Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXIX
Shining Armor smiled as the now-familiar crystal engine pulled its cars into the station. It was truly a magnificent sight, its crystalline form giving the engine the appearance that it was frosted in the most exquisite and beautiful way, with even the smokestack above adding to the general appearance of grand, imperial majesty. On top of all of this, and despite the two day journey through the vast and otherwise dirty landscape, the whole thing was almost unnaturally clean. This was to be expected from the Crystal Empire’s engine, however. It was supposed to convey a sense of order and strength to whatever station it found itself in, the pomp alone warning those around that royalty had arrived, and it couldn’t very well do that covered in soot and dirt.
Shining Armor also knew his wife absolutely hated the garish thing. It was pretty, yes, but she felt it was also extremely stuck up. Sadly for her, and despite all the royal couple had changed around the empire, there was very little the two could do to dissuade the old guard from this sort of flashy show. They even had the support of the people in this, stating that their royal family, their saviors, deserved every bit of pomp and ceremony that they could muster.
Slowly, but surely, the train finally came to a complete stop, the royal car’s door coming to rest directly in front of the new prince. Shining Armor could hear his honor guard straighten to attention as the doors opened, and he found himself joining them, despite his newly elevated station. Old habits die hard… he thought to himself as the door opened, and the royal red carpet was rolled out. Even with the training his drill sergeant had rammed into his head, though, he couldn’t help himself as his stern expression broke into a goofy smile as his radiant wife exited from the train.
Cadence’s smile was like the rising of the sun, an absolute balm on the otherwise frazzled nerves of the Captain of the Guard. This was only further amplified when she rushed forward, and without a word, planted a kiss on his muzzle. “Shiny! Is it just you to see me in?” she asked as she pulled away.
“Yeah. Celestia and Luna are busy with the alien delegates, and it’s become almost impossible to pry Twily from her lab lately,” Shining Armor said, before he embraced his wife. “I missed you so much, though.”
“I missed you too,” she said, as she pulled away. “So, please tell me everything that's happened so far. Aunt Celestia’s letter was somewhat sparse on the details.”
Shining Armor’s smile fell somewhat, before he shook his head. “It's… complicated. I was there for most of it, and I'm still not sure about everything that happened.”
“Well, tell me as much as you can as we make our way to the castle. I'm sure Celestia or Luna can correct anything you may miss along the way,” Cadence said, before turning to one of the guards who had exited the train with her. “Bring the mirror up to the palace. My husband and I have some catching up to do.”
The guard saluted, then proceeded to bark out orders to his stallions that were still inside the car. They quickly filed out to head towards the back of the train to where the mirror was presumably kept, but Shining Armor ignored any of their other actions in favor of bowing ever so slightly to Cadence, then gesturing in the direction of the castle. “After you, Your Highness?”
“Oh, stop,” she said, lightly slapping him in the shoulder with a hoof. Despite her exasperation, the smile on her lips was quite prevalent. “I got enough of that back in the Empire. Now, fill me in on everything.”
Shining Armor smiled as he rose from his bow. “Okay, sweetie. I just hope you're ready for the unbelievable.”
And so Shining told her everything he knew, starting with the recovery of ~Alex,~ the visitors from the stars, and the attack of the traitor Ilisk. Most of this Cadence already knew, but some of the finer points had been omitted in the letters she had received for simplicity’s sake.
However, when Shining started to get into changeling involvement, Cadence had to stop him there. “Wait… are you telling me there are multiple hives scattered across Equestria?” she asked, completely dumbfounded.
“I'm afraid it’s- Hey!” Shining Armor was interrupted when Cadence took her husbands face between her hooves, being careful to check his eyes for anything that might be wrong there. “What are you-”
“What did I get you for your birthday last year?” she asked, her tone deadly serious.
