The Pony Who Is the New Sheriff in Town
I wasn’t any closer to figuring out what was rotten in Canterlot when Rainbow Dash dropped by the compound the next day. She was pacing around, flicking her wings and stomping her hooves, and I was conversant enough in Rainbow-ese to know that meant something was bothering her. As soon as she spotted me, Rainbow all but bolted over to me. “Cloud, we got a problem. I need to talk to you about the you-know-what and ... stuff.”
Well, that was wonderfully vague. From the way her eyes were darting around, I was pretty sure all that vagueness was deliberate—whatever was on her mind, she wanted to talk to me in private. “Sure thing. Let’s go to my office.”
One minute and a short walk later, I was dealing with a very unimpressed-looking Rainbow Dash. “Kicker, this is just your bedroom.”
“Yeah, well, I do most of my patrol planning and stuff from here, and the title of Captain of the Home Watch doesn’t come with an official office,” I grumbled. That was the one downside of the Home Watch: it might not be quite as much work or pressure as a real Guard command, but it came with absolutely none of the perks. Admittedly, being around my family was nice, but with as many Kickers as there are in the Guard it’s not like I’d be completely starved for clan interaction there either.
I grinned and gave Dash a teasing little bump with my hip. “Besides, telling you to come to my office makes everything sound all official and businesslike. Asking you to come my bedroom makes it sound like I’m trying to seduce you, and then you’d probably get all freaked out and blushy.”
“Would not.” Rainbow gave an irritated flick of her wings. “Seriously, with as much time as I spend around you, I’m totally immune to all your weirdness.”
I couldn’t let a challenge like that go unanswered. Sure, I might be in a place where I needed to tone things down a bit, but I still had my pride. “Immune, huh?” I dropped my voice to a low, husky whisper, before nuzzling Rainbow’s ear. “So it wouldn’t get you even a little hot and bothered if I did ... this?” I planted a kiss on her cheek while one of my hooves slowly trailed down the edge of her wing.
Rainbow stayed stock still for a couple seconds, though the faint tremble in her legs and growing heat in her cheeks gave her away. Finally, right about the time I gave one of her pinions a teasing little tug, Rainbow let out an almost Fluttershy-esque squeak and pulled her wing away from my grasp. “Um, n-not that that kinda thing was bothering me at all or anything, but I got stuff to talk to you about, so there’s no time for any of your ... your you-ness, okay?”
I pulled back from her, reasonably content in my victory for the moment. We both knew I’d gotten to her, so there was no point in rubbing her face in the fact. “Yeah, sure. Whatever you say, Rainbow.” I gave her a couple seconds to get over any lingering embarrassment before getting back to the matter at hoof. “So, what was it you wanted to talk about?”
Rainbow blinked a couple times, then her ears perked back as her mental railroad recovered from the rather nasty derailing I’d inflicted on it. “Oh yeah, that. Right. The thing...” She took a moment to gather her thoughts. “Well, there was kinda a problem with the whole wedding thing. Y’see, we were doing a big wedding rehearsal earlier, and Twilight just stormed in and started ranting and raving about how Cadance was evil ‘cause she was trying to steal her big brother from her and stuff, and we needed to cancel the wedding.” Her tail gave an irritated little toss. “Not that it’s any surprise she hates Princess Cadance. She was all pissed from the moment she found out her brother was getting married. I’m surprised she didn’t accuse the princess of kicking puppies and eating foals!”
Well, it sounded like I wasn’t the only one whose life was messy and complicated. I guess I could kind of sympathize, given the kind of impression Cadance had left on me, but cancelling the wedding was a pretty huge step—especially considering how the Princesses were turning it into a big morale-boosting celebration. Let’s face it, a five-minute meeting with the mare in the middle of a bunch of hectic and stressful wedding preparations probably wasn’t going to leave the fairest first impression. It’d be like judging Fluttershy by the one or two times she’d freaked out under massive stress, when ninety-nine percent of the time she’s a complete sweetheart.
“Okay, so Twilight’s not a fan of the wedding.” I gave Rainbow a faintly confused look. “That’s definitely a problem, but isn’t it something you should be talking to her about? Why come all the way here?”
Rainbow went silent, idly walking up to the armor stand sitting in the corner and and taking a few practice swings at it. “That’s the thing that’s really got me bugged now. I mean, at first we were all kinda mad at her going all nutso on us, but then I started thinking we oughta find her and see what the deal was. I mean, I could kinda understand being a little freaked out about the idea that her brother’s gonna be shacking up with some mare she barely even knows.” She paused, and let out an annoyed little snort. “Though you’d think if she cared about her big brother that much, she would’ve told her best friends about him. I didn’t even know she had a brother until a couple days ago!
“Anyway, we were gonna go find her to try and talk to her and stuff, but that’s when things got weird. ‘Cause nopony in Canterlot has seen her since the fight during the rehearsal. I checked her room, all the libraries and museums, all the other egghead places, the stadium where they do the Wonderbolt Derby, that doughnut shop, everywhere! It’s like she just dropped off the face of Equestria!”
That got me worried. Twilight Sparkle having a stress breakdown just meant it was Tuesday again. Twilight Sparkle disappearing without a trace was a much bigger deal, especially when the city was already on high alert. Even if nothing fishy was going on, she was a high-strung Alpha-Plus unicorn. The last two times Twilight got a bit overstressed, she tried to break the space-time continuum and started riots with an errant mind-control spell. “I’m guessing you’ve already asked her family too?”
“Duh,” Rainbow grumbled, rolling her eyes. “Her brother figures she’s just off sulking somewhere after everypony told her that making the bride cry in the middle of a wedding rehearsal isn’t cool. He thinks she’ll be back for the wedding to apologize and stuff. Guess I could see that, but I’d still feel a bit better if I knew where she was.” She shrugged, and her wings gave an irritated little flick. “It just doesn’t sound right to me. Twilight’s usually not a sulky loner type, but I guess her brother knows her better than we do.” Rainbow let out an annoyed grumble, and broke out the sarcasm as she added, “Y’know, since they’re so close that Twilight never even mentioned him, and he didn’t even bother to let her know he was getting married.”
Rainbow gave a wave of her hoof, as if she were tossing the matter aside. “Anyway, if she’s pulling a Rarity and going all ‘I vant to be alone!’ on us, I guess she could do a pretty good job of keeping away with all the teleporting and stuff—though if I knew where to look I’d find her eventually.” She paused for several seconds, then trotted over to my bed and slumped down on it. “You know if there’s any way Star could find out where she is?”
I thought it over for a minute, then shook my head. “You’d have to ask her, but probably not. I don’t think Star’s ever had a chance to slip one of her trackers onto Twilight, and even if she could get her hooves on some of Twilight’s hair or something, I’d be surprised if the Princess’ personal student doesn’t know how to deal with a simple tracking spell.” Like pretty much everypony related to Star, I’d learned a fair bit about how tracking spells worked and how to counteract them. Between that and the usual West Hoof training in what kind of things unicorns can do, I like to think that I know more about magic than the average pegasus.
“Figures,” Rainbow groused. “Things can’t ever be easy.” She shifted around on my bed a bit, then turned to face me. “But yeah, Twilight going missing made me start thinking about the last time a pony went and suddenly disappeared without a trace. Y’know, the whole thing with your mom and stuff.”
That got a bit of a flinch out of me, but by this point Mom’s death was ... well, still painful, but kind of like a wound that had scabbed over and stopped bleeding. Especially considering the implications of what Dash said. “You think she might have been replaced by another one of those bugs?” Last I’d heard, the Princess didn’t think whoever was causing trouble had the resources and connections to hire another one of those mercenary shapeshifters, but there’s a big difference between ‘not likely’ and ‘impossible.’
