Bonus Objective: No Alerts Triggered
It had become a nightly ritual for the dark alicorn. Every night, he'd check the dreams of the children, then of his subjects, then of those in the local area. Looking around, he made his final checks before trying once more to fulfil Luna's request. Focusing on the name, on the description he'd been given, he cast himself deep into the dream realm, searching for the missing alicorn.
Every night it was the same result. No response, not even the pull he got when he went looking for Celestia's dreams. He'd try this several times before calling it a night, trying again just before he woke up, if he had the chance. This night seemed no different. He cast out his consciousness, focusing on her name, on her color. He pulled himself back to his body. He cast himself out again, and pulled back to his body. No luck this night either. Preparing his own dream, Ted mentally came to a halt. A gut feeling, that's what it was. He knew his body reacted to things he couldn't understand, so he followed its instincts fairly often. One final time that night he drew up the name and color in his mind. Once more that night he cast his mind into the void of the dream realm...
...and felt something tug at the edges of his consciousness. He latched onto the feeling, trying to get an actual position. North east, well beyond Port Zarris. Ted frowned as he came to the place. The dream was underground, a cave of some sort? There were also the faint outlines of other beings nearby, though they were not his focus and beyond his reach, and thus would not dream. He neared the orb, which had started taking on a sickly color he associated with a dream filled with fear. Preparing to help the target of his quest he-
"-IAN! CIM- -AN!" A voice cut through the dream realm, shaking him badly. He was so close, but someone was waking him, and it sounded urgent. With a few choice expletives at the timing, the alicorn calmed the dream, pouring as much reinforcement into it as he could before mentally screaming for Luna. Certain she was nearing, Ted allowed himself to be pulled to the waking world. If it wasn't important, the idiot who had bothered him would be eating through a straw for a week.
<-(0)->
"CIMMERIAN! You fool, wake up!" Pandinus shouted, shaking the sleeping stallion vigorously.
"Damnit, Din, stop it! I'm here, I'm here." The alicorn muttered, shaking the disorientation off. Normally that didn't happen, but getting yanked from the dream realm like that left him hurting. Finally able to see straight, he looked over to the panicked queen, the look on her face worrying him as well.
"Din? What's wrong, why are you here at this hour?"
"I felt one!" The queen almost shouted. "Another link, and it's nearby! Oh fuck, Cimmerian, it's big, bigger than any link I've ever brushed against before. It's them! I know it is!"
"Shush, it's ok, Din, we'll figure this out, calm down." He said, stepping off his bed and pulling her into a reassuring hug. "Where do you think they are, and do you think they've found us?"
"They, they're to the west, a couple miles by my estimate." The nearly hysteric queen told him. "By the First Mother, Cimmerian, Thrisha told me about the invasion in detail. I don't want that, I don't want that for my nymphs! What am I going to do!"
"First," C-Ted told her, fully waking up with the seriousness of the situation "we're going to alert the Temple. I want everyone ready to head to the caves if they get closer. I know they can sense emotions, but hopefully the distance will help my dampening field cover them better than if they were in the open. Next, I'm going to try something." He said. Seconds later a pony burst into his room, trying to figure out what the racket was. Ted seized the opportunity, directing the stallion to fetch Gleam or Shadow. Finally, Ted turned to the queen.
"You can stay here if you like, I want you to explain to whoever shows up first what's going on." He told her, hoping back onto the bed. The queen stared at him in confusion as he returned to his bed, settling in for a long night. With a quick shift of his mental coordinates, he opened his eyes once more in a different corner of the room. The armor slowly moved about, silently allowing the alicorn to double check his maneuverability in this form. This wouldn't be a simple walk down the stairs to deliver a message, it would be a full mission against a superior force with the lives of his family on the line. Turning back to Pandinus, he saw the changeling gaping at his sleeping form. Suddenly, her shock shifted to rage, and she raised a hoof to slap him. As she reared back, he caught the hoof, causing her to rear around, fangs bared at whoever snuck up behind her. Ted merely smiled at her confusion.
"Can you detect this form?" He asked the queen.
Pandinus turned to his sleeping body before looking back at the possessed armor before suddenly Ted could swear he saw a light bulb flicker on above her head. He saw her concentrate a moment, before shaking her head in a negative.
"You plan on fighting them yourself?"
