Revelations
“Let me guess. Monsters?” Raindrop asked, with a long-suffering sigh.
“Nope, griffins. Maybe two dozen.” Sentinel pointed with a hoof out the window. “They’ll be on us in about five, maybe ten minutes.”
“Great. Once. Just once, I’d like to be able to do something for Celestia without the end result being massive injuries,” Raindrop said with a shake of her head.
Sentinel turned to Wisp. “What are the weakest points on the ship, structurally? Where would they likely attack first?”
“There’s heaps of them!” Wisp declared, looking out the window herself, ignoring the question.
“Yes, but where will they attack?” Sentinel asked, tapping the griffin to try and get her attention.
“Everywhere!” Wisp complained, bouncy in agitation. “They’ll attack everywhere and ruin my beautiful new ship!”
“We can defend against them,” Sentinel tried to assure the young griffin. “But I need to know where we need to defend.”
“But... I... The reaction chamber, I guess. And the control room. So long as we keep both of those I guess they’d have to sever the lines connecting us to the balloons to bring us down... But even then, that would take a fair while,” Wisp said, frowning thoughtfully. “And I’d be able to close the main valves, so long as they don’t get at the reaction chamber itself and remove it.”
“So they’ll attack the reaction chamber and the control room first?” Sentinel asked, ears perking at her.
“Yup!” Wisp said confidently.
“Can’t we just... Outrun them?” Raindrop asked wearily. “I really don’t want to get pecked to pieces. It just seems really unnecessary.”
“Do you think we can outrun them and get over the border to Equestria before they reach us?” Sentinel asked of the young griffin.
“I... Don’t know how far Equestria is. If I push the engine any further, I’d be risking breaching the tubes, and then we’d be dead in the air,” Wisp complained, bouncing again in annoyance.
Sentinel frowned a moment, and then looked at the young griffin seriously. “If you run the engine at full, we’ll still retain our speed, right? Even if the pipes burst?”
“I... Guess so. But my airship will be ruined!” Wisp whined, pushing at him with her paws.
“I’ll help you get another one,” Sentinel promised. “But first, I need to know if you can overload the pipes deliberately, all at once.”
Wisp’s eyes went wide. “But that’d cause steam to vent into the interior of the airship!”
“Yes, but if you closed the valves leading into the control room, and then overloaded the piping from the control room itself...”
Wisp’s eyes went even wider, and she began to bounce. “Yes yes yes! That’ll work! That’ll work!”
And with that, Wisp was off, bolting into the hallway and disappearing.
“Why do I get the feeling that something bad is going to happen?” Raindrop asked, her ears splaying back a little bit.
“Trust that feeling,” Sentinel said, as he followed Wisp out into the corridor.
Everything was set.
Raindrop, Sentinel, and Wisp all sat in front of the consoles in the control room, waiting.
Several thuds echoed from overhead, and then came the screeching of claws on metal, as griffins began to grimly claw their way along to access hatches that lined the airship.
“This is going to end badly and we’re all going to die horribly,” Raindrop stated flatly.
“We’ll be taking a lot of griffins with us,” Sentinel reasoned with a wry grin.
Raindrop huffed a moment, and then turned sideways, pulling Sentinel around to face her, and then kissing him passionately, wrapping her hooves around him to stop him from getting away.
Sentinel allowed the kiss, giving a hum of pleased surprise.
Raindrop drew back from the kiss, and then glowered at him, and then stating darkly. “I swear, if we live through this, I am dragging you to the inn.”
“If we live through this, I’ll let you,” Sentinel said grimly, casting a wary glance at the pipes overhead.
“You two are such a cute couple,” Wisp said with a wry grin, looking back and forth between them, bouncing happily in place. “I mean, you totally have that tsundere thing going to a ‘t’, and it’s really, really cu-”
The young griffin was cut off by Raindrop’s hoof over her beak. “Save it for when we survive. There’s lots of angry griffins about to tear us to pieces.”
Several more thumps echoed from above, and the first of the hatches lining the airship were thrown open. From their angle, the trio couldn’t see the corridors, but it was assumed that griffins would be entering about now.
