12 - A Few Kilos of Ore - Part 6
Ad’ika’s personal log:
Kaily hit the breaks just as the mine came into view. “Well, shit.”
Two large wooden doors blocked off the mine’s entrance. The rocky earth stretching in front of us was filled with fully armored Dogs marching a line of chained ponies into the mine. We were maybe five hundred yards away from them, they hadn’t noticed us yet, but they were armed, armored, and fresh from battle.
“Ok, so um, new plan!” Captain Tylor groaned. “How do we get past these guys?”
“How could anyone do this?” Tess asked as she looked out the window at the slave line. “It’s like drowning a kitten… I… Fuck those things! Let’s just run them down!”
I gulped, “That’s, probably the best idea. But we need to hold the entrance.”
Kaily sighed, “I can't block both sides of the entrance with the shield trick. We don’t have the power for it.”
Tylor sighed and rubbed her temples through her new helmet. “So, then we have to find some way to get them to go into the mine or get rid of-”
The earth shook as something heavy landed behind the Sagan with a thud. I sniffed the air, frowned, and turned towards the door, “Er- Captain something just-”
That’s when a massive purple dragon looked through the side window directly at me. My panicked chirr quickly got everyone’s attention. Within a second everyone was screaming at the sight of the three pony high dragon just out the window.
The dragon raised one claw and knocked gently on the window. The deep bass rumble of his voice easily carried through the thin wall, “You’re screams say you are not the humans I thought you were. Are you here to attack the Dogs?”
Tess grabbed Kaily by her shoulders, “Drive! It’s got more CR than us!” she screamed.
“I’m trying! Someone's thinking about the fucking power thing!” Kaily screamed back.
“I’m sorry! I was hoping the shields hold!” Tylor squeaked.
“Um-I don’t think I’m that frightening.” The dragon said scratching his head with a claw.
My heart’s fluttered in terror. Suddenly I remembered a pen pal of mine mentioning their Princess had befriended a dragon. Calming down a bit I cleared my thought and announced, “Um-guys? I-I think it’s ok. I have a pen pal in Ponyville. She said a dragon lives here.”
“That’s right, Spike’s the name, guardian dragon’s the game.” Spike rumbled, “Now, do I have to melt your car or are you here to attack those Dogs? Because we can make a deal.”
Tylor gulped and straightened her armor, “Is it one where you don't eat us?”
His eyes widened. “Eat you? Gross! I eat gems. What sort of savage- Look, I couldn’t protect everypony in Ponyville this morning so I am here to get them back. You can help, stay out of my way, or if you are with the Dogs… well.”
“Gems?” Kaily asked with a confused look, “How does that work? Mineral to protein conversion?”
“Magic.” I answered quickly. Turning to Spike I pointed to everyone else in the Sagan with me. “This is the Land Cruiser USS Sagan RV Forty-Two, representing the United Federation of Planets currently on loan to the Emerald Hive. We are on a Non-combatant Evacuation Operation and Raid with the intent to disrupt this mine and seize specific assets within it, as ordered by Her Majesty Queen Phoenix of the Emeralds.”
Spike blinked, “Huh… Well, alright then. Guess we’re on the same side.”
“Actually it’s a Winnebago.” Tylor nervously muttered.
“Sorry Captain,” I apologized, “I’ll remember that for next time.”
“So,” Spike said leaning down to look Tylor in her visor, “I think I recognize that armor design from a book. Twilight once told me multiverse theory means everything possible has happened somewhere, so I’m going to assume you are basically Space Faust. I guess that means you have a plan for once you get inside the mine, and since you have stopped here the Dogs outside are not a part of that plan. Am I right?”
“Er- Maybe?” Tylor asked, “Who's Space Faust.”
“Faust, first alicorn, legendary savior of the pony species, sacrificed herself to bring peace to the world for millennia. Only, you know, in space.” Spike answered in a surprisingly nerdy tone of voice for a dragon.
“Oh! Space Jesus. Yeah that’s basically Shepard.” Tess reasoned.
“Wait?” Spike blinked in surprise, “You’re name is Shepard, and you’re a captain? I could have sworn the rank was commander… Still, awesome!”
I saw Tylor blink through her orange visor. She nodded stood up straight and announced, “You know what, screw it. That’s my name, I’m changing it. Captain Taylor Shepard at your service. Let’s go kick those slaver’s asses into orbit.”
“The hell did that come from?” Kaily asked with a raised eyebrow.
Taylor jerked a thumb out the window, “Dragon. Friendly. Helping us. We’re good!”
