Flash Sentry, a new student at Canterlot High School, must adjust to life in a new town and school, make new friends, battle evil creatures that threaten mankind, and solve the mystery lurking within Canterlot's social media network.
Page generated in 0.035 seconds
Total duration
819 users online
1,278,880 hits today, 2,280,440 yesterday
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Oh fuck.
Ever feel like you've been snagged in the nuts, and what's got you isn't letting go any time soon?
That's how the ending came off to me.
Is there a chance that this decision could lead to an LTE bad end?
And how did they get footage of that unfortunate night?
5673945 Remember, that happened BEFORE they discovered the webcams were hacked.
Flash, you don't know the half of it.
5673955
This reqiures a re-read. I don't remember there being a computer in the room. Or maybe I'm an idiot.
5673945I hope not. I hate multiple choice-endings.
And another thing... how does Mephisto know about their plans? ...does this mean we have a mole in the ZIT? *Gasp*
OOOOOOOHHHHH!!! BLACKMAIL! So that's how you want to play it- wait... HOW THE HECK DID MEPHISTOPHELES GET FLASH'S NUMBER??? There's spies on the inside.... I SUSPECT JUAN!!!!!!!
That'll throw a wrench into the works.
5673962
I had to remind myself, as well. I believe this is the most relevant chapter.
Buuuuuuuuut, Flash can talk about THAT night with Celestia, Luna and Cadence (Twi already knows, from what I remember), so they won't be so shocked after seeing the video :P Or, Flash can hide the Zodiac and still have reversed Emperor. Or even worse. xd
5673982 If Celestia and Luna found out about that night, at all, EVER, Cadance would be FIRED and Flash would probably be expelled. It would be...very, very bad for everyone.
5673990 Maybe. But I like to think that this would have worked out and everyone would live happily ever after. xD
Well, fuck
No way he's getting around this one... well there is, but it would defeat the purpose.
EDIT:
Also, I found a pair of images that you could use for the LTE version, though both of them probably need a few modifications.
2nd EDIT: Another one
5673972
No, I was talking about the night Cadance approached Flash.
Oh. Shit.
...Wow. I called that. I wondered how long they had been using the webcams to spy on the dorm, and thought that night with Cadance might have been recorded, but wow.
Well played Mephistopheles. Well played.
Well, we've finally heard from Meph. I wonder how this will affect the Zodiac trip tomorrow. I wonder what Trixie has in store for Thursday. Oh, EMPRESS S.LINK GO!
5673963
Mythril has said he plans to go back later and do a series of bad ends that could have happened throughout the story.
Well then, there goes the chance at a happy ending. Now either Cadance loses her job (not that she needs it...) and Flash gets expelled (which he definitely needs not to happen)... or the team is never honest with Shining Armor and the conclusion for him is either his relationship with Cadance and Twilight is destroyed or he has to accept something is clearly wrong and he can never even be told what is wrong, which is both unfair to him and would tear him apart.
5674002
Did you mean this chapter, then? I was going by the spoilered part of your comment about there being a computer in the room...
5674025 That sucks... It makes sense since this is a "game"... but it still sucks.
Yes I'm way too sensitive for being a grown up.
5674033 Well... there is the option he gets sucked into the zodiac as well...
A video of the Cadence night.
Looks like your situation has gone from bad to worse Flash.
5674088
That's true!
Only seven months to wait!
Mephistophales...You.Are.An.Idiot.
You had the perfect blackmail material. You could've posted on Canterbook and force Celestia and Luna's hand. And instead, you threathen to send it to the three persons who are already aware of what happened that night (and are already investigating the hacking attempts). Not to mention trying to break a bond that can't be broken. Seriously, if you've been watching the dorm as long as you have (and that you know about personas enough to be Eris' boss), you should've known.
At least, we know that our antagonist is fallible, and therefore human. That means they're not fighting an omnipotent being like Nyarlathotep.
5674085 The "bad ending" chapters are basically going to be shameless porn, and will only be posted on my website.
5674110 But the protagonists are also human, and very prone to fear...and this is one hell of a thing to live in fear of...
5673990 Yeah. Which means, unfortunately, that Flash can't simply say "publish and be damned", as satisfying as that would be.
You know, I wonder how Mephistopheles would react if he aired someone's dirty laundry... and then found out that nobody cared.
5674134
I am aware of that. However if Mephistophales' goal was to isolate Flash (and by extension, the rest of the dorm), it's no longer possible because he still has one person he can rely on. If he had pulled it off a month earlier, then it would've been completely hopeless. I mean, he had this blackmail material gathering dust for two months and despite the team getting more successful, he never thought of using it while the team barely knew anything about him (and therefore could not do a thing when that happened)? That was stupid.
