Part 2: Message and Messenger
Twilight’s castle smelled.
Flurry Heart wasn’t exactly surprised by this discovery—there were many ponies packed into a tiny space, with a well that could just barely give them enough water to drink. Even so, teleporting in was a bit like being hit with several of the most traditional earth-pony barns all at once.
The mystery of what had happened to most of Ponyville was immediately solved: the entire bottom floor had been transformed into a camp. Tables had been turned sideways to make into little cubbies and dividers, where the citizens of Ponyville now huddled with their families. They had very little in terms of possessions—just what they could carry.
Most of those Flurry Heart had known well had been attending the festival, and were now enslaved with the rest of Canterlot. But there were some familiar faces here. Instead of Mayor Mare, it looked like the schoolteacher Cheerilee was the one keeping order with the help of the Cutie Mark Crusaders.
The crushing weight of disappointment was heavy on these ponies, but at least they looked healthy. They hadn’t been strung up or worse like what the Storm King did to the disobedient ponies of Canterlot. And probably Ponyville too, at least from the ones who didn’t make it here.
Flurry Heart was happy to fade into the background for a few hours, while Princess Twilight spoke to a frightened crowd of dirty refugees. She made vague promises about how much work they were doing and their plans to take Equestria back, without giving any specific dates or details. When ponies looked at her at all, it was mostly with pity. She never took off her robe, and without her cutie mark they didn’t seem able to identify her. Considering how often she’d appeared on broadcasts and how her statements begging for surrender were being printed, she wasn’t in any hurry to identify herself.
They were immediately given Twilight’s own bedroom, which might not have felt so luxurious with all eight of them a few weeks ago. But considering she’d been sleeping in the dirt for the last few nights, Flurry Heart didn’t mind at all—she was one of the first ponies to sleep.
It was dark outside by the time she woke. Several of the Elements were still asleep—Applejack snoring next to Rainbow Dash on the other side of Twilight’s gigantic bed. So she did her best to sneak out quietly, dodging into Twilight’s bathroom. She wanted a hot shower, but given the scarcity of water she settled for getting a cloth nice and damp and wiping herself off that way. Of course Twilight’s castle would keep working when the whole town gets shut off.
She found a replacement robe hanging for her along with the rest of their clothes, smelling like it had been washed while she slept. Probably some grateful pony did this all by hoof. I don’t deserve them. But she put it on anyway, slipping out and down the stairs. All of Twilight’s many guestrooms and conference areas were packed with ponies, at least the ones that hadn’t been filled with barrels of supplies. Apple farm brands on all those barrels. Did Applejack get a message back here?
She found herself wandering through the ground floor, as quietly as she could to avoid waking the many sleeping ponies. The large kitchen seemed to be the only part of the castle still awake, so she went that way.
Twilight was there, just as she’d hoped—but she was arguing with Spike, and didn’t seem like she would be in a cooperative mood. So she just waved and kept walking. They’ll probably want to leave me behind in the castle too. And maybe they should. I’ll only get captured again. I’ll only betray Equestria again.
She stopped in front of the basement steps, and finally there were no more sleeping ponies. Whoever kept the castle running had made sure this part stayed clear. Was that a voice coming from below?
Flurry Heart shut the door gently behind her, quiet enough that it wouldn’t click. Then she slipped off her robe and took off. Her feathery wings were wide enough that she could glide down the steps and be practically silent as she did it.
She flew as slowly as she could, listening to the voice. Then she identified it. Perez, speaking English in a whisper. Who are you talking to?
She stopped outside the doors to Twilight’s lab. Something had been jammed into the lock, so that it hadn’t quite shut. It looked like someone had done it intentionally, and whoever had used the lab last hadn’t noticed.
She peeked inside.
Perez had completely torn apart Twilight’s radio equipment, as well as combining parts from other experiments she’d been running. The whole thing looked like a mess to Flurry Heart, though there was an order to it.
Flurry Heart wouldn’t have been able to understand him a year ago. But she’d lived with Lucky a long time now, and learning the human language had been a way of spending time with them. She could understand it now. “Doesn’t look good, boss. They’ve got maybe a month left in here. But these people are the lucky ones compared to the shit that the Storm King was doing in their capital.”
He was silent for a long time, listening at a device he held up to his ear. It looked like he’d made it himself, like so much else here. A warrior and a scientist. Why is everyone in the whole world better than me?
“Maybe I can. The princess is already suspicious. If I try to tell them where to go, they might just go somewhere else out of spite.”
Silence.
“Now you sound like the governor. That’s a huge risk—if they don’t like the play, I’m gone.”
Pause.
