Chapter XXIII: The Heretic Princess
Twilight Sparkle was not an unstoppable badass. She had already established this firmly. She did not swoop onto the battlefield with a last minute charge to save the day, that wasn’t her, that wasn’t her, for the love of Celestia above, that wasn’t her! She was supposed to be a hoity-toity pony princess who just gained an even better excuse for spending her Friday nights reading in her library! So why, oh why, did the universe see fit to thrust her into these situations?
She swooped alongside her long-time friend and mentor. They’d made landfall hours before, but Celestia had never even slowed down. And good Sun and Moon above, could anypony blame her? If her intuition was right, what waited for them would be a straight-up warzone, if not a massacre. Still, the ache which had started between her shoulder blades just an hour before had grown into a pretty persistent pain, which was now steadily evolving from “muscle cramp” to “white hot needles.”
“P-princess…” she gasped, reaching out. That was all she needed to do. Celestia cut her speed in half and soared next to her former student, looking her over.
“We can rest if you wish, Twilight,” she said after a single glance, which probably told Twilight all she needed to know about how she looked.
Cursing herself over and over again for blowing off Rainbow Dash every time she offered flight training, Twilight pasted a smile on her face and pushed just an ounce more speed out of her aching wings. “That’s alright…princess…” she managed with only a couple faint pants. “Maybe we could just…slow down a little?”
Instead, Celestia arrowed downwards, settling in an empty hayfield. Thanking anypony that might be listening, Twilight followed suit. “We can rest and make up the distance when we take to the air,” Celestia insisted, trotting over to a hay bale. “In the meantime, let us hope this hay is more satisfying than that accursed grass from last night.”
Twilight furrowed her brow at the hoofful of wispy, dried, yellow stuff in Celestia’s hoof. “Isn’t this stealing?”
“Desperate times, Twilight,” she looked at her former student with a weak, little smile. “We will be of no good to anypony – or anybody – if we are doubled over in hunger by the time we reach our destination. For now, we will simply have to hope to come across this place again in better times, when we are more able to reimburse the owner.”
Twilight nodded, grateful for the Princess’s justification, and immediately feeling ashamed for such gratitude. Still, the last decent meal the pair had eaten had been on that megaship, since then it had been just scraps such as this. There was no way…
Twilight bit into her clump of hay, and heaven itself exploded in her mouth. Woody, yet not like woodchips, more like a breath somewhere deep in the Everfree just after a spring rainstorm, when the forest was still coming to life and that scent of moisture still hung in the air. Without even thinking, she bobbed forward and stuck her entire head into the bale, her jaw hanging slack to fill with the hay. It was even better, now it was reliving a summer picnic with her friends, yet with a sweet aftertaste: not candy sweet, more like a really ripe piece of fruit.
She was gently lifted up and placed on her hooves beside the bale, Celestia standing over her with a mouthful of that sweet, wonderful, succulent hay. She was still chewing, apparently unable to stop, and was only able to talk after swallowing every stalk in her mouth.
“When we improve relations with the humans,” she said. “I know the very first thing we’re going to negotiate a trade deal for.”
“Absolutely.”
They allowed themselves a couple more mouthfuls each before sinking to the grass, finally content for the first time in days. Twilight perked up an ear, listening to the peaceful tweeting of birds that seemed to exist on every farm, even Sweet Apple Acres. Two radically different worlds, yet so alike.
Sitting up and clearing her throat, she returned to business mode with the sort of professionalism one would expect from royalty. “Do you have any idea what could be waiting for us, Princess?”
Celestia just shook her head, content with remaining where she was. “I only know the size and direction of the magical pulse, dearest Twilight,” she said, the content smile and closed eyes never leaving her face. “We crossed the border into a land called ‘Germany’ a while ago, but for all I know, we could still be hundreds of miles from our destination.”
