Episode 4.7: Fire Within
They didn’t stand a chance. Alex had seen many hopeless causes in her life, though few had ever seemed so bleak as the army marshaled in front of them. They started firing long before they reached them, unicorns in back unloading barrage after barrage on their charging enemy.
Obrican’s hardened front lines buckled in places, where lucky shots had taken enough damage that replacement soldiers hadn’t flowed in to fill the gap. It was an opening, though she knew it wouldn’t be enough. Even as their enemy provided wider and wider openings for their wedge, there was no way for thirty-eight ponies to make it through hundreds.
Formations met, and the Hammer scattered enemy troops like straw. A pegasus named Shane went down, shield finally depleted and body pierced with a dozen crossbow bolts. She lost Dana and Mitchell as they rounded the corner into view of the city, and their progress ground to a halt.
“Unicorns, prepare to clear!” she bellowed, gesturing towards Estel’s fortress. It was only a block away. Might as well have been on another planet for the sheer number of soldiers in their way, pressing in closer and closer with every moment.
This army desperately needs a victory, said a well armored ghost, fighting alongside Archive with his golden spear and eagle-plumed helmet. They will suffer any losses to stop you here.
She could see he was right. So many enemy soldiers charged down on them that plenty were being trampled in their effort to reach her. There were so many.
Estel’s cannons fired. Most of the energy was dissipated harmlessly crossing the distance. Some made it, slicing a huge chunk from the soldiers between them and the city. Another second later and the last charge was expended, and more troops rushed to fill the gap.
Five hundred feet before clear ground. Another two hundred fifty before the shield. “Clear now!” she commanded.
Dozens of enemy soldiers went flying into the air, thrown by a single focused wave of force. Many landed pierced with the arrows of their fellows.
The Hammer rushed forward to fill the gap, struggling towards Estel. She was down to twenty ponies now, cutting a thinner and thinner swathe through the enemy. Unfriendly soldiers bunched up so thick that there was nowhere to shove them. Their own magic was nearly exhausted.
Another volley of arrows rained down on them from above, killing her last few pegasi. Only a dozen of them were still standing.
“We’ll never make it!” Robert bellowed, fear filling his voice. “There’s no way—” He screamed an agonized rattle as he fell, a crossbow bolt passing straight through his neck. Red blood sprayed as he fell, twitching and spasming on the ground in front of her.
Archive could see the truth of it even as she heard it, and she felt her power falter. Every set of eyes fell on her, watching to see what she would do. If their confidence failed, so would she. “Not yet.” She planted both hooves on the ground, looked at her city, and drew in power.
Rarely had she ever used her unique role to force the attention of ponies on her. Never before had she consciously drawn from the other half of that ability. She had known that humans were her strength—she’d been weak when civilization was weak, and strong when it was strong.
Please, she pleaded. I need your help. I need to get these ponies home.
She pulled, and time stopped moving. Archive’s eyes widened as she felt it, a torrent of magic unlike anything she had ever known. She saw through the eyes of every tearful refugee, sensed every nightmare, every hope. Not just Estel, but thousands and thousands of others. Sailor-kings in the Mediterranean, living their whole lives from the ocean. Another Chinese empire, ruled over by a former street vendor from Guangzhou. All would lend her a little of their strength.
Her vision shifted upward, rushing far beyond Earth’s baleful gravity to a city that floated around it like a ring. Millions of eyes all looked down at their planet, wondering what it might be like to walk again. She knew them all now, though she had never known their names.
Archive felt like she might explode. So much power burned inside her chest she could see it sparking whenever she opened her mouth to breathe. The direct light of the sun faded from around her, in a patch of night that had not been there. No wind blew in that darkness, no light penetrated, yet she found she could still see clearly.
The enemy froze around them, backing up around the patch of midnight that had swallowed her and her soldiers. None dared move near it, staring in open wonder.
Already her power was boiling away, like a bucket of liquid nitrogen dumped onto a hot road. But how could she use it? An earth pony could’ve opened a chasm to swallow the enemy. A unicorn could’ve thrown them through the air. A bat pony could dreamwalk. But going to sleep wouldn’t help these ponies.
She called up everything she knew about bats and their magic—then she saw it. Going to sleep wouldn’t help these ponies, but maybe building a bridge would.