“How should we proceed?” Spike asked politely.
“Well, we were going to ram our way in block the entrance with a forcefield and get in using stealth field generators.” Kaily informed, “But if we can’t get out because those guys are on our tail we have a problem… Oh, and since you apparently read sci-fi, no we don’t have fire support from orbit.”
Spike reared up on his hind legs to look at the army ahead. “I can see plenty of Hounds... no Purebreds. They should break and run if properly scared. A charging dragon and machine should do the trick. Perhaps a good roar or two… Does this have anything which can make noise?”
Tylor nodded. “Yeah. We were going to use that to draw attention to the front of the mine when we got in.”
“Use it now. Get yourselves in and I’ll keep the door open for you, but we charge together. We want to make sure as few of them regroup as possible. I am fairly tired from this morning.” Spike informed with a sigh.
“Ok! Right… so… Dragon!” Taylor laughed nervously, turned to Kaily, picked up her gun and ordered, “Track seven. Hit it, then ram ‘em. Ad’ika let’s get ready to book it.”
Kaily hit a button on the control console. Instantly the sound of an electronic keyboard blasted from a loudspeaker. The voice of a human wailed, “You got the touch! You got the power!”
An electric guitar’s loud wailing boomed into existence as the power metal song blazed to life. Kaily floored the pedal, the Sagan shook and leaped forwards, motors screeching in protest. Spike roared, the heart stopping sound blending into the song’s ‘Damn the torpedoes! Never say die!’ lyrics perfectly.
Heads whipped towards us, looking directly at us for a half second, then snapped away from us as everything in the area fled. Dogs scattered like grains of rice, pony changes shot off in random directions like streamers. The shields sparked and sizzled as a half dozen Dogs were smashed aside, bouncing off the energy field like tennis balls.
The mine’s double doors rushed up towards us. A pale green light shimmered on their surface as we closed distance and the Dogs inside threw up a shield spell. Kaily’s hand shot to the console, tapped a few commands, then slammed the horn at the same instant we hit the doors.
The sound of wood splintering mixed with the crack of overloaded magic was nothing compared to the thundering air horn blaring the first few notes of the Star Trek theme song. The Sagan shook, shuddered, and bucked, skidding to a stop with a pile of wood shrapnel sliding off the forward shields.
Everyone was thrown forwards from the impact, as Kaily shook her head clear she glanced at the screen. “Shields down to sixty percent. You guys had better go!”
I scrambled to my hooves, glancing in the rear view mirror to make sure I hadn’t broken my exoskeleton when I hit the deck. I looked fine.
“Right,” Captain Taylor moaned as she sat up, “do your shield thing.”
“I can't till you are clear! Tess, get out and clear the entrance for them while I get the shields re-modulated.” Kaily shouted as she unbuckled the safety harness and started to work the console.
Tess nodded, unbuckled, picked up her rifle, took a suspiciously deep breath and opened the Sagan’s door. Instantly she whipped the weapon up to her shoulder and in a shrill voice screamed, “Covering fire!” as the thundering of a few scores of rounds blasting through the mine echoed off the walls.
I activated my stealth generator with my magic, wincing as the device’s field pinched my aura as I disappeared from sight. <Captain, can you see me?> I asked quickly with my telepathy.
“Um, kinda. I think my omnitool is overlaying you with a red filter.” she replied.
<Good! I don’t have one, so I can't see you. Follow me, I can talk to you silently and scout ahead.> I ordered as I slipped out of the Sagan.
Tess had a look on her face which I swore was pure terror. There were only five dogs in the entrance, certainly not enough to threaten a named security officer. Assuming she was concerned for me I decided to reassure her, <Don’t worry! I’ve infiltrated Canterlot without a cloaking device. This will be cake!>
She nodded and fired again, hitting one of the dogs. He howled and dropped his sword. With a surprised bark he called, “It weapon only hurt! Gut it!”
The captain and I rushed past the five dogs as Tess’s voice squeaked in a panicked tone, “Oh shit! Um- gun, switch to lethal rounds!”
A second later we ducked around a corner and another burst of weapons fire rang through the air, this one accompanied by a scream.
We ran down the tunnel, the pounding of our hooves muffled by the stealth fields, the air rippling as we ran. Working from memory as best I could I took each of the five turns we would need to get to the cellblock near the storeroom. As we rounded the last corner I skid to a stop, narrowly avoiding a black cloaked unicorn barreling down the tunnel towards the entrance.