An outside observer could actually pinpoint the exact moment when Shining realized what she was getting at. “Oh… I see. It was the first issue of Axe Head the Barbarian, and a… rather intimate encounter in our bedroom, involving-”
“That's enough,” Cadence said, putting her hoof over her husband’s mouth to quiet him, while shooting an embarrassed look at the surrounding honor guard. They looked completely unfazed at the exchange between the royal couple, but Cadence had been around soldiers long enough to pick up on the subtle hint of amusement from them.
She shook her head clear of any embarrassment, however, in favor of completing her makeshift examination of her husband’s questionable state. There was a brief glow from her horn, and a small, red heart seemingly formed from light appeared at the end of her horn. It slowly drifted over towards Shining Armor, where it popped into nothingness when it touched his forehead. “Now that I've seen to it that you are indeed Shiny, and that no one has their horn in your brain, could you please say that again?
“There is a group of changelings, completely separate to the ones that invaded our wedding,” he said, a self-mocking smile on his face. “And believe me when I say that they have just as much a reason to hate that evil hag as we do. They mean us no harm, and were actually the ones who sent that warning message a week before our wedding.”
Cadence still looked extremely skeptical at that. “And they don't want to feed off our love?” she asked pointedly.
“Oh, they still want to do that,” Shining Armor said dismissively.
“Ah-HAH!”
“-But from what I understand, they need our love to survive, nearly as much as we need water,” Shining calmly continued, ignoring his wife's triumphant cry. “They bear no actual malice, and do not want to conquer us. In fact, they are both weaker than us, and on an average, actually have far fewer numbers than us.”
Cadence’s once smug face slowly turned into one of thoughtfulness as Shining continued his explanation. “But… Chrysalis’ had-”
“So many that they seemed to blot out the sun? Yeah, I know. Apparently the changelings not in her group weren't too happy with it either,” Shining said as he began walking again.
As she fell in step beside him, Cadence found her curiosity piqued. “Why wouldn't they be happy? They're changelings, right? If Chrysalis’s force was so numerous, wouldn't it have been beneficial to them to join forces with her, and conquer us?”
“Short term? Absolutely. They would have crushed us and we'd all be either their puppets, or their food. With the coup, all of our heavy hitters, namely the Elements of Harmony and the princesses, would all be captured. Our top brass would have been gone, too, which would mean that our military would be thrown into confusion, making cleanup of the remaining forces relatively easy,” Shining explained, easily painting a scenario of total and complete defeat. He then looked at her, his expression one that Cadence had a hard time placing. “But… they didn’t. From what I’ve learned from the friendly bugs, this would have been the complete opposite of a victory in every sense of the word, and they apparently have proof to back that up.”
Cadence looked completely confused at that. “I'm not sure how conquering us would be a loss for them.”
“Apparently, it has to do with feeding,” Shining Armor explained, his nose wrinkling as he rubbed his forehead. “I don't understand the specifics, but it seems like they can't ‘normally feed’ while their subject is terrified, or brainwashed. In order to feed while the subject is in such a state, they have to suck out everything. As they do this, it rapidly increases their need to reproduce, hence the numbers they had when they attacked Canterlot. Once they start doing this, it's really hard to stop. Eventually, they run out of ponies, so they move on to animals, then plants, even the microscopic life in the earth, until-”
“You mean… until Equestria resembles the badlands?” Cadence asked with a shiver.
“Dear, that's exactly where Chrysalis’s hive is. They had those numbers not because they’re naturally that much more numerous than us, but because they’ve done this before. We were just the next on the list, so to speak. The changelings call it ‘Locust Warfare,’ and so far, every single one I've talked to speaks about it in the same hushed, terrified tones,” Shining said as he stopped and turned to face her. His expression was gravely serious, and Cadence couldn't help but note a subtle undertone of disgust in the stallion’s eyes. “The process doesn’t just kill the ponies, but it messes with the minds of the changelings as well. Turns them more and more into savages, and less and less into thinking, rational creatures. Eventually, they lose all power of independent thought, and have to rely on their Queen for everything. Problem is, is that while she's more resistant, she's not exactly immune herself. Did I get all of that right?”
