With the barrier trap destroyed, no hostiles could warp in, allowing the group to leap ahead even as Twilight and Nefarious continued their spirited discussion. The path was blocked by another stone wall sealing off a tunnel, allowing Twilight to demonstrate that the improved Quakehammer - which she dubbed The Smash-Hammer, barring a better name - worked just as well for its original purpose.
"Say, it builds up charge from you or the Hammer moving now, right?" Qwark asked curiously.
"That's right!" Twilight preened, working on applying the modifications to Qwark and Alister's gadgets now that she'd demonstrated they didn't need to keep the original form to maintain function.
"Then couldn't you constantly swing it for small discharges of tectonic energy?" he asked curiously. "Enough to send a large group of targets flying, at any rate?"
Twilight paused on Alister's unit. She levitated Qwark's completed one over to him. "Show me what you mean," she instructed.
Grinning widely, Qwark lifted his Smash-Hammer - which had been modified with mostly yellow materials - and proceeded to swing it rapidly up over his shoulders and down into the ground and anything else in front of him, each impact releasing a small surge of tectonic energy that was enough to heavily damage anything impacted. "See?" he asked, his voice filled with boyish excitement.
Twilight rubbed her chin. "Hmm...you know, if I attached a motor, I could probably make it do that automatically..."
"Perhaps we should save that for another time?" Alister offered.
"Why?" Nefarious demanded in irritation. "What's wrong with doing it now?"
"We do have a planet to save," Alister scolded.
"Not a hero, remember?" Nefarious countered.
"Don't you want to save something to talk about for your date?" Qwark offered.
"Good point!" Nefarious admitted, turning to march forward. "But if you ever tell anyone I admitted you had a good point, I'll play jump-rope with your large intestine to a cadence of everything I hate about you, while making sure you're still awake and listening."
"Eeyurgh!" Qwark winced, pulling back from the mental image.
"You're surprisingly good at that," Alister whispered in praise.
"It's actually rather upsetting how naturally I took to politics," Qwark admitted sadly. "It's basically feeding anyone who listens whatever lie they'll swallow that will make you look the best, and fitting however much truth into it you can to avoid getting caught. My heroing career was...surprisingly good practice for that."
Alister frowned, unsure how to respond to that.
As they continued, the group received another message from Ratchet and the others, about a railway station connected to an old mining station directly below them. Spotting some cracked ground, Qwark grinned widely. "Down we go!" he called out, smashing the ground beneath him with his Smash-Hammer and letting them all drop down.
Below, the group found an explosive fruit bulb, along with gates blocking the path in either direction. Twilight solved this conundrum easily by ripping both gates out at their hinges and folding the metal in her telekinetic grip. "It's really easy to do this with materials that aren't animate," she explained as Nefarious and Alister stared. "Anything that's self-motivated - whether animal or robot - drastically increases the difficulty since their natural movement interferes with the fields..."
"You...don't seem all that surprised by this," Alister pointed out.
"Remember when Dad was telling our story?" Qwark pointed out. "And the part about how we met back in Blackwater City? When she ripped a wall from its moorings while squealing fannishly about meeting me?"
"...oh yeah..." Alister mumbled. "And that was over a decade ago..."
"And she's just gotten stronger as she's gotten older," Nefarious marveled.
Twilight blushed as she noticed all the stares. "Come on, guys! You're embarrassing me! Let's just get a move on, okay?" She tossed the neatly folded gates aside with a loud clang.
The group made their way forward at Twilight's request, fighting their way through more Dreadgrubs and bouncing on giant mushrooms...pausing long enough for Alister to convince all three others to "Stop bouncing already!" The twisting and turning paths continued to lead down into the depths of the Grove, breaking through several more similar barriers and facing more of the same hostiles they'd encountered before, dealing with them in much the same way. After a time, however, a massive purple grub could be seen writhing in the foliage in the distance.
"I...hope we don't have to fight that," Twilight murmured worriedly.
"Odds are we will," Qwark grumbled.
"It's a carnivorous Wig Wump," Nefarious indicated. "It'll probably try to eat us when we get to the rails near it."
"Let's hope we don't have to," Alister muttered. "They're really bad tempered."
Thankfully, the path seemed to lead them away from the Wig Wump, and after grinding down a few rails towards an access shaft, they found new gadgets...Jet Packs.
"Ooh!" Twilight squealed as she pulled hers off and started tinkering, her wings keeping her aloft. "This is absolutely fascinating!"
