Upon Reflection
The goal had been to create the most transparent administration in history. But that was still in progress, so for now, the Cabinet was settling for being the most translucent.
One of the reforms instituted in the days following the drafting and passage of the Empire's new constitution was to open just about every proceeding to the citizenry. It was unrealistic to expect that everything could be brought into the open, and that had been explained to the crystal ponies while those laws were being drafted. There would always be such a thing as classified material, secret briefings and information which shouldn't be under the hooves of citizens just yet: there was no way to avoid that. But unless such an event was taking place, the Cabinet would do its best to operate in the light, for it was Sombra who had kept things within the shadows, sometimes letting a pony know when a law had been created through dragging them into the laboratory after the newest rule had been unwittingly broken, a procedure which did a lot to prevent subsequent lapses on that rule and thus encouraged a steady stream of fresh laws for ponies to break.
So one of the many new buildings under construction was the Dome: a cross between a stadium and a gallery, where the Cabinet would sit in the center and any crystal ponies who wished to watch their government in action could rest on the benches and keep an eye on everything. But the completion of that huge structure was some time off and so for now, the Cabinet had told ponies they could trot into the castle instead.
It usually didn't happen. The castle hosted too many bad memories for the crystals: it took an act of will just for most of the staff to show up in the morning. (The Cabinet was looking for another, less intimidating building, but a certain number of practical security measures needed to be in place: nothing suitable had presented itself, and nopony among the populace could work all of the required enchantments.) But still, every so often, a particularly curious pony would check in with the Guards, then slowly move through the halls until they reached the crystal walls which contained the Cabinet -- and for the most part, those exceptionally courageous individuals would stop right there, watching a group of blurs silently debate policy within the rainbows.
So in theory, it shouldn't have been unusual for a non-Cabinet member to have been within the room, tail tucked into the closest corner-equivalent as he listened to what was truly starting to feel like the endless minutiae of getting the realm galloping again. But in practice, it was a very rare event. And to have the occasional scraping sounds of armor against crystal, little scratches put into the wall as Flash did his best not to fidget by channeling the impulses into a series of unsteady twitches...
They looked at him sometimes, the eighteen arranged around the table, when the sounds of the scratches began to approach something closer to a screech. They'd looked at him when he'd first entered, all of them, and then the majority had dismissed it: the Captain had entered and brought a Guard. There was probably a reason for that, the Captain would tell them what it was if he wanted to and if not, they had the freedom to ask at any time they wished -- which meant nopony had done it yet. Instead, the Captain had taken a place at the table and the meeting had resumed, followed by going on, and on, and on...
Flash wanted it to be over. For all of them to stop talking and finally release the Captain to what was sure to become yelling, the shout which would push him out the door, towards the train, and into freedom. But they knew nothing of his desires, and so none of them tried to cooperate. They just kept presenting their viewpoints. Arguing with each other. Debating with the Cabinet's head, and he occasionally spotted a tiny smile playing across her lips when somepony tried to verbally counter her.
But for the most part, they just talked.
Flash knew there were benefits to granting the crystals the right to watch their government in action. For starters, every case of insomnia in the Empire could be potentially cured within two hours.
"And lastly," the head of Construction semi-lied, for it was the last thing for him and him alone, "I'm pleased to state that we have officially begun to grow the cinema." All of those sitting around the table smiled: those on benches and the one who was just casually sitting on a few pillows which he tossed on the floor before every session. "I supervised the initial bravais myself and laid down the majority of the lattice. Now, it's going to take some time to finish, especially for a building of that size, and --" he looked briefly disgusted, mostly with himself "-- I'm sorry to say that it's all just for the shell. I still haven't figured out how to make the screen work. Given the way the projectors function, with the images being sent onto crystal... well, we're going to need a whole new bravais to make something which won't distort them, and that'll take time. I'm hoping to have it solved by the time the roof fuses."
Princess Cadance softly smiled. "Painite, we've been over this. There is nothing wrong with just hanging a sheet --"
"-- oh no, Pibto!" the forepony immediately declared as a gesturing foreleg of the darkest red anypony had ever seen distorted every rainbow it could reach. "This is the Empire's cinema, and as such, it will be done to the Empire's standards -- through our efforts, and ours alone. It will be perfect." Followed by, with open disgust, "And not his 'perfect'. He insisted that everything look perfect, Pibto, and far too quickly for true perfection to emerge. And so most of those who survived were the ones who could create a lattice good enough for illusion, with all the flaws --" the word was spat "-- hidden. Not that they survived for long, because the error would always become visible with enough time. I am still finding and trying to fix the flaws from the latter stage of his regime, created after all of the other true builders had been executed. He wanted beauty. I will provide perfection."
