Conversation 27: Spike
Mary closed her eyes and pressed her face to the back door of the café. “It’s clear, let’s go,” she said a few seconds later, opening the door.
She might say this dragon eye of hers is a nuisance, but that’s not the first time I saw her use it. When she’s looking for a book, instead of asking me, she just closes her eyes and ends up right next to the shelf where it is, and I know the shelving system in her dimension is nothing like any of Twilight’s inventions. Dragon eyes have to be good for something, right?
After she shot that first changeling with her death ray, we retreated into the kitchen just before they flooded the street outside. I’m not sure just how she talked Joe into hiding in the storage room, because it involved so much loaded language, that most of it flew over my head. Adults… Eventually he backed down, and let us go. I’m not sure why she did that, but I suspect the guy’s going to turn up somewhere else again today. Either Pinkie’s right and he really is a secret agent, or… Well, I dunno. Not sure if I want to find out.
The narrow alley behind the café was empty, save for the trash bins. “Yup, no bugs in sight,” I commented, picking a direction. “Come on!” The noises are getting closer, and they’re plain scary, we’ve got to be very careful if we don’t want to fight all of them at once.
I don’t think I could fight more than one. But I need to be a strong dragon.
“They are anything but bugs,” Mary corrected.
“They look like bugs!” I insisted. “Big, scary dragonfly beetles. Dragon beetles. Something!”
“Insects don’t have bones,” she said. “And whatever they have for muscles beneath the hard shell looks like citrus and smells horrible.”
Ew. So that’s why she spent so much time looking at the one she shot. “Couldn’t you, I dunno, try talking first?” I said. “This death ray is… I keep trying to imagine what it would do to a pony. I’m going to be emotionally traumatized and it will affect my cognitive development. Twilight is going to be very angry with you.”
“Imagine how angry she will be if I let you get eaten. Changelings are very decoherent,” she said like it explained everything.
“What’s the word even mean?” I’m sure it’s not in any of Twilight’s dictionaries, I checked that first thing. When Twilight tried to explain it, I lost track completely by the time she mentioned quantum physics. She insisted that physics had nothing to do with the word, but that didn’t help.
“It means, that depending on where changelings came from, the future involving them is very different, and still, this day, here, looks more or less the same in most variations of Equestria. Their history branches backwards more than forwards,” Mary said. Ok, that’s more like it. I get a feeling that’s not all of it, as usual, but it’s not like we have the time. “Are they evil or just hungry? Do they have families? Do they live in a hive? I have no idea if you can be friends with a hive.”
“Beekeepers say they’re friends with their hives,” I pointed out. “Bees themselves, not so much.” We have an understanding with the bees that live on the library tree. They don’t bother us and I don’t burn their house down. Working well so far.
“Well, maybe somepony can make it work, but not me,” Mary shrugged. “I’m not sure they even talk at all.”
“Maybe they just don’t speak Equish,” I suggested. “Like forest animals. The smarter ones.”
“Then how are they supposed to replace anypony?” Mary countered.
Yeah, that’d be a problem. “Ask Fluttershy?”
“Yes. But until I can, I’m going to shoot first,” Mary replied.
I had to remind myself, that no matter how civilized humans are, they’re not ponies. And being a dragon raised by ponies, I got no room to complain, here. I kind of understand how to be a good pony, mostly, but I’ve no idea what a good dragon is supposed to be like. I’m making it up as I go along. For a human, Mary is probably being good.
But we were about to run out of alley, as it opened up into a wide street. I carefully peeked out from behind the corner, Mary looming above me with her death ray ready. Changelings. Lots of them. Fighting the Royal Guard, chasing ponies around. “We can’t cross the—,” I started whispering.
I never finished, because a broken, battered changeling body slammed into the ground right before my nose. Ew. Ew! I really am going to be emotionally traumatized, but later. Mary said she needs a brave dragon. And I’m going to be a brave dragon.
