Good Lord! You fight like a mare!
It was true what they said: no plan survived first contact with the enemy.
Mare and centaur stared each other down, preparing for the battle yet to come. The magic of Tartarus was rejuvenating Tempest, undoing the evident self-damage caused by the energy she had sent through her body, and she seemed to be standing taller with each passing second. Logic suggested that Spy charge at her while she was still weakened, but logic also had to take into account the sparks leaping from Tempest's broken horn, ready to send a blast of lightning into him at a moment's notice. There was little he could do but wait, the atmosphere between them growing ever more tense...
"What happened? What's going on? I can't see!"
...though slightly tarnished by a certain nattering voice in the background.
"C'mon, why isn't anypony saying anything? Dang it, Spy, you make a better door than a window!"
The display of sparks went out, and Tempest shook her head ruefully. "Way to kill the mood, kid..." She looked at Spy. "Go ahead. Tell her."
Without looking away from the mare, Spy said, "She... burned the poison from her system."
"She did what?!" Cozy Glow demanded. "Since when can she do anything like that?! I've never heard about it!"
"Well, it's not like it's something I advertise," Tempest said calmly, moving forward again. "I wasn't popular in the Storm King's army, and some of his other lieutenants figured they could take me out the easy way. I was just lucky I found out I could fix myself, or I wouldn't be here." She stopped in front of Spy and smiled up at him. "And if I went around telling everyone, then maybe some creatures wouldn't spend all their time and resources on the wrong way to put me down."
He returned her gloating grin with a scowl of his own. "This changes nothing."
"Doesn't it?" she shot back.
"Cozy Glow and I will be leaving this dismal place. You can depend on that."
"Oh, big talk, Mister Assassin. Looks to me like you're not going anywhere. Not until Twilight gets here, in any case. The big door's still closed, and I'm the only one here who can open it."
He smiled placidly down at her. "We'll have to see about that." In fact he'd devoted considerable thought to how the door mechanism worked; confirmation that it was keyed to Tempest in some way allowed him to discard a few possibilites, though that had always been a high probability.
She watched him for a moment. "I don't get it. I know why Tirek would've busted out, but why aren't you willing to wait for Twilight? If anypony can help you get back to your own world, she can."
"That," he informed her, "is not my priority right now. If any such negotiations are to take place, they will happen when the filly and I are both free of this place and out from under Celestia's thu... hoof."
Tempest glanced past him at Cozy Glow, then lowered her voice. "You're really willing to risk being trapped in Equestria just for her sake?"
He bristled. "That's not your concern," he said stiffly.
She chuckled. "Oh... wow," she said in an admiring tone, "Now I really wish I'd met you sooner." She took a few steps backwards. "So... I guess we're doing this."
"I can't see any other options," he agreed. "We have mutually incompatible goals."
"That we do. To tell the truth, I've always kind of wondered if I could've taken Tirek down. I mean, before he turned castle-sized."
They began to circle one another. "I doubt this will be a similar experience."
"True, but it's as close as I'm probably gonna get. And no hard feelings about the poison and all, but I'm not going easy on you here. I've got a promise to keep."
He made a face. "Of course. The 'honorable warrior' trope. That's never really been my style, to be honest."
"Yeah, I kind of figured, what with the whole assassin thing." Then she laughed and shook her head. "Wow. I'm really about to fight a centaur assassin from another world. This is comic book stuff."
"I'm glad one of us is enjoying this," he said wryly.
"Hey, Equestria's a pretty peaceful place. I don't get a lot of chances to cut loose." Tempest stopped and looked up at him. "Ready?"
"Naturally," he lied, and settled into a ready stance. "At your leisure."
She favored him with a fierce and eager grin, then charged forward, the distance between them closing frighteningly fast...
The next few minutes would be an education in the field of sentient ungulate combat, which would later serve Spy well (though not enough to avoid tragedy) during the Great Wildebeest Uprising of 1987. They would also confirm what he had suspected, despite his earlier bravado: in the field of hand-to-hoof combat, Tempest significantly outclassed him.
She surprised him by first going low rather than leaping at him, sliding underneath his barrel. Before he could step away, she kicked upwards, propelling him a foot in the air and inducing a brief bout of nausea that suggested the centaur's stomach was in the lower torso. He managed to land on his hooves and tried to turn to face her, but she swiftly raced around him, staying in his blind spot.
It wasn't just a matter of physical prowess, though that was definitely an issue. In terms of raw strength, he felt he probably had the edge, but that was difficult to judge as the little equine was so fast it was hard to land a blow. Tirek's hulking form was not built for speed, and she knew exactly how to take advantage of that fact.
