Chapter LVIII: Losses
“Doctor, we’re losing him!”
“I know!” The lead surgeon screamed as a nurse soaked up another bead of sweat from his brow. “There’s just too much bleeding!”
Shining Armor laid on the table in front of the doctors, a few of his cuts crudely stitched together. The doctor immediately returned to his work, his needle working furiously to close up yet another cut, only to watch seven more take its place. Every few seconds, another cut or patch of cracked, useless skin materialized as more of Shining’s skin turned a pale chrome and flopped off his neck, evaporating into the air and revealing the barely-healed wounds beneath. “God above, how’d this guy survive long enough for the Major to work his magic, anyway?”
“Apparently, he’s married to a princess, sir,” one of the nurses stated. “I’m sure anyone married to royalty must be quite the stallion.”
“Yeah, rub it in, why dontcha.”
“Rub what in…oh,” the nurse sighed, watching the unicorn slip away from between the surgeon’s fingers. “Sorry, doctor.”
“Don’t be sorry, just…just…” he surveyed the wounds slowly being revealed by the rapidly-shrinking patches of healthy skin. Here, an angry red sore glared up at him from meat that looked like something he’d pick up off the grill back home. There, a burn-covered stretch over the carotid artery spurted blood, covering his lab coat faster than they could pump the stuff in. His eyes widened above his surgical mask. This…this was impossible. Even if he had a team of the best surgeons and the best equipment available, instead of a few nurses in a tent with whatever good ol’ Uncle Sam had lying around, nothing could save anyone from injuries like this. Not even a demigod, apparently.
“SHINING!” A voice cried from the tent flap, followed by the sounds of a scuffle breaking out.
“What the hell’s goin’ on out there? What’s shining?” The doc asked.
“No doctor, it’s the patient’s wife,” the same nurse from before replied. “His NAME is Shining.”
The surgeon paused for a second to arch an eyebrow at her.
“Yes, really. Shining Armor, sir.”
“Of course it is,” he grimaced, gazing down at the unicorn again. Sighing, he placed his forceps on the tray left out for him and tugged his gloves off in defeat.
“Doctor?”
“Bring her in,” he rasped, backing away from the operating table and heading out the rear flap. “She should be here when it happens.”
The nurse gazed up at him with big, wet eyes, but her voice was all business when she replied: “Yes, doctor.” She walked steadily out the tent to grab the hysteric pony princess.
“SHINING!” Cadence screamed, bursting through the front flap and nearly tripping over her own hooves in a mad dash to the table. Her jaw dropped at the butchered pile of meat that used to be her lover’s neck. “Oh Celestia, Shining!”
Sobbing, she wrapped her forelegs around his body, not caring about injuries or possible further damage, or the way his skin crackled like crepe paper as she held him, or the warm spurts of blood soaking the front of her coat. “Shining, please, please not again,” she whispered into his ear, his breaths coming in ragged gasps now, his chest rising against hers in agony. She closed her eyes and kissed him on the cheek. “You promised, Shining, please…please…I love you…please…”
The unicorn inhaled one more time, and then his breath wheezed out slowly, leaving his body like a slow leak in a tire. Still sobbing, the Princess didn’t even notice that she was now holding a corpse. Didn’t notice, or more likely didn’t care. Tears rolled out her eyes and onto his face, dribbling down his shrunken cheeks. The remaining nurses simply turned and left, one pausing to rest a hand on Cadence’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” she said, before turning to join the others just outside the tent. Still sobbing, Cadence had finally run out of breath, her body giving in to dry-heaving like a drunk without anything left in his stomach to vomit up. She wanted to just collapse on the ground and give in, but that would mean leaving his side, and so she clung on, her hoof desperately tearing at his fur.
