Lex indulged himself for only a moment, watching as Lirtkra’s thrashing slowed and finally stopped. He knew it was unseemly to take any sort of pleasure in killing, regardless of the nature of his enemy, but he couldn’t help but feel a wicked sense of gratification at seeing the creature die. It’s justice, he silently assured himself. This thing has undoubtedly killed ponies. Probably more than a few. Since it was completely unrepentant, and given that there were no other systems or social mechanisms in place to punish it for its actions, that meant that – even if it hadn’t been trying to kill him, justifying using lethal force in self-defense – this would have been an acceptable penalty for what it had done.
Besides, it wasn’t like the thing had been a pony. Those were the only lives that had to be preserved at all costs.
Turning his mind back to more practical matters, Lex wrapped his teeth around the trident, trying to pull it free from Lirtkra’s corpse. But the weapon refused to budge, wedged firmly into the floor underneath the dead sahuagin, and Lex gave up trying to dislodge it, knowing that he only had a little over ten seconds left before the scroll’s magic ran out. To say nothing of Monitor and the Cripple, who were probably about to move in and check on whether or not Lirtkra had succeeded. Instead, Lex turned and quickly sifted through the debris that had been scattered around during the fight, locating a broken piece of wood. It took only a moment to ignite it thanks to the spreading fire, and he gripped the makeshift weapon tightly as he exited the space behind the bar through the same gap that he’d entered.
As soon as he emerged, Monitor raced towards him, not wasting a second. But Lex had anticipated that, and he threw the burning brand, not towards the onrushing creature, but onto the large patch of grease that the Cripple had previously conjured and which now lay directly in Monitor’s path. It instantly went up in flames, forcing Monitor to throw itself to the side to avoid plunging directly into the sudden inferno. At the same time, he heard the Cripple whisper the words to a spell and a moment later felt drowsy, but he shook it off, turning and making for the door, knowing that the scroll’s magic was about to run out. With any luck, the flames would spread quickly and those two would be caught in the blaze, because he didn’t have any plans left for dealing with them…
Lex had hoped to at least fall back to a safer area before the scroll’s magic ended, but he was still fatigued due to the Cripple’s spell, and couldn’t move as quickly as he wanted. He had only just exited the building, the flames that had been covering his body finally sputtering out, when he felt the magic finally give out, and he collapsed on the spot as the burst of vigor it had given him terminated. Immediately, the wounds he’d taken felt as though they’d worsened a hundredfold, the pain making him reel. For a long moment, it was all he could do just to remain conscious, and it was only with the most extreme effort that he managed to get his hooves under him.
He had almost succeeded when he noticed something drifting next to him, and he gave a start – almost falling over – before he recognized it. It was the spectral hoof he’d conjured, back when he’d been intent on creating an aperture in the restaurant that the undead ponies could enter through. After he’d done that, he’d directed it to hover off to the side, hoping to be able to use it to surreptitiously deliver another spell when his enemies weren’t paying attention. But he’d never had a chance to do so, and now that he’d left its immediate presence, it had followed after him.
It was fortunate that it had. The reason that the spectral hoof was able to deliver spells on his behalf was because a sliver of his own life force was embedded in it. As he looked pointedly at it and concentrated on dismissing the spell, Lex felt that life force return to this body, helping to mitigate the collective agony of his wounds, albeit only slightly. Still, it was enough to let him stand without having to put all of his effort into doing so. Now, the next order of business was to return to his incorporeal state…
He had only just started to concentrate on returning to shadow-form when a nearby window shattered as Monitor leapt through it, the Cripple following closely behind. Lex didn’t have time to do anything more than curse his enemies’ tenacity before the Cripple turned towards him and hissed a spell. Despite its voice still not having risen above a whisper, the volume of its sibilant hissing rapidly rose, and Lex had just enough time to realize that it was making a sonic attack before the sound wave reached him.
Or rather, it would have reached him, but at the same moment the attack was unleashed another voice – soft, melodious, and undeniably feminine – rang out, singing the same words as the Cripple and unleashing the same spell at that exact moment. The clash of magically-enhanced noise melded into perfect harmony, and an instant later they both ceased, having negated each other harmlessly.