This last bit Shining Armor had directed towards the stallion on the couple's right, whose only response was an ever so slight nod of his head.
Shining let out a relieved sigh, before rubbing his forehead with his fetlock. “Good. At any rate-”
“Wait, is he a…?” Cadence interrupted, her voice full of suspicion as she eyed the young soldier.
“A changeling? Yes,” Shining answered without hesitation. “I asked for him personally, and Queen Titania has seen fit to put him under my command. We don't have everything hammered out yet, but the general idea is to slowly integrate them into our country. We can't afford a divided front now, especially with the possibility of an alien invasion.”
This made sense to the Crystal Princess, though she couldn't help but eye the soldier with a fair bit of distrust. “And your name was…?”
“Hieremias, my lady. I am at your command,” he said, bowing respectfully to the princess.
Cadence eyed him closely, trying to detect any falsehood. When she couldn't find any, she cleared her throat, then took a single step towards him. “Well, Hieremias, if what my husband says is true, then I hope our people will grow to understand each other better. However, I can't help but wonder, if you needed our love so badly, why couldn't you have asked for our help? Why prey upon us?”
“We were afraid, Your Highness,” the disguised changeling replied without hesitation.
“Afraid?” Cadence asked, her eyes as hard as flint. “Chrysalis’s actions show that, if you prepared, you could easily conquer us, either through strength of arms or by subterfuge. What fear you might have had from us would be minimal at best, so I ask again, why did you not ask?”
“And I say again, for fear,” Hieremias said, not budging an inch. “We have the name Locust Warfare for a reason, as it has been practiced by ancient hives of the past. Every hive save for Chrysalis’s that have practiced this unholy evil has come to an end, either at the hooves of your ancestors, or from starvation as the land wilted and died. As for subterfuge, any that we might try would not hold for long, for though we may feed on emotion, and can take the shape of any pony, we cannot read minds. Any usurped power has never lasted long, and the one time in our history that anyling came forward with peace, King Platinum III organized an inquisition to stomp us out of existence.”
Cadence listened carefully, her face a stone mask, up until the point where Hieremias reached the part about King Platinum. “That tyrant… he… our records don’t…” she gulped, horror clear in her voice.
“As they say, history is written by the victors,” Hieremias said, rising from his bow. His eyes sought out hers, and for the briefest of moments they glowed a light, subtle pink color. It was gone before Cadence had even registered it, but it was still a clear enough sign for her that this stallion wasn’t exactly equestrian. “While your people have done much in uncovering the secrets of the past, some cannot be regained, simply because their records do not exist any longer. After all, Discord’s reign was between Platinum and the royal sisters’, and we all know how he felt towards something as orderly as records.”
“He would have destroyed them, of course. But you must have noticed that modern day Equestrians were nothing like our ancient ancestors, correct? We wouldn’t have treated you like that evil dictator.”
Hieremias looked downcast at that. “We couldn’t be sure. Ever since the Sisters took the throne, we’ve been watching carefully, and trying to figure out how the ponies would see us. Over time, we slowly began to see that things could change, that we could, maybe, live openly among you…”
“Chrysalis changed that…” Cadence said, finally catching on.
Hieremias nodded, his eyes still downcast. “That she did. If it wasn’t for the Promethean, we’d still be in hiding, fearing that your battlemages would begin sweeping across the nation, conducting an inquisition far bloodier than King Platinum ever dreamed of.”
Cadence nodded in understanding, but stopped when she registered the unfamiliar word that the changeling had used. “I’m sorry, the what?”
“He’s talking about ~Alex,~ honey. That’s something else I’ve been told to tell you about. We just hadn’t reached it yet,” Shining Armor said, a rueful smile on his face. He then pointed in the direction of Canterlot Castle with his hoof. “Though, we really should continue if we want to make it in time for our meeting with Celestia.”
“I’m not the one who stopped us in the street,” Cadence pointed out in a playful manner. “In all seriousness, though, we should hurry. I’ve been dying to meet this visitor from the stars ever since we received Celestia’s letter telling us about the situation.”