Cadance tilted her head slightly to the right, looked vaguely pleased. Flash simply stared at an alicorn who had just been called 'Pibto' to her snout and taken it.
It was, as he'd overheard (because few ponies paid much attention to whether he was around or not, or cared), meant to be an acronym of minor endearment, created after Cadance had abdicated the throne to (eventually) become nothing more than the head of the Empire's Cabinet. Princess-In-Barely-Title-Only. Rumor had claimed that she didn't seem to mind anypony using the term: some among the Guard felt there were times when she even preferred it. But to see her be so casual with it was to try and picture how Princess Luna would have dealt with such a thing, and...
His personal memories of Princess Luna were fairly brief, and decidedly loud.
"All right, Painite," Cadance smiled. "Keep us updated on how that's proceeding. Just remember that the cinema was the most citizen-desired new business for the Empire -- so if you're still having trouble with the new bravais when it's time to open, please consider using a standard screen sheet until your own kind is ready. Just to keep ponies from waiting too much longer."
The architect snorted. "Settling..." he muttered, with the word barely understandable.
(There were many things which the majority of Guards barely understood about Painite. How he'd ever survived the multiple stages of Sombra's purges was generally first on the list, and anypony who had a chance to speak with him would repeat the same entry all the way to the bottom.)
"And that brings us to new business," Cadance said. (Flash tried not to fidget.) "Now, I understand that while I was with the Saddle Arabian ambassador yesterday, telling him that I would use the official face-hiding headdress for being in his presence immediately after he took what I'd just decided was an official public dunking in the fountain for mine -- we're still at something of an impasse there, he's threatening to leave, and as we agreed upon an hour ago, I'll threaten to let him -- there was a discovery. But that's just about all I've been told, other than that it wasn't an immediate crisis, the briefing could wait until now so we'd all hear it together, and --" she took a slow breath "-- for most of you, this might be hard to hear. So if anypony needs us to stop for a minute so they can get their bearings back, we'll stop. And we'll all understand if somepony has to leave. Shining?"
The crystal ponies around the table made up for Flash's badly-suppressed fidgeting with twitches to spare. The Captain's field took notes out of his left saddlebag, and the individual directly across the glittering table leaned forward.
"We found another one of Sombra's laboratories," the Captain steadily began -- then paused. "Lapis?"
"I'm... okay," the little shivering mare lied.
"You don't have to be here," Cadance gently told her. "Not for anything involving a laboratory."
"I -- should," the former secretary eventually said. "It's over, Cadance. It happened, and -- it's not happening any more. Please, Captain -- go on."
He looked around the room. "Everypony?" Several forced nods. "Everyone?" That response was decidedly more solid. "All right. Here's the basics. The statue-clearing crew working on the west side of the capital uncovered the tunnel when they took out one of the more solid pieces. They were only able to get close enough to determine what was on the other end. From what they could see, it's not one of the sites where he did --" and even the Captain swallowed "-- biology work. This one may have been for experimental spells. Most of the evidence there is in the fact that we can't get that close. And we have to figure out how, soon."
The light pink crystal pony (whom Flash vaguely remembered was named Poudrette) forced herself to inhale, somehow made words emerge on the other end. "I know you've been dismantling them, Captain, and -- we appreciate the efforts you've all made to give the bodies a proper burial. And of course we all want every last one of the laboratories gone as soon as possible."
"We keep hoping," Musgrave quietly said as the tears ran down his dark purple face, "that each new one would be the last... What's the issue with this one? Is it anything we can help with?"
"I'm not sure anypony can help," the Captain said. "Nopony can get close. Because the proof for it being a spell workshop is in what happens when ponies try to approach. One pony can get all the way up to the door, and might even be able to go inside. But as they approach, sparks start to build up around their bodies. That seems to be harmless, at least from the tests we did on everypony who came out of the tunnel: all the thaums had drained, and there were no lasting effects. But that appears to be the visual result from a spell building power as a pony gets closer. There's different colors, along with different speeds of buildup for individuals: both seems to be dependent on species. Unicorns get it quickest and worst. And the more ponies who approach at once, the faster it happens. One can get to the door. Two have the same intensity when they're nine body lengths away. Ten would be shooting sparks out of the tunnel entrance and into the sky. And we don't know what that spell does when it goes off, or even if it'll do what it was supposed to, because..." He took a breath. "It's the decay problem."