A flurry of kicks aimed at his shins forced him to dance backwards; healing magic or no, a broken leg was a fight ender, and while Tirek's ankles weren't quite as spindly as those of an Earth horse, he saw no reason to take chances. Quickly he spun, swinging one huge hand toward her; she easily slipped out of reach as though she'd been expecting the grab.
He'd been hoping that she would be as much at a loss as he was when fighting against an unfamiliar body type; how much practice could a pony have gotten fighting against a creature with arms? Quite a lot, it seemed; he knew little about this 'Storm King' and the army she had been part of, but given how easily she was adapting, it appeared likely they were bipedal, or at least she'd trained with some. And, of course, he presented her with a much larger target.
Now she leapt, a spinning strike that met arms desperately crossed to block. He slid backwards from the impact, hooves leaving deep gouges as they scraped across the stone.
But the plain fact of the matter was that Spy wasn't much of a martial artist. Oh, he'd dabbled, and was familiar with any number of ways to dispatch an opponent with his bare hands, but most of them were reliant on said opponent having human anatomy; pressure point strikes, joint locks, choke holds, and so on. He was much happier with a blade in his hand, or more accurately in his target's back. Now he was having to dredge up forgotten techniques and adapt them on the fly to a foe a fraction of his size and completely the wrong shape, and this was especially difficult because he didn't have time to think...
Tempest launched another series of kicks toward his midsection, or at least what he naturally thought of as his midsection, and while he managed to slap some of them away a few slipped through. A searing pain in his chest told him of a cracked rib, and he stumbled backward yet further, edging closer to the edge of the plateau. The pit meant defeat; there was no way he could climb back up in this body, especially with the hound watching him. And that, he realized, was the mare's goal.
There was no way around it: in a straight contest of skill and power, in a fair fight, there was no way he could beat Tempest Shadow.
He made another clumsy grab at Tempest, and she easily slipped away... but then his hand fell upon its true target, one of the metal bars of his cage, the pieces of which were strewn about the plateau. With a quick movement he snapped it across the ground toward the mare; she didn't see it coming, and as it collided with her legs and fell beneath her hooves, Tempest dropped painfully to the ground.
But then, he abhorred a fair fight.
Spy immediately pressed the advantage, stomping down on her fallen form. She managed to push herself away from the descending hoof, and stone splintered where it fell. Tempest rolled to her hooves and rose to face him again, but he was already upon her, hands seeking sensitive ears to twist and overlarge eyes to poke. Not the most sophisticated of tactics, to be sure, but his options were rather limited.
Finally, despite her best efforts to evade, he got lucky and managed to seize one foreleg. He swiftly pulled her up and grabbed a hind leg with his other hand, then lifted her above his head with a triumphant bellow. Victory! This was the opportunity he'd been waiting for. No matter how strong or fast she was, that meant nothing without the leverage to use it. She was helpless in-
Waves of electricity flowed across her body, into his hands and down his arms. His shout turned to one of agony, and he involuntarily released the source of the pain. Tempest twisted in the air and kicked, both rear hooves connecting with his chin and sending him back a few steps. He shook his head to clear it and rubbed at the point of impact, then looked at Tempest, who had moved several yards away and was panting heavily. "Nice try," she admitted between gasps, "but it's not going to be that easy."
He glowered at her as he felt the pain fade, courtesy of Tartarus. His rib, too, felt nearly healed; the process was not so quick as a medigun, but it was a familiar sensation nonetheless. With the prison's spells constantly restoring health and stamina, they could potentially do this all night, which of course was another advantage to Tempest. The moment Twilight Sparkle arrived in the morning, it was all over for him.
Stupid! How could he have forgotten she could do that? He should have thrown her into the pit the moment he'd laid hands on her! But... no. He still needed the key around her neck, and odds were good he would need her person, if not her cooperation, to open the door. (There was a way around her electric field, he realized, but this far from the door it would be poorly timed.)
Oh, well. Time for round two.
He feinted to the left, then launched himself to the right, where a pile of wood and metal marked the final position of his cage. No time to be picky; he reached for the largest fragment of lumber he could see as he galloped past and snatched them up. It was awkward to hold and its rough edge stabbed into his palm, but it would have to do. A properly broken bone or two should take the wind out of her. One of the bars would have been a far more suitable weapon, but he saw no reason to facilitate his own electrocution.
A fraction of a second later, the pile was blasted apart by a bolt of lightning and he was peppered with splinters once again. Tempest had guessed his strategy a moment too late.
Turning at speed, he discovered, was difficult in this body, but slowing down meant being an easier target as more magical projectiles lanced past him and continuing in a straight line meant an appointment with the pit, so he did his best to lean into the turn. It was a near thing, the edge coming up faster than he'd anticipated, but then there was the rock wall that went around part of the plateau, and it was sufficiently curved to allow him to run along it for a few steps.
