough to see they are horrible, vile monstrosities, no matter what they are used for. So it's not a big deal.
As to the tension, it was very well done here.
Granted, I'm not sure how much of it is due to the two month break allowing the tension from the last cliffhanger to abate.
But this is what I was talking about last chapter about needing some good news, something positive some HELL YES! to use up that darkness and tension and "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" While it's clear that Fusion's plans won't be easy, and she's adding trying to free all the ponies AND all the gryphons to that, she's also already dealt with most of the Dog's threats and is in control. She knows about the ambush squad, has an army of gryphons ready to help her. Both the Arclight, and the nuke aces in the whole have been taken out, no reinforcements because of all the stuff they already did. Can't even communicate to let the Dogs outside Narraka how screwed they are. The biggest issue for her now is the logistics of actually freeing all of them. As well as getting the ponies to come along. Plus whatever she has to deal with with Random. And then how the base will support this many new recruits, all logistics stuff. She ha all but won this battle in the long run, barring something coming right the fuck out of left field in a "Fuck you" Diablos ex Machina.
But the core is, it focused on the ponies, and what was going right, rather then the dogs and how they were making plans for everything, and how they anticipated everything, and how no matter what the ponies do, the Dogs have a response of some kind, and ratcheting up the tension from that.
Now still have the Clusterfuck at the corral to deal with, but.. well we know Gravtiy makes it out, and unlikely a large swath of the other ponies are getting slaughtered. This victory means Grav will have backup if things go wrong. Fusion can port over and trash the arclight from behind, send in a few gryphon teams to surprise the dogs, options. Granted I still hope she doesn't need those and can just massacre the dogs response force quick enough to get the rest of the ponies out before more can arrive.
but this gave the long long needed "HELL YES!" moment of actually feeling like the Ponies are winning, actually able to fight back. Focusing on the smaller term battles they can win rather then how hopeless it looks in the long term and well all the other stuff I went on about.
Also glad you like them, as to missing things, well several reasons. It's small or something you didn't quite point out as well as you thought, or I did notice, but in trying to not reply to every single word, skipped on the commentary for not thinking it important enough to comment on, or not having anything to say, or yeah, I just out right missed it for some reason. Likely just not noticing, or being focused on something else at the time.
And, well I have noticed some disagreement but, hell, that's lead to some awesome back and forth and discussions about those points, so double yay!
5991805 Dang added a second on as I typed.
Yeah that pov ending was needed and just so much HELL YES! Hype.
As to Salrath, yeah... well I do know one thing that would just about work, but is beyond the ponies power. Freeze her in time, make her last forever, survive this war, make her watch as her grand empire crumbles, as the ponies emerge victorious, her people reduced to grubbing in the dirt for scraps while the ponies raise up their own grand empire. All while knowing it was all because of her. Her actions the led to this, her need for petty revenge and violence that caused Fusion to rebel so strongly. That led to so many willing to join her. Mere physical pain is not enough. She needs to have her entire being broken, her mind, that grubby, pathetic, shriveled black speck of a soul, forced to confront what her actions have caused, be utterly devastated. But yeah that's not something the ponies are likely going to be able to do.
Funny timing on this, you know I added Salrath to my Ponyfinder campaign as Gem Gnoll recurring primary antagonist for my party, well they hate her almost as much as I hate this one, and next weeks session should be the one where they finally kill her. (She had foalnapped two foals that the party had kind of adopted) Should be fun.
Anyway, I said a few chapters ago Salrath had pretty much overstayed her welcome and had used up any usefulness she has to the story, it's moved beyond the point where her small, petty evil could really be a large factor, and she's become so vile, nothing she does is shocking anymore or can top what she's already done. Well... you did find another really great use for her. No not as a tool to make us cackle manically as she suffers, but using her to test and explore just how far Fusion is willing to go. What her limits are. Here is the most vile, evil, wretched being she knows. one that ha hurt her, those she loves, that is utterly fully and completely irredeemable. The one being that not a single living being would entirely fault her for shredding as painfully as possible. No one can deny how she has earned the right to do whatever she wants to Salrath. And yet.. when it came down to it, could she do it? Coldbloodedly torture and hurt even one as deserving of it as Salrath? Testing how strong Fusion's morality is... and proving just how strong it really is, that she couldn't. Even with the perfect chance, with no one able to reproach her for it, she couldn't do it....