Her cloak’s hem snapped up as she turned the corner, catching me in the left eye. I screeched in pain. She wheeled around instantly, firing a spell bolt. I ducked, the bolt sizzled overhead shorting out my stealth field as the rock wall behind me exploded into rubble.
“Kill it! There will be more.” the mare ordered to three purebreds in full plate who had been following her before resuming her gallop for the entrance.
The purebreds closed around me, a sword, spear, and mace held ready to strike home. My ears rung as a thunderous boom came from jsut over my flank. The speardog’s breastplate crumpled as he flew back landing flat on the floor. I saw Taylor’s own field dissolve as she snapped her omniblade to life and held it threateningly in front of her.
“Get away from her you bitch!” Taylor screamed in rage as she put three rounds into the swordsdog point blank. I decided to not tell her that was a male.
The remaining dog spun and ran down the tunnel. I fired a barrage of spellbolts, a few clipped him in the back and he fell to the ground with a crash. <Thanks! Let’s keep moving.>
Taylor stood shaking in her plastic armor, breath coming in loud gasps.
<Captain, are you ok?> Had she been hit with a spell I didn’t see?
“So much going on… so much going on...so much going on…” she gasped over and over.
<Mam, you’re panicking! Calm down.> I pleaded. This made no sense she was a Federation captain! She was literally trained to keep her head clear under pressure.
I thought for a full minute on what her problem was as she panted in terror. A fear aura from the spell the mage had fired? No I would be afraid too. Was she an imposter? That made no sense, her crew would have recognized her as one.
Then it hit me. <Oh god! Captain I’m so sorry!> She was half pony now. A pony, with no others anywhere near her in a stressful situation. She had the instincts of a herd based species now, she needed another's presence. As a predatory species, I was making it worse.
I closed my eyes, my magic surging as I took the shape, and more importantly scent of my last pony guise. I reached out with a dark gray hoof and gently nudged Taylor’s side. “Captain, it’s ok. I’m here.”
After a few more seconds her breathing slowed. My scent was working! She looked at me slowly, “Huh?”
“You panicked. So I turned into another pony to help calm you. We need to keep moving, there are people trying to kill us.” I said calmly, hoping to break threw the remainder of her panic.
She nodded slowly. I could see her eyes widen behind her visor as she suddenly gasped. “Oh my god! You’re adorable! Is that a pegasus? I… how could anyone…”
She looked down at the dog she had shot point blank. Her eyes narrowed to slits. “These hurt ponies…”
I nodded slowly, her brain was clearly swimming in adrenaline. It made me glad changelings don't have one. “They do, we need to go save th- eep!”
I flinched as a wall of hatred poured off Taylor, it made my stomach turn, if I had eaten anything solid I would have thrown up. This was the same level of hatred anyling would expect from a bear whose cub was just hurt. Her left eye twitched, the holo display on her rifle flickered as her magic rippled over her in a wave of blue sparks.
With one quick motion Taylor jammed the barrel of her rifle into the unconscious dog’s eye and fired. Two more shots sent shards of rock, blood, and bone flying. “We’re burying this mine…” Taylor muttered, “and everything in it. As soon as we’re done here.”
I made a note to myself to remember that as a dual gendered person, Taylor had a stallion’s instincts too. I had forgotten how dangerous one could be when a mare was threatened, and it looked like human emotion made it a hundred times worse.
“Aye sir.” I gulped.
Chief Engineer’s Log:
My fingers flew over the touch screen. A hundred beeps rang in my ears as my fingers entered in the precise second by second adjustments to the shield emitters to keep the shield bubble from slipping back around the Sagan. We didn’t have a computer on this thing, if we did I could have programmed in an algorithm. Instead, I had to helplessly calculate numbers while the diminished shield only slowed the enemy down.
At sixty percent strength our shields couldn't stop the Dogs from pushing their way through the field slowly. It was like they were walking through firm jello. Even worse after each Dog passed through the shield strength dropped a little more. Every time Tess fired and her rounds tore threw the dog they hit the shield, and the strength dropped a little more. We couldn’t hold the entrance forever, and I couldn’t leave the console without what little leeway we had vanishing in an instant.
The sound of Tess’s rifle was the only thing I could hear over the beeps of the console and the crackling of the shields. So when someone called, “Hey!” I nearly jumped out of my skin.
I drew my pistol with one hand and spun around. A pair of pegasi, one blue one rusty red stood a meter away from me. They were beaten, bloody, and their armor was in even worse shape than they were.
The red one held up his hooves, rearing up onto his back legs as he did so, “Whoa! Hold it! We’re on your side… unbelievably.”