“Yeah.” Rainbow nodded, taking a couple more swings in the general direction of my armor stand, though it was too far away for her to even come close to hitting. “I mean, it’d make sense to go after her, right? Aside from Spike, she lives on her own, and except for her magic she can’t really fight. Seriously, she’s got no muscle at all, unless you count her eye-muscles. So yeah, one of those bug things just sneaks up on her, nabs her, and next thing you know you’ve got a spy who’s Princess Celestia’s personal student.”
Feathers. That actually sounded like a plausible scenario. Granted, going after an Alpha-Plus unicorn like Twilight was taking a big risk, but if you were trying to get an agent close to Princess Celestia it would be hard to find a better choice than her personal student. Not to mention taking her out would deprive Equestria of the Elements of Harmony. If a changeling had replaced Twilight, nopony would think there was anything out of the ordinary if she spent a couple of days holed up in the library while the bug settled into its new role. Even a unicorn with a ridiculous amount of raw power can get ambushed, especially since she needs to sleep just like everypony else.
There was just one fact that didn’t quite fit. “So if there’s some evil bug monster pretending to be Twilight, why call so much attention to herself by trying to mess up the wedding? You’d think she would be trying to avoid doing anything out of place and flying under the radar.”
“Yeah,” Dash agreed, “unless she’s up to something else. Like, if she’s getting something outta busting up the wedding that’d make the risk pay off. Her brother’s in charge of keeping up the big shield over the whole city, right? So maybe she figures that with the wedding coming up there’s no way she can get to her brother without somepony figuring out something weird’s going on, but if she can break it up then all she needs to do is tell everypony he needs a couple days off to think about stuff, and then she can get to him and have him take down the shield without anypony noticing.”
I frowned at Rainbow, thinking it over. “I dunno, that seems a little thin.” It’s not that there was anything in her idea that made absolutely no sense, but those ideas had to jump through a lot of mental hoops to get to where Dash wanted them. You’d think that if Twilight had been replaced by a changeling infiltrator, it could come up with a less complicated plan for taking Shining Armor out. Heck, it wouldn’t be that hard to lure him somewhere for a private conversation, then pull a surprise attack and take his place to avoid raising any alarms.
Come to think of it, that could also explain why Twilight had vanished without a trace. She’d been replaced, but now the bug had upgraded to a new assumed identity. That was a worrying thought for the day. Rather than linger too long on that paranoia fuel, I threw another question Rainbow’s way. “You tell Princess Celestia any of this? She’ll know more about what’s going on than we do.”
Rainbow immediately nodded. “Yeah, it’s just an idea. Not sure I buy it myself, but once I thought of it, I couldn’t un-think it. Either way, I still wanna make sure Twilight’s okay. Just a question of whether or not I need to kick some bug’s sorry plot to make sure she’s alright.” Rainbow took a deep breath and got back on track. “As soon as the whole changeling thing occurred to me I checked with Princess Celestia, just ‘cause I figured she would know if there might be anything to it beyond me having a brain fart. She didn’t say anything though, she just gave me her Princess Look.”
“What princess look?” I asked.
“Y’know what I mean.” Rainbow waved a hoof in the air. “The Princess Look.”
“If I knew what you meant, would I be asking?”
One of Rainbow’s ears gave an irritated little twitch. “C’mon, you know the look. The one that’s all ... Princess-y.”
Rainbow Dash really does have a way with words sometimes. “Dash, how about you try explaining the look to me without using the word ‘Princess’ anywhere.”
Rainbow grumbled a few less-than-complimentary things about my intelligence, then got to it. “It’s that look where she’s all ‘I’ve been alive for more than a thousand years, so I totally know stuff that I’m not gonna tell you about, and what you just said is something I’m gonna think about and act on without necessarily telling you anything.’” Rainbow’s ears twitched a bit. “Now do you get it?”
“Yeah, now that you’ve actually explained what you were trying to say in clear, comprehensible Equestrian, I do understand what you were trying to say.” Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure I’d also been on the receiving end of that look when I talked to Princess Celestia in the graveyard. I trotted up and gave Rainbow a mildly condescending pat on the shoulder. “See how much it helps when you use actual words?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Rainbow rolled her eyes at me. “Well if Princess-y isn’t a word, it should be. So, that’s pretty much the same thing, really. I mean, am I really supposed to spend five minutes explaining what I mean when instead I could just say that she’s being all Princess-y?”
“Yeah, forcing everypony to learn your made-up words is clearly going to be far less effort than just using comprehensible Equestrian that everypony else understands.” Sometimes, I really have no idea how that mare’s brain works. “Anyway, so Princess Celestia gave you a Princess Look and didn’t say anything. That tells us ... pretty much nothing.”
In my admittedly limited experience, the Princesses tended to keep their own counsel on a lot of things. Apparently around the same time immortals get all their powers, they lose the ability to simply and clearly explain themselves without holding back any secrets. While I’m sure they probably knew a ton of secrets that ordinary ponies had no business knowing—anypony who knows their history can tell you about how much trouble the knowledge of Ascension has caused—there were times when they could be a little more forthcoming. Then again, Rainbow Dash certainly didn’t need to know anything that might prompt her to go and do something stupid and impulsive. I guess at the end of the day, deciding which secrets should stay secret is always gonna be complicated.
I will admit that it’s kinda cool having secrets that nopony else knows. One of the perks of being a long-standing Guard family is that the Kickers do know a few things that most other ponies aren’t privy to. Not huge Equestria-shaking secrets, but we do have a couple little bits of hidden knowledge, like how to open the vault containing Shadow’s armor.
“Well, I’ll let everypony know to keep an eye out for Twilight,” I offered. Sure, the odds that Twilight would just randomly stumble onto the clan’s compound and run into one of my watchponies were pretty close to zero, but it couldn’t hurt. Plus, it would make Rainbow feel better. “I’ll see about getting Star on finding her too.” Once again, it was a longshot, but sometimes those paid off.
Judging by the relieved smile on Rainbow’s face, I’d made the right call. “Yeah? Thanks, Cloud.” She clambered off of my bed and gave me a quick punch in the shoulder by way of thanks. “Nice to know you’ve got my back.”
“Always.” I couldn’t resist throwing in a little bit of smartflankery. “If nothing else, the view is nice.”
“Aw, shaddup.” Rainbow punched me again, this time a little bit harder, but she was still smiling when she did it. She’ll never admit it, but Rainbow enjoys the ego-boost that comes from a little casual flirting from yours truly. “Anyway, I’d like to stick around, but we’ve got a wedding coming up tomorrow. Between the first rehearsal turning into a total bust and the fact that we need a new best mare for Shining Armor, things are even more nuts than they were before. Plus now I’ve gotta do bridesmaid stuff on top of doing a Sonic Rainboom...”
Wait, that was new. “What do you mean you have to do bridesmaid stuff?” I’d met Cadance’s bridesmaids yesterday, and I’d seen one lazy minty-fresh mare, one mildly obsessive dentist, and a third cute unicorn I didn’t recognize but wouldn’t mind getting to know a bit better sometime. Rainbow Dash was notable only by her absence among the Princess’ bridesmaids—it’s hard to miss the self-proclaimed most awesome pony in all of Equestria, ever. “Since when are you a bridesmaid, Dash?”
“Princess Cadance changed it up last night,” Rainbow announced with a casual wave of her hoof. “I guess it was her way of apologizing for being such a nag yesterday. You know, with the whole bridezilla thing?”