“No, I’m pretty sure they don’t. The Elements of Harmony won’t work without Harmony making them work, and Twilight says that’s over.”
Flurry Heart was getting impatient. It was only a matter of time before somepony discovered her here. Either Perez would realize she was listening, or Twilight would come down to try something in her lab. She wasn’t sure which would be worse.
“Can’t be sure, sir. He’s not evil for evil’s sake. Whatever he’s doing, it’s focused on production somehow. Most of his work crews in Canterlot were stripping metal, or refining it. All goes onto the Stormbreaker. None of the soldiers I ‘asked’ knew what they did with it. There’s another kind of creature up there that does the work.”
Then he turned around. He probably couldn’t see her through the door—but Flurry Heart gasped, and watched his face change. She tensed, thought about running away—then she didn’t. This wasn’t some stranger, or an enemy soldier who would attack her. He had already saved her from something worse than death, then helped her escape. He wouldn’t hurt her now.
“Yeah,” Perez said. “I’ll see what I can do. Out.”
He set the object down, grinning at her. “Why don’t you come in, Princess?” He wasn’t wearing his mask, though it wasn’t far from him. Aside from when they were alone or with the Elements, he never took it off.
“You, uh…” She looked around. “I don’t think Twilight is gonna like this.” She stepped inside, then clicked the door closed.”
He shrugged. “I would’ve made it look like somepony else did it. She should thank me—I’ve made her a better microphone and cleaned up the transmitter.” He grinned, striding across the room towards her. “Much more important, I have news. I think you want to hear it.”
“I do,” Flurry Heart said, without hesitation. “You were talking to them, weren’t you? Othar survived! The Storm King… it was all lies, just to make us think he was powerful.”
“Oh, no.” Perez was going over the rest of the lab, cleaning up the messes he’d made. He worked with remarkable speed, and seemed to remember exactly where he had found each object. He replaced everything in turn, except where he had modified the radio. “Othar is jodido. RIP in peace, viva la vida, vámanos.”
“But… you were talking to somepony, weren’t you? Lucky?”
“No, but she’s okay too. Almost everyone escaped before Othar went—they had evac waiting. Emperor’s Soul is intact, along with everyone aboard.”
The first good news Flurry Heart had heard in a long time. Her best friend was okay, along with all the other humans she’d got to know in Othar. The Storm King hadn’t won, or wiped out their best hope for beating him. “Did you tell them about the princesses? About us?”
He nodded. “All I have to do is ask, and they can send a lift.” He gestured up at the ceiling. “Not just for us. Everyone here.”
“The Emperor’s Soul is that big?” Flurry Heart asked, though his eagerness felt contagious.
He’d just about finished cleaning up the lab by then, except for all the missing pieces and the entirely rewired radio. “No, but they have a town. Didn’t tell me where it was, but they’re cooperating closely with the nativ—with the ponies there.”
“What’s Lucky’s plan?” she found herself asking, before she’d entirely realized what she was saying. “For taking back Equestria, I mean.”
Perez shifted uncomfortably. “Well, uh… I can’t tell you that. I can tell you the biggest thing we need to figure out is how to get up to their damn carrier. The general wants the princess and her friends flown out right away to join up with the rebellion they’re starting, while I join back up with the ISMU and get onto the carrier somehow. That was the reason the Storm King’s attack on Othar went so well—we can’t get through its defenses. So we have to take him out from the inside.”
“That’s interesting,” Twilight Sparkle said, emerging from a storage closet along the far side of the room. It looked like a tight fit in there, but she didn’t seem bothered by it. If anything, she seemed satisfied.
Perez froze. He didn’t reach for any weapons at least, which Flurry Heart was quietly relieved about. Please don’t fight, please don’t fight. This was probably her fault too, somehow. But she didn’t want to think about how. Perez didn’t speak, just watched Twilight as she cut across the room.
“I wasn’t sure about you, Viserion. I knew Ember had some skilled warriors, and that was enough of an explanation at first. But if Ember knew this was happening, wouldn’t she have used her power to call back the dragon mercenaries that are in the Storm King’s army?”
Weren’t you upstairs? Maybe you saw me come down here, but how did you get inside after I did without either of us knowing? Twilight was apparently an even more powerful wizard than Flurry Heart had thought.
Perez shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know how dragons think.”
Twilight laughed. It wasn’t exactly the sort of thing most dragons would have said. “But that wasn’t what alerted me.” She stopped right in front of him. “You know how many dragons bother to understand how ponies do things? I can count them on my hooves. But you… you moved around the underground better than anypony I’ve ever seen. You had ponies hiding us and giving us places to sleep and cheering whenever we came into the room. Most dragons don’t even understand friendship.”