Of course it's going to be hard to get out of this mess (after all, human stress caused it in the first place), but that sort of stupidity is kinda baffling for a Persona villain (even Adashi didn't commit a blunder this bad until he was cornered and as far as I know, Mephistophales is still relatively safe. He's basically waving a red flag in front of a bull.)
5674110
I'd think that Mephistopholes is trying to prevent any authorities from taking notice of the situation, and that's more valuable than releasing anything to blackmail Celestia and Luna, which M would probably hope just don't know M exists.
I think it says things about how little we know if M's true plans, here. The material is used as blackmail, not to disrupt the living quarters of Flash and Cadance, making it harder for them to operate and save the lives of the denizens of the dorm... and maybe making them lose Canterbook access, making it so they can't access Zodiac at all (if that's actually how that works and not just apparently how that works). If, as Eris has indicated, killing the dorm denizens was the main goal of M, then that might be more valuable ammunition to use to disrupt Cadance and Flash's movements.
But, then again, blackmail is potentially... "soft" in consequences. Maybe releasing this information wouldn't definitely have these consequences, so it might be a stronger plan to use it for blackmail, letting the psychological fear of it getting out have a greater effect than actually releasing the information outright.
So far Mephistopholes has been shown to have every piece of knowledge when they needed to have it, but if Mephisopholes can spy through computers, and maybe the phones, then all the information that they have could be gained through that, so I agree there's no reason to assume M is omniscient.
Well, the good news about that particular scenario is that everyone who would be affected the most about that video, emotionally speaking, already knows about it. Although... it could get Cadance in hot water really quickly with CHS as a whole (and subsequently drag Flash down on everyone's sh&t list.)
5674181 The problem with that theory was that he could've used that card right after the fact. Flash would've no one to turn to and M could've gone with his plan with little to no resistance. Instead, he waits two months, in which a lot happened here, and he now have at least one person to turn to (the other two might take some convincing, but they're already at least partly aware of the situation) and some room to wiggle in (That sentence would sound weird out of context ).
And yeah, blackmail might be more effective in that case, but he didn't use it early enough.
I guess it's enough to establish that M is a skilled hacker, he's not omniscient. We don't know how high in the food chain he is (he strikes me as the Jin of this story) or his goal (I have a feeling that killing all people of the dorm (even if he did a sloppy job at that) is only phase 1). It's just that for someone whose job requires them to be very thourough at covering their tracks, it seems like a pretty big blunder.
Huh, that's a weird horoscope Sunset. I wonder what you're trying to warn Flash abou-
SHIT! I didn't expect that to turn around and bite Flash in the ass. What is he going to do?
And how does Mephistophelese know about...
WHAT?! WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL IS GOING ON HERE?!
5674134 Ok... *blushes* that actually made me feel a bit better.
Well, I'd say, the best in this situation :inform everyone in the team about this. The more unity, the better. There are always ways to come around shit. And Rarity might put some spark into an actual investigation...
5674170 Take a closer look at Mephistopheles' threat. All it wants is to keep Flash from exposing Zodiac to an uninitiated, but emotionally invested party (Shining Armor), which could potentially lead to the authorities (Celestia and Luna) learning about it from him, in turn. Coincidentally, this threat came along JUST as the ZITs were planning to divulge this info outside their circle, and not before.
Ask yourself: why not before?
What would happen if Celestia and Luna caught wind of Zodiac, and were to believe in it 100%? Would their response be something that Mephisto would like? It doesn't seem like Mephisto wants the ZITs to stop helping Zodiac victims, or even to stop going into Zodiac at all, does it? All Mephisto wants is to keep Zodiac a secret between everyone involved. This time, ask yourself: why is Mephisto silent about --or even fine with-- Flash et al going into Zodiac, but not about alerting any kind of authorities?
5674044
Yeah, that's the one. It confirms me as an idiot, because I thought that took place in the secret headquarters.
5674285 I'm thinking about it myself and...
...it seemingly makes no sense. Then again, human Persona villains tend to be more unbalanced than a game of jenga.
Not only at this point the three parties are aware to an extend to what happened that night, but it was another golden opportunity to further isolate them. And as I said earlier, the threat isn't as effective as it would've been two months ago. What little of Mephistophales we're shown seems to indicate that he seems to take every precaution before any sort of actions (the fact that absolutely no traces of hacking were found shows that), so you'd think that he would've taken that precaution beforehand, even through his goon Eris (which would've allowed him to stay hidden, even from the authorities).
I mean, even if his plan was a rehash of Ikutsuki's plan from Persona 3, which I also considered, it still feels like a knee-jerk scenario from an unexpected event (which he seems unprepared off) that seems "sloppy" for a lack of a better word. At the very least, he could've mailed it with Eris' name (no scratch that. He already revealed himself a month ago. So...yeah. He's an idiot).