“Huh.” Seems like a weird way to make an apology, but it’s not my wedding. I would imagine a lot of ponies would see being a royal bridesmaid as a pretty big honor, even if it is for one of the lesser mortal princesses. Royalty is still royalty, after all. “So, what, does she have eight bridesmaids now? Seems like an awful lot of ponies.” Though considering how last minute all the wedding preparations were, I could see the pragmatic side of stacking up a lot of bridesmaids—hay, I’ve done that once or twice after a wedding. Well, there were two bridesmaids and a bunk bed involved. Good times.
Leaving those pleasant memories aside for the moment, bridesmaids were usually expected to help out with keeping the wedding on track. Of course, Dash and her friends had been doing that already. Maybe that was part of why Cadance gave them the job: pretty much the only part of bridesmaid duty they hadn’t already signed up for was standing around in pretty dresses at the wedding itself.
Rainbow Dash’s answer caught me off guard. “Nah, she got rid of her old bridesmaids. Shining Armor said something about how the only reason they even took the job was ‘cause she was a princess and that being bridesmaids would make them look good.” Rainbow frowned at that, and shrugged. “Doesn’t really sound like Lyra, but I figure they probably just got tired of putting up with all her horseapples while she was still in psycho-rage mode and quit.”
I’ll admit, I could see Lyra throwing in the towel after an entire day of putting up with bridezilla, but something about that explanation just didn’t quite sit right with me. It took me a moment to put my hoof down on what exactly I didn’t like about it. “You seen Lyra since she quit? You’d think she’d drop by just to talk about what an utter nag Cadance was, if she was that pissed.”
“Huh.” Rainbow scratched her chin for a moment, then shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe she’s hanging with her parents instead, or went back to Ponyville and Bon Bon. Or she could’ve decided to go get hammered after she quit.” Rainbow let out an annoyed snort. “Not that I’d blame her. Princess Cadance isn’t acting as bad as everypony said she was yesterday, but she’s still .... well, it’s enough that I’m gonna see if I can steal some cider off of Applejack tonight. All this wedding stuff is a real pain in the flank.”
Lyra hitting the bars I could definitely see. Sure, she’d tried to tone down the drinking ever since she’d hooked up with Bon Bon, but she wasn’t a teetotaller or anything, and a long, stressful day would be enough to send anypony running to a bar. However, you’d think if that was what she had in mind, she would’ve come looking for me first. Ever since that thing a couple years back during the Summer Sun Celebration she’d been pretty careful about always having a drinking buddy when she went out on the town. Besides, she would want somepony to tag along with her while she was bar-hopping so she’d have a sympathetic ear to complain to. Not to mention the likely prospect of a drunken bang once the night was over.
Normally Rule Three applies when it comes to having sex with drunk ponies, but with as long as Lyra and I had been banging it wasn’t a big issue. There’s a world of difference between dragging some pony who’s too drunk to see straight and has never even met you before back to your bed versus doing that with a pony I’ve regularly banged for years. The whole issue of consent was a lot less thorny, although I still tried to make sure she wasn’t too drunk.
I might not have been all that worried about Lyra under most circumstances—her dropping off the radar after a really stressful day wouldn’t be too strange, but with everything else going on I was starting to get a bit wary. Maybe I was being a little paranoid, but two ponies disappearing without a trace in twenty-four hours sounded a bit suspicious to me.
Granted, if I took it to the gendarmes I would probably get the usual runaround that without any evidence of foul play other than a gut feeling, they would tell me to wait for a day or two before reporting anypony missing. As it was, if I went to them they’d trot out most of the exact same reasons Rainbow had just offered: there were a dozen perfectly rational explanations for where the two had gone that wouldn’t require a Canterlot-wide ponyhunt. The gendarmes get a bit annoyed when they’ve got half the force combing the city for a mare who’s just hanging out with an old college buddy. It’d probably be even harder to get anypony to listen now, between all the general military buildup and the chaos caused by needing to provide security for a hastily-planned royal wedding
Luckily for me, I had an ace in the hole when it came to finding missing ponies.
I found the lovebirds out in the training yard. They weren’t getting up to sexytimes, but it was possible Star had gotten advance warning of my arrival and cut that off. From the looks of things, Star was working through some combat evocation drills and putting on a show for her new fillyfriend. She looked at one of the training targets, concentrated, and half a dozen little balls of light popped out of her horn, floated around for a second or so, then homed in on the target.
Star’s no battle mage—she didn’t have the talent or the raw power to fling attack spells all over the place—but any unicorn who goes through West Hoof is gonna be reasonably proficient in how to use their magic as a weapon. Even the old Unicornian knights used a decent amount of combat magic, and they were famous for having far more physical combat skill than traditional unicorn soldiers. Training a unicorn to fight without working in combat magic is like training a pegasus to fight without including any wing-work, or earth ponies not taking advantage of their natural strength and knack for engineering. At the end of the day, different ponies have different skills, and ignoring that is just stupid.
Admittedly, from what I’ve heard Star had to put in a lot of work to get her battle magic down. Pretty much any time a unicorn wants to learn spells outside of their special talent, it’s a pain in the flank. It’s sort of like if I wanted to learn how to play the piano: if I really wanted to put in all the time and effort I could probably get decent at it. However, it would probably take me a lot more effort to manage than it would for pony whose talent was in music, and I’d probably never get up to the level that a pony with talent could reach.
It’s why a lot of ponies never bother to learn too many skills outside of their special talents; having to put in so much effort when the ponies with a natural edge just do it so easily can be rather disheartening. Granted, ponies can come up with a couple ways to cheat the system if they’re sneaky enough. It can’t be a coincidence that every single attack spell I’ve ever seen Star practice involves shooting out little blasts of fire, ice, or magic that home in on her target. I guess tracking them with fireballs gets the job done.
Sparkler stomped her hooves in approval of Star’s latest display as I trotted up to the newly-minted couple. I suppose I could’ve been all nice and supportive, but teasing them seemed like it would be much more fun. “So, you two are finally out in the open. I guess that means I can’t tease you anymore.” The two young mares knew me far too well to actually fall for that line, but that didn’t make delivering the follow-up any less enjoyable. “So, have you two done the dirty dance yet? If you want, I can totally loan you a couple of my old toys and my copy of the Kamare Sutra. Just wash everything thoroughly before you bring it back, and be careful; some of that stuff has a lot of sentimental value.”
Derpy’s daughter was already blushing and stammering, but my cousin was made of slightly tougher stuff. Or maybe she was just more used to putting up with me. “Thanks for the offer, Cloud, but Sparks and I already took care of that. We spent all of last night going on a massive orgy involving lots of alcohol and illegal drugs. Plus, of course, the sex. Lots of it.”
“Yes,” Sparkler finally managed to squeak out. “We had lots of sexy, sexy sex. Very sexily.”
Ah, classic Star deflection tactic. Throw out a sarcastic confession to something a dozen times worse than what she’s being accused of in the hope that everypony forgets what she was really suspected of doing. Too bad for her I already knew most of her tricks—hay, I’d taught her some of them. “Oooh, sounds like fun. So, did you get a chance to show Sparky the ropes, Star? Literally? Or did you get a chance to break out the toybox?” I leaned over and gave a quick little aside whisper to Sparkler. “I can tell you right now, Star doesn’t have anything close to matching The Empress.”
Despite the blush on her cheeks, Sparkler’s ears perked up just a bit. Not even getting teased could squash that natural teenage curiosity. “I’m probably gonna regret asking this, but what’s an empress? ‘Cause I got a feeling you’re not talking about royalty.”
“The Empress,” I announced, trying to convey the fact that the device deserved capital letters on account of being, well, The Empress, “is pretty much the most amazing banging aid ever invented. Just name a feature, pretty much any feature you can think of, and it has an option for it. Hay, I don’t think I’ve even had a chance to really explore all the things it can do.” Granted, I’d run through most of the basic options by now, but it turns out you can combine multiple modes at once ... well, let’s just say that for all my reputation, even I haven’t had enough banging time to run through all the possibilities yet.
