Twilight rounded the corner, passing through the hall where Luna had painted her impressive motif on the ceiling. A few doorways later she found her way to the Castle Gardens, wandering down the paths of marble and grass to all the more secluded, private areas. There, a pony sat in wait for her under the grey, overcast sky.
Said pony stood up at her arrival, and gave her a slight bow. “Lady Sparkle. I half expected you to refuse my invitation.” Prince Blueblood motioned for her to join him at his private table next to a group of his servants, some of whom were there to attend to his meal, while a few others were farther away playing their instruments.
“I was giving serious consideration to saying no. The last time you invited me someplace it didn’t exactly turn out too well.” She hesitated to sit for a moment, checking the chair for a trap before letting her flank touch it.
“Childish games. We were twelve! I’d like to think I’ve grown since then. In fact, I’d like to think it would be hard not to.” One of his servants came over to him and began brushing his mane.
Another came up to Twilight and offered the same to her, but she turned it down with a wave. “Honestly, I’m kind of surprised you’re out here at all.” She leaned over the edge of the table, confirming that it was indeed over the cold grass. “You don’t normally let your hooves touch dirt, if I recall correctly.”
“Only in the gardens,” Blueblood said, somehow managing to make himself look proud while saying it. “But I didn’t invite you here to trade old barbs that should have long been buried. Everypony!” He clopped his hooves together twice. “Some privacy, if you will.”
Twilight watched as their audience left, leaving her to hold her forelegs against her body, and not from the chilly, early winter air. If he does something, I’m not sure I’m recovered enough to fight back…
“Tell me, Lady Sparkle, have you been keeping yourself appraised on recent events?”
“If you mean the war, yes.” She tightened her scarf, putting her mouth behind it. Celestia’s been keeping me out of loop on the few things lately, though, but I think that’s just so I keep my mind off of them while I get better.
“Actually, I was thinking of things more… Domestic. Here.” He reached down into a bag and gave her a copy of a newspaper whose headline read ‘Unrest in Cloudsdale Intensifies.’
Twilight picked it up in her magic, careful not to tear it to shreds. “I didn’t realize it had gotten that bad. I had heard of a few issues, unemployment and the like…”
“Well, just recently Cloudsdale Armories announced a series of layoffs, and has advised investors that they will miss their earnings benchmarks. Don’t you find that strange? In the middle of a war, an arms manufacturer is saying that they are going to miss their estimates.”
“That tells me that the weapons going to Zebrica actually are manufactured by Cloudsdale Armories. With Luna putting pressure on the Wavu, they aren’t making as much money.” Twilight rested her head on a hoof. “I had hoped that they were actually counterfeit.”
“I agree with your assessment. Unfortunately, this means that things are only going to get worse. Cloudsdale Armories accounts for over 20% of Cloudsdale’s employment. The weather factory, which is owned by a subsidy of CA, accounts for another 30%. If they close those factories, we’re going to see riots that make these protests look like campfire singers.”
“What are you suggesting?” Twilight folded the paper and handed it back to him. “That we back off of the Wavu?”
“Hardly!” Blueblood chuckled. “I’m only saying to expect the unrest. For instance, what do you think of our current Council?”
Twilight opened her mouth to speak her mind, but caught herself on the first syllable, thinking back to the training her mother gave her about nobility. “Honestly, such words aren’t meant for polite company.”
Whatever his true feelings, Blueblood’s face wasn’t giving Twilight any clues. “I believe things are more nuanced than that, Lady Sparkle. However, like all politicians, in the right circumstances they turn into sharks, and right now, they are circling. The victim, in this case, is one of their own: Duchess Artfeather.”
“The Duchess of Cloudsdale? Last I heard, she does own a majority of Cloudsdale Armories… You think she’s involved? Rather, the Council thinks she’s involved?”
“Personally, I would say that it is an absolute certainty that she’s involved. But the Council is very careful about moving against its own. To act against a Duke or Duchess without absolute, concrete evidence invites drastic repercussions.
“Now, the Duchess hasn’t been seen in the Empyreal Hall for almost 3 months. She certainly has a good excuse, given the issues that are present in her duchy.” Blueblood held up the paper again. “Eventually, however, she will have to make an appearance, and I honestly have no doubt that she will eventually be facing dire charges.”
“As she should, if all this is true.” Twilight leaned forward, assuming a more aggressive stance but also being careful to avoid getting too close to the stallion. “The question is, though, why tell me this? I know you’ve apologized, but you have to admit there’s still a lot of history between us.”
“History… Yes…” Blueblood paused still for a moment, putting the paper away in his bag. “Lady Sparkle, might I take another moment of your time? To show you something deeper in the garden?”
Twilight backed up in her seat, looking around her and expecting the other horseshoe to drop.
“I promise, no whoopee cushions, no itching powder—”
“Or chairs rigged with electric shock spells!” Twilight snapped.
Blueblood held up his hooves in surrender. “All I want to do is talk. Please?”
Twilight sighed. I have every right to say no… But I imagine I’ll hear it from Tia if I do. “Fine. Lead the way.”
The Prince bowed gracefully, then led them into the hedge maze behind him.
In truth, this area wasn’t much of a maze. It was more of a pathway; it still took them several turns to reach Blueblood’s apparent intended destination: a statue of a pair of unicorns staring into each other’s eyes, their horns meeting at the tips.
