44 - Days of wasp and spider
Ellisif stood on the exit ramp of the command aircraft, staring down at Fusion and Gravity. The valley was empty but for them, had been so for several kiloseconds, the fretful wind picking at churned grass and scattered pebbles. When the sisters had started their magic, alternating groups of gryphons and ponies were teleporting in every few breaths, but as it continued the groups shrank and became more and more injured, until those coming through were crushed, burned, or both. The lucky ones were unconscious.
Eventually, there were no more arrivals.
The magic was still running, white-gold and violet light casting strange shadows over both the ponies, and Ellisif kept her distance. Even back here, she could feel the power as a persistent itch in her wingbones. The thaumic alarms on the aircraft had been silenced long ago, but the indicators still flashed their warning. She sighed, shifting her weight from paw to paw.
The violet light flicked off and Gravity lifted her head, looking groggy. "That's it," she said, voice rough and scratchy.
"No." Fusion shook her head, eyes still closed. "Keep looking. You missed something."
Gravity's ears folded back. "That's everyone, Fusion," she said harshly. "There are no more survivors."
"I don't believe you!" Fusion scrambled to her hooves, ears also flattened, tears running down her muzzle. "That can't be everypony. No!" She was breathing heavily, nostrils flaring.
"It is," Gravity said, the anger gone and replaced with sadness. She stood, pressing herself against Fusion, draping a wing over her white back. "You were in my head as we searched. There is nowhere else to look."
The magical tension rose, matching a hardening of the light around Fusion. Her mane brightened, the colours shifting towards those of flame. Heat came with it, enough to make her narrow her eyes. Ellisif swallowed and started to back away, suddenly feeling alarmed. Can I get far enough away if she lashes out?
"Fusion, stop." Gravity said quietly, nuzzling behind her sister's ear. "It is what it is."
The light went out, the bright flame-colours fading back to a plain, slightly grubby pink. The Stones, orbiting around Fusion's head like miniature suns, guttered out and thudded to the ground. Fusion slumped after them, wings drooping and head bowed. "Ellisif, what are the totals?"
"Around twenty-five thousand ponies. Less of my kind." Ellisif shrugged, a tired reshuffling of feathers. "We were always intended to be in the front lines, especially in situations like this. No shelters." And we will be fewer still, when the injured finish dying. There was still a lingering scent of blood and cooked meat in the air, and Ellisif knew that if she could smell it, the ponies certainly could.
"Only another five or six thousand more. How many died while I slept?" Fusion heaved herself to her hooves, weaving like she was drugged. "Out of one and a half million. How many gryphons and dogs?"
Ellisif's gaze flicked to Gravity, whose expression just looked tired. No help there. "I don't think this is a helpful--"
"How many?!" Fusion's voice cracked out, a harsh, magically-amplified bark that echoed back from the valley walls and made Ellisif's ears ring. In the distance, a small peak, long since denuded of its crown of snow and trees, collapsed in a silent avalanche, trailing a funereal pall of rocks and dust. A flash of golden light coloured the mare's mane and tail, and filled her eyes with fire.
"We don't know the total number of gryphons." Fusion's ears folded back and Ellisif raised one set of talons. "Military secrets. I can make an educated guess. Perhaps as many as ten million gryphons. At least a hundred times that number of dogs." She tooks a few careful steps down the ramp towards Fusion. "That's a horrible number," she said softly, "but your sister is right, there is nothing that could be done."
"Too many weapons, Fusion," Gravity said, staring into her sister's eyes. "This world... all the Hives had good antimissile defences, and they built up their arsenals accordingly."
"It's all true." Ellisif's slow progress reached Fusion, and she touched her on the shoulder with the back of one talon. "It was part of maintaining the balance of power, that and the Hammer. When Baur took away the ponies' magic, they took away most of the defences." She shrugged, sitting in front of Fusion. "More backups for attack than defence, and it is always harder to stop a warhead than launch it. You know this, don't you?"
"Yes," Fusion whispered.
"So stop blaming yourself for everything that goes wrong!" Ellisif hissed, suddenly angry. Probably shouldn't be shouting at a creature that can move Celestia itself. She ignored the thought, drug-induced anger washing the fear and caution away, exactly as it was designed to do.
"But we had so much power, we should--"
"Yes," Gravity said, her head low. "Perhaps we could have, if we'd had the Stones earlier, if I'd not turned you aside from striking that Baur command base, if that Discord thing hadn't spent all of history turning the dogs against each other and setting up all this mess." She looked up, meeting Fusion's gaze. "If. It's all just if."
Ellisif blinked. "Discord-thing? That furry snake that's sitting in the cargo hold? How is it--" Gravity shook her head and Ellisif closed her beak.
"I know. Just... it's all too much. Too many dead, too few survivors. This world is covered in soot from all the burning corpses." Fusion's voice was hollow, empty of anything but pain. "We did this... No. I did this. I didn't mean to, but it's what happened. All of this-- oh, don't look at me like that, Gravity!" Fusion's voice changed, becoming a little more like her old self, and she made an irritated gesture, wings flicking out like blades. "I know what I said to Random, that a mountain of blame can't be balanced on its point. Doesn't change how I feel."
"With perfect knowledge you could have done everything right... but you didn't have that, no one did." Ellisif sighed, standing up and shaking. "Anyway, you are wrong. That antimagic weapon is what ruined everything, not you." She cocked her head to one side. "That's a thought. Did I hear you right, that snake-thing was manipulating everything... think that includes the activation of the antimagic weapon? I can't believe that Baur intended all this."
"Yes, and if I'd found Tartarus they'd never have had a chance to turn it on!" Fusion pawed at the ground, the colours coming back to her mane and tail.
Gravity smiled, stepping into Fusion hard enough to make the other mare stagger. "That's better. No matter what, remember that we are no use to those that are still alive if we give in to despair." Her smile became more tender, and she leaned in to give Fusion a hug. "And I certainly can't do any of this without you."
Ellisif let go of the breath she didn't know she'd been holding. "Can one of you tell me what's going on? I really hate being kept in the dark."
===
Gravity winced, her mind feeling full of sharp edges, stretched and thin by all the magic she'd been employing. Fusion was busy talking to Ellisif, trying to explain the weirdness they'd experienced in the magical representation of the universe. Wait... if that world was actually all the thaumic infrastructure supporting this, then perhaps this is the dream and the other place is real! Her head spun and she snorted quietly, wandering away as Fusion talked.