“Don’t leave me…please…I love you…” she mumbled over and over again, as if those words could bring him back. Eventually, she gave in to the heaves, her stomach pausing just enough for the words to come clearly one more time: “…I love you…”
Distracted as she was, it might be understandable why she never noticed the little threads of chrome hanging in the air. She never even noticed as the threads slowly descended upon the body of the unicorn, shimmering right back into place as the gray goop left started to fan out, filling in as many wounds as it could. She couldn’t have dreamed that the threads would soon wrap around his neck, quickly securing the makeshift patches into their rightful places as the threads formed a cocoon over his wounds. Nor could she have ever thought that those silver patches would eventually sprout a thin coat of white fur exactly like his own. At least, not until the unicorn suddenly gasped for air.
Throwing herself back in terror, Princess Cadence fell onto her haunches and gazed up, her cheeks still covered in tears. Shining Armor just kept gulping down air as fast as he could, his pupils now little dots in his massive, blue eyes as he fell, limply against the side of the operating table, his head making a low thud as he hit. “Shining?” She asked tentatively, as if she couldn’t believe her own eyes.
Still panting heavily, the unicorn slowly turned his head towards her and smiled. “Tell that pilot his brother says hi.” He rasped.
She threw her hooves around him and didn’t let go for the rest of the night. Not when the men with white lab-coats over their combat fatigues came running in, screaming questions and concerns. Not when the men and women in nurse’s hats came in after the doctors, smiles on their faces as they cheered the reunited couple. Not when they were ushered back to the main medical tent to lie together on one cot, their heads nuzzling together. Not even when a man came running in with news of the American victory outside of town and everyone else who was able got up and cheered, literally jumping for joy. And all because her Shining Armor was back, and she was never, ever, letting him go.
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Just outside Coltton, the final battle for all of Equestria had wound down to nothing. The dome was gone now, leaving behind a humongous crater in the middle of the field, still shimmering with wild magic spurting from the Princesses’ horns. Vance sighed as he finally allowed his voice to rest. “Alright, ladies, it’s over,” he said hoarsely (no pun intended). “We’ve won, we’ve officially…”
He was interrupted by a low chortle from the back of someone’s throat. He turned as Celestia advanced on him, her horn sparkling randomly. “Captain!” She gasped.
“What!? What’s happening now!?” He wailed.
Her eyes darted about, alternating between dark scarlet and light red. Luna stood next to her, her horn glowing with dark energy as her coat’s midnight blue was slowly replaced by a pitch black. “Run, Captain!” Luna screamed. “We-we can feel Nightmare Moon reasserting herself!”
“Nightmare who-the-fuck!?”
“Just run!” Celestia screeched, her hooves smashing into the ground hard enough to crack the dirt beneath them. “HAHA - For pity’s sake, run!”
“Hell no,” he grumbled. “Not after everything you’ve done for us!”
“Heheh…don’t be a fool! Nothing can stop this transformation except…except maybe…”
“PRINCESS!” Twilight screamed as she galloped to join them. A smile rushed to Celestia’s face, a warm one directly opposing the cold insanity struggling to take her mind.
“T-Twilight!” Luna gasped as each of the Elements galloped right past Vance while he tried to shield them. “Girls! Get back! We are…”
“…Not leaving you!” Applejack said stubbornly as each of the ponies grabbed a Princess. “Not like this!”
“But-we are…” Luna looked down worriedly as Nightmare Moon’s armor snapped onto her forelegs. Celestia, meanwhile, simply smiled knowingly as she wrapped a hug around each of the Elements.
“Laughter to keep the dark one at bay…” she whispered, pulling Pinkie close in her wing as her element shimmered around her neck. The little pink mare smiled into her Princess’ eyes.
Luna’s eyes widened in understanding, her coat almost a complete black now as she pulled Rarity closer. “…Generosity to open thy heart…”
“…Honesty to know when one has gone too far…” Celestia added as AJ hugged her with a smile.
“…Kindness to stay thy hoof…” Luna replied as Fluttershy slowly and tentatively wrapped her little wings around her neck.
“...a pinch of Magic never hurt either…heh…” Celestia giggled as Twilight nuzzled her.
“…and of course, Loyalty for…for…” Luna looked around in a panic. “I say, where is Miss Dash?”
“She…” Twilight choked, her heart falling as she gazed at the crater. “She…”
“No,” Celestia gasped.
