Chapter 11
Eight days had passed since Everfree Village started preparing for war, and it seemed like everyone wanted to know everything about fighting, tactics, etc., whether they would be serving in the Everfree Platoon or not. In the case of Spirit and Twilight, that meant playing a variant of Ogres and Oubliettes next to Blueblood’s pit during lunch.
“My pegasi attack your earth pony heavy infantry.” Spirit picked up the twenty sided die and rolled it.
Twilight let out a sigh of relief when the die landed on a three. “You missed.”
“Oh, don’t get too comfortable.” He leaned over the board and moved another piece into position. “Now my earth ponies are attacking from the mountain, which gives them a plus two circumstance bonus, and you’re taking a minus two penalty to AC for being flanked.” He rolled the die again and grinned. Seventeen. “I hit. Now for the damage.” Another roll. Fourteen. “And there go the last of your earth ponies.” Spirit leaned back smugly. “You two may as well surrender. I control the pass, and there’s no way your unicorn archers will be able to take it.”
“I told you we should have played more defensively,” Blueblood called from his pit.
Twilight shifted in her seat so that she could look down at him. “You’re the one who suggested that last push.”
“I can’t see the board down here,” he said. “How was I supposed to know that he was in a position to flank us?”
“By talking with your partner, obviously.” Spirit started gathering up the game pieces. “That’s the whole point of these gaming sessions.”
“And what, may I ask, is the point of leaving me stuck down here?” Blueblood pushed aside the remnants of his lunch and stood up. “Was it to test my intelligence? Any idiot would know that the only way to escape is to build a stairway from dirt and mud.” He emphasized his point by slapping another hoofful of mud onto the crude stairs he’d been working on. “As far as I can tell, this is nothing more than humiliation for its own sake.”
“Blueblood,” Twilight said gently, “no one thinks you’re stupid, and we aren’t trying to humiliate you. This is supposed to teach you self-reliance and how to cope with stressful situations. You barely seem to notice the mud on your coat anymore.”
“How wonderful,” Blueblood said, his voice thick with sarcasm.
“What’s wonderful?” Fluttershy asked, walking up to Spirit and Twilight’s table. She looked exhausted and was covered in sweat, but as always, she’d brought a bag from the kitchen.
“Princess Twilight wants me to rely on her but also on myself,” Blueblood said. “You do realize that those are conflicting goals, don’t you?”
Fluttershy frowned. “I don’t see how.” She walked to the pit and flew down, offering the brown paper bag to Blueblood. “I brought desert for you. I’m sorry, I know you don’t like apple and cream tarts, but it’s all they had today.”
Spirit was already preparing a retort for whatever mean thing Blueblood said, but to his surprise, the stallion accepted the bag without complaint.
“Thank you, Lady Fluttershy. Your thoughtfulness is appreciated and starkly in contrast to the half-baked schemes of some other members of this village.” He glared up at Twilight. “How am I even supposed to rely on my own strengths without my magic?” He flicked the inhibitor ring on his horn.
“Um, please don’t be angry at Twilight,” Fluttershy said. “You can do a lot more than you realize, even without magic, and she’s just trying to help you see that, but you also can’t do everything alone. That’s why we need to communicate and work together.”
“Exactly,” Spirit said. He gestured at the mud stairs, which nearly reached the pit’s edge. “I mean, you’ll be out of there by today if you keep working, and then you’ll join in team matches with Fluttershy and the others. Their lives could literally depend on you at some point, so of course they’ll want to know that you’re tough and smart enough to do your job, but they’ll also be protecting and supporting you, so you need to know how to rely on them. Besides, you’ll be able to tell people that you were part of an elite team of warriors. Maybe we can even get Celestia to give you the Star Medallion for bravery or something.”
“I’ll be taking a shower and two bubble baths once I’m out of here,” Blueblood said, “but … if I get out in time, I suppose I can help Lady Fluttershy and the rest of the team, except for Fire Eyes. It would serve her right if something burned her head spikes off.”
