Tempest Shadow finds the path of reformation is not easy for her... it just doesn't feel right. Then she learns of a disquieting trade going on in the Southlands... and then a close friend is ponynapped... and she discovers exactly the kind of pony she is meant to be.
Sequel to MLP: The Movie, covering Tempest's reformation and also tying up loose ends in the movie and prequel comic.
User Spaniard Kiwi was kind enough to post a Spanish translation over on DeviantArt -- check it out!
For more fun with Tempest Shadow, see the Nightmare Night story,
Nightmare Fight.
This story's timeline is also continued into Season 8 by Twilight's Pirate School.
Chapters (20)
Let me guess: The main villain is Strife.
Not even close... oh, Strife is in this, no surprise there, but he's nowhere near being the main villain.
So the Storm King's army was really just a bunch of elaborate holograms?
Huh. That's a new twist.
This story looks good. You've earned yourself a tracker. :)
9421542
Thanks! For holograms, read automatically-summoned eldritch armed servants, that is, they're not just mindless automatons or simple projections. But yes, essentially. The story does go into their nature later on, and it's important to the outcome.
Now that's an interesting take on the Storm army. I approve!
Did Starlight go through this?
And I seem to remember Trixie having a much harder time.
Tempest would make a great bodyguard. Or enforcer. OR CONQUEROR!
No, not Rarity! The bastards!
9421945
Thanks for the feedback -- you made my day! And it's great to hear that folks are liking this take on the Storm Army. I wanted to come up with something different, which explained the soldiers while at the same time dealing with the problem of what to do about this army left camped on Canterlot's doorstep, so to speak.
9421963
A fair question... let's see... Starlight messed with Equestria's timeline, and then it was restored, so in a sense there was nopony around to apologize to, apart from Twilight herself. And there was also her village... it's an open question as to whether Starlight would have kept up the tradition as part of the Equality cult, rather than simply dictating herself who was considered "reformed" or not.
Trixie... well, while eventually repentant she kept running away, and a big part of the ritual is standing up and acknowledging your actions. Though after befriending Starlight, she's been able to come down off her high horse enough to be able to manage it. Although, on the third hoof, she's still a bit of a loner so she might not feel like bothering. It could make for an interesting story, actually: "Trixie Does Reformation... The Great and Powerful Way"
9421965
Agreed. I loved writing Tempest's fight scenes, one-sided as they tend to be. But I didn't want to overdo it. I've tried hard in this story not to typecast Tempest as a brutal psychotic basket-case -- she just knows the appropriate moment to kick someone through a wall, and isn't reluctant to do it, if called upon.
9421971
Quick, somepony give Spike a hug!
Also gonna put money on putting the telepresence rock that manifests minions in the biggest Equestrian pile of forbidden knowledge and loot having been a really bad idea.
I mean, imaginary internet money, but still.
9422366
"Yeah? How many bits ya wanna wager?"
"Grubber!"
"Oh, right... sorry, boss! Spoilers! Heh heh heh!"
I gotta say, you've really nailed the characters here. Good job.
Raise this city, raise this city, 1, 2, 3, 4... *continues humming*
9433319
Yep... my mental model here is a single "template" soldier used to produce the instances, with some common storage so that anything one of them learns is available to the rest. Thus the instances have some amount of autonomy for teamwork, yet consider themselves to be the same entity. Plus it meant I didn't have to come up with names for all of them.
9432964
Good thing he pronounced "raise" correctly.
9433355
Yeah, I had also thought of that too.
I enjoyed the play on words.
9433347
Laziness creates efficiency!!
9433530
9433554
Thanks! The pun is totally intentional, and there is a very subtle difference in pronunciation (s vs z). It's also a play on the typical behavior of an invading army -- building up rather than tearing down.
I wonder who the main villain of the story is...Can't wait to find out!
9433347
I can't help but wonder if the "template" soldier was actually a living creature once, and the Storm King forced it's consciousness into that projector crystal, like how Caroline was turned into GLaDOS in the Portal games.
Also, nice twist on the usual "Tempest-gets-her-cutie-mark" plot element. I like how they're taking the Storm King's logo and turning it into a symbol of good.
Seriously, why doesn't this story have more views? I'm really liking this!
9434467
It's certainly possible. My take on it is that the Storm King, in keeping with his whole "Big Bad Powerful CEO / Marketing Exec" thing, acquired both projectors and ships, and learned just enough about them to be able to use them to grab power. (I mean, he wasn't a techie -- he could barely manage to put through a magic-pool call on his own...) But the original owners of the ships might have imaged one of their soldiers, as a starting point.
Thanks! I was hoping it hadn't been done before. And it seemed to me that Tempest "inheriting" the army from the Storm King ought to be a little more personal and life-changing for her than a simple change of command...
You've got me, wish I knew... I really hope all the "serious Tempest story" fans haven't signed off until Season 9! Thanks for your kind feedback -- it makes putting the effort into a story like this worthwhile!
"I'm glad you liked it... don't forget to tell your friends!"
-- Larry Fine, "Playing the Ponies" (Yep, that really is the Stooge film title!)
9420768
There a reason why you didn't respond by replying to my comment?
9446290
Nope, sorry... must have hit the main reply button rather than the message reply!
Well played, Tempest. Well played...
And here we have the other Best Hippogriff.
Pink mane? Silverstream's body is pinkish, yes, but her mane is a pale blue color. See?
pre00.deviantart.net/4294/th/pre/f/2018/086/8/8/vector__857___silverstream_by_dashiesparkle-dc74huu.png
9447222
Hmm -- I did actually know that... I suspect I meant pink coat rather than mane, since I only had room for one color word at that point. I'll fix that. Thanks!