Blinking at the sudden assistance, Lex looked behind him, where the counter-magic had come from. He already knew who he’d see, though; he’d know that voice anywhere. Across from him, Monitor and the Cripple were also looking at where the newcomer was boldly striding forward. The former had no reaction save to blink its bulbous eyes, whereas the latter had gone perfectly still, its expression hidden by its blurring spell.
Marching fearlessly onto the battlefield until she was standing between Lex and the creatures intent on hurting him, Sonata Dusk glared her enemies down. “Okay you ugly whatever you are’s! If you lay another, um, claw, I guess? Or maybe fin…? Whatever. On my boyfriend, then I’m totes gonna kick your scaly butts right back where you came from! Unless you came from here, in which case I’ll kick them somewhere else!” The complete silence that reigned in the wake of her speech made her nod to herself, grinning smugly. She had so told them!
“Sonata, what are you doing? Get out of here!” hissed Lex.
She looked back at him with a frown. “No way! You made me a promise that you were coming back, and I’m here to make sure you keep it!”
“These creatures are incredibly dangerous! You need to get back to where it’s safe before you get hurt!”
Sonata turned around so she was facing him directly, stamping a hoof in consternation at his attitude. “Forget it! Every other time there’s been a fight, I’ve either done nothing but cry or needed to be rescued by you! This time I’m going to be the one helping you when you need it, and that’s that!”
“Don’t you dictate to me! I don’t need-”
“YOU!” The Cripple’s hoarse whisper was barely adequate to contain the fury in its voice, and it was enough to draw all eyes towards it. “Forget that other pony!” it rasped, pointing a blurry limb at Sonata. “I want her dead, NOW!”
“Huh? What’d I do?” asked Sonata confusedly. But Monitor was already rocketing towards her, even as the Cripple began to hiss another spell. Cursing, Lex cast a spell of his own, moving to stand in front of Sonata as he unleashed a compact gout of acid towards Monitor. But the pudgy creature easily avoided the shot, ducking under it to let the acid hit the ground and sizzle as it ate at the stone. In an instant, Monitor was in Lex’s face, and he had just enough time to grimace in fear – not for himself, but for Sonata – before it lashed out with a punch that sent him staggering away before collapsing, the world spinning as renewed agony exploded through his brain.
But Monitor’s diverted attention gave Sonata the opening she needed. Biting back a cry of concern for Lex, she instead focused on taking the ugly fish-thingy out. Stepping back to make sure she was out of its reach, she sang a quick enchantment, and it had just turned towards her when she felt the magic take hold. Instantly, Monitor’s body stiffened into rigidity, unable to move. “Hah! I told y-” Her victorious declaration was cut off as the Cripple finished its spell, and four darts of light shot out to slam into Sonata, each hit drawing a pained yelp from her.
The Cripple immediately launched into another spell, but Sonata was faster, rattling off an enchantment that ended in a loud scream, but one which was heard only by her enemy. She’d once used this to snap Lex out of his rage, back when he’d mistakenly thought Fireflower was attacking her. Just like then, the amplified sound interrupted the spell that her opponent was invoking, leaving them momentarily overwhelmed by the pain in their ears. “Hah!” she laughed, unable to resist the urge to strike a triumphant pose. “How do you like me now?”
So intent on her victory was she that she didn’t notice that Monitor was beginning to move, its head turning jerkily towards her as it fought against her paralysis spell. But Lex, lying a few feet away and barely able to move, saw the danger. He tried to call out a warning, to let her know that the enemy she’d dealt with was still a threat, but the simple act of trying to speak sent a wave of nausea through him, and it was all he could do not to black out again.
Across from Sonata, the Cripple cast another spell. Lex didn’t hear what it whispered, but Sonata apparently did, because she…started to laugh? For a moment, his brow furrowed at the sight, but as her laughter continued, growing louder and more raucous, his eyes widened, realizing what had happened. A moment later, Sonata collapsed to the ground, peals of laughter making her shake uncontrollably, caught in the grip of the Cripple’s spell.
Cursing as he realized that Sonata was incapacitated for the immediate future, Lex tried to think of what to do. He didn’t have any way of eliminating the magic that was currently affecting Sonata. Worse, he was completely out of attack spells! But even as his mind raced he saw Monitor clench a fist, and knew that he was almost out of time.
Even concentrating hurt, but Lex forced himself to do it anyway, calling upon his horn’s dark magic as he formed a single black crystal. It wasn’t very large, and was crudely formed, roughly the same shape as a kitchen knife. But it would do.