Shining Armor gave a short nod, before turning back towards the castle. “I must warn you, then, that Celestia’s letter did not do the creature’s appearance justice. The thing truly is a monster in almost every sense of the word except one: His disposition.”
“I gathered that from the letters, Shiny,” Cadence said, a little annoyed at her husband’s reiteration of what she already knew.
“You say that now, but just wait until you meet him…” the prince said, before he stopped to take a glance at the sky to confirm the time. “If we hurry, and with any luck, Celestia will be wrapping things up with the alien delegates by the time we arrive. I only hope that everything there has gone to plan.”
* * *
“She is a kalavara, though I do not know how powerful,” Luna said, her voice quivering in fright before she took another gulp of water from the glass between her hooves.
We had taken a short break, the two princesses requesting a moment to council together, to discuss what had just happened. The aliens had readily allowed it, they seemingly needed to speak among themselves as well, and most likely needed to contact their separate ships. This was both a good thing and a bad thing for obvious reasons, but there wasn’t exactly anything we could do to keep them from talking to their people.
At least, not anything that wouldn’t immediately raise suspicions.
At the moment, Princess Luna was sitting in one of those pony-made, exceptionally low couches that they seemed so fond of. She was currently shaking like a leaf, the glass in her hooves vibrating alarmingly as she attempted to calm her nerves. Her sister was sitting next to her, a hoof on her back, rubbing up and down in a soothing fashion. I was standing opposite to them, my arms crossed, and my nerves making it nearly impossible to sit down. I wasn't nearly as angry as I thought I would be, having just accidentally given more information to the enemy than I should have. Instead, I felt sort of… well, wistful.
“I’m sorry, but what does the word ‘kalavara’ mean?” I asked, my eyes locked onto Luna as she slowly calmed down. “And if you don’t mind me asking, what happened back there? One minute you both were in my mind, the next...”
“A kalavara is someone with the gift to see,” Celestia said, not really answering my question.
“Then doesn't that make ME a kalavara?” I asked pointedly, my eyebrow raising as I tried to make my point. “I mean, I can see just fine. I have eyes too, you-”
“Not see, see,” Celestia interrupted me, and this time I barely managed to pick up the slight difference she used with that word. It was barely a tonal shift, but it was still there, though its importance was lost on me. Luckily, Celestia was more than inclined to elaborate. “Being able to see means that the past, the present, and the future are all open to you. The possibilities that make up the uncertain become like an open book, and ones with this gift are given the information needed to change this future.”
It suddenly clicked with me what she was getting at. “Wait… wait, wait, wait, wait… wait. Are you telling me that miss snake lady out there is a freaking prophet?” I asked, not quite believing what I was saying.
Celestia looked at me curiously, obviously not familiar with the word, while Luna only nodded in mute approval.
“Well, that's a fine how-do-you-do…” I muttered under my breath. “No need to hide anything, if she can just see the future at will… and why need me at all? Shouldn't she be able to just see the bad guys?”
“It isn't that simple, Alex,” Celestia said, her voice still dreadfully calm.
“There are limitations to this gift… For one thing, the gift is extremely rare. As far as we know, there is only one person native to this planet with this gift, the Prophet of Time,” Luna said. I noticed that the word kalavara was now automatically being replaced with the word prophet by my implants, but I ignored this change, as well as the script scrolling across my vision, in favor of paying attention to what the dark blue pony had to say. “The Prophet is a zebra, and the head shaman of her people. As rare as this gift is, however, it is even rarer to find someone who has any degree of control over their gift. It usually requires some kind of trigger to cause a kalar, and those triggers are even more unpredictable to detect than prophets themselves.”
Kalar was another unfamiliar word, but based on context, she probably meant ‘vision’. I was about to ask to confirm as much, but was stopped before I could even form the question in my head when Celestia asked one of her own. “I apologize, Alex, but why does your language have a word for people with such abilities? I was under the assumption that your people had lost their magic long ago, and anything that remained would have been myths and legends.”
