Act 3 Chapter 74 : Taxi's Death
‘Shine.’
‘What does that mean?’
----
The sky stank of blood and smoke as a hundred little battles spread out beneath me.
Marked—armed with rope-lined spear guns stolen from a scuba-diving store—had managed to bring down one of the smaller red dragons who’d roosted in a former ballet studio. A half dozen allied griffins descended with axes. Very soon, there was one less dragon in Detrot.
At one of the Fresian lanes, a fight raged between diamond dogs and the thousands of converted demons that’d stormed out of Uptown. The diamond dogs were losing, badly, slowly being pushed back into the sewers. The monsters pressed their advantage, until at a point a signal was given and a thousand equine shapes appeared on adjoining buildings. It was too late for the creatures to realize they’d been funneled into a killing field, not that many of them still retained the intelligence to understand even the most basic strategy. The slaughter was appalling.
Across town, an armed camp of Celestia worshipers was in the process of being wiped out. They’d rejected the entreaties of one of Tourniquet’s envoys and took shots at a passing group of P.A.C.T. who came a little too close. Minutes later, an uncountable hoard of deformed monstrosities that’d once been the population of Uptown descended on them. They’d fought bravely, with Princess Celestia’s name on their lips, singing hymns and chanting prayers to the sun. They died violently, torn to pieces and devoured en masse.
Aboard ‘Her Royal Grace’, I stood with all that need pounding in my veins. I didn’t know what to do with it, yet, but I could still taste the blood from Agrona’s slash across my face. My thighs hurt from kicking the captain in the chest. My tail was short more than a couple inches and a bit of shrapnel from the shot through the window had cut my scalp in a few places that stung like a beast. My coat was dirty, my mane caked with blood, and even the icy rain couldn’t soothe my aching spirit.
The circular route I’d set the war scooter on would, eventually, take it over the Bay of Unity, but there was a draconic sorceress out there in the storm. I could feel her, too. She was close, now. Her great white body snaked through the sky, coming for my blood. I was an interesting toy to her, a neat little creature who’d defied her expectations again and again.
Killing her own soldiers was nothing more than a mild inconvenience, if that. Leaving their families motherless and fatherless.
She needed love. She needed meat. She needed satisfaction.
“I need her to die,” I whispered to the storm.
How? I’d no idea. My P.E.A.C.E. cannon was entirely full of non-lethal rounds. The war scooter’s guns were silent, and I doubted Propana would give me time to get inside and into the unbroken turret, much less prop Firebrand at the flight controls. She was still mobile, but that might not mean much.
Still, that didn’t change my conviction.
Carnath’s bride coasted in close, keeping pace with us from just a couple war-scooter-lengths back. She was much too large to actually land on the war scooter, but with the throttle only at half speed she wasn’t having any trouble keeping up. Even at maximum, I suspected she could probably fly circles around me. That close, she could draft in the clean air coming off the back of the scooter and barely needed to beat her giant wings.
“Gorgeous, Miss Taxi!” Propana shouted, loud enough to be heard even in the storm, “Gorgeous! Three royal dragons dead and you even managed to get that fool to order a retreat with nary a scratch laid on you!”
“What was his name?” I yelled back.
She raised one whiskery eyebrow and flew a little closer. “Whose name?”
“The captain! The one you murdered just now!”
Laughing as musically as something with a furnace for lungs can, she coasted in close.
“Honestly, I’ve no idea. Sentimentality over the dead is not a trait we dragons suffer. My husband arranged his service and I arranged the bribes. Another old soldier, killed in glorious combat. He followed orders, until he didn’t. That’s really all that matters.”
Through gritted teeth, I barked, “When you die, I hope he’s waiting to greet you in whatever Tartarus evil snakes like you end up in. I hope he has all eternity to teach you his name until it’s all you still remember of yourself.”
Propana giggled, covering her muzzle with one claw for a moment before replying, “From what I hear of the tales of you, you and I will be there together! You intend me dead and I intend you alive, staring out from a crystal prison for all eternity while I rut atop the mountain of jewels this little venture shall surely land me! Shall we play our final hands?”
Snatching my gun off my back, I cracked the breach and clicked through my various remaining rounds. In almost any other circumstance, I’d have felt reasonably confident with what I had, but against a psychotic dragon in the height of her power? Not brilliant.
“Final hands,” I called.
‘What do I do? Help me here!’
‘Shine.’
‘That is entirely unhelpful!’
I could still feel the aching light building inside me, but I’d no idea what to do with it. It pulsed and wavered as those below suffered and fought, needing more than any one pony could possibly give. Each fresh mourning victim screamed for something, but what?
My attention was yanked back to Propana as she reached into the leather pouch around her neck, pulling out what looked like a small stone tablet, though small might have been relative. It was probably the size of a pony, but next to her it looked pretty small. The tablet was carved with a strange sigil: a circle composed of five dragon claws.
Raising the symbol above her head, she squeezed it with a terrifying strength. The stone exploded into a spray of dust that seemed to hang in the wind around her face, keeping up with us as we moved along. She drew in a breath and the dust rushed into her muzzle. A subtle glow began to permeate her body, spreading through her limbs until they dazzled even against the lightning arcing between the clouds.
I raised my gun, but held my trigger, waiting to see precisely what was about to happen. Propana beat her wings a little harder, gaining a few spans in height and pulling herself out of my ideal firing arc. Any half decent gunner could probably have led the shot, but I’m nothing like a half-decent gunner.
I didn’t have to wait long. As the glow subsided, the dragoness suddenly convulsed in mid-air, almost tumbling out of the sky for an instant before it seemed as though a great hand swept her up into a coil in the air, supporting her even though her wings no longer beat. She hovered along behind the war scooter, either by some bizarre inertia or a dark magical will. A strange pulse of energy gradually worked its way from her tail up her body, causing the flesh to bulge slightly with its passing.
Deciding I’d waited long enough, I scrambled backwards to the lip of the hatch and tried to draw a bead on her. Considering I can’t draw a bead on a whole bucket full of beads at point blank range most of the time, it was never going to be a great shot. The P.E.A.C.E. cannon bucked in my forelegs and a shot arced under her, missing by a solid four meters before popping into a colorful burst of green magical dust. No good.
Along Propana’s shoulders and neck the skin started to twitch like she was having some sort of bizarre seizure. Her scales puckered and gradually started to push away from her chest. I swallowed as a silvery eye the size of a softball opened on her throat. A second appeared on her foreleg along with the general shape of a jaw with a single, pointed tooth jutting from the muscle.
With a sound like a thousand phone books being torn in half at once, Propana lifted her head. Scraps of torn, dangling skin hung from her chin before fluttering away in the wind. Then she lifted a second head.
