Having survived their trail by fire as drafted soldiers of the Legion, Trixie, Blossomforth, and Coco Pommel have been assigned to a newly formed unit called the Underwatch. Its purpose; to investigate and counter the newly discovered threat of a race of giant underground dwelling spiders referred to in Legion folklore as the Lurkers. Now part of a patchwork unit made up of various Legionnaires from all across the Barrier Lands, Trixie and her friends must contend with the extreme personalities of their comrades as much as the danger they'll be facing in investigating the machinations of their arachnid adversaries.
This is a sequel story to Legionnaires of Equestria, and is based upon the Upheaval series by Visiden Visidane.
Chapters (7)
Awesome to see this start.
Great, fantastic chapter. Sorry for the double comments, I just wanted to point out quickly that you've got a mix up with the two Legionnaires that Coco and co. fought. Were they a mare and a stallion or two stallions?
You've come up with some interesting lore here and it's been quite a ride so far.
What you have here for this chapter though is an unnecessarily long runway. This fic is tagged as a sequel so it's safe to assume that readers will have read the first part. They don't need a detailed summary here on what happened in the previous story and how the main characters currently relate.
Fat chance they'll report it. Starting shit with the chosen can easily be seen as sabotaging reunification, which is punishable as treason as stated in Reckoning. Forget latrines, they'll stand a good chance of getting shipped back to the Barrier Lands to hang. Why they would be cartoonishly bullying in the face of such possible consequences, I'm not sure.
You need to be careful with Blackwall's development. The story doesn't really need a rehash of Coldiron's development.
If she's referring to her trip to the Eternal Herd, it makes little sense for her to be researching in a library. She'd be with Celestia, Terrato, and Luna, getting a crash course on Herd protocol.
Looking forward to more.
7410730
Ah, thanks for the catch there, man. Got it fixed up.
7411357
Glad you're enjoying it so far. I made a few adjustments here and there based on what you said. Coldiron mentioning the severity of starting a fight with the Chosen, and in Twilight's case, making her motivations for being in the library being about just calming her nerves.
I've been wondering, will Blossomforth get a prosthetic set of wings like with Rainbow Dash in that war with Sombra AU?
This was great, I enjoyed the reasoning you're giving Blackwall for her dislike of the Heartlanders' joining the Legion, it has the makings of a more complicated issue than it seems at first.
Really interesting.
Got a really good horror vibe with this one. Very The Exorcist in execution.
We know of the Lurkers and have seen what they can do, but they're still creepy.
How did I miss you starting this?
Oh never mind. It's time to read.
Okay. I am all caught up and ready for more.
Awesome to see this update. I saw a couple typos, like 'grimer' for 'grimmer' and at one point you misplaced the m on the end of a sentence ending with 'them'. I like the contrast between Allie Way and Blackwall and am curious to see that dynamic develop.
7647731
Glad you liked it. I'll see if I can track down those typos.
7647759
Here
and here
7647765
Thank you.
A "l" went missing from the end of Blackwall's name.
7648259
Thanks, got it fixed.
Poor little filly...
So yeah, caught up on this recently and am curious to see where it's heading towards. These spiders don't play fair.
Kinda sad to see so many ponies get beat down by the constant hardships they face. I'm hoping they'll get a break after all of this. There any vacation spots in this world? I hear the changeling hive is particularly lovely this time of year.
If the main OCs of this series, as well as Blossomforth and Allie Way, were voiced, what would they sound like? ...Leyshi sounds like Sonata Dusk, right?
If she hadn't decided to go with her friends, Allie could probably work well in a field artillery unit.
Finally caught up. And have to say I love the world you've written, a peeve of mine is when writers concoct raises and cultures that are consciously evil as antagonists. No culture (that lasts) is based on that kind of morals, what they do makes perfect sense to them and often is considered good. They just have drastically different values and norms. With the Ursans and Aranae they make sense, you can believe a culture could function with them and it's addicting to read.
An aside though, wow that Blackwall is a killing machine. The mane cast had a tough fight taking on a single low caste lurker, and warriors took down a bunch of the Arrow Vale fighters without a loss. Aranae overtook a whole village in the last book and now despite being surprised Blackwell took down three? Damn...