Archive screamed, and tore the veil of sleep away with a sweeping gesture from her hooves. A crack like lightning split the air, arcing upward and spreading darkness as it went. In front of her was a portal not unlike what the unicorns had done on the beach, except it didn’t lead to anywhere on Earth. Instead there was a library, its shelves fallen over, books overcome with dust and mildew and wood warped with water-damage. Its cozy fireplaces all came to life as the doorway opened.
No sooner did it appear than it started to fade. The darkness around her shrunk as months of power evaporated to sustain the incredibly powerful spell. “GO!” she command, gesturing within. As before, her ponies obeyed, though their eyes were all wide with shock. Every second it shrunk still further, so that by the time Everest was bringing up the rear, he barely fit. “What about you?”
In answer, Archive bucked him with all the force she had, sending him crashing through the doorway just as it smashed closed. The shockwave of air and crackling energy knocked over everypony standing within two hundred feet, sending them spinning and rolling away.
Archive stood alone. Every member of her Hammer was either on the ground dead or gone into Skein. Darkness faded from around her, the buzzing energy expended. She’d done it… done something, anyway. It was hard to say what.
The shouts and urgency of battle faded as her enemies rose to their hooves and saw Archive now stood alone, without a single friendly sword beside her. Estel’s banner still waved. Somepony—maybe Tom, maybe Jackie—had the good sense not to charge to their rescue. The reserve stood no chance, not against these numbers.
A dozen griffons shoved through the crowd of stunned ponies, each one unarmed except for natural claws and beak.
“Stop,” she commanded, raising Kerberos in one hoof and pointing it at the foremost of them as they crossed the twenty feet of empty space between her and their own lines. “Surrender, and I’ll let you—”
Something blasted at her, a wave of force from behind. Her armor made it curve harmlessly around her body, only jostling the plates a little as it passed—but it caught Kerberos with enough force to tear the gun and that armor plate alike off by the straps, and rip them away. She screamed, reaching for the gun as it went spinning out of her grip, over the heads of the enemy and out of sight. “No!” She reached after it, but there was nothing she could do. She couldn’t fly after it, not with the armor weighing her down.
The griffons stopped a few feet away, towering over her. They watched with their bright, birdlike eyes, conversing with each other in speech she couldn’t understand. Goading each other to be the first to come at her, maybe.
Her phenomenal power had all been spent, to save the last dozen in her Hammer. Robert’s corpse still lay at her hooves. She yanked the knives from his hooves, sliding them into place on her own armor, then slamming each leg down against the ground as hard as she could, bending the metal so that each blade would extend outward from her hoof, about four inches. Glittering steel dripped with the blood of somepony Robert had killed, or perhaps it was his own blood. She didn’t know.
The largest of the griffons nodded at her, apparently satisfied with what she’d done. He opened his mouth, screeching a command in a voice that barely even sounded like language.
They all came at her at once, a dozen enemies twice her own size wearing heavy chain mail and wielding natural weapons equal to any made in a forge.
Archive had very little power left, but she still had her memory. The memory of a species which had lived its entire existence at constant war with itself. Humans had not known magic, and had not long known firearms. For almost all their history, they had fought this way.
Blows rained down on her, scratching claws meant to tear her armor apart and expose her vulnerable insides. She avoided every one, bobbing out of the way of one attack while she brought one dagger in for a quick jab at an unprotected flank. When another of the birds came down at her with its beak snapping, she trusted in her armored left hoof and ramned the knife straight up through the back of its throat, then kicked the corpse aside.
She was hopelessly outnumbered, even by this small handful of individuals, yet she didn’t let it matter. Alexander Haggard did not fight these griffons, she danced. Duck, dodge, roll! Her whole world was motion, snapping jaws and raking claws.
None of it touched her. Archive had not called up a single method of combat with a single master, as she often did. She was them all, a perfect dance of death that permitted no error and presented no weakness.
In under twenty seconds, every one of the dozen griffons lay dead at her hooves. Her own armor was now well dented and covered with long scratches, drained of much of the magic meant to protect her—but it held.
She looked up at exactly the moment she felt a crossbow bolt pierce the metal on her shoulder and ram into her leg. For one who had died as often as she had, the blood and pain was hardly a distraction. She charged the pony who had shot her with an enraged roar. This pony was between her and Estel. She couldn’t die now!