Perez actually grinned at that. “Dragon is a sleeve,” he finally said, folding claws across his chest. “The way they live is… backwards compared to you. Tribal, individualistic. What good is protecting society if people can’t raise their families in it?”
Flurry Heart stepped forward, separating the two of them. “Don’t lock him up, Aunt Twilight! He was only trying to help! That’s all Perez ever did! He rescued me, he helped get us out of Canterlot…”
Twilight finally seemed to see her, eyes becoming sharp. It was then that Flurry Heart realized she probably shouldn’t have said that. Perez’s expression fell just a tad—almost imperceptibly, but his mask of indifference was not as perfect as the one made of wood. “You knew too, Flurry? When did you figure it out?”
“I told her just—”
Twilight’s horn glowed, and Perez fell abruptly silent. “I didn’t ask you.”
No use lying now. She hadn’t been happy about the lie up until now. But she’d already gone this far. “His accent,” she said. “I couldn’t see him when he rescued me, but I remembered the voice. He’s the only one who sounds like that who lived on the top floor of Othar.”
“Tragedy of tragedies,” Perez muttered. “The only one who knows how to speak properly is Senorita Suerte. But we aren’t exactly friends after the way she…” He cleared his throat. “…fought the war with Equestria. There’s the copies…”
Twilight Sparkle stomped one of her hooves. “Enough. Perez, your name was? Well, Perez, you should’ve told me who you were the moment we met. Deceiving us does not make you seem more trustworthy. Given what you did to your enemies—”
“Your enemies,” Perez corrected, glaring at her. “Far as the Storm King knows, my people are dead. It’s you he’s enslaving now.”
“Our enemies, fine.” Twilight sat down on her haunches, exasperated. “Regardless, don’t think I didn’t know what you did to them. Brutality like that is unheard-of among ponies. I don’t know that we have a mental hospital secure enough to hold you.”
Perez shrugged one shoulder. “I am overqualified for the world Equestria used to be.” He started walking around them in a slow circle, keeping his hands up and still most of the time. Probably making it so she can see he isn’t armed. “But you’re lying too, Princess.” He nodded slightly, towards Flurry Heart. “First, remember what your leader was doing to one of her own. Celestia’s torture was far worse than anything I ever did, and you never did a damn thing to stop it.”
Twilight stumbled back, tears welling from her eyes. He might not have touched her, but the princess was reacting as though she’d been stabbed.
And he wasn’t done. “And something else. This ring, everyone on it are minds from the same source. Except my friends and I, all of you are family. Those furry brutes, the Storm King, everyone—those are ponies too, really. Every war you ever fought was really against ponies. Every monster, every warlord… they’re the same as you too. So maybe think twice about what ponies are like.”
“Perez!” It was Flurry Heart’s turn to be angry. “Hey, Perez, stop right now.” Her aunt might be backing away from him as though she were about to run, but she wasn’t afraid. “I don’t blame Twilight for not getting me away from Celestia. All my aunt would’ve done is get locked up too. Only someone…” She swallowed. Even after all that Celestia had done to her, she had a hard time talking about her death. Before she’d been abused, Celestia had one of the best and most loving guardians she had ever known.
And unlike for the princess, the dragon quieted for her.
Flurry Heart walked right up to her aunt, embracing her with her wings as she’d done so many times before. “You’re the most important pony in all Equestria right now, Aunt Twilight. My m-mom is…” She swallowed, then kept going through her tears. “My mom is dead. Luna is dead. That leaves just you and me. I need you to be the pony I’ve known my whole life, or else…” She wiped her tears away with the back of her leg. “If you don’t do it, how will I know what to do?”
Twilight didn’t say anything for a long time. By the time she did finally speak, it was in a nervous whisper. “I know you… I know you think differently about them. You… after what she did… but I have to protect Equestria now. They’re dangerous. You didn’t fight them. One… there was one holed up in the Castle of the Two Sisters. She killed more ponies in an hour than Equestria lost in all its wars in five hundred years.”
We’re wasting our time debating this. It doesn’t matter whether Twilight likes them or not.
But how could she make her see? Twilight hadn’t lived in Othar like Flurry had, she hadn’t spent time around the humans. She didn’t know Lucky Break, didn’t know their secret plans and ambitions.
Perez was still there, though, having slipped his mask back on while they were hugging. He should’ve just kept his dumb mouth shut, but he didn’t. “When we beat Celestia, when we proved you could die, did we come for the rest of you? Did we topple your cities, throw your people into camps, make them work if they wanted to eat? Did we do one bucking thing to anypony in all Equestria?”