The stallion stopped at the statue, sitting down and holding his hoof to its base, cluing Twilight into the significance of the location. She could see him mouth the words “Hello Mother. Hello Father.”
Twilight swallowed, the lump suddenly growing in her throat. “This is… This is where they put your parents to rest, isn’t it? After the airship accident… After the Valentia’s engines exploded.”
“If you believe it to be an accident. Neither Cadence nor I are convinced. Not that we have any evidence to the contrary, despite our best efforts.” He took in a deep breath and sighed, lowering his head in a supplicating bow to the grave. “I miss my parents, Twilight. I miss them more than you could imagine.
“I know you don’t think much of me, and to be honest, I can see how in your eyes that’s justified. Regardless, I want you to know this: I believe in the nobility, in the idea of it, but I also believe that while nobles are rulers, the reverse isn’t always necessarily true.”
He dropped all the way to the ground, burying his chest and belly into the snow-dusted grass and laying his head on his forelegs. Despite the fact that he was taller and more massive than her by a grand amount, he looked for all the world like a foal.
“My parents taught me that truth. We nobles are served by our ponies, pampered and slaved over. That’s fine. We should enjoy these benefits to their fullest, yet we must also be mindful that any ruler can get that. To be a noble, one must give back. If one of our ponies is sick, we must see to their health. If they seek work, yet cannot find it, we must find it for them. If they fear thieves, we must ensure their safety, and punish the wicked. If an enemy army marches to them, we must protect them. That is the code of the noble. Of the just. Of the righteous.”
Blueblood sat up, taking in another breath and snarling. “And that is the code that Artfeather has abandoned, along with too many of the Inner Council! Politics being what they are, Auntie isn’t in a position to rectify this. At least, not easily. Quite frankly, neither am I.”
Though the little voice in the back of her mind was screaming for her not to, Twilight relented to her emotions over her better judgment and sat down next to him. “Blueblood. I’m sorry. I honestly didn’t know—”
“How would you? I thought you unworthy. Even after Nightmare Moon and Discord, I wasn’t entirely convinced, so I pushed you away.”
“Seriously?” Twilight glared at him. “You seriously thought—”
“I am admitting to my mistake, Lady Sparkle.” Blueblood scooted over to his right like he was dodging something. “Your actions in Zebrica convinced me otherwise, and I truly apologize for my past behaviour. Auspicious birth or no, you are a noble. In law and spirit.
“What’s more, we share a common problem: the Inner Council. As such, I am proposing an alliance. If you like, I can be your eyes and ears, just as I am for Auntie Celestia, and can act in your stead, seeing as I have two votes compared to your none.”
~* Your future actions will earn you no loyalty from those you benefit, only courtesy.*~
Charlemane’s words echoed in Twilight’s mind like a siren. “I already have ponies like that in the Council: my brother and Cadence.”
“The Prince and Princess of the Lost. A duchy without borders, without a tax base. The Duchy of Canterlot, while not the richest in absolute terms, is certainly the richest in per capita wealth. While I agree it is all well and good to have your siblings on your side, you would be surprised what moving a bunch of bits at once can do.”
Twilight groaned through her clenched teeth. I really hate to admit it, and I feel dirty doing so, but he’s still right. “My question is, then, what do you get out of this? Politicians don’t normally make an offer like that without some kind of quid pro quo.”
“I’m not looking for any such thing, and certainly nothing as base as what you might be imagining. But if you need a selfish reason from me, here’s one: The Council seeks to undermine Celestia’s authority, and with it, mine, and for that matter, yours. Helping me helps us all.”
A chill and shudder went down Twilight’s spine. Actually, I wasn’t imagining anything base, but thank you for the lovely image. “I suppose I can agree in principle, but I still need more details. What, exactly, are you asking me to do?”
“Nothing, yet. Regrettably. The truth is, I’m still not able to move against Artfeather. But here’s the rub; the really sticky, nasty, thorny issue we have to get around. Right now, the Council is preparing to devour one of their own. If they do, the rest of them come out smelling like roses. Heroes! Paragons of self-policing! But if the Grand Mage were to make a move first…”
Twilight looked up at the statue, uncertain of what to think of making a political deal at a gravesite. “I think I see what you’re saying. If I catch Artfeather, then the Council would be taking the weight of the blame. The question is, then, how do I do that?”
“You can’t. At least, not yet.” Blueblood stood up and shook off the light dusting of snow and dirt he had accumulated. “If there are any two things the nobility has grown very proficient at, it’s talking profusely while saying nothing, and creative accounting. None of the Council’s own investigations, nor mine, nor the RGIS’s can find definitive proof of the Duchess’s wrongdoing. The good news is that it buys us time, seeing as Celestia doesn’t want you back in the field just yet.
“For now, make that little trip to that unkempt village that you love so much, and rest easy, as you have a new friend in high places.” He turned and made his way to one of the exits. “I will have one of my servants alert you if I find anything.”
After he left, Twilight folded her forelegs while fighting the growing headache in her temple. “Why do I feel like I need to go spend a few hours in that rainstorm shower…”
There were certain strands of logic in the world that seemed completely natural. For instance, one would assume that a pony with a very large wellspring could be highly effective in battle just based on that simple fact. When said pony had the largest wellspring outside of the eternal sisters, the logic only seemed to be reinforced.