Aside from how just plain epic the ending was,and the all around sense of FUCK YES! in the chapter.. that scene is likely the best of the lot, smaller, more focused on the character, and showing just who she truly is. I.. I just loved that scene so much.
Doesn't mean I'm not looking forward to Salrath's hopefully imminent end and to see how much more pain we can inflict on her before it. but, That scene alone more then justifies keeping her around this long. And, really, I gripe a lot on tension and issues, but it's stuff like that which makes the story so damn amazing. And if anything the level of tension detracts from the simpler things that are at the heart of what really makes the story so epic.
It looks like all the pieces are in place for the first big battle between the dogs and the griffons and the ponies. Though convincing the ponies that the dogs (at least the ones in charge) DON'T CARE about them will be a battle in of itself.
5991839
You do remember there's this thing called the World Court up on the moon? And they have this Really Big Gun everyone calls "The Hammer"? When they (and the other hives) learn the extent of this mess they are going to go apeshit.
5991909
Salrath still has use as an information source. They'll either let the gryphons torture her or more likely let Gravity turn her brains inside out.
5991626
Ooooh crap. Do we have time to run or should we just duck and cover?
5992083 Why would the world court give a fuck about the tanks? We've seen Dogs worrying about the Court and it's response, but ONLY regarding ponies being free of the Blessing. So this stuff, par for the course and nothing special. Dogs as the whole see ponies as little more then machines, this is just taking one apart to try and figure out more about it. So yeah, no point in saving anything, everything they need is in Fusion and Redshift's memories.
As to using Salrath for information........ not worth it. maybe get some stuff, but on the whole, they'll never be able to trust anything she says. So not quite worth the effort. By all means they should have fun trying, but results aren't going to be that great. Korn will be much much more useful.
5992126
They don't care about the research. Everything in Naraka is within the letter of World Court law or at least a good lawyer can argue it is. "This mess" referred to losing control of a corral of ponies and then an entire research facility's worth of both client species. Your claim that they have "all but won this battle in the long run" is way premature. So far they've been dealing with the resources of one hive that's trying to keep things under wraps. There are five other hives that will fear losing their client races and with them their power. They'll want this thing cleaned up before it has a chance to spread to them. If that requires killing every pony and gryphon, or even a significant amount of dogs, in Lacunae territory, well, it sucks to be Lacunae...
5992244 Hence why I said "battle" not "war". I was talking only about this specific battle to free the ponies and gryphons at Narraka, nothing more.
5991909
You don't miss much, and you tend to be pretty close with the speculation (I'd have to dig back to find any real examples; it's not really important).
Salrath -- the problem is, she's a sociopath (as I understand the term); she doesn't really believe anyone else is a real person. You can hurt her and break her, but the only way to get her to actually care about everything she's done, would be to cure her first. As to Fusion's reaction -- I'd originally thought to have her hurt Salrath and regret it later, but I think this was the better path.
#15 did end in a pretty dark place (poor Spiral; she always seems to be witness to the nasty stuff), so it was time for a little light at the end of the tunnel (and not just that from the incoming express train!).
5992083
Not all my ideas have a blast radius!
5992290 YAY!, well it's easy to be pretty good at seeing things, when the story is both so detailed, and everyone acts in a rationale manor. Well more or less, few exceptions but even those are ones that make sense, no Idiot Balls to be seen. Also a great part of the story. And as to Salrath, yeah in order to hurt her at that level, what she really needs... yeah like I said, it's something beyond the ponies ability to do. So just have to settle for what they can do
Yes, the way it is with Fusion, it works so much better. Her doing it, but regretting it, it could lead to some interesting character stuff, and be another good point to talk about, but overall.... Yeah I really prefer this way, it says more about her character, shows a strength even she doesn't know she has, and was just.. so well done. So yeah, glad you kept it this way, it works so good.
Now... next month, how badly will Gravity's 'plan' turn out, or are we getting a twofer of great news for the Ponies? But either way, I'm feeling a lot more optimistic about it then last chapter. So YAY! This chapter was just, so awesome on so many levels.
Also, realized another issue with you skipping a month, not only having to wit longer for epic,but also less to talk about.. it's almost as fun just discussing the story as it is reading it.
