This story is a sequel to The Prince
Five years have passed since the Equestrian victory against the invading minotaur army, and peace has returned to the land. The first annual memorial celebration has arrived in Canterlot, led by Prince Antares. However, in the midst of the celebration, Equestria is invaded by an army from far away, led by the powerful unicorn Tempest Shadow in the name of The Storm King.
Now on the run, Antares must reclaim his conquered nation, no matter the cost.
Buy a print copy of the original here!
Just as a brief point of interest: I loved the movie. This is not a fix fic any more than the first TD Alicorn story was a fix fic of the Season 3 finale. This is just an interesting idea I had.
Chapters (11)
Holy crap, I really did not expect this! I was wondering why updates were taking so long but it was worth the wait!
I will never not be excited to see a TD story.
Hmmm....what happened to Titus? Or is Nymeria just Titus renamed?
8553271
Titus renamed.
I'm pretty psyched to check this out. *cracks knuckles* Let's see what you bring to the table this time around.
First chapter in and you’ve already solved the biggest problem I had with the movie, that being the storm kings forces not seeming like much of a threat.
8553233
Three more chapters in the next three days or so.
Totally gonna read it.
Is this an AU to you own Resurgence?
8553365
Yeah, sort of.
Cool I was curious how you were gonna handle the movie can't wait to see how the rest of it goes.
Damn, Te pest was even more badass than in the movie, though Antares and the Princess put up more of a fight than in the movie’s version, so that made it better. It’s saddening that Blaze passed away and that Antares was wounded and forced to leave for the Hypogriphs with Kristen. Keep up the great job.
I can't help but be slightly disappointed. After reading your stories, I thought you'd be able to discern a good adventure story from a terrible one.
8553693
I'm not saying it was Oscar worthy or that it didn't have major problems (see: Grubber) but it was fun enough.
8553717
Grubber wasn't that bad he got a slight chuckle out of me. That said he is inconsequential to the story, get rid of him and all you lose is a comic relief.
Okay now that I'm off work, I now have time to give a proper review. This first chapter has completely blown me away! The changes you have made compared to the actual movie have really highlighted the severity of the situation. (But I must confess I was sad to see Grubber go.) And given TD has seen his foals taken, I think Tempest will joining the Storm King in the afterlife...
Just curious...will we see the Mane 6 at all here?
Really can't wait for the next chapter, along with "Resurgence" and "TD vs Equestria Girls." Glad to have you back!
I'm cautiously optimistic about this story. One thing I always worry about with MLP fiction, is how new content, is going to affect stories. Sometimes you get massive rewrites, other times you get things shifted around, and here it's a more brutal invasion. In an entirely new story to boot. The butterfly effect seems to be strong here, Grubber's gone i.e, the villain comic relief. The invasion is a lot more bloody and happens on a remembrance day of all things. The chaos god isn't just absent, but an entirely new person, learning the ropes etc.
Things that I think you'll need to change, for the story.
1. Open up your eyes - Great song, but TD's already been exposed to hardship, loss of friends, losing everything he grew to care about etc. Plus I can't see singing fitting in here. So it'll have to be cut.
2. The Storm King - He's presumably a smarter, more strategic villain in this tale. But having him be uber-serious and grim, could get old. So try to find a balance, that shows off his effectiveness as a villain. Like....Invading other parts of Equestria, or consolidating his forces and turning Canterlot into a meat grinder, against enemy attacks. A good example of the kind of villain you might wanna use as a base, is Shen from Kung Fu Panda 2.
3. Diplomacy - Time for TD to display those diplomatic chops, when going out, to get help, to save his country. Maybe working with unscrupulous characters or former enemies. As TD goes to recalim the nation. Make him the stallion we want in charge. #AntaresforKingofEquestria
Went David Drake on me again... TD, on the subject of his children being held hostage,as voiced by Colonel Alois Hammer on his friend:
Tell them, Danny. Tell them that I don't know if I can release Donald Slade alive by force... But I'll burn their planet for his funeral pyre if I can't!"
8553717
I thought Grubber was better than most Disney comic relief characters. He's the least of the movie's problems.
