Chapter Forty Eight : The Red Queen or Fighting is Magic (I)
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The Red Queen (or Fighting is Magic) Part 1
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The Autonomous Province of Tanzebra, four years before the Assault on Canterlot
The once Terrible Zilant had been broken. The hated Reds were in retreat, falling back to their village stronghold atop the grassy plateau overlooking the savannah. They left behind their most grievously wounded on the field, bleeding and hissing. Thick clouds of native flies descended on the battlefield to nibble on the crippled who could not swat them away, or lay fat, vile eggs in their open wounds. Such was the nature of life in Tanzebra, as it was in all of this land. Nature did not even wait for the mercy of death before her servants and scavengers went to work.
Never before had Queen Chrysalis longed so much for the tamed ponyformed lands of Equestria. Say what one would about the equines of that land, but they did not allow for swarms of parasites or biting insects in their realm. There were no mosquitoes the size of one’s hoof, or stinging horseflies, or midges that lusted only to fly from one’s night soil into one’s ear or nose or eye. Food they may be, but ponies had the right of it. Nature was a beast to be tamed. The job of breaking it in would continue – would have to continue – even when Equestria was gone, and a new changeling nation took its place.
A multitude of thoughts weighing heavily on her mind, Chrysalis inhaled the dry, hot air of the land her foremothers had abandoned, more than a century earlier. Aside from so many other annoyances, now it stank of death. Some of her children thought of it as just retribution: as a vengeance rightly earned and rightly delivered. Chrysalis was less enthusiastic. She had not come all the way back to her ancestral home just to kill her own misguided kind. Every changeling life wasted here, in pointless fighting, was one less she would have to fight Equestria.
Her expression showing none of her concern, Chrysalis took her time surveying the field below from the crest of a nearby ridge. The sun was extraordinarily slow in setting, liberally painting the horizon in flaming reds, deep oranges and wispy blues. It reminded the Queen of the beautiful water paintings in Equestria. That, too, would be an art her children adopted, once the ponies themselves were tamed. She would see to it personally. One day, her children would have their own arts and their own styles. Not talentless imitations.
A horn blew.
Down below on the battlefield, the squares of her children moved in formation. A group, detecting an invisible threat in ambush, oriented to open fire. Lances of green magic ripped mercilessly into the tall grass, devouring whole stretches of ground. The high pitched screams of Zilant warriors, once hidden, now exposed, now as dead at their poor, foolish comrades, met her ears, distant as she was. Chrysalis sighed to herself. This was no battle. It was a massacre and it did not serve her ends.
It was time for the killing to stop.
“Instar.”
A changeling, larger than most of her sisters and standing just behind her Queen, deferentially bowed her head. “Yes, mother?”
“Maintain the cordon but pull back your forces. Slay no more of the Zilant without my say-so, unless in self-defense.”
“Yes, mother.”
Making the preparations, Chrysalis galloped across the battlefield less than an hour later. By then, most of the doomed and dying had either been allowed to expire or had been put out of their misery by her children. Skilled changelings were already at work policing the bodies for proper burial. Other Hives would likely have left the bodies to bloat and rot in the field where they fell, out of laziness, or contempt, or cruelty. Other Hives were not like the Biscione. Zilant needed to see that. They all needed to see that.
Chrysalis galloped with a cadre of her finest children. A few were even old enough to be her sisters, born of her mother, but still infertile drones. They were the old guard within the Hive. They understood the old ways best. Some of the younger drones mocked them for their old fashioned beliefs, but in the end all followed the Queen. They were valuable assets, more adept than others at the arts of deception and remaining hidden. Six strong changelings ran alongside their Queen, all possessing the powers of a unicorn from back in Equestria.
They approached the wood and mud-brick palisade of the stronghold, slowing before the gate. The walls, the gate, the ramparts and the wooden towers… all seemed completely inadequate in Chrysalis’s eyes. They were like nothing in comparison to the great fortifications of white washed stone that dotted Equestria from Germaney to Bitaly. A mixture of undisguised red-coated Zilant and hard faced zebra manned the walls, such as they were. They glared down at the changeling Queen. Chrysalis scoffed. They did not know it yet, but they were in the presence of the Queen of Queens.
While she waited before the gate, she glanced once more over this stronghold village. It was of zebra make. Chrysalis could only imagine the horrors that lay within. Her mother had whispered to her of the Zilant-enemy of the old lands. The Zilant hated-ones, the changelings who had driven the Greens from their ancient home. She knew of their proclivities. They did not just capture and control their victims.
The Zilant inevitably consumed those they enslaved, and they were hated for it, not just by the Greens but by all changeling Hives. The Yellows especially, the great Inkanyamba, killed the Reds on sight. Inside this former village would be many more zebra. Chrysalis was not entirely sure what to do with them. She had no care for the ponies of this land who were not ponies. What couldn’t be allowed was for any of the living ones here to escape and tell tall tales.
Slowly, the wooden face of the gate swung inwards and upwards.
A small procession of red changelings approached from inside. There were six, to mirror the six Chrysalis had brought, and one more, taller and with more haughty poise than the others. Chrysalis also suspected there were other Zilant, hiding in the bush nearby, or even flat against the wall. It didn’t matter. She was not afraid.
“Queen Sarai,” Chrysalis said in greeting, dipping her head in respect.
“Queen Chrysalis,” Sarai hissed, doing the same. The two Queens approached one another and ritually brushed cheeks, confirming by scent that they were who they claimed to be. Other features could be faked, but the smell of a Queen’s royal jelly was distinct, even among a race of shape-shifters. That done, they took a step away from one another, followed by a long pause as they mentally decided which would speak first.
Sarai’s mandibles twitched in distaste over the delay. She spoke first, “We will give you the western half of this land.”
It was abrupt, curt, an admission of weakness and defeat that Sarai must have hated beyond words.
“I do not wish any of this land for myself,” Chrysalis said, shaking her head. “As my messenger told you, all I wish is your cooperation.”
“Cooperation?” Sarai asked, blinking her large, almond shaped eyes. “Or submission?”
“There is only one Queen of Queens, and I am she,” Chrysalis stated, simply.
Sarai hissed at the perceived insult. She was still a small-minded fool, just like her mother, and her mother’s mother. She fought over table scraps. She killed others over a chewed bone. It was pathetic. A great feast waited for them across the sea. All she had to do was open her eyes and see it.
“My mother fled this land when she was but a small Princess of her hive,” Chrysalis went on to say, pointedly and fearlessly turning away from Sarai – showing the other Queen her back. She looked out over the battlefield of fallen changelings and the dusty, unforgiving savannah.
“Your grandmother killed my grandmother not far from here.” Chrysalis held up a hoof to point at this horizon. “In … that direction, was it? Or was it over there?” She wondered, pointing another way. “To hear my mother and my old aunts speak of it, always in hushed tones, we hid among the zebra tribes there as we always had. One day, our hosts began to disappear. The zebra believed it to be beasts, then monsters, and then vengeful spirits. We knew it was the Zilant, come to conquer… come to kill. My grandmother and grand-aunts fought and died to protect their hosts.”
“We were driven into this land by the Inkanyamba!” Sarai snarled, and trotted up alongside her fellow Queen. She sneered at the almost ancestral memory. “We could not share hosts. We killed you as they killed us, and now as you kill us in revenge. It is the way of things.”