Before I could have too much more fun with them, Star decided to chime in. “Hey, Cloud, aren’t you technically supposed to be working or something?” Before I could come up with a good counter for that, she hit me with the second part of her one-two combo. “Also, unless my eyes are going bad, I’m pretty sure I saw you and a certain rainbow-maned pegasus slip away for a bit. Dare I ask what you two were up to? Alone. For all that time. In your bedroom.”
“Oh shush. You know it wasn’t like that, Star.” Despite the fact that she was completely off-base and we both knew it, Star had still succeeded in getting under my skin to a degree. Like most younger siblings, she had a real knack for being an annoying brat when the mood struck her. Thankfully, I’ve learned a few tricks for dealing with that kind of thing. First off, you can always point her at another target, and there was one pony she’d never waste a chance to go after. “Don’t get me wrong, Dash is smoking hot, but we both know it’d break Storm’s heart if I ever messed around with her.”
Star grinned as the eternal sibling rivalry sprang up once more. “True, she has been nursing a crush on Rainbow since the first time she saw her. It was puppy love at first sight.”
It wasn’t, of course, but no proper sibling would let a few inconvenient facts get in the way of a perfectly good teasing opportunity. As far as I could tell, Storm really was just a straight mare who had a reasonable amount of admiration for an admittedly cool pony. That hadn’t stopped me from trying to get Rainbow to hit on Storm for a prank, but Dash didn’t want any part of it. In hindsight, that was a good move on her part. Way too much potential for the whole thing to come across as mean-spirited, especially if it turned out that Storm was actually only ninety-nine percent straight. Let’s face it: if a straight mare was gonna have an exception, Rainbow was a pretty good choice.
Then again, this is coming from a mare who’s wondered more than once how things might have gone if I’d ever made a serious effort at hooking up with Dash. Not pining after her or anything—if I’d wanted Rainbow, I would’ve done something about it—but it’s hard not to wonder about life’s what-ifs sometimes. Between my overactive sex drive and messy personal life, I’ve got plenty of room to wonder about that kind of thing.
However, I didn’t come here to get all misty-eyed about what might have been or speculate on my little cousin’s sexual orientation. I had actual business to take care of. “Got a couple missing ponies I need you to find for me, Star.”
“Well, you definitely came to the right mare, then.” Star grinned and trotted over to her new fillyfriend’s side, giving her a quick hip bump once she was in position. “So, who did you lose?”
“Like I said, we’ve got two missing ponies.” Despite the seriousness of the situation, I couldn’t stop myself from grinning as I noticed how Sparkler and Star were leaning against each other. New couples are so cute. I bet they were gonna play hoofsie at the dinner table too. “Alright, first off: Lyra’s gone missing on us. You won’t have any trouble finding her, right?”
“Harpbutt’s vanished on us again?” Star groaned and shook her head. “Figures. And I guess getting me to ping her tracker is faster than checking every bar in Canterlot. Well, at least I put a fresh tracker on her a couple weeks ago, and she actually tries to keep ‘em on her and in good condition.”
Sparkler shot Star a curious look. “Wait, she’s not only okay with you following her everywhere, she’s actually a fan of it? I mean—no offense, sweetie, but I’m just starting to get to the point where I’m not creeped out by your whole tracking device thing, even if it is kinda cute. In a weird, uncomfortable, stalker-y kinda way.”
Star unleashed a full-force pouty frown on her new paramour. “Aw, don’t be like that, Sparks. Besides, if it bugged you that much, you wouldn’t have spent an hour last night helping me refine the new tracking gem I’m making for you.”
“Always watching meeeeee.” Sparkler grinned and nuzzled her. “Guess you must like what you see.”
My cousin nuzzled her back. “Guess so.” Her ears perked up, and her brain started working again instead of being overwhelmed by hormones and horniness. Granted, those two things are pretty much the same thing when it comes to teenage unicorns in love, but whatever. “Anyway, yeah. Lyra got into a tight spot a while back, and it was only my tracking spells that let me and Storm find her and help her out in time. Ever since then, she tries to keep my trackers on her and in good shape. They’ll still burn out eventually, but if you’re careful with them they can last for a long time.” She leaned over and half-whispered to Sparkler. “Of course, I’m making a special rechargeable one for my sweetie.”
“Awww.” Sparkler turned around and kissed Star on the cheek. “That’s so sweet ... and maybe just a tiny bit disturbing. But mostly sweet.”
“Hey!” I cut in. “Focus, lovebirds.” The last thing I needed to deal with was listen to them going all love bunny on each other. There’s only so many ‘schmoopies’ a mare can take. “Star, if it won’t be any trouble to find Lyra, then how about you do it?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Star grumbled, reluctantly taking a step away from Sparkler so she could concentrate on getting her work done. “Who else was it you wanted me to find? As long as I’m pinging trackers, I might as well get them both at once.”
“Twilight Sparkle, the Princess’ student.”
Star’s eyes went wide at that. “Are you kidding? I don’t think I’ve ever properly met her, and even if I’d ever had a chance to put a tracker on her, it probably wouldn’t work. I mean, she’s the first natural Alpha-Plus ever, and she’s the Princess’ personal student! She’s probably better at tracking magic than I am!”
Well, that was pretty much the answer I’d expected. Like I told Rainbow, it wasn’t likely. Still, might as well make sure I’d covered every possibility. “What about your other spells that don’t need a tracker?”
Star let out a snort at that. “Yeah, not likely. Most of those need some kind of connection back to the pony you’re tracking—hair, blood, stuff like that—and I don’t leave anything like that lying around because I don’t want to be tracked. Let alone some of the nasty dark magic something can pull off if it has some of your blood. I can’t imagine Twilight Sparkle would be sloppy about that kind of thing either. Unless she somehow managed to forget every single thing she ever learned about thaumaturgy, she’d know to be careful about not leaving samples of her blood and hair all over the place. Even if she did slip up, it’s not like her family or the Princess would just hoof some of her blood over to anypony who asked.” Star paused, gaving an annoyed tail flick. “Even if I did manage to get my hooves on something to base a tracking spell off of, she’s probably got some way of countering it.”
“It was worth asking,” I said as gently as possible. Star was looking just a little worked up. I wonder if the idea of an untrackable pony bugged her? Or maybe she just didn’t like the idea of a pony who could beat her at her own game?
“Yeah, sure,” Star grumbled. Then she closed her eyes and concentrated for a moment, while her horn let out a soft blue glow. From what I understood, Star didn’t know where every single one of her trackers was at any given time; having that information constantly bouncing around in her brain would probably make it just about impossible to concentrate. So instead, she needed to concentrate on a specific tracker whenever she wanted to know what that pony was up to.
Once my cousin got the information back from her tracking device on Lyra, she frowned. “Feathers, we’ve got a problem. Lyra’s down in the caves.”
Sparkler sighed and applied hoof to face. “Lyra, I know the difference between 'tavern' and 'cavern' may seem small at first, but—”
“S’not something to joke about, Sparks.” There was a bit of snap to Star’s voice, causing Sparkler’s ears to press back against her head. Star saw the reaction, and immediately apologized, “Sorry, didn’t mean to sound so pissed. It’s just that, well, remember that time I was telling you about when she got into a lot of trouble trouble a couple years back? That was down in the caves. I don’t think there’s any way she’d go wandering around down there on her own without telling anypony.”
“Which means if she’s down there, odds are pretty good it’s ‘cause she’s in trouble,” I concluded. “Star, I want you to take a patrol and go check it out.”