Several ponies winced. Three shivered. One asked for a moment, and Flash nearly found himself with company until she spotted him through streaming eyes and tucked herself against another part of the wall until she'd recovered.
The Guards had been briefed on the decay problem. Very few workings were truly permanent. Some of the standard efforts from the crystal ponies seemed to hold longer than anything else, exponentially increasing the duration of even an earth pony's Cornucopia Effect -- but Sombra had been a unicorn. Distorted, self-warped, trying to take himself across the line into something else -- but a unicorn, and one who'd decided that his best solution to a personal alicorn invasion problem was taking the long view. In some ways, the Empire had been skipped across the centuries -- but the spells which had made that happen, spells nopony alive understood, treated the entire duration as running in real time. It meant that in the end, every thaum should have drained, and rather quickly. The Empire should have phased back in long before it actually had.
Sombra had found a way to solve the problem. (Nopony knew how that had been done either.) But after he'd found the solution, he'd applied it to more than the Barrier. He'd wanted to make sure his personal defenses would still be up and galloping on the other end, and so he'd tied them into that solution. A solution which, with the death of the caster and end of the Barrier, was breaking down -- and taking everything which had been linked with it.
All over the Empire, spells were coming apart. It wasn't happening in that many places: just the few which Sombra had used for his most personal magics. They didn't all decay at the same rate. Some of them harmlessly discharged their energy as simple light, sending beams and false fireworks into the sky. Others... didn't. And experimental spells decaying, security measures created by Sombra...
"We need to get in there," the Captain said. "We need to figure out what's going on and see if there's any way to counter it. But I can't send anypony inside without risking a trigger. And we can't take anything out. Sombra -- well, the securing spell existed in his time, and what he did with it..." A slow head shake.
Musgrave just barely mustered a frown. "I think this is one of those vocabulary problems, Captain. Securing? That sounds like you're using it for something other than just a general term of security."
He nodded. "Sorry, Musgrave -- it's something you wouldn't have, at least not in that form. For unicorns, it's a working which you use on objects: typically things you don't want stolen. Once it's in place, unicorn fields slide off that piece -- any field except that of the caster, or anypony they authorize. Nopony else can levitate it, and the more recent versions leave it behind when somepony tries to teleport out. You can't even surround a rope, circle it, and try to tow. No pushing with another object. Either way, the field winks out."
"Using magic to make something resistant to future magic," Musgrave slowly nodded. "I understand. Yes, we have something similar, but not under that term. So what did -- he do?"
"Projected fields wink out," the Captain said, "when they cross the doorway. I couldn't surround an object from a distance. I couldn't even get a bubble into the room. And that's just one of the reasons we couldn't use this."
His horn ignited, and the Captain's field flipped the edge of his right saddlebag. The energy rummaged for a moment, and then the disk came out.
It shimmered softly in the light, but no rainbows bounced from its surface. Instead, they ran across it in a manner which reminded Flash of spilled soap, a film coating the electrum surface, pooling along the edges where the runes had been carved, and settling into the shallow depression in the center.
Cadance blinked twice, then switched to direct staring.
"Captain," she said, and all those in the room knew her mere use of the word indicated a pony who wasn't completely happy, "did I miss a briefing?"
He forced a half-smile: only the left side of his mouth twitched up. "Sorry, Cadance. We found this two days ago, while we were cleaning out what we were hoping was the last of the laboratories. And yes, it works, as well as they ever did. Even after this much time. He didn't make it, and whoever did built it to last."
"Captain Armor," Lapis shyly said, "I know that if you're bringing it here, among us, we shouldn't be worried about it. But we don't know what it is. Just that it's old, and -- not something of his."
The Captain nodded to his spouse.
Cadance forced her gaze to move away from the disk. "The original name doesn't matter," she said. "The best way to think of it is as an analyzer. It's a device which can feel spells, compare them to whatever it's encountered before and try to see if there's any similarities. We think they're from the Pre-Discordian era: no device-maker alive knows how to construct or repair one, and nopony's willing to take apart the three which are left to see how they work. If the Empire has one -- even with no exposure to workings over all that time, Shining, we have a treasure."