Combine that with an adolescent dragon and the former captain of the Wonderbolts, and an inexperienced pony would feel completely at ease following that train of thought. This could be especially true if the pony they were facing had a wellspring only a fraction of the size of their opponent.
Such a pony would be wrong.
If they needed any evidence to prove that they were wrong, they would only need to look at the fact that, at the particular instant of time in question, the pony with the massive wellspring, the dragon, and the pegasus were all battered, bruised, and in midflight arcing away from their opponent after a particularly nasty, simultaneous strike.
The little bits of dried grass, snow, and dirt that had shoved their way into Twilight’s mouth as she landed only served to add to the pile of evidence labelled exhibit A.
“Ugh… Ow…” Spike groaned, huffing and puffing as he forced himself up in the snowy hills outside of Ponyville. “When, exactly, did we lose the plot here?
A shockwave of wind, mist, and snow burst forth from where Rainbow had landed. Up and over the pegasus arced her flight, taking to the supposed safety of the sky. “Keep hitting him! He has to have a weak spot!” She stopped before her target, spreading her wings out in a hover. Her pinions danced and fluttered in place, arcs of rainbow-coloured lightning dancing in between them. Thunder cracked through the sky as the electricity raced down to its target.
Each bolt hit true, but was only gathered up by the stallion’s shields. The unicorn waved his hoof, grabbing the electricity against all logic and common decency to science.
“Aw, crap.”
The lightning again roared across the sky, this time finding its way back to the pegasus. The resulting explosion knocked her clean out of the air in a spectacular crash.
Twilight spat out the dirt and worked the blood from her mouth, then pawed at the ground while drawing her telekinetic blade. She rushed forward, slashing at her target.
Her enemy's own telekinetic blade appeared in a fountain of dark flames, the two swords clashing together and sending sparks to the ground. Over and over she pressed her attack, reaching out to wherever he would be vulnerable, but finding only another blade to block her path. Still, she was doing something she’d never done before: push him back.
“You’re slashing too much.”
Up and backwards she jumped, pulling an entire backflip as the tip of his blade neared her horn. Twice more she flipped, followed by a roll to get out of the way of the piercing magic.
“Thrusts are a thing too, you know.”
“Kiiiiyaaa!” Spike ran in from the left, his halberd looking to skewer itself through the stallion’s chest cavity.
With a single step, the stallion moved out of the way, and swung his right foreleg out, smashing Spike’s face with a hoof and knocking him down.
“Spike!” Twilight dove in, thrusting the tip of her blade forward.
The image of the Night Guard stallion blurred, giving way to the backdrop of barren trees, falling powder, and grey skies. A wave of fluffy snow exploded from the ground, tracing a line from where he had been to a place behind her.
Twilight froze, seeing the eerie glow of the violet blade pressed against her armoured neck. Flames from its edge licked up at her chin. Dang it…
“Too slow, Twily. You’re telegraphing. Don’t let the enemy know what you’re up to. Ever.” Obsidian Armor extinguished his blade and stepped away. “Don’t give them a fair fight, and don’t expect one in return. Let them wonder how they lost when they reach the Summerlands.”
Twilight rubbed her hoof against her neck, feeling Aurora’s tough plating in place. “I honestly thought I was improving…”
Rainbow and Spike were limping back towards them, both beaten as soundly as Twilight had been.
“Tell me about it.” The pegasus rubbed her side and winced. “I always knew you had to be tough to make it in the Guard, but I didn’t realize there was such a difference between Captain of the Wonderbolts and Captain of the Royal Guard.”
“Well, don’t take it too hard. Not to toot my own horn, but I always did excel in the combat tests.” Obsidian waved his hoof to a pony in the distance. “Cady! I think we’re done for the day!”
The pink dot in the distance started to gallop towards them, eventually taking off at a glide and landing just as smoothly. “That looked painful. Did anypony hurt something?”
Spike stumbled over to her and sat down in the snow. “Only my everything.”
“Here, let me help.” Cadence raised her horn up into the air, lighting it and bathing them all in a shimmering white light. A magic circle soon appeared in the snow, and each of their injuries started gathering little pinpoints of light.
Spike flopped over on his back, making half of a snow angel. “Seriously man, did you have to be that rough? Maybe we should get an LT or something to do this…”
Obsidian shook his head. “No, it’s better that it’s me. When you fight an opponent that is near your level, you have to give it your all. The potential for serious injury skyrockets. Since I’m more than a match for you three, I have the ability to hold back; fight only hard enough to teach.”
Twilight used her magic to pull gently at the gem in her armor, giving Aurora a signal to undeploy. The plating took on its signature glow, vanishing into the torc. “I honestly don’t know if I’m learning anything. I could actually beat Luna’s golems…”
Obsidian chuckled. “Yeah, well, I don’t have the ability to control an army of golems with my mind like she does. I’m not an alicorn. So, you have to fight me directly, and I’m not about to just let you hurt me. Don’t worry, I do think you’re getting better. Just keep in mind to look for thrusting opportunities as well as slashes.”
Rainbow spat out a mouthful of feather she had preened from her wing. “Would’ve been easier if my lightning actually did anything…”
“And that’s exactly why we’re commissioning the new mounted guns. You can’t redirect their bolts like I did with yours. Speaking of, are you okay?”
Rainbow flapped her wings, watching the healing magic at work. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Just, ow. Seriously.”