“I’ll go with her,” Sparkler immediately volunteered.
Star had her mouth halfway open to answer when I cut her off. No idea what she was about to say, but either way it was better if I did the talking. “You’re staying topside, Sparks. You don’t have combat training or even a proper suit of armor, and I don’t need Star thinking more about her new fillyfriend than she is about the mission.”
Sparkler gave an annoyed little twitch at my answer, then stopped and took a deep breath. “Look, I know I'm not a Guard, but it’s not like I'm gonna go all Rainbow and charge head-first into the dark, spooky caves. S’just that Lyra's also my friend, and if you're both worried about her, then I’ve got a pretty good reason to be nervous too.”
For a second I was tempted to order her to shut up and fall in rather than debate the matter, but I’m pretty sure that would’ve accomplished less than nothing. Sparkler seemed like the kind of teenager who would buck authority figures just on general principle. Guess I would have to reason with her, then. “I understand how you feel, Sparkler. She's your friend, and you want to help her. But going down there isn't gonna do anything to help her. No offense, but you'd just be getting in the way.”
Needless to say, her teenage pride did not care for the implication that she was just a damsel in distress in a combat situation. “I don't wanna sit up here wringing my hooves and just hope that my friend'll be okay. If I have to stay at the back of the squad and be ready to run the second somepony tells me to, then I'll do that—but it beats the hay outta the waiting game.”
“Ready to run, huh?” I frowned at her skeptically. “So you know your way through the Undermountain caves? The way I hear it, unless you’ve got an up-to-date map or you really know your way around, it’s pretty easy to get lost down there.”
“Wouldn’t be that hard to just go back the way I came,” Sparkler grumbled. “I’m also pretty good at hiding, if it comes to it. I’m pretty decent with veils thanks to my talent being light refraction.” She paused, and gave a small little shiver. “And thanks to you and Mom, I have a silence spell down like it’s my special talent.”
While that comment brought back a few bittersweet memories, I tried to stay focused on the present. “Hiding and getting lost isn't gonna do Lyra any good.” I mulled it over for a bit, and shifted gears. If her big objection was not wanting to sit uselessly on the sidelines, then there was a better solution than just giving her a flat no. “Besides, there's something else I need your help with up here.”
Sparkler scowled at that, presumably because she suspected that I was just trying to come up with some kind of make-work for her while Star went on a potentially dangerous mission. “S’this more important than finding our mutual friend?”
“I’d say it’s more about finding both our mutual friends,” I answered her. “While Star's running down Lyra, I need you to help me follow up a lead on where Twilight might be.” I didn’t know if Twilight technically qualified as a friend to Sparkler, but from what I knew they got along well enough. After all, Twilight did teach her that silence spell to deal with the problem of certain nightly noises whenever I stayed over at Derpy’s.
Sparkler was still frowning, but she didn’t look quite as pissed now as she’d been when I first brought it up. She scooted a little bit closer to Star, then reluctantly conceded. “I'm not saying yes, but I'll let you finish making your point.”
Willingness to put up with teenage stubbornness fading ... fading ... gone. “Sparkler, Lyra might be in trouble, and I don’t have time to debate this with you.” I turned to Star and gave her marching orders. “Take a team, and go find Lyra.”
Star gave me a slightly reluctant nod, followed up with a quick salute. “Yeah, sure thing, Cloud. She’s pretty deep in, and we’ll need to go slow and quiet, so it might take a while. Need a bit to get the maps and supplies too.”
“Then you’d best get started right away,” I concluded.
Sparkler took my exercise of command authority exactly as well as I’d expected her to. “No, you don't get to play that game. Maybe you can make Star go all ‘yes ma’am, no ma’am, three bags full ma’am’ on you, but I’m not one of your little soldiers. I told you I'd listen to you, Cloud, but if you think you can just pull the rug out from under me, I'm gonna go with Star without listening to a word you say.” To underline her declaration of teenage defiance, she pressed herself against Star’s side and gave her a quick nuzzle.
Star jumped to my defense, keeping her voice gentle and loving to take the bite out of her words. “Sparks, she's right. I need to be focused on Lyra, not keeping an eye on you.”
I gave my cousin a quick grateful nod for the backup. “Plus, finding Twilight's just as important as finding Lyra, maybe even more important. And I need your help with that, Sparkler.”
Sparkler gave a frustrated little grumble, then turned and latched onto Star. “You stay safe down there. I'll kick your plot if you let anything happen.”
Star hugged her back, and added in a quick kiss for good measure. “I will be.” Sparkler returned the kiss, and then very reluctantly let go. For the moment the two did the expected wistful staring into each other’s eyes, and then Star began very slowly trudging off to get ready for her expedition.
I walked up to Sparkler and silently put a hoof on her shoulder. Yeah, I might’ve been a bit harsh when it came to separating the two of them, but I’m not heartless. At first she tensed up at the touch, but after a second or two she slowly relaxed, then reached up and put her hoof over mine. I gave her a quick supportive little nuzzle, then got back to business. “C'mon. Let's hit the library.”
Sparkler couldn’t help letting out an amused little snort at that. “Sounds like a good place to start looking for Miss Twilight.”
It was, but that’s why the libraries had been the first place Rainbow checked. I had something else in mind. “We’ve got some research to do.”
Her ears perked up in curiosity at that. “Yeah? Guess it’s got something to do with this lead we’re following up on, right?”
“Yeah. We need to dig up everything we can find about changelings.” I’m still not sure if I actually bought Rainbow’s theory about Twilight being replaced by a shape-shifting spy, but it made enough sense that it seemed prudent to follow up on it.
Sparkler gave me a confused frown. “Changelings? What have they got to do with—” She trailed off and her jaw dropped as the obvious implication sank in.
“We need to follow up on every lead, even the strange ones.” That said, I started double-timing it to the clan library, with Sparkler breaking into a quick canter to keep up. While we walked, it struck me that she hadn’t asked the expected question of, ‘What’s a changeling?’ That bore following up on. “Do you know anything about them already?”
The teenager gave a quick shake of her head. “Nothing much. Just the odd story about 'em from Grampa whenever he talks about the times he went to Freeport—and when he does that, it's usually either about trade or to visit our distant relatives there. They just pop up in one or two of the stories about what goes on there.” Her nose scrunched up as she dug through her memories. “With the whole shapeshifting thing, they’re kinda famous for being the best spies and contract killers gold can buy. ‘Course, most of the stories from Freeport are pretty crazy, so I’m not sure how much I’d believe about any of that. Plus I heard there was kind of ... like, factions or something.”
After a moment’s consideration, I decided to give her a bit of quick clarification. I don’t think just explaining that much would be hoofing over info Princess Celestia wanted under wraps. “Yeah, there's the one little breakaway group, and the big hive mind swarm. From what I’ve heard, they don’t get along, and there was a civil war or something.”
Sparkler stared at me, a confused frown on her face. “A civil war in a hive mind? How's that even happen?”
“Apparently they decided to experiment with free will or something.” I shrugged, and picked up the pace a bit as the library came in sight. “One of the things that we'll be reading up on.” The Kicker clan library wasn’t all that large, especially compared to the royal one, but it did have the virtue of being a bit more tightly focused than most. It wasn’t completely filled with military-related books, but you’d definitely find a lot more of those than you would light fiction. We also had a decent selection when it came to general information on other species and nations. Know thy potential enemy, and all that.
Sparkler let out a slight grumble at the faster speed I’d set, but kept up. “So let me in on something—how's this a lead on Miss Twilight? I can guess at why you wanna look up info on shapeshifters right after Miss Twilight went missing, but why would you think one of them got to her? Who else d'you have looking for her?”