Luna turned to her suddenly, lips twisted in a snarl. “This is YOUR fault, sister! Without the Elements, how can we possibly defend Equestria!? How can we withstand the trials to come!? If WE were in control…”
Celestia replied with a low snicker. “WE!? You still use the old royal ‘we’ you OUT OF TOUCH HA-ACK!” She choked herself off, eyes clenching shut. “It’s happening! Twilight, run!”
“No! I’m not leaving you again!” Twilight screamed, holding the Princess even tighter.
“You have no choice! Without Loyalty, you and the other Elements can’t…”
A voice interrupted them, its deep, throaty pitch tumbling through the air: ”Yesterday…I saw you standin’ there…”
Another voice joined in: ”…Your head was down, your eyes were red…no comb had touched your hair…”
Finally, the Captain’s familiar tremor rang out over the first two: ”…I said get up, an’ let me see ya smile …”
At last all three voices joined together in harmony: ”…We’ll take a walk together, walk the road awhile ‘cause…”
All eyes turned as Uris, Webb, and Vance walked slowly towards the Princesses, their voices in perfect harmony, their arms around on one another’s shoulders. ”…’Cause I’ve got a hand for youuuuuuu…I’ve got a hand for youuuuuu…”
“It-it’s working!” Luna gasped in disbelief, watching as the black on her coat retreated.
”…’cause I wanna run with you (wontcha let me run with you, yeah)…”
“Vance, you magnificent man! You magnificent humans!” Celestia screamed in delight as the darkness faded from her eyes.
”…Hooooold myyyyyyyy hand! I wantcha to hold my haaaannnnnd…”
“What’re they doing?” Twilight asked.
“Music to sooth the savage beast…” Rarity mused, Luna’s coat lightening beneath her body.
”…Hooooold myyyyyyy hand… I'll take you to a place where you can beeeee…”
“Nineties pop saves the day?” Pinkie said, shaking her head. “Okay, just how stoned off your ass are you right now, K?” Completely, P.
”…Hoooooold my hand…anything you wanna be because …” the trio smiled as the Alicorns’ eyes faded to their normal white and the pair collapsed into the hooves of the smiling ponies around them, chests heaving in relief. ”…I wanna love you, the best that – the best that I caaaaannn!”
“Twi-Twilight?” Celestia asked between pants as she laid with her sister, her most faithful student gazing down at her.
Crying out in joy, Twilight immediately wrapped her hooves around her mentor. “Oh, thank you! It’s over!” She sobbed. “It’s finally over.”
“Not quite,” Celestia replied, gently brushing the little unicorn aside as she stood up. Hobbling to her hooves, Celestia focused her magic on her beloved sun, still just peeking over the horizon beneath her sister’s moon.
“Seriously? Can we not have a moment’s rest?” Luna sighed, still panting heavily on the ground.
“A Princess’ work is never done,” Celestia sighed, still wobbling on her hooves.
Moaning, Luna focused her magic into the moon, the normally-simple task of setting it now near-impossible to her exhausted mind. Celestia strained at the same time, and after a few agonizing moments, the two orbs started to move exhaustingly across the sky, the sun making a wobbly, strained path upwards as the moon made a sort of spiraling-downwards path. Finally, with every other being gathered around and watching in concern, the sun rose to greet the day, its movements coarse and jagged, but still appearing as the moon shakily hit the horizon, hesitated, and finally fell right through.
“There, NOW it’s over,” Celestia gasped before promptly collapsing to the ground next to her sister in a heap of feathers.
“Shit, if we had leaders like you two we wouldn’t be in half the trouble we’re in most of the time,” Vance smiled.
“Well, that’s too bad, because there’s only one Princess Celestia…” Twilight said, nuzzling her mentor gently.
“…And one Princess Luna,” the rest of her friends added, wrapping their hooves around the Alicorn of Night.
“One moment,” Luna said suddenly, doing a quick headcount. “We still only count five little ponies here. Where is Miss Dash?”
“Sunuva…” Uris smacked himself on the forehead. “That’s why we’re here! She and Ramirez both fell into the dome!”