“It does not have to be that way,” Chrysalis said softly, and Sarai’s ears twitched. “Life does not have to be like this, and my children and I did not come here for revenge. Your grandmother driving my mother to take refuge in that old ship off the coast… it was a blessing in disguise.”
“You have certainly… repopulated yourselves,” Sarai conceded. She was curious how.
Chrysalis told her.
“The ship took my mother to another land,” she explained, “across the sea to Equestria. At first, she parlayed her knowledge of the zebra and pretended to be one of them, for most of the ponies there have no knowledge of these lands. She found a position in the court of one of their rulers, a pony named Olive Branch. She bred in secret, keeping her brood small, as we were taught to do. We fed well.”
“You must have,” Sarai groused, more than a little jealous. Her sharp forelegs rubbed together for a moment.
“When I say ‘we fed well’ it is a great understatement,” Chrysalis continued, smiling faintly. “There was love to spare in this new land. My mother did not see it, though. She replaced Olive Branch in time, but still, she did not see the potential that lay before her. She had the wisdom to imprint me on the strongest of the pony breeds, an alicorn, but still she did not see. Still she clung to the masquerade of our people. Still she hid in the shadows out of fear.”
“I killed her,” Chrysalis concluded. “And the day is fast approaching when we will not hide in the shadows. We will live openly and without fear. Others will fear us. All will fear us. And we will feast and multiply without end.”
Sarai watched her for a few seconds, as if trying to sense whether her words were truth or exaggeration or simple madness. The changelings hid. It was in their nature. All but that one Hive, anyway. They had to hide.
There was no choice.
“You really believe that?” the Red Queen asked, finally.
“I do,” Chrysalis replied, and it was the truth.
“Tell me how you will do this.”
Chrysalis told her.
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Serrated hooves slashed viciously against the stream of indigo fabric, each strike punctuated by a chattering hiss. There was no attempt at deception or disguise. The blood red changelings attacked with stabbing forelegs and biting mandibles that split their jaws a couple inches too wide to ever pass for a proper pony. Rarity lashed out with a bolt of cloth and the ravenous changeling snarled, colorful red and orange wings fluttering at high speed as it flew away. Within seconds it vanished.
“I lost mine!” she yelled in warning, backing up.
“Keep an eye out fer it!” Applejack yelled back, holding her crimson changeling opponent by the base of its stunted horn. “Ah’ll be done in a second!”
Her free foreleg pumped back and then delivered a crushing buck into the midsection of the shrill changeling, knocking the wind out of it with just one blow. Spinning around, Applejack threw the stunned creature into the bubble-cocoon they had liberated the three fillies from earlier. It plowed into the gap in the cocoon, face first into the changeling goo within.
“Those kids still here?” Rainbow Dash asked, wings flared and warding off two snapping strikes from another changeling . Propelling herself forward, she buried the crown of her head into the creature’s stomach and then shot upwards in an arc, catching her opponent on the chin. A pair of broken fangs twirled idly through the air, followed by a gust of wind that bowled the shape-shifter over and sent it tumbling across the trophy room.
“Yes, still here,” Rarity confirmed, keeping her back to Applejack.
On the floor between the two mares, the three fillies – imitations of their sisters – were tied together with a loop of fabric. All three seemed to be indoctrinated by the changelings and had cheered them on when the fight began. Their mental state hardly mattered, however. They needed to be kept safe, and that meant they couldn’t be allowed to scamper off and back into the wicked forelegs of their captors.
“Rarity!” Applejack shouted, her tail sweeping up a bust of Princess Platinum from a nearby pedestal.
Rarity averted her eyes upward just in time to see a changeling barreling down on her from the exact opposite direction she had expected. It had both of its forelegs splayed wide, the spines and grooves of the raptoral hooves ready to strike. Fabric rustled around her as the fashionista tried to block, but the descending changeling never made contact.
Applejack’s blonde tail filled Rarity’s vision, along with the white stone bust it carried. The later made contact with the changeling at whip-like speeds, shattering the stone statuette of the ancient Princess into a dozen fragments. The blood red changeling spun away, wings and legs twitching.
“Tch,” a disembodied voice chided, unhappily.
“Did somepony say it was artwork smashing time? Because I heard it was artwork smashing time!” Rainbow Dash upped the damage to the villa by tackling the next changeling to enter her field of view and driving it into a particularly expensive looking painting hanging from the wall. Pulling down the painting, ripping it as the edges, she blinded the changeling and landed a trio of swift kicks to it around the head and withers.
“Eat late eighth-century realist-period landscape painting, sucker!” She rounded around and smacked the dazed changeling with her right wing, spinning it around a solid hundred-and-eighty degrees.
“Hey, now! Unlike you, it ain’t like I’m bustin’ things up on purpose!” Applejack objected, yelping as a changeling nicked her left hind leg.
“How did you know what that painting was, anyway?” Rarity asked, and made the mistake of backing up too close to the three immobilized fillies they had freed.
“Gotcha leg!” The fake-Applebloom declared, seizing Ponyville’s Baroness by one of her ankles.
“Get her! Get her!” the other two cheered the changelings on.
“Hey! Hey!” Dash replied, taking to the air and rushing over to intercept another changeling before it could swoop down on the distracted seamstress. “I know tons of stuff! I got an ‘A’ in History of Art Studies back in cloud college!”
“Well, good fer you, sugarcube!” Applejack continued to fend off her changeling assailant, ducking and dodging her head and warding off the occasional slash with her hooves. “Ya didn’t cheat, did ya?”
“You wound me!” Rainbow Dash joked, holding her changeling in place so Rarity could pummel it with rolled fabric. “Maybe I copied off Gilda a little, but…”
“You mean that brutish griffin?” Rarity asked, her indigo fabric doing the one-two on Dash’s changeling while it hissed and struggled to escape. “The very same one that made poor Fluttershy cry?”
“Yeah, that’s her,” Dash admitted, wings flapping to spin her around. Rarity’s fabric was already moving around her, working with her to protect her from a lurking changeling attacking from behind. “I know you guys kinda hate her guts, but she was like Twilight when it came to her schoolwork. Had this hardass perfectionist family back in Crown Roc, and she’d freak out if she thought they ever found out about her being in trouble. Day we met; she flew into the bathroom, saw I was the only one there, and begged me to cover for her. Like ten seconds later, Miss Icy Cold stomps in, snorting and mad as a bat out of hell!”
“The earth pony,” Sarai’s voice commanded. “She is their weak link.”
“Ohhhhh applesnaps!” Applejack, separated from her two friends, began to rapidly backtrack. She only made it a few steps before a pair of vicious limbs snapped around her hind legs, the spines biting into her skin.
Looking back at the changeling, half-invisible, around her lower legs, Applejack reared up as if to fall.
“ZZzhh!” A charging changeling jumped, timed to strike at a moment’s vulnerability.
Except Applejack didn’t fall.
Setting her hooves in place, she shot her forelegs out and up, pegging the changeling in the left shoulder and collar. The serrated hooves of the creature brushed her cheek, but then her blow resonated and hit home, knocking the zebra shape-shifter hard up and into the ceiling. Then, forcibly tucking in her legs, she fell back and flanks-first onto the back of the changeling below her. It hissed in pain as she landed, then went still after she clocked it in the back of the head.
“Sorry ‘bout that.” Applejack rolled back onto four hooves. “What were ya just sayin,’ sugarcube?”