We looked upwards. High above us, Princess Luna was being very, very angry. I never really saw much of Nightmare Moon, I fell asleep right when she showed up. All I remember myself is that dark… Twilight called it “majesty,” but I’m not sure if this word works like that. That “majesty,” and the triumphant smile. What I saw in the sky was anything but a smile, just a ball of shining blue “majesty” and rage with wings, circled by a swarm of dark splotches.
They were dancing in a spiral around her, dodging bolts of magic and hoof strikes, but not really attacking. What are they even trying to do?
As if on command, all the changelings on the street looked up, and most of the ones nearby took flight to join the cloud around Luna. “Go, I’m covering,” Mary commanded, pointing her death ray at the street, and I ran.
Only once we both were safely on the other side and in the alley opposite, I had enough breath to ask, “Shouldn’t we ask her for help?”
“The last thing Princess Luna needs right now is having to protect us,” Mary replied, “They’re keeping her occupied. This isn’t an invasion anymore.”
“What is it, then?” I wondered.
“A raid,” Mary said calmly, moving deeper into the shadows of the alley. “They aren’t staying. They will eat everything they can and leave.”
It took us much longer to get through the winding alley and many backyards to the next proper street we absolutely had to cross, and that one was flooded with changelings and chaos, too. Only this time, there was no Princess Luna above to give us a lucky break. To say the truth, I was almost about to hide under Mary’s skirt.
And then, I heard it.
This disaster will be over soon
I swear by the light of the Sun and the Moon
There are things that are forever true
I will sing of them for you
I think that dragons are actually not very harmonic. I’ve got no other dragons to compare with, but usually, when the music of harmony starts, I don’t get the urge to sing with everypony. Sometimes, I try to improvise with them, if Twilight’s in on it, but honestly, I’m not feeling it, not the way they do.
But even I felt this one. And even if I didn’t, the bright, wide beam of mint green magic going straight up into the sky from a few blocks away would be very hard to ignore. Just like the blood-curdling scream that went with it, which was even louder than the music. “What the hay was that?!” I couldn’t help but exclaim.
“Has to be an aufwachen waveform,” Mary commented with a frown, staring at the beam. “Awakening of a magical girl. Of all the things Rika could do, she had to pick one that screws with every possible prediction I could make.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have provoked her like that?” I wondered, as the scream finally ended. I’m really curious about what an aufwhatever waveform is, but I am sure this is another lecture we don’t have time for.
“That’s the only thing that works,” Mary replied grimly. “At least she didn’t just give somepony a giant robot…”
Whatever it was that Rika did, it definitely worked. A giant robot would be cool, but this worked better. I know all sorts of things about ponies. Some of them, I’m not sure they even know themselves. I only notice them because I’m not a pony.
And I know what ponies usually do when they want to be brave.
For every tribe, it’s a bit different. Earth ponies stand and fight. Pegasi charge. Unicorns retreat behind a wall… then they light up their horns and move the wall. Well, not literally, maybe, but that’s how it feels. Canterlot is a unicorn majority city, and what I was seeing was every unicorn caught in the street by the changelings suddenly trying to be brave. Earth ponies and pegasi were there, too. But unicorns were everywhere.
Ponies who were running around terrified just a minute ago were fighting back as one, moving in step to the music of harmony and singing along, flooding into the street out of the buildings. This felt glorious… and even scarier than the changelings, somehow, as the source of the music, the eye of this storm, was getting closer. Spells of every color of rainbow, and some colors I’m sure rainbows don’t even have. Stones thrown by hoof and by magic. A group of ponies in chef hats working on slicing a guard out of a puddle of the green goo with big knives. Somepony waving a streetlight around in his magic like a twig. A group of well-dressed ponies advancing behind pieces of a wrought iron fence, pointy ends first.
Finally, the source of the song ran past us. A human figure in weird armor, dancing through in some twisted, alien ballet, surrounded by a glittering cloud of thin, gleaming wires. Some of them would snag changelings. The lucky ones would get entangled and remain there, tied up. Others…
…I don’t have the time to get emotionally traumatized.