“It doesn’t look that bad.” Cadence narrowed the healing field, compressing it down to two areas over Spike and Rainbow. “Shining sometimes comes home with bigger injuries from his morning training. I’m not worried.”
“Bigger injuries? Morning training? Dude.” Spike collapsed the shaft of his halberd and latched it onto his back. “Just what the heck do you do?”
“Practice. Every single day, I grind my weaknesses into dust.” His flaming mane flared up a little as he said it. “A captain of the Royal Guard must be ready for anything.” He shot Rainbow a look. “That being said, it’s a little different with you… and maybe me, now, too.”
“Um, how, exactly? We’re both supposed to protect—”
“Protect those under our care, yes. But…” Obsidian pulled Twilight into a small hug. “Twily here is like a captain herself. It’s true you’re supposed to protect her, but just like in Zebrica, you’re going to encounter things that only she can handle. Our job is to deal with the small stuff so that she, or in my case, Luna, can focus on the big things.”
Though she hardly moved, Rainbow almost looked stricken, as if her soul itself had been blown back in surprise. “I never thought about it that way…”
“Me neither…” Twilight whispered. “Is it… Is it kind of the same thing between me and Celestia? I deal with the small stuff, while she deals with the big things?”
Cadence shook her head and applied a little bit more focus on Rainbow Dash’s side. “I’d say you’re both dealing with a large things, it’s just that you’re dealing with two different types of large things. She focuses on policy decisions and the long term consequences of them, while you focus on the more immediate.
“Originally, Grand Mages were supposed to have more responsibility on the former. However, the Equestrian Compact changed over the years, and this balance changed along with it.”
Obsidian took off his helmet, shaking the snow off of his shoulders. “Also,I rather doubt that Celestia is interested in sharing the responsibility for those policy decisions. I don’t think it’s about a base desire for that power, but more of fear from too many unknowns.”
Cadence brushed her mane off to the side. “In other words, Auntie needs to learn to roll with the punches a little bit better. Not everything needs to be planned out a hundred years in advance.”
“Not that Luna is any better,” Obsidian grumbled. “I know that’s sacrilege for a Night Guard member to say, but still. If Celestia over plans, then I think Luna under plans. Fortunately I have some experience working with Celestia, and I think the Night Guard’s starting to find a nice balance between things. We have the leaders of the Wavu nicely bottled up, and we're about to transfer the op to RGIS. Wavu agents can’t clear their throats without us knowing about it.”
“So why not take them out?” Spike thumped his fist in his palm. “I mean, if you got them cornered, why not?”
“Ah, but that’s another area where you have much to learn, young Dragon,” Obsidian noogied Spike’s head. “Criminal organizations are not like snakes. If they were, you could take out the leader by chopping off its head, leaving the rest to die.
“In reality, if we do that, we simply get a million more little snakes. What’s worse, each one suddenly starts to turn on the other, vying for power to become the new leader. Like a hydra trying to eat itself. Unfortunately, innocents always get eaten along with the criminals.”
Spike snapped his fingers. “So by keeping the leaders in place but contained, you still stop the weapons smuggling, but avoid a gang war. I get it.”
“You have learned much.” Obsidian gave him a bow.
“Speaking of learning…” Twilight motioned at Spike, who pulled out her notebook from his pocket. “How did you do that thing where you just appeared behind me? I ask because I’ve seen it a few times before. You did it, I’m pretty sure Luna did it, I think both you and Charlemane did it in the Council, and Phantasm did it too. It’s honestly starting to get annoying.”
“That quick movement thing?” Rainbow rotated her shoulder and lifted her wing to give Cadence better access to her injury. “That’s called Passage. Spitfire can do it too. No clue how she does it, though.”
“She’s right.” Obsidian moved to the centre of the group, lighting his horn for a spell. “I’ve heard pegasi have trouble figuring it out, but to make up for it they can fly. Of course, very few ponies in general are able to do it. For Earth ponies, it’s a bit of an art. For we unicorns, however, it’s a science. Watch.”
The spell spun around his horn and fired, and a bright light shined outward from the centre of his being. Around all those present, a large magic circle formed at about chest level, rotating around them. In addition to inscriptions in the circle itself, large hexagonal nodes appeared tied into the spell.
“What you’re seeing is a shadow representation of layer four of my shield matrix. Twilight, based on what you know about my shields, and what you see in the inscriptions, can you guess what this layer does?”
Twilight nodded her head immediately. “Yeah. It controls the shield’s hardness.”
“Got it in one. Now, as I said, this is a shadow representation. It’s taking my three-dimensional shield and projecting it into a two-dimensional plane for easier understanding. This is the spell I use when I’m tuning my shields. I can see every little detail on the spell, and change what I need accordingly. For Passage, I use a different layer.”
The circle faded out as if it was being outshone by something else, only to be replaced by a new circle. This one, however, was far larger and more complex, taking up not just a ring around them, but the whole spherical space, swallowing the entire group.
“Whoa…” Spike reached out and put his hand through the sphere, phasing it through like it wasn’t even there. “Pretty!”
“Wait, if this is a shadow…” Twilight jumped back in shock, bumping into Obsidian’s chest. “You have a fourth dimensional shield?”
“Exactly. This layer manipulates mass, velocity, time dilation, and other factors. And since it’s fourth dimensional, it cannot be damaged by normal attacks, although nor can it defend against them as a conventional shield would. Using this, and a number of other layers, I can move at extreme speeds for very short bursts, and recover easily afterwards.”
