Twilight and Spike walked down the path towards Ponyville.
Unlike the last time, there was activity in the town. Quite a bit, actually.
“Well, my castle is still gone,” she said, referring to the crystal behemoth which had shone with its absence the last few times. “But… this looks… better, I think.”
“Yeah,” Spike said. “At least there are ponies in Ponyville this time.”
“And at least we’re not attacked or abducted,” Twilight said, before spotting a familiar figure trotting down with a bounce in her step a bit to their side.
“Cheerilee!” Twilight happily called. “Hey, Cheerilee!”
The school teacher turned in confusion to the unfamiliar voice, but greeted the stranger with a tone befitting the hospitality of Ponyville. “Oh, hello there. New to Ponyville?”
Twilight and Spike didn’t respond immediately, being horrified by what they saw.
Half of Cheerilee’s face seemed to have been torn off. One of her ears was completely missing, staples held scarred and coatless skin in place at the side of her head, an eyepatch covered a clearly empty eye socket, and a heavy-duty bandage was wrapped around where a disturbingly large chunk of her muzzle seemed to be missing.
Cheerilee on her part, just smiled, acceptingly, with just a hint of ruefulness. “Yeah, I know it looks bad, but don’t worry about it,” she said, before walking up and looking closer at Twilight and Spike, her remaining eyebrow rising in surprise. “Are you a dragon... and— oh my, are you an alicorn?”
“Uh, yes, I,” Twilight started, before shaking her head. “Never mind that! Cheerilee, what happened to you!?”
Now Cheerilee was looking with Twilight with a hint of worry. “I’m sorry, do I know you? You have to tell me if you do. The doctors said I didn’t hurt my brain, but I should still keep an eye out for worrying signs.”
Twilight and Spike looked horrified for another moment, before Twilight let out a forlorn sigh. “No, don’t worry about it. You don’t know me.”
Cheerilee looked uncertainly at Twilight, before accepting her words. “Well, alright. Although I would think most ponies would have seen worse by now. I consider myself lucky.”
“Lucky?” Twilight asked in disbelief, and pointed at Cheerilee’s muzzle. “How is that ‘lucky’?”
“Well, I saw a lot worse on the front,” Cheerilee said. “And aside from a few scars, I’m gonna be good as new.”
“Front?” Twilight asked, before realization struck. “You were in… the war?”
“Yep,” Cheerilee said. “I was in the mid-ranks at the ambush at Horseshoe Dale. I was part of the group that covered the withdrawal of the sixth army.”
“You don’t say…” Spike said.
“Mhm. When I first woke up in the hospital and saw myself, I figured I should’ve joined the navy,” she said, before playfully nudging Twilight and blinking at her. “Then I learned that stallions really like a mare that saves her buddies in arms.”
“Oh, haha,” Twilight laughed nervously. “So, uh, there seems to be a lot of activity in town.”
“You don’t know?” Cheerilee asked, and looked at Twilight in surprise. “It’s Grand Admiral Desrochers’ victory tour. We won.”
“Gabe?” Twilight asked. “Is she here?”
Cheerilee eyebrow rose in surprise. “You know her? I know a lot of the Doomtroopers don’t like it when you use that name, but I’ve met her. She likes it. She said she was gonna make sure I was as good as new,” Cheerilee said, and smiled.
“Doomtroopers?” Spike asked.
“Yes, her new military branch? They man the ships?” Cheerilee said. “Wow, you’ve been missing the news,” she said, and pointed to a number of extremely large shapes flying in from the distance. “There they are.”
It was an armada of airships, the large ones being hundreds of trots in length and tall like the town hall, and flanked by packs of smaller ships flying in tight formations, forming a perimeter around the fleet. All the ships were covered by long metallic rods and barrels sticking out of the hulls, forming impressive and intimidating arrays of weapons and cannons.
“That’s the Angel Wings,” Cheerilee said, pointing to one of the larger ones. “That’s the one that picked me up when I was injured, and I’m gonna report to it later to get measurements for my prosthetics.
“And that’s the admiral’s flagship, The Thunder Of Guns,” Cheerilee said, pointing at the largest ship, an absolute behemoth, brimming with gun batteries and cannons, making it look a bit like a giant, upside down porcupine.
There, at the edge, was the admiral, In full dress armor, covered in so many medallions that some of them had to have been transferred to her impressive hat. It looked like a few soon would have to be placed on her eyepatch.
