This story is a sequel to My Little Apprentice: Apogee
A year has passed since Second Chance arrived in Equestria. She has a loving adoptive family, one of the best teachers of magic in Equestria, and some fantastic new friends. Compared to a world destroyed by war, her new life seems like a paradise.
Unfortunately for her, Equestria isn't as safe as it sometimes looks. It has its own dangers; powerful evils that won't spare her just because she came from Earth. Between human dangers and natural ones, Equestria's ponies may not survive.
As usual, editing by Two Bit and Sparktail, with art by the talented Zutcha (who's got a Patreon now, if you're feeling generous!)
Chapters (19)
yay
It is here!
Yus, this is good.
Glad to see this arrive. There were some significant gaps between Apogee and Harmony Defended, and I'm looking forward to seeing how they're resolved.
Yay! It's here! Also I Google translated the first bit of Latin that you have here. Do you want to see what it translated as?
How many stories am I behind here? A billion? Crap...
Yay you decided to make another book in the series
Oh I'm looking forward to seeing where you take this!
I'm honestly glad I didn't get to read the other stories while they were being published, it means I can read this one completely spoiler free
Ahh yeah, been looking forward to this story for a long time.
Silly Apple Bloom. Invents an exoskeleton, never goes on an adventure without it. Actually, maybe that makes sense.
Oh, earth ponies, always thinking with your hooves.
Ooo, nice going Sweetie.
Well, at least Scootaloo knows where they are and what happened.
It's been a while since an MLA thing. Looks like people have quite the thing to look forward to with the update schedule.
Also, thanks for the patreon plug there.
Well this is new.
Of course these fillies manage to figure their way past something that stymied days' worth of professional scientific expedition. Because apparently Sweetie knows more about shields than Twilight and Daring Do combined.
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I'd guess it wasn't the shield that stopped them, but probably the puzzle underneath. Even if they had gotten through the shield, I'm sure it would've reset by then.
Definitely worth waiting for.
Keep this up, and he'll have literal Space Wolves, never mind Diamond Dogs.
And the Crusaders continue to do what the Crusaders do best.
Knights of the Steel Tower being badass like it ain't no thing, as usual.
I was wondering what happened to Leo after he was recovered. This is a great chapter.
Wait, am I missing something? The previous chapter ended with going down the elevator, and this chapter opens with an escape sequence?
YEEEESSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!! I KNEW I COULD BELIEVE YOU WHEN YOU TOLD ME YOU WOULD WRITE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Please tell me that Chance makes it. She has to live to cbat her doppelganger!
Nope, the mane 6 are just so stupid that they couldn't see that if it can make 3 times as much cider Applejack could break even at 33.33333%. If she argued up to closer to 60-80% because she does most of the work by growing the apples and Flim and Flam just sit on their machine so she could be making more than double. Also unless the Apples are retarded, cant do basic math or have exactly the same amount of money going out as they have coming in there is no way that she could loose the farm because of the lack of a one time seasonal produce selling event. It was a perfectly reasonable business offer, Applejack accepted the stupid challenge because shes stupid.
The end result is that I get pissed at them for hating on Flim and Flam every time its brought up ever since I watched this video AntonyC Video Basically everything in this video.
Ah, here comes the Twidash early this time.
Is this that waveform-collapsing anti-alicorn machine?
א?
7196118 from which story is the machine?
7197382 The original version of MLA (downloadable from a link in that story description).
Wow, someone went to a lot of effort and expense just to target Chance. If it's an EMP that's been redirected to attack her specifically, will it wreck her nanophage?
yep
7197739 it sound familiar, now I know why
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I would wait, if only because I intend to overhaul Harmony Defended when this one is over. You could read HD if you want, but you're also going to get spoilers for aspects of how this one is going to end if you do. Just... something to keep in mind.
Why the hell would scoldings be deserved? She was hit by a booby trap, she didn't stick a fork into an electrical socket wtf.
Don't berate yourself for the short chapter. This is a good amount of information and I always enjoy your updates.
Actually, I check daily just in case there is an early update.
I don't remember Tesla ever working to subvert his sovereign....
Cut weird, yes, but that last section was also pretty compressed.
It seems to me that if it was an artfully concealed booby-trap, less time should be spent scolding Chance and more trying to determine why a booby-trap was needed.
As for chapter length – chapters are as long as they need to be. If it works out that they are relatively short, that is not necessarily a problem.