“Me or Queenie out there?” Dash asked, knocking her changeling off balance with a gust of wind and rubbing her hooves together, sucking in moisture to form a nascent thundercloud.
“We were talking about that ill-mannered brute of a foalhood friend,” Rarity helpfully explained.
“Oh, yeah, that Gilda Griffin…”
“You know, you guys rag on Gilda, but which pony here is dating a self-professed royal jerk and shameless playboy, again?” Dash asked, ducking behind one of Rarity’s cloth shields and lunging with the cloud between her hooves. It slammed right into the changing she had been dueling, and the crimson mantid hissed and convulsed as electricity shot through its body.
Rarity swept her cloth around her, swirling like a serpent through the air, buoyed by a river of her magic. “That is a gross exaggeration, even on his own part, besides which my choice in stallions is aside from the point.”
“You mean fancy n’ pretty, cause that’s basically yer taste in a nutshell,” Applejack joked, laughing as Rarity huffed, indignantly.
“You know it’s true,” Rainbow Dash chimed in, trotting past the milky white mare. “Remember that time you tried to get Big Mac to dress up?”
“I was fitting him for a tuxedo, it was for the Ponytones, and it was nothing like that!” Rarity objected, and let out with a triumphant “Ah ha! Here! Last one!”
Her cloth, writhing like a garden snake, finally managed to snag another invisible changeling. The mirage-like sheen of transparency faded away as it moved, fast, avoiding another strike. Rarity’s eyes narrowed at that fact, and at the insect-like creature’s fabulously colorful wings.
‘So,’ she thought, ‘I was right… that’s how they…’
“Time for another squished bug!” Rainbow Dash yelled, taking to the air. “Come to Auntie Dash!”
Her lunge was abruptly cut short and she froze in midair, grunting in pain.
“I’ve seen enough,” Queen Sarai stated, her upper half emerging as she roughly slammed Dash to the ground. The changeling drone she had rescued floated away, slowed down, and vanished. Rolling away on the floor, Rainbow Dash clutched one leg to her chest, stumbling awkwardly on three hooves. Sarai had managed to draw blood.
That blood was still on the Queen’s jagged, viciously spined forelegs.
Bringing one of the bloodstained spines to her mouthparts, Sarai delicately licked, even as she stalked towards the three elements of harmony. “How sweet tasting you are… Rainbow Dash, isn’t it? You will have to tell me your diet. I only wish all ponies tasted so good.”
“You hear that?” Dash asked, smiling proudly. “I happen to be delicious. Wait’ll I tell Pinkie Pie! She always says she’s the tastiest one.”
“That’s a contest, too, now?” Applejack quipped, backing away from the advancing Sarai.
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Girls,” Rarity interrupted, her cloth floating to shield her two friends. Queen Sarai, massing perhaps twice as much as either of them individually, towered over them as she advanced, only her top half visible. “Just like that time at the Ponyville hoe-down. We go on ‘three.’”
“Gotcha,” Applejack replied, grinning at the looming blood Queen.
“Okay,” Rainbow Dash agreed, smearing a line of red across her chest as she set all four hooves down.
“Three!” All three mares abruptly cried, skipping one and two and rushing right in.
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Twilight Sparkle and Fluttershy rolled mare over mare, an uncoordinated tumble of legs and wings that bounced across the floor. Lingering crackles of magical energy, rose-pink and electric-blue, clung to their bodies as they exited the glowing portal at a frankly unsafe transit speed. If an IHOPP manager had been present, they probably would’ve shouted a warning or levied a fine for flying through one of their patented apertures at near top speed. Or maybe given them both sixty bits and a test dummy job. The IHOPP Corporation was strange like that.
Twilight carefully started to untangle herself from her timid friend. Her horn still hurt from when she had been jumped by that Royal Guard, only moments before. Just what had happened in all the confusion back there was still a bit blurry, but at least in retrospect it looked like the changelings had set up an ambush using three guards under their control. Twilight introduced her forehead to her hoof, smacking herself in reproach. After lambasting Chrysalis for the same thing, she’d gotten careless, too, assuming that just because she could unmask the changelings that she had every advantage over them.
But… how had they known to set up the ambush, anyway?
It was… it was like it had been perfectly tailored to deceive somepony with her repertoire of spells. They’d planned for being unmasked before springing their ambush. Twilight was sure of it. Had Team Pinkie been spotted leaving Hocksbach? It was possible. Certainly, it couldn’t be discounted. But how had the changelings known to set up the ambush in the Crystal Hall of all places? That couldn’t have just been a lucky guess. There was no way they could just throw together three royal guards of theirs and put them in place at the drop of a hat. And Eunomie… she’d seen through it somehow…
Twilight shook her head. One problem at a time.
“Ughh,” she groaned, sitting upright, “where are we?”
Fluttershy grimaced, also sitting up and looking around. They were in another store, but not a restaurant like the IHOPP. Here, there were racks of clothes in recesses and alcoves along the walls. Others were on display in tasteful glass stands or hanging from small carousels. Mannequines in various poses dotted the interior of the store, especially near what had to be the front, much like Rarity’s Carousel Boutique.
“IHOPP portals connect to dozens of other stores – and other nearby IHOPPs – but this definitely isn’t one of those,” Twilight reasoned, and realized something was on top of her horn. Reaching up, she felt something soft and lacy and held it out in front of her. It was a… bra?
“Oh, oh dear. We’re in a lingerie store,” Fluttershy whispered, and turned around. She promptly gasped, hooves flying up to her cheeks. “A Celestia’s Secret store... I never thought I’d be back here again--”
Achingly, she turned back around to face Twilight, her hooves in her lap.
“--I mean – ah, um…” Fluttershy’s blush was fast approaching nuclear levels. “Photo Finish insisted on those pictures… I certainly didn’t want them for myself…”
Twilight’s eyes widened slightly; sadly, there was little time to dwell on the subject. “Wait, this is Celestia’s Secret store…? You can’t be serious!”
“Zzzhe!” The shrill hiss of a changeling broke the mood, and both mares immediately clambered up and over a nearby counter to hide. In the tumble and the confusion they’d almost forgotten the changelings and mind warped Royal Guards on their heels. Exchanging anxious looks, Twilight sucked in a breath and raised her hoof to her lips. Fluttershy nodded, understanding. Silence.
“Fan out!” a stallion’s voice roared. “You two! Secure the portal. They’re in here somewhere! I can feel it. Tear this place apart if you have to!”
Creeping carefully from behind the counter near the IHOPP portal and past a fallen rack of sheer stockings, the unicorn and pegasus made nary a clop as they took shelter behind the Celestia’s Secret customer service booth. In the low light of the abandoned store, they could see a mix of flying and trotting changelings emerging from the glowing transport aperture. Some headed for the front door, others searched through stands and displays, knocking them over and advertising their position. Confident in their numbers and the injury done to Twilight’s horn, they didn’t seem to be concerned about causing a mess or being seen.
Who even knew where Pinkie Pie, Eunomie or her mother were at this point…
“What are we going to do?” Fluttershy whispered so softly Twilight barely heard it, even hunkered down next to her. Fluttershy’s voice was hushed and afraid. She was flat with her belly to the floor and her wings so tight against her sides it would take a crowbar to pry them loose.
“That guy really did a number on my horn,” Twilight replied, matching her friend’s volume. Both mares sunk down low as a bright light passed by overhead, illuminating the fittings stand and the items behind it. Thinking quickly, Twilight focused just a hint of magic through her injured horn and into one of the nearby mannequines.