“Geez…” Rainbow eyed the matrix, darting around from spot to spot. “Okay, I don’t know what any of the symbols mean, but there’s like, a jillion of them. And they’re really, really tiny.”
“And therein lies the difficulty.” Obsidian shut off power to his horn, bringing the illusion to an end. “I can’t just give you the spell, Twilight. It wouldn’t work. I have to fine tune it to my exact thaumatic profile, and update it every few weeks for it to keep working. Changing it to work for you would basically involve a complete rewrite, and even then, using it in combat before you’re ready would be disastrous.
“You have to understand the movements, the flow of fighting. Start using this now, and you’re just as likely to Passage your way into impaling yourself on an enemy’s sword as you are to avoid him.”
Twilight grumbled to herself as she scribbled furiously in a notepad. “That’s all well and good, but what do I do if someone else is using it? I might as well slap a target on my flank if I face somepony with that.”
“It’s not foolproof. Use your shields, use your armor, and anticipate based on what you know so far.”
“That’s it?” Twilight grabbed her foreleg with a hoof. “I’m suddenly feeling kind of exposed here, Shiny. And not just because of my thin coat.”
“Hmmm…” Shining lit his horn again, recasting the spell. “There is one thing you could use… Although I’m hesitant to recommend it by itself. It would take a lot of tweaking, but here.” A new magic sphere layer appeared around them with a vastly different structure from the previous one.
“A sensor spell?” Twilight asked, writing down the details of one of the hexagonal nodes. “And the firing mechanism… How many layers did you condense down into this?”
“Fourth dimensional matrices are tricky to write, and even trickier to manage, but you can fit a lot into them. Take a look.” Obsidian pointed with his hoof at the sensor node. “See how this is hooked into all the other nodes? This is called Lead, a subdiscipline of Passage. In my version, I use it to dilate time when the spell detects someone else using Passage or something similar to it. It gives me a chance to react, but it’s also tightly integrated to the rest of my Passage layers.
“Twily…” He leaned down, bringing his head to eye level with hers and putting a hoof on her shoulder. “Be very, very careful what you do with this knowledge. I think I’m giving it to you before you’re really ready. That’s why Luna purposefully didn’t teach you about it. It’s why we try to keep this a secret until we know somepony is ready, and warn them against using it if they discover it early. It is incredible how easily this can backfire on you. Don’t use it unless you’re absolutely sure you’re ready, and never, ever use it without a shield active. At least then, in the worst case scenario, the shield will absorb the bulk of the damage for you. Promise me.”
Twilight put down her notebook and reached up to her brother, pulling him into a hug. “I promise, BBBFF.”
“Thank you.” He gave her a squeeze with his foreleg. “Come on. Let’s go to Bon Bon’s and warm up for a while, then I’ll help you get set up with your own shield matrix. Sound good?”
“Sounds good. Come on, everypony. Let’s take a break.”
“Oh, thank Celestia!” Cadence ran towards the town and took off into a glide, Rainbow shortly behind her. “I am going to drink a gallon of hot chocolate!”
Obsidian snorted back a laugh. “Luxurious pegasus coat softer and fuller than any pony I know, wind controlling magic, natural temperature resistance, and she’s still always cold.”
“Girls.” Spike, the purple, cold-proof, ice dragon shrugged. “Whaddya gonna do?”
I love the shield technicals. That's always amazing stuff.
Interesting take on Blueblood here. He's trying to be as much of a chess master as his Aunt.
HUZZAH NEW CHAPTER buut i kind of want some action again (its not a slow story just with the chapter releases the way they are nothing ever seems to get done) oh well
6841968 Being a bit of a Go Nagai fan, when I saw your avatar I thought "is that Cutie Honey?" then I saw your name.
Okay is anyone else noticing that the same thing that happened to tat's Twilight pwny-verse story just happened to this story...
Jeez, Shining's spells are complicated.
Warning: This comment is irrelevant to the story and anyone who isn't getting the same rendering bug for story pictures.
The way the cover art looks right now, like a corrupted television set, is actually really awesome. It makes me wish I had a working screenshot capture on my computer... =(
But I guess it says something about the artist that the art looks great even when the site is butchering it.
For someone that's incredibly intelligent and educated in the magical field, Grand Mage and Alicorn ascendant, Twilight feels way out of the loop.
I understand being inexperienced, but also being completely ignorant of anything beyond basic spellcasting? What about Luna's training? They're sending her on the field yet they retain information on such abilities and magical applications because... "she's not ready"? I don't get that...
All throughout that talk about spell matrices and stuff, the back of my mind was screaming "NEEEERRRRD!"
Nice work on the chapter, I loved the lore building you did with those spells!
P. S.
Empyral should be imperial.
6841973 meh give him a few thousand years and we'll see maybe.
woohoo new chapter. Nice read. I like the further advanced combat developments you have here with Obsidian. Also I love all the development you are giving Blue Blood. It is great to see some depth coming to him in these last few chapters.
I have to say though I think my favorite line in the chapter came from Blue:
I loved that line especially the way it sounded with that emphasis on creative accounting in my head. It was worth a great laugh, and oh so true of politics...
Ai yi yi, you put the kibosh on one crisis and it inevitably boils over somewhere else.