Slowly, Lex wrapped the pointed crystal in his telekinesis, a purple aura covering it as he lifted it towards Monitor. Normally such a thing would have been simplicity itself, but now the strain made him grit his teeth in effort. Even as he heard the Cripple whispering another spell, he forced himself to focus on what he was doing, even as he saw the blurred creature send a cone of flames washing over Sonata, hearing her cry out in pain before her voice dissolved back into artificial laughter.
Snarling as much in exertion as in anger, Lex slowly lifted the crystal to Monitor’s throat. Just a little more! Just a little more and there’d be one less enemy to worry about! But the creature was starting to tremble, visibly straining against the magic keeping it paralyzed, and Lex knew that it was about to break free. Just a little more…!
The very tip of the crystal had just pierced Monitor’s throat, drawing the tinest drop of blood when its arm snapped up and grabbed it, the paralysis magic finally failing. No! Lex tried to push harder, tried to force the crystal to drive further upward and finish the creature off, but succeeded only in finally hitting his limit, the purple aura around the crystal sputtering out as he couldn’t keep the effort up any longer.
It was over. They had lost, and now…they were both going to die.
As though she’d realized that herself, Sonata’s laughter suddenly cut off. It was so abrupt that both Lex and Monitor looked over at her reflexively. Even the Cripple seemed surprised. The only one to act in that moment was Sonata, chanting so fast that Lex couldn’t make out the spell she was intoning. But a moment later she looked towards Monitor and screamed.
“GOTCHA!”
The word contained so much force that it was felt rather than heard. It was the same spell that she’d used on the ship to launch two of the sahuagin overboard, and right now it was directed towards Monitor.
…or rather, towards the crystal that it was holding, still pointed towards its neck.
Propelled by the concussive waves of sound, the crystal was torn free from Monitor’s grip. It shot forward as though it had been fired from a bow, and it pierced the pudgy fish-creature’s head cleanly, exploding out the back of it before flying off to embed itself deeply in a nearby building. For its part, Monitor blinked once, and for the first time Lex could make out a discernable emotion on the thing’s face: surprise.
Then it collapsed, dead before it hit the ground.
Sonata smirked, before directing her gaze at Lex. “Told you I could help,” she grinned. Lex couldn’t help but return the expression, too relieved to do anything else.
But that relief was short-lived as he noticed the Cripple moving. It was flying towards them, and Lex tensed, readying himself for whatever magic it was going to unleash next. Sonata, not hurt nearly as badly as he was, scrambled to her hooves. But their enemy passed over them without stopping, nor did it cast any magic. Instead it simply flew as fast as it could, and it took a moment for the pair to realize that it was running, apparently intent on quitting the field.
“Ha!” whooped Sonata, shaking a hoof at the thing’s retreating figure. “Yeah, you better run!”
“No!” snarled Lex, struggling in vain to get up. “Stop that thing!”
“Huh?” Sonata blinked, looking at Lex in confusion.
“It’s heading for the waterfront! If it escapes, it can bring others later!” There was audible anxiety in Lex’s voice. That thing knew where they were taking refuge. If it got away, it would be able to relay that information to whatever other undersea monsters it was in league with, which would severely compromise the shelter’s security. “Stop it before it gets away!”
“But I, like, used all my hold-still magic!”
“No…” Lex looked at the retreating creature, and felt his anger and frustration rising. After all the injuries he’d taken, all of the pain and effort he’d gone through, after having to stand by helpless while his beloved was injured right in front of him, the idea of it all being for naught was utterly unacceptable! That thing could not be allowed to escape! “STOP!” he roared. He didn’t have a plan, didn’t know what to do, simply pouring his frustration out as he demanded that it accede to his will.
And then, to his astonishment, the Cripple obeyed, immediately coming to a halt.
For a moment, he gaped, and he could see Sonata doing the same out of his periphery. Why had- No. He knew why. He just hadn’t realized that he’d known.
“Like, what’s going on?” asked Sonata, going over to kneel down by Lex, glancing between him and the Cripple.
“It’s the Night Mare’s power,” he replied softly, amazed that it had worked. He hadn’t even thought to use it during the fight, having written it off before they’d left Tall Tale due to the numerous failed attempts to have it affect anything besides Waterlily. It hadn’t worked on animals or ponies or anything else other than the aranea, and he’d lost confidence in its effectiveness to the point of having mentally written it off. Clearly that had been a mistake.