Her track record with the ‘inject life’ spell was not exactly stellar. The last time she had cast it was Ponyville’s Winter Wrap Up. The result had not gone over well, and not just because it was unicorn magic used during an explicitly non-magical earth pony event. The runaway snowplow had caused a bit of a spectacle.
Just as it had with the plow, the animation magic got the mannequin moving. It churned its legs in midair for a moment… then suddenly broke free from its stand and galloped hard towards the front doors, bowling over a surprised changeling in the process.
“There!” “Zzzh-zzh-zhe!” “She’s making a break for it! Get her!”
So there were two stallions, then. Probably the unicorn one and one of his pegasus subordinates. Both of them on top of who knew how many changelings… but all of them seemed to be either distracted or actively chasing after Decoy Sparkle. Served them right! Changelings weren’t the only ones who could be deceptive.
“Through here!” Twilight said, forcing Fluttershy onto her hooves.
With their pursuers running for the front of the store they headed to the back.
“Oh, oh no,” Fluttershy breathed, making sure not to knock anything over as they ran.
“Oh, ah, darn it!” Twilight, less nimble on her hooves in the low light of the store, bumped right into a display of fancy ladies underwear. Fluttershy helpfully caught it before it could fall and the two mares breathed a sigh of relief. The barks and snarls of their pursuers could still be heard from the front of the store, along with the crash of glass and a series of curses as they realized they had been tricked.
Backing away from the near disaster, Twilight’s rump made friends with a poorly placed mannequine.
“Real Princesses wear Gold!” the animated alicorn mannequin declared in a voice very close to Celestia’s own, striking an alluring pose in her golden bra, panties and stockings. For good measure, she even wore a lacy saddle, imitation royal regalia and a bright, sultry smile. One of her hooves seemed just moments from teasing loose one of her bra cups to reveal something indecent. “Stallions will like what they see… and what they don’t!”
“Shoot!” Twilight hissed, clamping her hooves over the alicorn mannequines’s mouth. It was too little too late. Their cover was blown. But… if this really was one of Celestia’s so-called ‘secret stores’… then maybe…
“Did you hear that?” a stallion yelled from the front.
“Yes, sir! I think it came from the back!”
“Celestia, Celestia, Celestia?” Twilight muttered, casting a simple spell. One her mentor had taught her years ago. There was no way it would work, but…
The alicorn mannequines’s eyes glowed. “Passcode accepted. Magical signature verified. Exiting Stasis Mode.”
Twilight gawked at the mannequine. “I can’t believe she was telling the truth about this…” Resisting committing another self-inflicted hoof-to-face injury, Twilight Sparkle pointed back at the front of the store. “Engage all non-ponies!” she ordered.
“Engage all non-ponies,” the disembodied voice of Celestia came not just from that one mannequin, but from every single one in the store. Their white coats began to dye pink. “Please set prejudice level.”
Twilight blurted out the first setting that came to mind. “Prejudice at maximum!”
“Maximum prejudice!” the half dozen remaining mannequines chorused, eyes aglow and starting to rip free of their stands. The squad of formerly inanimate alicorns were still wearing an impressive assortment of skimpy negligée and revealing lingerie. “Engaging all non-ponies with maximum prejudice!”
The upper half of the Celestia mannequine’s head split open, revealing a glowing crystal that wasted no time discharging a bright pink beam into an approaching changeling.
“I love when you comb my hair!” the mannequine exclaimed, firing another beam at the fallen changeling, disintegrating a set of expensive garters in the process.
“Let’s fly to the castle!” another mannequine declared, spewing fiery bolts out of her mouth.
“I’m a princess!” a third announced, swatting a changing out of the air. “Are you a princess, too?”
“What the hell are these things?” Black Lance could be heard yelling over the sudden melee. “First Squad! Behind me! Second Squad! Lock! Punch through!”
“Okay! Time to go!” Twilight yelped, hustling a bemused Fluttershy into the leftmost dressing room. “Fluttershy!” She pointed at the wall to their left. “Can you help me break down this wall?”
“Oh, I… I shouldn’t…”
“Do it!” Twilight yelled, horn flashing as she cast a series of spells at the locked door of the changing room. A faint outline of a door appeared on the wall as well. “Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!”
“Don’t pressure me! Please!” Fluttershy muttered and suddenly slammed both front hooves into the wall.
The Magic Door activated, cutting a seamless rectangle in the changing room stall.
“Run! Run! Run! Things are about to get really hot in here!” Twilight put her cheek to her friend’s flanks, bodily shoving her through their new exit. Fluttershy’s wings flapped in protest and embarrassment, but she jumped forward and through and Twilight followed behind her less than a second later.
“Keep running!” Twilight cried, as Fluttershy recovered from her leap. “Don’t stop!”
The two mares were mid-gallop when the changing room behind them exploded, a shockwave of air launching the pair off their hooves entirely. Twilight would be the first pony to admit that her horn wasn’t in any condition for high level sustained offensive magic at the moment. On the flip side, two dozen Filly’s First Firestarter spells all going off at the same time wasn’t something anypony was likely to scoff at.
Legs flailing, Twilight landed clumsily on her rump, skidding to a stop only to crash unceremoniously into a spiral garment display rack. Emerging from the clutter, she gasped, shaking her head and throwing aside a pair of pleated cheerleader-style skirts. “Fluttershy, what…?”
“Kick Chick’s Sportsware,” Fluttershy answered, recognizing it right away. Unlike Twilight, she’d landed daintily on her hooves without even a strand of hair in her mane out of place. “Rainbow Dash goes to one of these whenever we visit Cloudsdale.”
“Sportsware? Good! We’re getting closer!” Twilight emerged from the pile of clothes with a pink and bluebonnet skirt around her hips. “But first, we need to…”
“In here!” “I think I see them!”
“Over here!” Twilight yelled, beckoning Fluttershy closer. She’d found the ‘fitness center’ of the store, stocked high with all manner of niche products.
In this corner of the store, ponies could find ‘body shaping’ weights to exercise with, waist-trimming devices galore, weighted hula hoops and a half dozen other items to ‘work your core,’ flavored mouthpieces in a rainbow of colors, straps, pads, sleeves and braces. And then there were the vitamins and other pills: a dozen varieties of them, stocked in their hundreds.
“Ah ha! Found you!” A huge (he looked much bigger than before) pegasus stallion in golden armor, still smoking from being near the blast in the changing room, straddled the counter. Two changelings buzzed, taking to the air behind him and about to strike.
“Head down!” Twilight warned, tackling Fluttershy with no further warning. Her horn was fizzling, and a magenta glow spread like wildfire among the displays and boxes of pills.
“Ohhh…sshi--”
The changeling controlled guard barely had time to try and turn around, his wings flapping to propel him backwards, when the entire health and wellness counter of the store erupted. Vitamins popped and crackled, magical weight control powders exploded out of foal-proof lids, and then the whole expanding cloud mixed, cured, and magically transmuted into a thick, choking cloud. Amid the confusion, vitamin pills cooked off, shooting away like a hailstorm of tiny rockets. They filled a wide arc of the store, punching holes in fashionable and colorful sweatpants, hoodies, shorts, headbands, and rank after rank of socks.
They were still erupting when Twilight and Fluttershy made a mad scramble for the front of the store past a score of injured and incapacitated changelings.