Ted laughed at the idea. "Oh god no, I plan on sneaking around and maybe causing some trouble for them, possibly even drawing them away from us. I don't know if I can get tired like this, but I doubt it. The only issue would be if it has a maximum range and if it drains my mana reserves, though I don't have the answer to either question. As it is, it will let me sneak around easier, as I can combine the shadow walking with the lack of emotions that changelings can pick up."
Din looked thoughtful for a moment, looking between the two versions of the alicorn, before nodding. "I, I'll talk to Gleam when she arrives. The hive was almost directly west of here, s-so it shouldn't be hard to find, not with the size I can s-sense from here." She said shakily. Slowly she walked over to the bed, hopping up and laying one of his wings across her back.
"Alright Din, I'll be back. Help Gleam and Shadow if they ask for help, ok?" With that Ted walked out to his balcony, stepping out into the blasting rain. It didn't bother him, though the sensation of the rain passing through his ethereal form was strange. With a single thought the armor faded into a mist, the shadow flowing quickly towards the abandoned port town.
<-(0)->
The alicorn heard them before he saw them. The buzzing sound first barely audible over the pounding rain and rumbling thunder, but eventually it became loud enough to nearly vibrate the armor. Coming into view of the abandoned port town, what Ted saw made his blood run cold. Hundreds of changelings flitting here and there, an almost impenetrable screen of chitin that circled the town in constant patrols.
The buzzing was almost deafening, the few ponies he could see wandering around in the purple tinted armor wearing covers over their ears. The changelings not on patrol were huddling in any shelter they could find, their minds still retaining enough sense to seek shelter from the raging storm. Most were buzzing their wings in a desperate attempt to generate heat to keep warm and awake in the cool weather. Many were failing.
Even as he approached the old guard tower, he nearly was struck as a drone fell from the side of the structure, its energy expended completely. Looking around the various buildings, he could barely make out the dark spots of bodies scattered over the entirety of the area, the ponies merely navigating around or over the bodies. Taking a inconsequential breath to steady himself against the sight, he walked into the occupied town.
He was already invisible and couldn't be detected by the changelings emotion-oriented radars, and there was a rain storm that made visibility even worse, but he took no chances. The alicorn moved silently from one form of cover to the next, attempting to find the highest concentration of guards. Eventually, in the old in where the griffons had stashed there gear, he found what seemed to be a leader of some sort.
"Yea, this is their stuff alright." The armored stallion said, rooting through the possessions of the griffons. "The damned feather dusters wouldn't go that far from this junk, no matter how desperate they are. You sure the mutant didn't say anything about where they were headed?" He asked another soldier to his left.
"Just that they went east, following a pegasus. Bird said it was an alicorn, but I don't see how that would be possible. The Queen's got two of them on permanent lock-up till they surrender their powers, and last I heard she let the pink one go because she wasn't a threat. Not much an alicorn can do with a cracked horn an plucked wings. That accounts for all the alicorns in existence. Besides, wouldn't the Queen's sensor array's pick up something that big?"
Ted barely managed to suppress a growl at the dismissal of the pink alicorn. Finding Cadance just moved to the top of his to do list if her condition was that bad. Not only that, she was within his reach now. He was all but certain he'd found her with that last dream dive. Hopefully Luna had made it to the dream, and managed to talk to her giving the poor thing a much-needed shot of hope. His planning was cut off as the one he'd mentally marked as the leader started moving towards the exit, passing by his shadowed form without a second glance.
"I'm going to head to the boat." The soldier, a unicorn now that he'd seen his face, said to his subordinate. As they passed by ted took note of the armor, looking for any control methods or protections from the changelings outside. All he could make out was a small rune on the right shoulder, something he vaguely remembered being a connection array for joining multiple casters for powerful spells. It seemed they were connected to the actual arrays remotely, though unless they had a primary uplink on the ship, a good possibility given the size the array would have to be, he wouldn't be able to do more than redirect the army elsewhere.
'Here's hoping my karma doesn't consider itself balanced quite yet.' he thought to himself as he followed the unicorn from a distance. Passing by several patrols that didn't seem to concerned with more than staying out of the rain, the group he was shadowing slowly making its way to the docks, stepping over and around any fallen changelings with a practiced lack of interest. Suddenly another drone fell from the sky, this one almost landing on the subordinate, the soldier flaring his previously unseen wings in shock.
"Bucking tartarus! Damned thing almost fell on me!" He shouted, rearing around and kicking the body aside.