It was better than nothing. Hay, it was better than Spirit had expected. “Right, well we should get back to the lab. Good luck, Blueblood.”
“Oh, Twilight, Spirit, could you two wait up for a moment?” Fluttershy asked. She gave Blueblood a hug and an encouraging smile before flying up to join them. “Have either of you two seen Cliff anywhere? He wasn’t at the house for lunch, and I didn’t see him in the cafeteria either.”
“He was at the recovery station in the lab the last time I saw him,” Spirit said.
Fluttershy blushed. “Um, if you get a chance, could you tell him that … I’d like it if he came home for dinner?”
Something clicked in Spirit’s head. “Oh right, you’re in heat.”
Twilight smacked him, a light blush on her cheeks. “You don’t have to say it out loud.”
“What?” Spirit asked. “I’m not being lewd or anything. It’s just a fact.” He turned back to Fluttershy. “Don’t worry, I’ll let him know.”
Fluttershy was blushing furiously, but she gave him a weak smile. “Thank you.” Then she took off.
Spirit and Twilight walked back to the Castle of the Two Sisters in silence. They were almost to the door before Twilight finally spoke up. “Do you know where Autumn is? I haven’t seen her all day.”
“She’s going over our supplies for the march north,” Spirit replied. Both he and Autumn had been placed in charge of logistics for the army, which basically meant that they had to worry about getting equipment, maintaining it, and keeping everyone fed. Not the most glamorous job, but it had to be done.
Twilight wrapped a wing around his shoulders. “I know you must miss her, but it’s nice to spend some quality time with my little brother.”
Spirit patted her wing with one hand. “I suppose there is that advantage.”
They reached the lab and got back to work on what Twilight had dubbed the ‘Magic Amplifying Enchanted Battle Armor, Version Eight.’ Spirit preferred his own name, ‘The Armor of Unfairness.’
“How’s it going, Crusaders?” Spirit asked. As usual, the four had opted to work through their lunch break.
Apple Bloom, who was covered in grease and sweat, wiped her brow with a work rag. “I just finished modifyin’ the assemblers we built last month. They’ll give us the pieces we need for each of the types of suits, but we’ll have to assemble them and put the enchanted parts in ourselves.”
“Which shouldn’t be too hard,” Scootaloo said. “All the enchanted parts were designed so that they could be added or removed easily.” As usual, she was wearing a magic battery, but she also had on a vest full of tools. Like her friend, she was liberally coated in grease and sweat.
Sweetie Belle smiled, even though there were dark circles under her eyes from lack of sleep. “Whisper and I are nearly done with the enchanting circles.” She pointed to several dozen wheeled platforms with glowing circles on them. “We just need unicorns and wyrms to make them work.”
Whisper nodded from behind a stack of papers. “I’m finished with the instructions for individual enchanters.”
Spirit beamed. “You four are amazing.”
“Yes, excellent work.” Twilight took a deep breath. “I guess this is it. Contact Rarity as soon as you finish the last of the circles. The army marches in eight days, so we need to be producing at least fifteen suits per day if we want to have all of Everfree’s troops fully equipped before then.”
“Spirit,” a gruff voice called from the other side of the room, “come slap some sense into your brother.”
“Excuse me, girls.” Spirit slipped away from them and approached the recovery station that had been set up near the doors to the outside. Ten of their best medics were watching over a small group of dragons and ponies. These were the fighters whose training didn’t require them to move around at all and so had chosen to stay near the medics. Cliff was among them, as he had been all week. What was different, however, was that he was sprawled out on the stone floor, fast asleep. Spirit approached the lead medical wyrm, who had light-green scales and white head spikes. “Alright, Bone, what’s the problem?”
Bone Mender rolled his blue eyes. “My job is to keep our fighters alive and healthy. Your idiot brother seems determined to make that more difficult for me, so here,” he bent over and pulled Cliff up, shoving him at Spirit, “convince him that extreme physical and mental fatigue aren’t helping his training at all. Neither is sleeping through meals.”