Twilight was about to say something, when a deep thud resounded through the air. The sort of deep thumping sound that actually seemed to bounce your body with it, rattling the ribs as it passed by. Celestia was on her hooves in an instant, eyes scanning wildly. It didn’t take long for either of them to find the columns of thick, black smoke rising steadily into the air, and once they had that direction, they were able to make out the distant ‘ack-ack’ sounds of the humans’ weapons.
“Or we could be standing right on the precipice,” Celestia murmured before fanning her wings and taking off at a speed that would have impressed Rainbow Dash. Twilight nearly lost her then, but keeping track of a white streak trailing rainbows turned out to be an even easier task than she’d imagined. They darted just over the branches of trees across miles of farmland, approaching a small city in the distance.
Twilight could make out more details in the city as they approached. A few minutes after discovering that amazing hay, she could see quaint, brick cottages that made her heart ache for Ponyville, despite the pillars of smoke rising from their midst. After that came the massive, gray fortress with little curls of wire running along the top of its fencing, and where more explosions and gunfire were erupting. Finally, she could see the smaller details: the scorch marks on rooftops, the faint pops and whistles of something exploding someplace nearby, the houses with rooftops that were totally caved-in or had perfectly round holes pounded into them.
“If that’s not it, I’m Discord’s mother,” she whispered to herself, the pain flaring between her shoulder blades long forgotten as she squeezed as much speed out of her wings as she could muster. She arrived on the outskirts of the village to find Celestia perched atop a human ‘automobile’ with a small crowd of Newfoals gathering around her. Her powerful figure was framed by the flames licking out of the storefront behind her. Many of the Newfoals at her hooves had their fur matted and bloodied noses, some even covered in blood, though judging by the way they walked without any difficulty, the blood probably wasn’t their own. She noticed one balanced precariously on three legs, his third just a charred stump of foreleg, and she had to suppress the urge to vomit.
“My dearest ponies,” Celestia said, her voice booming at Royal Canterlot Voice levels. “Your princess has arrived!”
Something was wrong. Something was deeply wrong. As Twilight settled on the nose of the automobile, she pieced it together: the Newfoals were just standing there. The stallion they’d cured in Bethlem had practically knelt at Celestia’s hooves, and had needed to be ordered directly to keep from proclaiming his eternal love and loyalty at the top of his lungs. These ponies were just…staring. Like they were confused. Was that all? Confusion that their Princess would show herself here and now? Twilight could only hope so.
“This…” Celestia spread her hoof out, motioning to the shattered glass and the flaming rubble around them. “This is not what we are meant to stand for, my little ponies. We are meant to be beacons of hope and friendship to those around us, not harbingers of destruction! I ask and appeal to the intelligent, loving minds that I know are in there: stand down, and join me in extending the hoof of friendship to humanity before it is too late!”
Celestia smiled reassuringly at the Newfoals around her, confident in their abilities to make the right decision. Except these weren’t her little ponies. Dear Sun above, these were something else! One look in those big, blank eyes told Twilight that much. Now, as one mare stepped forward with unbridled fury burning in her gaze, the lavender princess realized just how vastly removed from the ponies she knew these Newfoals were.
“This is not the Solar Lord,” the mare proclaimed, levelling a hateful glare at the Alicorns perched atop the ruined sedan. “This is the imposter we were warned about!”
“The Impostor!” A stallion slurred around a shattered muzzle, leaping down from a roof and clipping a small camera hooked to a utility pole, snarling like an animal. “It’s the Impostor! The Heretic of all!”
“Destroy her! Destroy the Impostor! Destroy the Heretics! Let them burn!” The crowd chanted as one, each pony flinging themselves against the car, gnashing their teeth, bashing at the sedan’s side with their foreheads.
Celestia barely had time to react, throwing a shield around herself and Twilight just in time to block the first attacking pony: a pegasus stallion who’s forehead bounced off the solid wall of pure magic and who’s neck snapped back unnaturally. He turned away as the tide of Newfoals broke out around him, stumbling away impossibly as his body tried to understand that he’d just broken his own neck.