Then a third.
A fourth.
A fifth.
Propana’s wings began to beat once more as whatever force held her suspended there seemed to let go. Her upper body sagged under the weight of five long, sinuous necks and five identical heads. She stared down at me out of five leering sets of golden eyes. Her central head smacked its lips, watching me as the others examined one another with a variety of amused expressions. Finally, they all turned in my direction.
My talent stuttered in the oddest fashion. I could still read Propana, but it seemed as though her needs were now suddenly coming from different directions. My already nauseous stomach lurched.
“The blessing of the dragon mother is upon us?” the far left head said, one claw reaching up to pick a bit of meat from between its teeth.
“Do you think it was, perhaps, too much to use on such pathetic prey?” the one on the right asked.
“If she did not wish us to use it, she would have simply ignored our call,” another head answered. “Besides, it is not the first time the mother of us all has allowed her powers to be used for an entertainingly one sided cause.”
“Excuse me, are...are we going to fight?” I asked, clapping my hooves for attention.
Propana’s heads exchanged glances with one another.
“Jealousy, would you like to take this, or should we just burn her alive?” the middle head said to the one on its left.
In a wheedling voice, the other replied, “Wouldn’t you just love it if I did, so you could stab me in the back?” The head turned back to me and explained, “Hatred is always doing all the fun things and meanwhile, I’m left sitting here until some other silly female threatens our position with Carnath.”
“Oh, do please stop you silly nit. Every time we do this, you and Pathos whinge about how neglected you are or how we all hate you. Which is to say, we do hate you, but there’s nothing to be gained from killing you right now,” the first head who I presumed was ‘Hatred’ interjected, jerking her chin towards the head beside her who had a slightly forlorn expression.
“Y-you’re right...i-it’s all my fault,” Pathos whimpered.
“Oh, you are so adorable when you cry,” another head said. “Just makes me want to eat you right up!”
“T-thanks, Lust...b-but I don’t want to be a bother.”
I threw my gun onto my shoulder and stomped on the roof of the scooter until I had all of their various eyes turned in my direction. “Hold on, please. I can’t keep looking back and forth between all of you or I’m going to get sick. I’m already sick of standing up here and if we’re going to fight five on one, the least you can do is make this a little more convenient. Pick a spokes-head.”
The five glanced at one another, then turned to the head just left of the center who perked up and grinned like a puppy who’d just been asked to play.
“J-Joy?” Pathos whispered. “Y-you usually talk to ponies wh-when they’re screaming, but t-this-”
“Thank you, Pathos!” Joy squeaked, working her jaw excitedly, “I’m so glad to paralyze you today, Miss Taxi! I promise if you survive, I’ll play some pony music real loud outside your prison sometimes so you have something to listen to! Now, then, do you want to surrender? Pathos will be sad if you just surrender, but then, she’s sad anyway.”
The head who seemed to be identified as Pathos frowned pitifully and pursed her lips, making jumbo-sized kitten eyes at me. “P-please fight? Surrender would be b-boring.”
I rubbed at my forehead with one hoof. The headache I’d been sporting since the fight with Agrona wasn’t being much improved by the feeling of thousands upon thousands of beings in need radiating off the city below. I wanted so much to be back on the plains, sitting in a little hut somewhere with one of the zebra masters. That or wrapped in Minox’s arms, drinking with Hardy, teasing Swift, arguing with Limerence, petting Mags, or sitting in my cab with my incense and music.
I was about to answer her when I felt an intense need to brace myself. It took a few seconds to wrap my mind around the fact that I could feel what was about to happen, but when I did my heart sank right into my stomach; Firebrand, having patched some of her wounds and wrapped a tourniquet around her tail, had crawled behind the controls and was about to do something reckless.
“Oh ponyfeathers. Be with you in a second!” I shouted.
I scrambled towards the hatch, but it was too late. Even the magics holding me to the roof of the war scooter couldn’t entirely compensate for the sudden, vicious dive Firebrand’s ill-timed attempt to learn the controls in mid-air resulted in. Earth ponies, whatever excellent personal strengths we may have, are almost universally afraid of heights. I am usually an exception where things like that are concerned, but dropping out of the sky at that speed?
My only saving grace was that whatever magic surrounded the scooter and parted the air kept me from being swept away entirely, leaving me hovering in a terrifying fashion a meter or two off the surface of the armored bulkhead as it dove towards the ground. My ears popped and I barely had time to register that the vehicle was slowing before I slammed right into the back of it. The air went right out of my already sore lungs and I coughed a couple times, then spat something on my hoof: blood. Probably the sudden pressure change bursting a few capillaries. I hoped there wasn’t any permanent damage.
We were still descending, but at an angle. I was more or less glued to the back by the scooter’s spells and little else. Dragging myself up, I crawled over toward the hatch and hung my head over the edge.
“Warn me before you do that, next time!” I yelled.
Firebrand’s voice, sounding a little weak, came back from down below. “I...do not believe there will be many more ‘next times’, Miss Taxi. Propana is still behind you. I will try to keep us circling toward the Bay.”
Glancing over my shoulder, I let out a none-too-brave little squeak as I caught sight of Propana diving toward us out of the smoky gloom. All five of her immense mouths opened, jaws lined with razor sharp teeth and what looked like a raging star at the back of each throat. I needed Firebrand to do something.
Without thinking, I reached out...and I needed.
A bright blue shield snapped down over me just in time for multiple blasts of world-ending dragon flame to rake across the surface of the scooter, digging deep gouges in its armor and melting furrows that bled molten metal. The shield was a dome only a little larger than myself and protected none of the rest of the scooter, but though tiny cracks appeared on its surface, it still held.
“I thought you were paralyzing me!” I snarled.
At once, all the fire vanished, leaving a steaming mess that Apple Bloom was going to be pretty angry about if I ever managed to return her war scooter.
Joy raised her chin and ran a tongue over her lips. “Hate to end it, but you’re actually taking longer to kill than we had allotted for this part of our day! There’s a bunch of wiggly little ponies squatting out there in the rain who need attention, too! Still, I know a good necromancer who’ll be happy to snatch you out of wherever you ponies go when you die and trap you in your bones forever!”
“He wouldn’t happen to be named ‘Zefu’ would he?” I asked, loud enough to be heard over the raging storm as I got back to my hooves.
“Oh! You know him?” Joy chuckled as Lust wound herself around her neck like a scarf.
“One of my close friends turned him into a sword.”
The head who’d been named as ‘Hatred’ snaked forward and glared at me. “He was undead. A despicable little lich! You lie, mare, and I will chop—”
“Do I look like I have the energy to lie?” I snarled.
