It's been a month since the invasion of Canterlot, and the changeling forces are scattered and lost throughout Equestria. Labeled as little more than scum, staying in the nation is essentially impossible for them. Everypony is on high alert, and many of them have been hunted down and banished.
Thorax and Chitin are two young rank-and-file drones. Running from the Royal Guard in the Everfree and searching for their comrades, they never thought they'd get tied up with a legendary infiltrator.
Chrysalis realizes she will need all the backup they can get. First, they'll need to regroup their scattered ranks. Secondly, she needs to play every card in her hand. This time, she will not be denied.
AU label applies as this fic would only be canon disregarding Season 6 and beyond. Thorax is not the same Thorax from the show.
Been a while since I worked on a story. I finally got down and wrote 3.5k words for my followers who have gotten next to nothing from me.
I'll just hope that this goes well.
4046679
Changelings must have a happy ending or else i'll cry.
You don't want to make Dropbear cry do you?
4048306
No. I'm not going to send the changelings to the badlands to starve. They're definitely going to get a decent ending on their behalf, although not necessarily tearing down all resistance and sitting atop the throne of Equestria.
4048330
That's fine, as long as they don't just get made into the Equestrian version of the nazis like in some fics then it's all good.
I though it will be something different (some noir story or something like that ) but still gonna read it.
stares blandly. so exactly how could they possibly kill off trained soldiers so easily when six untrained combatants easily defeat DOZENS of them?
also shining armor, could easily defend his unite without effort in the slightest. he is a master of protective magicks. he can create a barrier large enough to defend a small city. and he once held sombra at bay, if only for a short time.
4259955
Yeah, I'll need to fix that... I had a feeling that that chapter wasn't ready, I guess that was it. Should I rewrite that chapter to make sure that the Royal Guards are more effective? Sure, they did eventually lose in Canterlot because of numbers, but the changelings should have more casualites.
I think I'll just rewrite the fight... Nothing short of that will save it.
4259959 think you need to remove shining armor. he is too powerful for a sneak attack to be effective against. he could simply block any attackers and make a run for it while shielding his men. perhaps even capturing a changeling while he does so.
best advice I can give is some philosophy I guess. something my English professor once said. narrative is the servant of the characters. basically you need to take into consideration the abiltiies and potential beahviors of characters you are writing.
put simply when you have a guy who spcializes in shields so powerful it is pretty sensible it could block a regal sister's magic blast, then you have an enemy that is immune to sneak attack.
don't have as much trouble with the sneak attack thing but it should be noted that the ponies have often shown to have the advantage if they are on guard to changelings. considering six untrained combatants ragdolled several dozen of them.......... then again they were all exceptional individuals and such.
story I am not entirely sure about. what does chrysalis expect to do if the regal sisters get involved? she could not possibly dsteal shining's love, meaning she would be a lesser force. and as they feed on love, that means that there is no way for her to logically retain enough power to be a threat to the sisters; she would 'digest' the energy.
4259998
Removing Shining Armor would touch on the last three chapters, so I feel kind of reluctant to do that, but I might need to. On the other hand, maintaining his shields has shown to be taxing on his stamina, but he probably shouldn't have a problem with maintaining a smaller shield. A lot of bashings have been shown to shatter them, but a smaller shield won't have as much changelings on it.
I think that offensive capabilities will be limited while the shield is up, so he'll probably need to take a risk if he wants to lower the amount of eager pursuers. But in general, he'd probably be able to escape with the rest of his team with minimal risk.
He could take Queen Chrysalis hostage, but then, there will be several dozen changelings who won't allow that. So I sort of doubt his capability to take hostage any changeling of value. But he definitely has the capability to inflict lots of damage.
I don't think that they'd be able to completely obliterate the camp. His cutie mark implies specialization in defensive spells, with that shield. But they'll definitely get away with no problem. So I don't think that he'll kill everybody if he's not removed, but he'll get away for sure.
Chrysalis' motives beyond revenge? I'll need to work on that. I do have a headcanon that changelings could store love without consuming it and give it to their leader. But Equestria would be on fairly high alert and scouts would probably have a good chance of getting caught. So she'd probably need to invade a town, preferably a smaller one, to get anything.
4259998
For the first time, I agree with you. Shining Armor is too over powered.
4268090 at the very least he is too powerful for lesser foes to handle even in numbers. if I were to guess he was trained to fend off more powerful beings and to prevent them from causing considerable damage till the regal ones came onto the scene to fight them. he was able to hold back sombra for a time after all, long enough for the mane six to escape harm.
would also think he would have more combative techniques too but his specialty is what is on his ass; protecting.
4268332
Yep. He's probably not the best at overrunning his foes, but he has to be one of the best at protection.
quite a bit better i think. shining would not have been made the captain of the guard if he was incompetent after all.
4456491
I know. I usually don't, but I guess that the lapse between chapters gave the time for that to happen.
Holy crap! Almost didn't believe my eyes when I saw how long it'd been between chapters. Hope you're back on track for good this time
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God, this was a jump in writing quality! First chapters were just okay, but this is sick! Can't wait to see more of Hexapod.
Why did you make Shining Armor so powerful?
11174493
That's the plan, school is taking its toll but I'll see the story through. Hope you'll enjoy it as it comes!
11174600
I agree that it could be overdone, but I definitely bowed to pressure from lordofmyth's comments as I initially wrote the chapter such that Shining Armor's crew took heavy casualties and only a few survivors made it off. However, I also like the dynamic it could serve between Hexapod and Shining Armor acting as foils (as a sort of unstoppable force vs. immovable object conflict). Will keep it in mind in future chapters to not creep how powerful he is further, however.