“Destroy her! Destroy the Heretic!” The first mare repeated, a makeshift general for a ragtag army of shambling, blank-eyed, hateful cretins. Twilight had a flash of a movie Rainbow had forced her to watch, Night of the Living Dead, and she forced the memory back upon recalling the ending. No time for memories, no time for recollection. She scurried up the sedan’s side, safe within her teacher’s bubble, but for how long?
She turned, saw the way Celestia strained with each physical blow and shuddering blast, and realized that despite all of Celestia’s power, she wouldn’t last a few more minutes. They couldn’t stay here, anyway. The humans would be along soon. They would have to be. What else could they be doing? “Princess!” Twilight gasped.
Celestia didn’t respond, and Twilight was about to repeat herself when she saw the way Celestia’s ear flicked. It wasn’t that she hadn’t heard. It’s just that she didn’t want to hear. The strain of maintaining the shield against the blood-soaked, slavering faces was plain on her face, and despite that, despite the beating hooves and the cries for her blood and the shattering bone as the Newfoals literally threw themselves against the shield, she didn’t want to accept that they might have to fight their way out. Twilight’s eyes widened in realization as she turned to the horde outside. Deep down inside those evil, stupid heads were mothers, fathers, grandsons, nieces, and uncles. How many would have to die for them? How many would the Princesses have to kill, extinguishing any hope of ever reuniting them with their loved ones?
Twilight’s mind raced, weighing her options. Stun spells might work. Might. Of course, with this bunch all riled up, it could take three or four hits to get each mare and stallion down, and in that time they could be overwhelmed. Or, even worse, forced to open fire with spells that did more permanent damage. Her wide, fear-filled eyes watched the horde outside, the tide of stupid, angry faces glaring back at her, yet still the rational side of her brain worked away, approaching the problem from every angle. The solution was on her at once.
We don’t have to incapacitate them, she realized, her horn already charging with the spell. She would kick herself later for not seeing the way out immediately, but one could forgive her that if one took into account that terrible horde of awful, yelling faces. We just have to get away…
She finished the spell, there was a blinding flash, and both princesses disappeared, along with the top half of a VW Jetta compact.
There was the rush of magic, the same light-headedness she’d always know, and then reality hit the pair like a speeding semi. Twilight’s head reeled as she snapped back into existence, standing atop a single-story apartment building a couple hundred yards down the street. The horde still gathered around the remains of the sedan, pushing and shoving and jostling each other, apparently unable to believe their prey had just escaped. The former unicorn collapsed out of relief, a few shingles peeling away under her. “Thank Celestia that worked,” she whispered.
Celestia, finally snapping out of her daze, ran a hoof along her former student’s shoulders. “I had nothing to do with that,” she said, wrapping her wings around Twilight’s withers. “That was all you, my dearest former student.”
Twilight was about to say something else, or at least point out they should probably start running, when the roof creaked and groaned. It occurred to both mares that these decrepit structures probably weren’t designed to support the weight of two pony princesses and half a family four-door sedan, especially after having a good portion of their load-bearing walls blown out. Before either could react, there was a loud crash, a creak of splintering wood, and they smashed through into a bedroom.
Twilight coughed, pushing herself to her hooves, ignoring the filth caked into her coat. “Princess!?” She gasped, unable to disguise the raw panic in her voice.
Celestia’s unmistakable silhouette rose to its hooves somewhere amidst the dust, her filth-covered muzzle contrasting with her bright, magenta eyes. “Please don’t mention this to Luna,” she said between hacking coughs. “She’s been trying to put me on a diet ever since she got back, and this might be the final straw.”
Unable to help herself, Twilight wrapped her forelegs around Celestia’s shoulders, squeezing tight, her chest heaving. But she wasn’t in tears. Not yet, anyway. Celestia, for her part, wrapped a foreleg around Twilight’s shoulders, knowing that sometimes the best support to offer was just a shoulder to cry on, even if the other pony was fighting it with all the strength in their little body. One thing they had in common: in that moment, both wished to stay that way forever. Both wished for this moment to remain as it was, because Twilight hadn’t felt so safe in days, and Celestia had never felt closer to simpler times, when the most pressing matter on her mind was what book she would read with her dearest student after they’d finished up their current one.