“Your comrade let us in.” The other added, “We’re here to help. What do you need?”
“Tess, did you let two ponies in?” I shouted, keeping my gun trained on them.
“Yeah! Just shot their chains off.” She shouted back. Her voice no longer stressed. It was entirely emotionless, numb.
I turned back to the console and continued typing. “I have to keep this field up until my captain returns with ore we are trying to appropriate. We are also trying to free the slaves in the mine. If they keep getting through the force field I wont be able to keep it up for much-”
“Oh sweet Luna no…” The blue pegasus squeaked, wings flaring open as his eyes widened in terror.
I looked out the windshield. A unicorn dressed in a black leather cloak with white runes and a white porcelain mask was walking up to the shield. “What’s wrong? Is she hostile?”
“We killed her this morning.” the red one groaned. “Ok, so we need to fight off a magus that can turn into a thirty foot tall dark magic avatar and revive herself. Please tell me your vehicle has weapons like I remember.”
I blinked. That was a magus? “Er- this is an unarmed transport.”
“Tartarus…” The two said together.
The magus stopped at the edge of the shield. She looked at it for a moment, as if she were examining the field for what it was not just what it seemed to be. I could see the burning red eyes behind her mask as she looked beyond the shield, scanning the entrance.
Her horn crackled with black and purple energy, a black lightning bolt lanced out, struck the shield and ripped a pony sized hole in it. As she stepped through the opening, I noticed the shield strength was down to forty-two percent. The hold closed behind her with a crackle of energy.
Tess instantly hosed her down with a full fifteen seconds of automatic fire. The two pegasi rushed outside and charged at top speed. The bullets simply disintegrated mid air, the magus teleported a few feet forwards, the pegasi collided with one another and dropped unconscious. I stood there pressing buttons.
“I honestly expected more than two of you.” The Magus called in a creepily polite voice. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Genesis, the beginning to the world which you have no part in.”
I grabbed the CB and flicked on the loudspeaker, “Fall back past the shield or I will open fire.”
Tess tapped a few buttons on her omni tool and fired six individual rounds. Nothing happened.
“You will find I am quite protected from mundane weapons. Besides, if you had weapons on that craft you would simply kill my minions…” She paused and looked at the field of dead Dogs. “Though even without them you still manage to go through my soldiers like copy paper.” Genesis observed.
“DR magic huh?” Tess asked as she stepped forwards. “Guess I’ll just need to hit hard and crit.”
“You do have an aura. You might make me feel something. Attack me and you will die. Leave now and I won’t kill you both. I can take two humans. Oh and by leave now I mean leave this planet. Go to you ship, take off, and don’t return. You are not welcome here.”
Tess slid into a combat stance. I looked up at the line of Dogs. They were still moving to get through the shield. If I helped Tess we would be overrun and the mission would fail. I picked up the mic again, “Hon… Open with your best.”
Tess nodded and gestured for the unicorn to come. Genesis sighed, reared up onto her hind legs and to my amazement adopted a martial stance of her own. Bad as the situation was, I was still interested in seeing a quadrupedal species’ martial art.
Tess nodded, charged, shouted a kiai and launched into a flying dragon kick. A move I knew for a fact Tess did not know, and had only seen in old Bruce Lee films. Before I could fully process the how and why Genesis reached out, somehow grabbed Tess’s foot with her hoof, spun a half circle and threw Tess into the shield.
The console beeped a warning, I turned my full attention to it’s screen. That throw had somehow overloaded the shield emitters. If I didn’t stabilize the shield it would fail entirely!
My fingers flew, my mind crunched numbers, everything else in the world faded out save for the screen, the shield and my hands. Energy levels spiked and fell randomly, chaos was ripping the wall of photons apart. My hands were patching it back together inch by inch. After a full minute the shields stabilized at twenty-nine percent.
The world came back. The Sagan shook as Tess bounced off the front grill with a sickening thud. She picked herself up off the ground slowly, like an injured person. I grit my teeth. She was hurt, and I had to keep the shield up or she would die. I couldn’t help.
“I see you are not in any sort of frame at all,” Genesis noted, looking as if she hadn’t been hit once, “a pity. It’s clear you are no threat to me. I suppose you have some last words?”
Tess nodded, spit some blood, and said, “Yeah. Kaioken!”
“Kaio what?” Genesis asked as Tess vanished in a blaze of green fire. I let the breath I had been hold out. I forgot about magic.
The flames cleared, Tess was four times as muscular than before, not a good look for her, but definitely useful. She sprinted forwards, jumped, spiked her knee forwards and landed the blow squarely on the unicorn’s mask.