“Wow,” said Sonata. “You know, that would have been a lot easier if you’d done that before.”
“Yeah,” acknowledged Lex with a snort that was almost a laugh. Under normal circumstances he’d have been indignant, but at the moment he was too hurt and too tired to bother. Instead, he directed his attention back towards the Cripple. “Come here.”
He could feel it struggling against him, but it was like a fish in a net, powerless to control what happened to it. Slowly, it turned around and floated back towards him, until it was hovering just a few feet away. Sonata bit her lip, tensing at being that close to something that had been trying to kill them less than a minute ago. “You’re sure you’ve got it?”
“I’ve got it,” responded Lex confidently. “I’ll show you. Look.” He focused his will on the Cripple as he gave it an order. “Drop your blur spell immediately.” A moment later, the creature’s distorted appearance smoothed out, revealing itself. Lex was about to give Sonata a self-satisfied look when he heard her give a strangled gasp. “Sonata? What’s wrong?”
She didn’t answer him, staring at the Cripple with a look of total shock on her face, her eyes wide and her mouth hanging open. Lex was about to ask her again when she managed to regain some control over herself, her jaw working soundlessly for a moment until finally, one word passed her lips.
“ARIA?!”
Its always something you forget about that messes things up.
Now why am I thinking of the Sheep Oil barons?
J. R. Eweing.
And once again, just tossing a problem creature into another world comes back to bite someone in the ass...
Sonata came to Lex's rescue-check
Cripple's identity confirmed-check
Severance appearing alongside Sonata to save Lex- Eh, two out of three is better than nothing.
Given the state Vanhoover is in, I doubt anyone would blame Lex for feeling some satisfaction to ending the bloodthirsty sahuagin's life. And I forgot about Lex's views on non-pony and pony-hybrid species until you mentioned it.
I would assume Sonata told the scythe to remain behind to protect the shelter but I think that it's more likely that it was following Lex's instruction to the letter.
The spells used on Lex and Sonata were quite interesting to me, sapping Lex's strength almost felt redundant given his near-exhausted state but I suppose the Cripple didn't know that and wanted to be safe than sorry. While the spell that induces involuntary laughter is a bit out of place but since I don't play the game, I wouldn't be surprised if it's an actual spell.
8025848
Or in this case, that could have made things a lot easier if it had been remembered earlier.
Oh ewe.
8026292 Aria is my least favorite of the Sirens. Adagio comes across as seductive, and Sonata's so ditzy that it's cute, but Aria just seems bitchy and mean. But even then, what happened to her in chapter 66 of A Dangerous Sparkle just seemed too cruel. Revisiting her fate has been on my mind for a long time now, almost since I started writing this fic.
8026637 Well, part of this is answered if you're familiar with what happened to Aria in A Dangerous Sparkle, but the rest of it remains unrevealed.
8026589 You do tend to make very insightful predictions, I've noticed.
Lex is indeed a pony-supremacist, which is an attitude that has gotten him into trouble in the past. But then, it's hard to blame him; Equestria is quite clearly the most culturally-advanced nation in that world, compared to the buffalo, the yaks, the griffons, the dragons, etc. None of them have reached the idyllic state that the ponies have, so it's makes it rather awkward if you try to say that ponies aren't really better than anyone else, when their culture is more prosperous and harmonious than everyone else's.
Regarding Severance, I suspect you're right about it staying behind because it was following Lex's orders to the letter. That's very much in what we've seen of its character.
All of the spells used in this sequence (and indeed, this entire fic) are actual spells. The spell tiring Lex out was ray of exhaustion, though Lex made his saving throw, and was only fatigued instead. As you noted, that's somewhat awkward to put in the narrative, since the game rules don't normally reflect fatigue as an aspect of combat; indeed, the game essentially has a person's capabilities being unimpeded so long as they remain above 0 hit points, and aren't suffering from a specific status effect. That's something that's different from an in-character perspective, which made it rather awkward to write. Hopefully I did an okay job there. (And luckily for Lex, that spell has a time limit on it.)
As for Sonata, she was hit with a hideous laughter spell. That's not quite as incapacitating as the hold monster spell she used on Monitor, as it doesn't completely paralyze you, and so you aren't hit with the helpless condition, which leaves you open to a coup de grace (that is, potentially being killed in a single blow, regardless of your hit points).