“You answered your own question there, Celestia. Our myths and legends are full of people doing the impossible, with the first and foremost among those powers being the ability to see the future. In fact, you've already heard of one of our great, ancient prophets, though you really weren't told as much at the time.” Both looked up at me in confusion at that, but one brush of my uninjured hand over my injured one was enough to clarify that.
“This ‘oracle’ in Titania’s story?” Luna asked with interest. “I assumed Oracle had some kind of power along those lines, though at the time I thought that that, as well as the arriving humans, conflicted with your earlier assertions that magic did not exist on your world.”
“Oracle wasn’t her name, it was her occupation,” I corrected her, before settling down on the couch opposite to them. “I don’t remember her real name, but that hardly matters. In ancient Greece, there was a place called Delphi, which was famous for the temple and the prophet inside. Many of the old records, stories, and legends we still have of greeks speak regularly about the ‘Oracle at Delphi,’ so much so that if you’re talking about any oracle on Earth, there is an incredibly high chance that you’re speaking about her. Most people nowadays thought that she probably took a lot of drugs and rambled crazy talk, while the people around her took notes and claimed they were prophecies. Knowing that we once had a magic field, though, that assumption’s probably not even close to the truth.”
Celestia nodded her understanding, before looking down towards the floor. “As interesting as that is, it is somewhat aside from the point. She is a prophet, and those should always be treated with caution.”
“Agreed, which leads us back to the original question,” I said, before looking back to Luna. “What happened? I assume, because of how shaken up you are, you followed her and saw what she saw. Otherwise, I’m not sure you’d be this… disturbed? Shaking up? Shook up.”
Luna ignored my stumbling attempt to speak her language properly, and instead focused on the water in her cup. “I… I do not think I have the words to do what I saw justice, but this much I do know. We need help, and we need it now. We have a few days at best, and I do not believe we have the time, or the expertise, to complete the Omniscope in time.”
“Which means that we need either the snake’s help, or we really need that portal, and now,” I said as I rubbed my chin thoughtfully.
“The portal should be arriving today,” Celestia said, causing my heart to leap into my throat without warning. “At the very least, it may give us a way to have some of our people escape the coming calamity. We could-”
“We could call in reinforcements,” I interrupted, before looking up at the two. “Think about it. Just on the other side is my world, a world that has the technology to complete the computer for the Omniscope. We’d just need a proper interface, and with the shards of my friends, I think we’ll be able to fill in that gap.”
“We will need to ‘forge them together’ though,” Luna said. I stared at her blankly for a few seconds before she chose to elaborate. “Akitesh was being quite serious. I saw exactly what you are talking about, and it fails. A room full of humans and ponies, all surrounding the omniscope, and the whole thing sputters, and dies, before the ceiling caves in as the castle is destroyed. A voice then proclaimed that ‘The die is cast. The fallen must be forged anew before the rising of the new moon, else all is lost.’”
We all fell into silence after that, and I let out a short cough. “I don’t suppose you could delay the new moon?” I asked, half-jokingly.
“You know full well that that will not delay the prophecy,” Luna said, her voice filled with a mix of disapproval and amusement.
“I do not believe we have the luxury to treat our guests with any more distrust,” Celestia said, before standing up. “We must call a council of war, and I feel we must include them in these discussions if we are to have any chance of success.”
“I don’t suppose there is a chance that she was somehow tricking you that she was seeing the future?” I asked, half-hoping, half-fearing the answer I was about to get.
“There is none,” Luna said, shaking her head. “At first I thought it might be a deception, but when I tried to leave, it was as if the very Telcar around us was forcing me to stay. It is my domain, yet it screamed at me as the vision twisted the dreamscape around us, begging me not to go, not to leave, before first seeing how this tragedy could be averted.”