“What, Ramirez too!?” Twilight gasped, her voice straining.
“Couldn’t even get close because of the Princesses’ magic,” Webb said, turning back to the crater in the field as the last shred of wild magic faded away with the Alicorns’ calm. “That’s not a problem anymore, though.”
“Well what the hay’re we waiting fer!?” AJ gasped, pulling her hat low as she leapt to her hooves. “Those two could need us!”
“C’mon girls!” Twilight gasped, giving the Princess one last squeeze as the ponies and their human friends took off for the crater, leaving just the Alicorns and Vance behind.
“See ya, pop!” Uris called over his shoulder.
“Stay safe, son,” Vance called, waving gladly as he turned back to the Alicorns. “God, I’m proud of that boy.”
“As you should be, Captain,” Celestia replied, resting her head in her hooves.
“This still leaves Swarm unanswered for,” Luna said, turning to her solar counterpart in concern. “Should we not also begin a search for him?”
After a moment’s thought, Celestia shook her head. “I think he has some business which he should be allowed to handle alone. Besides, he’s a big boy. He can take care of himself.”
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Michael gazed out at the field from the shadows, a few wisps of cigarette smoke gathered by his face as he watched the Princesses recover. He snorted and pulled his jacket tight against the early-morning chill.
“As I told you, brother,” Chen said, stepping into view with a small, knowing smile. “The Equestrians can handle some matters on their own. They do not need us for everything.”
“Pfeh,” Michael snorted, shaking out a few ashes from his cigarette. “They can keep themselves from being destroyed by their own guardians. Good for them.”
“Feeling a bit cynical, Daddy?” A voice called behind them. Chen rolled his eyes as the pair turned back to Mars, wrapped in chains at the base of a massive oak. He grinned defiantly up at them as they stared down at his form, Chen’s eyes a cold, steely neutral, Michael’s flaring with white-hot fury. “It’s okay, I’m sure anyone would be in a bad mood after the number of men you got killed today.”
Michael knelt down, his hands wrapping around his son’s neck. The fallen demi-god’s eyes lit up with wicked glee, as if he were waiting for this moment all along. “Finally, the old man shows some spine!” He screamed victoriously.
“This isn’t an execution, Mars,” Chen said coolly.
“No?” Mars arched an eyebrow, honestly confused.
“No,” Michael replied, a bit of gray goo dribbling out the sleeves of his leather jacket. “But it is a sentencing.”
Mars’ eyes widened at the sight of the goo. For the first time, actual fear entered his features. He struggled against his chains. “No.”
“Yep.”
“You can’t!”
“I can.”
The goo dribbled onto Mars’ coat, spreading out along his body and enveloping him. “PLEASE!”
“I think a thousand years’ imprisonment in the hive-mind should do the trick,” Chen said, watching as their son disappeared beneath the growing mound of goo.
“A thousand years without a body!? Forced to mingle with those sub-human mongrels you call a network!?” His struggles grew weaker and weaker. “How can you…”
“You should feel lucky: I managed to talk him down from ten.” Michael replied.
“This…” a touch of his old fury crossed Mars’ eyes. “This changes nothing! I have hundreds more offshoots ready to replace this one! And millions of conscripts waiting to sound the charge! Ready to burn worlds in my name! The entire multiverse will reel with this war! Creation will tremble and heave with what I’m about to do! God himself will stand back, weeping with horror at what is about to happen!”
“Sounds rather exciting,” Chen said, glaring down at him.
“Too bad you won’t be there to see it,” Michael hissed and, with a last burst of effort, completely swallowed the fallen demi-god in a curtain of goo. Mars’ screams filled the air, quickly muffled and blocked out, eventually fading within the wall of chrome. A short time later, the chrome goo ran right back up Michael’s sleeves, rejoining his main body. The man in the leather jacket gasped and collapsed on all fours, something rippling across his back just beneath his jacket.
“Michael!” Chen grabbed his brother’s shoulder.
“I’m alright!” The man in the leather jacket stood, giving a light shiver, but not light enough to prevent his brother from noticing. “It’s over. Really.”