She didn’t make it ten steps before the press of the enemy’s overwhelming numbers returned, charging in around her with sharpened spikes and blades on their armor just like hers.
She killed with almost every blow. Yet for every pony she killed, two more surged forward to take their place. Blows rained down on her. Someone ripped away at the strap holding her breastplate, and the spell was broken. A surge of fire from a unicorn melted the delicate skin of her wings.
She kept fighting. Clear ground was only fifty feet away now, so close. Were she not almost blind with pain, she could’ve seen it. So many ghosts fought beside her, she could no longer tell if their blows were phantoms, or if they were killing too. Everything hurt, and she’d lost so much blood.
The attack stopped. She blinked, looking around in dim shock, hoping that maybe she’d made it through. Could she live through this?
The enemy had cleared a space perhaps twenty-five feet across. Weapons surrounded her at every point, sharpened pikes and spears and many drawn crossbows.
An officer in gold armor stepped forward and shouted something she couldn’t understand. “Stand down!” she guessed. “Surrender!” She didn’t know for sure.
Alex flicked her hoof with all the force she had, dislodging one of her knives and sending it spinning through the air at him.
He caught it easily in his magical grip, eyes narrowing.
Archive would not be taken as a prisoner today—not when she knew the secrets that could undo Estel’s protection. They can’t torture me if I’m dead.
Someone shouted. A hundred barbed shafts flew at her, filling the space in front of her. Many glanced off her enchanted armor. But there were so many—bolts lodged in joints, and in her flesh where it was unprotected. Several pierced her helmet.
Surrounded by her fallen brothers in arms and an ocean of dead enemies, Alexander Haggard died.
Alex did not drift as she had so many times before, called to lightless places through the iridescent veil. Instead she lingered, detached and drifting.
She saw her body. Burned and broken, pierced by a hundred arrows. Her coat was black, her eyes cooked. Yes, the royal army had done a better job destroying her than every other enemy she’d fought. Knowledge was power, but even great knowledge could not make her something she wasn’t.
Civilization did not concentrate itself into one pony—the strength of wisdom was in the thousands and millions who knew. Minds working together, growing in wisdom and understanding and compassion. That was why she had lost—her civilization had not been strong enough.
Archive did not have a body, yet somehow she turned. Her ponies had only this last bastion, a single sturdy structure with its concrete buttresses and slits for gunfire and cannons. Perhaps they would be fleeing now, fresh recruits crushed by the sight of their greatest hope destroyed. Her mother, Nancy, and every other pony she loved in this place would die.
Yet as she looked, that wasn’t what she saw. Tom, uniform ripped and bloody, fought beside the reserve. Anti-aircraft cannons, aimed down into enemy troops, disrupted another charge.
The enemy rushed forward, around Alex’s fallen corpse. The mob charged undisciplined, a press towards the fortress, yet still Estel fought. They would still die, but they had not fled. High on the tower, the red and blue and white banner flew, proud and undamaged despite the ravaged landscape around it.
Archive saw, and knew what kept her here. A people, broken and outnumbered, had not given up. She had given a tiny spark of civilization to this city, and now that spark had grown into a flame. They felt, even as she had felt, that the justice of their cause would bring victory even against unassailable odds.
They hoped.
Even as the ancient farmers, who buried food they could’ve eaten in the ground, a promise of a harvest long distant. Even as the explorers, climbing onto wooden rafts without sails, beckoned by islands undiscovered. Even as a democracy, which placed the power to rule into everyone’s hands instead of a few.
Archive let herself hope, and was swallowed in a river of light.
* * *
Archive stood in a world of gears and light. Structures of marble and crystal filled the horizon, distant temples to a thousand ancient gods. Her hooves rested on white sand, flowing dunes behind her that precipitated off a sudden and violent slope, tumbling into the void. She spared one glance into the darkness, and saw an endless, gnawing hunger. Hunger for her, and all things that were built.
She turned away, where the path ahead of her was paved with worn cobblestone. She started to walk, and the sound of her hooves echoed off the massive architecture all around her. She followed it up, up to a sky that had no sun. There was only light, a million different kinds of starlight blending together in a day that never ended.
The city was as beautiful as it was organic—a natural growth of streets and avenues and boulevards like Paris or Rome. Yet the path she’d taken was a small one, forgotten amidst the alleys. She did not see any of the city’s people, if it had them. Not until she reached the well.