The movie's story itself was a big problem IMO. It was terribly structured: get to a new place, meet someone, mediocre song to advance the plot in a cheap and easy way, almost immediately drop the new place and character, and they did this THREE times in a row, leaving the first half of the movie consisting of nothing more than a lot of noise and nothing of note. Then they quickly abandon the whole adventure's goal, effortlessly undo all the adventuring by just returning to the starting point off-screen, and have almost the same situation they had at the start of the movie, only with Twilight caged and Storm King's forces being firmly entrenched in Canterlot, and they just win this time for no reason (I guess the funky bunch of characters who really shoudln't have become their friends sort of helped, but it didn't seem like a significant enough difference). The movie rushes through too many ideas without giving any of them the time necessary to engage. And for how much people seem to love her,
TempestFizzlepop is an extremely cliche character that just borrows from the show's existing reformees (I mean, seriously, "That's what friends do" again? Helping with fireworks again? A unicorn whose faith in real friendship was destroyed in her childhood?) and adds a distinct flair of an OC from a bad fanfic on top (badass red and dark design, wild mane, calm and confident, oh-so-tragic backstory, forgiven even more easily than Starlight despite actually knowingly threatening the whole of Equestria).8553816
Well whatever the case may be, I hope you enjoy this story more.
8553811
If you never read the prequel comics Storm King is portrayed really well in that, the perfect blend of goofy and menacing. Honestly I just hope he's done justice in this story. I love the Storm King he was a blast whenever he was on screen and could have easily stolen the show if given more screen time.
I realize that everyone's jazzed about the movie and all, but is starting a new fic before you finished the last one a great idea? It just seems like you've trivialized or otherwise rendered irrelevant the last story, because unless you start throwing in references to things that haven't happened there we know that whatever else went on wasn't important enough to recap here.
8553868
I'm doing what I can on that. It's planned to be a giant story, so we'll see about that. I had inspiration on this one, and I actually managed to do stuff with it. The only things that were revealed in this that haven't been revealed in the canon story was the name and gender of Luna's foal. Most of the stuff here is non-canon.
8553863
Nah I don't read the comics, I did hear about the Storm King being more competently portrayed in the comics though. Random thought, but in the episode, where Twilight sees all the bad, alternate futures, caused by Starlight. Do you think the one, where Equestria was obliterated, was caused by the Storm King? I mean he does hate Equestria, and cute stuff, and seems like the kinda villain, who might, destroy a whole nation, with all that alicorn power. Also was I the only person, who initially thought Grubber was a diminutive Diamond Dog.
8553868
I did have that concern myself, but he's been updating TD Punches everything in the background. Hopefully anything important that needs to be addressed will get brought up, and included retroactively in the other story. Although that runs the risk of making it less appealing, since parts of it, have been spoiled...
I always wondered what some older fics would look like, after later seasons of the show and the movie. I think stories like Fallout Equestria worked so well, because they were written, before the MLP world was shown to possess dark forces, with armies at their beck n call. Before it was this colourful, mostly-innocent world. With a few Big Bads, popping up, until Chrysalis, where you see a whole army, of bug-pony invaders. Hence why season 2 was the cut-off for that fics timeline, before the FoE one took over. Heh now I can just imagine the Storm King serving as a mercenary or gettingh is arse blown up, in a balefire megapsell. Sorry kinda rambled on there
Ooooo boy. This'll be great.
This chapter did not show up in my feed, found out about it by complete accident but at least I now know to check.
Great chapter, gotta admit next to Tempest Capper is probably my favourite new character from the movie. Can't really say why exactly I just really like him.
8555624
Yeah, I've been wondering about that. Since you follow me, did the story itself show up in your feed?
8555647
Yes the story did show up. Judging by the post date I'm guessing the chapter was already uploaded but kept hidden so I guess it won't appear in the feed after being made available.
8555665
Ah, I know what to do, then.
Very nice.
What's even nicer is this update schedule. Hope it keeps up, m80
Aww that's a shame. Is TD gonna kill everyone from the movie?
8555729
To be fair, Verko tortured him and Capper sold him into slavery, so...
8555732
I know but I just feel bad for him. If you read the comic Capper is actually a really nice guy who fell on hard times after his best friend betrayed him leaving him in debt to Verko.