And I wonder how this new spell is possibly going to go wrong?...
6842140
If I'm not mistaken, empyreal has to do the fundamental nature (or natures) of reality; in other words, the supernatural. Just using a fanciful word instead of a more common one.
I have to say, this take on ol' Blueblood is a refreshing one. Yes, he's an entitled jerk. But he's an entitled jerk with integrity of a sorts, and far from the idiot he's so often portrayed as. I suspect the Council watches him very uncertainly, because they don't have any idea what his agenda really is... never imagining it is, actually, Celestia's.
"Passage," huh?
I don't know taking one of Pinkie Pie's abilities and making it well understood and teachable feels kind of like cheating.
Especially because Twilight's existing teleportation abilities are OP and hard to write around enough.
Tweaking how TK works in your verse so Twilight's power is consistent and yet is still threatened by ordinary ponies made sense. But too many tweaks and your version of magic won't feel like the show's at all.
6842299
I highly doubt the rest of the Council is stupid enough not to see who's pulling Blueblood's strings, or if not that who holds his loyalty. The fact he plays the fool for the proles doesn't mean that the movers and shakers who play his game buy the act. They know what he wants. The thing is, he's also rich and powerful enough that they can't ignore him, and he's able to make deals with them Celestia can't.
WOOOT GREAT CHAPTER!!!!
So, what magic is Twilight supposed to actually be good at in your continuity? Because anything that matters enough for you to mention, she's ignorant of. It would be nice to see her strengths as a mage actually matter to the story.
Why does Twilight need to learn this Passage? How different from teleportation is it? Time dialation is useful of course but she can travel around without actually moving through the space.
Damn, I thought this chapter is about snowball fight before I read..
I said it before, I'll say it again:
If a mathematician or a theoretical physicist ever gets to an Equestria where magic acts like this, the ponies are thoroughly screwed.
I'm talking about people who see using spaces with infinite dimensions (we're talking uncountable infinities, not just the sum of all integers) as something basic and simple. Just imagine someone like that being magically able to use their mathematical toolkit on the physical world around them.
I don't even know what doing a Fourier transform or maximizing an atlas would do to a real object, and those are just things stupid me understands.
Great. Now I have to imagine someone I know sitting on a table with a trefoil knot as circumference, drinking butter milk from a Klein bottle and telling Celestia an amusing mathematical anecdote.
6842096
This, so much. Twilight, a certified genius at spellcasting and Celestia's student for 20+ years, seems to be extremely clueless on so much magic stuff in this story.
Sure, she doesn't have much experience in combat magic, but she's been an incredible non-combat caster for decades, reads books for new spells religiously, has had access to Celestia's and Luna's personal library and the journals of past Grand Mages for months, and she still has absolutely zero idea on how lots of magic works? Even if she never studied how to use combat spells because she wasn't interested or discouraged by Celestia, she should still know the theoretical underpinnings (or at least the basic concept) of almost everything that isn't alicorn-only, completely banned, or forgotten to history.
Stuff being classified isn't even a good excuse, because Twilight is Celestia's personal student, so her access to magic information should be higher than basically everyone (even if it'd be reasonable to ban her from trying some of them). Celestia, Luna, and Shining withholding so much information from her for decades is not only a stupid move, but less than she deserved even before starting to become an alicorn. It's not like there was any danger of her abusing her knowledge, since she was deathly afraid of disappointing Celestia, and the war room analysis said there was zero chance of her betraying Celestia, so her enemies wouldn't be able to get that info from her, either. Luna didn't mention Passage to Twilight because...she didn't trust Twilight's judgment? Even putting aside the fact that they're supposed to be treating her like an equal, and even if she's not remotely ready to use it, Twilight knowing about Passage and how to try to counter it could save her life!
In particular, Shining not giving Twilight his info for his shields decades ago is just ridiculous and OoC, given how overprotective he is in this story, and her penchant for getting into ridiculously life-threatening situations. He didn't give her his shields years ago, despite her regularly dealing with things like NMM, Discord, Changelings, Hydras, Manticores, and more...why? The team protecting her isn't perfect, and Twilight could have died so many times in ways that his shields would have protected her. His only stated reason is that he doesn't like giving them out, but she's his sister! He knows there's no way that she would ever make the spells public if he asked her not to. Even if there was a risk of them becoming public, Shining would surely consider that a minor price to pay to help ensure his sister's safety. That's not even considering that Celestia certainly has much better shields too, and Celestia has even more reason than Shining to want to give Twilight as much defensive stuff as she possibly can, even before she started ascending, given how much she's banking on Twilight surviving.
Right now, I feel it's the biggest problem with the story; despite her being stated to be the smartest pony in the country, and having studied magic for nearly three decades under the most magically adept ponies in the world, it feels like she's clueless on so much magic. It doesn't help that we haven't seen many examples of her doing anything fancy with her spells, like customizing her spells like Shining does, or inventing new ones (other than the horseshoe thing, which was 300,000 words ago and not even a proper spell).
On another note, are you planning to explain how pegasi and earth ponies can use Passage, even theoretically? It seems ridiculously incompatible with how pegasus and earth pony magic work. The same goes for melding into shadows for Luna's night guard.
6842319 How is Passage one of Pinkie's abilities? She might do various seemingly impossible things, but I have yet to see canon evidence for Pinkie using Passage.