“Do we really have a tsundere thing going on?” Sentinel asked of Raindrop, raising an eyebrow.
“I... Guess? Raindrop answered conversationally. “I mean, I do tend to hit you a lot.”
“But you haven’t hit me in ages. I don’t even think I have any bruises from the last time you hit me,” Sentinel said, humming thoughtfully to himself.
“So... It’s not tsundere then?” Raindrop gave an exasperated sound, shaking her head.
Sentinel nodded once, before quipping, “I don’t think so. Not any more. It’s more like you’re just a dominatrix.”
“I’m giving you a black eye if we get out of this,” Raindrop stated flatly.
“Annnd back to tsundere,” Sentinel teased, beaming.
“Can we focus?” Raindrop asked, and Wisp leaned past her to point.
“Look!” the young griffin pointed, to the corridors.
In front of the corridors, they had erected makeshift barricades, consisting of metal beams supporting the cut crystal doors that usually protected the main reaction chamber area. They were placed in such a way that getting a grip on them and pulling was out of the question, so the griffins would have to smash through them. A difficult prospect at best.
And a griffin was standing behind one of these barricades, watching them.
Wisp reached for a lever, but Sentinel stopped her with a hoof.
“Wait,” Sentinel cautioned. “We want as many to be inside as possible before we throw the lever.”
Wisp nodded tentatively, her ears pinning backwards. “I want to throw the lever though! I’m not letting anyone else kill my baby!”
Sentinel gave a soothing nod, “I’ll let you throw the lever, promise.”
A second griffin joined the first, and then a third, and fourth. And then they began to push on the crystal, using their considerable strength to try and force the barricade to cave in.
“Now?” Wisp asked urgently.
Sentinel paused a moment, letting the seconds tick by, before nodding grimly. “Throw the switch.”
Raindrop and Sentinel both ducked and covered, and Wisp reached for the lever, gripping it tight and tugging it down, all the way. She grabbed a control panel connected to the console by a length of wires, and then threw herself between the two pegasi. Both Raindrop and Sentinel huddled close, protecting the griffin with their bodies.
Several things happened with the throwing of the lever. Firstly, the pressure building in the tank above the reaction chamber was released. The tank was built to handle stresses far higher than the pipes were, and with the released pressure, it sent a great amount of steam powering into the pipes.
Simultaneously, the limiters placed on the reaction chamber were opened fully, letting the too-large crystal burn to its full power. Almost instantly, the pressure became too much for the pipes. Steam just continued to explode through the open valves, deliberately over-stressing the system.
And then the breaches came. First in one spot, and then another, and another.
Great, loud bangs heralded the failing of the pipes. Screams of agony echoed from the corridors as shards of magically strengthened metal exploded into the corridors and rooms lining the airship, followed by waves of steam. After a few bangs, the corridors were completely filled with steam.
Wisp stared down at her control console, and the lights on it, before twisting dials, closing valves leading to broken pipes. It wasn’t a measure designed to save the ship, it was a plan to cause more breaches by not allowing the steam pressure to diminish by escaping through the breaches.
More bangs echoed throughout the airship, and more steam was released. Wisp continued to fiddle with the dials, closing valve after valve, increasing the pressure as the overall amount of water, and steam, left in the system began to drop dangerously low.
The two pipes outside the control room burst with a surprisingly powerful pressure wave, cracking both of the crystal dividers, peppering their smooth surfaces with shrapnel and covering them in spider webs.
Wisp dropped the console then, covering her ears. “We’re out of pressure! It’s all gone!”
Underneath them, the main turbine was slowing, losing speed. The airship was suddenly an oversized glider with a buoyant set of balloons atop it.
And then, everything was quiet. Eerily quiet.
“Do you think we got them all?” Wisp asked, rubbing her forehead with a paw. It was getting hot inside the cabin.
“I hope so,” Sentinel said grimly, climbing to his hooves. Raindrop followed him.
Past the cracked crystal dividers, the corridors were all wreathed in steam. “Closest hatch is just over there, right?”
