Conversation 38: Spike
One reason I so rarely get to eat fire rubies is that they can keep me awake for hours past my bedtime. Oh, and they’re rare and expensive. There’s always that. This one wasn’t very ripe, but it was so tasty…
“Sorry!” a guard shouted, rushing out of the doors and pushing Mary out of the way. “Sir! I think we spotted—”
“Let me guess. Tirek,” Shining Armor interrupted him.
“…Yes, sir,” the guard replied.
“Evacuate the citizens to the castle, assemble on the main street, defensive formation. We must get this done before they knock down the shield,” Shining announced his orders. He grabbed me off his back with his magic, and, after some looking around, set me gently on the floor next to Cadance. “Twilight, wake the rest of your friends up. Use the Elements the first chance you get,” he said, before turning to move.
“Wait!” Twilight yelled after him. “Use the Elements to do what?”
“No time. Cadance will fill you in,” he tossed back at us.
“Shining!” Cadance yelled. “Don’t you dare die out there, you hear me?”
He just turned back, smiled, adjusted the scarf Cadance tied on him yesterday morning, and then galloped out towards the entrance archway of the city. Twilight might be the strongest unicorn there is, but one thing Shining has on her, he’s the coolest one.
Twilight sighed. “So who, or what, is Tirek?” she asked with resigned dread in her voice.
“I only know what Celestia told us,” Cadance replied. “Some prince from an ancient kingdom of centaurs, recently escaped from Tartarus.”
“I thought the last centaur kingdom collapsed sometime in the IX century,” Moondancer commented. “Could a single centaur even live that long?”
“Celestia said that Tirek was why it collapsed, so make your guesses,” Cadance replied. “I had the wedding on my mind and didn’t feel like prying, I was afraid she might answer.”
“So how exactly was he involved?” Mary wondered, brandishing a tiny telescope and looking in the direction of the archway with her pony eye. The dragon eye kept staring at Cadance instead. “You don’t just dump every threatening foreigner into Tartarus, as far as I’m aware.”
“Of course not. Tirek can steal magic. Nopony knows exactly how,” Cadance explained. “He took all the magic the centaurs had, and then he came to Equestria. The more he steals, the more powerful he gets, the bigger he gets, the more magic he can steal. First the unicorn magic, then earth pony and pegasi magic… Celestia said that potentially, he could eat the Moon itself. They only defeated him the first time because they had early warning, and they had to use the Elements to do it.”
Wow. That’s kind of awesome in a scary way.
“Was that the ‘threat’ they got before the wedding?” Twilight asked.
“Yes,” Cadance nodded. “An anonymous letter came in, describing how somepony found Tirek hiding in a cave in the Foal Mountains, took pity on him, befriended him by bringing him food and heard of his plan to attack Canterlot. They tried to talk him out of it, but failed. The letter urged us to be merciful, intercept him before he can do any real harm and show him the error of his ways.”
Twilight smiled. “If somepony wrote that, maybe there’s still a chance.”
“That’s why Luna thought the letter might be genuine,” Cadance agreed. “It was what a decent pony would write.”
“Or a changeling queen,” Mary commented.
Twilight narrowed her eyes at her. “Are you sure?”
“I don’t have proof, but it fits my theory,” Mary replied. “That letter certainly served them as an effective distraction, didn’t it?”
“It could simply be a coincidence,” Rarity objected. “Why do you always have to presume the worst, darling?!”
“Because it keeps me alive,” Mary countered. “Not much chance of a coincidence, if he shows up here among a swarm of changelings, is there?”
Twilight sighed, folding her ears. “So what was the plan for dealing with Tirek?”
“Luna’s plan was to send the army to search for him, then teleport you in with the Elements,” Cadance replied. “Celestia’s plan was to put up a shield and invite you all to help with the wedding. If Tirek didn’t show up, at least you would get a prestigious business opportunity out of it, instead of just sitting around biting your hooves. They ended up doing both.”
“I have to admit that even though neither plan worked out, I like Princess Celestia’s plan better,” Rarity said.