It was at the top of a towering hill, so high it loomed over the city below. So high that the stars looked not like distant pinpricks of light, but spheres she might reach out and take if she wanted. The well itself was a humble place, a worn stone structure that might’ve fit into some ancient Middle-Eastern city. A rotating beam rested on the rocks, with a small bucket hanging from frayed rope.
Sunset Shimmer was there, as Archive had known she would be. There was no crowd of other watchers, no angry god. Nothing but a distant wind, whistling musically through the city below.
“Lonely Day.” Sunset embraced her, holding her close with one wing. “I’ve been waiting here for you a long time.”
“It hasn’t been that long since Christmas,” Archive answered, returning her smile. “Has it?”
Up here, Sunset seemed changed. Her mane wasn’t hair anymore, but a constant, flickering fire. She could feel the heat even now, though it did not burn her.
Long ago, a new pony named Alex had met Princess Luna, and seen the way her mane constantly seemed to move. Now, she could feel the wind that moved it, as it blew about the well.
“Much longer than that.” Sunset turned away from her, walking over to the well. She used one leg to turn the crank instead of her magic. Ancient oak creaked as it was lowered into the darkness below.
“Remember when we met? A part of me saw the pain of your empty world and the ponies we had broken. I wept that we had caused such pain. We were right to save you, but I knew then we’d done it all wrong. We assumed humans thought as ponies did—that if your rulers said you wanted to be left alone to die in peace, they spoke for your wishes.”
Sunset stopped cranking, looking back at her. “When I met you, and brought you to Equestria, I learned we had been wrong. Humans shared so much in common with us, but you saw the world through different eyes. Knowing the suffering we had caused, seeing the world as you showed it to me, helped me understand. I’ve been waiting for you ever since.”
Water splashed somewhere far away. Sunset walked around to the other side of the crank and turned with her forehooves from that direction instead, drawing the rope back up.
“But I’ve seen you since then. Many times. You can’t have been up here.”
The Alicorn smiled. “Even the wise rely on their assumptions. Those you called the last time you saw this shore did not expect you would come again. Your fill had been consumed by others, they thought. They left me to judge you alone.”
Alex reached out with one hoof, as though to take over the effort of drawing the well.
Sunset shooed her away with a faint shimmer of magic. “No. I’ve waited all this time… the privilege of labor is mine. If you want to help, you will have to guide another onto the road.”
Archive sat back, watching. The wood creaked as rope coiled around it, dripping with something clear but glowing. “What do you mean by…”
“Judge?” Sunset stopped cranking a moment, and she seemed to be panting from the effort. She caught her breath before answering. “Do you know where you are?”
“The Supernal,” Archive answered. “The place magic comes from.”
“That’s right.” Sunset left her weight on the crank, so the bucket couldn’t drop back into the well far below. “You see the shapes and patterns of the world. Your eyes see buildings and stars, because those are familiar to you. But what you’re really looking at, are…”
She went back to cranking. Alex could nearly see the bucket now, just below the low wall of the well.
“The truths that make the world. Everything you know, from gravity to your mother, Mary, exists here. Changes made here affect the universe below, everywhere, all at once. You didn’t kill any insects on your walk here, did you?”
“No.” Archive shivered, letting her eyes open a little wider. Now that Sunset had explained where she was, the reality became clear. The stones of the well looked like rocks, but they weren’t. Each one was a hollow, empty thing, written of a million tiny runes all packed together. Everything—the structures, the flowing dunes, even herself—she could see through it all. “God.”
“After a fashion.” Sunset finished cranking, and locked the wood into place with one final push. The bucket hung near the top of the well now, glowing from within. Something frothed and bubbled, something that was as clear as it was bright. “The road itself judges those who walk it. The only way to find yourself here is for your soul to take the shape of one of our truths. You’ve done it once before, when you became a memory.”
Sunset reached down beside the well, lifting a little wooden cup. It was ancient and worn, without a handle or a flat bottom to let it rest with stability on any surface. She lowered it into the bucket, and drew it out full. She set it on the ground in front of Archive, careful not to spill a drop.
“Alright.” Archive did not move from her sitting position. “I’m ready.”
Sunset nodded, and the fire in her mane seemed to grow. The heat surrounded her, hot enough to melt flesh, boil blood, char bone. The cup and its liquid contents were unmoved, even as Archive herself sat still. After all the pain she had endured in her many deaths, this was nothing new.