“Well, if that’s the case, then we’ll need a few more people for this little council before we can really get our defenses in place,” I said as I stood up. “I think it’s about time I took a look at this mirror. See if we can’t get any rangers over here to help.”
“Alex, the mirror may not be active,” Luna gently rebuked me. “According to Titania, it only opens once every thirty moons.”
“According to my planet’s moon, not yours,” I said, putting careful emphasis on those words. “Tell me, why is that?”
This seemed to stump the two princesses, as they both just sat there, trying to figure out this conundrum. “I would assume that it has something to do with how the portal is powered…” Celestia finally said.
“I think so too. And if that’s the case, it’s most likely drawing power from the moon, because as we’ve already established, Earth doesn’t have any magic. Not any more, anyway,” I said, bringing the other two to where I was trying to get them. “I’m not an expert on this. Far from it, in fact. But if the mirror is here, and it still works, even after all this time, shouldn’t it be possible to open the portal on this side? To power it from this end?”
The silence that followed my guess was profound, and I could almost hear the wheels turning in the two ponies’ heads. Finally, Luna gave a single nod. “Your reasoning is sound, but in practice, it may be completely different. We will have to see.”
“Agreed, but first, I think it is time to extend a hoof of peace to the aliens in the next room,” Celestia said as she stood up. “They have been waiting long enough, and we do not have the time to continue to treat them as the enemy.”
I let out a small, defeated sigh, before massaging my eyes with my hand. “I guess you’re right. Let’s go ahead and get this over with…”
Hey, everyone! I know it's pretty soon after my last chapter, but I already had this half-written out as is, and I thought: "Why not finish it, and give them something more for being amazing readers?"
Well, here you go!
Obligatory book plug!
=> What I've Become! <=
By the way, for those of you who bought the book already, I just wanted to thank you so much for supporting me! I also wanted to ask you a tiny favor, that you could maybe take a couple of seconds to leave a review on Amazon. As it turns out, the more reviews a book has, the more attention it gains from the algorithms, so that would help me greatly if you could take a couple of seconds and hammer one out. Doesn't even need to be that long, just "7/10, would read again!" would be good enough. Don't feel like you have to, though...
I... I guess I just see myself out, now...
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Nice! I had literally just finished the last one when this one popped up!
Always love seeing this update. I got the book on Amazon but I left a review through my sister Jennifer's account due to not having gotten their bizarre $50 spent to review system. It was great but it did seem to still have a few flaws here and there that I assume popped up in the conversion process.
9636157 Yeah, sorry about the errors. I've been trying to make a reedited version, but it's taking some time. I'm really just one guy, and sometimes things just slip past you when you're editing your own work. You need an outsider's perspective to really find all the problems.
And don't worry, once the updated version is ready, the E-book will auto-update to reflect the changes. Not so much for the physical copy, though. I've set it up so that if you buy a physical copy, though, you'll automatically get the e-book free of charge, so there's that.
Nice, we hadn't seen Cadence previously in this story!
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Hey, if you want when I get some free time I can run through my copy and hunt for errors and send it your way. I used to do editing work a while back, could be fun to get back into that.
I’ve said it before and I’m saying it again. Discord is going to be in so much trouble if humanity at large ever finds out what he did.
And you told me to expect a long wait! Anyway, great chapter, can't wait for more!
Every time I see a fraction rating I think of that 5/7 meme.
Hmm, not much and a whole lot happened this chapter. Looking forward to the next one!
Things are heating up on the equestrian side.
Well, now that sources of magic are approaching Earth again, perhaps the portal will just... Go? Won't that be a surprise!
Keep going! ;)
Oh yeah... dis gon be gud.
9636710 Eyup. Obviously I should ignore the obligations of the real world and only concentrate on this, because, let's be honest, it's not like I have friends, family, or a job. Ponies is love. Ponies is life. A chapter a day, no excuses!
9637547 Sorry, couldn't help myself. Honestly, though, the only reason I don't do one of these a week is because I have other obligations.