“Without Luna’s plan, the airborne rangers would not be mobilized now,” Cadance replied, and unfurled her wings to greet the first sleepy crystal ponies guided by the guards.
✶ ✶ ✶
Twilight wanted me to stay with Cadance, but eventually, the chamber under the castle became way too crowded, because no matter what, the crystal ponies refused to enter the doors and hide inside, making up all kinds of excuses, and Cadance didn’t insist. Instead, they bunched around her so tightly, that there was no place for an apple to drop. I’m not sure if they were trying to shield her with their bodies or hide under her wings, really, but I can’t blame them. Cadance talked to each and every single one. I think she even remembers all the names we spent so much time trying to guess yesterday.
Something tells me there were more crystal ponies around, once…
Instead of standing there with them, we were hiding behind a corner of one of those tasty-looking crystal houses and watching Twilight and company, who were anxiously dithering – yeah, I think that’s a word – on a tiny hill, as frantic guards and crystal ponies ran past us in all directions, dimly lit by crystal streetlights.
Kinda brings me back. Not a memory I particularly wanted to bring back, really.
“Is this really a good idea?” Moondancer wondered, looking in the direction of the crystal archway. “Wouldn’t we be safer in the castle?”
We would be, I think. But that’s not where a brave dragon would go.
“Not particularly,” Mary replied. “Hooves stepping on feet hurt. Besides, I thought you’d jump at the chance to see the Elements activated up close one more time, this doesn’t come up often. And when the changelings get here… We’re exactly as useful against them as all the other civilians, that is, not very. But I think I might give them some pause.”
Her death ray sure gives me pause. At least she’s always sure to point the thing straight up.
“Um… I do know a few shield spells,” Moondancer objected. “Force Conjuration was one of my favorite disciplines.”
“Good,” Mary stated. “The Elements are definitely going to be a priority target.”
Suddenly, I heard a boom from the direction of the archway. It was Pinkie’s party cannon, which sent a whole bouquet of flares high up into the sky. Instead of burning out and sputtering in a cloud of sparkles like the usual fireworks, they scattered and started floating down on tiny parachutes, lighting everything like daylight and casting a hundred of sharp shadows all over.
The gasp of the crystal ponies could be heard all the way out here.
“They’re almost through…” Moondancer whispered, looking at the glittering cracks in the shield spell above our heads.
“Cover your ears,” Mary said, and we just had the time to do that, when the gigantic shield bubble over the city shattered, raining down blue shards of solid magic.
But instead of falling straight down, I saw them float towards the archway, like flakes in a snowglobe someone tilted to the side and just left to sit like that. Once I took the claws off my ears, I heard a hissing, sucking sound.
The dark figure on the other side of the archway, the weird silhouette of a pony with arms growing out of their neck, wrapped in something that resembled the fur of Fluttershy’s bear friend, was eating the shards, breathing them in, and growing just a little with each one. After a few pieces, he was so tall that his – I was now pretty sure it was a he, at least, he had a beard – horns bounced on the floating crystals on top of the archway. The fur ripped off him, revealing his own, deep red skin, and huge, bulging muscles. Some of the pieces of the shield fell nearby and vanished, melted into the ground, but there were still enough that made it all the way to him.
“Indeed, a perfect place for the next step,” I heard him say, in a voice that was calm and soft, and yet so loud, that you couldn’t help but hear it all the way here.
“FORMATION, NOW!” Twilight yelled, and they all floated up into the air, blazing with the magic of friendship. A wide sheet of rainbow unfurled, speeding towards Tirek in a curve. The giant centaur grinned briefly, and opened his mouth. The rainbow flooded the view, and then…
“What the flaming hell?” I heard Mary whisper. Moondancer just gasped, unable to say anything.
“I am insulted,” the centaur said in the same calm voice, which was now so much deeper and louder, utterly booming in my ears, “that even someone as weak-minded as an equine would dare to try the same magic on me a second time and expect it to work.”
It was booming, because he was now at least a third as tall as the castle, towering over the city in the fading light of Pinkie’s flares, his head lost somewhere among the floating, glowing blue eyes of the changeling swarm.