8026729 Also, every non-pony either has no notable magic (like Gryphons) or holds the idiot ball (like Changelings).
Oh boy, Changelings... They are so depressing... I really should write up another racial template for the poor critters. You are virtually superior in every possible way, but are forced to hold the idiot ball and then turn into... Weird... fairy-deer things with Gak-colored skin. Which is werid because as far as the comics are concerned, Deer appear to be on the lawful side of things, while the new Changeling-King is a traitor at best (and if he should defeat Chrysalis, a Kin-Slayer at worst).
What is interesting for Lex: Ponies always win in the end, as they are in a cartoon, but that's not because they are ponies, it's because they are the designated good guys. The only way in which a pony can loose is by doing non-pony (thus, non-good) things, like Sombra did, whose horn Lex has, which is funny because Sombra DID loose despite being a pony and Lex does something non-pony-like by defying the princesses. Which means Lex is exactly right in the fact that ponies are superior, but 100% wrong by saying that his non-traditional-pony methods will help in the long term, because while they are numerically better, they cannot hold against the narrative plot-armor the ponies would exchange for that.
The worst part is that the Changeling Invasion happened before he came back, so he probably doesn't know about it, which means that the one event that would make him realize his guaranteed failure already happened without him knowing...
8026710
I am familiar with that one.
I just question how "blurry siren" somehow equaled "fishmonster look" to the point where none of the other fishmonsters would question it.
I had other questions as well, but I seem to have forgotten them since the last reply...
Better re-read chapter again to be sure what my question was.
8026826
Well, the griffons have inherent magic racial magic in that they can not only fly like pegasi (i.e. ignoring the basic laws of aerodynamics), but perch on clouds as well, etc. As for the changelings, I put the blame for their failures on a combination of Chrysalis leadership, and a bad job on the writers' part indicating what exactly their goal was.
Chrysalis' plan in A Canterlot Wedding vacillated wildly between brilliant (e.g. sending a huge swarm after the Mane Six when they went to get the Elements of Harmony) and idiotic (e.g. banishing Twilight after everyone had lost faith in her, including Twilight herself, and so she'd ceased to be a threat to her deception). She was much more cogent in To Where and Back Again, where she not only pulled off a complete coup (albeit off-screen), but had no way of knowing that Starlight and Thorax were about to pull off a complete deus ex machina, and one that makes no real sense at that (i.e. the whole "sharing love will transform the changelings and destroy her magic-devouring throne" nonsense).
More to the point, however, is that every living thing in Equestria seems to have some basic level of magic, from plants like poison joke that can induce magical effects to basic animals having sapient levels of cognition (e.g. a bird bowing politely to Spike in Princess Spike).
As far as a racial write-up for changelings goes, Thoth already made a great one over on his blog. It highlights the fact that the changelings' major weaknesses are the fact that they need to continue eating love to survive - and, presumably, power their magic (though that's presumptive) - but also the fact that they're simply not very strong creatures individually. We see the Mane Six, none of whom are warriors, and several of whom aren't particularly athletic, defeat several times their own number of changelings, which fits right in line with their theme: creatures with a natural ability to disguise themselves to parasitize others generally aren't going to be notable warriors. And yet we keep seeing them going with overt attacks, which is playing to their weaknesses, rather than their strengths. Admittedly, those do work, but only because of the sheer numbers they can bring to bear and that they're attacking from surprise. Take either of those away, and then tend to lose unless their opposition is crippled somehow (e.g. not being able to use magic).
Don't even get me started on how much their parasitic aspect has been diluted over the course of the show. Having Thorax be able to turn into a rock was bad enough, but combine that with being able to feed on friendship really makes them seem far less invasive. Why can't they just turn into some tables and chairs at the local bar and soak up the friendship that you'd expect to permeate the place? ("I laughed, he laughed, the table laughed, we shot the table. It was good times.") That's without even getting into the fact that there's no displayed debilitation for ponies whose love is fed on - if they seem to be fine anyway, what's the problem with letting changelings absorb as much love/friendship as they want?