"Get over it, they're not heavy, even the ones with the plates. It won't kill you, not with your armor. It's why we wear it when working, remember? Though I'd talk to the ship's artificer about getting that array looked at, they're supposed to help divert the bugs before they drop so that doesn't happen." The superior said, never even slowing his pace.
The group made their way up a shoddily patched dock, Ted noticing most of the patching seemed to be changeling sealant that had been sloppily applied and solidified, a few patches of the goop still remaining liquid. The boat, surprisingly, didn't have much of a guard, just a single pony sitting under some oddly stacked crates, staring into the night. The box soldier threw the superior a quick salute as he passed by, but then returned to watching the storm, never noticing the wraith that slipped past him. Following the ponies into the hold of the ship, Ted ran into his first real obstacle.
The inside of the ship was actually lit by magic-storing crystals powering light spell arrays. It would mean much more constricted movement for the alicorn, but seeing as he may have a target, he made his way through the ship remaining silent. The one time he'd come across an area he didn't trust, he'd ghosted across the ceiling, avoiding the open doorways entirely. Moments after he'd floated over them in his shadowed form, a soldier had walked out of the right doorway, muttering darkly about having to replace a soldier on watch in the storm.
"Damn bugs can sense anypony that gets near us. Not like I need to sit out in the rain for hours on end." He muttered as he trotted out of earshot.
Finally the alicorn made it to the cargo hold and main supply section of the ship. Both of the soldiers he'd been tailing earlier were there, one getting his armor inspected by a unicorn who was reapplying the array on his shoulder, double checking his work every now and again against a small metal plate on his desk.
The second, the unicorn superior, was speaking to another soldier, this one with a beard and mustache of all things, giving a report on the findings in the town.
"Given the fact that some of that stuff has probably been in their families for centuries, there's no way they'd leave it behind without being able to return. Worse case scenario we wait for them to come back for the junk and hit them while their exposed in the middle of the town." The unicorn said
The mustachioed pony merely scowled at the reports over his desk. "But we don't have any idea where they went or how far. 'The dropped a number of the rebels off at this point and those who stayed here went east.' How am I supposed to file this as a report?"
"There was also the claim of the griffon capt-"
"Yes yes, the claim that it was an alicorn that met them on the boat. The griffons are a superstitious lot. Toss a fake horn on a thestral and they'd be screaming about the return of Nightmare Moon. We'd have detected such an individual by now. It's not like there's a pegacorn out there that breaks detection arrays with his mere presence."
Ted just stared at the commander, his incorporeal jaw dropping in disbelief. Sure the world was a bit odd at times, but that kind of thing didn't happen in real life, did it? Turning his attention from the soldiers in the room, he looked around for the array. Passing by the soldiers and moving deeper into the ship, the alicorn stopped in the final room.
"If that's not it, I'll turn myself into the Mad Queen tomorrow." He muttered. The array was huge, with a single crystal focus at the center containing even more arrays in an impossibly complicated multidimensional array.
"I didn't even know it was possible to make them like that." he whispered to himself, awed at the sheer complexity of the array before him. There wasn't much inside the crystal he could understand, but looking over most of the other sections of the spell, he could spot safeties and surge diverters aplenty, all helping to avoid a meltdown of the large amounts of energy flowing through the spell.
"It's a nuclear reactor." He smiled, striking his hoof through surge protecting array after surge protecting array, while rewiring the safeties to not divert mana, but store it. He giggled even as he damaged the final protections, finally shoving his incorporeal hoof through the primary spell matrix and surging his own magic into a weak part of the spell. The effect was immediate. The large crystal began to creak and groan, large cracks spreading throughout its surface even as the mana began to build up. With the surge protectors gone and the safeties now storing the excess mana, the entire array was a large balloon of the most volatile gasses on the planet, and it was slowly expanding. Once it went critical, there wouldn't be much left of the boat.
Tearing down the hallway he'd come from, he solidified only long enough to grab the array off of the artificer's desk before fading back out and diving through the deck of the boat, ignoring the shocked shouts of the commander and his soldiers. The alicorn sunk like a rock into the depths of the ocean, the only thing he could make out eventually being the pull of gravity. Moments after his boots impacted the soft ocean floor, a pressure wave hit him from above. Looking up, he got a glimpse of what almost looked like the birth of a sun, the spell overloading in a fantastic explosion of raw energy that vaporized the boat along with a good couple hundred gallons of water, and flash-boiled anything unlucky enough to be in range of the heat wave. Even on the shore, many changeling drones and Equestrian soldiers fell to the explosion, the rain being turned to steam in a flash and cooking them where they stood.