Twilight turned around to glance at the castle, and I only needed one look at her shocked face to know that if I’m going to do something, anything, I should start right now. Immediately. Yesterday, even. I turned around and grabbed at Mary’s skirt. “Mary, do something!”
Hey, I figure that’s my best chance of getting something done. When in trouble, ask an adult. We’re in some very big trouble here, so, prefer the biggest adult. She’s the tallest one nearby, that has to count for something.
“Like what?…” she muttered, ignoring my attempts to climb her dress, still staring at the giant monster. Mustn’t tear the dress, or Rarity will be mad at me.
“No idea. I know you told Twilight where Cadance was. Nopony knew, but you did!” I exclaimed. “It was your friend Rika who gave Lyra that crystal, and I know it was you who asked her to do it, I saw it! Call her again, I know you can!”
That actually got her attention. “If I ask Rika to interfere, I know exactly what she will do this time,” she replied, staring at me, the dragon eye swirling with shades of gold. “This place will be called the Molten North once she’s done. I don’t think we’re past the Godzilla thre–”
She suddenly froze in place.
Far out on the tiny hill, Twilight said something.
“Lord Tirek,” the giant hissed, drowning everything out. “And I have come to take what should have been mine long ago. Your attempts to stop me are, at best, amusing.”
But I wasn’t watching him, I was looking at Mary’s face, and the absolutely insane grin spreading slowly across it. That’s okay. We could do with some insane right now. It just needs to work once, and then it doesn’t matter if it was insane.
“I can’t do it in six words…” she mumbled, “But I can do it in thirty five.”
And suddenly, she ran towards the nearest hill, and I ran after her, still holding the hem of her dress, as fast as I even could. Whatever she has in mind, we don’t have the time to do anything else. “Moondancer, cast your shield!” she cried.
As we were enveloped in the milky shield bubble, Mary crouched before me and turned me around to face the monster, his silhouette hovering above her head.
“Look into my eyes, not at him,” she whispered.
“Which one?”
“Either. Both. Doesn’t matter, just look!” she hissed. “Repeat after me. My family is my treasure.”
“My family is my treasure,” I repeated uncertainly. Is this magic? She doesn’t know any magic, Twilight is pretty certain of it. It doesn’t feel like magic, but… it feels weird. Like the word “treasure” is scratching at the back of my head, from the inside.
“My friends are my treasure.”
“My friends are my treasure,” I repeated again. I’m not so sure about friends. I’m not sure if I really know how to make friends, but… Lots of ponies tried their best to be good friends to me, and I tried to do as they do. I don’t always succeed, but they say I’m doing alright. And you don’t spend so much time around Twilight without all her lessons rubbing off on you.
“Ponies are their magic.”
“Ponies are their magic,” I repeated. Twilight definitely is, in every sense of every word. Rarity… She’d be devastated if she somehow lost her spells and her cutie mark. I wouldn’t want that to happen.
“This monster came for their magic. This monster came for my treasure.”
“This monster came for their magic. This monster came for my treasure,” I repeated, feeling something slowly change within me. Like lava bubbling somewhere deep in my stomach, right below my heart, heating it up. He dares. They’re my friends, they’re my family! They’re my treasure!
“I need to be stronger. I need to be bigger.”
“I need to be stronger. I need to be…”
I suddenly realized I don’t see her anymore. Only the face of that centaur, that red face with that stupid ring in his nose, the face of the one who came for my hoard, right in front of mine.
I tried to speak, but only a roar came out of my mouth. It’s so hard to think…
I don’t need to think.
MINE!
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Excellent plan Mary, I did not see that one coming.
I'm not entirely sure this is the best plan. Future problems just got a lot more problematic if Spike thinks they are going to put Twilight or Rarity in danger.
Niiiiice!
Definitely causes long-term issues, but sometimes you have to in order to get to the long term.
Huh Tirek was behind the threat on Canterlot?
It's almost if when the invasion happened....could the pony who sent it be a changeling? But the changelings didn't have the equipment for a direct attack...it was pretty adhock almost desperate...could Tirek possibly taken a hostage to use against Chrysalis...