6842454 Because there may be a time when she faces an opponent who uses Passage. Also, there could be a time where she may have to fight in a location where her opponents have set up a spell matrix that blocks teleportation spells. At that point, using Passage could be useful in a fight.
A demonstration of Passage
6842096 Have you seen the sheer volume of different subjects in a small library among the books? Now imagine the NY Public Library or the Library of Congress, and the sheer number of differing specialized subjects contained.
Magic would most likely be the same way. And in the instance of combat related magics, Twilight probably has had much less experience than her brother.
Also, I see nowhere in the chapter that says Twilight is inexperienced with anything other than basic spell casting. If anything, it just seemed that she was very interested in learning something new.
6842299 I agree. I love how Cv is giving Blueblood depth of character in this story. It is just one more example of how Cv is dedicated to giving the readers a rich and detailed world within his story.
6842554
The Passage ability as described (particularly the part where is can be learned by Earth Ponies) is almost certainly CVBrony's explanation as to how Pinkie Pie can "teleport."
6842589 That is one possible way that Pinkie does the things she does... then again, Pinkie is Pinkie. Remember how things turned out when Twilight tried to figure out Pinkie? lol
What I would personally like to see is a lot more advanced magic from Twilight in the many non-combat fields she has studied and Macgyver them into combat in a million fantastic unexpected ways that no one could ever be prepared for or ever expect. Her sheer vast amount of magic knowledge has to be made relevant somehow! Then the new combat magic! Then mix the combat magic with the 'non-combat magic' for amazing results!
Like come on; A guy with a rifle attacks Twilight. He's suddenly blinded when his hair becomes a giant unruly mop and now has to aim with his bangs constantly obscuring his vision. Or Twilight reverses gravity on him. Or Twilight suddenly decides that he is now a friction-less surface meaning he can't hold onto his rifle since he's now more slippery then a wet bar of soap on an Olympic bobsled track. Interesting stuff!
6842605 ... because she didn't know about Passage and other already-understood applications of earth pony magic, you mean? Yes, how strange it is that Twilight would be puzzled by this if it's well within the limits of existing spell theories.
6842531
Yup, you said it so much better than I could! I have been reading this story for a while now and it's great and the politics are delicious but the whole way it handles Twilight in general feels kinda ehh and is its biggest flaw. Like, I don't need an OP Twilight or anything but if anything this story has gone the other way and made her underpowered
Like seriously - there doesn't seem to be any relevant magic that she's actually good at. She doesn't tinker with her spells, doesn't innovate, is slow at casting stuff and seems completely oblivious to the concepts of, like, almost all the relevant spells and magic out there. And since TK is unusable in this verse ... well, she just comes across as a dim-witted mook more often than not with a large fuel tank that she doesn't have the first idea what to do with What is she meant to be good and competent and knowledgeable at? Because there is no such thing as far as I can tell :P
6843092 Keep in mind Twi is severely outclassed by Shining - who has been training basically all his life and is by far the best non-alicorn combatant Celestia has. We'll see her get into bigger fights soon enough, trust me. ;)
"on the few things"
"on a few things"?
"shaft of his halberd"
There appears to be an extra space in there.
"Also,I rather"
"Also, I rather"
6842096
Its more a question of fields of specialty. Having in depth general knowledge of a subject may or may not translate into direct application in specialties. For example, having a basic understanding of chemistry may not translate well into material sciences (making new and better materials, often through chemistry).
6842294 that may be true but the way it was used that would translate to supernatural hall.
6842086 Uh, why would you need software for that? Windows, Mac OS, and Linux have built in functionality for that. So you can do this:
i1150.photobucket.com/albums/o613/brilliantpoint/d59b5fa0-706c-46d8-9791-e80d8f4694b5_zps2epzl7ra.png
Or you can just right click the current image and download it...
With that kind of buildup, Twilight is bound to have that spell backfire in her face sooner or later, right?
6842451
I'm guessing she's just still catching up on the various disciplines of combat magic, seeing as she spent the last 15 years as a librarian. She could probably magic the pants off of anyone at most academic kinds of magic. And she did collapse that giant reality rift a couple of chapters back.
6843103
It's not the fights we're annoyed at, since it's completely reasonable for her lack of experience at both combat magic and actual combat against foes she can fight without artifacts to cause her battlefield presence to be woefully lacking; it's her general lack of knowledge of magic itself.
Despite working religiously under the most knowledgable pony in the country for years, and being an incredible genius, she hadn't had the slightest idea how Passage, shadow melding, Trixie's detection spell, Shining taking over Charlemane's display spell, Luna's water geyser thing, how bonded equipment works, Trixie's attackers' illusion spell, how the Phantasm escaped her bindings, and more, work. A couple of those things have good excuses, but most don't (more details in my earlier post), and it happens too often and leaves a bad impression.
Plus, she doesn't do anything fancy with her spells to balance that out, like customization, or inventing things other than the pseudo-spell at the very beginning; banishing the dragon and surviving the Zebrica explosion were impressive, but both were her just following someone else's notes to the letter. She's barely shown any signs of even trying the creative side of magic, even in the 15 years between this and the show. Ever since customizations were introduced, I've been disappointed that she hadn't at least made personal improvements on her telekinesis or teleportation in the decades she's been studying magic.
Basically, she's stated to be so smart and skilled, both in intelligence and at magic, but it feels like we're watching season 2 Twilight from the show, instead of a super-genius Twilight who has had fifteen extra years learning on top of that.