- - -
“Weee~~ee!”
Yelling all the way, a blazing pink streak crashed through the window, trailing flickering magical flames like the tail of a chipper and rosy red comet. Pinkie Pie, party pony extraordinaire, finally came to an abrupt and unwelcome stop after plunging through half the store. It was at that point when her face ran into an uncooperative wall at the back of the shop that, like a wizard, simply would not let her pass. Hooves pressed against the wall, Pinkie pushed, gradually dislodging her snout from the wooden paneling.
The pink pony’s eyes boggled as she tried to shake the dizziness out. Dizziness was the eternal enemy of bouncing, after all. It couldn’t be allowed to take root! Not even in a dire situation like this!
“Owie-ow-ow!” Pinkie rubbed the bump on her forehead and took a second to get her bearings. First, she knew, she really had to deal with the fact that she had just been blasted by some mean unicorn. Second, she also knew, she needed to determine if repeated bumps to the head would turn a painful lump into a horn. Because magic.
(If slamming face first into a wall gave you a horn, I think somepony would’ve noticed by now)
But you aren’t absolutely sure, are you, brain?
(Being in your skull hurts enough without the extra concussions. Now get your head in the game already)
“Yeah, yeah,” Pinkie groused, gingerly touching the bump on her head. “Head in the game. I got it. Where am I, anyway?”
Looking up at a sign over her head, upside down from her point of view, Pinkie Pie got her answer.
“Filly Fonka’s Candy Emporium and Kitchen Appliance Depot.”
Very slowly, a smile spread on Pinkie Pie’s lips.
(Of all the places to end up…)
“Well,” she admitted with a smile. “I have been a very good filly this year!”
-
The changeling hissed as it knocked aside a shelf of sugary treats. The ambush outside had gone completely eggsack-up thanks to that insane unicorn and her crazy swords trick. They had planned for everything. How had it all gone wrong? How had that one dumb pony suspected that something was up? It should’ve been so easy: pretend to be captured ponies, let that one pony do her spell, lull the lot of them into a false sense of security, and then have one of the ponies under their mental control lead her into the trap inside the store. The plan had been working, too!
Something must’ve tipped that one pony off.
“Zheee!” the changeling hissed, happily. Up ahead was the broken window the pink pony had been blasted through. They had sent someling right in after her. With a bunch of changelings coming up from below, and the one already up top, it was just a matter of covering the exits and tracking this stupid earth pony down.
Now, where was--
“Zzh,” a curse slipped out as she saw the changeling that had been ordered in through the window. Running over, the newly arrived changeling looked over her bruised and beaten compatriot.
What in the Queen’s name had happened to her? What could do this kind of damage?
A low buzzing sound prompted the changeling to turn around.
“ZZZHEEEE!”
“MuaHaHAhaHA!”
Pinkie Pie laughed maniacally as the device in her hooves went to work, spinning at a ridiculous speed even as the changeling in front of her writhed and hissed. Finally, the grim work was done, and the battered changeling slumped weakly to the ground. The battered part was actually somewhat literal. The changeling was covered in batter.
“Ahhh,” Pinkie cackled, holding up her current weapon of choice as a sinister light played across her features. “Egg Beater! The great communicator!”
Turning away from the beaten changeling, still holding the Egg Beater between her teeth, she continued creeping through the maze-like shelves of candy and walls stocked with kitchenware. Walking over a box of chocolates, and quickly consuming them, her disposition immediately improved. That mean unicorn had blasted her good, but eating the conveniently placed boxes of chocolates on the floor seemed to be helping. Which made sense. Chocolate always made everything better. It was a law of nature!
“This super strength egg beater is pretty good, but I could really use--” Pinkie mused to herself, pausing at the sound of nearby chittering. Changelings! “Yikes! Bad guys! Can’t go that way!”
Looking around for a second, she spotted something highlighted by the glow of a nearby lamp.
“Oh! An important looking door! Hello there, important looking door! What secrets lie behind your tantalizing surface? I must know!” Hopping over, she tried to open said door, only to find out it was locked. That was discouraging. Stupid lock. But… a lock like that also meant that whatever was behind the door had to be super neat and totally lockworthy!
Ducking behind a nearby counter, she started rummaging.
“Oh, lookie lookie what Pinkie found!” Holding up her hooves reverently to the sky, the item she had been searching for revealed itself. “A keeeyy!”
Spinning around, she inserted key into lock, turned, and was promptly rewarded with an obliging click. Stashing her Egg Beater back into her curly mane, Pinkie Pie slowly opened the door and ventured a look at what treasures had been hidden inside. Her blue eyes widened with delight as the light from a gas lamp overhead illuminated the closet full of lovelies. For once, she neither gasped nor made any sound at all, not for a good second or two.
Wiping away a tear, Pinkie Pie finally found her voice. “No words… they should’ve sent a poet…”
Her obligatory moment of introspection quickly passed, and she kicked the nudged the door shut behind her and raced up to one of the glass displays. Flicking open the lid, she gingerly retrieved a handle-shaped device and a large pressurized canister.
“The dreaded M84 high pressure, automatic spray painter… capable of colorizing an entire four tier cake in under ten seconds!” Pinkie lovingly caressed the contours of the spray paint gun. “Chambered for the ‘Brown Colt’ gel-stored food coloring system, it can over-penetrate a cake up to half a meter, allowing for a full range of decorative options post-bake! Also known as the ‘Mantikore, with a k, not a c.’ Come to Auntie Pinkie, you sweet, sweet thing!”
Pulling down a chef’s tactical vest and hat from a nearby hanger, Pinkie quickly donned the outfit and, with a giggle, flipped open the glass display next to the one she had just opened.
“Naturally,” she said to herself, “I’ll take two!”
Stashing both paint guns and a couple different colors of ammunition into either her mane or her cooking vest, she giggled madly and took a look around the rest of the room. It was worth noting – for the uninitiated – that in Equestria, cooking and especially baking was Serious Business. The sugar-industrial complex was among the largest and most powerful business lobbies in the country and they didn’t foal around. As one company put it in their motto:
The Sweets Must Flow.
“Locked and loaded!” Pinkie announced, kicking open the door and striding back into the giant candy store. It wasn’t long before the noise attracted the first of the changelings searching for her. It rounded a shelf stocked heavy with cookies and lunged to grab her.
“Have a taste of this!” Pinkie declared, unloading the air-powered frosting decoration pen in her hooves.
A thundering blast of delicious pink frosting slammed into the charging changeling with speed and force enough to stop it cold. At the highest setting, the Bitelli ‘Super 90’ frosting pen turned shotgun only had a few uses before the gas canister needed changing, but it was enough. The changeling Pinkie had just blasted gagged at the sugar-sweet glaze that now covered most of its body, trying to wipe the frosting out of its eyes and mouth.
A second helping of high speed frosting knocked the changeling off its hooves and into the shelf of cookies, sending the whole thing crashing down. A sprig of licorice hanging loosely from her lips, Pinkie Pie cocked the shotgun, ejecting a spent frosting cartridge.
“That was sweet. Get it? Sweet?”
An enraged hiss to the right drew her eye, and she turned, unloading another twined blast of frosting into a second changeling. Both hit the creature in the face and it fell to the floor, kicking and hissing and writhing.