Spirit stumbled back a bit under his brother’s weight. “I’ll do what I can.”
The medic just grumbled something incoherent as he walked away.
“What’s going on?” Cliff asked sleepily.
“You’re pushing yourself too hard in your training, Bro.” He adjusted his grip on the other wyrm so it would be easier to walk. “Come on, you need a break and a meal.”
Cliff didn’t complain, possibly because he didn’t want to, and possibly because he was too out of it.
Lunch had long since ended by the time they reached the cafeteria, but that was no big deal. Spirit left his brother sitting at a table and then asked the kitchen staff to see what they could scrounge up.
A few minutes later, Spirit walked back into the cafeteria with a large salad, a plate of scrambled eggs, some crystallized flowers, and a muffin. He set the tray down in front of Cliff and then sat across from him. “Okay, eat up.”
Even half awake, Cliff needed no second prompting. A side effect of recovery magic was a drastically increased metabolism. The Village had been going through nearly double as much food ever since this whole crazy training thing started.
Spirit didn’t have to wait long while Cliff destroyed his meal. “Feeling better?”
Cliff nodded tiredly. “Thanks for this. I’d better get back to training now.”
“Hold on.” Spirit grabbed his brother’s arm when he tried to rise. “I said you need to take a break too. You look like you haven’t slept in days.”
“I just haven’t been able to get much sleep lately.” Cliff didn’t meet Spirit’s gaze. “I’ll be fine.”
“Are you worried that we might have to fight these dragons?” Spirit asked.
Cliff shook his head. “No, nothing like that.”
“Then what?”
No response. No eye contact.
Spirit gripped his brother’s shoulder. “Remember back when we were living in Ponyville? You kept asking me to talk to you about the problems in my personal life, but I never did. You kept saying that you couldn’t help me unless I told you what was wrong.”
Cliff finally met his brother’s eyes. They looked at each other for a long moment, until the older dragon sighed. “Fluttershy is in heat.”
“I know, but what does that have to do with not sleeping … oh.” Spirit laughed uncomfortably. “Uh, isn’t that a good thing? I mean, a nice way to blow off steam after a long day of training?”
“A dragon’s libido was never meant to keep up with a pegasus in heat.” Cliff half-leaned, half-fell forward onto the table. His forehead made a decent thunk as it connected.
“So you’re saying that her heats are pretty strong?”
Cliff didn’t lift his head. “Did you know it’s possible for dragons to get rug burn?”
Spirit crossed his legs. “Ouch.”
Cliff nodded, scraping his muzzle across the table.
“I thought she’d be too worn out after all her physical training for too much of … you know, that.”
“Aerobic exercise has been linked to an increased sexual drive in most intelligent races.” Cliff slowly pushed himself upright. “Every day, she’s getting more than a week’s worth of exercise.”
“Wow, loved to death.” Spirit shook his head. “What a way to go.”
Cliff just slumped forward onto the table once more.
-_-_-_-_-_-
According to Twilight, the optimal length of a nap was either about fifteen minutes or over ninety. Spirit decided to let Cliff nap for the longer of those two. It was obvious that he needed the rest, even though Spirit couldn’t help but feel a little jealous of him.
Back at the lab, Twilight and the Crusaders had called in Rarity and the rest of the Village’s enchanters. They were all working like mad to produce more of the new battle suits.
Spirit wasn’t all that talented at enchanting or metalworking, but growing up around Twilight had taught him other ways to contribute. He organized all the different parts into easily available bins, outlined a schedule that would keep anyone from overworking themselves, picked up a batch of freshly charged magic batteries from Ponyville, and just generally did what he could to keep things running smoothly.