Genesis screamed, shards of ceramic flew, she staggered back to rest on her four legs, a large chunk of her mask shattered, the rest sticking to her face. I gasped, there was no fur under the mask, only poorly healed scar tissue. Shards of pottery stuck to her blotchy grey, black, and brown skin in a way which told me the mask had been burned on until it had fused to her face.
“Die!” Genesis screamed in rage and pain as a deathly purple, green, and black beam lanced from her horn, striking Tess in the heart.
I didn’t think. I acted. I stepped on the gas. The Sagan shot forwards. I twisted the wheel, hit the brake, smiled as the RV lurched with a thump.
Clarity of thought came back in that moment. I realized I had seconds to act before i was incinerated. An old saying of my dad’s flashed through my mind. ‘If you can’t win, make them think you can.’ It would take a powerful mage to kill this monster, so I would make her think I was a powerful mage.
I opened the driver’s window and jumped out, landing just beside the bitch where she lay under the front tire. Activating my omnitool I mentally ordered it to project a hologram of a shimmering faint red aura around my hands. “You killed my wife,” I growled.
“You’ll join her soon.” she groaned starting to push the Sagan off her.
“When I am done the only flat thing for a hundred miles will be you!” I raised my hands, ordering the hologram to shift to a ball of bright red light and intoned, “Lord of Darkness of the four worlds, on thy bonds I do swear. Grant me all the power you possess!”
She blinked. “What?”
Remembering that magic was real here I concentrated on my aura, slowly lifting myself off the ground and sending what few small jolts I could crackling through the air as I continued. “Darkness beyond twilight, crimson beyond blood that flows. Buried in the stream of time is where your power grows.” I felt a tingle run up my spine, as if someone had plugged me into a wall socket.
“Are you insane?” Genesis shrieked her pupils dilating in pure terror, “You’ll rip a hole to the heart of Tartarus with that spell! What madmare told you the incantation?”
The dogs beyond the shield began to run, “She’s calling upon Grogar!”
The tingle of power became a burning energy. A part of my mind screamed at me to stop what I was doing. By pure coincidence, the spell actually worked here. This was a very, very bad thing. I was holding a nuclear bomb made of evil, hatred, and dark god power in my hands. In short: oh shit, I have become error!
“Flee if you wish, but this place burns!” I shouted, voice quavering as my brain screamed at me to abort the spell. I could actually feel the evil in my hands. As in it was a real actual, tangible evil.
“She’s not dead yet that curse kills slowly princess of friendship in dungeon she can probably fix it! By the Dark Crystal I swear I am sorry! Please don’t open a hellmaw!” she babbled with actual sincere fear in her voice.
“Then leave!” I screamed adding for good measure, “I pledge-”
“No! Don’t finish that sentence! I’ll go! Dogs, fall back!” Genesis screamed before vanishing in a flash of black light.
The few remaining Dogs broke and run. The Sagan slammed down onto all four of it’s tires. I took a deep breath and stayed completely quiet and still until the energy I felt slowly bled away. The evil, malicious, hatred left with it. The second it was gone I sighed in relief and said to myself, “Ok Kaily, never ever-ever-ever quote Slayers again, ever.”
I sprint over to Tess, knelt down and checked her pulse. It was there, faint, possibly fading. Picking her up as carefully as possible I brought her into the Sagan, laid her on the couch, then turned on my omnitool’s communicator. “Ed, Tess is dying. I was told there is some sort of magic princess of friendship in the cells and she can help. Get her here or I will never forgive you, and whatever you do, do not quote Slayers! It works here, and will rip a hole into hell.”
After a second her voice came through the comm. “Noted. On the move.” It sounded like everything went to hell for them too.
I sat down next to Tess, held her hand in my own, and did my best not to cry. I failed. Again.
Captain’s Log:
I had just stepped into the cellblock when my omnitool glowed and Kaily’s voice crackled delivering her message in a staticky patchy format. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much time to think about her message let alone respond in depth. Arrayed in front of me were twenty Dogs, and the unicorn we had passed in the hall.
She had appeared in a flash of black light, mask shattered, tire marks on her cloak, and enraged screams on her lips. “Everyone fall back! The humans can use Grogar’s Lens! This whole area could be flooded with harpies in minutes.”
The rage burning in my heart flared even brighter. To enslave another species was inexcusably cruel, to do it to your own was monstrous, and to do it through proxies was intolerable. My vision blurred for a moment, a twisting black aura surrounded each Dog, and a blazing flame of darkness surrounded the unicorn.