At least they didn't just get kicked to the curb .
Oh, come on! Right after the apology and everything?
Man, Twi and Novo are never gonna be able to get along, are they?
Oh, good Lord, I just had flashbacks to The Legend of the Titanic...brrr...
9458041
And let's not forget one of my favorite lines from that movie:
How could the top loan-shark be named anything other than Bruce?
But even so, he's still not the apex predator in the Deeps...
Wow... I honestly hadn't heard of that movie until you mentioned it, but I see what you mean!
I actually envisioned Bruce the Toothed as sounding something like a deep bass version of Bela Oxmyx from "A Piece of the Action." (starting from about 1:45 in the clip below, and particularly 2:45, where he starts to show his cold side):
So... Why did he get released? Did the cage disappear with the soldiers?
9458583
Look at what else is happening right at that moment -- and how Strife's eyes resemble those of Tempest's soldiers.
Well, you took interest in my Tempest fic, so here I am to return the favour. This is certainly a fun little adventure so far and a very interesting take on the Storm King's army. A mass summoned army of mooks from a magic artifact does seem like it would be up the Storm King alley. And having Strife is a good touch as well, I haven't read the movie comics myself, but having a weak but manipulative villain like this is a great twist from the normal types of villains.
I must say, this does have the right feel to be a straight up sequel to the MLP movie. Sure, it follows the common fanfic trope of Tempest becoming Twilight's bodyguard/head of the Friendship Guard, but you have written Tempest well. Heck, you've written all of the MLP movie characters well, even Grubber! (I'm one of the few people who doesn't outright hate Grubber. He's still rather pointless and cringy, but he could have been so much worse) However, I find that like the movie, juggling all these characters kind of splits the focus and like the movie, the rest of the Mane 6 don't do much besides contribute little moments like with Fluttershy interacting with 'Fred'. Which is fair as the story focuses on Tempest and Twilight. Having a quick victory lap of the locations relevant to the Movie is cool, but it is just a shallow look at these locations. Again, this is a trait shared with the movie.
Your humour is on point, I laughed when Celaeno made off with her new ship and a few other moments throughout. It's interesting to see that at this point we see that the main conflict is caused by miscommunication and carelessness, which is neat to see as a problem that can't quite be magicked away. Though there is Strife still stirring up... well, strife. I'll be looking forward to seeing how this ends.
9460295
Thanks so much for the feedback -- you just made my day!
As you note, this story is centered on Tempest (and to some extent Twilight, as her "mentor" in redemption), so it's difficult to have the other characters stand out in every scene. I did try to have at least one moment/scene/reason why each of them needed to be along for the ride. I've saved Skystar and Pinkie's for last, so there's that to look forward to in Part V.
And thanks so much for the comment on the miscommunication theme... aside from Tempest's redemption, that's a key reason for writing this story, and one reason it's longer than usual: I needed the extra locations/players to set it up properly. Getting to the point where I can pay it off has been a driving force in completing this story, so It's reassuring to hear it came across well.
I know the movie isn't everyone's cup of tea, but having re-viewed the movie and comics enough times for context and characterizations, I've really gotten to like all of its characters, in particular Tempest and Grubber. It'd be fun to bring those two back in follow-on stories to this, so I'm hoping there's still enough interest in them as serious characters from the readership to make that worth doing.
Thanks again!
Awkward but not always in a bad way
I don't know how this story docent have more attention but I feel like this deserves more praise. In truth, I feel this works well into whatever it can be and more. I wish for it to go on but I think the end here is wonderful great job.
9470368
Thanks very much for reading it, and for your kind feedback! I'm glad it worked well for you.
I do have an idea for a sequel, set in the Season 8 time-frame, and roping in the Young Six characters as well. Any takers?
This was pretty alright, I can't quite nail down what I didn't like so much, it might've been a bit all over the place with all the characters, but it was a solid Tempest time so thanks. Is Pinkie's dialogue supposed to be in all italics for the past several chapters? I don't remember if there was a reason for that.
9471350
Thanks for reading! The length and number of characters was intentional, as part of the overall theme of the "ivory trade" and its actual cause, so it might have seemed a bit of a whirlwind tour -- sorry about that!
As for Pinkie, somehow to me writing her dialog as straight roman text doesn't cut it... I mean, she sounds like a living sugar-rush on helium most of the time. And that's when she's being serious! So right from the start I began putting her lines in italics to indicate her manner of speech, as with A.J.'s accent. It works for some folks, others not so much, but that's okay. It's my process.
9471788
I mean as long as it wasn't some crazy formatting error it's fine, guess I never really noticed until the end. Although the ending conflict with the hippogriffs did lose me, it seemed pointless and nothing in particular came out of it, it was more that it felt crowded with all the main characters. Like they were fighting for space to do things.
9473360
Well... having brought Captain Celaeno and her crew in on this, it was only fair to give them their turn in the spotlight rather than have them waiting around upstairs at the end. And it wasn't for nothing... if Strife had gotten to the crystal, he might well have yanked the rug out from under Tempest downstairs. But true, I was trying to squeeze a big set-piece battle into a tight timeline, so things might have seemed crowded. Live and learn!
That was a helluva ride! Well done, and Epic Troll lol!
9475420
Thanks so much for reading, and glad it worked so well for you.
You just made my weekend!
your Rarity is in another location...
Okay, I need to pause here and say something: this is REALLY FREAKING GOOD. I love the bit of lore you came up with for Tempest’s mark. And Fluttershy is just too precious for words.
There are not sufficient words in my lexicon to convey the sheer amount of YES contained in this story. So let me just say that this is one of the best Tempest fics I’ve ever read. Tempest is and always will be awesome. Cheers, mate.