Her legs were all metal, and covered in shining lights, displaying power levels for systems that nopony except the creator would understand, and behind her, a large cloak billowed in the wind.
She calmly waved at the audience cheering from the town square in the distance, though she also kept glancing at the other ship Cheerilee had mentioned, almost eagerly.
“Yeah, this is… better,” Spike said after a while. “But maybe we should try again.”
“... That might be best,” Twilight said, and turned around towards the map.
“You’re not staying?” Cheerilee asked. “There’s a party later. Free food.”
“That sounds lovely. We’ll try and make it back in time,” Twilight said.
“Hope to see you there,” Cheerilee said, the happiness radiating from her face standing in stark contrast with all the chunks missing from it.
Took me a moment to understand this is a variant of the season 5 finale.
Well, that happened. And I really need to lay off the shipping, I thought you were talking about a different kind of ship. Oooh, how about a tribute to Final Fantasy IV, the Red Wings? Battlehammer sounds pretty cool, too.
8135872 Ah. I guess I assumed that the mention that her castle is missing was a clue, but maybe now. This is the kind of thing that happen when you write something in ten minutes
8135922 You want shipping? I'll give you shipping!
... I think I'm gonna say that when I publish the next mlaabq chapter as well.
Red Wing, singular, sounds kinda cool. Battlehammer sounds... kinda 40k-ish, but that might be the 'hammer'-part
Got any cool names for pony-military branches?
8136330 You mean like specialized teams? Or more general terms like the Army and Air Force?
8136341 Well, like the Doomtroopers in this, or The Imperial Stormtroopers in mlaabq proper.
8136346 Hmmmm, I'm kinda partial to the Guardians at the moment, maybe group them into subclasses, like the Earth Ponies would be called Titans, the Unicorns would be Warlocks, and the Pegasi would be your Hunters. I'll try to think of some more as I go.
Twilight and Spike's next arrival to will be to learn that Gabe is the Borg Queen.
Twilight: "Spike, whatever dial you just set, turn it the other way! We're going the wrong way!!"
Spike: "Gee! Where's Lazarus Long when you really need him?"
8136393 I bet you can look to Blizzard for some inspiration though. Hmm. Archons, Templars, Marauders, Ghosts. Things like that. They've kinda used them all
8137182
*Spike turns the dial the other way, but the display refuses to count down*
*Gabe's voice sounds from the map*: "Resistance is futile."
8136330
The Tactical Meteorological Task Force - The Stormriders
Geological Survey and Engineering, the Avalanche Corps
And the Wildlife Containment Battalion with their motto "Hic erant Dracones"
8138145 "Meteorological Task Torce", sounds like an artillery force
And on the Wildlife Containment Battalion's crates, they have their motto, with little plaques under them that says 'huc', with little arrows pointing at the vision slits.
8138145
8139699
Someone sure took Ripley's advice!
8139859 You shouldn't have posted that. Now I'm thinking of writing a sequel to mlaabq where Gabe has invented space-travel and the Equestrians explore the stars
.... dammit, now I wanna see more of this too.
8139941 Of what? The war? Gabe being an admiral? Cyber-pones? We're gonna get a bit more of the later in future mlaabq chapters
8139951 Yes. All of my yes. This needs to happen. Yesssss....
8139956 Well, did you read the latest mlaabq chapter? There's a guardsmare in need of new eyes. Let's see if Gabe is up to the task
ALL THE YES!!!!! PLEASE EXPAND ON THIS!!! PLEEEEAAASSSSEEEE!!!!!!
8140058 Oh... wow, uuh... *Nervously pulls at shirt collar*
How serious are you with that request, and if you are, what would you like to see? Like, what did you like about this? I haven't played war-games with ponies before. Do you want to see the war, or a continuation of this where they've already won? Was it the cyberponies you liked? Because I'm already down with that for the main story.
I'd normally take a comment like yours as just a form of approval, but I got the feeling that you're really serious. I have some other stuff to write first, but if I get the time, please expand a bit with what you'd like to see, and what you liked about this.
8139699
Well, calling them weather weaponizers sounded too pedestrian
8140142 Alright, additional challenge: Come up with something 'cool'-sounding which also sounds utterly pedestrian. Like... violencers
8140073 all the points you mentioned are some of what i want to see
Some time before the war: i want to see
The war: i want to see
After the war: i want to see
Cyber ponies: i want to see
A bit of dimensional shenanigans: i want to see (not displaced stuff, the time lines thing. I wanna see that expanded as well)
Airships: yes please!