She could feel the thing in the cargo hold, a shaped bubble of intense magic, infolded curves of spacetime linked as a near-perfect self-contained manifold almost completely separate from the outer world. There was no appreciable leakage, of magic or gravity; the interface was abrupt, thinner than an atomic nucleus, and effectively immune to everything around it. There was plenty of interest here, plenty that needed study.
Opening the hatch, she settled down to the deckplates in front of Discord. In the dim light he seemed to glow slightly, as if lit from some distant invisible source. "That will teach you to mess with us," she murmured. "Was this always your plan? To try and collapse our universe... but for what?" Did it want to die? No, that can't be right. You must have been constrained somehow. This was your way out, wasn't it? Gravity pushed the thoughts aside and probed at the interface between Discord and the rest of the universe. Carefully.
"Gravity?" Fusion asked.
"Hmm? What is it?" she muttered, eyes still closed.
"You've been sitting here for nearly ten kiloseconds. What have you found?"
"Very little. It seemed unwise to play with the magic too much." She yawned, then stood and stretched. "We'll have to find somewhere safe to stash him."
"A problem for another day, Grav." Fusion stepped to her sister's side, frowning at Discord's frozen form. She sighed, then shook her head. "Come on, let's see if we can catch up with our dam and sire."
===
There was the best part of a thousand ponies in the valley, far too many for the pasture to support for any period of time. The surface vegetation seemed to know this; already slender green shoots were appearing in the less trampled areas. Spiral lay next to several of Random's adopted charges, a filly and two colts, while Random herself was trying to gather in the final few that were still reluctant to join their fellows.
Too many strangers for them, Spiral thought, her gaze lingering over Backdraft as the teacher talked quietly with the ex-Baur royal guard. The mare had cleaned up a little with Backdraft's assistance and some grooming tools designed for gryphons, and her black and white coat was arresting. There were others of her kind, they'd been told, out among the twenty thousand or so ponies that Fusion and Gravity had rescued.
Out of everypony, we came off the best... only half the corral died, she thought, pushing back fresh tears. So many out there have lost nine tenths of all they knew. She nuzzled at the back of the colt's head, smiling through the fur between her teeth as he protested wordlessly. What else did that antimagic spell do? The gryphon medics seem to think that it has turned us back to the beasts we were before the dogs built us with the Stones, so will this foal ever learn to speak and think?
Her smile faltered and she paused in her ministrations. No... that would have rendered us all non-sapient. I don't feel any different. She continued to nibble at the foal's mane, and he stretched a little, directing her to a particularly itchy spot. At least there are enough milk substitutes in the supplies. Feeding the orphaned foals, these ones from Naraka and the poor, shell-shocked others that had come in via the teleport rescues, was awkward but not impossible without magic. Even the simplest of manual tasks took the cooperation of two or three ponies and significant pre-planning. It was hard to talk when you had to use your mouth as a paw.
Slipstream managed it, she thought. Much had been made of that example, and others like him remembered by the rest of the refugees. The rest of the corral was returning, gathered together after being out among the super-herd, trying to explain what had happened. The reports had not been encouraging. The last one back was Packet, walking slowly and favouring one of his hind legs. There was a set of muddy hoof marks on his hip, plain against the lemon-yellow fur.
"Not you, too -- what happened?" Spiral asked, frowning as she studied the movement of his hind leg. Others had come back with tales of woe and hostility, but no outright violence.
"We may want to be careful how much we tell ponies, although that might be a little late," he said, wincing as he carefully lay down. "I'm fine; nothing broken. More than a few are not taking it well, now they have had time to think." He dipped his muzzle in a water trough, fed from a big plastic tank, and sighed. "I had to be pulled out by a patrol. Can't blame them, I suppose. All their friends are dead and they have no Masters and no magic."
"All of the others encountered similar, but I think you were the first to actually get into a fight."
"Lucky me... I seem to always getting hurt for the cause." He stretched out one wing, rotating the joint through its full range of motion. Spiral gave Packet a pained expression and he snorted in return. "I know it was necessary; don't give me that look!" He sighed, refolding the wing. "Are we waiting for anypony? Apart from Fusion and Gravity, I mean. It pretty obvious they aren't here."
"Redshift is with Lilac and a gryphon engineer they borrowed to modify that carriage of his for easy pony-use. Trying to work out a way for him to get in and out of the thing without too much assistance."
Packet nodded. "Something we're all going to have to get used to. As much as I like the simple pastoral life, there's something to be said for shelter when it's close to freezing and the rain is horizontal." He paused, looking around. "Random not back yet?" he said, looking disappointed.
"Still collecting up her waifs and strays." The pair had grown quite close over the last few days, although neither had said anything to her or Trocar. Watching them trying to be casual, like it was some great secret, had brought joy to Spiral's heart. They haven't realised they don't need permission, she thought, smiling. Life goes on.
"There are a few engineers working on the problem." Spiral said. "Basic tools, making fire, and so on. At least the dogs made us tough... and it's been ages since I was allowed to grow a decent winter coat." She shivered, pulling the colt a little closer and sharing his warmth. "I'm quite looking forwards to it." She looked to her left, catching the eye of a drowsy cream-coated mare with her own collection of orphaned foals. "Plasma, have you seen Fusion or Gravity since..." She trailed off, struggling to find the right words.
"No. I watched them teleport in hundreds of pony survivors, then I was shipped out. Haven’t had a chance to talk to them since I lost Helium." She seemed to shrink a little, like the weight of the world had suddenly settled on her withers. "I don't think they know."
Maker, that's going to be the icing on this cake of horrors. Spiral closed her eyes briefly, nodding slowly. "We're all here for you, Plasma--" she said, then looked up. Two spots of light were crossing the heavens, one white-gold, the other violet and hard to focus on. "I think that's them. Where do you think they are going?"
"Killing more dogs, I'll bet," Packet muttered, following their paths as they looped around in a big circle overhead. "Sorry," he said, in response to Spiral's sharp glance. "They are getting lower... are they actually coming here?"
Gravity landed first, touching down in one of the few clear spaces between resting ponies, followed a second later by Fusion. The foals around Spiral twitched, a few staggering to their hooves, but settled back down when none of the adults reacted. Both the young mares looked tired and disheveled, covered with matted fur and little patches of dried blood. Fusion was the worst; there was an air of defeat about the mare, strong enough that Spiral felt a chill run down her spine and the fur on her back lift.
"What?" Spiral asked, her voice suddenly high and thin. Some new disaster? Another attack? There had been no nuke-bright flashes in the sky or other strangeness for some time and she'd dared to think it was all over.