“S-she’s not lying. Z-Zefu is dead,” Pathos whispered.
“Then I’m having her head! I wanted to kill him myself!” Jealousy snapped.
“Can we pull her skin off and add it to our pouch?” Joy squeaked, cheerfully.
As Propana’s heads talked back and forth, debating what awful things they were about to do to me I quickly cast around for an option to quickly disable them and tried to get a sense of what was around me. Were there any advantages? Anything at all I could use?
‘Shine.’
‘Still unhelpful.’
Firebrand. She was sitting at the controls. Maybe she could radio one of the other dragons on our side to come help, or possibly have Tourniquet do it? Did they even have radios?
I needed time to think. It might have helped to have Tourniquet’s brain. She could think as many thoughts as there were Marked in the city.
‘Wait. How do I know that?’
I needed to know that.
That was important.
‘Why is that important?’
I needed to think more quickly. I needed to hurt Propana. I couldn’t hurt her from here. I needed to be in close.
“Gypsy,” I whispered, hoping I’d thought to leave my radio on and that she was still listening.
My walkie-talkie sputtered and I hoped the sound was lost in the rain.
“Are we whispering because of the giant five headed dragon flying along behind your war scooter?” Gypsy asked.
“Yes. Tell Tourniquet I’m going to try something stupid and not to fight me. If I die, tell Hardy I love him.”
“What?!”
“Who are you mumbling to?”
I raised my head to find Propana’s five all regarding me with various looks of contempt, amusement, and interest as she barreled in closer.
“Just saying my prayers,” I replied, shaking my head. “Did you all come up to a consensus?”
“Yes!” Joy exclaimed, bobbing her chin. “Hatred wanted to peel your face off and make you wear it backwards, but I talked her down to just burning you. Jealousy wants to do it, so I thought I’d let them share!”
“You know your husband is planning on stripping your title as his lead concubine the second you bear him some children, right?” I called. “I wouldn’t want to stand between you and the assassin’s cup that’s coming your way the minute you get back. Clan Avaricious could do with a new leader and Carnath knows it!”
Four of her heads jerked a little higher in the air as rain beat down on both of us. Joy squinted at me, confused, as fire began to leak from Hatred and Jealousy’s lips. Lust was wrapped around Pathos and seemed deeply distracted by nuzzling her chin.
“You heard that from those whelplings dragging your vehicle! My husband loves me and—”
“He loves you like he loved his first two wives! What happened to them?”
Pathos opened her mouth to speak, only for Lust to suddenly wind her neck around her shoulder-mate’s muzzle.
“Yeah, we both know what happened!” I snarled. “He claimed it was one of his rivals, and yet nobody ever took credit! You think you’re going to be the exception?”
Hatred’s lip curled, then she slowly smiled. “Well. Good to know. Killing him was always an option.”
Jealousy raised her head and growled, “Not a chance you get to do it! If anyone is snapping that idiot's throat, it’s me!”
“M-maybe we deserve it,” Pathos muttered. “W-we did sleep with every one of his guards and had his third wife k-killed.”
Joy shook her head. “He can’t be meaning to kill us! He loves us!”
Lust snorted a stream of smoke. “He’d screw us dead or alive. Makes no never mind to him. Makes no never mind to me, either, now that I think about it.”
“Oh shut up, Lust,” Hatred snarled, nipping in her direction. “You’ve gotten us into more stupid situations than even Jealousy over there!”
Having bought myself a moment while Propana’s heads bickered, I shut my eyes and reached out into the city below.
----
I’d been a good narcotics officer, back in the day, because getting inside the minds of addicts and those that profit from them is easy. They want a fix, they want to feel whole, and they want to feel like whatever deep, dark need has driven them to escape themselves is not quite so deep nor dark. In the years I’d been on the force, there were more circumstances where it was the brains of my fellow officers that presented complications well before those of perpetrators.
My official record was spotless, but my actual record—the one every office has which details who is and isn’t a ‘problem’ for the powers-that-be—was littered with more than a few cops with broken ribs, noses, tails, and other things who’d stepped over the line while I was present. They wouldn’t complain, officially, but they’d discretely slink off and make their reports to whoever the Chief had sitting in local cop bars watching for injuries. Hardy’s permanent need to enact justice in the world had been rubbing off on me since we were kids, though I’d rarely have called myself a force for good.
Much as the bastards often gave me excuses to hurt them, the reasons were rarely ever the most immediate. More frequently, I’d get wind they were rough with their spouses or kids or that they were on the take. They needed a little justice and I’d get to take some stress out of my day.
All those years placating my talent with scraps had left me with only the loosest notion of how it worked or what it could do.
Unfortunately, a ‘crash course’ doesn’t usually come with as much ‘crash’ as mine was about to.
----
I didn’t really know what I was doing, nor whether Firebrand had actually responded to my needs with the magical shield an instant before Propana scoured the back of the scooter with her firebreath or if she’d intended to do that anyway. If her timing was just that good then I was probably moments from death. Coincidence would be the death of me, and an ignominious death indeed.
Still, a part of me knew that hadn’t been what had happened.
I’d needed that shield and it’d been there.
So, could I need something else? Was it right that a pony whose life was spent becoming what others needed should need something for herself? Was it right to need after I’d been Daddy’s killer and my best friend’s killer and my former partner’s stooge? Did I deserve to have needs of my own?
‘Shine.’
I’d been unconsciously trying to push away all the needs of those thousands of ponies below me, forcing them to the back of my mind where they writhed and begged for attention. Cautiously, I began to reach out and to feel them. Their presence in my mind was like a thousand echoing screams in a deep cavern.
Gradually, a piece at a time, I began to sort them out.
Somewhere in the smoking ruins of an upscale boutique, a unicorn foal stood in front of the injured bodies of several ponies and a griffin, a gun shakingly levitating alongside her head. The smoking corpses of three warped monsters lay on the sidewalk outside. She could hear more of the mutants coming. Her breathing was uneven and her knees shook with each inhalation.
She’d gotten her cutie-mark in target-shooting during training just the day before, then lied about her age when she’d gotten in line to volunteer for in-city combat. When the beasts came, she’d frozen stiff, cowering behind the boutique’s counter as her squad-mates fought and were hurt or killed. The creatures were ever so much more horrible than anything she’d imagined in even her worst nightmares, but when she saw her squad-leader’s left foreleg sliced right off, she’d grabbed her gun and managed to kill all three of the ones who remained.
More were coming.
She had one full clip left. Eight shots. Eight demons were sniffing and snuffling along the adjoining street, hunting for the source of the recent gunshots. It would only be enough if she could place each shot perfectly.
Her gun barrel shook.
‘She needs courage,’ I thought.