The Captain's field lowered the disk to the center of the table. "Given where we found it, the obvious conclusion is that Sombra was using it for his own investigations. And if we could get it in that room..."
"It'll analyze the spells?" Tanza asked. "Tell us exactly what he did?"
Cadance shook her head. "It'll give us points of comparison based on what it's been exposed to before. It might recognize a base working at the heart of the alteration, but it won't reason out what the changes were and how that might affect the final result. It can't think, Tanza, and it can't extrapolate. It'll just give us something to build on. And if it does identify any bases, something which can be countered, and we can get somepony in the room..."
"We can't have somepony kick it in and then tow it out later?" Alexa asked: the mare's first words since she'd wrapped up her twenty-minute Commerce speech. "Just -- oh, what's the word -- lasso it? Without magic?"
"It only works when it's being touched by a living being," the Captain replied. "And it has to be close to whatever it's analyzing. Two hoofwidths, maximum."
"And we can't just try to bury the place or blow it up," Painite observed.
Several ponies, including Flash, openly shuddered. They all remembered what had happened on the only occasion anypony had tried that.
"So I'm open to suggestions," the Captain said. "We should have some time before the spells break down to the point where they're dangerous: my best unicorn got as close as he could, and he believes we're not at the critical limit yet. I trust him on that, enough to use this meeting instead of calling an emergency one during the night. But I still put the Guards on the problem --"
But not me. Nopony told me.
Not that there was much of a need to ask a pegasus about exactly how he'd solve a unicorn issue. But even as a general briefing, a notice that anything was going on, he'd been told nothing at all.
"-- and nopony has any ideas."
It triggered the words they'd all known would be coming.
"I'll go in."
Which were immediately followed by the other words they'd mutually foreseen. "No. You won't."
"Captain," Cadance said, with as much tension as any had ever heard in her voice, "as head of the Cabinet, it's my responsibility --"
"-- to lead the Cabinet," he shot back, and his right forehoof slammed into the floor, leaving the rest of his words to be half-shouted past the resounding musical note. "He was fighting off the Princesses! He put the entire Empire into abeyance just from trying to get around them! If those spells are set up to detect anything, it's an alicorn -- and I can't even shield you from the outside: we tried that already with a kicked object, and it would ruin the readings anyway! You are not going in there, Cadance."
"And how," the alicorn softly asked, "were you planning on stopping me?"
He looked directly at her.
"Official vote, by show of limbs," he said, gaze never shifting from her face. "All against Cadance going in, raise one."
Flash counted. Seventeen. One abstention.
"As per the Constitution," the Captain said, not even looking to see if any limbs had been raised at all, "the head of the Cabinet has been overridden by majority. You're not going in. I don't know who I can send in. It's not an order I want to give, not when we don't know what could happen. Anypony is going to be at risk --"
-- which was when the snort filled the room.
It was a vaguely amused sound: it often was. (Flash had heard it before, always from a great distance, and the sound had a way of carrying across any amount of ground and sky.) The sapient who'd just made it leaned forward a little more, shifting on the pillows he'd tossed onto the floor, and the little tie fell away from his broad chest.
"Well, there's your answer," the rough voice declared.
The Captain immediately turned. Blue eyes locked onto yellow.
"Want to explain that?" the Captain not-quite-asked.
It triggered another snort, and the other party leaned forward a little more, awkwardly resting his elbows on the table, which required a considerable amount of torso bend.
"Anypony is going to be at risk," said the Cabinet's head of Assertiveness Training And Emotional Recovery. "What about anyone?" And with that, Iron Will smiled, snorted a third time, and looked completely satisfied with himself.
The Captain blinked.
"None of my people made it up here while the other guy was in charge," the minotaur reminded them. "He kept us all out, remember? Can't set up a working to detect something you've never really dealt with, right? I'm betting I can waltz right in there without anything happening, if anypony teaches me how to waltz first. I take the analyzer, I walk up to anything you want figured out, and then I stroll away whistling. If somepony can teach me to whistle." He thought about that a little more. "Probably not going to happen. Our mouths are a little different. So just show me where the tunnel starts, and I'll --"
Far too softly, "-- are you kidding?"