"No," Gravity said, "we've finished everything... there are no more obvious threats and no more ponies or gryphons to rescue." She smiled slightly at Spiral's expression. "I'm not reading your mind... that was what you meant, wasn't it?"
I bet you could, and I wouldn't even know. An aura of subtle light surrounded Fusion, battling with the darkness that cloaked Gravity. I should be able to feel the power, but there's nothing. Spiral reached for her magic, but found only emptiness, just as there had been the last dozen times she'd tried. "Yes." Then what is the problem? She thought about the number of ponies she'd seen, more than she'd ever seen or imagined in her whole life, and realised exactly how few there were. "Oh. We're all there is."
"Yes, 'oh', " Fusion said, her eyes sweeping the ponies around her, stopping when she reached Plasma. "Dam," she said, taking a few steps in Plasma's direction and dropping to her belly before her. "Where--?" Her ears drooped at Plasma's expression. "No," she whispered, barely audible, "how did it happen?" Behind her, Gravity froze, staring at them both.
"There wasn't enough room," Plasma started, words distorting as her throat closed up. She paused, closing her eyes. "The flash shield wasn't big enough... he pushed me under it, held the edge of the shield down with his teeth." She swallowed, eyes suddenly wide and staring at some scene in her head. "The sky lit up, and he... the heat--" Plasma went silent, burying her head in the mane of one of the foals at her hooves.
Spiral grimaced, filling in the rest of the vision. "I'm so sorry, Plasma." Oh Maker, right in front of her.
Fusion shuffled forwards, gently pushing the foal to one side, making room for herself and Gravity. She said nothing, just bowed her head, pressing it against Plasma's. Gravity filled the small space, close enough and frightening enough to make the foal stand and totter away on unsteady legs to join the group around Spiral. The dark blue mare spread her wings, covering the other two. Their magic fell away, strange mane and tail colours fading back to the dusky blue and pink.
In the strained silence, Spiral and the others in the corral kept watch as the three ponies huddled together, a small bundle of speechless misery, no different from any other out in the dark.
===
"How could you say that? The Masters gave us everything, and now those creatures have taken it all away!"
The voice, made thick with anger, rattled around Gravity's brain, dragging her to wakefulness. She opened her eyes, seeing that Fusion and herself were the only ones still laying down. The foals had all gone, nervously placing the bulk of the herd between themselves and these new adults. Gravity blinked, trying to clear her vision, then gave Fusion a sharp nudge.
"Where did you work, Sinter?" Packet snarled back. "I was in power systems, and the Masters left me to die after I'd rescued one of them. How many did you see hurt or maimed beyond economical repair?"
"How dare you judge the Masters?!" The other pony, a heavyset mare at the front of a group of ponies Gravity didn't recognise, had her ears flat back and her teeth bared. "They never treated us badly." The rage seemed to boil off her, radiating from every snort and stamped hoof. "We had the Maker and I had three foals--" Sinter's eyes glittered, swimming with tears, but she blinked them away. "Now I have nothing, no Masters, no Maker and no foals!"
She lunged forwards, making Packet dance back a step. He bounced up on his hind legs, flicking out the fronts to keep the mare away. Gravity watched the scene with increasing alarm; behind Sinter were far more ponies than she'd first thought, several hundred at least. She scrambled to her hooves, a cascade of darkness and tiny, glittering points filling her mane and tail. Fusion stood a second later, but her mane stayed the same slightly dirty pink it had been when she'd gone to sleep.
"You! How can you live with yourself, knowing what you've done?" Sinter stalked past Packet, who backed away from her herdmates. She got within a length of Gravity, then her legs started to strain and tremble, like she was hauling a massive load. "Coward! I see you've still got your magic, how did that happen?" Her tone became sneering and her eyes even more wild.
Not had any trouble so far, Gravity thought. "You want me to fight you and the rest of your herd without magic? You might be mad, but you don't look stupid." She leaned forwards, coming muzzle to muzzle with the mare. "But you must be, to hold on to the fantasy that the Masters were good for ponykind." Darkness and cold air flowed out from her, and she fought to hold back her power. "Think about the way we were treated... the hundreds of foals sacrificed for science experiments, their dams kept pregnant and locked away in the breeding centres."
"I don't believe you, don't believe a word of it--"
"There are plenty of mares from Naraka that do, some who have lost dozens of foals to the dogs’ surgeons. If you don't believe us, ask them!" Gravity snorted, her ears back.
Fusion stirred at Gravity's side, touching her on the shoulder with one wing. "They need more time, Grav."
Breathing hard, Gravity growled something wordless and gave the mare and her herd a push, sending them staggering back. They squealed and whinnied, fear and surprise mixing in with the anger. The mare's emotions were practically shining out from her body, made hard by her conviction. It will take more than a few megaseconds. The realisation struck her, and Gravity kindled her power, tasting and sampling from all the pony minds within the valley's bounds, then pushing out to inspect the minds in the other valleys and high meadows.
Fear, hate, despair. The emotions of this small herd were a microcosm of all the others, with very few exceptions. "No they don't, Fusion. What they need is active intervention." She picked up her Stones, feeling the heady rush of power. I need to convince them all, I need to make them understand. The light, already dim, darkened further as an obsidian fog rolled out from Gravity, flooding the valley.
"No!" Fusion, suddenly alarmed, gave her a shove. "None of that. It won't help."
"Oh yes it will! I can take away all of their pain and distress, make them see how bad their lives were before." The power built, the minds of those closest to her opening like a field of flowers in the sun. The red-tinge of rage faded from Sinter and the other ponies as their higher functions started to move in lockstep; flashes of the Naraka horrors started to play in a thousand minds.
Light bloomed, a blast of heat and brilliance inside and outside of her head, disrupting the delicate balance of Gravity's magic. The web shattered, dissolving in the solar onslaught. Gravity opened her eyes, glaring at Fusion. "You tried that with Packet; it was wrong then and it is wrong now," her sister said quietly.
Fury warred with shame and the massive temptation to use the power the Stones offered, so freely, so like a friendly whisper at the centre of her head, promises made in a language as fundamental as the physical constants. Gravity felt suddenly uncertain, catching sight of the look of horror on Packet's face. The stallion was breathing hard, eyes wide and nostrils flared. "But--" But it would have worked this time! She ruthlessly suppressed the nagging thought. Rutting Maker, how could I forget what we did to Packet? "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that. It's been too much, these last few days." The words faded to a mumble, lost against the rising angry muttering from the other ponies.