But that pales before the insanity of "sharing love" between themselves. Passing any sort of energy/food back and forth endlessly is a perpetual motion machine by another name, and even if it is magic, that really shouldn't work. If the sum total of love/friendship can be passed back and forth, then what are they digesting/extracting to consume for themselves? And the very idea that changelings can generate love/friendship on their own and pass it around is like saying that vampires can just feed on each other's blood - it's self-evidently nonsensical. By that logic, a changeling could love itself (or "be their own best friend") and therefore feed on itself indefinitely, which shows just how half-baked the entire idea is...and that's before you get into the idea of it transforming them into whatever the heck those new forms are.
I'm not going to get into the comics though, since those are wildly non-canon anyway.
Yeah, no. I'm sorry, but you're mixing up narrative elements with meta-narrative elements here. You can't cite story structure and plot progression as in-character reasons for why things happen the way that they do. The formatting that's inherent to a children's cartoon isn't useful in trying to come up with a sense of internal logic and self-consistency for a given fictional world. Now, it's certain that the writers don't always hold those things up to be their first priority anyway - which is reasonable, since they're most concerned with making the show fun and engaging first, everything else second - but if we as fans want to understand the world better, to make it seem more understandable and thus more real to us, those are the constraints that we are best served to work under.
And of course, my fanfic doesn't operate according to the cartoon's meta-narrative constraints anyway.
There's no "guaranteed failure" being held forth here, at least not for the reasons you cite above.
8026853 Okay, I think I see what you're saying now. The thing is, the Cripple was never perceived as being a sahuagin by the other sahuagin, and I certainly didn't mean to imply otherwise (remember, she didn't even use her blur spell until they went to Vanhoover to hunt Lex). Rather, the events of "The Two Hungers" (this story's chapter 66) were to try and drive home that there were non-sahuagin living as an adjunct to the sahuagin community, under the auspices of the Great Lord of the Deep:
8026883
I guess that's me being a non-native english speaker again. I meant notable in the sense of it being significant or considerable in the face of ponies, which it isn't. Well, at least not when it comes to Unicorns or Alicorns.
What breaks my mind is "Why?". I mean, ok, maybe Chrysalis is some sort of master genius and has plans within plans, but I just can't understand how they don't seem to have something like a "Death Attack", if you know what I mean. Wouldn't they have evolved to eliminate threats before the actual combat starts? Or even kill the opposing leaders before there's a threat of combat?
I know, but I don't get how the cartoon could work without making a lot of assumptions that contradict each other. The fact that the most powerful weapon requires six irreplacable key users to activate begs the question, "how have no assassination attempts have been made yet?"
It's confusing and weird
That's... probably true. I doubt I've even once seen a creature bleed in MLP:FIM.
8026892
My question have been answered.
Carry on.
8026981 Glad I could clear things up!
8026972
Looking that over again, I think it was more that I misunderstood you, rather than your question being unclear.
You're right that no other race seems to have spellcasting - which is different than magic - per se. In that regard, the ponies (or at least, as you noted, the unicorns and alicorns) are indeed better than other races. However, this is contrasted with the fact (and I do think that it's a fact, based on what we see in the show) that most unicorns are flat-out unable to raise their spellcasting to the level of where it would offer a significant advantage over what other races can do. Only a few exceptional individuals - all of them either alicorns or unicorns with cutie marks related to magic - seem to be able to reach any notable heights of power. Such individuals are, in essence, superheroes among the normal population.
I don't disagree with you that the villains could be more ruthless (though, rather ironically, the changelings have a reason for not racking up a body count, in that every pony that they take alive is a pony that's another food source). Yes, Nightmare Moon should probably have been trying to kill the Mane Six rather than lopping mustaches off of sea monsters, but...well...there we are. Discord shouldn't have just sat there and let the Mane Six petrify him, but that's what happened. I agree that it's hideously frustrating, but that's the paradigm that we have to work within and try to make sense out of. In that regard, it's not too hard, since we can cite things like "arrogance" or "stupidity" and have that be that, even if it's rather inelegant. Inconsistencies in what we're shown are far harder to deal with.
If you're saying that that's the hard part, I likewise agree, though I don't think it's impossible. In the example you mentioned, the key is that the Elements of Harmony don't need to have six users, nor are they irreplaceable. Remember, we saw Celestia and Luna use the Elements of Harmony by themselves when they sealed away Discord in the flashback in Princess Twilight Sparkle. Likewise, Celestia was later able to use all six by herself when she sealed away Nightmare Moon. So there's clearly some variance as to who can wield those artifacts - killing the existing ones that you know about might just mean that another will take their place...one that isn't already famous.