“Let’s see, what was my next witty one liner?” Pinkie wondered, rolling her eyes as she thought. On the floor, the changeling continued to thrash and curse as it tried to get the frosting out of its eyes. “Something to do with getting shot in the face? What an eye-sore? How about some eye-scream? Wow-we! Coming up with these on the fly is harder than you’d think!”
(Forget the witty one-liners! We need to get outta here!)
Trotting past the disabled changeling, Pinkie grinned and broke into a run. A magical door ahead of her opened automatically, just like it would for any customer, but the moment it did a trio of sickly green blasts filled the air. Pinkie tumbled back as one of the blasts hit her, forcing her to roll to the side to dodge. Aiming her frosting shotgun in the general direction of the blasts, having to guess in the low light of this part of the store, Pinkie fired, filling the air with a spread of sticky goo. It didn’t do much, though. She was too far away.
Knocking over large chocolate fondue machine, Pinkie hunkered down behind the cover. More green blasts scored against the metal and ripped into the wall and floor. Looking around the room, she tried to find some sort of way to get closer. Spotting something, Pinkie smirked and scrambled across the floor as fast as her hooves could carry her. Ducking behind a counter, she quickly used the butt of her frosting pen-gun to crack open a small lock behind her. A heavy mass fell to the ground with a thud.
Slipping into the harness, Pinkie laughed as she emerged, the hose in her hooves indiscriminately spraying hot fudge in a messy cone. “Oh yeah! I love the smell of chocolate in the morning!”
A few stray blasts clipped her, but by then she’d identified where the changeling was hiding. Soon it became a hell of sticky, steamy ganache. Chocolate spewed everywhere. It dripped from the ceiling and it covered shelves of other pastries and candies. Pinkie continued to laugh madly as the strode fearlessly through the mess, the heavy fudge-thrower on her back roaring as it unleashed torrent after torrent of cocoa and crème flavored devastation.
By the time it sputtered and ran out, and Pinkie dropped the backpack onto the ground, half the room had been thoroughly coated in chocolate fondue. The changeling she had sprayed down was barely visible, half buried as it was by a sticky mess of candy and hardening choco. Only a few bubbles emerging from the chocolate cocoon gave proof that the changeling had even survived its delicious ordeal.
“I call that my Hershey’s kiss,” Pinkie quipped, only to raise an eyebrow. “Wait, why I am making jokes? Nopony can even hear me.”
(You only now start to wonder about this?)
She was on the verge of pondering that fact further when the ground beneath her hooves cracked. Pinkie quickly put two and two together, for once getting four instead of twenty two. The last changeling must’ve blasted the ground all around where she had hidden to make it harder to bum-rush her. It was almost impossible to see before in the low light. With a yelp, Pinkie’s weight proved too much for the damaged floor and she fell clean through.
A pony-sized pool of squishy goop cushioned her fall, but when Pinkie Pie emerged, sputtering, she cried out in agony. Scrambling to get out of the huge mixing bowl, she spat repeatedly, trying to get the taste out of her mouth. Why? Why of all the things to fall into did it have to be that one thing?
“Gah!” she coughed, spitting again. “Lowfat yogurt! Burns! Stinks!” Falling clumsily out of the bowl, she shook like a dog to rid herself of the clingy goo. “Why would somepony leave all that lowfat yogurt down there? And why? Why?”
Shuddering, Pinkie brushed the last few clingy bits off her legs.
“Now I’m covered with health food! That can’t be good! Why can’t we find a way to safely dispose of bland foods and protect the environment? Even if I personally stop this invasion, what kind of Equestria will we be leaving to our foals… and our foals’ foals or… wait, our foals shouldn’t be having foals! They’re way too young to be doing that! Who came up with that sick phrase!? Wait, what was I talking about again?”
“There she is!” a stallion’s voice called out, interrupting Pinkie’s self-narration.
“Yipes!” Pinkie quickly vaulted for cover again, as more of the changelings appeared along with the pegasus Royal Guard. Two of them lowered their horns right off the bat, firing more of the changeling blasts in her direction. A third visibly hung back, waiting for a chance to fly in and snatch her up.
“You’ll never take me alive!” Pinkie yelled over the sound of the magical explosions going off around her. She was still too far away to use her kitchenware, so she snatched up the most sugary treats she could find and started throwing. “I should warn you: I have a cake and I know how to use it!”
The mind controlled Royal Guard leading the attack squad contemptuously swatted away the pastries with his wing, but the changeling’s wings were not nearly so nimble. They could only either fly or fold up, possessing only a fraction of the versatility of a feathered wing. The changelings, then, always tried to deflect the thrown sweets with their hooves.
Chiacchiere, also known as Reinetian Fried Pastries or Bitalian fritters, were fried pastries liberally dusted with confectioners’ sugar. In the case of the ones in this store, they used a whole LOT of confectioners’ sugar. Each one that hit or that broke apart because of a flailing hoof exploded into a literal cloud of sugar dust.
“ZzzzhhhEE!” two of the changelings chittered, the sugar getting into their eyes. The magical barrage stopped as they tried to protect their faces and rub the sugar out of their vulnerable eyes, every bit as large and sensitive as a pony’s.
“What the?” The pegasus guard snarled, noticing that out of his group of three changelings, all but one had been incapacitated. “What’s wrong with you? Keep firing!”
“Here comes the Pinkie Train!” Pinkie yelled, charging right at them. “Choo choo!”
“Get her!” The guard ordered, and the one changeling who had hung back flew in on an intercept course. Pinkie leveled her frosting pen and fired at close range, barely jumping to the side as the changeling careened wildly off course due to the impact. It crashed into a display of rock candies, and Pinkie quickly adjusted her sights. Another shot of frosting filled the air, but splattered harmlessly against a big white wing.
“What is this? Icing?” The Royal Guard could only stare, dumbstruck, at his wing. He had probably been expecting magic. Not an assault from the bakery isle.
“I’m here to kick flank and chew bubblegum, but mostly chew bubblegum!” Pinkie quickly closed the distance, swapping her high powered frosting pen for her two paint guns loaded with food dye. Holding one in each hoof, she unloaded them into the pair of changelings still trying to rub the sugar out of their eyes.
The sheer force of the high pressure food coloring spray knocked them on their backs. Pinkie switched grades on her Mantikore paint guns with an audible click and finished the job by spraying both targets right in the face as they writhed on the floor. Outraged hissing filled the air as the helpless changelings curled into balls to protect themselves.
“I’ll do it myself then!” The pegasus guard roared, and Pinkie had to deftly jump to avoid his slashing wings. Like all Royal Guard pegasi, he could turn his primary feathers into sharpened blades.
“Let’s dance!” Pinkie chortled, opening up with her spray guns. “I’m high on sugar and ready for anything!”
Again, the guard swept up one of his wings, his right one again, blocking the stream of food coloring from getting into his eyes or face. With his left wing extended, he flapped it forward, projecting a rush of cutting wind. This time it was Pinkie who had to protect her face with her legs as candies and sliced halves of candies filled the air, pelting her like shrapnel. Scything wind cut into her skin and pink coat, evoking a wince from the party planner.
“I won’t let you get away!” The fallen Guard announced, sweeping his wings forward.
In one move, he flapped them back and against his sides, propelling him forward at high speed. Pinkie barely managed to get out of the way in time as he barreled through confectionary stands, destroying everything in his path. Snatching a hoof-full of chocolates off the floor and munching on them, purely for health and not because she was hopelessly addicted to sweets, Pinkie ran behind another rack of candies, firing her frosting pen turned shotgun.