Besides, she had no body left to kill. “Never before has one walked the path who killed so many on her way.”
“I am sorry for their pain,” Archive answered. “But humans aren’t like ponies, we don’t sit back and wait for someone else to help. We do something.”
Sunset nodded. The heat remained, wrapping around her, charring through her. Yet for all its warmth, Archive did not burn. She had only spoken the truth. “When you return to the world below, what will you do?”
“Keep my promises.”
The flames went out. Sunset’s mane returned to around her shoulders, its gentle flickers waving faintly in the astral wind. “I already knew that,” Sunset said, pushing the wooden cup towards her. “I just wanted to make sure you did. Where this road leads isn’t an end of pain. There is still so much of it on our planet.”
“There’s about to be a little less.” Alex reached out and took the cup with one hoof. She didn’t need to be told what to do—she drank. The liquid fire had no taste, no substance, no texture. Yet it burned far hotter than Sunset’s mane had, its light so bright that it passed through her whole body and out into eternity’s endless gulf.
She vanished.
* * *
Archive cut through the universal gulf like a shooting star, streaking through the darkness of night and war to where her body still rested lifeless and broken. The battle raged on, and ponies died. Her ponies. The light of hope that had drawn her here grew very dim.
Archive knew power as she had never known before. Part of that power brought her vision, and with that vision she could see the truth. She would start with this corpse—it was a lie, a lie she had the power to correct. She knew every healing spell that had ever been written, after all.
Arrows ripped free of her body, thrown by the strength of her will. Fifty different spells worked themselves in her mind—one for each of her many wounds. Jagged flesh knit together, pierced organs sealed and blood returned to its proper place. The bones went next, even as black skin sloughed off, replaced with fresh growth and a healthy green coat. Wings were next, delicate muscles and bones each put back in place. Feathers long absent grew again, blanketing the new skin in a wave. Last came the horn, forever-absent focus for the magic she would need if she wanted to save these ponies.
Archive breathed in, and with a jerk her heart started to beat. The ocean of liquid fire around her congealed around her head, replacing the charred mane and tail she’d once had with something like smoke. Dark green, living power.
She coughed and hacked a lungful of slime and blood. She was surrounded by enemies, the charging rear-guard with the wooden wheels of new trebuchets crunching on dirt and old cement. Armed ponies turned towards her as she rose, raising weapons. No bows this time, but the swords and pikes that would be used to protect the trebuchets from small attacks.
“Kill her!” She realized she could understand the ponies now. Archive tensed as the spears flew, many driven by magic and many more by throws.
She stopped them all, several dozen lengths of sharpened metal and wood frozen in the air all around her. She returned them to their owners, and several dozen soldiers died.
“No more!” she screamed, and her voice echoed through the broken streets. She lifted into a hover, though she didn’t use her wings. She didn’t need to. The runes she had studied all her life swam around her now, and all were within her reach. Her magic felt like it would go on forever.
There were twenty new trebuchets rolling up to her city, no two built quite alike. Archive anchored herself securely in the air, then pushed out around her with a wave of force like unicorn telekinesis.
Whole charging crowds of ponies scattered into the air like wooden toys, thrown with such force they made bloody smears on nearby buildings. The trebuchets went next, joints cracking under the pressure then exploding into their constituent parts, mowing down more ponies as they went.
The nearest structures went last—some former homes to the people of Estel, some empty shells too unsafe to use—they all cracked before being tumbled apart into a thousand chunks.
Archive landed on a strangely silent battlefield. Estel’s last bastion was the only nearby building now standing, spared from her wrath. Thousands of enemy soldiers were still pressed against it, even as all of her own citizens were untouched. On the opposite field were the unnumbered masses of the enemy, far too many to commit in such close quarters.
Far away, though not so far her new eyes couldn’t see it, Archive saw the white and gold banner of the commander. She left the broken remnants of the army at her gates, and started walking towards the opposing army.
Her horn steamed with the force of her constant spellcasting. She relaxed the force somewhat, enough that the nearest structures only cracked and strained instead of crumbling at her approach. She’d drawn a great deal of magic down with her, but it wouldn’t last forever.
Even now, Archive realized she could feel her reserves draining. She probably should’ve been more careful, more precise, shepherding this reserve and saving it for some future emergency.