Epicness: YES PLEASE!!! (just the fact that you've written such a great fic as MLAABQ makes this checkbox filled. This new one would just be bonus credit, thus earning you the status of a God/Goddess of Epic tales{which you already are})
Friends?: i would like to call you one if it's ok with you
How serious i am: ci.memecdn.com/4063880.gif
8140154 Oh, whoo, alright... tall order. *Thinks for a minute*
I have a few pet projects. The top priority is to finish mlaabq part 2 and 3. After that is a wacky changeling-adventure-comedy that I've been wanting to write since before mlaabq (in fact, mlaabq started out as a practice-session just for that particular story), but I can start jotting down notes and ideas for this war-spinoff and see where it goes. Have to feel that the idea is fleshed out enough to become a real story before I start.
And yes, I'm down with friends. I'm a friendly person I think
8140152
Trouble Shooters? Fusiliers Under No-quarter (F.U.N)? Cannons Of Catastrophe?
8140304 Huhuhu, that's— wait... F.U.N.C.O.C? Fun-cock?
8140173 yay!!
Friendship!
Also...
*kneels and thumps fist to his chest to honor the Knight Enchanter*
8140152
Ok, I'll go for gore then.
The Lutists. They became feared and despised during the war against the Griffins.
To be honest, something like that comes straight out of some horror story, I suppose.
8140490 How does that work if you're a pony?
8140570 Lutists...? I'm not entirely sure what you're referring to, but I'm guessing parts of birds were used to make lutes? If that's the case, were there brutal gryphons called 'violinists'?
8140596
Catgut, which, while not really made from cats, has that connotation in the popular perception.
8139874
Well, you can always incorporate it with the one where you made her the Borg Queen.
8140596 antropomorphic cyber pony?
or just a regular anthro thestral pony
8140621 Ah, I see. My example were referring to how violin-bows used to be made with hairs from horse-tails. I think that was how it was actually done though, and unlike pulling guts out of someone, wouldn't outright harm the horsie, thankfully
8140624 *nods critically* I guess I could, yeah.
Unrelated, but I've never read Friendship Is Optimal, but from what I understand that it's about, does that share any elements of what we're talking about?
8140629 Oh, of course.
... Do you have hands, or do you have hooves at the end of your arms as well?
8140655 wut?...
I think i'm misunderstanding the question.....
Can you clarify?
8140727 if you're this type of anthro, or this type of anthro.
8140655
Yeah, I haven't read that one, either yet--it's on my Read Later list because I'm a sucker for Trek/MLP crossovers, but I've only got 12718 unread chapters across 622 other stories to slog through. I'm no Twilight Sparkle who can go through all that in 10 minutes flat
8140821 the one with hands.
Kinda like this pic but in the pose i mentioned.
derpicdn.net/img/2015/2/19/832262/medium.jpeg
And without the sword....
8141386 Which is why we need cyber-brains, so that we can download books and stuff with a micro-usb, which is kinda what that spell that Twilight teaches Moondancer is all about
8141927 Ah, I see.
... Oh! Oh. *Salutes back*
8142077 *rises back up and offers a handshake to the Knight Enchanter*
8142088 *Does the old-timey shake where I grab Wild Balance's wrist instead of his hand*
8142092 Would you happen to have FB my good lady/sir?
8142095 Facebook? Yeah, but I only use that to schedule rpg-sessions with my friends.
8142108 my FB= https://www.facebook.com/riku.haataja.5
Friends?
8142128 Like I said, I only use my facebook-account to plan rpg-sessions in meatspace. Also, I'm here on fimfiction incognito
I'll make an alias-user if you want me to though, but I'm more active on Discord. Also, I'd be a sir
8140306
Oh dear gods no. I didn't realize that last one was an acronym. That doesn't look right at all.
8142256 discord friends then!
My Discord tag is my fimfic name and this number #4290
8142279 I guess that's the Gryphon Republican Guard's morale-battalion
.. I thought you want the kind of ship-names... about Gabe and Armor
8142856 You can share those too if you want
8149548 naturally I found this out after I read the next chapter
8165006 Much obliged
Not sure I get the joke here. This isn't a subtle reference to Ask Mutalee, is it?
Gabe went into the... Crystal War timeline, and became an admiral? I guess that's cool? Prosthetics are canon in that timeline. Also they were allowing foals to enlist, so Gabe'd be pretty much set!