Fuck, man... why'd you kill Capper?! If you hurt Tempest Shadow I swear to fucking god...
memegenerator.net/img/instances/500x/53262770/im-so-screwed.jpg
8555748
Was it the right thing for TD to do? Totally not, and Kristen's not happy about it either, but from TD's perspective he'd just lost everything including his captain of the guard who'd been with him since the start, been bleeding out to the point where he was near death, then spent a few days being tortured, the latter of which was a situation Capper had put him in. He's in a rough head space.
The storm I can understand, but where does the scorpion come in? (I haven't read any of the story yet. I will though, it sounds good.)
8555783
It's his cutie mark.
8555765
So Tempest, I imagine, won't also be getting off so easily either?
Man, you're making this story much, MUCH darker.
Not that I'm complaining, but this very intense.
8555944
Yeah, I'm pretty sure Tempest is toast in this timeline.
...On that note, I wonder how Antares would handle Starlight?
8555989
Beat her ass and throw her in jail, I suppose?
8555765
As antithetical to the theme of the show as it seems to be, I can't help but agree with you that it's the most realistic outcome of this. Capper sold a poor pony into slavery. Sure, he might have felt really bad about it, but he didn't even try to make up for this until it was far too late, and in the end was just looking out for himself. In a controlled environment he would probably be captured and sentenced with greater scrutiny, but there is no justice except the Storm King's at the moment, so it was a field call. And there is no guarantee that Capper wouldn't just do more of this to any poor ponies he came across, or had done it to ponies in the past before now either. Capper didn't show anything to dissuade this opinion either, so I can't help but think it's the right call, even if Capper could have been easily redeemed and become a much better person.
It's as the old saying goes (paraphrased): Those who seeks to end another's life should be prepared to have their life end in turn. To be shocked about having the roles reversed on unfair cruelties dealt is the height of hypocrisy.
8556005
I agree it makes sense but while Verko might have deserved it Capper did not. The whole thing made me feel a little too uncomfortable and I hope this is the last non-villain character TD murders in cold blood.
8556023
Without knowledge of the comics, how could anyone be sure? Luring in somepony and then turning them over doesn't absolve you of what happens afterwards even if you weren't personally responsible. Capper played a key part in what ended up happening. Maybe he wouldn't have done it had he known what would have happened to TD, but he did, and he didn't try to help TD escape either.
8556038
I'm not saying he didn't deserve a punishment but being killed like that was way too extreme, there is no justifieing it and I'm pretty sure the story isn't trying to.
8556047
I agree, the story doesn't seem like it would justify it either. It's entirely possible this is just one step along the path of having a mental breakdown of sorts and doing something quite wrong for the wrong reasons, just like Twilight Sparkle did in the MLP Movie.
In which case, the lack of Capper on TD's side may or may come back to haunt him in his moment of need. Or not, this story could play out different instead of rehashing Twilight Sparkle's journey beat for beat.
8556061
It would be interesting if that's what happens but I'm not really expecting anything to come of Capper's death I think it was just to show what kind of mindset TD is in currently. I'm just hoping this doesn't repeat with the pirates.
That said I did expect stuff like this going in. I am fully prepared for Tempest to get killed in the end and I just hope The Storm King doesn't wind up dieing in an anti-climatic fashion. Capper being killed like that was just completely unexpected though and was a real punch to the gut but I'll get over it.
8555732 And Tempest shadow knowingly and willingly enabled the enslavement of Canterlot, including the foals, so I'm honestly struggling to imagine how she will get out of this with her head.
*slowly retracts his finger from thumbs up button*
I really hope that this story won't turn from "friendship is magic" theme to "violence is always the answer" all the way. I know it's more realistic, and Antares is, frankly, not that much pony to try the diplomacy in case of being threatened, but it seems that he learned nothing from the previous story at all.
And it's really sad, he had years to do his homework and quite a big pile of dead bodies behind him to be motivated to do it.
Reminds me of The sword of good although i dont know if it is original or a famfiction.
In that, the "SI" initially sides with an assasin, and a mage because of genre recognition, thinking of it as like an adventure story. Evetually he realizes he is on the side of evil. (Very poor description)
Capper is acting as a slaver here, and the only reason I empathise with him is that he became a good guy in the movie. Antares doesnt have the whole omnicient narrator advantage and hasnt watched the movie, and I am not sure this is unreasonable given the situation.
8556711
He's more of a middle man than a slaver. He provided the ponies but didn't know what would happen to them (judging by his reaction when Vergo's men attacked).