“Come, Twilight,” she whispered, motioning to the stairs. “We can’t stay here.”
“Yeah, though that’d be nice,” Twilight sighed, following the princess out the door and into the hallway. They both gawped as the door creaked open. The building had been hit by something large and explosive, the large, charred hole in the ceiling made that much obvious. Where the apartment had been untouched, however, the hall was littered with fallen timbers, burnt plaster, and chunks of assorted rubble charred beyond recognition. Just outside the door, a blood-stained pants leg poked out from under a large timber, and Twilight gasped as she realized someone was under there.
“Oh my…” she gasped, a hoof going to her mouth. Her wide eyes scanned the apartment, finding the cold bowl of soup on the kitchen table. Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. “He barely even made it past his door…”
“Oh Maker above,” Celestia murmured, shaking her head. “What are we even doing here?”
“Princess?”
“T-Twilight…” Celestia turned to her former student, and to her horror Twilight saw fear in those eyes, the same sort of fear as a filly lost in the dark. “I don’t think we should have come here.” She whispered, her voice small and terrified.
And then someone shifted around in the rubble just outside. Twilight thought for a moment it might have been her imagination, and then a few coughs added themselves to the noise.
There was a single moment of processing what was going on, of not understanding, and then both ponies leapt to the air and bounded past the body in the hallway, leaping upon the shattered piles of wood and discarded shingles left by a scorched, gaping hole in the roof. They searched frantically for whoever might be trapped, throwing wood and plaster aside without a moment’s consideration. They found him under a plank of plywood, pinned down by the remains of a support beam: a man in the camouflage clothing they knew all too well, wearing the flag of the human nation they had sneaked into. He stirred and groaned as they lifted the wood off, coughing up a spurt of blood from a mouth covered in filth and dirt.
“Oh no,” Twilight gasped, her shoulders already tensing for hyperventilation.
Celestia eased herself down alongside the man, resting her face gently against his while studying his body. “Burn marks. He was attacked by a unicorn,” she sighed, looking up at the scorched hole in the ceiling. “Just one. Please, after all that’s happened today, let me save one.”
“Wha-wha-wha…” Twilight stammered and swallowed, unable to contain her shaking. Her wings, now frazzled and unkempt, tensed and flexed against her body. “What do we do?”
“First thing’s first, we remain calm,” Celestia said, eyeing her student. All traces of shock and horror were gone from that eye. Twilight visibly paused, then held a hoof to her chest, breathing in and then out, just as Cadence had shown her so long ago. Nodding her approval, Celestia studied the man, her horn igniting. “I will most likely require your aid with this, Twilight.”
Nodding, Twilight leapt to the man’s side. “Do you suppose our healing spells function the same with humans as they do with ponies?”
“We can only try, and hope,” Celestia replied, her horn humming with power. “Are you ready?”
“Ready,” Twilight whispered, their magic humming and coalescing as a small, white orb over the human’s chest. The orb hummed over the human’s body, little arcs of light reaching out across his wounds, sealing them over through the burnt holes in his clothing as he winced in pain. Once or twice, his back arched and he let out a quick gasp, only to settle again.
When it was done, the pair settled back. “Not quite the perfect process we know with most ponies, but manageable for now,” Celestia remarked, rising to her hooves. “Stay with him, Twilight, I wish to poke my head out, see if there are some human forces we can drop him off near.”
“Of course, Princess,” Twilight watched Celestia soar over her head, smiling to herself. Perhaps finally, things were going to start working out for them. Perhaps today they were going to take a step towards convincing humanity that not all ponies were like the wicked demon that had attacked them.
Her gaze drifted back down to the human. His eyes were open wide. “H-hi,” she offered with a little smile and a wave of her hoof.