Well.......crap...
Rather short, but so, so very satisfying. I love, love, LOVE how the thoughts and internal monologue are tinted by the person being our POV - "her pony eye", "tasty looking building", "silhouette of a pony with arms growing out of their neck" and more. We learn more about their mind, personality, upbringing etc. even during exposition (two for the price of one!). Here, for example, how (unsurprisingly, considering where and by whom he was brought up) pony-centric Spike's culture-related thoughts are. (This still doesn't read right... I hope you know what I mean - "as opposed to those dictated by his instincts")
Although, I don't really see why you would make "Secret of My Excess" not have happened, Oliver? I thought it was good little bit of character development for Spike and it highlighted how little modern ponies really know about dragons, besides "them's scary and hungry and sit on hoards". Is it that important Mary knows (again) something nopony does because of her familiarity with MLP series, so she's the only one who can come up with such a plan?
at "Godzilla tresho- 
Ohwait. Ideaa!"
Also:
One more thing: is "Schizotech" oficially canon to "Aporia"?7888971
The threat of his appearance was just a distraction, to make sure her invasion force never comes into contact with the real army, while the Royal Guard is too busy to notice her infiltrators. Chrysalis knew that this threat would be an effective distraction precisely because she knew that Tirek has escaped. She is exceptionally well informed, after all. She even knew where he is really hiding. Which is what permitted her to make a deal with him when the invasion ended in retreat due to Lyra’s musical number…
I suppose she will need to have a monologue closer to the end of the arc to explain just how clever her plans were.
7889060
Most of the preceding chapters were way over budget, anyway, I’m aiming for 2500 words per chapter here. :)
It’s a consequence of my chronology theory, I didn’t do it for Mary. (Though I can’t say I haven’t been tempted.) Rather, Mary could pull this stunt precisely because she knows the episode order is not chronological. See this blog post for details…
It’s an alternate universe based on the exact same research. I.e. it’s the story that existed before Mary opened that book, or at least a very similar one.
Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
This is gunna be good
Spike can Kaiju too!
Given the fairly extreme physical differences between Tirek and his brother Scorpan, I always assumed they came from Generic Monster Land or Generic Demon Land rather than from Centaur country.
7889886 in the comics it's Centaur/gargoyle land their father was a Centar and mother a gargoyle. So genetics might work like ponies where when a gargoyle and centar have children they end up as one or the other instead of hybrids.
7890057
Oy. Pony genetics are complicated enough.
(In any event, I don't take comics canon very seriously since they turned Sombra from an evil mighty Unicorn wizard to an entirely new species of shadow pony who is evil and magical because shadow ponies are evil and magical. Phooey).
7889886
7890057
I have spent quite a while meditating on that particular comic. The, ahem, logistical problems involved in breeding two races at such a size disparity would be immense. But the comic insists it’s not a “generic monster land” and multiple gargoyles and centaurs are shown.
What I think happened is that the centaur kingdom absorbed the gargoyle polity in some fashion, presumably peacefully, if not without tension – seeing how all the guards are gargoyles, but a centaur is the obvious patriarchal king – which was sealed with a political marriage. This happened shortly after Scorpan was born, while Tirek was still a little kid, so they do call each other brothers. Their mother is concerned with appearing to be a happy family enough to annoy Tirek, and he bears obvious resentment towards his father, so I suspect Tirek still remembers his actual birth mother.
In the end of the comic, the king leaves to preventively make amends to Equestria, before the kidnapping of a pony becomes a problem. My guess is, for one reason or another, he did not return. Discord starting his rampage and messing up the solar cycle enough to accidentally get his ship to sink without meaning to or even knowing about it sounds like a possibility…
Ooh yeah, this is going to be good. *cranks the Pacific Rim soundtrack*
Fuck yeah, the birth of the Legend! Spike the Brave and Glorious!!!
7891170
Linking to the essay in question would be helpful, LW is not a place I frequent. :)
7891307
If you ask me, you distorted it significantly by emphasizing things he only mentioned peripherally, and I like your take away from it much better than what he actually seems to have said. :)
If I use the references sprinkled around HPMOR (which I did read) as an indication of his level of familiarity with Japanese fiction in general, I wouldn’t say he knows what he’s talking about particularly well.