“That won’t work,” the Royal Guard announced, once again blocking the attacks with his right wing. He broke into a gallop, bringing down his left wing in a vertical strike. Pinkie had to hold up her frosting pen to block it.
The guard sneered at the move. “I’ll cut right through--”
The leading edge of his wing dug into the pressurized air canister fitted into the frosting pen.
Before he could finish his sentence, it exploded. Growling in pain, he reared up, legs wide open. Her paint guns empty, Pinkie reached for the nearest thing on hoof. It happened to be a macadamia nut cookie. Rolling over onto her side, Pinkie’s foreleg blurred as she grabbed and tossed foodstuffs at impossibly high speed. A dozen cookies hit the Royal Guard across his body and face before he managed to get his right wing back up to defend himself.
Cartwheeling away, Pinkie came to a stop next to a cake stand.
Kicking it with a spinning hindleg, the entire cake somehow remained intact as it tumbled through the air. It seemed to be on target for the snarling Royal Guard, only to split in half. A feather flew through the gap in the flying cake, and Pinkie barely had time to stomp down on a table to bring it up in front of her like a shield at the last second. The feather wedged into the solid wooden table… and a second later, the table also split, cleaving cleanly down the middle and into two halves.
But Pinkie Pie wasn’t behind it anymore.
“Annoying filly! There are only so many places you can hide!” the guard roared, flexing his left wing and sending a gust of destruction down on another area of the store. He was luckier than most. Pinkie Pie yipped in surprise as she had to scramble for cover.
It left her open, and this time, when the Guard charged forward with both wings, he slammed right into her. Pinkie Pie bounced painfully off one of the store walls, barely able to keep conscious and alert long enough to jump out of the way of another one of the Guard’s cutting feathers. Instead of trying to cut her in half up close and personal, this time he seemed to be sticking to range.
He charged a second time, choreographing his attack by sweeping both of his wings forward first. This time, Pinkie was more prepared for it. Rolling away, she galloped over to another of the cakes on display. Kicking it, it tumbled through the air at high speed.
“That didn’t work before, you idiot!” The Guard yelled, flexing his left wing and firing another bladed feather. “Why would it work now--”
This time, the cake exploded when the feather cut into it.
The guard howled in surprise, knocked back again from the force of the exploding air canister. This one hadn’t been attached to Pinkie’s frosting pen, however. This one, she’d stuffed into the cake beforehoof. Bits of cake from the blast already smeared the Guard’s formerly pristine white coat and golden armor. Pinkie quickly reloaded her frosting pen and rushed forward, placing the opening of the barrel right up against the Guard’s broad chest.
Squeezing the wide trigger twice with her hoof, it unloaded a full chamber of high speed frosting into the Guard’s exposed belly. The sticky icing not only visibly punched hard into the pony’s torso, it wedged into his armor, squirting out of the seams. The Royal Guard staggered back two steps, but remained standing on his hind legs.
“I’ll cut you in half!” he screamed, attacking with his left wing again.
“I’m not that kinda pie!” Pinkie yelled back, swinging her frosting shotgun.
For the second time, the Guard’s downward slice ended with him cutting into the fully loaded air canister in Pinkie’s frosting pen. Just like it had seconds before, when it had been hidden in the cake she had kicked, or even when she had first used this trick, it exploded right in the guard’s face. This time, his hooves flew up to his face, not protecting his body at all. It meant spray painting him into submission was out of the question, but Pinkie Pie didn’t mind.
“Not again!” he howled. “How does that keep happening?!”
Fitting another cartridge into her frosting gun, Pinkie aimed for the already encrusted gaps in the rearing and reeling Royal Guard’s armor. Two shots further gummed up the barding, and then two more immobilized each white wing. Covered hoof to mane in frosting, the bruised guard spun around in a circle to try and chase away his victim turned assailant. Pinkie nimbly jumped back before he could hit her and cartwheeled away.
“Can… barely move…” the Guard growled, lowering his hooves and opening his eyes to try and find his target. “Where…?”
Without warning, two shelves of candies were knocked out of the way deeper in the store. Catching the stunned guard’s eye, he immediately identified the culprit. Rolling through on its side, a huge multi-layered cake barreled through the displays, rolling over and absorbing or knocking aside everything in its path. Cookies, pastries, caramels and candies, all ended up decorating the surface of the rolling dessert of doom.
The shadow of it fell over the Royal Guard, and he barely had time to scream before it rolled him over, too.
Pinkie Pie let go of the cake and watched as it continued to roll, crashing right through the front of the store with a crash, glass splintering and giving way. It continued all the way out into the center of the Crystal Hall, finally coming to a stop when it smashed into a new Mustang Carriage on display as a contest prize. The Mustang stopped the cake cold, the side of the luxury carriage cracking under the impact but not giving way. Instead, the cake splattered like a sugary bomb, revealing the flattened and unconscious Royal Guard inside.
Pinkie emerged from the store and reloaded her frosting pen with a satisfying cha-chunk.
“Mission Accomplished! Sweets earned: 5000!” she announced with a giggle. “Combat rank: ‘A’! A little more and I’ll finally have that extra life!”
A crash further down the Crystal Hall and Pinkie’s ears twitched. Breaking into a gallop, she ran to catch up with her friends. So far, this was turning into the most fun mall romp ever!
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This was both interestingly and sadly the song that came onto my cue while reading Pinkie's part.
Me:...to broad a term to find the best match :(
This was equal parts hilarious, awesome, and pure amazing! SO MUCH FUN!
True that more smaller chapter are more to most people's tastes.
Besides if it means more Pinkie chapters especially with her crazy, fun, and unique fighting style then I am all for it.
This is your funniest chapter in the story. Ironically, it also builds up on some of the mane 6 lives. I didn't expect RD to get an A in art history, or Fluttershy obviously volunteering to model in Celestia's secret, or Twilight knowing a secret info that turns Celestia maniquins into terminators, or Pinkie antagonizing her own brain/common sense while fighting in a Filly Fonka's store, or that Rarity and the girls would be fighting flesh-eating monsters so casually that RD finds it flattering to be considered tasty by Sarai. If I were a new reader, then this chapter would get me hooked into the story. BTW, are the maniquins of the store designed on Celestia's image and did she willingly model to create those maniquins and incorporate them with a self defense spell?
I forget to ask something. Why would ponies wear a bra and why would Fluttershy, of all ponies, willingly decided to model for Celestia's secret?
Wow Pinkie Wow
Efen her panicked fleeing ist graceful!
Press ∆ to dodge, Pinkie!
“No words… they should’ve sent a poet…”
that's from contact.
FANTastic chapter!
Pinkie Pie with Duke Nukem quote = Win!
I want a scene where she faces a downed changeling and growls, "Eat shit and die!" and then buries it under a mountain of cake.
I wonder what Pinkie Pie would do with $240 worth of pudding...
You just couldn't resist, could you.
Fighting with bolts of fabric:
I do not know for sure, but if I had to guess, I would suppose that wool and silk are stronger than cellulose-based fabric like denim and cotton because of the disulphide bonds. I could imaging Rarity fighting using bolts of silk.
Instar's not a particularly common changeling name, although the naming theme is right for a changeling. But specifically for Chrysalis's daughter? Is this a coincidence or a deliberate resemblance to Every Prince Deserves a Princess? I can't decide which would be cooler.