She didn’t know how.
Archive had only been able to cast her own spells for a minute so far. It would take her longer than that to learn.
An entire legion of ponies charged as she approached, filling the sky with arrows and boulders and lances of unicorn magic. All swerved away—straight back into the ranks of the enemy. With less suddenly applied power, she didn’t turn them to jelly as their unlucky compatriots had been. Rather, any who charged found themselves striking a solid wall. With each step she took, any who closed within a few hundred feet either slid or were flung back.
Thousands of ponies joined the fray. The only ones who died then were either crushed to death by their compatriots or pierced by redirected projectiles. However hot her rage might burn for those who had threatened her city, Archive did not wish vengeance on these ponies.
As she neared the rear line, she was impressed that the army hadn’t buckled. Its reserve formations closed in around her, pressing from all sides. As she finally neared the general’s position, thousands of ponies were thrown by her will into the Hudson.
Not the general. Archive’s magic had grown in precision as she neared his banner, and so she made an exception for him, allowing him and his unarmed attendants and lesser generals to remain as she walked nearer.
She walked right up to the general in his golden armor. He was still taller than she was, though not as much as she remembered.
“Demon!” he shouted at her, raising a sword in magic grip. She turned it molten with a flick of her mind, letting it splash down onto the ground in front of him and char at his hooves a little.
“Order the retreat,” she commanded, her voice calm but loud enough that all the generals and ponies around could hear. “You will take your army off my island.”
“Never!” he roared, blasting at her with a few powerful spells. Any one of them could’ve killed an unprotected pony.
Archive grounded each and every one with only a modest effort, until her enemy’s horn steamed as hers did and he panted from the effort. “Order the retreat.”
“You’ll all die, outcast! The gods banished you from heaven, they’ll help me now that we’re facing you! You can’t—”
Archive didn’t wait to find out what she “couldn’t” do. She removed the exception to her universal force spell. The general’s body, now near its epicenter, took enough instantaneous acceleration to throw a firetruck over the Hudson.
“Which one of you is second in command?” she asked, turning her attention on the small crowd of ponies armored in silver with gold trim.
One of them stepped forward—an earth pony mare with a scar down her face and a red plume on her helmet. “I am.”
“Order the retreat.” Archive gestured for the other side of the river. “The bits and pieces of your general should be waiting for you there. You will have every pony in your army off my island by sunrise.”
The earth pony dropped her spear, letting it fall on the ground at Alex’s hooves. “Do it,” she called, back to one of the nearby unarmed ponies.
He lifted a large horn to his mouth, then blew three long blasts. At once, the press on Archive’s shield stopped.
“Good,” Archive took a step towards the new general. “I don’t enjoy killing. You won’t make me do any more of it, will you?”
“No,” the pony responded, her voice flat. “We won’t.”
“Good. Once you’ve seen to the wounded, you’re going to march straight back to Obrican. When you get back, you’re going to deliver a message for me. Understand?”
The pony only nodded.
“You will tell him what you saw here. You will tell him the immortal who returned from death will be visiting him soon. If he sends anypony here before I do… I’ll kill him, his advisors, and his entire court with my own hooves. I’ll put somepony in charge who’s a little more agreeable.”
The pony’s eyes widened, but she didn’t object. “I will tell him.”
“Good.” Archive turned her back on the ponies. A few seconds of thought, and she had exactly the teleportation spell she needed, which would take her back to the doors of her fortress. She used it, and vanished with a loud implosion of air.
Stats
Page generated in 0.071 seconds
Total duration
1,065 users online
1,945,663 hits today, 2,561,572 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Badass
She finally ascended! Shit be gettin' real now!
Dang. Looks like Alex now has the ability to deal with everything.
Huzzah!!
Welp, leave it to a pony to pull a Jesus and turn it into a badass action movie. Me gusta Archive.
7902873 Perhaps enough to get rid of certain world ending asshole? Eh it would be too easy.
Hooolleeee CRAP!
Archive just went badass.
Jackie was right though, Alex did die. But to me it seems as though this had to happen. Alex has never been able to progress without death being her stepping stone. It was how she became the Archive to start with. Seems fitting it is how she becomes an Alicorn.
I'm wondering how exausted her first energy expenditure will be and what her role as an Alicorn will be now?