With a bit of difficulty, Ted managed to finally break the surface of the ocean, following the upward tilt of the ocean floor to find the beach. Taking a look at the scene he now found before him, he found himself torn. On the one hand, the threat seemed to have been dealt with. On the other...
Drones lay scattered about, piles of bodies making some areas inaccessible without resorting to flight or his ethereal form. Farther away from the actual blast wave that occurred however, were the results of the loss of the link keeping the feral changelings in check. They had berserked from what he could see, ripping apart any living thing they could find, pony, wild animals, it didn't matter. When other prey was exhausted, they'd turned on each other. Even as he made his way through the gore spattered streets, he could still see some of the drones moving, weakly attempting to gnaw at the nearest body, hoping to find some way to stave off death even as their lifeblood left their bodies through grievous wounds. Walking past one in particular, Ted watched the changeling thrashing about in its death throes, the creature too lost in a blood rage to realize half its torso was missing.
There was just so much death. Ted couldn't go two paces without stepping on a corpse or dying body. A drone smashed against a wall here, a pegasus mauled there, an unidentifiable mass of bodies piled in a doorway of an abandoned house. It was a scene he figured would stay with him for the rest of his life. In some ways he hoped it would; it reminded him what he was standing against. This is what the Nightmare was promoting. The use of changelings are cannon fodder, and the extermination of all those who didn't or couldn't conform with her perfect world. This was the result of that agenda. Death dealt out to all those involved.
Readying himself for the trip back, feeling mentally exhausted from the ridiculous amounts of horrific scenes he'd been subjected to, he stopped cold when he heard voices speaking nearby. Pulling the cloaking ability over himself once more, he moved as quickly as he could, making his way to the voices. Coming up on the old guard tower once more that night, he noticed a large pile of dead changelings in the doorway, nearly blocking his view of several of the creatures huddled inside.
A small group of changelings sat clustered together in the tower, surrounding a small fire and huddling together for warmth under various torn blankets and cloaks. Moving closer the dark alicorn listened to their discussion.
"-telling you guys, there was something out there, and this one believes it is still out there." One said to the others. The group shared a few nervous looks before another spoke up.
"I am in agreement with his theory. The array was designed to prevent such a catastrophe." A second said, staring into the fire. "Such a meltdown was orchestrated by a third party, one that managed to evade over a thousand of our kind and walk right up to the control array."
"The question we must ask, then, is was its goal simply the destruction of an invader, in which we ourselves may now be its target, or was this targeted specifically against the forces of the Pony Queen." A third spoke, the buzzing voice having the feminine tones he'd recognized as differentiating Mirage from Grift.
"The question this one poses, instead, is does this creature see us as a threat, as prey, or inconsequential?" The first asked.
"I'm not waiting for somebuggy else to find us." The female finally said, standing up and making her way to the door.
"Are you insane? You'd either freeze to death or get eaten!" The second voice yelled at her.
"Better than waiting for some unknown monster to find and kill us all, or waiting for Equestrian reinforcements to find us and re enslave us all! I don't know about all of you, but I'm pretty fond of being able to scratch my shell when I have an itch!" The female yelled back.
Seeing her get closer to him, Ted smiled, dropping the invisibility in front of the gathered changelings. Immediately they backed to the other side of the building, putting as much distance between themselves and the alicorn as possible.
"A-a-alicorn..." One managed to stutter out, lancing Ted with a spear of guilt even as his own hope was restored by the discovery of survivors.
The female, gathering her wits once more took a few uneasy steps forward, lowering her horn in an aggressive stance. "I don't care if it's a buzzin' Mind Drinker, I'm not going back, and I'm not dying without a fight!"
Ted sloppily sidestepped the mare's lunge before he was struck from behind, a blow from an unseen attacker knocking the helmet off of the rest of the armor. Immediately all movement in the tower stopped. The survivors stared in horror at the still standing armor, only now able to see that it was in fact, empty.
A moment later, Ted's echoing voice broke the silence.
"Well this is awkward."