Alister, Qwark, and Nefarious all stared. "That's it!" Nefarious proclaimed firmly. "I am figuring out how to give my robotic body functional wings! They are plainly just too useful to go without at this point! It'll be worth the effort of figuring out how to install a self contained specific gravity modulator that won't drain my systems dry just keeping me in the air!"
"If you get it to work, I might just see the appeal of roboticization," Qwark challenged, unsure himself how much of what he just said was goading and how much was honest.
I'm starting to think that Nefarious is having some... flights of fancy right now. At least we'll know he won't... wing it with his planned upgrade. Though when the planning phase comes it's going to be... hammer time to crunch it out. I'd also say that Qwark's statement was a... swing and a miss but let's face it, he's Qwarky Pie.
I have a better alternative.
static2.fjcdn.com/thumbnails/comments/5819424+_fec0a6da05b79f07d1e25fe609390c81.jpg
I am suddenly imagining Nefarious trying to give himself a robo-alicorn body at some point just to try and swoon Twilight better.
It's how that really works, isn't it?
7273913 SUPPRESSING. URGE. TO KILL.
You know, by the end of this, I wouldn't be surprised if Nefarious somehow inadvertently turned himself into a biomech pony.
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I want to give you a thumbs down on general principle, those puns are horrible.
anyways, that is a great chapter, I am loving the differences and fixes you are seamlessly blending the canon. this also makes me wish I could find a decent 4 player completionist run of this one.
7273937 you know it's funny, i've been watching generator rex and that's basically the whole point of the show.
TwiFarious is my OTP I can't wait for their date!
7273988 Well, Nanotech is Canon to R&C, most notably for medical applications. I can actually see clinics centered around altering someone's body having replaced cosmetic surgery long ago. It's not much of a step to take that same technology and use it to give someone physical traits or abilities they wouldn't otherwise be capable of.
The trick would be getting it to Work right. To give them wings like Twilight has would require giving them Magic in some capacity for said wings to actually function. So far all Twilight has been able to figure out about how her magic works organically is that there is an organically formed Gem serving as the Core of her horn (which she calls the "Carbuncle"), and all of her attempts (that we know about) to synthesize anything similar have been flawed, prone to failure, and overall barely practical enough to fit into a short range telekinetic grip gauntlet (This information is going ALL the way back to the first couple arcs, and hasn't really been touched on since, so I could be wrong).
That could change with this arc though... Their shadowy opponent/mastermind seems to possess an unusual understanding of exactly how her powers work in order to craft those entrapment fields, (if not the pragmatism or sense of self preservation to understand that targeting her has basically signed their own death-warrant) and we all know what Twilight does with any technology she captures in the aftermath of these adventures...
7273988 Wouldn't that be the Equivalent of the Nano Tech that Ratchet uses?
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If he did that I could see Discord and him becoming best friends. I do not know why but I just feel that they would get along quite well for some reason.
7274207 Maybe that is a designed limitation to keep others from abusing the nanites for... Recreational purposes.
7274251 Would be designed by Twilight then, Either way it's most likely going to be a Gagetron Product.
Jetpacks are awesome.... unless it's on Hitler's back. Still, I love the new toys and can't wait to see how Twilight makes use of the jetpack when she can already fly.
7274332 Sonic Rainboom...Now atleast we don't have Stalin with a jet pack... That would be terrifying.
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The puns were calling to me. They wish to be heard. And it was hard to resist for some reason today. Might have been because of the hammer.
7274419 Don't worry, I found them rather... PUNny.
I just watched the new MLP episode (6-4/2016) and not only did I wish Tat's version of Fluttershy's dad was canon, but Fluttershy's big brother reminded me of Axel from "The Middle" and this version of Captain Qwark if they had a fabulous fused pony clone. If you're wondering how that might work: all three examples are what Ratchet called "Man-Child"ren.
One was lazy but got a job. One is a beefcake idiot with an ego as big as his biceps. One was constantly active but gave up and became lazy... even worked hard to BE lazy.
7274332 I couldn't find the video I was looking for... so watch this monstrosity.
7274332 Booster pack maybe? with underwater maneuvering?
Quick question. Does anyone know how often Tatsurou updates this story? Why i'm asking is because... THIS STORY IS AWSOME!
Seriously, I spent the last two nights just reading this story. I couldn't fall asleep until 6:00 AM. For both nights!
...whelp, i'll be spending the next few days fixing my sleep cycle.
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Every Tuesday and Friday.
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I just caught up myself...
Ha! Yes! I have been waiting for the eventual Sonic SatAM reference ever since Nefarious got introduced!
fave line
remove will or change it to they will but still remove will
Already see a Qwarkbot:
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