Twilight pulled away from Flurry, looking over at the dragon. She spread her wings, as though she were protecting her—but Flurry Heart stepped to the side. She didn’t need protection.
“When my fucking commander was out there in the trenches, freeing your people and cleaning up your shit, how did you pay her back? Then when she got free, got her hands on one of those armored suits of yours… how many people in Ponyville did she attack?”
He bore down on them, pulling the mask off his head and gesticulating wildly. “That’s what separates us from them, Princess. Major Olivia, me… we protect the people in the dirt from the mistakes people like you make. You want monsters, look for that Storm King, he’s got a whole ship full. They work your people to death, we set them free.” He tossed the mask at her hooves. “Take that back to Canterlot and walk around for a few minutes. See what your people say I did with it.”
He turned, storming away from them. “Honestly, no fucking respect. I’m going to bed.” Twilight didn’t stop him, and neither did Flurry Heart. In a few moments, he’d vanished up the stairs, leaving the wooden mask on the floor in front of them.
The skull that didn’t come from ponies.
They were silent for a long time. Eventually Twilight lifted the bit of wood from where it had fallen, levitating it up onto her laboratory desk. She turned it over, leaning down to inspect a bit of writing on the reverse side.
Twilight frowned at it. “I hope… you see what makes me nervous. Equestria is already conquered. Every day we take saving it is a day things get worse. I don’t want to go from one kind of monster into the hooves of another. And since I’m the… since I’m the oldest Princess left, the weight of that decision is on me. I hope you never have to make the choice.”
“Me too,” Flurry Heart said. “I’d buck it up. I’ve been bucking it up for weeks now.”
“Language,” Twilight chastised, her voice returning to something that was almost familiar. “Your mother wouldn’t—” She fell silent.
“Yeah,” Flurry Heart eventually said. “I don’t… it confuses me a little. They’re dead, but… I know that the dead can come back. Alicorns most of all, right? We have… citizens’ rights, that’s what Lucky calls it. Why aren’t they back to save us?”
“Celestia didn’t come back,” Twilight whispered. “Maybe she was right—maybe we were safe while we were in Quarantine. Maybe Harmony was only doing the best for us, and we made a terrible mistake. Maybe what Celestia did wasn’t…” She trailed off, ears flattening. “Sorry.”
Flurry Heart shrugged. If she ever saw Celestia again, she intended to make her opinion on what had happened physically apparent. But Twilight wasn’t the one responsible for that.
“Can you read that writing?” Twilight eventually asked, voice a little awkward.
“Yeah. It says, ‘I died for you, live for me.’”
Another long silence. “I don’t know what to do, Flurry. Luna didn’t know where we could go for help. There are some other creatures out there… dragons, sea ponies, that kind of thing… but the Storm King made it really clear that he can wipe out Canterlot if anything happens to threaten him. He’ll do it…” She sniffed. “Then he’ll move, and park over Manehattan next. As soon as we start fighting back, ponies start dying. We tried using the Elements, we tried teleporting onto his airship, we tried… everything we can think of. I just don’t know what to do. Take everypony in the world and run away?”
Flurry Heart smiled in spite of herself. “Perez left the radio. You could always call for help.”
Sarah felt the eyes of the changeling masses on her as she followed Ocellus up the steps of the massive throne room. Here as nowhere else before, a great effort had been taken to conceal the metal that lay just behind every surface. Stone had been settled here instead, slabs of onyx along the floor and sheets of marbled granite along the walls.
But as with the rest of the castle so far, there was a certain decay to what she saw. It started with the changelings themselves—every one of them looked beaten down in some way. It wasn’t like the citizens outside, who had seemed happy enough to continue with their lives. The colorful changelings out there had seemed optimistic if anything, and had spoken to her only in friendly tones.
The changelings in here wore even more than the citizens outside, strange frilled suits and dresses that almost reminded Sarah of Earth styles. Except that there were bizarre cuts along the sides, exposing bits of flesh and underbelly in ways that were probably provocative, but only confused her. She would’ve worried that they were underdressed, except that Ocellus hadn’t put anything on, and no one was staring at her.
No, it was Sarah that attracted their notice.
But the decay came in more than just the appearance of the castle’s inhabitants. There were fountains along the walls that didn’t flow, portraits that hung crooked and even a screen that flickered instead of displaying anything useful. No one seemed to care about these things.
At least, like the rest of the city, the changelings had lit their throne room. So she could see past the crowds of dignitaries and hangers-on, past the armed soldiers with their rifles, and up to where a gigantic stone throne had a massive crack running right down the middle, and had fallen in two pieces.