Unfortunately, he barely got to see Autumn. They were in charge of supplying very different things, after all, even though it all fell under the broad definition of logistics. Spirit’s connection with Twilight had made him the clear pick for overseeing the production of weapons and equipment. Autumn, on the other hoof, had spent most of her adult life helping her mother run a massive series of wheat farms, so having her be in charge of food was less a choice, and more of a matter of, ‘Well duh.’
After ninety minutes passed, Spirit went and shook his brother awake.
“Huh?” Cliff asked groggily.
“I said it’s time to get up.” Spirit chuckled. “Come on, we could use your help in the lab.”
Cliff got up and yawned loudly. “With what? I need to get back to my training.”
“Trust me, this is more important. We just finished putting together our first suit, and we need to know if the assembly models will work as well as the prototype.”
Cliff yawned again then nodded and motioned for Spirit to lead the way.
“By the way, Blueblood should get out of the pit today,” Spirit said as they walked down the hallway that connected to the lab.
“That’s good to hear,” Cliff half mumbled. “Team matches have been pretty rough with us being down a member.”
“Which reminds me; how’s your team doing? I don’t really get out of the lab much these days.”
“Things are going well, I guess. Sonic Rainbooms are almost as big a threat to us as to the other team, but Blueblood should be able to protect us from them. Fluttershy’s Stare is as powerful as ever, and she’s getting a lot more agile and can use wind control to help distract foes. Fire Eyes is still the master of spells that blow things up.” He shrugged. “Our only real weakness is that we don’t have much to counteract illusions.”
Spirit tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Maybe you should go up against Mom and Dad. I know they’re a scout team, but you guys could use the experience.” He wasn’t exactly a fan of the idea of sending his parents out on their own with an army of dragons on the loose, but they were uniquely qualified for the job after nearly three decades of sneaking around Equestria without ever getting caught.
Cliff nodded. “True. Maybe we could get Big Mac to join them. Not a lot of our opponents can stand up to a Sonic Rainboom.”
Spirit had to force himself not to sigh. He could certainly understand the red stallion’s decision to stay home and look after his family, but Everfree really could have used Big Mac on the battlefield.
They reached the lab. One side was covered in metalworkers, mostly earth ponies, who were rapidly assembling shaped bits of metal into suit husks. The other side was filled by enchanting circles, with wyrm and unicorn pairs working hard to produce the various parts required of them. Twilight and the Crusaders were in the center of the room, putting husks and parts together to make finished sets of armor. Meanwhile, Rarity was examining two complete sets of armor laid out on tables. One was the prototype wyrm suit and the other was a freshly manufactured one, but Spirit really couldn’t tell them apart.
“What’s the verdict?” Spirit asked as they approached.
“The enchantments seem to be working beautifully.” Rarity smiled. “Cliff, are you feeling better? We were all worried about you.”
“I’m fine,” Cliff said, “but thanks for your concern.”
“Think nothing of it.” Rarity gestured to one of the suits. “Behold, the Harmony Armor! It should provide our fighters with a remarkable advantage on the battlefield.”
Twilight looked up from her station nearby. “Actually, it’s called the Magic Amplifying Enchanted Battle Armor, Version Eight.”
“All of Whisper’s notes call it the Crusader Armor,” Sweetie Belle objected at her side.
Sitting opposite her, Whisper’s dark green scales flushed red. “I-I just thought it sounded good.”
“We should have gone with the Armor of Unfairness,” Spirit muttered before speaking up, “Look, it doesn’t matter what we call it. We just need Cliff to take it for a test run.”
Rarity cleared her throat. “Yes, quite. If you could step forward, Cliff.”
Cliff did so, and almost immediately, pieces of the suit began to detach and fly toward him. First, a chain-mail jerkin to cover his body, then detachable sleeves of chain-mail for his arms and legs, then parts of the outer armor, which all clasped together like an intricate puzzle. Finally, boots, gloves, and a helmet. In less than a minute, he was completely covered in segmented chunks of gray metal, except for holes in the helmet for his eyes, nostrils, and mouth. His head and back spikes had also been pressed flat against his body.