"So that is how you convinced these ponies," Sinter said, gaze flicking to Spiral and the rest of corral twenty-seven. "You can get inside our heads as easily a breathing." Her voice dropped to a horrified whisper, and she waved a wing at the sky, with its constant pattern of micrometeors and lacy gas clouds. "The whole sky is full of the damage the pair of you have done." The mood of the herd switched from anger to fear, and they started to shuffle backwards.
"Gravity, I think we should..." Fusion stepped forwards, wings mantled, standing between her and the Sinter. "The Blessing, Grav, not everypony went through what our corral did. We mustn't force this."
No Salrath to half-kill my dam while everypony watched. I'm as bad as the dogs. "Yes," Gravity said faintly, face blank. Why did I do that? She swallowed, then clumsily leapt into the air, flying heavily away with Fusion just behind her.
===
The day had passed and it was night again.
Plasma slipped away from the sleeping ponies and picked her way towards the edge of the herd. The valley was dotted with little sleeping clusters, or at least ponies who were trying to sleep. Too many lay on the cold ground, breath fogging the air, staring into the flickering darkness. The sky, only lightly covered by high cloud, pulsed and strobed with the distant heat lightning of re-entering objects. Sometimes a larger thing would streak overhead, bright enough to leave after-images, followed a long time later by rumbles and the bang of a sonic boom.
Useless wings half extended for balance, she walked up the valley slopes, threading her way through the scrubby pine trees that coated the ground with a dense tangle. It took a few kiloseconds of stumbling before she broke free of the tree line and into an belt of cushiony alpine plants, the last layer of vegetation before the naked rock and ice of the upper slopes. She looked back down into the valley and along the winding path she'd taken with half-amused disgust. "I could have flown that in a twenty seconds."
Plasma looked up the slope towards the ridge that divided this valley from the next one, a good two hundred lengths further up. "Right. You flew off in this direction... get to the top and I might be able to see where you went. I bet you glow in the dark." She smiled sadly, wiping away a tear. "You two have come a long way from my little fillies."
"From filly to greatest mass-murderer in the world in the space of a megasecond," Fusion said.
Plasma let out a grunt of surprise, wheeling about. "You scared me!" She frowned at Fusion and Gravity, her ears folding back. "And don't say that. I didn't raise monsters, no matter what your sire thought at the end. He wasn't in possession of all the facts." The words came out stern and harsher than she'd intended, and she quailed inside, but Fusion just flinched and ducked her head.
"No, dam," she muttered. "Sorry."
"That's better," she said primly, ignoring Gravity's smirk. "I take it you were watching me?"
"I was watching everypony," Gravity said. "With these things it's actually hard not to." She gestured to the Stones orbiting around her head. "I catch things without intending to." Gravity cocked her head, staring intently at Plasma. "You weren't about to do something stupid."
"Stupid...?" Plasma opened her mouth, then closed it again. "You mean, kill myself?" she said faintly. "Has anypony tried to do that?"
"Yes." Fusion nodded, waving a wing across the horizon. "Fifteen attempts in the last twenty kiloseconds."
"I stop them," Gravity said quietly, looking away from her dam. "All of them, so far. I can change a pony's mind very easily. For a while, anyway."
Plasma stared at Gravity, ears drooping. "So you watch us all the time. How...?"
Eyes hollow, Gravity turned back to Plasma. "I don't look too closely, so you don't need to worry... but spikes of despair are very obvious. I take it away before a pony can act on it."
Stepping forwards, Plasma extended her wings and wrapped them around Gravity. "Oh, my poor filly," she murmured. "I had no idea. How do ponies... ah. They find a high place and try to jump, don't they?"
"Yes. Don't worry about me, dam, I'm tough." Gravity sighed, gently disentangling herself from Plasma and smiling wanly. "It can be hard to feel such despair, but it's worth it, mostly. The urge to die is normally short-lived. I could make it permanent, but..." She shrugged, seeming carefree, but some of the pain remained in her eyes.
"But you won't, will you?" Fusion asked, mouth set in a hard line.
"No, I won't." Gravity mimicked Fusion's stern tone. "Maker, Fusion! I won't, all right?"
"I know." Fusion visibly relaxed. "Sorry. No more masters."
"No more masters." Gravity nodded back, then looked at Plasma. "It was something important. What brought you all the way up here?"
This is it. Plasma looked away. "I'm sorry, I know very little of what you have had to do, but you'll get no thanks from anypony." She took a deep breath, looking up at her foals through lowered eyelids. They were standing stock-still, as if frozen, staring at her. Fusion looked stunned, shocked realisation dawning across her features. Gravity just looked sad, and was nodding slowly.
"Yes. I came to ask you to stay away." Fusion was trembling, wings drooping to brush against the ground. "It's not fair, but I'm sorry. We need to integrate with the others, and your presence will stop that." She stepped forwards, resting her head against Fusion's neck. "Give them time, and we might be able to talk them around."
"Is that what everypony is saying?" Fusion asked faintly.
"We discussed it... not everypony agreed, but enough did. I wanted to tell you in person, so here I am." Plasma swallowed hard, feeling Fusion sag slightly. "I'm not saying we can't see each other, but we need to be careful."
Gravity stepped up to Fusion's other side, extending her wings to cover both of them. "We'll stay away and give everypony a chance to rebuild their lives. We have nothing but time, dam. All the time in the world."
===
Modulus followed the herd up the slope, placing one hoof after another. The effort grew greater with each step, until it felt like he had bands of lead around each pastern. The tail of the pony in front was hazy, obscured by tears, and he paused every few seconds to wipe his eyes against the bony ends of his wings. I could have flown this in a hundred seconds, he thought, fanning his useless feathers.
The ground started to flatten out and he stumbled to a halt, nearly colliding with a pale lilac mare. She looked at him, nodding, tears in her own eyes, then stepped closer and spread a wing over his back. "Who did you lose?" she whispered, turning away to stare at the truncated mountain on the opposite side of the next valley.
Modulus coughed, clearing his throat, and followed her gaze. The mountain's peak had been sliced off to make a giant platform, on which were countless pastel and tawny bundles. So many... "My dam. She was alive when they pulled us out of the collapsed tunnels."
"I'm sorry," the mare said.
"Never regained consciousness," Modulus said, his throat constricting and his stomach twisting. He gestured up at the mountain. "She's up there, somewhere."
She hugged him tighter and he leaned on her, watching as a pair of ponies flew around the mountain, circling the stacks of bodies. A dome of darkness, like deeply tinted glass, formed over the platform, and a spark of light kindled within it. The light grew brighter and brighter, until it seemed like the the sun was rising again, then blinked out, leaving the platform completely empty and the rock glowing with a sullen red light that slowly faded. "All that power and they couldn't save us," he mumbled.