They were evil, I could see it, smell it, taste it. I couldn’t explain how, but I was seeing their very souls and they were literally evil. It’s not something anyone could explain easily, but the very animating force behind them their consciousnesses, spirits, souls, whatever you call it had a clearly defined overwhelming portion which was literally actually evil in nature.
I never went to church a day in my life, my dad thought it was a waste of time. I had as well, I simply had never seen proof of anything supernatural. Now I had. That was a soul, it was evil, and I could see it was evil with my own eyes. That was some pretty irrefutable empirical evidence of the supernatural.
I pointed my rifle towards the ceiling and fired. A few of the Dogs ran for exits on the other side of the large chamber. Everything froze then slowly turned to face me. Not a one of them would get away to do this again.
“I came here to steal ore,” I announced, “but that mission has changed. I can’t ignore the monsters that you are. You must be stopped, no matter the cost!”
“Oh good you’re not the winged… one…” the unicorn tailed off eyes shrinking to dots, “Sirens’s song! You’re an arcaniter! What next? Is the one I killed actually Faust herself?”
“I’m what?” I asked confused.
“She’s what?” Ad’ika echoed.
“Y-you don’t know what that means? You must have just gained your powers.” She seemed to stare into my soul for a split second, then grinned. “You're outside normal physics, but your power hasn’t manifested yet. Ha! I can beat that. Everyone retreat. She’s a threat, but only a small one. I’ll end her and join you later.”
I tossed Ad’ika my rifle, she caught it with her magic reflexively. “Free the slaves and shoot those Dogs.” I ordered.
With a flick of my wrist the orange of my omniblade and the blue of my omnishield flared to life. The blade was on my right arm, the shield on my left. It had been a few months since I did anything in HEMA, and I had never used a shield before, but the shortsword-like blade was something I was familiar with.
“You can flee if you like.” the unicorn said as she floated six estocs out from her cloak. “I am twelfth tier, whereas you only have four tiers of power which have not even taken form.”
I raised my shield, looking through the translucent hardlight to keep an eye on the unicorn. “I have no idea what any of that means, but when I look at you I can literally see evil. I’m not a religious person, but I’m pretty sure that visibly evil things should burn.”
She groaned and rubbed her temple with a hoof, “Oh ponyfeathers! The first non-Tribunal controlled person to achieve arcaniter becomes a Paladin… That is, painfully ironic.”
“Paladin? Wait, what?” I lowered my shield in confusion. It was all the opening she needed.
Three of her swords lanced forwards like spears. One skipped off my shield, another struck the air in front of my face, the third sliced across my shoulder, ripping a gash in my fake armor. I yelped and jumped back as the other three blades lanced inwards. Snapping my shield up I managed to catch them with the shield.
Her blades stabbed and sliced in towards me from all angles. Somehow I blocked, dodged, or parried each incoming strike. Never in my life had I ever been able to handle more the one opponent, and here I was fending off six different attacks like I knew what I was doing. It was exhilarating, but at the same time incredibly confusing.
“Ugh!” The unicorn exclaimed, “I forgot how annoying it can be to hit someone with arcaniter tiers…”
Paladin, tiers of power, normal physics… As I deflected another strike with my shield it hit me. “Sweet mother of god I have class levels!”
As I caught sight of the unicorn between her attacks and once again saw the burning aura of evil I smiled, “I’m a Paladin… apparently fourth level…”
I turned my head towards Ad’ika as she shot the lock off of a cell containing a lavender unicorn, “Quick! Tell me a deity's name!”
All six blades gouged chunks of my costume away. “Don’t do that and I’ll give you everypony here for food!” The monstrous unicorn shouted.
“Celestia Solarus, Princess of the Sun!” The lavender unicorn shouted.
“Horseapples!” my foe cursed. The glow vanished from her blades as they fell to the ground with a crash. Her horn crackled with energy as she began to mutter a spell.
“What’s her holy symbol?” I demanded.
“The sun!” Ad’ika called back.
I quickly tapped a command on my omnitool with my weapon hand. The shield’s wireframe pattern rearranged to show a yellow sun on the front. I had one shot for my plan would work. If it turned out I had no idea what I was doing I was dead.
“No! Wait! It looks like this!” A grey unicorn with a blond mane shouted. Her horn flashed gold as the image of a yellow and orange sun blinked into existence over her head.
I quickly corrected the mistake. “Thanks!” I shouted before snapping my omniblade back to life, fixing my eyes on the monster before me and with a nervous shout of, “By Celestia’s light, one shall stand one shall fall!” sprinted headlong for the evil mage.