I am truly frightened (yet very excited) of the idea of everyone trying to use the mirror. How do you plan on that to turn out? Is the mirror going to take them to the human world? The one where Alex is from? Or take them to "a" human world. Some alternate world in an alternate universe? If my questions are too spoilery then sorry, please ignore them!
9638032 The mirror goes to Earth. Not Equestria Girls Earth, but Earth Earth. If it hasn't already been made clear, this story is an AU. Didn't start that way, but as the seasons went on, and we got more lore that was completely different from what I had in my headcannon, it basically became a necessity.
For what it's worth, I didn't see any typos when I read it. Glad you were able to keep Shiny and Cady, they worked brilliantly here! Keep up the good work!
Ooh, council of war.
Sounds dramatically serious.
Hooray for peaceful diplomacy! The more alien friends and allies the better!
I'm loving every bit of this. Thanks for doing this story, it so refreshing and unique. Can't wait for more.
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Alex and Twilight go through the mirror that Cadance brought and walk out inside Cheyenne Mountain, Level 28. ♪♫
9646820 media.tenor.com/images/14c7622858611258e4af76cf4f435fc4/tenor.gif
Just put our end of the mirror in font of a rack of cruise missiles and point their end up at the sky. When the bugs show up, launch. They'll back off.
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Wow, that does look terrifying. And cool. I've always loved gnarly looking beasties, and I don't know why. Show me the most bloodthirsty looking hellbeast, and I'll try to figure out if I want to put a saddle on it or walk it on a leash. Or course, that DOESN'T extend to humanoid looking things, since by definition they look too intelligent to own, or are truly scary since you recognize it as something that can think, and the smart ones are the ones you truly have to watch out for....
Caught all the way up, and love where the story is going so far, especially with the Krin stumbling on his magical potential.XD
Oh, but the last chapter got me really worried. Not from anything you did, but what my ind jumped to as a potential negative side effect of Akitesh going into Alex's head. The Krin captured and experimented on humans because they literally couldn't experiment on the Quzin, and our brains are nearly identical, and if Alex didn't become a technomancer their research would have gone off without a hitch. But even though Alex broke free and can basically hack into Krin tech like nothing, his translation protocols in his implants haven't started working now until recently, and while useful, he doesn't seem to have 'control' over it. I'm thinking this means Alex can't hack into his own implants, they weren't functioning for some reason until his kidnapping, or that he was simply unaware of all of its functions and therefore couldn't control them. What I'm trying to say is, his implants, while useful, are still a mystery to him, and he either can't control them or just lets them run automatically as they prove useful to him.
What gets me nervous knowing all of this, is that Akitesh, a Quzin, entered into his mind. I'm sure the implants were meant to interface with his mind and record how his mind mind reacted to the tortures he went through to help the Krin better understand how his mind worked and how to better control him. Something they could never do with a Quzin to the extent that he went through. But a Quzin entered his mind. A Quzin experienced all of the horrors he went through. A Quzin mentally and sorta physically went through what he did. All while his implants were still in his head. Sure, it already recorded and sent off the data to the Krin before he got out, but who's to say it isn't STILL collecting data? Who's to say that if a Quzin willingly connected to his mind and went through the same torture, that it wouldn't record information about that Quzin's mental state? Who's to say that since it already has the data for a human mind as a reference point, it couldn't just cross reference it with the new Quzin data it obtained and give whoever retrieved the data the valuable knowledge they need to make the jump from human mind control to Quzin mind control?
I know Akitesh NEEDED to know what Alex went through, but this all hit me before she went in and I was mentally screaming that this was a VERY bad idea. Let's just hope that Alex's transplants aren't still trying to transmit data(or a lucky close by Krin can access it like that LAST guy), or that I'm just over thinking this and there is no chance of that happening fr various reasons. Not sure if you thought of this yourself, but if not, I hope I gave you a great idea.XD
You`d think the Krin, what with being completely defeated in the war and their emperor exiled, would not be able to do much damage to a world deep in Quizin territory.