Lost in thought, all the ponies remained on the ridge for what seemed like forever, then slowly started back down.
===
Gravity had cleared the dust and aerosols from a patch of sky half a thousand kilolengths across, while Fusion had kept back the masses of cold, rain and, more recently, snow-packed cloud from their alpine refuge. Despite all this, the temperature continued to fall and night-time frosts became commonplace.
Half way through the day, the pair stopped on one of the lower slopes of an unpopulated valley for a hurried meal break, frantically grazing the high altitude meadow. Muzzles pressed to the grass, they ate fast amid the late season insect buzz.
I don't think I can sustain this, Gravity sent. Their sharing link was open almost constantly now, vital for coordinating their manipulation efforts. This stuff isn't bad, but there's not enough energy in it. Lips, teeth and tongue worked ceaselessly, an industrial conveyor belt that ripped up and swallowed the greenery without interfering with her thoughts. I've not eaten this much... ever!
The dogs' supplements were good for something. Fusion was intent on her own patch of meadow plants. Not enough time to eat and work. She glanced at her sister's flank, half hidden by her wings. Her ribs were showing, not much, but more than they had been. She swallowed, lips twitching away a patch of old growth to reach for some new shoots. Teeth bit and pulled, chewing. The food was filling, but there wasn't enough energy in it. Nor me.
I don't know enough weather operations to do this work efficiently, and obviously neither do you.
Thanks a lot! Fusion sent, snorting into the grass.
You know what I mean. The Stones are massively powerful, but...
Yes. It only helps if you know what you are doing or the problem can be solved by application of extreme violence. Even with Spiral on paw I couldn't improve my medical skills. Can't even fix Lilac, let alone give a pony back her magic. Fusion sighed, lifting her head and shaking vigorously before dropping back to eating. Those were simpler times.
Not pining after hiding from Security and dodging nukes, are you? Gravity gave a muffled laugh, then took a few steps and started to graze another patch. I know. Same problem with weather control. It's a just as complex a system as an injured body... and just as easy to damage.
The world is hurt and we can't fix it by brute force. Which is a pity, because that's all we have. A wave of sadness swept over Fusion and she felt a faint echo from Gravity, before it was replaced by certainty. All that dust and sulphate in the upper atmosphere.
No, Gravity thought. We can't fix this world or the ponies on it. But we can protect them and give them time to heal. Perhaps it's time to try that shelter idea of yours. At least shielding is something we both know how to do. We certainly have the strength.
Fusion stopped eating and swallowed. "Yes. Ellisif knows it's our backup plan. Her base is practically complete. She's been running the transports constantly, stocking the snow line with thousands and thousands of cow carcasses."
Enough for all her gryphons? Gravity was still eating.
"She thinks so. Still got lots of farms to raid and, with the weather getting colder, it's not like the meat will be going off. All those cattle are going to die in any case." Fusion sighed, scraping a hoof through the thin soil and exposing the rocks beneath. A spider scuttled away from her assault, attracting the attentions of a hunting wasp. Fusion watched the frantic dance. "Everyone has to eat," she muttered.
Look at them, Gravity sent, watching the miniature battle through Fusion's eyes. They have no idea what's coming. Busy little lives, living without the knowledge of the future frosts that will kill them all.
"Very poetic, Grav." Fusion snorted, scaring the wasp away. "Their day has passed, and all that will survive are a few that hide away from the cold. I'd ask the other ponies what they think we should do, but we both know they don't want our help."
Gravity stopped chewing, stretching out each back leg in turn. "So we do it anyway. They didn't ask us to hold back the cold, but we're doing it."
"No time like the present. I'll go tell Ellisif we're ready."
===
Without thinking, Salrath scratched at her filthy fur, then flinched at the sudden pain in her damaged paw. In the dim green light from the emergency kit's tritium lamp she looked at the ripped claws, broken from her frantic scrabbling at the rocks that blocked the gunship's rear exit. She licked at the abraded skin, staring at the small arms locker and thought about how much water she had left. Is there any point in waiting?
Her own bodily wastes, more-or-less neatly packed into emptied plastic ration packaging, stank up the small space in the gunship, but her nose could no longer smell it. "Perhaps this one could sleep on it?" Salrath gave a bitter, hacking laugh, even as her heart rate accelerated. The dreams, horrifically vivid and unforgettable, had started half a megasecond ago. Sleep was something to be afraid of, a place she died by falling or drowning or burning or being chased by something unseen. At least it makes this next step easier.
Unsteady on the steeply sloping deck, she stuck her hook into a tie-down point and used it to reach the locker, fumbling with the latch. It popped open, hanging down under its own weight, revealing a rack of rifles and pistols, all dislodged and dangling by their connections to the gunship's charging bus. One of the pistols was within reach, and she lifted it free with one claw tip, cursing as it dropped from her grasp and clattered down the deck and into the cockpit. Growling, she painfully followed it, finally fishing it out from under the pilot's couch.
Shaking, she held the pistol between her knees, turning it on. The little display came alive, presumably reporting battery charge level and the status of the optical path, but was unreadable due to a star-shaped crack on one edge. Salrath wiped her thumb across the display, picking out plastic fragments, then turned the pistol over to stare into the primary mirror.
Upside down and far away, her reflection fluttered and warped as the laser adjusted the focus of its parabolic mirror for the short range. For a moment she caught a glimpse of her face, haggard and haunted, then it showed an image of her bloodshot eye. Practiced fingers turned off the guide beam and set the output to maximum. She looked up at the open rear hatch, her own blood across the rocks looking black in the dim green light, then bowed her head and leaned against the pistol's muzzle.
Breathing hard, she touched the trigger, feeling the first stage give slightly under her thumb. How could it come to this? Convulsively, she pulled hard, but the gun just vibrated in her grip, pulsing the code that signaled 'unauthorised user'. "No!" She flung the pistol away and slumped against the wall, paw over her eyes.
An enervating fatigue spread through her limbs and Salrath stared sightlessly at the lockers on the opposite wall, tears running down her muzzle.
===
Vanca felt the press of bodies around her, the sense of being in a crowd of the People, and opened her eyes. Her fur crawled; there was no one there. She stood alone on a grassy plain, the sun at her back and her shadow stretching towards distant mountains. There was something terrifying in those mountains, a centre of tremendous power.
A dark shape flew down from the cloud-pocked sky, landing a few paces ahead of Vanca. Bigger and darker than in real life, a more menacing version of Gravity Resonance stood there, wings half-extended. Mesmerised, Vanca tried to run but was unable to move.