Rarity walked around him, studying how it all fit together. “How do you feel, Cliff, and please be honest.”
He moved and twisted around for a bit before answering. “It’s a little too big for me, and I think you forgot to have me put on the padded clothing that normally goes under something like this. The metal is kind of uncomfortable by itself.”
“No need to worry.” Rarity’s horn lit up, and a similar light surrounded Cliff. “It should fit you perfectly now.”
Cliff repeated the movements. “You’re right. That’s an impressive spell.”
Rarity glowed at the compliment. “Well, my career as a fashionista has been rather busy of late, and rapid re-sizing can be very useful for that line of work.” She approached him. “Now that it has been sized for you, we can make it more comfortable. Tap the thumb and forefinger of each hand together twice.”
He followed her instructions, and the metal seemed to melt onto him slightly. The pieces and rivets were all still visible, but the armor moved and bent with Cliff, almost like a second set of scales. Even his head spikes popped up again under the helmet. “Whoa, what happened?”
“That’s actually something we were working on for guards stationed in warmer climates,” Spirit explained. “Like you said, normal armor requires padding to be bearable. This stuff is as soft as cotton, but only on the inside.” He walked up and tapped his brother’s side. It clanged like a block of solid steel. “What we didn’t expect was that the dividing line between the two sides would distribute the force from impacts so well. Even a unicorn would be as tough as an earth pony with dragon scales in this thing. Since we were able to hammer the metal extra thin, it’s light enough for a pegasus. It even conducts magic from the wearer, so when you cast Scale Armor, or Energy Resistance, or whatever else, the metal will get stronger and more durable along with the rest of you. We’re calling it Arcane Steel, or just Arcsteel.”
“Impressive,” Cliff said. “I don’t see what you need me to test though, unless you just want to smack me around and see how much of a beating it can take.”
“Nah,” Apple Bloom said, “we figured all that out back with version three. We need ya to test the other enchantments.”
Cliff looked surprised. “There’s more?”
Spirit and three of the Crusaders all fell down laughing. Whisper just chuckled softly.
Rarity gave them all a stern look before returning her attention to Cliff. “Yes, quite. We went through every enchantment and invention that this lab has ever produced and combined anything we believed would be useful.”
Spirit climbed back to his feet and patted Cliff on the shoulder. “Let me give you the short version. You’ve probably noticed that the metal is thicker around your upper torso. That’s partly to keep your vital organs safe, but it also holds an entire nexus of enchantments. We’ll teach you how to activate them later, but there are ones that cast tier five Scale Armor, Energy Resistance, and Enhanced Senses, as well as automatic heat immunity, for our non-wyrm fighters. There’s a new enchantment that raises the temperature of the inside of the suit, to help keep you guys warm out in all that snow, and another channels electricity harmlessly down the back of the suit and out either or both legs.
“We also built in three magic batteries,” Scootaloo said. “There’s one on each hip and another in the chest. They’re our newest models too, so they can hold a ton of magic. Those small packs at your waist are dimensional pockets that each hold up to a cubic foot, so you can carry about a hundred pounds of food or equipment without it weighing you down. Oh, and there are smaller pocket enchantments built into your gauntlets. They’re empty right now, but they can each hold twenty-two small objects and make one appear in your hand whenever you want.”
“You’ll have to memorize some hand and finger motions for controlling all of those,” Spirit said, “but the suit draws magic from the astral plane, so it won’t drain you as much as you’d think to power all this. For right now though, we want you to test these.” He tapped the back of Cliff’s left gauntlet. A small metal plate with three diamonds on it had been built into the suit there, with a matching one on the right gauntlet. “You know how gemstones make wyrm spells more powerful?”
Cliff nodded.