Unrelated question; are the magic lasers not a thing in this story? It just occurred to me that I don't think they've ever been mentioned or used, and Twilight ran in for a physical attack against Towers instead of using one of her lasers (which can destroy solid rock), so I'm wondering if they've been retconned out of the backstory.
With the frequency and distance pinkie demonstrates it, I assume she uses Passage at immortal alicorn level xD
6843334 im using a chrome book. It only thinks it's a laptop...
6843839 *whistles innocently*
6843846 Why you gotta make me feel dumb?
Maybe it's just the inner "Bigger is better" side of me that's talking and thinking here, but wouldn't a possible way for Twilight to beat Shiny/Obsidian be to simply release one large area attack that just destroys everything around her? Shield master or not, I do imagine Twilight, being several times more powerful than he is, could break through one of his shields.
...I guess my thought process actually is: Does Twilight have enough raw, destructive power to break through Obsidian's defences should she actually just go loco?
6843103
Eh, personally I don't really mind her being not that great at fighting and lack of big fights doesn't bother me - though they are cool and always welcome! Everyone likes explosions :P
It's just her general ... well ineptitude seems like too strong of a word but something close to that which bother me. I completely get her being bad at fighting since it seems like your version of Twilight has spent the last 15 years without going on adventures and leading a peaceful lifestyle and thus doesn't have live experience or honed instincts. I'm completely fine with Shining or other people being better than her at combat.
But it feels like what Twilight should be at least good at is spells and spellcraft - except she doesn't seem to be. Stuff like customizing spells, multi-dimensional shields and otherwise tinkering with properties of magic and theoretical knowledge should be a very big forte of hers. Bad at fighting, good at spells basically. Bad at employing stuff but good at figuring out and inventing it.
But instead she is coming across as being bad at both actual combat and magical theory. Like almost everyone around her from trixie to Charlemane to Shining to whomever seems to know magical concepts that pretty much constantly blow her mind and that she doesn't seem to have the slightest clue about despite this type of academic and theoretical stuff should be exactly the thing she should be good at, perhaps uniquely good at even given her background. But she isn't.
I think it also at times feels like there is a bit of a discrepancy between what is told and what is shown. Like I'm pretty sure Twilight has been said to be smart and such and good at magic, but what is actually shown is that all named - and thus relevant - characters are actually smarter and know more about magic than she does in one way or another and she is coming across as pretty mediocre and kinda irrelevant as result.
It kinda feels like you could give any random unicorn who knows how to read magical equations the same trinkets Twilight has had access to - a fancy cored torc and the notes of people who were actually good at magical theory and figuring stuff out (Shining, Starswirl, Trixie, other alicorns, etc) and they could have accomplished the exact same things Twilight has done because I am not sure the story has ever shown her actually being smart or talented - just having access to unique resources that other people don't.
6844020 Only if he sits there and lets her do it. His output his higher, and his shields are way more effective than 1 unit of damage prevented : 1 unit of energy expended.
6843911 Well, I work in IT. So there's your explanation.
Besides, you'll get your chance again when we're editing.
6844031 She's smart at a lot of things, but she lacks the street smarts of some others. She's lived a sheltered life. She's also behind things still when it comes to very high level combat like Passage. And, frankly, Obsidian is being a bit hard on her here. He's good enough that he sees flaws most others wouldn't.
6844103 I feel a sudden chill of dread running up my spine...
6844020
Hmm, I don't think so - the ability to rapidly channel one's magic (active power output) seems to be much more important here than one's font size (mana bar) for the purpose of being an effective combatant. And while Twilight has en extremely big reserve she is bad at converting it to actual spells.
If memory serves me right, Luna at one point likened Twilight's power output to that of a water hose, as opposed to Shining's onrushing river. She was also quite surprised how long Twilight took to raise the moon - she expected Twilight to do it at least four times faster than she did, if I recall correctly.
It's also the reason why Luna didn't actually teach Twilight any Alicorn spells and settled on "mere" unicorn techniques - Twilight's power output sucks and she wouldn't be able to power those spells in a meaningful timeframe.
So I guess no, she probably can't hope to overpower Shining. She might have the stamina for it (her font is 4 times as big as Shining's, I believe), but she can't convert said stamina to damage output quickly enough to matter in a combat situation. I guess you could say she never runs out of mana, but her actual DPS is poor
6844131
I think we might be talking abit past each other here, as I am not talking about Obsidian or her training session with him in this chapter specifically, but of the impression she has given over the fic as a whole. Her lacking street smarts is perfectly understandable but she seems to be lacking academic and theoretical smarts as well in all areas of magic, not just combat magic.
Like, have there been any instances at all in this story where Twilight has displayed particular smarts or cunning when it comes to magic or things relating to it? Because unless I have selective memory I don't think there has been a single one :P What are the things she is supposed to be smart at?
Like, all she does is cheats with her alicorn magic sight and piggybacks on spells developed by others with no capacity for innovation. I am genuinely unsure when she has done something smart with magic, combat or otherwise, that could be genuinely attributed to her own supposed smarts and ability, not just something any run of the mill unicorn could do if they had access to the unique notes and equipment she has :/
6844099
By "output", do you mean that thing Luna referred to back when she had Twilight raise the moon in... Chapter something-long-ago?