Is it just me, or are the Lurkers more sympathetic and relatable than the Legion?
More like the Legion are a bunch of cheap jerks.
Damn, Allie Way is tougher than she could have thought. Here's to hoping they get back before the lurkers can act.
Thanks for the update.
Hurrah! A return! Looks like a lot of plans are going to come crashing together soon. I do wonder what Leyshi's reaction was to the news that something mutated a pony into an almost-Lurker. Particularly with the experiments being conducted to better give them pony magic. Great chapter!
I don't care how brave you think you are, who the hell would see a clearing full of giant spider webs and not run for the hills? Much less the giant spider corpse (dead or not, I wouldn't stick around if I saw that).
Wonder what the shard did? Did it show her the Aranean plans, drain her magic, both? Hope they can snap her out of it and tell the Legion where this is so they can retrieve the shard.
I agree with Visiden that the recap portion of his chapter wasn't needed. It made sense to recap Breaking Point in the first story because you wanted it to be accessible to people who had not read it. Here though, most people will be coming from the first story and are well aware of what happened so it seems pointless.
Oh and to what "local brews" is Blackwall referring? The Heartland had little to no alcohol before the Barrier land ponies brought it with him. The reintroduction of alcohol to the Heartland was causing problems throughout the events of Reckoning.
Glad to see Trixie make peace with Twilight though it makes me wonder when, in Upheaval's timeline this story takes place? Is it still during Reckoning or have we gone passed Reckoning and into Journeys (only Upheaval story I've yet to read barring this one)?
So the Aranean Queen is likely from some other heavenly realm. Perhaps since the Aranea don't have magic normally, the shards are the pieces of whatever the Queen used to get there in the first place? Hopefully you name the Queen soon, I don't want to just address her by title for the remainder of the story.
Chizrane is considering usurping the Queen? Given the strength normally displayed by the immortal/divine members of each race, that might not end well Chizrane.
Aranea vs Ursans was well done though Regarna is starting to seem just a little too OP for right now.
You know the Underwatch should have recruited a True Earth Pony. Given they're going underground where there should be an abundance of ley energy to channel. Though they're not the easiest lot to get along with so that might explain that.
Well that's not good, Autumn Leaf has managed to get herself possessed by the will that inhabits the shards. But hey at least now that they've figured that out, they can fix her right? Right? They just need to exorcise that shit, BE GONE FOUL DEMON, THE POWER OF LUNA COMPELS YOU!
Hopefully they can resolve this situation and find the shard before Leyshi and the other Aranea get there. Also how long until our heroes learn the Aranea have an actual name and start using it? They have the decency to call the other races by their actual names and Coldiron should already know what they're called.
That struck me as more Bloodborne, Bleach or Claymore than Residen Evil or The Thing. What with Autumn Leaf being able to hold on to at least enough control of herself to ask to be killed. Given Upheaval's heavy Dark/Demon Souls influence, Bloodborne is probably the most appropriate comparison especially as this was like a reverse of the Father Gascoigne scenario only with the daughter transforming instead.
Don't feel bad Allie Way, it's one thing to fight viscous monsters, it's another thing entirely when said monster is another pony. I'm spotting some death (possible sacrifice) flags waving over Allie Way or Blackwall. Hope they kick sufficient chitin before they kick the bucket?
Oh no Leyshi is going to torture the info out of somepony, didn't know she had it in her.
If I were Ulragnok, I would just seal that particular tunnel entrance and regroup my forces. Let the Aranea come to me, it doesn't take the genius to know that giving someone the home field advantage is never a good idea and someone who has just recently suffered a big lose because he underestimated the ponies should know that.
I'm not even sure why he's so insistent n destroying this group of Aranea in particular. Even if you slaughter all of them, there's more underground and all you get for your trouble is having your forces whittled down even more. He even admits that he's being a damn fool but he does it anyway, his pride is going to be the death of him and his horde at this rate.
Well now the Underwatch have found the shard at least, hopefully no one took Snakebite's joke seriously and actually poked it. Come on guys, put two and two together, that shard is not friendly.
Gotta give props to Blackwall for putting up a fight at least but god damn it Allie Way pretty much asked for that to happen. Never tempt fate Allie Way, I can only hope Leyshi at least doesn't see the point in killing you two.