“Well, these plates take the natural process that happens with that and amplify it in such a way that even unicorn magic is affected. As long as you channel your spell through one of these while you’re casting, its overall power will experience a thirty-three point one percent increase with no additional drain from you. It’s too bad you can’t channel through multiple plates to make it grow even more. Otherwise, we’d just line up a couple hundred of these and fry the entire dragon army with one spell.”
Cliff gave him a flat look, or tried to. It was tough to be sure through the helmet. “You mean the same dragon army that Celestia is hoping to befriend?”
Spirit cleared his throat. “Anyway, we know the amplifiers work fine in the lab, but we want to test them in the field. You’re the best we have at body-enhancement magic, so we figured you could take the suit on a run to Canterlot and back, maybe try out some acrobatics, that sort of thing. If all goes well, we can see how it handles in a sparring match.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Cliff said. “If I’m not back in twenty minutes, just look for the smoking crater from this thing exploding on me.”
After he left, Rarity leaned over to Spirit. “Why did you want us to lie to him, Spikey? We have already tested these suits in every condition that any of us could think of. Even half destroyed.”
Spirit kept his eyes on the door. “Let’s just say, he has a dinner appointment, and I thought Fluttershy would appreciate it if Cliff got some aerobic exercise.”
-_-_-_-_-_-
Time was a funny thing. Every single day leading up to deployment seemed to drag on endlessly as Spirit fought to get orders of metal, or diamonds, or whatever else they needed, delivered to the lab on time. Most days, he also wound up filling in because they needed an extra worker. However, as he got up that last morning, Spirit couldn’t believe that a month had gone by already.
“Spirit,” Autumn’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts. “You need to finish getting ready. It’s time to go.” The crystal mare put her helmet on and clapped her forehooves together twice, activating the Arcsteel enchantment.
“Right, sorry.” Spirit finished clasping the pieces of his chestplate together and started pulling on his gauntlets. Even though neither of them would be expected to do any fighting, Grandma had insisted that anyone accompanying the army should be ready to defend themselves if the need arose.
As he was buckling on the last of his armor, Spirit looked around the house that had been his home for the last few years. True, he had spent about half of that time in the Palace of Friendship whenever his or Twilight’s duties pulled him that way, but living here with his family and Autumn had made this modest house feel like much more of a real home than the crystalline structure in Ponyville. Almost all of their things were still here, organized in shelves and boxes, but just knowing that they were about to leave made the house seem empty somehow.
Spirit’s eyes lingered on the gray egg sitting on the kitchen table. The green spots, which marked it as holding a dragoness, had appeared last week. Only two more months until it was ready to hatch. A morbid part of Spirit wondered if some of them wouldn’t be coming back to help hatch the egg with their dragon fire. Spirit’s claws tightened inside their gauntlets. No hatchling should have to face being raised without its parents.
He put his helmet on last and activated the Arcsteel enchantment. “Okay, let’s go.”
The entire village had gathered to bid farewell to the hundred fighters and twenty auxiliaries that would be leaving. Pinkie wanted to throw them a giant going away party, of course, but Fire Claws had convinced her to reign things in. Wyrms didn’t like to make a big deal out of … well, anything, but they especially didn’t see the point in celebrating something that might get a lot of them killed, even if that was the worst-case scenario. There were a dozen tables full of snacks and banners wishing them all a safe return, but that was it.
They found Twilight giving Applejack a tight hug. The other Element Bearers, the Crusaders, and the rest of Fire Eyes’ team were standing nearby, exchanging hugs and goodbyes in the predawn light. Even Angel was there, nestled between Fluttershy’s armored wings.
“Don’t worry, everypony,” Twilight said, “we’ll be back before you know it.”
“Y’all had better.” Applejack took a slightly unsteady breath. “Whatever happens, y’all gotta promise me that you’re comin’ back to us.”
“P-promise me that you’re c-coming home,” Whisper begged Fire Eyes.
The older dragoness knelt down, even though they were nearly the same height these days. “Sis, we almost lost each other once. Don’t worry, I’ll never put you through something like that again.” She pulled Whisper into a hug. “I promise, I’m going to make sure that all of us come back.”