‘Shine.’
Some miles away, an old stallion was fighting with his back to a wall of a blood-soaked alleyway. He’d lost an ear, and he was the last of his squad, but each monster that rounded the corner died. Their Marked died early in the fight and the pony carrying the radios was snatched off the ground and torn to pieces in one of the adjoining buildings.
His knees creaked and his back ached. He wanted, more than anything, to be back with his wife in Appaloosa. They’d been on vacation to see his grandson when the sun went dark. His wife was dead, but his grandson lived and so he fought on. Each twisted monstrosity met his double barreled shotgun.
He knew, very soon, he would be dead, but his strength did not waver.
‘He needs hope.’
‘Shine.’
The remains of a squad of griffins, their leader dead, their morale broken, fled three pursuing dragons across the sky near the Vivarium. They tried to scatter into the clouds, only to be herded back together by gouts of flame. The lizards were playing with them, scorching their tails and sometimes snapping at their legs. They still held their axes, but their guns were all but empty.
‘They need a moment’s calm.’
‘Shine.’
Throughout the city, the Marked tried desperately to hold together the cohesion of hundreds upon hundreds of people. I could feel Tourniquet’s panic as, despite their advantages, the monsters butchered our conscripts by the hundreds. The construct felt each death like a knife in her heart as the voices of her flock went silent. Deep in her dark cave, she was shivering with fear and sadness.
‘She needs experience with loss.’
‘Shine’.
Time was passing. A few seconds, only, and yet as I allowed their needs into myself it felt like an hour. Propana’s heads were still arguing.
‘They all have something they need and I need a tiny piece of them. Can they take a piece of me, in return?’
It was like a muscle I’d never flexed, but in that moment they needed me much as I needed them.
I called out, and my talent woke from its long slumber.
I began to Shine.
Across the city, like spreading feathers to catch the wind, I touched the thousands and thousands of minds that comprised all those who still lived, letting them brush me like the smoke from all those fires.
A mare protecting her offspring from a ravening beast found herself unafraid of its jaws and teeth; she felt the anger of a betrayed child whose father beat her, brainwashed her, and killed the only mother she ever knew. The monster didn’t live long.
The Marked felt the deaths of everyone they loved, felt the grief, felt the loss, and then the acceptance and hope that there would be a future where love would triumph over death and those who’d died would be remembered if only they could keep fighting.
Cops, who’d seen the city they sworn to protect fall into ruin, felt the joy of thundering across the plains with a herd of buffalo, their eyes full of tears at the wind and speed. The thrill of the charge consumed their terror at the abominations they fought and the choking smoke that filled their lungs. For a moment, all they could feel was the joy of running with their brothers.
A foal huddled over the remains of her dead squad felt a zebra shaman gently adjust her footing, raise her chin, and ready her for the hunt. Her gun steadied. She stepped forward and prepared for the kill.
Above it all, one little pony—with only her talent and memories for weapons against a crazed enchantress who’d see the world end if she could—began to swell with tiny pieces of every mind she touched.
I felt the breath of a newborn on my cheek and the rage of a lover protecting her beloved. My breast seemed fit to burst with all the different kinds of love that people felt for one another. Their strength filled my veins. Thousands and thousands lent me a little chunk of themselves and I gave back everything I had.
‘Sometimes it’s not about everyone else,’ the Shine whispered, one last time, before vanishing into the depths of my mind, never to be heard from again.
“And sometimes it’s okay to need something from your friends.”
“What did you say, scrumptious little bite?” Joy asked, cocking her head toward me as she swooped in close. Her other heads were still chattering at each other over top of her, with Hatred and Jealousy seeming like they might very well come to blows, though they hadn’t, yet. Lust was still distracting Pathos with nips and nuzzles.
“I said ‘You’re first’,” I growled.
Reaching down, I popped my saddlebags off my waist, adjusted my cannon, then dropped into a sprinter’s start. Taking one last breath of all the city’s need, I bolted towards the edge. The experience of thousands of daily gallopers pulsed through my muscles, carrying me towards Propana with perfect form. I felt their memories gathering in my guts, giving my breath life and my veins strength.
Bracing my back legs, I leapt from the war scooter with the power of all the city’s primary school pole vaulters. About two meters off the surface, I was hit by a wall of wind and rain that almost knocked the air clean out of me, but many hundreds of pegasi braced me for the cold and damp. It was a mad leap into the storm, but it meant Propana had only a second to react as I launched myself toward her face.
Fortunately, there is some simple behavior programmed into the hindbrain of even the most intelligent predators when you throw a morsel of food towards their mouths. I yanked my back legs in just in time for Joy’s teeth to miss the ends of my hooves and landed muzzle first in the second stinkiest mouth I’d ever had the misfortune to be in. It should say something about my life that I have a list of that sort tucked away somewhere in my head.
Smashing muzzle first into the back of her throat, I groaned as a hot wave of smoke rolled over me, stinging my eyes. Her long, forked tongue slapped wetly against my thighs. It was far too muscular for me to wrestle with. Jamming myself down beside it, I pressed myself to the wall of flesh-ripping incisors on my left before she could bite down properly and kept myself just below their points.
“Did she just jump into your mouth, Joy?” one of the heads asked from outside.
“Sheh dhid!” came a reply that made my ears ache.
The heat and humidity were both stifling and the scent of burning meat was strong enough to upset my stomach, but I hoped not to be in there long. Hauling my cannon down off my shoulder, I kicked the dragoness’s tongue with both rear hooves. Earth pony strength, augmented by an untold number of applebuckers, cherry shakers, and boxers, sent the fleshy appendage slamming against the far wall of her mouth. Leveling the barrel of my gun at the softest part of her palate, I rotated the cartridge to my round of choice, shut my eyes, held my breath, and fired.
It should be noted that ‘non-lethal’ at close range can become very lethal if a pony is not careful. I’d just done the thing that every training manual on the use of a P.E.A.C.E. cannon recommended against in big letters on the very first page.
A hot spurt of scalding blood hit me in the face as the round buried itself several inches into the thick flesh of her uvula. Her head jerked, almost sending me tumbling down her throat before I managed to catch myself by tossing the loop of my cannon’s shoulder harness over one of her long canines. The round began to lightly smoke.
At the last minute, a scrap of knowledge escaped the mind of a former fire-fighter down on the ground who was battling a blaze that threatened to consume his home with little more than buckets and bravery. I threw a leg across my face as the round exploded, sending a chilly wave of flame retardant foam blasting down Joy’s throat. She stiffened and her tongue tried momentarily to squash me against her teeth, but I rolled under it, readying myself to leave.