Finally! It's been a long time coming! And now of course, as is traditional, the reward for Alex for a job done well is more work.
With Obrican's death-fueled priests and enslaving, I have to think Alex is eventually going to have to take him out anyway. That doesn't sound like an empire that can be reformed all that easily, and quite possibly has some links with Charybdis besides.
I like the way Zutcha's picture has that exact same bus stop sign as has been sitting in the header of the Ponies after People group for the last year and more. Kind of has the feeling of linking things back to the beginning.
I was a little concerned that this was going to be yet another case of "Alex dies, world goes to shit", at which point I would have stopped reading this story. I should have realized I didn't need to worry. It was nice to see a victory for a change.
It's been a long damn time coming, but I think it was worth the wait in the end.
I am SO happy to see Archive FINALLY become an Alicorn! <3
Congratulations on your achievement! ^_^
To be more badass than that, only with sunglasses and explosions in the background.
This has been what, four hundred thousand words in the making? Maybe more?
Archive finally has the magic she dreamt so long after. She ascended, finally, becoming that which she should always have been. Humanity has its goddess made flesh, and our enemies shall tremble, for the Alicorn of Civilization has come
Badass, can barely wait to see what shall happen now. The aftermath of this war, the deer, how Alex shall change the world... Everything!
Congratulations on ascending. I'm really happy for you <3
A good old smiting really gets the blood flowing after a resurrection
Truly, tis a chapter worthy of its place within my Warrior Files bookshelf. A fully religious event.
well this has bean coming and it is about time.
and we finally see princess Archive getting her point across leave my pony's live in peace.
The world outside the former-USA has been conspicuously absent from much of the series so far, but it's nice to finally hear something about it.
The Street Vendor Emperor would not be the first person of their station to end up ruling a Chinese Empire. Though I'm not sure they've ever overcome such vast cultural and linguistic barriers to advancement.
She said that in their language, right? Rather than the daemon-tongue of pure heresy that they've been taught to revile and don't understand a single word of (if they know what's good for them)?
It could well be another language. The chances of an army hailing from a pre-industrial society speaking just one language, devoid of dialects, is astronomically low.
Ominous. But I suppose everything has a beginning and an end.
That's... not healing. That's creation.
I can only assume that she made that up on the spot, that the power requirements were insane, or that the process is not normally survivable. Or else good ol' Alexandria would've been littered with Alicorns for generations.
I appreciate these little touches. It's not what keeps me reading, but it certainly keeps it readable.
Is she an Alicorn child now, or does she finally look a little closer to her age for the first time in 1.3 millenia?
Some people might take the time to savour the moment, maybe watch his defiance turn to despair and give him a lecture about civilisation and barbarity, right and wrong, etcetc. But she doesn't want to waste her breath, and just moves on - like a pensioner who has long stopped caring what other people think about them, or about proving a point, unless doing either serves a purpose.
It's glorious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPRlHwwVIug
-------------------------------
Thanks, Starscribe!
Yea, i like ramning knives into objects too ;D
... its about damn time that Archive ascended...
She's gonna have a hard time convincing her ponies that she isn't God now. Coming back from the dead as an alicorn and all. I have a feeling she still doesn't want to be put on a pedestal.
Fucking finally. Now she only need to consolidate her power and bring down an empire...by cutting off and cauterize the hydra's heads.
Pffff....Hahahaha. We will see where this goes. Hard to say with all that had happened and is happening.
7903017 Yeah. It's about damn time.
By the way, does her hair/mane and tail flow in magical aether wind? It would really add to the image.
7902916
I don't really like being in charge of things. If I could swing some kind of adviser/freelance problem solver role, I'd be happy with that. Not sure if fate will let me though.
7902903
Um...thanks?
7902920
You're probably right about that, but I've got to at least try the diplomatic approach.
7902952
7903017
Aw, thanks guys ^_^
...although it still hasn't happened from my perspective yet
7903286
You're right, I don't. This is going to be annoying
Wow.
Detailed analysis later.
Nuff said.
media.tenor.co/images/fe6aa6300103d7f9e0d915ceb1e66d81/raw media.tenor.co/images/061f10109be7a5476bb802eb1e831f0b/raw media.tenor.co/images/d679f5698ece1e48ecb766e17bbf22ac/raw
7902873 Not yet. She has power now, but as she pointed out she can't control it. She was an Earth Pony, then a Bat Pony, and now straight to Alicorn without Pegasi or Unicorn training. She can only use 1/3rd, or maybe 2/3rds of her power effeciently for now and needs to learn control first.