“Is that Lyra Heartstrings?!” Mary exclaimed. I don’t know how she recognized her, I would never even guess, and I knew Lyra for years. Mane color? Really?
“Quick, after her, she’s going in the right direction!” I shouted, darting out of the alley. “Why is she a human?”
“No clue,” Mary replied, following me at what for her was just a very quick walk. I wish I were a bigger dragon. Even a little bigger would be nice right now. “Maybe it was easier to turn her human than to make a pony version.”
Tailing the rampaging Lyra got us through four more blocks. It was frantic. And really loud. And messy. I’m not sure I want to remember any of it, except maybe that gray earth pony mare on the roof of the opera house. She was standing there and playing her cello, ignoring everything around her, solid like a rock, gray like smoky quartz, the only spot of color being her bow tie, and her long black hair was waving in the breeze. Changelings were swarming around her, and every time one would get too close, a spell or a sharp flying object would greet it, and the mare just kept playing, lost in harmony.
Smoky quartz is not very tasty or filling, but it’s sure easier on the eyes than what I’m seeing in front of me right now.
We were getting further and further behind the running Lyra, when my thoughts were interrupted by a changeling dropping out of the sky in our path. The bug hissed at me. I must think quickly…
Mary is right behind me with her death ray. It’s a very final way to deal with them, but that’s why it is effective. All I have to do is make sure that the bug doesn’t reach Mary before she can shoot, and that I don’t get too close to the beam. Which means I need to roll under its hooves and try to bite the leg…
Suddenly, a ghostly bear’s paw swatted the changeling away, sending it flying into the wall of a building and I jumped back, bumping into Mary’s skirt. “Ursa Minor?!”
Maybe an Ursa Petty? Do those exist? An Ursa Minor would be bigger. This thing could still swallow me whole, but it’s also way more transparent than the one I remember.
The bear snarled at us, turned away and ran into a side street, followed by a cart pulled by Prince Blueblood. In the cart stood the unmistakable figure of Trixie, her horn blazing with power. Even if I didn’t recognize her colors and her face, the cape and the hat she held in her teeth, furiously chewing on it, were a dead giveaway.
Blueblood. Pulling a cart. With Trixie in it. “…Twilight is never going to believe me,” I mumbled.
“Never going to believe us, you mean,” Mary said.
Well, having a witness is a little comforting.
EXTERMINATE!
The song was done, and Lyra was already far out of sight, but above the horizon, I could see changelings taking off and assembling into small clumps, all moving in the same direction across the sky. “They’re retreating! We’ve won!” I exclaimed in relief. They were flying towards city limits, pursued by pegasi in Guard armor and without, beams of magic, crossbow bolts and all kinds of floating and thrown trash. A cannon boomed in the distance.
“How far do we still have to go?” Mary asked, and she sounded even more worried than when we left the café.
I looked up at her, “What’s the hurry now? They’re leaving!”
“The correct thing to do,” Mary said, her face growing whiter by the moment, “and the mainline event, is to reestablish the shield as soon as possible. Which would push all the changelings out of the city at once. It has to be possible now! How far?”
Something about that sounded sickening, and I couldn’t even tell what. “Just around the corner!” I said, turned around and ran, not even caring if Mary is following or not.
The moment I turned the corner, I almost bumped into a Royal Guard. Who took one look at me, folded his ears, cast his eyes away and made a step sideways. “What?…” I asked.
But he didn’t answer.
Among half a squad of Royal Guard mulling about, right on Shining Armor’s front porch, Pinkie, Fluttershy and Rarity were weeping openly, piled together in a group hug. Who dared to make Rarity cry?!
Hay, who managed to make Pinkie cry?!
Applejack was sitting on the pavement next to them, staring at her own hat before her with a deep, dreadful frown. Even Rainbow Dash was standing next to the wall, her face pressed tightly into the white stone.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “What happened? Where’s Twilight?”