All in a rush, an explosion of air launched me out of her muzzle into open air. I only just had the presence of mind to hold on to my cannon’s strap and as it reached the end of its length, I was whiplashed backwards onto the top of her muzzle. The strap snapped, but it’d done its job.
The dragoness’s head drew in another breath to cough again, but as she did her eyes centered on me standing on her face. I allowed myself a little smile before slamming the barrel of my cannon into her wide open eyeball as hard as I could. It squelched wetly as I yanked the trigger string, again. I wasn’t entirely sure what the next round in the chamber was, but it hardly mattered at that range; the primer charge was enough to send the shell straight into the back of her eyesocket.
When it exploded, Joy lurched sideways, then slowly her other eye rolled up as green smoke began to billow out of her remaining tear duct. A steaming rush of blood poured out of her nose and the expiring head dropped straight down, almost yanking Propana out of the air. I was already moving, leaping onto her back as the dragoness’s four remaining heads turned to look at me.
Hatred glanced down and lifted Joy’s lifeless chin with one claw. The dangling head’s tongue lolled to one side as fire foam spilled out of one side of her mouth. A waft of smoke trickled from the gaping hole left where her eye had been.
“Pony, you just signed—”
“Blah, blah, death warrant, kill me into tiny pieces!” I barked, already working through my next move. “Get on with it!”
Jealousy’s lips curled back and she inhaled, her neck bulging on both sides, only to immediately contract as she started coughing up steaming pink foam. Hatred cocked her head at her, then tried to blow what I assumed was a quick spurt of fire; a thin stream of bubbles shot out of her muzzle and were quickly swept away in the rain.
“S-she soaked our flame in g-goo!” Pathos wailed.
Hatred’s fluke rose as she glared down at me. “I hope you like to swim, pony.”
I only had a half second to realize what was happening before Propana’s back half cracked like a whip, sending me rocketing skyward. I spun end over end, my legs splayed out in all directions, trying to catch myself. I was in the clouds in the time it took me to mutter a curse under my breath. My gun was torn out of my hooves and pinwheeled off into the darkness, disappearing into the cloud layer.
I rose like I’d been shot out of a cannon, but as it always must, I eventually felt gravity begin to reassert itself. For just an instant, I floated there in the grey void, the sound of thunder crackling at the edges of my hearing as icy rainwater soaked me to the bone. Then, I began to fall. The rain whistled through my mane and my skin felt like I’d been tossed into a deep freezer. A fog descended over my brain as the chill clawed at my bones and my ears popped.
Just then, I broke through the cloud cover. Down below, a vast expanse of empty, open darkness with occasional reflections of the burning city roiled with the stiff winds of the gathering storm. I was directly above the Bay of Unity. I didn’t have much time to celebrate the achievement, mind you. The five headed dragoness was just ahead, still chasing the war scooter through the sky, four heads darting back and forth as though trying to find purchase while the last dangled from its dead neck. It was a macabre scene, but against the backdrop of the city, it seemed appropriate somehow.
The knowledge of many hundreds of pegasi roaming around my head slowly coalesced into the need to spread all four of my legs out, trying to slow my descent by creating as much surface area as possible. My fall stabilized, but now I was only a minute from the water, if that, and still accelerating.
“You will learn to calm the world and become the seed,” my old zebra teacher whispered in my ear. “From you the tree will grow and save the land in need.”
‘Reach out. Someone is there. Someone must be there.’
I began to stretch my senses out as old, buried instincts wormed their way to the surface. Many thousands of ponies were still gingerly tapped into my psyche, but calling to them while they were fighting for their lives seemed a good way to get them killed. Besides, none but the fastest of pegasi was likely to reach me in time and even then it was more likely I’d have dragged both of us down if they’d tried to catch me.
‘Will your death matter? Are you so important? Without Hardy, what are you?’
I didn’t have long to come up with an answer, but as it turned out, an answer was there waiting for me.
“I...I am...I am Sweet Shine. I am the hope for every need.”
I redoubled my efforts and gradually became aware of a presence below me. It was bigger than most of the others, so I’d almost missed it. It needed little and wanted for almost nothing, but what it did need was for the city to be safe.
His city.
His home.
His family.
‘Stella! I need you!’
I opened my eyes and looked down into the gaping waters, ready to swallow my broken body. I wondered if Hardy was watching. I shut my eyes and prepared to meet one of the many afterlives I’d spent decades readying myself for.
I didn’t really want to die. I’d just come alive for the first time in years. In all likelihood it was going to be quick. A broken neck, or a shattered spine, or a collapsed pair of lungs. All relatively gentle ways to go, in the grand scheme of things. I’d hit the water and wash ashore and there would be a nice little funeral somewhere.
Hardy would put flowers on my grave. Slip Stitch would probably make inappropriate comments and earn himself a swift kick. Minox, my dumb bull of a sometimes lover might actually cry. It’d have been good to see the big lug one more time, even if that relationship was destined to end in tears.
My flank tickled and I spared one of my few remaining seconds to glance out of the corner of one eye at my hip. A gently glowing symbol had reappeared after too many years absent: a dove taking wing, centered in an open eye, seeing the needs of all those who hoped for something better.
‘Oh. I guess I’m not dying today.’
The water beneath me exploded upwards in a geyser and from its center emerged the massive, scaled head of a brilliantly purple sea serpent. He was festooned with a jaunty little cap in the military style that’d been popular fifty years back and freshly applied eyeliner, his flukes bedecked in layers of sequins, and his face splashed with artfully lavish glitter. Liquid ran off him in rivulets that made it seem, for a moment, as though a second fiercer rainstorm were happening just below him.
He looked up, and with a tiny smirk, picked me out from the clouds. Pursing his pinked lips, he inhaled and then blew a thin blue flame. I wasn’t sure precisely what he was doing until a blast of extremely warm air caught me up and I felt myself jerk once, then again as he adjusted his aim.
About ten meters off the water, he gave me one more little puff that sent me a few inches higher before snorting as he turned to look up at the sky.
“You couldn’t catch me?!” I just had time to snarl, before the splash filled my nose with liquid.
As I lay there beneath the waves, the dark, freezing cold clutching at my heart, I did have to spend a minute considering whether or not to actually try to swim to the surface. The exhaustion had already gotten to me bad enough that I’d gotten my second and third wind. It was something of a question as to whether or not there was another one in there.
Finally, a distance swimmer out of Trottingham gave me a light mental nudge and I forced my limbs to move. I began to flail toward where I thought the light might be. My face breached into the open air and I gasped for breath, paddling in a little circle as I struggled to keep my head above the water.