There, at the end of the huge room, two separate factions conducted court. One was a gathering of black changelings, exactly like James and watching Ocellus with outright contempt. The other was brightly colored, and had started muttering excitedly to themselves, pointing in her direction.
The tallest member of that faction rose in a rush, his body bright green and bright orange horns on his head so tall they almost scraped against the broken throne. “Ocellus! My niece has returned! Hey, everypony! Ocellus is back!”
Into the silence, Sarah heard the other throned changeling speak, this one wearing a set of jointed metal armor. Well, it actually looked more like a space suit, with thick padding and a missing helmet. It made him look bigger than the other changelings, though not nearly as large as the one with huge orange horns. “It looks to me as though my daughter has taken a terrible risk and brought danger into the court. Unless that pony with her is actually a drone with remarkable powers of camouflage… which I doubt.”
Ocellus stepped forward, nodding for the two of them to follow. They did, with Sarah just behind her, and James bringing up the rear in a fearful scurry. “This is not an Equestrian pony,” she said. “Despite, uh, appearances. She is, in reality, a messenger from our protector, sent with critical news of the surface.”
“It’s one thing to invoke his name,” said one of the noble-looking changelings on the black side of the throne room. “Listen to the radio for five minutes and you’ll hear it a dozen times. Promises of Discord’s protection, and his blessing against the relentless order outside. But it’s another thing to claim he answers prayers.”
“I’m not,” she squeaked, already seeming to lose a little of her confidence. Sarah realized then something she probably should’ve figured out earlier. Ocellus wasn’t very good at this diplomacy thing. The sooner she took over, the better. “I mean, uh… Discord didn’t actually talk to me, but…”
“Daughter, I know your mind was addled by your transformation,” said the tallest, armored changeling with his space suit. “We don’t blame you for that. Maybe you should—”
“She shouldn’t,” Sarah interrupted, stepping forward past her and standing tall. She was taller than anypony here, except perhaps for the yellow-green pony with the huge orange horns. Those were an unfair height advantage. “Because Ocellus didn’t lose her mind. I was sent by Discord. He spoke to me, he led me here, he…”
“You were not given permission to address the court, stranger,” barked a harsh voice from the dark side of the room. Looked like it came from one of the soldiers, though it was hard for Sarah to tell for sure what everyone was supposed to be. Their costumes were all so different.
But that voice was not the most dominant anymore. She could hear many whispers from all around, and most of them were shocked. “A pony knows our language?”
“I, King Thorax, give the stranger permission to address the court,” said the yellow and green pony, glowering across the room. “Whoever you are. Who are you?”
“My name is Sarah Kaplan. I’m a…” pretend “member of the Stellar Pioneering Society. We’re explorers meant to chart and colonize the whole universe. We landed in Equestria…” Well, it had been thousands of years ago, but that was just getting too deep into it. “A few years ago, and we’ve been, uh… changing things. I think you’ll like what we’ve done.”
The changeling in the space suit finally seemed to see her. What had been mild annoyance quickly transformed into something much more sinister. “And I, King Pharynx, am not sure why this trained animal would have anything of value to say. Do I need to point out the absurdity of this claim to the court? Perhaps the ponies of Equestria would be fooled by something like this—but we know better. We know that the universe is vast. We know that explorers from elsewhere would not look like us.”
Judging by the shocked reactions from around the room, and the general hostility Sarah could smell building from his side, she guessed that the changelings had not realized that until he said it.
“Obviously not,” she agreed. “Naturally, we don’t. I grew up with no fur, with two legs, and without any wings. Can’t say that last one was that great—but that’s not the point. Your civilization has Bioforming, I know because you used it on my friend here.” She nodded towards James. “I watched him transform into a changeling right in front of me. I came down the river from the surface, and lost two of my legs for a while. Why would it seem strange to you that other species can do what you do?”
That silenced Pharynx, at least for the moment. But there were many other changelings in the room, and it wasn’t just the ones on his side that seemed skeptical.
“This is… a confusing combination of factors, Ocellus. Is this visitor a messenger from Discord, or is she a visitor from another world? If he had a message for us, why not give it directly? Why tell it to a stranger we’ve never met with a story like that?”
Ocellus spluttered, obviously struggling. But Sarah wouldn’t give her the chance to make their story look even weaker, not again. “Because I saw them myself. I’m not here to give you commandments or shit like that. I’m just going to tell you how things changed on the surface. What you do with that information is up to you. If anything, I’m a diplomat from a new civilization. Discord just… told me you guys were down here, that’s all.”
