“The enemy is putting pressure onto the south east quadrants,” a high ranking officer said from his end of the table. Dim mana lanterns hanging in the large tint cast a sheen over his and every other stallion’s graying manes. “I suggest we move our artillery to strike their advancing lines so that we can give the infantry located there time to dig a trench where they’re at.”
“Uhm… But I thought they were ordered to dig a trench four days ago.”
“Well, now they’re digging a better trench! And as for the enemy’s flank--”
“Uhm…” An enforcer raised his hoof and sniffed the air. “Sorry to interrupt, gentlecolts, but…” He blinked. “Does anypony smell something foul?”
“Like… Spark forbid, mustard gas?!”
Josho materialized in a flash of light. He landed with a thud on the meeting table, denting it in the center.
“Zounds!”
“By Ledo’s mane!”
“How the devil…?!”
“At ease, buddies,” Josho grumbled and stood up, still steaming all over with the mana of his long-distance teleport. “I’m sure you’re all doing the Queen some major service. Brownie points all around. Now…” He squinted and peered across the hazy tent. “Seccy? Seccy, where are you, ya old bastard?! We’ve got some fat to chew. Flaming, evil, tattooed fat--”
“A spy?!”
“Guards! Guards--”
Josho grunted, “Hey! I didn’t ask to see any guards! I just wanna have a word with my old buddy Seclorum--”
“How about we remove your head?!” One old stallion aimed up with his rifle. “Then you can talk to the pit of Xonan bones to the north of camp?!”
A flash of light. Somepony tapped on the officer’s back.
He turned around and gasped into Josho’s muzzle.
“Now now…” Josho telekinetically snapped his rifle in two and waved a hoof. “Never whip out your piece in front of another stallion.”
“Get him!” Another pounced.
Josho jolted forward with the weight of the officer on his back. His eyes rolled back. “Oh for the love of--”
Flash!
He materialized ten feet away, his body yanking forward as he flung the weight of the shrieking stallion teleported with him. “--oats!”
“Gaaaah!” The stallion flailed as he crashed through a gun rack.
The others pulled out their rifles and aimed at Josho. “Who do you work for?!”
Another burst of light. Josho materialized between them, knocking them to the floor with a stealthy blast of mana. “Tell me where Seclorum is and I’ll tell him!”
“We don’t negotiate with cloak and dagger assailants!” A stallion gripped onto Josho, trying to telekinetically cancel out the energy in his horn. “Especially this close to the front!”
“Nnngh! Fine then!” Josho snarled as more sparks danced between his eyes. “Negotiate with my ass!”
When he teleported this time, he materialized a dozen feet up, almost touching the top of the tent. He fell in reverse so that the officer was behind him. They collapsed through the table with the full weight of Josho slamming into the poor stallion’s body. The breath exited the pony’s lungs with the force of a hurricane.
Josho stood up, brushing himself off as a ring of Ledomare’s highest ranking officers writhed and moaned around him.
“Worst game of ‘Go Filly!’ I ever did play. Meh…”
A little belated, a thick phalanx of guards rushed in, cocked their weapons, and aimed at Josho’s fat figure. “Freeze! Do not move!”
“Really?” Josho turned and sighed. “Well, this is at least a slightly sexy way to go out.” He cracked the joints in his neck and prepared to out-port the enforcers’ weaponry.
”Stop!” A raspy voice boomed. “Everypony! Don’t move a muscle! That means you too, soldiers.”
The young guards glanced at each other nervously.
Josho swiveled around, squinting at a figure in the shadows.
“It takes a great deal for a pony to infiltrate this war room,” the pony said. His body leaned left and right. Hisses of steam echoed from his side of the tent. “It takes even more restraint to inflict no lethal damage when my bumbling excuses for subordinates have given you every damn reason to.”
Then, with grinding and rattling noises, the Prime Enforcer strolled forward. As Seclorum came into the manalight, metal rods of brass reinforcement glinted along his forward and rear legs. A metal brace surrounded the breastplate that hugged tight to his chest. Finally, a steel cap had been molded around his unicorn horn. A savage burn mark covered his upper right brown, and half of his mane on the same side of the skull refused to grow, causing him to part over the black and gray stalks from the left to cover the scarred areas. A pair of silvery blue eyes reflected Josho’s blank expression.