The man’s boot lashed out, catching her upside the chin and sending her sprawling on her back. Her gaze wavered in and out for only a second, more than enough time for the man to jump to his feet and sprint to the door, screaming the entire way in the strange language of the land. He already had his hand on the doorknob by the time Twilight regained her marbles enough to hop back on her hooves and realize what was happening.
“No, wait!” She cried, running after him and wrapping her hooves around his pants leg. “They’re out there!”
Still screaming frantically, his eyes wide and his teeth bared, the man kicked her off and threw the door open. Twilight still reached for him despite the pain in her forelegs. Too little. Too slow. Too late. No matter what it was, her efforts weren’t enough to stop the panicked human. It only occurred to her to use her magic when he was already halfway out the door, and she reached out, grasping his ankle tripping him up.
The human fell to his hands on the sidewalk just outside the door. A split-second later, his head vanished in a cyan blur and a sudden explosion of gore, bits of skull and droplets of blood blanketing the cheap throw rug proclaiming “welcome” to anyone on the doorstep. His body twitched for a second on the doorstep, then fell limp. Twilight’s mouth gaped open in abject horror, her magic still holding the human’s rapidly-stiffening ankle. She backed away, accidentally dragging the body back into the house, the arms catching on the doorframe and splaying out behind it, soaking the uniform’s sleeves in the blood trail left on the sidewalk. Finally regaining some presence of mind, Twilight released the human, letting the boot drop to the floor with a loud thud.
“That didn’t happen,” she mumbled in a voice that sounded like a timid filly on the verge of breaking down, perhaps like Fluttershy sounded on that first day of Flight School when she was told she would have to learn to step off the clouds and fly under her own power. “That couldn’t have just happened.”
She reached up, a hoof covering her mouth to hold back a scream, only to draw her hoof back at the moisture she felt. Red. It was covered in red. She wondered if she’d scratched herself while plummeting through the roof. Then she realized the blood wasn’t hers.
This time, she did scream. It rose from her throat unbidden, totally out of control, reaching a high-pitched shriek that strained her vocal chords and hurt her ears but she couldn’t stop because if she stopped she might have to look at herself and maybe find a mirror and maybe find a chunk of brain in her hair and oh Celestia oh Luna she didn’t want to see she didn’t want to see that so she just kept screaming, even as a pegasus covered in blood with bits of grey matter in her feathers poked her cyan head in and glared at Twilight.
“Death to the heretics,” she whispered before rushing in, trampling the human’s body. Twilight stood there, still screaming, still paralyzed even as the pegasus rushed her. Her only saving grace was the powerful stun spell that lanced into the back of the mare’s head, dropping her on the run to crash at Twilight’s hooves and now she could feel the blood in her mane oh Celestia it was in her bucking mane…
Twilight didn’t remember much afterwards, and for that she would always be grateful.
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Poor Twilight......
Nice try Celestia, could have worked if Xenolestia hadn't known about her.
Does xenolestia really think she can turn around a war she arready lost? The new foals aren't being replenished each time they are killed and they are far to simpleminded to make the potion and equstia as she knows it is gone. So what? One last act of defiance or to try and escape? Does she not remember what happened? Most of equestria is radioactive and as durable as her slave army is they can't keep taking more heavy losses.....
Yes they have killed many humans but what about when they start calling in missle strikes or conversion war veterans? The normal tactic of sea of flesh that they use is no longer viable long term.......besides this will just show that new foals should just be killed because even by removing the blocks on there minds they can still be controlled at any moment.....also why didn't they use a hacksaw on xenolestias horn and wings?
PTSD?
PTSD.
I didn't think much of the last chapter TBH. There are so many humans now all I can remember are that there are eight U.N. Diplomats who seem to be the protagonists. I do remember that HLF attack, and the commander who kept trying to convince himself that the death of his friend was inevitable, but that's it. This one... This one is great.
I've been getting really fond of the Twilight and Celestia chapters. They're like two friends, a mother and daughter lost in a strange world. Every action they take has so many consequences, but they all seem so right. From Twilight fumbling that German Soldier and letting him die, to Celestia's fat joke, it all feels awesome.