Sentinel pointed with a hoof, raising a brow back at Wisp.
Wisp nodded in response. “They opened it already.”
“Good, we’re leaving. We need to get outside of this room. Hopefully we caused enough confusion, and that storm is coming up fast,” Sentinel said, turning and then kicking the crystal divider with both hooves.
Normally, he wouldn’t have been strong enough to even mar the surface of the crystal, but with it already under sever stress from the pipe explosion, it caved in easily, sending crystal shards clattering across the floor. Steam began to billow into the cabin. “Let’s go!”
Sentinel, Raindrop, and Wisp all fled the cabin, and headed for the first hatch, finding it with blind groping and pulling themselves outside, getting in a good breath of fresh air after the clammy, swirling steam of the interior.
Raindrop was barely outside for a moment, with Wisp climbing up the side of the airship, and Sentinel below her, when she felt a hot rush across her cheek. Blood suddenly covered her eye, and she cried out in pain, a hoof lifting to her struck cheek.
A griffin war cry echoed, and a second attack came from the other side, slicing into her back, just above her folded wings. Raindrop roared in pain, feeling blood start to seep down over her wings.
Another war cry was called, but Raindrop was ready this time, flattening herself to the side of the airship. The whoosh of a talon passed close by, almost nicking her fur. The wind was too strong for Raindrop to open her wings, or she’d be plucked right off the side of the airship. It was howling, assaulting her form. Her eyes watered with the force of it. They were going fast.
There was a push at her rump as Sentinel urged her to move, and Raindrop began to climb upwards. She had to dodge again as another griffin tried to attack her.
And then, she was on the deck, pulling herself up onto stable ground.
She caught sight of Wisp, disappearing into what appeared to be a tiny cargo hold on the deck, so that she could hide. Raindrop didn’t blame her one bit.
Several thuds were heard as three griffins landed on the deck, all of them moving to surround the pegasus.
“We’re taking you back,” one of the hissed.
“Don’t like the desert, myself,” Raindrop said conversationally, stepping backwards.
The three griffins followed after her, “You belong with us.”
There was a screech as one of the griffins was dragged off the side of the airship and thrown into the howling winds below.
“She belongs with me!” Sentinel said, as he grimly crawled up onto the side of the airship, moving to stand beside Raindrop.
Raindrop gave Sentinel a wry smile. “That was kinda corny.”
“Shut up, I’m being a hero!” Sentinel said urgently to her over the wind, shaking his head.
The two griffins snorted, stepping closer, one of them lifting a paw to swipe at Sentinel.
Sentinel burst forwards. One moment, he was standing beside Raindrop, the next, he was at the griffin’s throat. his hoof hit the raised paw, blocking it, while his other hoof caught the griffin in the throat with a surprisingly strong blow. The griffin’s beak gaped, and it gasped a moment, giving a breathy hiss of seeming surprise. Sentinel pushed it sideways with his forehooves, causing it to tumble off the side of the airship, caught in the howling wind.
Sentinel then turned to the griffin.
The griffin stared for a long moment, and then took a step backwards. It looked the guard up and down, and then snorted, before turning and launching itself off the side of the ship, wings spreading to catch the wind and carry it to safety.
“Wow, even griffins don’t wanna mess with you,” Raindrop said over the wind, sounding impressed.
Sentinel turned to look behind himself, his eyes widening.
“Jump,” Sentinel squeaked.
“What?!” Raindrop called over the wind.
“Jump!” Sentinel reiterated, louder and more urgently.
Raindrop twisted to look over her shoulder, and her eyes widened as well. The side of a mountain was rushing at them with stunning speed. Turning back to face the front, Raindrop danced across the deck of the airship, reached into where Wisp was hiding, and tugged her out bodily, tossing her over the side of the ship without explanation.
And then both pegasi leaped off after her.
Their wings spread, catching the air. Raindrop snarled at the strain it put on the cut on her back that she had completely forgotten about until that moment. Both pegasi went into a steep dive, catching Wisp as she was tumbling, one hoof each on her coat, supporting her weight between them.
