Caligula's Legacy

by CCC

Everfree City

"And that's it, girls," said Twilight, as they stepped into the ruins hex of the old Everfree City. "I'm all out of Move."

Megan dropped quietly off Twilight's back and readied her bow, keeping an eye out for any motion that might betray the location of an enemy.

"We're in the right hex, right, darlings?" asked Rarity nervously.

"Hmmmm." Pinkie frowned, and her left ear twitched. "Left-ear-twitch! Yepperdoodles, we're in the hex."

"I must say," said Megan, quietly, "I never knew Predictamancy could be used in combat to counter enemy Foolamancy like that."

"Eh, it was nothing," said Pinkie. "I just had to predict which one was the real Gump, and the rest of you dealt with it no problem!"

"That's 'cos my combat bonus is awesome!" crowed Rainbow Dash. "And I guess two other warlords also in the stack did help a bit."

"More than a bit, I think," opined Applejack.

"I do hope the Moon Twolls didn't hurt that Manticore too badly..." murmured Fluttershy.

"Well, well, well, well." A dark, midnight-black winged unicorn stepped out of the mists. "What do we have here? One stack of warlords and casters all?" She snorted. "One, two, three, four, five, oh, and look at that, the Rider! Not even a max stack? I don't know how the six of you got here off-turn, but you don't stand a hope against me, not in anything like a fair fight."

"Six?" asked Fluttershy, glancing around. There was a distinct emptiness where their Foolamancer had been.

"You might have zapped me once," said Rainbow, hovering just a little off the ground, "but with the stack bonuses of my friends -"

Lightning crackled from Nightmare Moon's horn, slamming into the brash blue pegasus. Flung back, she slammed into the hex boundary behind her and collapsed, incapacitated.

Megan thought quickly. She could still understand what the Mounts were saying, which meant that the Foolamancer must be near enough to hear them. And that meant -

"Would anyone else like to make any empty gestures of defiance before I end your futile lives?" asked Nightmare Moon, her horn already crackling with shockamancy power. "Don't think I don't know why you're here, but don't worry, I've already found that Turnamancy artifact. It's safe in the centre of the hex. You're not getting your grubby little hooves on it."

And Megan, who still had a full turn's worth of Move, took a step back - through the hex boundary, ditching her stack in the process - and fired an arrow. It glanced off the Nightmare's armour.

"Bah!" said the Nightmare. "Is that the best you can do? Neigh!"

"It's good enough." Megan notched another arrow and let it fly. "I can keep this up all night long, and you know I'm going to crit eventually."

"Neigh! Neigh whinny snort!" The Nightmare let forth another burst of shockamancy. It made a very impressive lightshow when it hit the hex boundary in front of Megan; but the Nightmare had no Move remaining, so the attack could not pass that boundary.

"Very impressive," deadpanned Megan, firing another shot. "Want to do that again? Like I said, I've got all night. It's not like I need to save my arrows, after all."

The Nightmare glared at her. She neighed, petulantly, and at some length. Turning her back on Megan, she flew to the centre of the Hex, out of bowshot.

Megan waited until she was out of sight before re-entering the hex. "I don't suppose any of you casters know enough Healomancy to get Rainbow up and moving again, do you?" she asked.

Applejack neighed softly.

"I'm sorry," said Megan, "I can't understand you. Twilight's out of range. You're going to have to communicate in orders again."

Applejack laid her too front hooves on Rainbow's chest and, with a neigh which sounded like spellcasting, pushed down suddenly. Rainbow's eyes shot open. "NEIGH!" she yelled.

"The Turnamancy artifact's at the centre of the hex," said Megan, quickly summarising the tactical position for Rainbow. "Both Twilight, our Foolamancer, and the enemy warlord Nightmare Moon have gone there. Not even all of us together stand a chance of defeating her in combat, and that's not even counting that she's Predicted to survive until tomorrow, while we aren't. Rainbow, you're the highest level warlord present, that means you're authorised to give me orders. What do we do now?"

Comments

[vladspellbinder]

Up until this point you didn't really need to know anything specific about Erfworld to get the jokes, just a bit about turn-based tactics games and what not. Here though you reference a specific Erfworld unit and don't give an explanation for it; the Gump.
Though for anyone who knows the episode in question being parodied it is not hard to guess I am going to just clarify that a Gump is a walking and fighting tree. My guess is the one they fought made illusionary copies of itself or had some backup that did so, I'm not sue if Gump can have a Foolamancy special or not.

And for anyone who hasn't read Erfworld, yes, that is a "Forest Gump" pun and you can expect a lot more puns like that from the comic. It is glorious.