For what it's worth, the idea of somepony being killed was referenced - albeit obliquely - in Maud Pie, when Rarity comments about how they "almost lost" Pinkie Pie to her obstacle course.
8027145
While that's true, consider that a "superhero" of Gryphons might fly a bit faster than the norm, but a "superhero" of Unicorns warps reality, possibly without limit. And that's without things like Starswirl's spell, the Cutie Pox or Starlight's vault, which show that cutie marks can be manipulated and transfered too.
They have a reason to avoid unnecessary casulties, yes, but even they should know that it doesn't matter how much food there is if you still can't have any. If their invasion fails (which it did), it doesn't matter if there's one or two million ponies left, you'll still leave with zero. And if your race relies on surprise attacks and Blitzkrieg, just coming back later isn't as effective as one might think.
They might be "replaceable", but we don't know how easily you can replace them. I mean, it took 1000 years to find new bearers and if the rainboom wouldn't have happened, that would have went down the drain too. If you could just freely generate bearers out of thin air, the whole Starlight time-travel plot would make no sense... Well, even less sense.
The elements just don't make much sense: Does every friendship qualify as long as you are friends with someone in front of the tree? It seemed to work for Celestia and Luna. Twilight just made an element out of nothing, does that mean they just spontaneously manifest because someone wants it? in that case, why did Celestia and Luna need to go to the tree in the first place. The Mane Six can use the elements... well, without the elements, so why are they needed again? Heck, if there is an invasion, could the elements stop it? They've been single-target so far. If you can just use the elements alone, what's the point of friendship to begin with? Doesn't the fact that Celestia can just use them herself defeat the point of the entire show then? Well... okay, maybe a part of Luna was still there so they used it together, who knows what the Nightmare actually does to ponies, but nothing says that Luna was necessary for the process, so why should we assume that? Equestria Girls says you can just chunk an element into a different dimension, so why don't you just do that? Worked with the sirens.
For all we know, basically every pony could just will the elements into existance and use them as they see fit (it worked in Equestria Girls). There is nothing that actually says otherwise (though I feel the show suggests it). Even the idea that you need to be a good pony isn't set in stone. Sunset wasn't a good pony in the first movie.
I feel like the elements are just an arbitrary plot device.
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Analysis of the show means only trying to interpret what we see, not what "possibly" could be. For that matter, characterizing spellcasting as "warps reality" strikes me as rather exaggerated. Twilight can't edit reality the way that Discord (or possibly even Pinkie Pie, depending on how you interpret her abilities) can. It's important not to make any unnecessary assumptions, nor inflate those assumptions beyond the limits of the minimum necessary to adequately explain what we've been shown.
Yes, unicorns who have a special talent for magic are going to be, on the whole, stronger than talented members of other races; that's not in question. But that remains the very rare exception rather than the rule. Ponies in general are more gifted than other races (since other races only have their racial magic, whereas only ponies have racial magic and cutie mark magic), but for the vast, vast majority of ponies, the bump they get is so small that it's functionally not much of an increase at all over what a dedicated member of another race could accomplish. There are exceptions, to be sure, but they're just that: exceptions.
It's a lot like AD&D, where demihumans had level limits and humans didn't. Most characters aren't going to get to a high enough level for that to matter; only a very few characters will ever reach a point where that sort of thing becomes a practical, rather than theoretical, issue.
Manipulating things that can't normally be manipulated is sort of the hallmark of magic; you normally can't mess with someone's head either (outside of normal methods of persuasion, coercion, or even hypnosis), but Starlight was able to use what looked like a dominate person spell on Twilight's friends. In that regard, cutie marks are no different.
That said, I question the degree to which Star-Swirl's unfinished spell really did much, since as it turned out the transferred marks hadn't transferred the actual talents that they were supposedly representative of.
It's still more effective than killing everyone, which is a scorched earth tactic for changelings. The fact is, their race doesn't rely on surprise attacks or blitzkrieg assaults; they rely on being unnoticed. Changelings aren't ambush predators, they're parasites. When they function best, their target shouldn't ever know that they were there, or at least not until they've woken up in a pod that's safely spirited away from everywhere else. The very idea of them needing to commit any sort of open warfare is counterintuitive, which is why Chrysalis' second plan was much better than her first.