After the first hooffall a flash of light around my hips caught my eye. On the second step I felt an incredible power surge through me to my blade. A blinding white aura engulfed the weapon.
“No…” the mage said.
With my third step I willed all of my anger towards the evil I felt to smite my foe. With the fourth step the white aura burst into bright orange and yellow flames.
“No-no-no!” The mage exclaimed.
With my fifth step I pulled my blade back. On the sixth I lunged forwards, my blade sliced through the air, the mage lept to the left, the tip of my blade grazed her chest.
“Fu-” An explosion of white light surged from the small cut, blinding me as her horrified scream of pain filled the chamber.
When the light cleared the mage lay on the ground, wisps of smoke drifting up from her as she staggered to her hooves. I whipped my blade up to strike again. She grit her teeth and backed up.
“Struck by a novice with holy fire. Yep I think I’m done here... I should have rested after the raid… You win halfbreed.” The mage hissed through clenched teeth. A split second later she vanished in a burst of black light.
Her aura remained behind for a few seconds, slowly fading away into nothingness. The moment I was gone I turned and checked the room.
The Dogs were gone, a crowd of ponies of all kinds were gathered in a ring around me. I flicked my wrists to turn off my shield and blade. I reached up and slowly took off my helmet then demanded, “Someone better tell me how in the hell I just used smite evil!”
The lavender unicorn, who I now could see also had a pair of wings cleared her throat, “I can explain that.”
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Holy shit.
well done Meep, that was probably the coolest magic fight scene I've ever read
now I want to find a game where I can be a paladin......
So much awesome in this chapter. The Dragon Slave actually works in Equestria. The way Genesis reacted to that was hilarious.
Seems like you tossed some D&D in there too. (squee)
Hell of a way to get a cutie mark.
The funny thing about the magic of Slayers is all spells are externally gathered. Each calls upon different entities for power. If I recall correctly, the most powerful spell, Raguna Blade, calls upon the God of Chaos. And Equus has a Spirit of Chaos...
5905017
Closest to this would be D&D, I'm 98% sure that's where the inspiration came from. It's the single most versatile game in existence, and a tabletop RPG.
5905119
I don't know about you, but I quite like the universe. Calling upon Discord might be suicide.
5905395 Just watch out for the Dread Gazebo. Paladins are useless against it
Also,
I don't think internet stocks will be of any use. She should have drawn an estoc instead
x2
5905089 I didn't even put that one together until you mentioned it, I wonder what a paladin cm will be?
5905395 I think I remember meep saying she plays pathfinder, so you were close
if only I could play d&d...
So we also got see a Dragon Slave from Slayers which i'm pretty sure would have been equal o a nuke and a paladin of Celestia. With this said I can hard imagine the levels of insanity this story will reach.
5905119 [Expanding on my previous comment]
I'm... half convinced most of these power things were faked by an invisible and possibly time travelling Twilight Sparkle, Discord, and/or Dinky.
Because if they aren't the implications are very scary here. If you say you are something, you become it on some fundamental level. Paladins, or calling upon the power of dark beings, even unintentionally. Isn't one of the scary things that the incantations to black magic sometimes have lines like 'I bind myself to you'?
Full translation of the incantation of Dragon Slave
As for the most powerful spells in the Slayers universe? They are called Giga Slave and Ragna Blade. Both spells borrows powers from a being that lives in a plane of existence known as The Sea of Chaos and she is known as The Lord of Nightmares. Both incantations speak of allowing the Lord of Nightmares to possess the caster for the spell's duration.
I wonder this is similar to how Luna became Nightmare Moon?
Genesis backing off before Kaily could unwittingly damn herself is a point in her favor, certainly. Even if it was half self-centered fear.
5905017 A properly built Paladin is amazing. A properly plaid Paladin is a rarity, most go for the "Lawful Stupid". If you want a game where you can play one properly Neverwinter Knights I and II are the only games I can recommend unless you can get a group to play Pathfinder.
5905089 Thanks! There's also a simple reason for it working. Equestrian magic seems to have three parts, will, emotion, and wording. It looks like the will and emotion are the biggest parts, while words just direct the spell if need. Also yup! The CMC didn't think of that one did they?
5905119 If she had used it I'm pretty sure Discord woulda popped up like "Hey! Stop it! I don't feel like granting power right now." It would also have ruined his plans a bit.