Stella bobbed nearby, his immense tail swirling up a thin wake that rocked me up and down in the water. Rain pelted both of us, but the serpent seemed oblivious to it as he looked off towards the east where I could barely see the war-scooter circling back towards us. Propana was latched atop it, using her wings to keep herself aloft while one of her heads was buried in the open top hatch as the others tore at its armor.
Vexis and Ambrock were no longer pulling the scooter. Firebrand must have released them. That was good news, at least. It meant she was still alive.
I could see them coasting off towards the shoreline, Vexis holding her brother’s limp form in her front claws as she fled with as much energy as remained to her, leaving the massive armored vehicle to Propana. I lost the two of them to the distance, but the mad white dragoness seemed much more focused on her prize. Still, the vehicle was managing to keep itself aloft, though the magical field surrounding the bottom was fluctuating, flashing in and out of existence.
Raising my voice, I shouted, “Stella! D-did you see me falling?”
“I heard you, darling,” he replied, tapping the side of his head. “At some point you shall have to explain to me how you managed that. I spent years laying on anti-telepathic magics for the precise reason that I do not want ponies playing about in my mind.”
“Later!” I snapped, treading water as best I could. “How are we going to deal with Propana? She’s got some kind of magic that gave her five heads! I killed one, but the others—”
He turned to look down at me and gave me a saucy grin. “She’s just coming into range, darling. Little Firebrand radioed ahead to let us know she’s been on the way. Just a moment.”
Raising one arm above the level of the water, he pointed towards the center of the Bay where the statue of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna stood. It was close enough that I might have just swum for it if I’d been paying any attention. From the small shore surrounding the statue, a bright green flare went up.
One of Propana’s heads noticed it and then her eyes were drawn down to the water where Stella floated, casually picking his teeth with the end of one claw. She almost snapped the neck that was still inside the war-scooter withdrawing from it. I couldn’t quite see her expressions, but none of them looked happy.
Releasing the vehicle, she took to the air and let out a roar from her four remaining heads that had me slapping my hooves over my ears. Unfortunately, that meant I immediately sank like a stone and had to struggle my way back to the surface. As I breached the air, it was halfway through a conversation.
“—never thought to see you again, Stellatrix!” Propana shouted, hovering in the air about sixty meters off the water. At that distance and in the dark, I couldn’t tell which of her heads had spoken.
“And I hoped I’d never see you again, Propana!” Stella called back, pulling a cigarette the size of a telephone pole from behind one ear and blowing a light flame onto the end. “This is my city, you know. You are unwelcome. Fly away before I decide you need a lesson in humility.”
Propana’s four remaining heads snorted four thin streams of steam. It seemed she hadn’t quite gotten her flames back, just yet. “And what will you do to us from down there, serpent? You have no fight in you! The Dragon King drove you out!”
Stella ran the fingers of one clawed hand down his cheek and put on a face of mock horror. “Is that what the fool is telling people these days? My, my, I must rectify that! I gave up the throne, darling! I didn’t want to spend my days dodging assassins. Now you bring assassins to my city! That will require an answer.”
As they exchanged words, I noticed the war scooter coasting in for a landing on the surface of the Bay. With a mighty blast of water that sent an enormous bow wave sloshing in my direction, the ancient tank crashed into the surface. It’d landed on the side away from the massive gash that Propana had managed to carve into its armored hide. It bellied there for a moment, rocking back and forth before beginning to gradually sink.
“Look what you did, Stellatrix!” one of Propana’s heads moaned, “You distracted me from my prize! Still, taking your head back to the King of Dragons will ensure the future of my clan. Presenting him both yours and my husband’s shall be even better!”
“Have no doubt, Propana,” Stella replied, blowing a puff of blue smoke from the side of his mouth. “The Dragon King will hear from me at a point, though I don’t believe he will like the answer.” Pulling his cigarette from his mouth, he gestured at her with it. “You, on the other hand, have one chance to scoot your tail back to the Firelands. Last warning, missy.”
“Ha! A bold claim from one who ran from his own throne!” one of her heads crowed. I felt fairly confident it was Hatred, but it was hard to tell. “What will you do? Spray me to death? You may have been a legend in days past, but now you are grown old and fat!”
Now, I’d never seen Stella annoyed before. Mildly put out, certainly, but never once had he expressed actual, authentic anger in my presence. At the ‘fat’ comment, the ash fell from the end of his cigarette and he frowned very slightly in as close to an unguarded fashion as I think he ever came.
“Darling, I’d have been happy to let you limp away from this, humbled, maybe with a few fresh scars. Instead, I’m afraid to say your body will be dragged from the shores of this bay and I’ll give your various skulls to the pony disk-jockey who plays in my bar to turn into decorations for his dance floor. I will be sure to keep one for my personal collection, however. It shall be a good place to put my headdress between performances.” Raising his claw to his lip, he spoke into something hidden between his scales. “Bring it up, Minox.”
I swung back towards the island as a sound like a gigantic clockworks suddenly crunching to life after many years’ idleness echoed from the shore. In the half-light and bobbing on the surface of the water it took a few seconds to figure out exactly what was going on, but it seemed the statues of Celestia and Luna were moving. Gradually, the two titanic figures were moving apart on some form of rail system as a vast shadow rose from between them.
I gulped and began frantically paddling in the opposite direction, trying to get as far away as possible as the biggest cannon I’d ever seen clanked onto its side and centered itself on Propana. It was a sharply angled tube of black metal with a set of crosshairs that must have been the size of my old cab centered on the end of the barrel. A spotlight affixed to the base provided sharp illumination of the target. Near the base there was a platform with a mechanical chair fit only for a minotaur and in it, my on-again, off-again boyfriend sat behind a pair of joysticks. Minox grinned, adjusted his bow-tie with one finger, then took hold of the controls.
“I wish to introduce the apex of Equestrian weapons technology...the Best Friends Gala Nine Thousand,” Stella murmured, stubbing out his cigarette. Raising the claw with the transmitter in it to his lips, he added, “You may fire when ready.”
One could never claim Propana was stupid. Whatever protective magics she had on her, none of them were set to deflect firepower on that scale. On a good day, she’d have had an easy decision. Unfortunately, with her current psychological state somewhat divided, Hatred and Jealousy found themselves retreating while Lust and Pathos were suddenly driven to attack. The result was her wings trying to beat in two different directions as both of her front claws attempted to rip open different parts of her pouch at the same time.
The cannon roared and a wave of force spread out across the bay, sending out a shockwave that rocked the air and lanced upwards into the sky, shoving the clouds aside for a few seconds to reveal a patch of stars. Propana vanished in a brilliant green and blue explosion of what looked like scraps of paper and streamers, a starburst of multi-colored lights crackling to life behind her. The dragoness was lit up from behind for a second before disappearing again, replaced with an impossibly large birthday cake.