Once his hooves returned to proper ground, he reoriented himself and charged toward the mare; it was easier to dodge the blasts when he could see her preparing to fire. He sped up and bore down on her, arm raised with his makeshift club at the ready. Tempest managed to throw herself to the side as he thundered past, the wood painfully clipping her flank where his swing had just barely connected. With sweat running down her sides, she climbed to her hooves as Spy wheeled back toward her for another charge, and made a decision. He didn't notice the way the sparks around her broken horn changed, building into a clump rather than something fashioned to throw...
He was just a few steps away when she released the energy in a single blinding flash. The light seared into eyes that had become accustomed to the dim cavern glow for over a year; and he growled in pain and fell, sliding across the plateau before stopping in an aching heap.
Several long moments passed before he felt he could move again, spurred on by Cozy Glow's entreaties. "Spy! Spy! Get up, please!" And he tried, though the spots before his eyes made it difficult to sort everything out. He was acutely aware that very soon Tempest would be along to...
But there was no sound of approaching hoofsteps. Where was she? Surely she could have kicked him into the pit by now.
He forced himself to stand and rubbed at his eyes to help them clear. In due time he was able to make out a purple blur which was... not moving toward him.
He watched the blur carefully as his vision continued to return, and soon verified that it was indeed Tempest, but she was... just standing there. Not even looking at him, but taking deep lungfuls of air.
She was... winded? That seemed strange. Spy didn't know exactly how magic worked, but if that burst of light normally left her this exhausted, it was a poor tactical choice, even as a desperation move. And he didn't think he'd been close enough to victory to warrant such a move in any case. Plus, Tartarus seemed to sweep away physical exhaustion quite easily; even after his extended gallop he was barely sweating. So, why...?
A thought occurred, and he glanced around at the surrounding cavern. Could that be it? Perhaps, but the hypothesis needed to be tested. Still, it wouldn't do to allow his opponent to taint the experiment. He started to breathe heavily, as if feeling the same weariness as Tempest. "Getting tired... are we?" he called mockingly.
"Stuff it," she growled. "Just... just need to... catch my breath."
"Didn't quite get... all the poison out... I suspect," he suggested, improvising quickly. "It does have... nasty aftereffects, doesn't it?"
"Doesn't matter. You're getting tired too. I'm still... gonna whip your flank."
Good. Now she might not spend too much time wondering what was happening. Time to test his theory. He'd dropped his club, but fortuitously a bar had rolled nearby. He picked it up and hoped she wouldn't notice the odd way he was carrying it; this would require exact timing, and he might not be able to adjust his grip fast enough. He advanced toward her slowly. "Well, by all means, continue standing there. You'll make an easier target."
She managed to look up at him, advancing on her with a long metal bar, and was too tired to wonder why her opponent was making such an obvious mistake. Rather than waste breath on mockery, she simply gathered power once more and sent a bolt of electricity unerringly toward him...
...and he slammed the bar into the stone before him with every ounce of his magically-enhanced strength, as if driving in a flagpole. The bar sank several inches into the rock and stayed vertical when he hurriedly released it just before the lightning struck; it flowed through the bar into the ground, dispersing harmlessly.
He watched her carefully. Yes, there it was. Her legs were shaking from a fresh wave of exhaustion, her eyes had again become unfocused, and froth was beginning to rise on her sides. Spy had (naturally) been right: using her magic was draining her significantly, and here and now there was only one likely reason.
So... how to capitalize on this? Exhausted as she was, she could still shake it off and take him down if he tried to close in on her recklessly. Obviously the goal was to get Tempest to overextend herself to the point of unconsciousness, but she couldn't be baited forever; sooner or later she'd realize the need to conserve her magic. He needed to provoke her into one large expenditure of power, and he needed to do it quickly.
Fortunately, he knew the mare had a temper that, while usually well-controlled, had its limits. And he had just the thing to break past them.
Before Tempest could recover, he hurried over to Cozy Glow, who looked up at him in confusion. "Spy, what's going on with her? I can tell you're faking, but why is she so worn out?"
He gave her a brief smile. "A lesson for the student. Why would using her magic tire Tempest out, while I'm still fresh as a daisy?"
She frowned in thought. "Well, I guess Tartarus is helping you out, but I don't see why she's not-" Then she stopped, her eyes wide. "...because Tartarus was made as a prison for Tirek!"
"Precisely. The one thing it absolutely would not be set up to do is to restore magic to its inhabitants, and in fact would inhibit the use of magic as much as possible."