Now she was getting into dangerous territory. I was already in treading on thin ice when it came to my oath of secrecy to Celestia, and telling her anything more about why I might suspect that another one of those changeling mercenaries was involved would be crossing a big line. “Need to know, Sparks.”
Unsurprisingly, that got her back up again. “Well, I need to know, considering you just sent my marefriend down into the heart of the mountain.”
I shook my head as we stepped up to the entrance of the library. “No, you don't need to know. You want to know. As far as national security is concerned, that’s not the same thing.”
Sparkler stubbornly set her hooves at the entrance, refusing to cross the threshold. “Well, if you want my help then that's the price. You're already keeping me from looking for one missing pony I care about and keeping me away from Star in the process, but you're damn crazy if you think I'm going to let you do that again without giving me some kind of hint as to who's looking for her.”
One of my ears started twitching in aggravation, but there was no harm in throwing her a bone here. She wasn’t digging for the classified information I was justifiably wary of hoofing out. “Once you’re settled in I’ll tell the Watch to keep an eye out for her, and Rainbow’s already talked to the Princess.”
Sparkler gave a triumphant little grin as she stepped into the library. “That wasn't so hard, now was it?”
I gave an annoyed little flick of my wings at her attitude. Now wasn’t the time to correct it though, as long as it wasn’t causing problems. “I thought you were asking about other stuff. Stuff I can't tell you.”
She let out a little snort. “Got a good enough theory on what that stuff is anyway. Don’t have any details, but I can guess the basics.”
I gave a carefully neutral nod and quickly changed the subject. I didn’t want to get stuck saying ‘no comment’ or ‘I can neither confirm nor deny’ while Sparkler started wildly speculating about what happened with Mom. “We’ve got work to do and a ticking clock to get it done in if Twilight’s in as much trouble as I’m afraid she might be.”
Sparkler started checking over the reference list to figure out where the books we would want were stored. The Kicker library is modest compared to any of the royal libraries in Canterlot, but it could still take a while to find the right book if you didn’t know where to look. “Question is, if she hasn't been replaced, how can we tell?”
“That’s part of what I plan on finding out,” I answered her simply. “So far, all I know is that they can shapeshift, spit sticky goo, are hard to kill, and their blood’s green. Plus, I don’t think they can copy all of a pony’s skills, so I guess we could always check that Twilight still has all her magic. Either way, now I want to know the rest of it, starting with how to spot them and deal with them.”
“Uh-huh.” Sparkler was staring at me askance, probably because I’d pretty much given away that I had personal experience with a changeling and had probably gotten into a life-or-death fight with one. Well, it probably wasn’t anything she hadn’t already guessed, just from the fact that I was talking about them at all.
Sparkler led the way to our section for all things non-Equestrian, and grabbed the first book she saw with ‘changeling’ on the spine. She turned it over, revealing a picture that bore at best a vague resemblance to the creature I’d fought in that cave. She held the book up and showed me the cover. “Is that what they really look like?
“Not exactly.” I thought about the best quick way to sum it up. “They kinda look like ponies crossed with bugs in their natural form.”
Sparkler carefully assimilated that information, and after further consideration announced her verdict: “Ew.”
I went over the shelves and pulled out a couple more books that seemed like they might have some useful information about changelings, then set them down on a nearby table for Sparkler. “Alright, you get started on these. I’m going to go check in with the Watch and make sure they know to keep an eye out for Twilight, and then I’ll be in here working on this with you.”
“Right.” Sparkler hesitated for a moment, then shuffled over and hugged me. “S’everything gonna be alright, Cloud?”
“Yeah.” I gave her a quick squeeze. “Don’t worry, it’s gonna be okay.”
The rest of the day proved distressingly fruitless. The Watch failing to turn up any sign of Twilight Sparkle wasn’t a big surprise—I honestly would’ve been shocked if they’d actually come across her. Regardless of whether she’d been replaced by a shapeshifting bug monster or was just off sulking because she’d gotten into a fight with her friends, it seemed like she—or the bug monster that had replaced her—didn’t want anypony finding her. The odds that she would just come wandering into my clan compound weren’t exactly high.
What was more of a disappointment was that Sparkler didn’t turn up anything terribly useful. That’s not to say we didn’t dig up any information, just that nothing came up which really expanded my knowledge base, beyond confirming a few things I’d already been reasonably sure about. Most of the suggested measures to uncover a changeling were the kind of things anypony with a working brain could come up with if you gave them a few minutes. Ask something only that pony would know, have them display their special talent, stuff like that. Certainly not bad ideas, but I’d been hoping for something I couldn’t come up with on my own.
As an added problem, most of the tests for uncovering a changeling being so basic and common-sense probably meant that changelings had at least some idea of how to counter them. If I was a veteran spy who knew that something as simple as making sure my blood was red could blow my cover, I’d have some kind of backup plan ready. Same for most of the other basic tests.
On top of that, Star wasn’t back yet. That wasn’t a big deal, considering how big the Undermountain caverns were, and Star along with a team of watchponies should be more than capable of looking after themselves, but I still didn’t like it. Maybe I just wasn't comfortable with the idea that I’d sent my little cousin into a potentially dangerous situation. Whatever the case, I hadn’t gotten much sleep that night. Too busy worrying about my cousin.
I’d also forwarded what I knew to Dad. I knew there wasn’t a lick of hard evidence to back me up, and a lot of perfectly reasonable explanations that didn’t require going on high alert, but I still wanted to follow up on the worst case scenario. Maybe I was being overcautious and wasting a lot of ponies’ time and effort, but I’d rather follow up on a dozen false leads than let something bad happen to somepony—potentially a lot of ponies, considering the stakes.
Hopefully Shining Armor was right about Twilight Sparkle turning up for the wedding. It’d be one less issue on my plate. It was kinda strange to think that Sparkler and I might be wasting our time sitting in the library reading up on changelings for the second day running on the off chance that she’d been replaced. For all we knew, Twilight might be slipping into the palace, offering a sheepish grin and quick apology to everypony while we had our noses buried in these books. Kinda put things in perspective.
I hadn’t planned on going to the wedding proper; in my experience, both weddings and any public event involving royalty are incredibly long, boring, tedious, and filled with entirely too much pageantry. If I ever end up tying the knot, I figure I’ll keep things nice and simple: just give me a nice dress (though no way in Tartarus I’ll be able to get away with wearing white), some friends and family, and a quiet little ceremony. Anything more than that’s just showing off.
Bah, all the wedding talk going on must be getting to me. Listen to me, planning my wedding like I’m a schoolfilly who just got her first crush. I swear, I’m going to need to spend a day with Rainbow talking about all things awesome, cool, and radical to make up for this. Maybe we could go find a monster and beat it up once we’re done with that.
In any case, if I’d managed to find Lyra and Twilight in time, I’d head for the reception. That’s where the real fun of weddings comes in: partying, cake, music, alcohol, all the good stuff. It’s a pity I’d probably have to pass on picking up anypony there, but my love life was complicated enough as it was.
Well, okay, maybe Luna if she made a pass at me and let me know whether or not I’d actually done anything with her other than make a fool out of myself. Or I could just bring Lyra home for some fun. I’m not made of stone.
I glanced over at my temporary study buddy. From the glazed look in her eyes and the goofy smile on her face, I was going to guess that wedding fever was hitting Sparkler hard. No doubt she was imagining something utterly cheesy where she and Star called each other love muffin, had the the most ridiculously fairytale wedding ever, and of course capped it off with the all-but-required wedding cliche of a small horde of doves and butterflies.