Applejack looked up at me. “Spike?” But instead of answering, she, too, folded her ears and looked away.
That’s it.
I went around her and darted for the doors.
“Don’ go in there, Spike!” Applejack yelled at me, but I didn’t care.
…Oh.
I dropped to my knees next to Twilight, who just stood there, next to the remains of the broken chandelier. Her eyes were frozen, unblinking, staring at a sword on the floor in mute shock.
Oh…
When I was just learning to read, Shining Armor gave me my first comic book for Hearth’s Warming. He said that a boy needs heroes to grow up right. We never called each other brothers. Just like I never call Twilight my sister. Other ponies did, but I always thought it would feel strange.
But we were family. And he was my hero. A pony I wanted to be like.
“Cadance,” I heard Princess Celestia’s voice. “Cadance, I understand it hurts, but there is no magic that can raise the dead. Trust me—”
“Do not bother, sister,” Luna’s voice interrupted her. “She can’t hear you.” When did she even come in?… “Verily, there is no such magic. But she is searching, where even I do not dare to tread. If there is harmony in the world, love will find a way.”
“But what if she doesn’t come back?!” Celestia exclaimed.
“We do not work miracles,” Luna replied calmly. “They happen.”
There was no reaction. Only a faint whisper from Cadance, words that I could not make out. Words that I weren’t even sure are words. Maybe a spell. Only, no spell I ever heard about gets a horn to sparkle like that.
I have never really met Cadance before. All they say is that she’s the pretty princess. But right now, that pretty pony princess was doing more majesty than I saw Princess Luna show in the sky. No light show, no booming voice, no glowing eyes, but a sense of power that I never felt before and hope I will never feel again.
“—And I believe that love is stronger than death.”
It faded. Cadance opened her eyes.
And I heard Shining cough.
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Oof. I.. I have no words.
7421263
Saying which particular words you don't have would be helpful. :)
7421291 But I lack them!
I guess Shining in no condition to make sweet magical loveshields at the moment.
One has to wonder if ressurection of the dead doesn't come at a rather high price.
7421317
Well, was it good or bad, at least? "I have no words" kind of leaves a lot of valid interpretations. :)
7421322
I don't think it will be a spoiler to say that it will reflect rather dramatically on the events in the Crystal Empire, because that much should be obvious.
7421342 PM sent!
Actually since time spells that can change events canonically exist bringing back the dead is not impossible. Especially if soon after the event. Locally rewind time for the pony. Or maybe a variant of a teleportation spell/fix it spell, disassemble and put all the parts back together correctly, after all life and death are just changes in biochemistry, entropy pushes it one way but it is theoretically reversible, just not yet practical.
I may be off-base, but I'm wondering exactly whose Shining she actually brought back...
Wait...you're telling me Rika could have given Lyra a giant robot...and didn't?!!!
Monster!
7421413 you forget that in a world so intune with magic, the intangible soul is the most important part of any living being, and we have no way of knowing how that s
t works.
7421591
My editor insists that what she gave Lyra structurally is a giant robot, rather than just a classic mahou shoujo transformation amulet... He kind of has a point. ;)
A regular giant robot would be better against Tirek, I suppose...
I rather hope the Shining Armor that we got a perspective on earlier in the story isn't gone, but it's entirely possible.
My theory on the matter is that death cannot be reversed; What instead happened was that Cadance pulled a Shining Armor's 'soul' from an alternative universe, and that one is now missing theirs, who either dropped dead or won't wake up from sleep.
7421596
Time travel shenanigans still cover this though. Or Necromancy
In fact it can be done with the canon knowledge easily, even with a stable time loop. So let's say Cadence uses the short duration time spell Twilight originally used that causes a stable time loop. Now you would think Cadence going back requires Shining to die for her to have a reason to go back right? Which would cause a paradox, as if he doesn't die she doesn't go back to save him. So she just needs to think Shining is dead to initiate and maintain the loop. For example, cast time spell, move Shining over so as to miss being killed, cast illusion which looks like he gets killed, stabilizing the reason for the loop. In other words a stable time loop can be used to change the past as long as it doesn't appear to change the past until after the time travel into the past. All doable with the canon knowledge base at that time.