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While the reader was told that it was a trap, I don't think it's been said that any of the characters know that. From their perspective, Chance screwed something up and got herself electrocuted.
I don't think that boobytrap would have been worthwhile if the builders only ended up sending Chance into a hospital. Either the boobytrap should have killed Chance outright or - more likely in light of what we know - Chrysalis swapped Chance with her daughter.
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I'm thinking it may have affected her nanites somehow. Only advanced knowledge built it so they were targeting something advanced, and taking out the town would be a bonus.
7210408 Didn't she get the nanites from Truth which means that they could replace them? Also, if those were destroyed I think that would have been mentioned.
I'll second the "compressed" thing about this chapter. You ended on a cliffhanger in the previous chapter, involving the protagonist of the story getting electrocuted. The resolution of that cliffhanger then fits in one single screen's worth of text? No lengthy period of time Twilight's panicking while the paramedics arrive, and "Second Chance" recovers her faculties. No description of how medical care works. No in depth speculation on Twilight's part on every single specific consequence of an electric shock to a young unicorn filly. No reproving going on, just a quick recovery and a hug to make it all better. Statements about what happened, rather than what actually happened. "The filly got her proper share of scoldings then, as well she deserved." (What scoldings? When were they given? What did Twilight say? Where was she being scolded? How did she react? Why did she deserve to be scolded? Is Twilight worried about being the filly's parental figure? Is "Chance?")
Not saying it's bad, just... there's plenty of room to expand that last screenful if you wanted your chapter of comparable size to the others.
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Yeah, I think you're completely right. This story was written with lots of goals, and one of them was a target wordcount of 45k. I failed dismally at achieving that goal, but that doesn't mean there aren't signs of that on the story. Scenes where I might've spent 2k before I sometimes only spend 1k this time-- start later and end sooner.
I still think I have a way to go before I can write short stories, but... I don't think we'll be seeing any other chapters this length. It was just an unlucky cut in where individual scenes got sorted.
You've killed Second Chance!
How could you.
I vaguely remember commenting ages ago on one of the earlier stories that I'd wished we'd gotten to see more of Chance's double.
This chapter, I think, highlights exactly what I found interesting about her. I really love the conflicted inner narration here between Chance's copied memories telling her what she's doing is terrible and her experience as a changeling telling her what she's doing is necessary.
Those last two lines pack a real punch too...
I hope this is punishment, however undeserved it may be, and not Twilight seriously thinking that Equestrian level knowledge of electrical safety could improve at all on what Chance already knows. I still find that level of punishment for a mistake completely absurd.
I don't remember Amber having that name at this point- why would she have been given a pony name other than the one she's impersonating?
Can I just repeat one more time how Queen Chrysalis is a goddamn moron? A whole race of ponies basically constantly spewing food, and she isolates all the changelings in a far off hive, only having select agents doing infiltration. And her grandiose scheme involves open combat against these ponies, in the expectation of murdering them. There shouldn't be one single changeling that isn't living among ponies, except as necessary for raising new ones, and any grandiose scheme she concocts should have at the very top of the list don't bite the hand that feeds you!
But I mean... who could expect her to be particularly intelligent, after she, a creature powered by love, dismissed a pony's open threat to use love power as a "lovely, but absolutely ridiculous sentiment."
Never in my life have I seen a hater with such... dedication for wasting time in such meaningless pursuits.
Although, I gotta admit. I respect them. There's only a handful of people on this planet who lack the brain cells to realize this fact. Maybe I'll hire him to watch paint dry someday.
7216742
I......... I don't even....... WHAT?
First of all, who are you talking about, you didn't reply to anyone and you didn't state a name from the story so I have no idea.
And who is the smart alec who thinks that down-voting everyone's comments without providing even a dismissive counter comment does anything productive? My previous comment is just picking on something I found odd in the story which is petty enough but that is just lazy.
7217376
Nah, I'm directing it at the vote troll. See? They did it again. Too bad Fimfic mods mentioned that downvoting does nothing.
Glares at the vote troll
It does touch me thought. I'm now famous enough to have my comment downvoted!
It hurts me that this and the last mla didn't get much attention. I Freakin love this story!
#ValiantDidNothingWrong
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That's what discouraged me from writing this for as long as I have. Still... I felt super guilty not to finish it. I felt like I owed it to the community to finish what I started.