I honestly can't remember which two protagonists were in the last chapter, but on reflection I'm guessing they were caught by the same force that forced the british admiral to give up Celestia. That sub-plot is quite intriguing. I hope we see more.
The only flaw with this story is that there's so much going on I can't figure out who's doing what half the time. The ponies are easy, they are easily distinguishable and already characterized. But I'm having so much trouble telling one human apart from another. I thought the last chapter was the British and American diplomat at first, then remembered they aren't a couple yet. Apparently one is german, but I can't remember any traits about him.
I do wonder how long this uprising will last. If there is one good thing about our species, we follow the rules that were written in blood. The Germans have fought the new foals before, and they must've learned from their mistakes. How long before a rapid responce strike group surrounds and burns the city to the ground? When will hidden explosives lain deep within the buildings detonate, taking anyone still in the village? When will we remember how to kill the new foals?
6371905
Sounds to me like she's just doing this out of spite.
Damn, this warrants a tag and/or rating change.
6372355
She wants to die and take everyone with her. No other explanation explains the plan she has made.
She is simply being "RAWR, LOOK I'M EVIL I KILL YOU" without any true forethought to anything.
6371905
I think it's kinda obvious, Xenolestia is doing this out of petty spite, to the humans that dared thought they could cage her, and Celestia the imposter that dared take one of her ponies away. That this sudden homicidal wave of newfoals will also paint the "Good" Equestria as another place to be nuked as soon as possible, well, it's a win-win as far as Xenolestia's concerned. "If I can't win, I'll take you down with me."
Celestia's tasked with not only stopping Xenolestia but convincing the humans that not all ponies are evil things to be shot on sight.
Kinda reminds me of all the changeling stories that have "good" changelings (and/or entire hives) desperately trying to distance themselves from the actions of Chrysalis.
I do feel almost guilty for Twilight, her innocence being so brutally ripped away on a very violent and unforgiving planet.
Why is Xenolestia fighting a war she cannot possibly hope to win? Unless she has an ace-in-the-hole, the only reason I can think of is that she is completely and utterly INSANE! Seriously, I doubt she was playing with a fulling deck when she decided to invade Earth in the first place, but being defeated by the very beings she despised, the ones she considers as beneath her as the ants at our feet, what little sanity she had left was completely shattered.
Damn ponies are op in this world
6373274 Kind of a requirement for CB fics. How else would magical ponies pose a threat to the entirety of earths combined military power?
I'm a bit dismayed at the relative power difference between Celestia and Xenolestia. It just doesn't seem like Celestia can realistically challenge her counterpart when Xenolestia can incite a citywide riot and Celestia can barely hold off an angry crowd.
I suppose that could be because Xenolestia's Equestria has no other alicorns - Xenolestia might have kept/stolen all that power for herself, wheras Celestia is "sharing." Celestia needs some kind of ally, and soon, because I think that's the only way she can do this. But how to get one when the human world hates her, Xeno-questria hates her, and Equestria is cut off...
6372958
Some people just can't stand losing. At this point, it's not about winning, it's about getting back at us for beating her.
Those evil humans took her rightful victory away from her, she's going to make them pay.
6373465
I think the issue here is less a matter of power, and more of the difference in morals between Xenolestia and Celestia. Celestia is reluctant to end a single life, or to use any kind of force for that matter. Xenolestia, on the other hand, has no such qualms. Celestia needs to figure out how to beat an enemy who's using a completely different playbook than she's used to (open warfare with a complete disregard for the sanctity of life).
Don't forget, she showed up, was imprisoned, escaped, read some articles online, and now is here. She doesn't have too much specific information or resources at her disposal. Xenolestia, meanwhile, knows exactly who she's dealing with, and has the makings of an army (or at least a very large mob) at her disposal. However, I think this disparity will lessen as the story goes on.
6375442
For me, and with this chapter, it was not at all about morals. Celestia and Twilight followed the traces of whatever Xenolestia had done in order to help. Then, when they get the the event area, pretty much just say, "Oh, crap, we can't actually do anything about this."