"Your hold over us has been broken," the pony said, the normally light and melodic voice made into something dark that matched her new body. Sharp teeth glinted between her lips as she smiled slightly. "Stay away from Lacunae's northern mountains; no interference will be tolerated." The figure turned to go, slow deliberate steps.
When are dreams so specific? Is it something more? The thought was startling, enough to add a layer of introspection. Is this one lucid dreaming? "Wait!" she blurted out, and was stunned when Gravity stopped, turning her head. The feeling of being in an invisible crowd vanished and Vanca felt the weight of the pony's regard, like she was a specimen pinned out on a dissection tray.
"Academician Vanca." It wasn't a question, but a statement loaded with sudden, worrying interest. "I try not to look too closely at you dogs, but I certainly know you." Gravity turned completely around, stepping towards Vanca.
The Academician took a step back, clenching and unclenching her paws. The pony was much bigger than she remembered, looming over her and blocking the northern horizon. This close, Vanca could feel the cold air pouring off Gravity's body, cold enough to raise a layer of fog at paw level. There was something reptilian about the creature, a hint of dark scales amid the fur.
"Well, Academician Vanca, you have my sole and undivided attention. The last time we met Fusion had me promise not to kill you out of paw." She frowned, eyes narrow. "Convince your people that the warning is real; you won't get another."
Vanca nodded vigorously. "This is really the pony?" What would this one do if she said 'no'? She shook her head, suddenly angry but keeping her words calm. "Stupid question. Can... can the pony tell this one anything that has happened? To the world? How much survived?" The frustration and confusion of the last megasecond boiled over, and she waved her paws around helplessly. "And why does Vanca and everyone else suddenly have a desire to get the Creation Stones!?"
"Huh. Fusion mentioned something about that." Gravity smiled, showing dentition more suited to an obligate carnivore. "I seem to remember you weren't keen on the Church."
"Fools! It's because of them that the Stones were separated. So much wasted time."
Gravity laughed. "Thing is, it turns out that the dogs in the funny robes were right..."
They talked, and Vanca slowly became more comfortable in Gravity's presence, ignoring the cold and the sinister body shape. "...so this one's Student survived everything, only to be killed by this 'Discord' creature." She shook her head and sighed. "Poor bastard. Korn really didn't deserve that."
"He tried, I'll say that for him."
"...and the other thing you described, the destruction of the Maker. Watch out for that; it almost sounds like..." Vanca's paws came up and she stroked at her whiskers. "There's a hypothesis that our space-time might not be at the lowest possible energy level. This means that it might be possible to drop it to the lower state; a false vacuum catastrophe, they call it. This one thinks Fusion was right -- if the phase change wasn't stopped it would have consumed the universe..." She looked off into space for a few moments, then nodded to Gravity. "This one appreciates the information. The pony didn't have to talk to this one at all."
"No, I didn't, but you were very helpful with the Hammer, and it is the end of the world..." Gravity started to turn, then stopped. "The warning still stands, Academician," she said over her shoulder. "Don't think that we are friends."
===
"Five lengths to go," Vanca called out, standing directly behind the tunneller as it worked in a slow, precision mode. The tunnel walls, their glossy, vitreous surface now a darker hue from organic matter in the surrounding material, stretched down into the darkness. The steps, formed into the lower surface of the tube by the thaumic tunneler, were packed with the vault's security staff, all looking tense. Behind them was the first of the cargo climbers, hauling supplies up from the deep shelter's stores.
Vanca yawned, thinking about another dose of stimulant. Unlike the military drugs, these didn't contain the anti-abuse components. It is fortunate that controlling this thing doesn't take much of Vanca's attention. It had taken the best part of a hundred kiloseconds to get this near the surface, but even without the drugs Vanca had no desire to sleep any time soon, not now she knew the pony had unfettered access.
Periodically the tunneller had been shut down so its seismometers could work. The whole population of the vault sat in silence, not moving, not talking, as the instruments listened to the harmonics of the world. On the fifth stop they'd heard the signal, a prearranged set of vibrations, supposedly sent out by friendly forces. If it's not some trap, Vanca thought, part of her wishing it was. At least these ones would get a fast end.
The tunneller cycled again, and there was a sudden rush of cold, smoke-tainted air past its cutting head. A little dirty-brown light leaked through, far dimmer than was expected for the time of day. Vanca let the machine crawl out of the hole, then stepped onto the glassy platform it had generated. All around was a plane of ash, mounded up over indistinct piles of charcoal. Here and there, the carbonised trunks of trees poked up, like jagged, rotten teeth.
Vanca squinted into the chill wind, looking up into the heavy clouds. Too much dust in the air, she thought. It's going to get colder. "Remind Vanca why these ones didn't just stay sealed in the vault?" she grumbled, but the reason had been made clear. Stones, always the Stones. "At least this way Vanca gets to die away from those idiots."
She pressed a claw into the emergency transponder's 'don't push this unless you really mean it' switch, watching as it lit up. A few seconds passed, then the 'acknowledge' indicator flashed. She threw the thing into the ash, half a dozen lengths away, and waited. Behind her, the first of the crawlers came out of the hole, but she didn't watch.
She heard it first, the ragged whine of a damaged ducted fan. The command carrier approached slowly, flopping down onto the ash, dead trees splintering under its bulk. The aircraft was scarred, burned and melted in places by some wide-angle energy beam. Vanca is no expert, but how did that thing even get in the air? Bet it won't lift again.
The side hatch opened and a figure trotted down the ramp, followed by a dozen others. The soldier, helmetless but with Security insignia, nodded to her, then cocked his head to one side. "Academician Vanca?"
"Yes," she said, weaving slightly on her paws as a wave of fatigue passed over her. "Have these ones met?"
"No, but this one has read Vanca's file. This one is Captain Rthar." He held out one paw and she touched the back of it with her own. "Always a pleasure to meet someone who has spent time in the company of the ponies."
It's not Vanca's fault! She nearly snapped the thought out loud, but just nodded. So much for remaining incognito. "That is something Vanca would rather not become common knowledge, Captain."
He nodded, then turned to watch the rest of his crew; they were climbing over the aircraft and inspecting one of the lifter fans while talking in worried tones. "This one understands. It doesn't matter now, in any case. These ones have to save what they can. Rthar places himself and crew at Vanca's disposal."