I honestly can't make heads or tails of that guy. He's first seen as a dangerous and powerful observer, but he's making mistakes after mistakes.
WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT I TOTALLY FORGOT THAT SHE CONTROLLED HIS CAMERA AAAHHHHHHHHHHH
Dear God this will be a total NIGHTMARE!!! D:
I'm actually surprised nobody has said anything about Shinning Armor's birthday.
Don't mind if I do!
Oh boy
Finally caught up with the current chapter.... which sucks. Now I got to wait like everyone else. Lame.
And what a chapter to get caught up to. Jee uh sus. That's why you put laptops into hibernate mode... or just off. Only chance they have, other than to forget proving anything, is finding either Eris or Mephis... which they've yet to do or getting a hacker on their side. Problems everywhere.
Well... shit.
I foresee only one way that this can end even remotely well... And it won't happen soon...
Well, who else saw this shit coming? Of course the bad guy doesn't want it exposed. Then again, he really has to much time if he can record an event like that.
5674389
OK, going point by point...
a) What "three parties" are aware that something happened? The only ones who know anything about that night (other than Flash and Cadance) are Shining Armor and Twilight --and the're only very, very vaguely aware of SOMEthing, but not any specifics. The threat of blackmail, however, involves Twilight and Principal Celestia and Vice-principal Luna, the two of which are most definitely NOT aware of ANY sort of tryst between a one of their staff and one of their students. They would've come down on Cadance immediately upon getting even a vague idea that something went on. THAT's why it's such a dangerous threat.
b) Mephistopheles has, so far, taken only two concrete actions: send a video of Pinkie's pecadilloes to her parents, and this threat. We don't know anything about their methods or precautions yet. Then there's the hacking of the video cameras, which had remained anonymous until now --in some part, anyway. Even if they have video of That Night, Mephisto could have gotten it themselves OR they could have gotten it from the real hacker. The incident with the spoofed "FIash" account can be reasonably attributed to them, but no one has come forth to claim responsibility for it, so we can't really consider it yet. All in all, this is the first direct communication from Mephisto (since Pinkie's video was sent to her parents), and any other actions we can attribute to them were only discovered long after the fact, so there's not yet any particular methodology or mindset we can ascribe to them.
c) Likewise, we don't know if Eris and Mephisto are working together. They're both villainous antagonists, butthey might have separate agendas. Until they're specifically mentioned as working separately or together, beyond Mephistopheles having something over Eris to keep the latter in line, we can't really make them responsible for each other.
d) How does revealing their existence to the ZITs (or, for that matter, to Celestia and Luna) make Mephistopheles an idiot? Until today, "Mephistopheles" was nothing more than a trolling alias for someone who wanted to hurt Pinkie, and not only are trolling aliases a dime a dozen, there's no dearth of jealous or vindictive students who would like nothing more than to get back at Pinkie for whatever reason. These new revelations to Flash raised the stakes for him, but not for the villain, especially since Flash can't take this new message to the people already aware of Mephisto (Celestia and Luna) without fear for retaliation.
e) You've been bringing up how "two months ago" the threat would have been more effective, and how it would have "isolated" [Flash] further. But... is this something Mephistopheles would want? Again, ask yourself: Why didn't they complaint about the ZITs continuing campaign into Zodiac, or their rescue operations, but they complained about alerting someone else? OTOH, what WOULD have happened with Flash and Cadance if Mephisto had, for whatever reason, revealed the video to the principals right away? Think about it in practical terms: what would Flash stand to lose, as a student, from being expelled? And Cadance, as staff, what would SHE have lost? Sure, yeah, their bonds with Twilight and Shining Armor would have suffered, but beyond that, what else would have happened if Flash had been expelled, and Cadance had been fired, from CHS?
Hmm. Well, that's not good. It could be worse, though. After all, Twilight already knows. Now, on the other hand, the principals may have to take action against Cadance, and then the team's lost its mission control, scanning apparatus, and emergency escape route. Triply not good.
Though this raises a very important question: How does Mephistopheles know what they were planning? This was all word of mouth. A hackable microphone might have been in the room, but where?
Still, whether or not Mephistopheles is Sunset Shimmer, she has the same weakness: frank, open communication. If Flash can man up enough to face his mistakes, the blackmail loses its bite. Now the question becomes whether he does.
(Actually, couldn't this text qualify as proof? Not very good proof, but there's clearly something that someone wants to protect. Though showing Shining that video is pretty much the worst idea possible...)