"Nah," Iron Will pleasantly declared. "Now, you said it's on the west side --"
"-- you're moving too fast," the Captain cut him off. "Give us some time to figure out something from the outside."
The rest of the Cabinet was silent. Watching, as was Flash. Letting them have it out.
Flash had heard... well, it was easy to hear the rumors, when nopony cared if you were listening. That the minotaur and the Princess were friends? Yes, everypony accepted that, and the biped had made an impact since being invited into the Cabinet. He was part of the reason there were children playing in the park again: because he had taught them about not being afraid. Simply staying around the youngest long enough to let them know someone so very different was no kind of threat had created multiple breakthroughs on its own, and he was the one who had reached out to the other nations and summoned the slow, steady flow of psychiatrists who were beginning to set up shop among an endless supply of patients. He had helped, more than anypony had ever dreamed of.
But there was another rumor. That the Captain wasn't used to having... a rival.
Oh, there was nothing romantic involved. Flash had been posted to the minotaur nation for a while (as he'd been posted just about everywhere), and so knew that physical (non-wrestling) pony-minotaur relationships only existed in the most ridiculous of fiction and cheapest of jokes sprung on friends who'd been set up on truly blind dates. You could find members of both species who would love each other as something more than family, build their homes next to each other or even unite them as a single building -- which included the miniature model in front, where the dead would reside. There were even handfasting ceremonies now and again: the oath which promised a lifetime of something beyond friendship. But attraction... they were too different. A few ponies in every Equestrian generation would marry griffons. Others looked to zebras. Most quadrupeds would have a pony somewhere willing to give them more than a glance. But in all of known history, there had been two minotaur-pony unions, and both had been purely for legal purposes as a friend did the only thing they could to protect the one they cared about.
Iron Will wasn't physically attracted to Cadance, nor could be the reverse be seen as true. But they spent time together, as friends. And the rumors said the Captain, who'd apparently had to get through a lot before even winning a first date, wasn't happy about having another male around.
"Decaying spells," Iron Will shrugged. "I had enough ponies in my town to know that's bad. And I also drink with your best unicorn, enough to know he is the best -- but he's also not your sister. He gave you an estimate, right? Estimates are just that, Shining. He's giving you his best guess. And it's the best guess you could ask for, but it's not perfect. It's not something you can completely rely on. We got this far. Let's not push our luck past that."
"What do you call going in there?" the Captain challenged. "A casual stroll? That is pushing your luck. That could set off a disaster --"
"-- the spells focus when somepony gets close, right? Just let me walk towards the door. See if they focus on me. If nothing happens, I go in."
"There are more security measures in existence," the Captain shot back, corona surging to a full single as spikes cascaded along the edges, "than ones which rely on magic. I'd think a minotaur would understand that. You weren't here when we had to disarm Geode Park. You know that maze you like to hold your training sessions in? I've seen where you put the middle benches. Right where one of my squad almost lost a hoof. And even if there's nothing physical or mechanical in there, there could be other spells, past the border. Things we can't feel because we can't get close enough, things you won't be able to read the analyzer for. You. Are risking. Your life."
Another shrug. "It's mine to risk. Longer we wait, more ponies you're risking."
"I order you," the Captain said, "not to enter."
The minotaur's little smile turned into a full-fledged grin. "Citizen of Mazein, Shining. Not part of your chain of command, can't be pressed in as an necessary expert during an emergency. You can't order me to buy a round for the house."
"I can block you," the Captain said.
"You really want to try leaving a long-term shield near decaying spells? See how Sombra's energy interacts with somepony who's got your strength? And if you restrain me, I'm pretty sure I can complain to my embassy, and then they'll -- oh, right: that's not set up yet. So as the only representative in the Empire, I guess that means I pretty much am the embassy." Without looking in that direction, "Cadance, on behalf of Mazein, I'd like to register an official complaint..."
The smallest of the alicorns briefly closed her eyes.
"Iron," she quietly said, "you weren't here for the early stages. We found... the worst of it then. All the things which led to the funerals, for bodies which we could barely identify as ever having been alive at all. If you go in there, anything could potentially happen to you. Anything you can imagine, and all the things nopony wants to. Anything at all."
"I know," he steadily replied, finally looking towards her. "I talk to the ones who were at the funerals. About the ponies they lost. I talk to them every day, Cadance. And that's why I'm going in. To make sure it doesn't happen to anypony else."