“Still not yet,” Chen sighed, turning back to the field just as the strange group of humans and ponies began to make their way towards the crater. Michael watched and somehow, his features sank even further. He gazed down at the strange group as it approached the crater and took another drag off his cigarette while they called the names of their lost ones.
“Should we inform them of our presence?” Chen asked, appearing at his side.
“Naw,” Michael shook his head, shaking off some of the ashes from the cigarette. “Let them be for now. They need to mourn their loss.”
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Rainbow Dash opened her eyes as slowly and tentatively as possible. A patch of burnt Earth greeted her. She grinned. Either somepony upstairs had a really funny way of messing with the dearly-departed, or…
“I’M ALIVE!” She cried victoriously. Wooh, take that apocalypse! As if something like that could take out the most awesome pegasus ever! She did it! She’d stopped Armageddon and lived to talk about it! Now, how many ponies could say that!? This wasn’t just 20% cooler stuff, this was 200 – no, 2000% cooler! She couldn’t wait to tell her friends about the crazy stuff she’d seen in there…
Her friends! Jeez, they had to be worried sick about her. Fluttershy was probably stroking-out by now! She could hear them by this point, her hearing having recovered enough to make out their voices. They were calling for her and – Ramirez? Oh jeez, he’d gotten in there too! Dang! Where was he!?
In a panic, she tried to push herself to her hooves to begin an aerial search, only to be stopped by a massive burden shifting on her shoulders. “Aw no way, I found him already!” She grinned as a flash of camo dropped down next to her eye, unmistakably from the SEAL’s uniform. The dude was lying right on top of her!
“Ramirez, what did I tell ya?” She said, yet another sarcastic comment all ready for him. “Dinner and a mo…vie…first…” she trailed off as a decayed hand dropped in front of her face, like that of a corpse that had been in the ground for months. What was left of the skin was rotted and completely dry, its once rich, light brown now a dark, fetid yellowish-tan. The nails barely hung on with a few, tiny sinews of skin, a single brush from the feathers of her wing causing one of them to fall right off. It was impossible to hope, to even dream, that the man attached to this hand could possibly be alive.
“Dinner…and a movie…fuh-first…” she sobbed and nuzzled the hand gently, wrapping her forelegs around it and weeping openly as the sun slowly rose, welcoming in the new day.
AKA "The chapter in which Kildeez pushes the laws of both good writing and American copyrights for song lyrics."
Special guest stars: Yours truly, and this crazy mofo right here!
"Hold my Hand" is trademarked to "Hootie and the Blowfish".
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Hi there! I'm IncoherentOrange from WRITE, and I am here to review your story as requested.
Since you haven't sent in any particular requests for focus on one particular area or anything of the sort, I'll try to give my feedback on some of everything.
Before we get started on the story itself, the description should be focused upon. As the exterior view of your story, what it contains is crucial to luring in a reader, as you might imagine.
The description tells a lot about what's going to happen, and hops all over the place, speaking of Swarm almost as though we're supposed to know him prior to reading this story, when the only continuity with other stories mentioned is supposedly minor, but seems to be pretty big. What are the "terrifying forces tearing reality to bits"? Should we know? What's Earth got to do with this, anyway? Why specifically Americans? Why are the Princesses and Discord predisposed? My point is that it's sort of a jarring, confusing way to start a story off.
Beyond that, there's no need to censor your disclaimer, it looks kind of silly that way. Also, if "extreme" violence is depicted, why is there no gore tag? And if it's so "extreme" why is it rated teen? Seems strange to label it as such. Anyway, the story itself. Quite a long one, this is, so I think I will give my input up until the tenth chapter. The initial chapters are very important to hooking a reader, and any grammatical mistakes will be present there.
The story starts as though it is being told by a narrator. Since the narrator is not a character, I don't think it's necessary to put their words in quotation marks (though you may wish to check that yourself). However, if there is any part of the story that is not told by the narrator or another character within the story, (i.e. in a perspective that is not the thoughts of a person), then a distinction has to be made. This appears to be the case, but you switch perspectives and the narration style changes with it. Make sure it's consistent between perspectives.