5674533
I'm sorry, but there's a flaw in your reply. Mephistopheles did spoke to ZIT after the incident with Pinkie's parents, inside of Zodiac; and he even had an exchange with Eris, calling her "his bitch", suggesting some form of alliance.
5674569 Yah, I edited my comment afterwards :) Still, while it suggests a relationship between them, it only states that Eris is kept in check, but not that Mephisto controls her directly...
(It's a reasonable deduction, but there's still a gap between "work for" and "work with".)
5674569
So, going with my theory that Eris is Fluttershy, this shows us that Mephistopheles is easily willing to use Blackmail to manipulate people. So, that could explain how he is keeping Eris in check like that.
Given the last battle, Eris certainly doesn't seem to be on the same side as the Hunter shadows, much less be actively controlling them.
Given the history of characters over the last few Persona games, and the fact that Leo was absent last year, and how Capricorn was eating shadows to become stronger, I wonder if Leo somehow made itself stronger to the point that it evolved into something or someone more human like. If so, he could need to keep Zodiac a secret to preserve himself, but not really care if the other hunters are being killed or thwarted. In fact, that might just be removing competition as far as he is concerned.
5674533 OK. You do bring up some good points, but there are two that I can answer.
d) M knew that the email about Pinkie would somehow find it's way to the ZIT (considering that it affects them directly they would know sooner or later). And instead of using a completely unnoticeable name (going with the mythology theme like Eris which connects it to the Zodiac) or have someone take the fall (hey, it worked for a while for Adachi), he used a name that the ZIT can immediately connect to Zodiac and that hints to a second party outside of Eris (correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall that Eris called him by that name as well). I can't help but have a feeling that whatever his plan was, it would've gone a lot smoother if the ZIT never suspected the existence of a second party. It's a risk without much payoff.
e) That's pretty much what you said. Both Twilight and Shining's links would be broken. Meaning that Flash would've literally no one to turn to (except maybe Pinkie, but even then, she wouldn't be able to do much on her own). And even if Flash kept it secret, his link with Twilight would be endangered due to the fact that he would keep it hidden for so long. Loosing access to CHS would mean that M could proceed literally unopposed (unless his goal is the same as Ikutsuki).
Which brings me to another point: even if his plan included having ZIT killing all the shadows, why the email on Pinkie's parents? What did that accomplished outside of making the team even more united (and by Persona gameplay standards, even more powerful)? Such an action (as well as his threat) would only make sense if the goal was to isolate them from outside help. Sure, the first one backfired and the team is more united than ever, but this strikes me as too convenient. If he's artificially creating hardships to make the team stronger (making him secretly a good guy) to combat a greater foe, why the life and death situations (like the one only two days ago, which could ruin it easily due to negligence)? Personally, I don't buy it because it would require complete omniscience for it to work and this guy definitely doesn't have it.
Sorry if I went on a long tangent. Since you mentioned that M's goals are unknown, you got me to think back at the previous email, and not only it doesn't seem to have accomplished much, but it seems more up Sunset's alley (which was off my suspect's list since Twilight's birthday). And judging on how this M shrouds himself in mystery, I seriously doubt petty spite is his motive.
This guy is giving me an headache. I know he has a motive, but none of them seems to fit.
P.S. I'm beginning to enjoy this banter of speculations. Reminds me of a tabletop session when the DM has read too many Agatha Christie novels.
We really need to get a Wild Mass Guess page added to the Tv Tropes page for this >.<;
Let me lose the little bit of respect that I have here... but before that let me just say that I knew that night was gonna bite him in the ass. And now...
F*UCK HER RIGHT IN FHE PUSSY!!!
How I'm currently imagining Flash's reaction:
s.mcstatic.com/thumb/6625056/18717191/4/flash_player/0/1/the_bridge_on_the_river_kwai_what_have_i_done.jpg?v=2
5674709
Point of order: The guy you're going back and forth with knows everything that's going to happen because he's literally the only other party involved in the planning and execution of this. Anything Zef says isn't speculation, it's him trying to guide your speculations back on track without outright spoiling things.
(And even Zef doesn't know everything that's going to happen. I've thrown him a number of curve balls... )
On that note, here it is straight from the horse's mouth: Mephistopheles is no friend to the party, has nobody's best interests at heart, and has, thus far, taken minimal direct action because there was no need. The attempt to eliminate Pinkie was an attempt to weaken the party by decreasing its numbers. The blackmail is because Mephistopheles does not want Zodiac exposed. WHY, remains to be seen. Who Mephistopheles IS, remains to be seen. What role Eris plays in all this, remains to be seen. But the immediate threat--the blackmail--is to keep the party from doing anything that might get the plug pulled on Zodiac.
5674743 Okay dude? You need to behave. Seriously.