7422464
The stunt with the piano gives us a hint that it may work through sleigh of hand. What happens now is still open.
I will also be quite interested in what the princesses think about the creation of a trigger for the arrival of (more) eldritch horrors. Magical Girl Lyra will need enemies to fight. Now it remains to be seen if that happens in a separate storyline that only tangentially touches the original one or if it instead influences the nature of existing existential threats.
7422543
Good thing there is no local pocket dimension (cough) Tarturus (cough) just full of eldritch horrors to fight.
7422623
What I'm "worried" about is that Lyra being a Magical Girl (with proper capitalization) could define the nature of those vague horrors as something even less pretty as what we have already seen.
I thought Twilight had died. I had to reread the passage a few times to realize it was Shining Armour.
7424154
A side effect of reading them with a gap of two weeks, alas. I guess I might have to edit that a bit, but not right now...
Oh man. For a while now, I've wanted to read a read a certain kind of story, but didn't really know what to look for. This story is everything I kind-of already knew I wanted (and a fair few things I didn't know I wanted too), but didn't know how to find. Thank you for this marvelous work. I can't wait to see where this goes.
Did not realize Lyra was a magical girl, I thought she was just a cyborg telekinitec were-human.
Definitely a cool use of a miracle with Cadance! Not sure how this is goint to affect Crystal Empire. Normally I would say "it will toughen up Cadance and Shining Armor and have them act with total aggression against Sombra," but that's kind of what they already did.
I can't wait to see Mary taking Rika to task for introducing magical girls to Equestria, and Twilight talking with Mary about if resurrection could now be routine, or if it was only for "miracles."
7425323
Technically, a magical girl is were-herself... :)
This can´t be good, not good at all!
Today's musical accompaniment suggestion is Metal Goddesses on Spotify. Trust me, it works.
7448735 Oh okay thanks...my head is just stopped every time someone mentions time and stuff I'm on conv. #15 it's good do far I'll keep reading this is going in my library which contains as bout 3.6 million stories something on languages I don't know and some just blank...others are missing a page or two...I'll see if Charles can help me ..where is he? He was on the Natural Selection and evolution section..maybe he's with Albert in Enrgy motion and mathematics...eh I'll get them...see ya later
7515314
Huh. Well you've got a fair amount of implied backstory, which is hard to do. Good job.
"aufwachen waveform,"? Haha guessed right. Nice actually and rather genius idea. Singing magical girls theme does kinda fit with the MLP fanon of heartsong.
In fairness, I thought it was a giant robot/exosuit from the text of the last chapter, and only got that it was a magical girl transform from the comments last chapter.
I'm still not sure I understand "Magical Girls". I understand Bewitched is the classic type 0 -- a magic user visiting a land of muggles. And, type 1 is "Pretending to be grown up, but with no powers".
But type 2 -- suddenly gain magical abilities to defeat evil -- I don't really understand what's the big deal with winning/losing here.
How is what we saw here a type 2 magical girl?
9597952
Technically, you could say that she isn't. One of the defining characteristics for a Type II that Rika gives is that they gain their powers to 'fight off an alien, evil force', and the argument could be made that Chrysalis's sporadic invasions wouldn't count. Which would then mean that Lyra could probably qualify as an exceptionally bizarre Type I; in which case the fighting would be a side effect of the real purpose, which is giving Lyra a chance to take human legs for a spin.
Which, in fairness, wouldn't be the oddest adulthood ritual ever, though it's definitely pretty up there.
Of course, the much simpler explanation is that Lyra is in fact a type II, and the battles so far have simply been the prelude to a much larger adventure.
As for the Winning/Losing, I'm not entirely sure what you're referring to.