I let her have her fantasy for now; it made her happy, and it’s not like our work had been all that productive so far. I wouldn’t say the research had been a total bust, but after all the hours of reading the most useful thing I’d gotten for my trouble was a single reasonably accurate diagram of a changeling in its natural state, which gave me a chance to find a few weakpoints in their exoskeletons. I’d still rather have a weapon that’s just better suited to busting armor, but the only Guard-issue weapon I’d kept reasonably practiced in was my wing blades. I didn’t like my odds if I tried to start using hammer hooves or a lance when I hadn’t practiced with either one since West Hoof.
I was just starting to get a little bored with watching Sparkler daydream when one of my watchponies galloped into the library. “Captain! Star and her patrol are back, and she said she needs to see you ASAP!”
Sparkler snapped out daydreaming at the mention of her marefriend, though the silly grin on her face only widened. She must have missed the urgency in the watchpony’s voice on account of being all excited about her fillyfriend’s return. “Star’s back?”
I wasn’t as optimistic. Star saying she needed to talk to me as soon as possible probably meant something had gone wrong. If everything was fine, she would’ve come in complaining about having to drag Lyra’s hung-over plot back from out of the caves. Sending a runner to get me sounded too serious.
I’d been ready for a lot of things to have happened, but when I finished following the runner at full gallop to Star’s position, I got a nasty surprise. There was already a small cluster of ponies, some Watch, some off-duty Kickers, and the rest the usual mix of friends, visitors, and ponies who just happened to be passing by and wondered what was going on. Everypony made a path for me quickly enough, with Sparkler following in my wake.
Once I was through the cluster of onlookers I was able to confirm that my patrol had at least made it back with everypony accounted for, though Star looked worse for the wear. A medic was checking her over, and even her dark coat couldn’t completely hide the nasty set of bruises around her neck. Needless to say, Sparkler immediately ran over to Star’s side and started fussing over her. The bruises were ugly, but what really caught my attention was the fact that they were in a very distinctive pattern.
Lyra’s hand spell leaves some very unique marks. I just never figured on seeing them around my cousin’s throat.
“What happened?” I demanded.
Star rubbed her throat for a few seconds, and when she spoke her voice came out weak and scratchy. “Lyra. Mind control. Bad.”
One of the watchponies who’d gone down into the caves with Star stepped forward. “I’m sorry, ma’am. When we found Miss Heartstrings everything seemed like it was on the level, then she asked to have a word in private with Star, and a minute later we heard the two of them fighting and the target was trying to strangle Star.”
“She got away,” Star rasped out. “Ran for it, dropped her tracker. Could’ve taken hours to find her down there. Had to get word back.”
“You did the right thing,” I quickly reassured her, before stepping aside to let the medic get back to work. Granted, if she’d managed to make it all the way back to the surface after being attacked deep in Undermountain she was probably fine, but better safe than sorry.
Feathers. So much for hoping everything was going to turn out nice and peaceful. Lyra being mind-controlled and running around Undermountain was bad news. My gut told me that Twilight’s disappearance was tied to it somehow too. The timing was too convenient for it to be a coincidence.
I was about to start barking out orders when I spotted something strange on the other side of the bubble shield protecting the city. It was a bit hard to tell what with the purple-pink dome between us and the outside world. At first I thought it might be just some random bits of dust in the wind or something. Once again, some sixth sense told me it wasn’t anything that innocuous. Whatever it was, I wanted a closer look. “Somepony get me a telescope, or some binoculars—or something!”
“Just a sec, I got it.” I was a little surprised when Sparkler stepped away from Star long enough to cast a spell, and then a small circular section of the air in front of me turned weirdly distorted. It took a second for it to click: Sparkler’s talent was light refraction, and telescopes were pretty much all about redirecting light. Useful spell to have.
It took me a moment or two to figure out which way to look through the zone of magically distorted light to actually get a clear view, but when I did see what we were up against, my blood ran cold. Those little black specks weren’t dust particles; they were chitinous beasts I recognized all too well.
Changelings. A whole feathering army’s worth of them.
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Here we go!
Only appropriate that I respond to that cliffhanger in kind.
Also, Cloud Kicker's reaction can only be described as:
i.imgur.com/C1qAj.gif
I sense you are annoyed by this.
Holy shit, this story is still going? I legitimately thought it had ended, what with all these damn spin-offs.
I still have this on my read later list, don't I . . .
I've been waiting for this part of the story for quite a while. I really, really can't wait for the next few chapters. Will we get to see Cloudy play Big Damn Hero in Shadow's armor? We can only hope.
Perhaps she won't even have to. And her inherent loveability will just cause any changelings she runs across to just spontaneously combust from magical overload. Hard to tell.
One thing I do know; there's really only one person to blame for this whole Lyra mess.
Right there. -> 3377530
3377541
The sad part is, in this 'verse, Cloud Kicker knows far more about Twilight's family than Twi's closest friends.
It. Is. ON!!! Bring on the changelings!
mh.. I don't think I like this chapter.
Don't get me wrong, the actual writing and such was as good as ever.
But I began reading the story because of the inter-pony relations and stuff. Who she banged. How she banged. Especially how her relationship with Derpy and Blossom will go.
Not for her to fight changlings, or recapping the episodes of the series. Because we mostly know how it will end.
Dunno. I mostly skipped through the chapter, and I don't think I missed anything important. Also, if I skip from the last to the chapter you will post next, there will probably nothing I can't understand, even if I hadn't read this (the newest) one. And these aren't feelings your chapters normaly give off.
I like the way you've carefully fit in the characters and weaved it around the canon, especially in this rather complex case!
This is really gonna be good!
sharonshares.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/herewego.jpg
That was, like... a whole chapter without any tragic backstory reveals
I'm torn between wanting Cloud Kicker to somehow become a hero out of all of this and wanting the episodes to remain relatively status quo.
It seems like it would be a cop-out to have CK incapacitated for the climax of the changeling attack... but the Queen managed to pull the Worf Effect on Celestia, so anything's possible.
Derpy was present in screen shots of the wedding, so there's the possibility of something happening there, even if it's only a moment of wistfulness by Cloud looking across the room at her (because she's "giving Derpy her space"), or maybe a dance.
Blossomforth... well, she's got nothing outside of her one canon appearance (until Season Four), so she's got open-ended options as far as whether she ends up at the real wedding somehow.
Shit just got real.
And I'm going to lose my bet.
3377630
...?
It's the path to the climax of the whole changeling subplot.
In much the same way that her Cloudy's mother dying was important to the romantic thread, this one will probably have some impact on it too. Just because it'll likely be a pivotal moment in Cloud's life.
I guess if all you're looking for is the love dodecahedron then, yeah, I could see how this could be a distraction. But I have a feeling that you'll be missing out on a lot of the nuances of things later, if you just get a tl;dr version of events. If what happens here has some huge impact on Cloudy's choices later, you're probably going to have no clue as to why.
...Besides, the Empress is sure to be an important factor in all romantic endeavors.
Wouldn't want to miss that.
Ahhh, I can buy that as an explanation for why nobody suspected Cadance of having been replaced, they were too busy suspecting Twilight.
Wild guess, the cave exit Twilight and Cadance use is going to be inside the compound.
That's an interesting way to phrase that statement. Does that mean there have been non-natural Alpha-Plus unicorns?
Doo relatives in Freeport? I'm going to take that as more evidence it's where the survivors of the losing side in the Rebellion ended up.
Okay, so they discovered mind controlled Lyra, but only just in time for the invasion to start. The next chapter can't come soon enough, I can't wait to see how the Kicker Clan ponies do in the fighting.
3377541 Ehh, I'm kind of annoyed that it's apparently being taken as a given in the 'verse. Nothing in the show itself suggests that Twilight's friends knew absolutely nothing about him. For some reason the fandom has decided that since Shining Armor was new to them, he was new to everypony as well.