Grammatically, your story is quite well-off, and apart from some stylistic irregularities that I personally dislike (such as the phonetic expression of accents and usage of capitalization to portray emphasis), there's not too many things that strike me as technically incorrect. Still, you may want to have a second pair of eyes comb through your story for things you've missed and which do not sound right, like this:
(The full stop there should be a comma, but even that looks strange.)
As the chapters are quite short, the first one gives me little information. We're introduced to a mysterious villainous figure whose motivation appears to be simply power, and another figure who has United States Armed Forces members in Equestria for a reason withheld from the reader at that time (which is a fairly effective way of prompting people to read more if done correctly, it seems). Not a bad start, really.
The second chapter reveals a grammatical shortfall that appears constant, and it has to do with capitalization and dialogue. You already replace periods with commas when appropriate at the end of dialogue, but you don't treat other marks the same way. For the purposes of the capitalization of the pronoun, etc. after the dialogue, question marks and exclamation marks are counted like commas:
Anyway, I'm fairly sure helicopter pilots can get out of their harnesses just fine, not to mention that Chinook helicopters have a crew that includes a flight engineer and co-pilot as well as a pilot, which I'd imagine would be strapped in just like the pilot was. Also, humans are not particularly strong animals, and pulling up grass isn't a particularly difficult thing to do. I'm not sure why that would make Fluttershy assume that humans had great strength when a typical human has far less arm strength than many other animals of the same size or smaller, a well-documented case being chimpanzees. Ignoring that for a moment, when Fluttershy sees a creature she has never seen before, her reaction seems to tilt more toward amazement and intense curiosity than fear, especially when the creature is not evidently hostile. Regardless, this chapter introduces us to Uris and Bannon, both characters that are evidently important to some degree (even if one of them is quite possibly dead), however briefly.
There's an interesting multiverse concept being explored in this story, which is always a concept that I've liked. Strange twist in these beings like the titular Swarm, though. There's some useful exposition in chapter three, but not a lot else.
The rate of progression in this story is rather (pleasantly) slow and the chapters are short, so I'll stop going chapter-by-chapter and instead give my summary of the story up to chapter ten.
Your characters are alright, though there are quite a few of them and the strength of their characterization appears to differ quite a bit up to this point, and consistency isn't as strong as it could be, especially in Luna's case. (Her speech pattern varies wildly.)
The depiction of the U.S. Military in this story is more accurate than in other stories I've seen, but still a bit shoddy in that respect. More concerning is their presence in the story at all, which could definitely serve as a put-off for new readers. However, it appears that you've planned out their purpose well enough that it doesn't feel overly crammed in there just for cool factor, but it still leaves that slight aftertaste.
Grammar is alright, though it could use improvement in some places, and the perspective has some consistency issues. The phonetic spelling of characters' accents is taken way out of hand in my opinion in some particular areas, so toning it down or eliminating it might make that less jarring.
The pacing works fairly well; I'd neither call it too slow or too fast, and it seems consistent enough. The "meta" portions of the story are very irksome and should be removed if possible, in my opinion.
Altogether, I'd say it's a fairly solid story you've got here, which is something that can't be said of a lot of the other stories of this type that populate this site. Still, I urge you to make improvements where improvements are due, and I think your story would be all the better for it. Good luck!
~IncoherentOrange, WRITE's Rambling Citrus
3600933 An honest review that looks over every aspect of my story, from writing style to grammar use, and ends with a summary of what I've done right and what I've done wrong.
You are my new best friend. Seriously, if there's anything you need me to do: a story to review, a group to popularize, a hit you need carried out, I'm your guy!
Now that I listen to this song, I suddenly recognize it. I didn't pick up on the name, but now actually listening to the music and stuff, it seems to click.
Maybe a link tot his vid when the song was first mentioned would be a nice touch, as I'm sure I'm not the only one who didn't immediately recognize the song from the earlier description of it.
Unless something really big pops up, I don't think I'll bother commenting until the final chapter, where I can give my final impressions and all.