What has to be said, though is that Japanese storytelling is generally richer in obvious tropes, often marked by very specific turns of phrase. I’m not sure why. Presumably, because the prevailing attitudes do not consider using a trope a sign of unoriginality by itself – and this trope is indeed one of the big ones. But wrecking the Tokyo Tower is also one, and it’s unwise to make conclusions about pessimism on a national scale based on either.
Actually, I think that’s the moment to poke ScarletWeather and see what she has to say about this, because she wrote a few insightful blogposts about a very close topic…
Hey, 7721722
Aside: Why doesn’t anybody call songs unoriginal because they have a chorus and rely on chords, like every other song?…
I must admit I didn’t think about it quite that way.
It does, however, follow indirectly from the way I did think. This story, beyond its canon research shenanigans, beyond the action and the interpersonal and internal drama, exists to express a complex, multifaceted idea that I’ve been thinking for way too bloody long, and can’t seem to just put into an essay and forget despite numerous attempts, because it doesn’t fit, even into my own head.
I’m not even sure if the idea is any good, but if that’s what you found as its consequence, I’m probably doing something right. :)
A deliberate triggering of Spikezilla? I have seen this done before once or twice, but never against Tirek. It might be a good or bad idea, depending on several factors. From the S4 finale, it appears that it is easier for Tirek to drain magic from unicorns than say, earth ponies, but that he can eventually drain energy from earth ponies as well. As a dragon Spike is incredibly magical, probably as or more magical than a unicorn, but like an earth pony his magic is suffused inside him rather than easily sucked out by a convenient horn. So is giant Tirek able to suck the magic out of Spike in a fight? If not, why not?
I mean, if he can't all Tirek really knows how to do is bash things (against the scales of an elder dragon even Tirek's fists wouldn't do much), and throw... fire. So this will be an awesome curbstomp.
Any reason why Mary didn't just shoot Tirek with her laser gun? I mean, I assume it's not actually magic, and with her special eye and enhanced aim she could probably put one good beam through an eye and into the brain pan.
Also, re-read the last chapter (as I do before reading the current chapter, to make sure I'm not missing anything). A "miracle device" is to Equestria what magic is to earth, isn't it? It's their version of fantasy. (And impossibly advanced spells are their equivalent of science fiction).
The EoH qualifies as a miracle device, but not the Crystal Heart. It's using a excess love energy that was previously going to waste (except when changlings are around) and converting it into useful magic. If the Crystal Heart is a miracle device then so are solar panels on your roof.
That's 35.
But did Mary need to say "bigger(36)"?
7891603
Couldn’t be one if I wanted to, at least in the LW sense. My brain is way too dependent on hardwired, blackbox implementation of pattern recognition and referencing in large data volumes, so in the end their conceptual framework of rationality ends up exactly as useless to me as UML – and for the same reasons. But at the same time, I know this process is not faultless, so I try to be empirical where possible…
There is that research by Adrian Thompson that Pratchett mentions in “Science of Discworld,” which I actually tracked down, see original paper. To put a long story very short, he was attempting to use genetic algorithms to evolve a circuit to do something in actual hardware, as opposed to emulation, and got really bizarre results. In particular, in his final circuit, only 32 out of 100 elements were actually doing anything, and of them six were not connected to anything and still influencing the results enough that removing them broke it.
Evolutionary processes tend to produce crazy systems like that, and society is a result of an evolutionary process, even though it pretends not to be. :)
7891999
Her eye doesn’t offer her any enhanced aim, because it is inconsistent about where anything is, or even how big it is. Which is why she aims with her left, normal eye, and in the poor lighting currently on the field, all that would get her is getting stomped after inflicting an inconsequential wound – or more likely, a blast from Tirek’s horns, but she doesn’t know he can do that, yet.