She barked out a laugh. "Not Vanca. Rthar wants Wendur." She gestured at one of the crawlers. "Who hasn't worked up the nerve to breathe the fresh air. Vanca is sure she will have plenty of orders." She grinned savagely at his suddenly weary look. "This one suspects Rthar already knows what is intended. There is a cave complex several hundred kilolengths south of Arcology Three; that will be our secondary camp, once the impact winter effects have subsided. This one assumes it is still there?"
He nodded. "No strikes were wasted on unpopulated areas. At least these ones have crawlers... the carrier isn't safe to fly anymore. Perhaps the Academician could assist this ones' crew, and salvage anything useful?"
At least Rthar didn't start with a question about the Stones. "It is probably for the best that most of the technology will fail. Vanca takes it that Rthar also had Gravity's dream?" Rthar nodded, his expression unreadable. "Vanca thinks that the ponies will leave these ones be, if the People can remain beneath their notice."
"Like insects under the hooves of the new gods," Rthar murmured, half to himself. "With luck the ponies won't change their minds and decide to exterminate the People once and for all."
Vanca sighed, staring up at the damaged carrier. Everything this one has worked for came to naught and Vanca is reduced to this. Still, the problem is an interesting one. Mind starting to pick at what she'd need to do to convert the carrier into the seed of an industrial base, and any thought or desire for sleep evaporating, Vanca walked off without a backwards glance.
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Chapter up!
Alondro finally finishes transporting all the dead ponies and other things to the afterlife, which now sports a large sign stating 'No Vacancy'.
"Ok... are we done now? Cause I really need to go curl up under my bed and rock wildly back and forth for a few hours.... so many dead ponies.... so many dead ponies..."
9396055 You get it!
Seriously, people's obsession with making every villain sympathetic is ludicrous.
Chrysalis, in her first appearance, rather unambiguously sang about her obsession with world domination since she was young! There was NOTHING sympathetic from the get-go! She's on par with Tirek, a power-obsessed tyrant with nothing good about her and not a trace of a redeemable trait.
I could see her ending up broken and feeling remorse after quite number of defeats and seeing her race almost wiped out. But we're talking a Vegeta-level character arc here. The show doesn't exactly have a good track record of that, except with Discord.
9397341
Hey I was going to buy your first fanfic as a hardcover book for myself. It would be on Lulu. waiting for you to finish this story so I can do it too. is it okay if I do so?
With the stones forming the basis of a northern secure enviroment, this is going to be Dream Valley, with irradiated thaumachemical industrial waste from some Hive forming the Smooze? The other races would over time be due to hybridisations of irradiation, survivors Fusion didnt specifially scan for, and Evil Chaos Darkness corruption, like seaponies being corrupted to Sirens, deep savanna, desert dwelling felines becoming Abysinnians, if they exist or already havent been worked on by that continents hives? The Yetis from the southern Polar icefields?
For the ponies being angry. Wouldnt that be Stock home syndrome?
Vancas got a long way to drag that Carrier if he wants to embed it in the Dogs new Capital Cave.
Hmm... The antimagic superweapon may have rerouted those energies along an unexpected vector. Not exactly helpful in the short term, though.
If only you knew...
And there are the titular wasp and spider in this ash-covered world. Oh, for the more innocent days of Fusion trying to hide her lack of brainwashing...
Survival's going to harsh and thankless, especially for the sisters. Magic takes calories, after all. They'll find some sort of solution. The question is what, how long, and at what cost. And the whole "horrific meme complex" thing Gravity has to worry about.
Looks like somepony's been working on their Nightmare cosplay...
So we've gotten the series name last chapter, the previous work's title for the previous... Is next chapter going to be "The Final Solution"?
9397384
Stock Home Syndrome, not to be confused with Stockholm Syndrome?
The latter is when the captive gains affection for its captor.
9397935
Yup, Stock Home syndrome, where the being that is farmed for its resources becomes enamoured of his slave master because of percieved kindness in supply of food, water, shelter and lack of immediate loss of life.
9397349
err... pretty much? You can give your pony-shovel a rest, for a while.
9397354
I like Chrysalis for that. She has the courage of her convictions. None of this forgiveness rubbish. The show redeems too many villains. It's still far too much of a stretch to have Discord as even a partial goody (although, arguably he betrays them often enough that he could still just be playing with them). Still, if I was writing the show things would be quite different!
9397365
I'm not familiar with that company, but I assume it's a standard print-on-demand outfit. I had intended to set something similar up myself, just for me if no one else is interested. What does the single copy pricing look like? I had vague plans to bulk buy and ship out to interested parties, but given that most of you are likely from the US, a local seller may be better. Anyway, you may want to wait a bit. If nothing else, the early chapters need a bit of a rewrite and an edit; they are a bit clunky in places.
9397384
Plenty of places for things to happen, out of sight. As for the ponies, yes, Stockholm Syndrome is one way to look at it.
9397762
Got to come from somewhere!
Ah, you'll have to wait and see. It's under discussion.
9397442
Well, they do need to eat, so not that short term!
Sounds like that one group of ponies was a bit better off than most. Crap looks pretty good when you've got something worse to compare it to. They might not have had much, but now they've got nothing, and they have a clear target for blame.
Yeah... The suffering others had to endure isn't going to much matter to them.
To think that this world turns into Season 1/2 Equestria. Twilight must never know, huh?
Man, I want to give the sisters some big ol' hugs.
9397762
I've been wondering along those lines. Luna-tic, does "Days of Wasp and Spider" mean something in particular as a phrase? I don't recognize it, but it kind of sounds like it should.
Oooooooh early nightmare moon is whispering to luna.
9397958 But if you were writing the show, Chrysalis would rip the hearts out of foals to sustain her youth and stuff like that.
For a second there i thought i was witnessing the birth of changelings. But then the coffee kicked in and realized it was Gravity.
I'm glad Rathar made it. He was a decent dog. He saw ponies as more than tools from the start... maybe not by much but he did.
And so it begins...
9385358
You have to also consider, The Storm King would certainly be smarter in your version - considering in canon they had antimagic defenses, I would expect for him to have researched and be deploying Arclight spam specifically to disable the princesses enough for capture.
9397958
Okay, but...
Our human society has a massive suta problem when it comes to justice, as if those that do evil can never be made good and therefore must be burned at the stake.
Now, while some villains have been reformed, a lot of villains have not.