The Dollestias that turned into Celesterminators were cool.
This...just freakin' this.
References from Dune, First Contact, and They Live. On the 9th we get new Cosmos, so First Contact is appropriate. They Live makes much sense because the economically exploitative spacealiens hide like changelings.
"Let's Fly to the Castle!" ...I can't hear that line again without imagining it coming from a deathray blasting mannequin of Celestia.
Huh, I notice that you make a point of Chrysalis' admiration of Equestrian accomplishments and culture. I guess she really loves Equestria in her own way, if not the ponies in it.
The fights were all wonderful in their own way, but Pinkie's scene was positively a blast (pun completely intended). I also liked the bit with the Celestia-bots, particularly how you threw in the doll's infamous catchphrases.
4031809
I think the suggestion is that Celestia actually owns the outlet (presumably through a shell entity).
Oh God. The Celestia's Secret mannequines may have been the greatest thing I've seen all year.
I lost it when Pinkie became The Doom Comic. Bravo.
In Capitalist Equestria, Butt Kicks YOU!
Looks like Celestia's Secret is finally out, and in the most hilarious way!
That seems mighty familiar. [FYI NSFW]
Hi Doom!
4031809
What do you think Celestia's Secret is?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsB3IfttE50
A++ chapter for full on Doom-Deadpoolian Pastry Warrior Pinkie. (The rest was just A+. Only.)
You know, from the description of all the stuff Chrysalis would like her children to start doing, it really sounds like she just wants her children to be ponies.
Hmn, I recognize that name. Reference to another fic? Ahh, never mind, googled it real quick and it's a fairly obvious bug name, most likely a coincidence then.
Again, another pony trait. It seems that her personal history with ponies greatly informed Chrysalis' outlook on all sorts of topics.
I'm really curious about what the Inkanyamba changelings are like. And wow does it apparently suck to be a zebra. Oooo, and there we go, the rest of the story regarding how Olive Branch ended up replaced.
As always, Dash is awesome. And I love the personal history were getting about Gilda and various other topics in the middle of this fight.
I'm not sure that's something to be proud about!
And now I really want to know what went down at the hoe-down.
Regarding how Eunomie detected the ambush, I'm wondering if it was because of the three Royal Guards supposedly knowing a changeling detection spell. How would they even have that skill, if it even works as advertised at all?
Heh. There is so much potential for hilarity in those two little lines.
Okay, so they didn't travel far, just elsewhere in the mall. Shame, I was having visions of a Thor 2-esque dimension hopping fight, could have been fun.
Bwhahahahaha!
Oh my god, it's the pink Celestia figurines! With the catchphrases and everything! Oh lord, I'm dying here!
Ooo, I like the sportswear store.
Pinkie in a candy and cooking store, that ought to be fun. Huh, she's surprisingly good at looting. Or rummaging, I suppose.
"Over-penetrate a cake"? That's mildly terrifying in context of the fight.
Yes, in fact that was fun.
It's hard to say, but the may have been my most favorite chapter of the story yet.
*sees word count*
Well, time to start reading!
This fic is longer than Tolstoy's War and Peace. I - I need to go home and rethink my life...
*Goes on FimFiction* *Checks featured* *Finds this story* *looks at word count* *cracks knuckles* Lets do this!
This chapter was gold from start to finish. I enjoyed Chrysalis' comparison between Equestria and the 'old country'. The fight with the Zilants was awesome, particularly how everyone kept on underestimating Applejack and Rainbow Dash's art appreciation session. (I honestly thought she was going to bust out Mark Walberg's excuse for improbable knowledge from 'The Other Guys': "I learned how to make fun of the fairies".) The best parts of the Crystal Mall fight were IHOPP and the 'sugar-industrial complex'. How do you cram in all of those cultural references without bogging down the story in needless details? It boggles my mind.
4031857 Sexy Lingerie?
This was a lot lighter compared to some of the other chapters, but my god was it great.
...Ponies...wear...bras?...
And you know that with that line, the glorious pink-filled chaos is about to begin...
You go, AJ! Teach those racist sons of maggots not to underestimate earth ponies.
And regarding RD's deliciousness contest, she can't possibly hold a candle to Rarity. Rainbow sherbet beating a marshmallow of her taste and refinement? Not happening.
It seems that, after this chapter, Blueblood will not be the only one with a phobia to pastries.
The Pink Terror Rises.
Also, I think miss red changeling better duck.
nice!
> My everything when Pinkie Pie's fight scene revealed its true form
I love you forever. I would not have expected this in a hundred million years, seriously. How did you come up with this? How long have you been sitting on this magnificence!?
Just... wow, man. I can't articulate this.
4032265
Cave Johnson, we're done here.
"Same ting" should probably be "same thing".
You need a comma after "away" to support the tense change ("Rolling"/"galloped").
The context suggests that "visible" should be "visibly".
Should "staged" be "staggered"? It'd make more sense that way.
And it started so serious too...
You spelled 'dessert' as 'desert' once in Pinkie's section. Which was amazing, by the way.
Oh, Chrysalis. You know you just want to join the herd.
Saw the Doom comic reference and then was expecting Pinkie to bust out a BFG by the end of this. Maybe next chapter.
This was one hilarious chapter. Celestia's Secret stores, where the secret is they really are Celestia's, equipped with sexy magical terminator-golem mannequines? Awesome, if little awkward for both Fluttershy and Twilight, although for different reasons.
And Pinkie turning into a confection-based wisecracking action hero(ine), having a fight in a candy store? Again, awesome!
How do you do this?
This chapter.
The Celestia manikins. The Crazy Pinkie Fight. The fact that its still part of the deadpan serious, Not-fucking-around-this-time, way more intelligent Chrysalis who is fighting one of the stronger versions of Celestia I've seen and with all of Ponykind on the line.
Its too Epic.
How'd you do it?
MY DRAMATIC POSE DEMANDS ANSWERS!
Wait, I thought that was a guild...The Sweetening Guild. Ah, I must be losing it.
That certainly was a welcome comedic relief after the prior serious/grim chapters. I certainly hope you had as much fun writing this chapter as I did reading it. Pinkie's antics in the Filly Fonka Depot were deliciously (ha!) barmy.
(Come to think of it, the whole "kitchen appliance armoury" does make a certain amount of sense in a world that weaponises pastries... That actually raises some interesting questions: How do traditional stereotypical gender roles apply wrt the kitchen/armoury? Do they have cooking shows for teenage colts that fetishize cooking and pastries like the "Modern Call of Warfare Duty" videogame titles IRL? Is their version of Anarchist's Cookbook a literal cookbook with recipes for military grade meringues, and improvised Class IV fondants? )
Everyone seems to really like this chapter, but I don't. Which is fine.
It put me off enough that I'm only just now, weeks later, trying it again. It's just that it kind of feels like it's from a different story with a completely different tone. To me the portal system thing is on the near side of iffy, the Robo-Pinklestias are straight up terrible (though clearly this isn't a common opinion), and the first half of Pinkie's bit especially feels like it from another story. It just doesn't match my understanding of TPC her.
The latter parts of her fight and much of the AJ, Dash, Rarity one were good. If this sounds like complaining then I'm sorry, but I really like this story (I certainly liked the previous chapter) and my dislike of this one threw me and I just wanted to mention it.
I really like this story! Even if it doesn't sound like it at the moment...