The Captain slowly, painfully pressed his left forehoof against his matching temple, as if trying to push the headache back in.
"Nopony can get you out," he told the minotaur. "Not from the outside. I can't shield you, nopony can grab you with a field and as heavy as you are, that would have been a pretty small number to start with. I can't even have a full squad close and keeping an eye on you. At best, I could station one other pony in the approach tunnel, close enough to watch, far enough away from the door to not trigger the spells. If you get in at all. Everything about this is an 'if'."
"Okay," Iron Will seemed to acquiesce. "So in that case -- one Guard. Watching from the tunnel."
The minotaur's head turned. Yellow eyes looked to the left.
Flash felt the exact moment his own breathing stopped.
"I'll take him," Iron Will said.
The Captain stood up without standing up. Flash never saw a knee move. His officer had been on the bench, and then he wasn't.
"Somepony else."
"He's here," the minotaur shrugged. "I'm guessing you trust him a little if you're bringing him in during this briefing. Might as well find out why --"
"-- anypony else."
"Also, if I'm going with anypony else," the bemused biped pointed out, "then I guess I'm going in, huh? But why don't I go with him? Don't think I've had a chance to meet him yet. A couple of guys spending a little time together --"
"-- outside."
The yellow eyes blinked.
"Come again?"
"I want," the Captain half-hissed. "To talk to you. Outside."
Iron Will shrugged. "Fine." He stood up, strode towards the door, opened it for the unicorn who angrily walked out under the gap created by the huge arm. The door closed behind them. And it could be said that they talked, as long as the observers were willing to use so mild a term as 'talked' to describe the all-out verbal war which surged into existence at the moment the resealing crystal cut off all sound.
The Empire's government wasn't completely transparent, but it was translucent -- and so it was possible to watch a blurry version of the argument, which everypony did. Arms gestured, hands weaved strange patterns into the air. The Captain, who didn't have the same anatomy to work with, went with a series of tail lashes added to flattened ears. At three points, he reared back onto his hind legs, allowing his forelegs to express their own gestures, along with just keeping him from having to look so far up all the time. Both males proved to be capable of doing a lot with hoof stomps and when each saw that they were equal there, they promptly tried to outdo the other.
At one point, the Captain's approach seemed to change. The smaller blur appeared to be speaking more slowly. The minotaur put a hand under his own chin, listened. The Captain nodded, went on for several minutes. The minotaur nodded back at the end, then said something. Words which, judging by the bull's posture, had been completely calm and casual.
The Captain's forehooves slammed into the floor. And seconds later, they did the same to the door.
"Private," the Captain said, and the tension in his voice nearly cracked the table.
Flash scrambled to his hooves. "Sir?"
"Do you think you can stand in a tunnel without collapsing it?"
"...yes?" Flash eventually tried, and then wondered if he'd just unknowingly lied. All he had to go on was previous experience and while it was true that he'd never collapsed a tunnel, now that he thought about it, that seemed to stem from lack of opportunity. It might just be a matter of time --
"I have doubts," the Captain tersely stated. "Prove them wrong. Let's go."
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There are few things some people love quite so much as Mandatory Update Downvotes.
When you get right down to it, there's nothing certain individuals enjoy more than a little wallow in the MUD.
I have my hypothesis about Flash's part in all this, but I'm keeping it to myself. Mostly, I'm just eager to see if I'm correct.
WHAT.
...
Okay, pony civilization, as well as civilization in general, only technically existed while Discord ruled. Those things were built by whatever made the... other, more spoiler-y technology we learned about in the one that was about sex.
THIS IS A BIG DEAL, GUYS.
I really like your Iron Will.
I still say Flash has a Pinkie like sense and helps find/solve problems that others don't even know exist. I bet that unless Flash had managed to move the statue in that specific way, nobody would have found the lab until it was in critical decay.
7972892 - Discord kind of ruined all historical records, and was long enough to really muddle verbal records too. Ponies probably had a thriving society prior to his arrival/creation. Reports vary, but it's possible they were controlling the sun and moon before Celestia/Luna came along and thus had significant magical prowless, if anything ponydom is only now recovering from a dark age that regressed them. Plus, new moral guidelines are probably slowing progress on some fields (though that's not a bad thing).
I like this Painite pony. I'm also digging this dynamic between Shining and Iron Will, it's funny.