5905349 There is a group picture in the authors note later, but you can have this sketch I drew of her for now.
http://i.imgur.com/IIx7Frc.png
5905395 Pathfinder is the specific ruleset I'm using for every character's abilities and powers. But yes this is a D&D type paladin and there is an in universe explanation for it. Also in Slayers, I'm pretty sure that the Gigaslave called upon the god of Chaos as well, and had a 50% chance to just delete the universe each time it was used. Hence being used twice in like 400 episodes.
5905480 Oh god I actually fought one of those once... Thank Helm I was the fighter! As for the stocks... care to help me beat the bytes out of my proofreader program?
5906410 Seeing as I have yet to really lampoon the scifi elements in this Science Fantasy... A few notches shy of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk7VWcuVOf0
5906592 I have a few friends that might be interested
5906527 The next chapter will have the full explanation, but for know just know that there are many ancient and powerful spells that permute the very world. For example, all ponies, everywhere on the planet earn cutie marks. This is one of those global and ancient spells, and a white magic one meant to help people find their purpose in life. There are also black magic ones, so yes with the right emotional state and intent, and words close enough to some set up long, long ago, you can in fact cast an amazing spell... for a STEEP price. Which, yes is similar to nightmare moon.
FYI the words do nothing on their own, they must be said with hatred and the intent to harm. (Similar to how reenacting Harthswarming dose not summon Windagos because it's just a play.)
5906592
I'm just waiting for you to try and parody this scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THt6zThZEiM
5906599 Here is the entirety of the Pathfinder rules for free, b the company who makes it, online for anyone to use. http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ All you need is at least two friends and a d20 set. (You can play with two people but it's more fun with 3 to 5 people.)
5906643 Never parody a parody. It docent work out well. That said...
5906592
I can't believe you posted that spaceballs clip. Now I am both excited and at the same time afraid of the of the soon to be crazy levels of insanity you will unless in the future.
5906746 All you need to know is that this fic was directly inspired when I watched this movie on NyQuil with a heavy fever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvxU1JoYxBM
This. This is why I love this. All the references!
5907522 Which one is your favorite?
5907583
the slayers one
5906592
I'll bring the magnets.
An actual review of the chapter now that I've read it back to front.
Heh, of course that's their first thought. Genesis is an even higher CR technically too.
Whelp, so much for not killing unless they absolutely had to.
Especially so in Taylor's case. Way to show off bad behaviour for a Star Fleet Captain! Or rather, I bet she played Renegade Shepard.
I feel bad for all three of them actually, they aren't showing the best of humanity and light hearted positive emotions that supposedly they will bring to the setting, compared to Genesis' tainted world view or the pony's cynical one.
An odd oversight considering it has shield technology...
A non-bat pony using Luna's name in a prayer? Progressive!
Err, would ponies even know what copy paper is?
Kaily is so lucky that she actually started to cast a real spell, else the fact that a real mage like Genesis would be able to sense magic would have put an end to that bluff real quick.
Thought: Is it really a coincidence, or did stuff like Slayers and all other fantasy junk inspire the original spell setup? Like Scouters and Omnitools actually existing because it amused Phoenix to recreate them.
Is it bad that this is the image I got?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OKqTNcNBig
5908079
No, but that's the point of this mission. It had to go bad. They were not prepared, and did not understand well, the reality of reality. Now they get it. They had a bad mission, something to bother them, to motivate them to do better. They needed to have a reason to do things differently, here it is: Life is not a videogame, fighting is not fun, you should do it only when you have to.
Power draw. A basic AI system couldn't be powered so they basically have win XP to work the systems with.
Universal translators adjust the exact wording to an equivalent phrase in the case of idioms so you can better understand what is being said. This can lead to misunderstandings...
Next chapter :P But yes, there is influence from the past. Other sources of pre-pony history existed and some still exist. Since magic is real due to a spoiler... Well you can see how someone might mistake a fictional description of a spell for a real one and make it.
No, that's about ligit.
Very enjoyable. You have a wonderful imagination. Anything goes and you make it work.
5913192 Why thank you! I'm putting a lot of work into making this a tongue in cheek, just serious enough adventure story.
5914144 Thanks!
Bah-weep-Graaaaagnah wheep ni ni bong.
Spike being awesome? Dragon Slave? Unikitty Commander Tylor Shepard finding her cutie mark while simultaneously turning into a paladin of Celestia? All of my yes.
Way to channel your inner Ellen Ripley there. The only way that could be any cooler would be if Taylor was in a Power Loader.
Ma'am
5958701 nope just nope why would you Give Taylor that idea
Now we just need someone to play Ghost Nappa to Genesis' Vegeta...