They don't have the ability to undo Xenolestia's actual spellwork, they don't have the ability to do large-scale indoctrination cancelling, they don't have the ability to do large scale defensive assistance. It just feels like, judging by Celestia's aparent magical ability when compared to the crowd, that Xenolestia is operating entire orders of magical magnitude above Celestia.
I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but I'm left wondering what Celestia and Twilight can actually do.
6375556 I think what you're looking at is really a lot closer to the second part of my comment than the first. Even the best microbiologist cannot create a vaccine for a disease immediately after encountering it- they need to study it in depth before anything else can be done.
I highly doubt Celestia has any experience in the magic behind the conversion potion. Sure, she may be familiar with shapeshifting spells, or even with mind magic (given Luna's affinity for it, ei the Dreamscape), but nothing as complex as what Xenolestia has created. Celestia needs time and resources to research the conversion potion if she ever wants to even consider undoing it.
As for defensive actions? She is essentially going up against an evil version of herself, on an unfamiliar world where she is seen as the enemy. Thousands of years of experience she may have, but she is still just a pony. I wouldn't be surprised if this shocks her. Anyone would need some time to acclimate to this situation, time she doesn't have.
Like I said- I think Celestia will catch up later in the story, but right now, she has barely started, due to the limited time and resources at her disposal.
Throughout the second half of this chapter all I could think of was this.
s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/fe/49/d1/fe49d18e811d8e80f800d6a228178e68.jpg
6376800
Don't worry I came as soon as I heard there was HERESY!!!!
Now this has been a wild ride. Excited for the next installation.
Liked and Faved, awaiting "What came next."
Really needs a Gore tag. Probably one for Dark, too.
Yikes, poor Twilight. Though Celestia seems a bit powered-down here. I mean, she should EASILY have been able to hold off the riot if you compare her to Shining's city-wide barrier that could stay intact even after he got mind-whammied.
6444118
In the season finale where Shining Armor debuted, it was shown for the first time that Celestia is not very powerful, able to be struck down and hogtied pretty easily, and to the point of the matter, completely unable to cast that shielding spell. Otherwise why would he be the one casting it, and why wouldn't she take over when he was obviously compromised? So uh... once you accept that Shining exists and the episode was a thing that happened, you pretty much have to nerf Celestia down to about what Twilight's level was, shortly before alicornization. They had to make the power of true married love all-powerful and stuff, so everyone else had to be at least a step below.
6445357
Ugh, I feel like I have to debunk this every other week. Did it ever occur to you that maybe it's not that Celestia's not very powerful but maybe... I don't know, Chrysalis was pretty strong? Especially considering she'd been gorging herself on love, and the show - Friendship is Magic - kinda has emotions roflstomp gods pretty often?
It's called 'doing your job' and 'obviously' compromised is a funny thing. We saw his eyes glowing. Did they see it? The green fog from Rainbow Rocks comes to mind. And she couldn't take over because a lovegorged Chrysalis blasted her before the shield even broke?
Absolutely and utterly WRONG.
6445404
Hey, be nice. Twilight was pretty powerful already, right before she got deified. I'm not saying Celestia is powerless. Just that the wedding episode nerfed her a lot. Can't really complain about her being nerfed and invoke Shiney in the same sentence.
6445493
Never said she isn't. You're still wrong.
But it didn't! All it did was establish she wasn't infinitely powerful, which had been established prior anyway by NMM and Discord. She'd only be nerfed if it showed in no uncertain terms that she is less powerful than she was at a point in the past, but that didn't happen.
I don't know what you're trying to say here.
I just had a horrible, horrible thought. Celestia said it herself, Xenolestia didn't come out of a disastrous catastrophe like Nightmare Moon did. She came out of a stable, long lived kingdom, ruled by her for many generations. It had no other princesses most notably, but it had a Shining, and a Twilight. It had ponies who truly, honestly felt betrayed and surprised at Xenolestia's genocidal scheme to pretend to befriend and aid the humans, all as a part of her plan to enslave, ruin and murder them. Why were they so surprised at that, if they'd grown up in her presence? How did she not get a reputation as a despot, over a thousand years of constant rule? Why weren't the ponies back home reduced to mental oatmeal, like the newfoals she created? Was she just... waiting for the human world to show up the whole time, before she revealed her insanity?