My personal theory there is that Chrysalis is working at cross-purposes with herself. I think that she doesn't want to be a secretive, power-behind-the-throne type who rules from a disguise, even though that's her racial forte. I think that she wants to rule openly, and that's why she keeps doing what she's doing, though her last round would seem to suggest that she's tempered her ambition, at least somewhat. That would explain why she keeps trying such aggressive strategies instead of playing to her natural strengths.
The problem with this idea is that it rests on an uncertain premise (which is entirely the show's fault): we don't know why it was imperative that new bearers be found to begin with. Celestia could use the Elements of Harmony all by herself when she banished Nightmare Moon, so why couldn't she now? (This has shades of the "why banish her and not just redeem her right then?" problem.) The entire series premiere never establishes why it's so important that Twilight and company be the ones to do what they did, rather than Celestia; we don't even know where Celestia was when Nightmare Moon reappeared. The season two premiere does have Celestia saying that she and Luna are no longer connected to the Elements, but there's a strong case to be made that that's because Twilight and company are, rather than any sort of natural loss of that connection (at least for Celestia; Luna most likely lost her connection when she turned into Nightmare Moon, if not before).
It's strongly implied (or maybe even stated outright) that the Elements can only be used by people that represent some high affinity the traits each one embodies (which, being qualitative, can't really be measured), though we know thanks to Celestia and Luna that a person can do that for more than one trait simultaneously. Likewise, the series premiere hinges on the concept that (once a person has formed a link with their Element) they can reconstitute that Element even when it's destroyed, which sort of makes sense: each gemstone is (as I see it) a representation of a particular aspect of friendship/harmony, rather than being a font of it; you can't actually destroy something like "loyalty" or "laughter."
As for other dimensions, the presumptive answer is that no one else can access them. It took Star-Swirl to banish the Sirens and create the mirror portals, after all. (Though the Breezies' home looks like some sort of weird sub-dimension, it seems to be natural in nature, rather than artificial...I think).
The first movie makes it clear that Sunset was able to use the Element of Magic (by itself) due to the magic being altered because of it being in another dimension. Likewise, although the movie does a very bad job explaining it, I think that the explanation for how the girls in Equestria Girls are suddenly able to develop powers is that the Element of Magic itself rebels against what Sunset is doing and so gives them powers (?). Basically, the entire thing is explained via "it's another dimension; whatever rules we established before don't apply here."
Oh, no doubt. But at least they retired them. Now we get to go on even less information with the Rainbow Powers.
EDIT: So I forgot to tag this post as a reply when I wrote it; I went back and put that in later.
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My problem with the changelings? For a race of shapeshifters whose very means of gathering food relies on their ability to imitate other creatures...they are INCREDIBLY BAD actors. Seriously, Shining Armor's shield must have been made out of pure idiot ball energy that no one saw through Chrysalis' disguise before Twilight. Thorax's 'good changeling' mutation must have come from the Apple family, since he's about a good a liar as AJ. And going by the group replacing the Mane 6 + Spike, the problem's species wide, since they couldn't accurately imitate anyone. Seriously, it almost comes down to the best method of spotting disguised changelings is to look for the person who suddenly started being a jerk.
8028373 Yeah, that's a point that's rather undeniable. To be fair, some of that is unavoidable; the ease with which you can imitate someone is directly proportional to the amount of knowledge you have of them, and so the changelings would need to have a large amount of data - preferably first-hoof - on potential targets before replacing them. In a world with no mass media beyond newspapers, that can be hard to come by. The scene with changeling-Pinkie in To Where and Back Again - Part 1, where Starlight greeted her and changeling-Pinkie's response was "Heyyyy...you," was a fairly accurate depiction of what would happen under those circumstances.
Chrysalis' impersonation of Cadance, however, was ridiculously out-of-character. She pretty clearly wasn't making any effort to mimic her target's personality or mannerisms at all, and it showed. She seemed to be treading off of the idea that nopony knew what a changeling was, which seems rather odd...but there's no way to be sure.
Typos! Got nukes?
I thought Monitor had fins?
Oooh, plot twist.
8256006 Whoops! Fixed now!
"STEP OF MY BF, B*TCH!" She pimp slaps him
11679597 Followed by snapping her fingers above her head...or at least, she would if she had fingers instead of hooves.