Spoilers ahead if you haven't through Season 8
Nightmare Moon - Selfish, purged by Harmony, now good as Luna again
Gilda - Dominance, reformation ongoing, currently learning friendship
Iron Will - Capitalism technically not malicious, no change
Flim and Flam - Capitalism technically not malicious except for one example, comeuppance given, no change
Diamond Dogs - Slavers, comeuppance given, no change (other than staying far away from Rarity perhaps)
Discord - Selfish, definite malice, justice served by Harmony twice, reformation via friendship ongoing
Trixie - Selfish, comeuppance given twice, ongoing reformation via friendship
Chrysalis - Conquest, comeuppance given twice already, no change, refused friendship offer
Sombra - Conquest, vaporised by love. Hope he stays ded.
Babs Seed - Misguided youth, understanding reached, now good (she's a kid yo)
Suri Polomare - Plagarism, perhaps, comeuppance given, no change?
Lightning Dust - Wreckless, comeuppance and justice served, no change
Garble - Dominance, comeuppance given many times, no change
Tirek - Genocide, justice served via Harmony. Literally in hell, no change
Starlight Glimmer - Selfish, comeuppance given, accepted learning friendship, now good.
Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon - Dominance, comeuppance given many times, now understanding friendship maybe (she's a kid yo)
Zesty Gourmand - Dominance, comeuppance given, no change
Gladmane - Manipulative, comeuppance given, no change
Pony of Shadows - Selfish, justice served, purged by Harmony, now good as Stygian again
The Storm King - Conquest, justice served, he deed
Tempest Shadow - Neglected Runaway, comeuppance given, currently making up for it?
Chancellor Neighsay - Obstructive Beaurocrat, comeuppance given twice, now less obstructive?
Cozy Glow - Manipulative, weaponised friendship, justice served by Harmony and Law, literally in hell
Of all the actual villains I remember off the top of my head, the tally is:
4 Reformed
6 Reformation Ongoing / In Progress
12 No change / Refused reformation / straight up ded
So really reformation doesn't happen as much as everyone thinks. It's just more noticed due to the human cultural desire to dispense JUSTICE ON THE WICKED and ignore the power of mercy.
9397958
A single copy varies depending on
what your buying. A single book paper may cost 11 to 15 dollars. A hardcover may cost 20 to 30 depending on how many pages are being printed. I think Lulu prints around 700 pages max or 680. They aren't the only site TheBookPatch prints as well but I don't use it.
I would also be intrested in buying this as a book - never done that before, but I wasn't kidding about this being the best story on the site.
9396055
>a queen without subjects
is irrelevant when you can horde your power and just get more subjects when you topple the empire you moron. subjects are not important to the kind of person you are constructing in your mind, meanwhile broken chrysalis cant even blame her own children for betraying her.
Its hilarious you think anything you say after the first paragraph even matters. its literally all outside of canon. None of the authors words matter more than what is portrayed in the content of the story. And what is portrayed is a malevolant to ponies, brutal, but loyal queen and her near universally similar subjects.
9397354
You're a fool, the first thing she actually does when at RISK is stand infront of the most threatening figures and risk her life and limb for her hive, stating it outright that its her duty as queen to do that for her subjects. Just because she doesn't care about controlling ponies doesn't mean she is acting without consideration of her subjects. I already proved that abjectly when she didn't simply leave them to get away and do this all again. Instead she fought a battle she was surprised to even survive.
9404667 She was confronted directly by Celestia. Turning around and running meant risking a beam in the back.
Also, the plot wouldn't permit that anyway.
Besides which, we saw in the very next episode with her that she had no compassion for anything or anyone, willing to drain Thorax without hesitation, and then refusing to take part in the transformation which would have freed her from the need to steal love.
Your 'devil's advocacy' only works when you ignore all the contradictory evidence and interpret things as you want them to be... which is a really poor way to make a case. You'd be an awful lawyer.
9401674
The counter though is this version of the Princesses, even without the Elements, are strong enough to fight off Arclight units unless they get blanketed with 0 warning.
And that's before the thousand+ years between Now and when Canon begins, in which presumably they learn and grow even stronger.
That said if the Storm King was less of an idiot and somehow recreated that tech in absolute secret and then Arclight bombed Canterlot with 0 warning? It might work. Might.
But the movie was dumb on many levels lol
9401860
I'd dispute a couple, slightly, namely:
Iron Will / Flim & Flam - They don't change but at the same time only Iron Will in his first appearance is really...sympathetic, I suppose - he meant well but was misguided. By the time he comes back, and Flim & Flam always, they are both hucksters with no real regrets about parting people with their money through shady means.
Aka I would still call them malicious, albeit their malice is the byproduct of not caring about consequences to other people if they profit off of it.
That said yea, the larger point as a whole is a good one; we only see reformation syndrome as much, I'd argue, cause it most prominently happens to Premiere/Finale villains who are the Big Stakes ones and that distorts perceptions.
That said, now I just realized Wasp & Spider works somewhat for Luna and Celestia, but it could indicate many things given that scene there and I wonder which was intended.
9401674
Once I powered up the Princesses it became very difficult for anyone to get the drop on them. You'd have to get them both at the same time, too. Neither would fall for a hostage scenario. They'd either have to be idiots or betrayed or have been lulled into a false sense of security by a thousand years of peace (except they haven't had that much peace!). It would be like trying to stop superman, only without kryptonite. This is the legacy of S1/S2 -- weakly-godlike entities -- and the reason I wrote them they way I did. Very hard to have a plausible existential threat that you leave to your student to handle.
As for your villain list, yes, I'm sure you are right. I suspect I'm just annoyed about Discord. Even looking at the biggies (NMM, Discord, Sombra, Cheese-legs, etc), there are still more on the killed/defeated side than the reconciled.
9413387
There were a few bits that I really enjoyed in the movie -- Celestia's reply to Twilight's request that the other Princesses effectively manoeuvre the whole universe for good lighting effects, for example, really made me laugh. The animation style put me off a little -- they seemed very 'soft', and I didn't like the large numbers of bipeds (most of the MLP species being quads made the series quite distinctive, to my mind). Then there's Twilight's outburst after they get kicked out of the underwater kingdom -- she really had a point, the others either did little or were an active impediment.
Whelp, over chapter left and I'll have finished the trilogy-ish mountain I've been climbing.
Is been a crazy ride, filled with thoughts.
- "present day" MLP, do the princesses even consider anything about the dogs at this point?
- given all the crazy physics and calculations and stuff, how she heck do the elements work with the new bearers?
Those are the two big ones, but these are some other random thoughts too
- wonder what's up with the partial maker the was savaged before Discord did his thing.
- ....I wonder what the far off distant discord/chaos bits are up to on the side
Salrath deserves nothing more than a slow, ignominious death, helpless and surrounded by her own shit. :)
Also, thank you Vanca for saying what I've been thinking, he did not deserve that.