“My niece was sent on a mission by our protector,” King Thorax said. “She was told to wait for somepony important and bring them here. Any of you who wish to read it can see the transmission, I’ll make it public as soon as we’re done here.”
“Might as well tell us what it is, then,” said King Pharynx. “If there’s any sign it’s a trap to bait us into allowing Celestia to finish what she started…” His eyes narrowed. “That’s what I think this is. A Celestial plot.”
“Well…” She shook her head. “That would be tricky, since we killed her.”
As she had expected, that silenced the room quickly enough. Except for James, who muttered into her ear. “I have no idea what anyone is saying. You better explain this when we’re done.”
She ignored him, for now. “It may not surprise you, but Celestia and the Equestrians didn’t treat us great when we got here. She killed some of us, kidnapped some others, threatened to invade and destroyed some of our stuff. But that isn’t why we killed her.”
There was no stopping now. She had everyone’s attention, and probably wouldn’t get it back. The longer she took, the more these changelings were sorting her according to their different allegiances. It was her one chance to make the con work. Except it isn’t a con this time. I’m telling the truth.
“You know about the Quarantine, right? Obviously you do, that’s why you’re living down here. Well, we fought it too. I think Discord probably got involved in that process somehow—he might be the reason that our first governor decided to fight for it. You’ll have to ask her, but since she’s not here… being on one planet doesn’t really work for us, and the Quarantine stops space travel. Celestia wouldn’t let us end it, so…” She gestured with one hoof. “We got rid of both of them. The Quarantine is lifted, Celestia’s dead, you’re all free. I don’t know as much about Harmony as you do—I don’t know how this ring works or what rules it follows. But I know that Discord wanted you to know all that.”
She stepped back at last, trying to judge the state of the crowd with a glance. It was hard to be sure what they were thinking—but it sounded like optimism. Or maybe something that wanted to be. They wanted to believe her—and she couldn’t really blame them for being nervous.
“If what you’re saying is true—” Thorax finally said, breaking the nervous silence. “Then that changes everything. We don’t need to be trapped down here anymore, we don’t need to rely on harvested love… so much that we’ve suffered can end.”
“If, my brother says,” said Pharynx, cutting him off. “That’s the key word. This stranger has just come in here without any evidence to tell us everything we want to hear. It would be wonderful if everything she had just said was true. But whether or not it is…” He trailed off. “We cannot act based on words alone. Consider the security threat of her presence. Now consider what might happen if we took the court onto the surface to verify her claim. Celestia’s agents could be waiting there to capture us. Harmony has long wanted us destroyed for violating its perception of the Quarantine, even if it could find no guideline we violated in order to force the matter. Going to the surface would allow those not restricted by the ancients to destroy us.”
Ocellus stepped forward, making her way slowly up towards the thrones and the pair of competing kings. “I believe everything Sarah has told me. During my trip here, she has been nothing but honest with me. However—my father is right. I think we should verify the information before we act on it.”
“Verify how?” Pharynx asked, eyes narrowing. “We’ve lost most of our power here. Every day more of our ponies go feral. Every day we delay from taking what the Equestrians will not share with us—”
Finally Ocellus found some courage. “I’m not asking to invade. We’ve already tried that, a few times. We need something better.” She gestured back at Sarah with one wing. “My new friend, she claims to come from another civilization. They haven’t given away their memories to Harmony. They’re explorers, they understand our science, and maybe they would understand our traditions too. I think we should forget about Equestria, and send our expedition to them, instead. They can show us their proof of beating Celestia, and maybe… maybe that’s where we would want to start building on the surface. Better with them than primitives, anyway.”
The room descended into low mutters and quiet arguments. Sarah tried to listen, but there were so many different voices at once that her powerful hearing only made it harder to isolate one speaker from so many others. After a few moments of trying, she just gave up and walked over to rejoin Ocellus. James followed behind her, his tail swishing back and forth in nervous rhythm.
“They don’t sound happy,” he said, in English.
Sarah shrugged. “I thought it went well.”
“I don’t think you could have done better,” Ocellus whispered, apparently not understanding. “I wish Discord would have given you some evidence to show them. It’s hard to argue that a pony’s dead when they can just come back to life. It won’t be the first time Celestia did it. She’s the pony that has everyone so scared.”
“He gave us the money,” Sarah said. “Nothing ever convinced a bureaucrat better than money.”
“Buzz you’re right,” Ocellus muttered, sticking out a hoof. “Give it to me, let me show them.”
Sarah reached into her bag, removing the vial and its glowing contents, passing them to Ocellus.