Which might take a while. Because remember Lonely Days isn't so smart and awesome because she is a 'god', but because she lived and learned for so many hundreds and thousands of years, learning and perfecting what she knows.
7903416 Shame Pinkie Pie can't reach you to throw you a Happy Future Ascension Party! >=)
Well even if it hasn't happened yet, I imagine that it must be very comforting to know that in the future all the troubles with having the different bodies will have paid off.
Are you looking forward to seeing Sunset Shimmer, and if so, what would you have liked to have said to her instead?
YEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
7903426
Then go get drunk, streak through the center of Estel, and do some naked table dancing! That's always a good way to get rid of unwanted respect
I had just realized that the cover photo was no longer telling who's the main character on the episode, since it's actually Lonely Day's cutie mark for the episode.
Also, the current picture matches the cover photo of Last Pony on Earth. Talk about Volume 2.
7903475 She was a pegasus for a good while. Remember the storm she called down, not long after meeting Jackie?
7904325
Yeah, the only reason she could fly in this post-post-apocalyptic world, and teach the pegasi of Estel how to fly, was because of her experience as a pegasus.
Well, I suppose she read all the flying manuals from Equestria when she was an earth pony, but practical experience matters.
I guess this means we're approaching the end of Alex/Lonely Day/Archive's arc, wonder who's next?
This story, from the very beginning makes me want to live it. I know it's a bad world, but that's the same throughout all human history, only this time, magic's involved. Were I my character, I'd try to save all the returnees I could. Steal from Obricon's cophers as much as possible, free any slaves they have, and burn any villages that are irredeemable. Basically do anything that would get under his skin.
What I'm curious about, is a possible map of the, well, now Northern Continent, as it is this moment.
http://www.sawyoo.com/postpic/2014/07/north-america-map-template_430603.png - PLZ? If not, that's okay too. A little mystery might be good.
I think this might make some nice celebratory music:
I think this is a good song for Lonely Day returning and remoulding her body to it's new form. I can't immediately find anything that would make for a good second part in confronting Obrican's army, but this is still epic enough, I think it suits The Honored Memory's return.
I think we all knew that ascension was likely after the previous chapter but now I bet that her first duty will be to calm down her mother from her first heart attack...
7903477
It definitely is.
Incidentally, this chapter also provided some insight into my current situation. I'm thinking I might not really be "ascended" at the moment, as my hair doesn't do the smoke thing, and I didn't experience anything like the Supernal city. An alicorn body normally implies ascension, but the text suggests it's more a means to an end then an inherent association.
I am looking forward to seeing her again. She's a friend, and it's been too long since we've hung out. I don't know that there's anything special that needs to be said though, other than what's already in the text.
7903771
...but I'm always naked ._.
Oh good, the bus stop made it.
cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/155575820457345024/274810660481925120/lpoe.png
Remember when it was a little bus stop?
cdn-img.fimfiction.net/story/2yc8-1432519245-265629-medium
Finally!
7905493
No kidding. I'm probably going to get a scolding.
7906103 Alicorn or not, being dragged by the ear and then receiving an earful from one's own mother is going to be an unfun experience.
On the other hoof, Jackie is going to find it greatly entertaining...
7906055 If you actually looked closely, the whole thing survived, only more ruined.
This is a long shot, but did anyone else think of this song when Alex crossed over?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-uyV7tYJ56s
It seems oddly fitting.
Time renews tomorrow,
When we've used today.
It will find the sorrow
And wash it all away.
Love can play a new tune
On this carousel.
It may be tomorrow,
But only time will tell.
Somewhere in the darkness
There must be a light,
Leading us together
Through the misty night.
And maybe in the new dawn
We can break the spell.
It may be tomorrow,
But only time will tell.
There can be a new dream,
One for us to hold,
Made with peace and hope
And built upon the old.
No one has the answer
To give away or sell.
Tomorrow holds the secret,
But only time will tell.
7903407
That kind of "hope for the best, but prepare for the worst" attitude is generally a good one to take, I think. You'll occasionally manage to avoid problems completely, but even when you don't, you haven't really lost much either.