“Josho, as I live and die slowly,” Seclorum murmured. “I’ve known you to do stupid things before, but this takes the friggin’ cake.”
“Seccy…” Josho took a deep, warm breath as he gazed at his old friend. He blinked. “You look like shit.”
“I certainly feel like it too.” With a whirring noise, Seclorum raised his metal-reinforced forelimb and pointed dead-center at Josho’s obese form. “Which means my patience had worn thin months before you even lighting-bolted your way into this place using that freaky-ass special forces skill you learned ages ago. The only reason I haven’t ordered you shot is because I’m wondering why you haven’t drank yourself to death.”
“I wonder that at times too,” Josho muttered. “But we haven’t got time to bond over old, rosy-nosed memories.”
“Hmmph. Thank the spark.”
“But I did come to tell you that your butts are gonna be pumped full of manaplasma.”
“What, did you join the Ledomaritan navy all of the sudden?”
“No, you liver-spotted melon fudge!” Josho frowned. “The Xonans! They’ve captured the Lightning-Bearer!”
The room filled with shrill gasps.
Seclorum’s jaw fell. “Fortis’ ship? The Pride and Joy of the Queen’s Armada?”
“Look, I don’t care if it’s the Queen’s favorite turd!” Josho barked. “The tattooed freaks have stolen it, and they’re gonna fly that crap up here in hopes that they can sneak past enemy lines and fry us all to bacon from behind! And what’s more, their friggin’ Queen of Executive Powers is riding a magical floating mountain with some goddess-forsaken beast inside!”
Seclorum’s face twisted into a sicker and sicker scowl.
Josho blinked. “Is any of this coming to you straight, or am I gonna have to belch it?”
Seclorum frowned. “You must have really dove deep into the bottle to whip out this cute little number.”
“Excuse me?”
“Excuse yourself, soldier!” Seclorum hissed. “Or else you used to be one! Jumping in here, interrupting important battle strategies with some… pissed-stupid faerie tale!”
“Oh, and just what are you planning exactly?” Josho grumbled. “Carving yourself a smaller butthole to climb into while Xona marches all over us?! What the Hell is all of this accomplishing, Seccy?! It ain’t like you to be on the defensive! Where’d your balls hide? In that fancy new metal truss of yours?!”
“I don’t have time for this…” Seclorum waved to the line of guards. “Take him away. Find some… concrete box with a bottle of booze and leave ‘em there to rot.”
As the soldiers marched up and converged on Josho, he blurted in a loud voice: “‘Ultimo Douglas Barbarian Forty Two!’”
Seclorum--in mid turn--froze and held his hoof up.
The guards stopped just inches from wringing Josho’s neck.
Slowly, Seclorum pivoted around, his eyes icily staring at his old companion. “...Nightshade?”
Josho nodded.
Seclorum’s lips parted. “...the book of flame?”
Josho nodded again.
Seclorum stood still for a few seconds. His blue eyes darted around, then fell on Josho again. “You’re certain she’s on your side?”
“Please don’t ruin this,” Josho grumbled. “It took two-thirds of the cells still left in my brain to memorize that stupid crap.”
Almost a minute passed. Finally, Seclorum waved off the guards--and the officers as well. “Leave us.” When they hesitated, the veins showed in his neck. “Now!”
Awkwardly, everypony left.
“You…” Seclorum shuffled towards the far end of the tent with whirring, hissing limbs. “Waddle with me.”
“Hardy har har…” Josho trotted alongside him. “Jeez, look at you. Been seeing any sexy fire hydrants lately?”
“I’m not in the mood, Josho.”
“Good. Cuz neither am I. Let’s talk Xonans.”
Dat total switch.
~Basso
Oh-Kay! Now we get the Ledomare ball a rolling!
Also, Josho has a pet name for an old 'friend'. Anyone else think that it's interesting that Seclorum wants to know if She is on Josho's side. It just seems a little odd...