5992280
Even that is premature. All the ponies in Naraka are still blessed and even with Redshift giving them orders through their communicators won't prevent them from doing something stupid when they figure out these ponies are renegades. Not all of the research subjects have been abused and even then remember how hard it was to convince the "dead" ponies to follow the Sisters even after they'd been through Salrath's "testing" and fugue? Also in one of the previous chapters the Strategist said they've ordered another Arclight unit back to Naraka so time is limited.
Back in the corral ponies are being slaughtered and Gravity is about to play tag with a bunch of military aircraft and a pair of Arclights. The battle is far from over and the war has just begun.
5992347 Yes, but all plans the Dogs have in place are pretty well dealt with. the Nuke is safe, the ambush team is about to get ambushed by a much larger force then they thought, there is almost no chance for backup soon, they can't even call out to alert anyone. The Arclite will be awhile getting there, and unable to coordinate with anything for even longer. All the gryphons it seems are on her side, the ponies will be harder to deal with, but she might simply settle for a freeing them of the Blessing, letting them out, telling them the truth, and not force those that don't want to come yet.. then again ponies seem pretty easy to sway to her side anymore.
Yeah it's not over, but the largest issues are done, and while there are likely to be issues, the major ones are dealt with, so baring something massively wrong coming out of left field just to spite the specter of hope this chapter creates, they are going to make it out of this with a win.
5991839 It would be helpful for the other races though, and for any ponies who are so set in the ways of the Blessing that they might think that the memories are false.
Though mainly I'm just thinking about a trip I took last year to DC where I visited the Holocaust Memorial Museum. Even with the preserved evidence of our own holocausts, you get plenty of people who deny they ever happened. I bet there are tons of civilian dogs who would be more than willing to believe that the horrors of the Eugenics Board are pony propaganda.
Hurmagurd Fusion don't keep Salrith alive! She's totally going go "sudden liability" on your flank and get people killed.
I was kind of expecting the boxes to have living torso and horns a-la Quake style bio engines.
That or they're what's really inside companion cubes 8(
5992566 Given how they treat Ponies, doubt many would even care, some might.
But, how would they prove any of this stuff came from a Dog place? And they have far far more glaring and easy to prove issues with teh Dogs being evil to point to. So while not totally useless to try, not exactly something needed. besides only other race we've seen are gryphons, who seem on the verge of rebelling anyway just on principle and are only held back through the Dogs superior tech and control, which the Ponies can eliminate.
Long term, yes.. remember this stuff. But right now, be more concerned with just getting out of here.
As to lying through the sharing, so far everypony has accepted everything shared as true no matter what, so either it is impossible to lie through it, or it's such an lien idea to ponies, that while possible, it's beyond them to consider it possible.
5992597 Some one been watching Game Theory?
5991626
Which this chapter did a good job of, see :
5991805
There's no balancing Salrath, but what works here is that each time she tries to be her odious self, we finally see payback.
There's always one more typo.
And finally caught up! Now the wait begins :P
6001605
Welcome!
(and I'm sorry)
There's just one thing I'd like to say about this section:
Only at the end of the alinea following that line does it become clear that Gravity is the one who said that. It was really confusing.
But that's it. Great chapter as always! This story is the main reason I check FIM almost every day. :)
Well, this was a disturbing chapter. The depths of the Dogs' depravity seem to grow the deeper Fusion goes. (I'm not even sure what they were doing with the magically active parts of pony infants, and I'm not sure I want to know...) Still, Fusion keeps picking up assets. An army, the nerve center of Naraka, Korn, and even an antimatter bomb, if she gets truly desperate.
Still, Salrath is still alive, and thus is still dangerous, and there's no telling when the antimagic ships will be arriving... This needs to end soon, or the Masters will make sure it will.
It took me a while to work up the time and mood to read this, because after how Wages of Sin ended, this chapter's title sounded particularly dire.
Two things:
The pony parts in boxes... Was that what they were planning on doing to Fusion? It seems like a possibility considering they wanted to know everything about what had happened to her.
Given the advanced and extensive nature of the Dogs' testing of ponies - again, because of the pony parts in the boxes - are the three pony races actually the intention of the Dogs? Sure, the ponies as they are are great. But the extent to which the Dogs have to oversee and control the ponies means that their efforts to develop servitors may have been too effective. Well, if they split ponies into three lesser types - keeping the magic but dividing it into specializations - then they might not have to worry so much about individually over-powered servants breaking free. A disparate grouping of Earth Ponies, Pegasi, and Unicorns is probably going to be a lot easier to subdue than a force comprised solely of Alicorns...