<-(0)->
It took him the better part of an hour to convince the group of twelve changelings that his desire to aid them was genuine, eventually resorting to speaking of the stock of love those at the Temple had gathered, and the fact he knew what love looked like. Few ponies knew what love looked like when harvested by changelings, and fewer understood how it was processed and stored. This, combined with his apparent knowledge of their race and his proclaimed hatred for the Mad Queen, had the changelings willing to follow him to the temple. They truly had no other goal at the moment anyway, besides staying alive, and they had no knowledge of the surrounding area. Even in top condition, changelings could not survive on their own in the jungle
. The journey was slow, the changelings weak from starvation and slowed by the pounding storm. Several times they stopped to make fires to warm themselves, Ted drying the wood and starting the fires personally so that the changelings could conserve what little energy they had left. Hours later, a drone at the front of the group stopped, his ears perked up.
"What is it? What do you hear?" one behind him asked.
The drone continued to stare forward, not even turning back to answer.
"I smell love. Happiness too." He said. "L-lots of it." With that he took a shaky step forward, followed by another at a faster pace. Before the drone got too far, Ted nabbed him in his aura.
"There may be guards out watching for the Mad Queen's army. I don't need any of you running out there and getting killed because they got overzealous. I'll go first." Brushing aside a few more leaves in the underbrush, the alicorn took in the sight of the Temple of the Shadows and breathed a sigh of relief. Turning to the changelings, he smiled warmly as he could at them in his current form, before speaking in a loud clear voice.
"I welcome you to my home, lost ones. I offer you shelter, food, and should you accept, a home, a hive, and a link safe from detection from the Mad Queen."
Even as they made their way into the Main Temple, Ted found himself directing ponies away from the changelings, whose mouths were watering even as they greedily absorbed what concern they could from the few ponies that were awake at the early hour. Eventually Ted had directed them to the queen's outer room, asking them to wait there while he prepared something for them.
<-(0)->
"This had better be important Cimmerian, I'm still exhausted from the panic and preparations I was involved in last night." Pandinus told the alicorn as he lead her down the stairs to her room.
Ted merely smiled, looking back at the her as she trailed behind, sleep still having a grip on her. "Trust me, Din, this will be worth it."
Pushing open the door, he beheld with his own eyes the survivors of the blood-rage induced slaughter that had wiped out the majority of the force to the east.
"My guests, might I introduce you to Queen Pandinus, Resident Changeling Queen at the Temple of the Shadows. Pandinus, these are the survivors that were freed when the link array was destroyed."
For a long while, neither party said a word, both sides just staring at each other in shock. One drone finally worked up the courage to respond, slowly walking up to the queen. He looked at her searchingly, most likely looking for something, before turning to his fellows.
"She, I don't see it. I think she's her." Returning his gaze to the queen the drone bowed low. "I humbly offer my service in trade for whatever aid you can provide. Even the smallest offerings of food would be an improvement from our previous conditions." He was quickly joined by four others, all swearing themselves to the queen in hopes of a better chance at survival. Pandinus merely looked from them to Ted several times, her mind obviously abuzz with the possibilities laid out before her. Taking a deep breath, she did something that threw the dark alicorn for a loop.
The queen levitated several jars of glowing liquids, one surprisingly being pink, considering how jealously she guarded any love she obtained, and left the jars on the ground before the survivors.
"Rest and recover before you make that decision. This, the love and happiness I'm giving you now is plentiful here. Those of us already situated here will not go hungry without it."
As the drones broke open the bottles, sometimes literally, and consumed the contents with gusto, Ted moved up behind the queen, curious.
"While I'm happy you didn't try to leverage them into joining your hive, Din, I need to know. Why didn't you force the issue?"
Taking a shaky breath, the queen looked him in the eye. "Because they're starving. Because I know how that feels. And because you didn't force me to join you." She said. "That's, love right? Giving something you like and not asking for something in return. Did I get it right?"
Ted smiled and gave her a hug, wrapping both forelegs around her. "It's a type of love, Din. It's the love we give those we don't know. Charity, or charitable love. And while they won't be able to feed you with it, they'll love you for it, I promise." He said quietly. "They'll love you for being willing to help them when they needed it, they'll love you for allowing them freedom to chose, and if they stay with you and you treat them well, like they're your own hatchlings, they'll love you for being their mother and queen."
The larger shape shifter slowly smiled at his explanation, watching as the drones ate their fill before curling up on the familiar texture of a changeling constructed floor, leaving Ted to wonder just how quickly a changeling could adapt and learn when they understood what they could gain from the information. If he wasn't careful, she may become a better family and leadership figure than he was.
Rubbing a hoof on the wing covers, he smiled at the scene of the resting survivors. "You did good, Din. Real good."
<-(0)->
Far away, in a small room lined with crystals and spell arrays, a small light blinked on the wall with a small note just after the name.