What if...there was no scheme?
What if she came to the human world intending to befriend and aid them, and truly had no ill intent when creating newfoals and granting humans the joys of ponyhood? Maybe she wasn't screaming mad, despicable and cruel, but then something... made her that way? What if there's something about the human world that slowly drives princesses insane? And now there's two of them running around loose, with no idea of the danger they're in...
Naw she probably just was like prissy miss perfect pants, and nopony ever had a chance to not do what she wanted, so they didn't realize she was so selfish, hateful and cruel, despite not being made into her cryssstal sssslavessss. But it's still a scary thought...
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Now that's just quibbling over technicalities. What I meant was that someone said Celestia was too underpowered in this story, and invoked Shining Armor in the same sentence. But on reflection, one could realize that the episode where Shining Armor was introduced was the one where it showed Celestia blown up, defeated, cowering behind a big brave stallion who could shield her from the evil attackers. Celestia was proven to be underpowered in that story; a clear gauge of her abilities was given, by how high the stakes were for her, and how easily she was utterly and totally owned. Not that the show has any kind of continuity there, but it's a silly complaint to make when you're taking that episode into consideration. Celestia's maybe a bit more powerful than a very capable unicorn, end of story.
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I am going to say this one more time, in the -apparently - vain hopes you'll understand it this time around. CELESTIA BEING DEFEATED IS MORE OF AN ARGUMENT TO HOW POWERFUL CHRYSALIS WAS! Celestia got smacked with the Worf Effect but that doesn't make her any weaker. You HAVE to be very powerful in the first place in order to get Worfed!
Wrong. You are so horribly and utterly wrong it's funny to me. There is nothing in canon to support that. Come on, prove me wrong. Just try. PM me too so we stop taking up kildeez's comments section.
That certainly had a Whedon-esque feel to it.
Whedon-esque: adjective - Describing a story/situation wherein no characters are allowed to have happiness. Should a character somehow find happiness or contentment, it will be violently ripped away from them.
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Others have said spite. Me, I think she may have a backup plan after all. Don't forget that crazy reversals from almost certain doom are pretty much the bread and butter of Equestrian magic, from Nightmare Moon to Lord Tirek. It wouldn't surprise me in the least to find out Xenolestia's Equestria might have an evil counterpart to that.
6406007 Heresy, you say?!
6613229 Your comment is making me strain my eyes.
You know after rereading this now, I believe this is perhaps the best chapter you have written so far. It is quite fascinating to see from prime celestia and twilights reaction to the newfoal attack. I hope you are not done with the story yet I find it quite it quite enjoyable right alongside of A New Ending.
Excuse me, I'm from Venezuela, and I would like to know what date are we on this time specifically to know what could be happening in my country as of now.
Sorry, it's just that I like to speculate a bit and since my country is in a political storm right now, I need to know (in example) when did Equestria came to get an idea of how they affected Venezuela until this point in history.
The concept for this story is nice, but the execution of it is what ruined it.
Really wish you would update more :(
7362732 I'm breaking my silence on this story to say this:
1) Not dead! I promise, and swear it on my life!
2) NO! Do NOT say that name here! If Apple wants to cut me a check, then we can talk, but until then, I'm not giving those overrated hipsters any more publicity than they have already so unfairly earned!
7363733 could you please give a rough estimate on how soon you will update?
7365252 It is really hard to say now, but I want to say within the next couple of months is certainly doable.
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Hello? I'm worried now...
7498804 Sorry, it is with prereaders right now.
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Oh noes :(
7499589 IT'S ALMOST THERE, JUST HOLD ON MAN! JUST HOLD ON...don't let go...
Is this story still updating?
God do I hate mental scarring.