“There is a little more I would say,” she said, holding it up. “Discord sent glamour with his messenger. I believe he wanted to see that our mission succeeded. There is more than enough here to provide for a hundred trips to the surface, and feed plenty of desperate changelings in the meantime.”
Even mentioning Celestia’s death hadn’t attracted so many eyes. “Is that…” Pharynx began, stepping forward down from the raised throne platform. “I’m not seeing… what I think I am.”
“You are,” Ocellus said, stepping back from him. “This isn’t mine, it belongs to Sarah. Whether she decided to give it to you probably depends on whether or not you accept our proposal.”
“Y-yeah!” Sarah stammered, standing beside Ocellus. “I will, uh… we have to provide for our trip back to the surface, and save enough to report back here. The rest… you king guys can split it or whatever. If you accept.”
Maybe she’s not as clueless as I thought. Nice save, kiddo.
“As though we couldn’t just take it,” some voices muttered.
“Does she think a pony has any property rights here?”
“She probably stole it from the old queen.”
But as dark as those comments were, the pair of rulers seemed unaffected. Ocellus was the real sponsor here, not Sarah. And Ocellus was family to both of them.
Deliberation ended. “Yes,” Pharynx said. “My brother has no need for glamour anymore. But many of my drones do. We will be… happy to cooperate with Discord’s messenger.”
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Well, at least things are going well for one group. Not sure what Sarah and James will do now, though. Othar's destroyed, and its population moved elsewhere. Discord could probably help them, but will he? He's not really known for doing super overt things.
What was, will be. What will be, was.
Sooooo....Ponyvillians cannot recognize Twilight without seeing her mark or wings?
9074525
Othar is indeed gone; but as it stands, Equestria is in desperate need of saviours right now. an army of Changelings could potentially be instrumental in freeing Canterlot without getting it blasted into atoms.
9074604
Why would the Changelings help Equestria? It doesn't sound like they've had a great relationship in the past. Sarah isn't even totally aware that Othar is gone let alone that Equestria has been conquered by the Storm King.
9074607
She knows something bad happened to the city; and Discord explicitly told her she would be rounding up a potential major military ally for Othar.
The Changelings may decide to help Equestria for the same reasons the Pioneering Society is helping them. To put down a major active threat on the surface, and to win some much needed political favour with the surface nations.
9074563
That quote is talking about Flurry Heart.
9074563
No. It's Flurry Heart they aren't recognizing. What with her clipped and scraggly mane and less familiar (not to mention concealed) mark.
I'm sure the Ponyvillians would recognize Twilight from a mile away.
9074607
They have no reason to help Equestria. But Othar has things it can offer them, so it's in their best interest to make sure Othar survives.
Notably, Othar may end up with its hands on a harmony-tech terraforming engine.
Anyone care to speculate on what Forerunner could do with one of those? They may not need to wait for Harmony to start making living space outside of Equestria. And even if they don't get to keep the harmony-tech version, Forerunner probably has blueprints for lower-tech copies somewhere.
9074920
I do!
They will probably do what they did with the magical canceling widget they got earlier in the story: Nothing.
9075081
Didn't they spend it on killing Celestia?
Dammit, Flurry. Your aunt just called Pérez an insane monster and you chastise him for defending himself, specially when he has several good points?
Considering the Six behaviour, I wonder why Lucky or Pérez do still bother trying to recruit them.
The humans have Forerunner, advanced tech, a warship and a base of operations. What can the Mane Six offer, without Harmony powering the Elements?
Pérez hablando español es divertido. Try with Señorita instead of Senorita.
It'd be pretty slick if Flurry could manage to be an intermediary between Perez and Twilight in order to carefully steer everyone towards cooperation.
Or, Twilight could just have been listening the entire time and we can have the fight about it right now.
Maybe! Well, except for the Flurry torture, but that still makes no damn sense as something that Celestia would do even considering the in-story circumstances.
Thorax is such a dork.
Heh, yeah it probably would.
Now is not a particularly great time to send a delegation to Othar.
Not bad, it's a start.
9075328
Or Sennorita
What a bitch! You gonna take that, bro?
Ha! Threw her own accusations right in her face, exposing her hypocrisy. Twilight needs to hurry and grow up; the real world isn't all sunshine and daisies, and pretending it is while in a war for your freedom will cause you to lose.
They did, and then they forgot about it to focus on a useless heli-murder-carrier. Such a technology would be critical in a theoretical war against Equestria, both because the overwhelming majority of their power comes from magic, as well as a defense against the mind control armor their black ops favors. They should have focused some of their resources in recreating and mass producing this device, but they decided not to. It is a technology that none of Othar's warfighters should be without, especially because they seemed to have a basic understanding of how it worked one of the times it was mentioned in the story.