Control Array 3B: Not Responding/Connection Lost
In another room of the castle, another light was blinking, much to the irritation of the unicorn in the room.
Unit 4H: Late to Report: Unresponsive
The unicorn shook his head. Whatever idiot knocked out their communication array this time would be keeping the Queen occupied for at least a week. If he was lucky, he'd keep all his inside bits where they were supposed to be.
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Seems the Mad Queen knows better to let her troops go without something to make sure they aren't responsive.
Also dang, you're certainly churning them out lately.
Feral changelings are a really nasty bunch, but we knew that already.
Good to see there were survivors to save. Considering the nonchalant indifference the guards would show around them, they might have valuable information.
So many glorious updates! Thank you!
Not one cliffhanger, but three!
Sigh.
:)
Man I want more and I wanted it yesterday!
But I can forgive you if I have another chapter by tomorrow.
Why am I so happy for Pandinus?
Well, it was only a matter of time before first contact with the enemy... It will be telling to see how fast, or slow, the Equestria military discovers a "fool-proof" array went critical and causing the changeling horde to self-destruct by proxy. Oh! I really loved that deconstruction of the array and it's final moments as it nuked the ship. Not only shows how good Nightmare Twilight is as magic, but the complications involved in mentally dominating a horde of changelings. This complicated system almost makes it easier to break once Ted figures out what "wires" to pull and cause the main crystal to go BOOM.
And didn't he snag a set of armor too? Good news everyone! Something tangible to work with. Pick that rune apart to see what makes the horde-controller spell tick. Thinking like a human, electronic countermeasures, jamming signals. Would it be possible to create an anti-spell, or anti-rune, to disable or disrupt the orders? I'd think Nightmare Twilight would have put in some filters to prevent conflicting orders such as the horde to attack itself or the Equestrian ponies and equipment, but there's other ways to utterly confound a communications system and render the horde useless so we only have to deal with the ponies.
I do wonder what was in the crates however, they were noted as being stacked oddly so they might of had some importance? I'm certain Ted will get another chance to be a spy when more ships prowl around. He might wish to let the neighbors, such as the dragon, know that Doom is coming sooner than expected to this end of the world. The Temple of Shadows is hidden while the town is out in the open, a good place for Equestrians to start terrorizing for information on what happened to the exploded ship. Once the crap hits the fan, we'll get to see where true loyalties lie in regards to that town... how quickly the dragon sells out Ted.
And before I forget, cracked horn and plucked wings? Cadance needs all the hugs right now. She is obviously that mystery mare with town-sweeping heartsongs. I can only shudder to think what Nightmare Twilight's done to her own brother and parents. If Ted can rescue Cadance from wherever she is, that would be a massive boon to the Temple. Just think, the Princess of Love working with Free Changelings? Holy crap!
Well, not much left of that ship, I'm guessing, considering the array might as well have been a small tac-nuke. And unless whoever the Mad Queen sends to investigate is hilariously good at sensing and interpreting ambient magic flows (if that is even a thing) I doubt there is anything useful left after a magical explosion like that.
So Ted and Company should be safe for a little while longer, or so I hope.
Overall, good chapter.
So loving this at the moment. Thanks for the recent updates.
The ship Griffons managed to outrun the natural storm, but they got, processed, by the Mad storm.
Im wondering how quickly the Mad Queen will find out it was an attack, compared to how slow Ted will be decoding the arrays and trying to work out how to Chrysler her by putting a viral rewrite in one of those reactor arrays, powered by the reactor overloading to stress the reciving code.
Taking out the control room at least would be useful, because it would mean the activation of the secondary, which would need all new recoding and extra work, all giving Ted time, with only smaller loyal groups search for him?
Take out the command tank, and use gurrilla methods, and they might last long enough to have the Mad queen bring out her Tirek beam. Then its breaking that from the inside thats the problem, getting to Celestia etc.
Well well well. That happend.
Now, it is time to mount a rescue mission.
Stakes raised! And Din is so very adorable.
That one should be a 'they're'.
6267068 Well, I was going to comment, but you said it already. Also, disabling a central array point like that will probably only work at best one more time before they send a truly massive force down there of just changelings with a slowly overloading array to make a living nuke with no real control or limiting factor.
These changelings worry me.
I also have to ask because I just noticed it but was this part already planned by the time you wrote A Fathers Love or did the look of Cadence come from that?