Scootaloo stepped back from embracing Cliff and moved to Rainbow Dash. “Whatever you do, just don’t …” she sniffled and wiped her eyes. “Just stay safe, okay?”
“Don’t worry, everyone, we’ll be okay,” Fluttershy promised. She gently lifted Angel off of her back and hugged him before giving him to Applejack.
“You know it, we’re the number one team in the Village.” Dash grinned and tousled Scootaloo’s mane. “Seriously, Squirt, we’ll see you in like two weeks.” It would have been more like two days, but the Dragon Alliance had taken out the railroads leading to the Crystal Empire last week.
“We’ll have Celestia with us,” Twilight said to Scootaloo. “I doubt the Alliance would risk an attack even if they wanted to.”
“Alright,” Fire Claws shouted over the crowd, “we’re scheduled to meet up with the reserve army soon. It’s time to move out.”
“Well then,” Spirit said, stepping to the front of the group, “let’s get this show on the road.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.036 seconds
Total duration
809 users online
783,781 hits today, 2,814,898 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--ssgRoM_v--/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/18uiny995pi7ojpg.jpg
Panzy
Well, they're dead. Good thing him and Autumn wanted a kid.
Good preparation chapter. Hope things turn out well. Crossing fingers...
7649322 If you have ideas I can send ya the basic backstory and what another author has done to them or will as they have yet to get to that part of the story
Great chapter.
I guest the next couple of chapter going to start the war at the Crystal Empire.
Good luck.
7649319
Yeah, I suspected. I've always despised the idea of boot camps where people are sent against their will.
Princess, I love you, but this is empirically untrue. You just don't know any better, though.
7649294 honestly I got title that from sao abridged but I thought it fitting for him
I'm hoping the war isn't the entire story also there were a fair amount of death flags that isn't very reassuring
*plays Iron man from the robot's speakers after Make a man out of you*
Well I see next chapter to be a 'fun' one, Xenophobia vs Knowledge who will win?
Still gets more popcorn for me and the wolfdragons while the robot plays tunes
7649694 I wince every time I think about that rug burn.
7649743 They just need to avoid talking about what they'll do once the war is over. Oh, and they can't ever announce their retirement any time soon.
7649939 You know what they say, plan for the worst but hope for the best.
7649982 I don't have anything specific in mind right now, but I'd love to hear any interesting bits of culture or lore that you've cooked up.
7650180 Thanks, and I hope you enjoy where things go from here.
7650349 Twilight has good intentions, but yeah, she does have a tendency to think the best of others, even when they don't deserve it.
7650498 I'm assuming by "death flags" you mean warnings that a character might die at some future point, such as Spirit reflecting on his unhatched sister's egg. I won't confirm or deny any theories about who lives, but I will say that my goal with those death flags (assuming I'm using the term correctly) was to show that the characters were confronting the possibility that they might die, rather than warning the reader that they would die.
7650780 "Xenophobia vs Knowledge" actually wouldn't be a bad title for the story as a whole. The next chapter will certainly be ... interesting. I hope you enjoy it.
7650994 I take a different approach: Expect and plan for the worst, that way every surprise is a pleasant one.
7650998 the blanket idea is male wolf + female dragon= the wolf-dragons, one being more to being wolf like but has dragon abilities and the other being more draconic but treats of wolf showing through.
one possible youth look of them, or more like this for another design and traits.
Since it is only two hybrids culture aint really major since it would just be what their parents think and how they have interacted. As for fitting them into your version of the MLP universe wyrms could be the best fit, but Drakes or wyrens could work. Who knows what you will do with this, might get your own hybrid out of this venture. ;)
7651024 cool, and have been since the first chapter of the first story
Plz update in next 10 min k thx. Calculus is boring me.
Death by snu-snu. I can't think of a worse fate for anyone, lucky bastard.