As the lights faded, I realized it hadn’t been an illusion. There really was a mammoth three layered cake with white frosting and red rosettes the size of phone booths hanging in midair where the five-headed lizard had been only a moment ago. It levitated there for several seconds before gravity took notice and with a certain aplomb the monumental pastry began to fall.
It hit the water and sent up a small tsunami in all directions. I realized, too late, that I wasn’t far enough away. My legs were already cramping from the protracted swim, but I turned and started paddling a little faster, scrambling for the island’s shoreline. There was a splash nearby, but I paid it no mind until a powerful set of bulging, muscular forearms wrapped themselves around my middle. I almost fainted with relief, going limp as I felt myself being dragged along, safe in the arms of my favorite minotaur.
He reached the shore a few seconds later, heaving me up onto the small sandy strip surrounding the base of the two statues and the cannon. I gasped for breath, coughing up a muzzle full of water before managing to drag myself higher on the bank. Minox clambered out beside me and I raised my hoof to let him know I was alive.
“Zis vill be good, ja,” Minox commented, scooting over beside me in the sand.
“W-what will be good?” I stammered, shivering as I was suddenly reminded exactly how cold it was. Reaching out and with seemingly no effort, my minotaur lifted me onto his lap facing the bay as the wave from the dropping cake finally reached us, lapping at his hooves. I nestled against his chest, blinking salt from my eyelashes.
“Propana zay she vants to fight ze mistress? Now she get ze chance,” he replied.
I blinked up at him, then looked out across the Bay of Unity just in time to see the first of Propana’s heads break free of the cake. She snarled, coughed up a bit of frosting, then began to claw her way out. Stella had vanished at some point, but Propana was more focused on getting herself out of the embarrassing predicament.
Suddenly, she stiffened. A purple coil of scaly tail wound itself up from beneath her and wrapped around all four of her throats, mashing them together. Stella’s head emerged from the water nearby and I could just make out his words across the distance.
“Shall we go for a swim, darling?”
She tried to growl, or threaten, or make some utterance but it was far too late for final words. With an almost inaudible ‘bloomp’ sound, the dragoness was yanked beneath the waves. Her ghostly white tail disappearing into the deep in a gradually spreading pool of soggy cake was the last I saw of her before a bubbling cauldron of roiling water burbled up from down below. After a few seconds, the water turned a dark and greasy red.
Propana might have been a fierce fighter on her home turf, but nothing beats an angry drag queen on his own stage.
----
Minox gave me a gentle shake, bringing me back to full consciousness. I looked up to find Stella propping his claws under his chin, smiling down at me as I lay on the shore with the statue overhead. He had a deep gouge in the scales of his cheek and another further down that’d ripped a section of his chest-plate away, but the bleeding looked to have stopped.
“Now, then, Miss Taxi—” he began, but I shook my head.
“Sweet Shine. I might as well be Sweet Shine, again,” I murmured, my own voice sounding hoarse in my ears. “What happened to Propana?”
“Very little that she didn’t deserve,” he replied, carefully reaching up to remove one of his fake eyelashes that’d fallen out of place with the tip of one claw. “Though perhaps a bit more than was strictly necessary. I’ll have my people retrieve the various pieces of her corpse once the fish have entirely cleaned them. I would not wish to break a promise - even to someone who dared comment on my weight - and the dance floor does need a new motif.”
I couldn’t help a smile.
I was so tired I could hardly see straight, but I was alive for the first time in a long time and intent on staying that way.
A thought occurred to me and I carefully reached out with my senses, feeling about across the city. The fighting had turned against the monsters. They were dying in droves as ponies took strength from one another. The remaining dragons were fleeing the city. There was only one pony I was really interested in just then, however, and I couldn’t sense him. Maybe there was too much interference or maybe I just couldn’t pick out the needs of one pony amongst thousands, but I still felt panic well up inside me.
“H-Hardy. Where’s Hardy?” I demanded, frantically trying to get up from where I lay, but Minox just squeezed me tight until I finally lay still.
“He’s soon to begin his run on the shield around Uptown. I suspect he goes to meet destiny, Miss Shine,” Stella answered, not bothering to disguise the sadness in his voice.
There was a little splash off to my left as a sodden, bleeding Firebrand slowly pulled herself out of the waters. She was missing one of her swords and the bandage around her wing had come loose, but she was alive. Crawling on all fours until she was no longer threatened by the current, she rolled onto her back and groaned.
“You could not...perchance...have sent a handsome minotaur to fetch me out of the freezing water?” Firebrand grumbled.
“Oh, what are you complaining about, daughter of Ember?” Stella guffawed. “I saw your mother take worse injuries than that and still fight. Besides, it seems you retrieved yourself.”
“Please make jokes when I am no longer bleeding,” Firebrand muttered, putting her foreclaws behind her head as she sprawled on the sand, “My blood type is AB positive. I do believe I shall pass out now. Wake me for breakfast.”
“Hrmph.” Stella shook his head and reached out to tap my hip with one claw. “I see you have recovered your talent mark, then, Miss Shine. One day, you ponies will need to write a useful treatise on those things.”
“I think if anypony ever fully understands cutie-marks, we’ll have the secrets of the universe right in our hooves,” I muttered, shooting the symbol on my flank a fond look. “Still, I think Firebrand has the right idea.”
“Let’s get you to the medics then,” Stella replied.
“Wait a second,” I said and he hesitated.
Turning my leg over, I felt around in my fur until I found a lightly quivering ladybug stuck in the crook of my knee. It was the only one there. The others I’d carried had either been swept away or drowned, but one lone survivor had managed to hold on. It crawled up onto my shaking hoof and turned in three tiny circles before settling down.
“Hardy? If you can hear this, I didn’t give up. You hear me? I didn’t give up, and neither can you. I love you, and we’re going on vacation, and you’re going to eat all the exotic foods I put in front of you—including all the bugs—but right now this city still needs justice. More than anything, it needs you. You better be there on the next sunny day. I’ll be waiting.”
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Wow.
Just . . . WOW.
Rest in peace, Taxi. Long live Sweet Shine.
Goddamn, this was a beautiful chapter
What Walt said. Wow.
Time to shine.
This has been ongoing for almost 8 years... That is both impressive and terrifying.
Now I want a version of "Dig a little deeper" tailored to Sweet Shine. "When you find out who you are, you find out what you need. Blue skies and sunshine guaranteed."
Awesome chapter, really impressed with Propana and her magics, even if splitting your ego into five different heads yet leaving all with full body control and only one body seems like a really stupid final move on par with turning into a snake. Good intimidation factor, but a big drop in utility.