Considering the monitoring ponies reaction, I'm guessing that there's been accidents before.
I'd wager feral changelings getting twitchy or clumsy around the array's core.
6267195 and because one of the rules of a Dictorship that has worked very well. Nightmare Twilly will most likly blame her soldors, and not think about a new Alicorn, because really how likly is that
Once is chance. Twice is hapenstance. Three times is enemy action. I think Ted just got his 'Once.'
If he's lucky, the Mad queen will dismiss this little event as pure bad luck. Especially if the guards were already putting in complaints that their amor's runes weren' working quite right. (Dead changelings almost landing on them and all.) Could b an indication of substandard maintanence and general incompetance in that unit, culminating in a crtical failure. These things happen, and it seems like the accidet has already 'punished' the incompetent. No need to a big investigation.
If Ted is REALLY lucky... Then all the guards who heard talk of an 'Alicorn' leading the gryphons away were wtihin the blast radius...
And now he hada copy of some of the echantments the Queen is using protect her own troops. Clearly Ted's group is too small and weak to do much with that information himself... But he could aways decipher how it works, then pass it on to the Gryphons, and anybody lse opposing the Mad Queen. Really lay up the darkness/shadow role, and secretly supply resistance groups with knowledge and tools to make them more effective, while hiding his involvement. To the Mad Queen it would just seem like some surprisingly competent opposition. Just a bump in the road and a small delay to her inevtable victory as she tweaks her tactics and tools.
Just how dead does everyone expect twilight to be by the end?
6266949 We still don't have a timeline on that fight. All we learned is the outcome of the clash between the Queen and Cadence.
6267068
Nope. He grabbed the template the field technician used to maintain the seals on the armor... which is even better.
Or they were stacked oddly so the watch could sit under them and out of the rain.
Din's learning well, cim's followers are steadily growing and Cadence's health makes my heart ache.
keeping the hope alive Cim, keep the hope alive.
6267233 I actually expect him to kill the nightmare residing within her, instead of Twily herself
Cadance needs hugs *gets penguin and throws it at her*. BOOM done (that was a boom of accomplishment not explosion)
6267233
Considering she is a prisoner in her own mind, the effort to free her will likely be wasted.
After the holocaust her body unwillingly performed, Twilight may very well off herself the moment she is able to.
Luna was scarred by Nightmare Moon, who was clearly an amature and never got that far in her schemes...
Nightmare Twilight has systematically ruined every aspect of its host's life and Equestria as a whole.
For Decades.
And remember, that Nightmare Armor? Its doubles as a torture device for the host...
Bets are Twilight's got the Mark II model on.
I'm concerned about Cadance. How plucked are her wings? Cut or torn off by the roots, or just the feathers plucked, and can they be healed or grown back? And the cracked horn, can that be repaired? I hope so.
Interesting that Nightmare Books' own soldiers call her mad, and are aware of what she's done with the rightful rulers.
Means they'll probably turn on her, if she appears vulnerable enough.
6267208 EXACTLY!
The real question is how good/big was that unit? You don't typically send your laggards after important targets after all. So either the griffin conflict is ongoing and this was a minor diversion, or these were some of the better troops hunting down the last bit/scouting for the next target.
Size not counting Changelings.
6267373 Sad but true. I dont see this ending good for Twiley in any way possible. If she dont off herself, or get offed in the process of eliminating nightmare. Then all who she has affected will want her blood, and theres nothing celestia, luna, discord, and/or cimmerian can do about it.
6267506
The last Nightmare tried to actually destroy the world and was a nearly literal sword of Damocles floating visibly over everyone's heads for a thousand years. They still didn't try to lynch Luna for it. Twilight just conquered the world, if in a particularly cruel fashion. The general population may not end up happy about that, once she is freed, but there definitely is a whole lot more than nothing the other ones could do about it if they were to actually try that.
JUN-A-120
Into the Storm
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
REWARD POINTS: 126,000
REWARD FUNDS: 38,000
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PRIMARY OBJECTIVE, DIVERT ENEMY HIVE: SUCCESS
SECONDARY OBJECTIVE 1, SINK THE ENEMY SHIP: SUCCESS
SECONDARY OBJECTIVE 2, RESCUE SURVIVORS: SUCCESS
SECONDARY OBJECTIVE 3, REMAIN UNDETECTED: SUCCESS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OBJECTIVE COMPLETION: 100%
ENEMY DESTRUCTION: 100%
BONUS POINTS: 182,645
BONUS FUNDS: 78,452
RANK:
S A B C D E F
[NEW]
BONUS INTELLIGENCE GATHERED!
s3.amazonaws.com/kym-assets/photos/images/newsfeed/000/190/373/131942790061.jpg?1319428090
...Assassin's Creed, amirite?