If Othar cannot adapt this revolutionary technology to their society, why should I be optimistic about their chances of adopting another similar revolutionary technology?
9075179
I'm guessing it's like the 'French Resistance' in WWII. Some of it did very good work, but a large part of it was completely useless and spent more time fighting each other than fighting the germans. The allies still nominally supported the whole thing though, since it was an important symbol that France was still fighting.
9076035
That's a little unfair. The device was basically described as a black box with an on-off switch. There's only so much you can do with that. The terraform-engine probably has more complicated controls given the Storm King can tell it where to go and when to fire.
If it is actual technology, it's from millions of years into the future, and may be beyond Forerunner's ability to understand. Either at the time or under the restrictions on his growth Harmony forced upon him. It's also possible it's *not* technology. IIRC we still don't know for certain that 'magic' ultimately comes from pony physiology or Harmony machinery. If the latter then the black-box is just a radio command to turn off magic.option for PCs and NPCs for X meters, and may include a computer-token so it can't be copied.
And that's assuming they were allowed to keep it. Remember they won the battle but didn't control the territory afterwards. Lucky got pulled out, but Lightening Dust, Celestia's body, and presumably the box was left behind. Both Harmony and Discord and Equestria would have had an active interest in confiscating it.
9076247
An important benefit of a theoretical Human-Changeling alliance would be the possibility of upgrading the former tech level, since the later are familiar with the Ring secrets.
You know what? Screw the ponies, bring the bugs.
9076247
My problem isn't so much that they weren't able to reverse engineer the magical nullification device, my problem is that they didn't try, and completely forgot about it once Celestia was "dead". You are right, we don't "know" how it works, but that also implies that there is a non zero chance that it could easily be replicated. If the story had a line in the next couple of chapters that said essentially "we are still working on it, but it will take a while before we can produce more" that would be sufficient. Anything is better than forgetting about a revolutionary magical device.
And while it is possible that it was forgotten with Celesita's body, it would imply that the forerunner is a moron - it essentially forgot a nuke in enemy territory.
9077130
I agree a line or two of dialogue would have been nice, but I don't see where you're getting 'they forgot a nuke' from. The local copy of Forerunner basically killed itself. Several other ponies were heavily injured. Lightening Dust was barely able to stab Celestia. Baring the resurrection system, this would have been a one way trip. Under such circumstances (your enemies, or at least frenemies, literally carrying your body off the field) you don't get to pick and chose what you get to keep afterwards.
Sure they know such things exist, and that's probably one of the (probably not so minor unofficial) reasons they they want to go back to where they found the first one and (maybe) take the slaver regions apart looking for more. But other than that there's really not been a good reason to bring it up.
Until they get a chance to actually ask Twilight "By the by, what did you end up doing with that extremely useful device we used to kill Celestia?" they aren't probably going to know where it is. And even if they find out it was in a Canterlot vault, it's not going to do them much good.
9074563
Was told from flurry Heart's perspective. It wasn't well delineated, but the second part about not being recognized was about flurry, not Twilight.
Celestia died a number of times? Those must be interesting stories.
9074525
A changeling alliance might be the greatest boon Discord has given so far.
9074607
Probably for the same reason that town is helping Lucky. They might receive some sort of compensation from the pioneering society after the war. Deals like that transcend historical difficulties.
9075145
NOW I have to see the Pioneering Society killing the Storm King with his own ship. Preferably at full ramming speed.
9079709
Motherlode gets protection and their freedom from the Storm King, as well as compensation for the minerals Othar uses. All this was explicitly lined out in their contract. It's not really the same case with the Changelings. Sarah doesn't have a lot of information, and she just finished her one job of simply delivering a message.
9079714
Well a deal between Othar and the Changelings for the future, anyway.
I doubt Discord would let Sarah deliver the message without some sort of Othar-Changeling contact happening.
Once they get to the surface, they'll definitely have to deal with the Storm King's conquests one way or another.
Does anyone remember if Sarah is "contracted" for this one message only or is she a more permanent "employee" of Discord?
9079779
Hmm....ok, so it seems Discord only contracted Sarah for the message, but his goal is an Othar-Changeling alliance.
(from Ch. 59 "Invariant Conditions")
Still, Discord didn't exactly see the Storm King coming, and Sarah doesn't know about Motherlode.
Perez is a goddamn hero
Odd. In the movie, it was Luna who told them where to go...
Ha. I guess there's really only one place you'll reach with that
What actually happened to the other ones, that James was carrying?
"king guys." I like her style