They backwinged to a gentle landing on a mountainside as the airship smashed into the side of the mountain not too far away. The entire front half of it just crumpled under the impact, compressing like an accordion, before it began to slowly fall and tumble its way down the mountainside.
“That can still be salvaged,” Sentinel said reasonably, watching it fall.
Wisp gave a nod, “As long as the reaction chamber wasn’t breached or the crystal wasn’t damaged.”
All three of them ducked, wincing, as a massive explosion ripped through the centre of the airship, lighting up the night sky with a ferociously intense fireball. They even felt the heat where they sat, hundreds of metres away.
“I guess the crystal was ruptured...” Sentinel said softly, shaking his head. He turned to Wisp, who was watching the burning fireball with wide eyes. “I’m sorry about your airship, Wisp.”
Wisp blinked once, and then turned to look at him, her expression blank. “Are you freaking kidding me?! That was the coolest thing I ever saw! It exploded! And it was so big! And I felt it from here! Oh please can we do it again?!”
Wisp bounced in place, pointing excitedly towards the rising fireball. Sentinel chuckled, and Raindrop joined in with a giggle of her own, wiping the blood from her eye.
It was perhaps because they were so focused on the explosion that the three of them forgot that they were being pursued by the griffins. Or perhaps they thought they would safe on Equestrian soil?
The last thing Raindrop saw before being knocked unconscious was Wisp pausing mid-bounce, staring somewhere behind behind the mare.
Raindrop groaned, stirring faintly. The first thing she noticed was that her hooves were bound in place.
Blinking her good eye open, the other being encrusted with blood, she cast her gaze around. She could see the form of Sentinel next to her, and Wisp further out. Both of them seemed to be unconscious.
“Oh, I see you’re awake,” a familiar voice said, a low laugh tinging it.
Raindrop raised her head and peered with one eye at Discord, blinking slowly, trying to process what was going on. He was surrounded by a small group of diamond dogs, griffins, and even a dark guard.
“It was very nimble of you to escape my assassin here. He’s never failed, you know,” Discord said conversationally, looking Raindrop up and down. “I had intended to just be rid of you, and those nuisance Elements of Harmony. They’re about the only thing that can stop me, now.”
Raindrop worked her mouth for a moment, swallowing thickly and trying to lift her head properly.
“You’re probably wondering why you’re not dead yet. Well, I figured I’d give you a choice to join your true family. If you choose to turn your back on your family, you will be killed,” Discord said calmly.
Raindrop muttered something, blinking slowly.
“Speak up, child,” Discord stated flatly.
“I said ‘I’ll never join you, Discord’,” Raindrop said louder, her head lolling slightly as she tried to shake the drowziness from her form.
“Ohohoho... You still haven’t figured it out yet, have you?” Discord asked, standing up and beginning to pace back and forth. “I must say, I found it hard to fathom why Chrysalis chose to reveal herself to the ponies at large. But now that I am in the same position, I will admit that there is a certain excited smugness I feel in knowing that I can reveal myself completely. So long have I hid in the shadows. Waiting. Watching. Biding my time.”
“Celestia already knows you’re free,” Raindrop said, with as much smugness as she could.
“Ohohohoho. I think Celestia suspects the truth, but has no evidence,” Discord said calmly, before making a motion towards the corner of the room.
Raindrop followed the motion, blinking a few times with her good eye. A statue stood there, looking scared and out of place.
It was Discord.
Raindrop turned back the Discord in front of her, frowning, not quite comprehending.
Discord made a motion with a paw, and the griffins, the diamond dogs, and even the dark guard assassin all changed in front of her eyes.
The faux-Discord leaned close, and his eyes flashed demonic green. A toothy grin stretched his muzzle as his form twisted and changed. Suddenly, it was no longer Discord.
The dark queen lifted her head, giving a fanged grin.
Raindrop stared up at her, stunned. Speechless.
The dark queen waved a hoof at her changed subjects. Her ‘Children’
“My name is Chitin. And I am the Queen of the Changelings.”
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1035446 Keep reading...Revelations just dropped
What a
!