So... when do we get to see Ted start his mechanized armor division?
I want tanks, dammit.
: (
Or power armor. That's fun too.
And now the Mad Queen casts her eyes in Ted's direction, I'm sure she will be quick to notice that something is going on...
6267558
The point was that Nightmare Moon didn't last long enough in the open world to build up a list of crimes to make Stalin Jealous...
Nightmare Twilight has.
And when the dust settles Twilight, who has been forced to sit shotgun to EVERY crime committed, Will likely off herself rather than live with the knowledge of the crimes her body committed.
Luna was forced to watch her body PLAN Xenocide.
Twilight was forced to watch her body SUCCEED in Genocide.
Play more pokemon!
Noooo! Not poor Cadance! She is like my favorite alicorn... after Luna... and Twilight. Well not THIS Twilight. But that doesn't matter, Cadance is awesome. I want to see a story where she uses two massive battle axes, not sure why, I just do.
"Ted"
On second though, naw, you post super fast and I don't think my editing times could keep up. But I still kinda want to try.
i.imgur.com/d4AQ0.jpg
Just like the strong bond between alicorn and queen will power this ship for YEARS before having to be refueled. We need Cadance QUICK! There is shipping to do!
Heh, period escaped to the next sentence.
YAY!
Hmmmm, hopefully the Nightmare suspects incompetence or something that doesn't involve some third party. If not, Ted is in deep shit. I also think a ship captain needs to be burned alive or tortured with nightmares for a long time.
6267664 Do you mean nightmares worse than what he already has or just have them repeating, and repeating over and over again for a much longer period of time?
6267641
Don't go overinterpreting things just because you want to see this story push the sadgrimdark even harder than it already has. We don't have any real idea yet what Nightmare Moon actually did or what she succeeded in. The version you're going with is a very different kind of story from this one. You can't really have it both ways - it's either the ineffectual saturday morning cartoon villain who never actually achieves anything or the vicious tyrant who enslaves and murders a whole species to get her way. Those don't really work congruously in the same setting. Not if they're supposed to be possessed by the same creature.
6267582
I would only give it an A not an S. Twilight knows something is up and will be willing to hand Cimmerian an A and two S's if given the chance.
His little part of the world just became important on Twilight's war map.
6267413
I am surprised that would be the fate of the "princess of food."
She is a primary boon for any changelings that she is around.
6267811
Scoring in WSG2 is based on enemy destruction and objective completion. If you wipe out the enemy entirely and succeed in all objectives, no matter how tentatively you pulled it off, you get S rank, assuming you're playing on Normal or harder. And I'm pretty sure he's playing on HARD.
6267792
OH! What would be good is to start with dreams and slowly ramp up. Give him hope it is over just to crush it every single night. Dirty cat-bird snitches get worse than stitches.
6267893
Nothing could be said better than those words.
Have a Moustache.
"...In to..." -Unless things are taking a kinky turn to Tedwina "Ted Sonya" Sparkle...
Yay! Such a fun read. Actually spent the last two days catching up, best five hours spent reading by the way.
Still cant wait for future instalments.
Ghost Recon: Arcane Warfare!
6267598 Agreed. 'Course, 'tis to be expected from someone with "Tank" in their name.
6267793
Its not interpreting much of anything, its basic logic and canon storyline. Doesn't matter if she was effectual or not.
Nightmare Moon simply wasn't free long enough to cause global conflict on the scale Nightmare Twilight has.
Even if there was a bloody uprising over a few years, Nightmare Twilight has still got the higher body count. Exponentially.
The story has pointed that out.
Doesn't matter if NMM was Satam Villain or not. NT is clearly isn't.
Sadgrimdark or not Twilight is not due for a quick fix. She IS part of the
deus ex machinaHarmony Laser you know. So that fix is out. NT even made sure of it.Point hasn't changed. Trauma wise, Luna was better off than Twilight.
Luna Planned mass murder.
Twilight Accomplished mass murder.
Ergo.
Twilight will be in a bad place at the end of this.
6268120
No doubt, but going from there to "she's totally going to kill herself" is a bit of a stretch, even if you don't agree with me that a lot of this is somewhat speculative.