My headcanon has at least Fluttershy knowing. After all, in the very first episode, Spike tells 'Shy "the story of his entire life". If that didn't include mention of Twilight's big brother, I'd be very surprised.
3377711 There's lots of potential for some great offscreen fighting. It's usually assumed that the guard got it's flank kicked in the invasion, but we didn't actually see much one way or the other in the show.
the cliff hanger i don't think i can make it
average wait a new chapter is about a month rite
Oh boy here we go. We going to see some cloud kicker action. Can't wait for the next chapter.
3377740
Looking at the transcript of the episode, there's no "You have a brother?" line from anypony. Twilight says she's "been seeing him less and less since she moved to Ponyville" which infers that she has seen him since moving to Ponyville, but not necessarily to introduce him to her friends.
Applejack says "He sounds like a good guy," which confirms that she hasn't met him herself, and that Twilight hasn't talked a lot about him. Rarity's surprise over him being a guard show the same is true for her.
Fluttershy knowing about Shining Armor through Spike makes sense.
Rainbow could be incredibly dense enough to have never put two and two together about Shining Armor and Twilight, regardless of how much his name came up in discussions with Twilight and Cloud Kicker. With the former... yeah, she's got a brother. So do a lot of ponies. With the latter, it was either West Hoof stuff or banging, neither of which being a subject that Dash would be very interested in.
Pinkie Pie... if Shining ever came to Ponyville, there probably would have been a Pinkie Pie party. It's likely that Shining's duties (quiet Dashie!) kept him from visiting Ponyville, whereas Twilight had plenty of cause to visit Canterlot.
It ultimately comes down to how candid Twilight was with the other five about her family. Twilight casually told the CMCs that she turned her parents into potted plants, so it's not unreasonable to believe that while Shining and Twilight's friends didn't meet prior to the wedding, they all knew Twilight had an older brother.
3377711
You could have CK fighting back against the changelings until the big magic kaboom that sends all the changelings flying. Even right before the spell goes off in the episode there's enough explosions and chaos everywhere that there still could be elements of the guard still standing.
It would be one heck of a rough fight though.
... funny how no one else noticed the Changelings until JUST now.
imagehaul.com/thehauls/3981874a24c1b5be2f307cfb0c67da61.jpg
3377973
Cue the mindless panic and running around from the bystanders.
3377973 Hey, save the plot-hole lampshading for the all-but-inevitable "Where's Luna?" jokes.
3377950
We all know how oblivious Twilight can be when focused on something else. I'm betting that it never occurred to her to mention him or elaborate about him if he ever came up as a topic.
3378206 Oh, I imagine he'll have some plot device or subplot about what happens to Luna, since she's had several influences over the story so far. If nothing else, an explanation will be provided instead of just 'where the hey where you when all this shit went down?'
3377748 My headcannon is that obviously some of the guard, possibly even a lot of the guard, was replaced by changelings before the shield broke. Even a few in the right places could cripple the guard really easily when the invasion hits.
Shit just got real...
Aw, come on, it's not all Twilight's fault - I mean, sneeze on the space-time continuum and the thing snaps like a spiderweb when a cat runs through it.
3377740
I assume it's a reference to stuff like the Alicorn Amulet that can boost a unicorn's magic power.
Why does every chapter make me want to say, "Spit just got real!"?
You know, it might be time to update the opening/introdution, since this story has taken on a life of its own instead of just being a 'sortakinda sequel' to the Incredibly Dense Mind of Rainbow Dash...
3377973
That's easy. They secretly hid inside an Autobot shuttle to slip by their early warning systems.
Queen Chrysalis: The ponies will be vanquished forever!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umwZ8qVorwo&feature=player_detailpage#t=65
3377740
Trixie surpassed twilight using the alicorn amulet
Something like that could have happened
Man, I hope Shadow's armor can stand up to all the shots you're firing at it with Chekhov's Gun.
Aww! I guess that puts the kibosh on this ever making it into Winningverse canon. Although it's not like I'd made much progress on it since the initial surge of ideas.
3378688
Never fear, for there are always options!
You could make it AU. Alternatively, said quote leaves it open that Dash possibly has another reason for not pranking Storm. Perhaps because she doesn't know her as well as she does Cloud.
It's something to discuss with Chengar, ultimately, if you're still up for your idea. 'Cause it did sound awesome, not gonna lie.
And here, gentlemen, is where the shit stars.
Let the Hype buildup commence!
Now, I may be reading too much into this, but I think the arc's climax is upon us.
Just my theory.
I actually realized in the middle of this chapter that theoretically the Time Loop Trilogy could be canon to the Winningverse
That aside however gOSH DARNIT CLIFF HANGERSSS
SHIT IS HAPPENING CALL IN THE BIG GUNS
3378342 3378684 Whoops, yeah you are correct, that example totally slipped my mind.
I am honestly missing an "Oh... fuck." in the end of this from CK
The last line is good, but I think it could be a little bit funnier with those two words. But that's just me
On a more serious note: Shit's going down! I'm really looking forward to see what happens next. And, as others have mentioned, I hope to see CK go all Hero in Shadow Kicker's armour. I don't believe you'd mention the vault and that CK knew how to open it for no reason. Seems like a bit of foreshadowing too convenient to pass up on.
oh doody...
Gotta love how Rainbow Dash's name is basically an in-universe equivalent of "Leeroy Jenkins".
Damn..... Just damn.
3377541
Ignoring the amulet, since that is totally hokey. Given how less fluffy and cutesy the Winningverse is, I'm going to say that where the Pegasi trained harder and developed weapons to enhance their natural talents and advantages... where the Earth Ponies used ingenuity and made use of their natural high strength... Unicorns experimented.
We know there's all sorts of mages in the Winningverse, and you don't just 'get' advanced magic suddenly. So that means someone has to discover or create the ways magic can work into those kinds of spells. Someone had to do a lot of work with corpses to create Necromantic spells, for instance. Also blood magic/dark magic, the warlocks, what-have-you.
Now, this is just my sense as an optimizer speaking. But if I had magic, and I knew that I had limits on my magic, I would look for a way to use what magic I have to remove those limits. No doubt many experiments were conducted to find a way to increase one's magical output/potential/reserves. These are probably life-threatening and unstable practices.
So that would make Twilight the only Alpha+ ever naturally conceived. So... if Celestia's the God Emperor, then Twilight's Malcador the Sigilite.
3379304
In any case, her reaction likely can be summed up by the following:
I think that "Oh, fuck me . . ." would suit her character better, but whatevs.
Looking forward to how the next chapter's events overlap with what was shown in canon. At least it'll be nice to see some ponies other then the Mane Six doing something more productive then running and screaming in the background.
3379838 Or Magnus, depending on how much shit ends up hitting the fan.
3377739
Well, Shortpacked does predict Love Pentagons appearing when things start getting super-dramatic.
I'm pretty sure that entering into Love Dodecahedrons is going to generate universe-distorting consequences. Fortunately, Cloudy's just the mare for the job. After all, she has an Empress by her side. Or in her back.
I always wondered what happened with Lyra and Colgate after the wedding.
And it seems that Lyra has a weak mind, to have been controlled twice
The fan? Oh that thing was destroyed when the flying shit hit it too hard.
Not only am I excited to see how you'll portray CK's involvement in the Changeling attack on Canterlot, I'm also interested to see how you'll show the aftermath of the battle.
3380205
The fan is strewn across half the continent and the shit is on an orbital escape trajectory.
3380399
Basically after all that you can only see the fan after you clean the shit, and the soon to be changeling blood off it then look through a microscope.