Have to admit, I didn't see this one coming. Good on you, Anon, for throwing me for a loop!
FUCKING TWEEEEST
I'm sure some will have seen that coming but I sure as hell didn't. I await more with bated breath.
1035449 okay, did not see that coming...
WWWWHHHHAAATTT?! WHAT A TWIST! Never saw that coming. Thought they were all dead! Okay now I am waiting for the next chapter like there is no tomorrow! ... And cliffhanger.
1035484>>1035493>>1035502>>1035526
And here I thought Rarity's voice in the Diamond Dog tunnels was a dead giveaway. Apparently not.
1035538 How long has it been since then, Anon?
1035553 Exactly 20 chapters and 9 or so weeks.
1035538 ... Rarity meant Changling Queen.... um, nope no giveaway!
well...shit.
... I was wondering... I mean... I only thought about it from... two blog posts ago, but it occurred to me that we had no way of knowing for sure that Chrysie was the last changeling period, so... Only very slightly shocked, if at all. Still, looking forward to moar, of course.
Attention, attention! Everypony evacuate the story! The bomb has been dropped, I repeat, the bomb has been dropped!
I eagerly await more. Any idea when the next chapter will drop? Please be soon?
Hate to sound smug, but I never thought it was actually Discord...
1035538 Hate to kill it, but I kinda figured it was bound to happen. Besides, why else would Raindrops 'otherside' just randomly flare up. If it was an age thing, it would've happned at her gaining her cutie mark, or going through pony puberty or something. That and with Rares dead already... You didn't think you could pull one over on me, did you?
This is getting old. But a love/hate relision is what i want
how did you update this fast! you had to be drafting all this while you were gone cause there is no way you typed all this in one day and didn't just post it as one long ass chapter.
DA FUUUUUUUUK
I did NOT expect this. I truly believed that Changelings were extinct (minus Raindrops). And I thought it was the real Discord - call me crazy - manipulating Rarity's ghost.
Yeah.
So. Awesome.
And so I don't feel left out: "What a tweest!
"
OH FUCK, DUDE
SENTINEL IS EVIL!?! WHA-
*reads chapter*
... That was my second guess :c
(And wow you just keep pumping these chapters out O_o)
Wow. I did not see that coming. Excellent plot
I was so wrong
! I though Chrysalis was somehow back from the dead. Oh well. On with the story!
okay I knew changelings were involved but i didn't expect them to fake discord
that's new
I think now we can say that the shit has well and truly hit the fan. I'm so excited!
And this is like 20 chapters late....because I keep forgetting to post it (don't question me, my memory sux sometimes).....but I have a question. You said that only the bearers of the Elements of Harmony could activate them. Well, when Raindrop first found the Element of Loyalty it was active and Chitin/Rarity was telling Spike to use its power. Does that mean we can officially start calling Spike the new Rainbow Dash?
1036406 It's gonna be a hook that he can mess with the elements because he's a dragon, and because he spent so much time around their former bearers.
1036406 your pun amuses me,
Also, CALLED IT!!! Knew changlings were involved, mostly cause of the rarity thing, since she was dead. And 2) the entire statue of discord was gone, and in the series, only the form of discord was gone.
1036675 Actually, it was hollow.
1036632 Now you're going to make Spike sad.....
i.qkme.me/354dkw.jpg
He was really looking forward to it this time around.
In hindsight, that should have been obvious.
1035449 I'll admit. I did not see that twist coming at all. Like many others, I just assumed all the changelings were wiped out. Can't wait to see how this little revelation gets wrapped up.
>spend ages making airship
>finally get it flying
>crashes and explodes
>"coolest thing I ever saw!"
And that's why Wisp is best Gryphon.
WHAT. THE. ACTUAL. FUCK.
1035538 It would have been, if we'd known it was Rarity's voice.
1035538 I thought it was Discord disguised a Rarity, but it seems I was wrong again.
Also, to this chapter.....
dl-web.dropbox.com/get/Flutterwtf.gif?w=22cd4a1b
did anyone else feel like it was a Doctor Who moment when the Queen introduced herself or was that just me?