Finally one of my favorite dudes is here iron will
Welp, color me excited.
And adopting new headcanons every day (even if they contradict canon).
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Okay we all know that the priceless irreplaceable Analyzer is getting destroyed before the end of the story. Anyone want to bet on its ultimate fate?
I've got 5 bits on pulverized into pieces the size of dust particles.
"No, no, no, that's wrong: my oc Slash Firestorm [1] would totally bang all the mares. They would, like, totally be attracted to his, you know, inner goodness.
Yeah.
Then they'd bang him."
-Random Badfic Author, probably.
[1] Actual human oc name I have seen used unironically, in the Pokemon badfic Sinners by Slash Firestorm. Don't Google it.
Why am I thinking of Oregon's exploding whale...
7972465
I'm still pleasantly surprised that he named a atoll after me.
What about samba? Maybe a tango?
both had happened in Detrot?
I have severe doubts about this.
Has it been established why Flash doesn't simply quit?
7973376
In the first chapter, it's stated that his parents, Bulwark and Tower, were legends amongst the Guard, so a position was "naturally" reserved for their son, which is also why he has yet to be drummed out of the Guard.
In essence, Flash's family legacy not only forces him to join the Guard, but means he can't quit without bringing huge dishonor upon himself and/or his parents. Being legitimately unsuitable is one degree of shame, but refusing his family duty over something so "petty" as mere feelings would be far, far worse.
7973482 Well yes, that much is a fairly reasonable assumption, but is that Flash's take? Whether quitting or being fired is less dishonorable is a matter of perspective. I was wondering if we missed something more direct from the horse's mouth... or thoughts I guess.
Ooooh, precursor technology. Deeply intriguing stuff. I can't help but wonder if Sombra has anything else pre-Discordian in this lab. Of course, as has been noted, priceless ancient artifacts and your Flash Sentry mix like nitroglycerin and sharp bumps. Hopefully it'll survive long enough to get the job done.
Still, it's a shame that Sombra was as obsessed as he was. A mind like that could've done so much good. Alas.
Also, very neat to see glimpses of crystal pony magic beyond the glossary. I can't help but wonder how it feels to earth ponies. And how they feel about it, for that matter. Too close for comfort, perhaps?
And the dynamic between Shining and Iron Will is fantastic. Though really, Shining should've known better than to butt heads with a minotaur. When does that ever go well?
7970837 So, does that make Flash into Colon or Nobbs? 'Cause he's no Carrot.
...That tunnel is gonna collapse isn't it.
This is going to be hilarious.
As anyone looking at the chapter listing might be able to tell, #3 is on the way. I should be able to finish today, but I'm considering whether it should be with one very long final segment, or one fairly lengthy one followed by a shorter finale.
It's getting there.
ETA: So it'll be four chapters in total. Let's see if I can get the last one up before midnight.
Re-ETA: Initial composition on the last chapter complete: starting edits. So it will be finished tonight.
I'm going to finish a story on some kind of projected schedule.
Apocalypse Ho!
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By the sound of it, he's something of a blend. The yellowish streak of Colon, the natural scruffiness of Nobby, and the random destructiveness of Detritus.
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Spike. Look at my avatar boyo.
Sombra had been a unicorn. Distorted, self-warped, trying to take himself across the line into something else -- but a unicorn,
And the comics canon is thrown into the sea with cannonballs tied to its legs, as it should. Praise be to Estee.
I find it hard to hate Flash Sentry here, I historically I tend to dislike him on principle. I love Iron Will from this and the prior fic. He always seemed like a cool dude and not a villain.
I’m interested to see if Flash gets to use some Pegasus techniques to disrupt the lightning. That was my original assumption of where this was going before Iron Will took over the mission. The best thing about reading an old story is that I don’t have to wait for an update!
i missed that before: "Painite", "Lapis", all the crystal ponies are named after types of crystals or jewels!
Solution: throw another item with a TK, stop applying TK *before* the projectile hits secured item.
Or just don't use the field but that would be boring, right?
Well, my initial suspicions of Flash somehow wrecking the cabinet meeting proved wrong. That role seems to have gone to Iron Will and Shining Armor.
There's something inordinately amusing about an argument viewed in silence through glass, (at least in comedy) especially when the ponies do that thing where they rear up and use their forelegs for gesturing.