Well I'm caught up and yeah Allie Way is definitely going to do some sort of "heroic sacrifice" to redeem herself for this. Not that there's much to redeem herself for, especially since they can now report Leyshi and the Aranean presence, they know that they are after the Shards and that there's more than one so they can start looking for the others.
If Allie Way didn't talk, they wouldn't know why the Aranea are here and Allie Way's own guilt and shame are punishment enough in this instance, weather she was a Barrier Land mare or a Heartland one. Point is ponies got just as much out of this exchange of information as the Aranea did so there is no grounds to punish Allie Way any further.
Hope to see more of the Ursans vs Aranea soon, can't wait for the next update.
8764180
HI, and glad you've been liking the story so far, despite a few hiccups with the consistency between this story and the original Upheaval series. Wish I could give an ETA on the next update, but I'll admit I've been running into some snags on how to best proceed with this story. Still got a plan for where I want it go, but getting it there is confounding me somewhat. Still, its next on my priority list for chapters to finish among my various stories, with the exception of Friendship Souls which I keep trying to maintain a schedule on. Hoping to break past my block on this one soon, though, and your comments have certainly helped give me things to think about, so thank you.
Any chance for an update soon?
9348959
Sadly it might be awhile on this one. I have every intention to finish this story, but for the moment it's on the back burner while I try to finish some of my older stories. Once I finish one of those, it'll open up time in my writing schedule to get back to this one. I am sorry for the delay on this, but it's just a necessity due to the number of stories I'm currently working on. But as I said, I will get back to this one, just not in the immediate future.
I'm thinking that the Aranea are similar to the Tou Te from The Great Wall in that "from the heavens" might be from space.
Also the shards are probably extra dimensional rifts or tears.
It would be pretty cool if someone is turned into a half spider. Maybe they accidentally touch the shard?
9349013
Well, still hoping you get inspiration for this one soon.
10202934
I do feel pretty bad about how long this story has gone without an update, but while it's time will come, I'm having to force myself to prioritize to a degree when it comes to the stories I have that need finishing. To peel back the curtain a bit, here's more or less how my current plans are:
I've got five stories that are in my field of focus for finishing, but can only actively work on two at any given time on a kind of two week schedule where one week I focus on one story, then one week on the other. Now, of those two weeks, one is always dedicated heavily towards Friendship Souls, as it's got my biggest audience, and is the only one I've kept a regular schedule one, while the second week has, in the past, had a rotation of dedication between the other four stories: Trigger to Tomorrow, Contest of Champions, Underwatch, and most recently a batch of stories based on The Bridge.
Recently I changed tactics, however, since that previous method led to such infrequent updates to the other four stories, where I decided I'd pick two stories out of those remaining four to be focused on alongside Friendship Souls, as a means of being able to finish them sooner, then when the other two's time came they'd have more room for me to focus on them. Contest of Champions and The Bridge based stories were the two I decided to focus on finishing first, since I had only a few chapters left to go on Contest, and had an active interest with The Bridge stories, so the idea was that this would lead to them being finished sooner.
So currently the plan is that as soon as Contest of Champions is done, which should be relatively soon with only about two chapters left, I'll use that open slot to resume work on Underwatch. I haven't left the story for dead, even if it might look that way given how long it's been. I've just had a lot of other stories soaking up my attention, but once I manage to knock one or two of those out, Underwatch will get it's turn, and when it does instead of one chapter infrequently, I'll be able to do regular chapters until it's finished. That's the plan, at any rate.
10202972
How many thousands of words per week do you write? You seem to have a pretty impressive volume w/that many stories!
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It varies, but I generally manage around 8000 a week. Sometimes more if I get on a decent roll, sometimes less if I'm not feeling it that week, but I'd say 8000 is the average.
Is this story dead? It's a shame. You have an interesting set-up.
10575018
Not dead, per se, but its lower in the list of stories I'm focusing on. Basically until I wrap one or two of my other stories, this one will have to wait. I do intend to finish it, but its effectively on hiatus until a spot opens up in my writing allotment to fit it in.
I just realised where Coco got the barbarian levels.
She's a mad hatter.
I've been on the internet too long, this read like shipping bait.