Kinda. It also so happens that “A Hearth’s Warming Tail,” the story-inside-the-episode, is a bit of both: It includes an impossibly advanced spell Snowfall Frost plans to cast using an unheard of, but presumably, theoretically possible hybrid of alchemy and unicorn magic, and three spirits, which clearly have their origins in fantasy and do not otherwise feature in magical practice or science.
What Moondancer said was that it radiates more love energy than goes in, and useful magic is a waste product of that process. I.e. it’s a solar panel that shines brighter than the sun in turn.
Which is, incidentally, why Chrysalis wants it.
7892689
I think I’ll leave that potential off-by-one error on Mary’s conscience. Maybe she started counting with zero!
7892822
Ok, so it's not some quantum de-tangler, just a regular old blaster/phaser, and it's not going to do much against a 100 foot-tall centaur. I do occasionally forget this isn't a typical HiE where the protagonist can casually handle any problem on their own.
But Moondancer has no idea what she's talking about.
Until like a week ago, magical science didn't believe in love energy. So how does she know how much love energy is actually being put out by the Crystal Ponies, compared to the amount radiated back to them? I'm sure she's quite knowledgeable on the amount of thaum necessary to power the shield. My guess is she's calculating the average magical output in thaums of an earth pony, multiplying it by the population, and getting a significantly lower number than required to power the shield. Of course, that means Moondancer is assuming that love energy is a subset of total magical energy, rather than an additional source of energy currently being wasted outside the Crystal Empire.
...But the current chapter suggests this theory is false! If love energy and magical energy draw from the same source, then Chrysalis would never have used Tirek to attack the Crystal Empire, because in the process he would eat up all the energy she was hoping to gain! But if Love and Magic are two separate sources of energy, than Tirek can devour the magic from ponies, but they will still emit nutritious love, and even power the Crystal Heart while drained of magic. Oh, and I suspect the Crystal Heart works a lot like a transformer.
7894083
It’s a Warhammer 40k laspistol, a small and relatively underpowered one at that. In its home universe, lasguns are a class of weapons renowned for reliability, independence from ammunition supply when required, and not being more effective against most of the stuff that inhabits that universe than a flashlight. It’s a perfect weapon to dispatch a timberwolf, or, as it happens, a changeling – or fifty, if need be. Not very useful against boss-level enemies at all. :)
Moondancer made this conclusion based on the observation of conduits which are obviously meant to conduct something – but that something is not magic as she knows it. Cadance’s abilities are an acknowledged fact, but their mechanism of operation remains unknown, and Cadance does not have the theoretical background or inclination to describe her experiences enough to actually build up a case for the existence of love energy in modern terms, where magic is seen as a fundamental physical force, on par with gravity and electromagnetism. Pre-classical magic, however, used entirely different philosophical frameworks to explain what’s going on when a unicorn casts a spell, which had a lot more to do with poetry than physics.
What annoyed Moondancer so much is that she was actually presented with clear evidence for the existence of something that seems to her as nonsensical as phlogiston.
I actually have a long blog post in the works regarding how I think magic works, which I think fits most or all of canonical incidents and sort of makes sense – as usual, canon is a horrid mess in this regard. I just need to finish it by propping it up with all the canon references, and that will take a while yet.
You should assume that all the characters in this Equestria are at least competent, and that includes both Moondancer and Chrysalis, and even Tirek. :)
That said, quite a few of them know things others don’t.
7894228
After I posted I realized the answer was probably something like this. So more energy (of unknown type) is heading in to the CA than heading out. Moondancer may not know the fundamental units of love energy (let's call it a megasmooch), but she can tell from the readings that 600 megasmooches are going in and 900 are going out, basically.
I can't wait! For the hat trick, can you fit in Equestria Girls magic? Because I feel like that is even loopier than the show proper.
It's a slight AU, I'll grant you.
7894248
Mostly based on the “thickness of the wires,” because there’s nothing going in or out right now, due to the Heart being pulled out of its intended socket, but yes, exactly.
I’ll try. It is loopier, and I kind of have to, because… spoilers. :)
But of course, that’s what Rika and Twilight will be discussing in Conversation ~45…
I love this story. So glad I found it.
It takes a Village to kaiju-ize a dragon