And now the tide has turned for the Jury...
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The enemy of my enemy may not always be my friend, but they can certainly be useful allies now and then.
Good luck Josho, and may the odds be ever in your favor. Unfortunately, they don't appear to be. Good thing you still have your Noble Jury status keeping pesky Xonan chaos serpents at bay.
So, Josho is a pinball wizard, Seclorum looks like he's been through a warzone, and a code with both 'Douglas' and 'Forty Two' makes perfect sense.
Seclorum obviously doesn't trust Nightshade completely, which makes sense, being a commander of war. I wonder what will happen when the Lightning Bearer does appear?
You can always tell old friends by the way they insult each other. I could have sworn that was a conversation I just had with one of my good friends...
And that's the reason why you give passwords at the first time possible, not the last! But still, it was funny scene and I like how Seclorum is characterized so far.
The only thing that is busying my head, what's the reason of Seclorum actually digging here? I'm suspecting it's something more than "tactical incompietence". Seclorum isn't stupid, I'm sure of that.
I think this may be the first actual swear word we've seen, beyond damned. Hmm...
Forty wide-arm pushups, ):(. Knock 'em out!
I still maintain that Josho is now one of my favourite characters. Which is pretty impressive in and of itself.
Josho has status effects:
Sober
Juror
+500 badass points.
At least with the Lightning Bearer and the Fortress coming overhead, Josho can port up there with a little artiliery suprise.
I wonder if a grenade strapped to the primary igniter would be enough to trigger it, given the timing fuse.
Well, he's not quite the six million dollar stallion, is he?
Also, it's impressive that Josho's... odor can precede his arrival by teleportation.
YES!
Seclorum didn't kill him on sight.
Now they just need to plan for the Lighting Bearer and the Hold to attack their already falling apart fortress
Yay
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I'm betting on this being the hole to the machine world that the flame that is now in the book came from.
The plot thickens.
I can't remember, did Nightshade contact Seclorum himself when she summoned the Lightning Bearer while on the run with Kera? I can't see how else Seccy'd know that the flame is now in a book.
If you think about it: Seclorum being warned and now able to counteract the coming assault might turn the tide in the Ledomartian's (and the Jury's) favour, thus preventing the Xonans from reaching the abyss and thus putting an end to Nevlamas' plans concerning the books and as a result - if she is to be believed - stalling if not preventing the end of the world. In other words: with his careful and subtle approach, Josho just endangered the survival of reality and at the same time saved the world by succeeding. Funny. Sometimes it's the little things. Have an unrelated picture for today:
lolbrary.com/comment-content/967/wow-310967.png
Seclorum: Which Side is Nightshade on?
Josho; At the moment?
Did anyone else catch the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference there?
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The plot horsens
3561196 Did anyone not?
~Basso
Hope yet limps along. Here's to hoping it continues to do so.
IIIIIt's Dashie's evaluation time!
I'm liking the interaction between Josho and Seclorum here. It really feels like they're old friends. Also, this war zone is about to really heat up, I can just feel it. These are my thoughts of far.
-MASH
Ah, Celestia bless memorized code words. They've saved the lives of many a desperate informant. As they should. Nightshade has to be at least somewhat useful if she wants to redeem herself, after all. Although I do like how Josho tried to rely on his own charm at first - he's nothing if not optimistic.
Onward!
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Actually, we never found exactly whom she called. All we really know is that she went to use the communications array, and next morning, the Lightning Bearer showed up. I just assumed she called Fortis.
She probably did call Seclorum, though – either that, or she and Nightshade had predicted the possibility of the book and the flame being somehow connected.
Thank Celestia for code words.
-Spirit
“Jeez, look at you. Been seeing any sexy fire hydrants lately?”
At last, there might just be a glimmer of hope here . . .
I turned 16 when this chapter came out...
BAM
Seclorum is in fucking rough shape. I don't know what I expected, but this... this wasn't it.
Thank goodness for code words. Still, Seclorum definitely gets points for resilience.
Heh, funny.