"The BFG 9000 was in development known as the Cake Maker Cannon 9000 but the acronym was already seeing too much use during the Crusades and the name was changed to prevent multiple misunderstandings."
I hear an engine roar on the horizon. Rage is about to take it to the streets.
Amazing, can't wait to reread this whole thing when you finish it up.
And thus, our favorite little missy who likes to rip and tear found her BFG 9000... and then the Bay became a little wetter. >:)
i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/301/533/54a.gif
Now THAT was a hell of a chapter and well worth the wait. Now it is time for Hardy (and Mags tagging along) to put an end to things, once and for all, one way or another.
And thus concludes the final terrifying ride of Taxi! Damn, you did just about give me a heart attack with the chapter title, but then you delivered the chapter itself in such a beautiful way!
God, this chapter kicked so much ass that donkeys are facing a worldwide extinction. Holy shit
Had me going there. Glad to see that tax...my apologies, Sweet Shine did not perish. Amazing chapter.
Welcome back Sweet Shine, you been gone far too long.
I see that it was a metaphorical death.
Taxi brings the ride to the city.
Pinkie brings the Party to the party.
The Best Freind Gala 9000 was based on the Awesome Wedding Party 8000, but only one prototype was ever test fired, when due to a malfunction with the Discord Groom figurine, the resulting multistage fruitcake backfire not only destroyed the cannon, and the test facilities, but caused damage beyond the security barrier. The resulting mess was rated Cordon Bleu.
Death to the Queen, Long live the queen.
My goodness, so worth the wait.
I know I said this in the last Taxi chapter, but she is just so fucking cool. This entire chapter was fuckin cool. This chapter was a perfect wrap-up and culmination of her character, and if there isn’t an epilogue, this will still be a pretty damn good end to her story.
10303458
There is going to be an epilogue, definitely.
-Chessie
It's interesting that this battle was split up as it was. The previous chapter was nearly all build-up to culminate in this fight, and that was well handled. But I'm actually rather confused as to why Propana hydra-ized herself? It's implied that she does this a lot, but I can't really figure out why she would do so. It seems to have almost entirely been to Taxi's benefit, thanks to all of the in-fighting and bickering. Narratively speaking, it makes sense, since it gives Taxi time to have her moment of self/omni-actualization and allows her to use her PEACE Cannon in close quarters and even get a kill with it, without actually eliminating Propana outright. But what advantage did Propana gain by splitting her focus into five separate fragments of her personality? The rest of the contents of her bag of tricks seems to have been forgotten entirely as well, with the usage of whatever artifact caused that effect.
It was good to see Stella again! I missed him a bunch, though I can't recall if he ever mentioned a tunnel or access path he could use to get from the Vivarium into the bay. I don't remember Minox terribly well, but Taxi's internal monologue worked really well for context to precede his arrival.
There is some narrative distance weirdness—It sounded as though Taxi was falling into the middle of the bay at first, but the rest of the chapter makes it sound as if she landed within swimming distance of the statues and Minox? If Stella carried her there before doubling back to finish off Propana, or the tidal wave from Propana's cake-coated landing swept her in that direction, then it might be good to emphasize that somewhat in the narration.
10303521
Realistically, sometimes you do things for narrative purposes and nothing else. Propana gaining five heads would probably have worked quite well if she hadn't then had her flame doused with a fire extinguisher. Considering Propana is still alive and the precarious nature of her life in the dragon lands, it is probably a very functional combat strategy against most opponents.
Five times the flame, five times the teeth.
She did considerable damage solo to a War Scooter and those were designed for killing dragons.
She just didn't count on Taxi jumping into her mouth. Or Taxi reading her mind.
Also, she didn't 'forget' her bag of tricks. Right at the end, before she died, two of her heads (we don't know which, but it probably doesn't matter) were trying to rip open different sections of her pouch at the same time.
-Chessie
I Recently finished the final chapters of "Ulysses."
I found *this* chapter to be superior in both form and content.
Carry on!
Oh Taxi, You're such a kill Joy.
Wow. Indeed this was the death of Taxi. Brilliant, epic, perfect
My only complaint is that you confused a clip for a magazine, and I insist, they're not the same thing.
LESGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
anyways, excellent chapter as always, so happy for sweets. i'm so hyped for hardy!!!!
10313791
Hardy's chapter *started out* insane. It's only gotten worse as things have progressed.
-Chessie
10314394
as expected of the final chapters of this story lol
People do go on about what makes a good story—characterization, plot, prose style, theme (godhelpus)—but I think the most important thing by a very large margin is satisfaction. And this chapter was thoroughly satisfying!
10332831
That's been a significant goal throughout and each of the character's finales has been about soaking the satisfaction as hard as I could. Swift gets some very...direct revenge, Limerence gets to show his massive-big brain, Taxi kills the shit out of a dragon, and now...Hardy does what Hardy is about to do. Which I think shall be even more satisfying.
-Chessie
I was just rereading and I noticed this tidbit from act 3 chapter 26, "take a note please", the chapter narrated by Swift.
I'd just like to point out that Swift was right all along and called it something like 30 chapters before it actually happened
I keep calling her propane
I’d been dreading this chapter ever since I glimpsed the title ahead of time in the chapter list, though I did my best to put it out of my mind before now. And so I was mentally cursing up a storm (didn’t want to disturb family members in the next room) when Taxi wound up inside Joy, let alone the fall…
Bait and switch with exact words. Well played.
I loved Propana’s split personality silliness and Taxi finally using the full power of her talent.
10400432
Given the general theme naming with dragons, she was likely named for propane.
10467711
I didn't think that was terribly subtle.
-Chessie
Glad to say, I wasn't wrong when I called the title way back when.
Less glad to say, I put this off for way too long. It's a climax for sure, especially reading it all at once.
Everyone else has said what I'd have said at this point, but it's been a fitting end for Taxi, and I daresay Propana got nary a more fitting end.
The arrogant flair of turning into Tiamat was some Final Fantasy tier shit
Taxi's self-actualization was some force bond, battle meditation tier shit, but in both ways. (Which now I mention it draws aesthetic parallels with Bastilla Shan from KOTOR. Something I'll keep in mind if I ever draw her anthro)
My only possible gripe? I do wish Taxi's thoughts focused on Swift and Limerence too at the end, before Hardy. They all got a bit of mention, halfway, but I feel at this point after everything they've gone through together? Those two should have earned their place in her household. But I'm just a sucker for found families.
It's too bad Taxi isn't a pegasus.
After taking out one of Propana's five heads, she could have started calling herself "The Twenty Percent Killer."
10839667
That's fuckin gold right there hahaha
This is the most baller ass quote I've heard this week, goodness.