"So she's having to tap into her own natural magic, the same stuff Tirek takes!"
This angle hadn't even occurred to Spy, but he took care not to let it show. "Indeed. But it won't be long before she comes to the same conclusion. Give me... The Thing."
Cozy Glow's confusion returned, then she gasped. "You're going to...? Spy, no! She'll murder you!"
"That's the plan. Quickly, now!"
Reluctantly, she reached behind her cage and slid a loose wrapping of newspaper toward him. It created a slime trail where it passed, and he picked it up gingerly.
Tempest finally managed to escape from her fog, and looked up to see Spy advancing on her once again. She looked carefully; no lightning rod around this time, and though he was holding one hand behind his back, there was no way he could conceal another bar that way. "Nice trick," she snarled. "I shouldn't have fallen for that."
"Oh, don't feel so bad," he jeered. "You're doing quite well for-" A mere animal, rose in his mind, but no, not in front of Cozy Glow. One of Celestia's puppets? No, overdone. A hornless freak? Too personal; he didn't dislike the mare enough to go that far. "-someone like you," he concluded, rather lamely. He had to be losing his touch.
She didn't notice. "Yeah, well, you're not getting a second chance. I can take you down without-"
He brought his arm around and sent the bundle sailing through the air, leaving speckles of slime trailing behind it. It was an accurate throw and landed directly between the mare's eyes.
The remainder of the newspaper had been wrapped around the remainder of the fish, several handfuls of foul humours, stinking innards and half-cooked flesh. If the MannCo marketing team had heard about it, they probably would have called it the Un-Wholly Halibut or something similarly dreadful. Scout would have loved it.
Spy watched as realization of what she was now coated with began to dawn, followed quickly - very, very quickly - by overwhelming rage. Sparks began to coalesce around her horn once more, and he grinned mirthlessly and braced himself. This would hurt, no doubt, but she wouldn't have fallen for the grounding trick again. He just had to trust in this bulky body and the power of Tartarus to allow him to withstand...
...that was... a rather large amount of sparks, wasn't it?
With a scream of fury, Tempest unleashed a coruscating... well, tempest of lightning, which struck him directly. As he flew backward from the impact, he had just enough time to see her droop briefly, staring back at him... and then her eyes went wide in horror.
Her aim was true. His trajectory was unfortunate.
It was a clean, powerful shot, and he didn't so much as bounce before he struck Cozy Glow's cage.
Momentum transferred, and rather than falling into the pit, he rolled to a stop at its very edge. His head had fallen back and was in position to see the cage sailing in an arc through the air. It was headed in the rough direction of the doors, but clearly wouldn't make it that far. It might hit the middle of the three sets of stairways leading to the plateau, but would more likely drop into the near side of the pit.
He quickly righted himself and reached out, a wholly futile gesture. "NO!"
The cage reached the top of its arc and began to descend. The filly screamed in fright.
There was nothing he could do, not in this oaf of a body. The cage would shatter at the bottom of the pit, and even if Tartarus preserved her life, there would be horrific injuries she would have to suffer through...
Rapid hoofsteps behind him, then impacts along his lower torso and back. With sweat streaming down her body, Tempest was pushing herself past her limits, climbing up him in full gallop to get as much height as possible. She leapt, sparks gathering for one last bolt. It struck home, and the cage popped higher into the air, spinning wildly. The mare landed on the middle stairway, hooking a desperate hoof over the edge to keep from falling off. She looked up to see the results of her efforts... and her heart sank.
It hadn't been enough. The new arc was too high. The only thing she'd changed was that Cozy Glow would now fall into the pit on the other side of the walkway.
Tempest grit her teeth and tried to pull together another bolt, but only a trickle of sparks gathered at her horn. She was entirely spent. "No..." Tears welled in her eyes as the shame and regret swept through her.
And then the ground shook. Spy stood over her, his eyes fixed on the tumbling cage. "Spy," she began, "I-"
Two huge red hands closed around her barrel, and he lifted her up and back behind his shoulder, his expression one of keen concentration. She guessed what he was going to do far too late to object.
With all his strength, Spy hurled the mare toward the cage, and his aim, too, was true. They collided with a crash, the impact sending them at speed toward the pile of empty cages near the door. The cage bounced twice, sending up sparks from the stone floor each time, before sliding to a stop, wedged between one of the larger cages and the cavern wall. Tempest was thrown free with the first bounce and rolled for several yards, stopping only when inertia lost interest. She groaned. It was the best she could manage at the moment.
She vaguely heard hoofsteps approach and go past her, in the direction of the cage. "Miss Glow! Are you all right?"
There was the oddly distinctive sound of a half-digested hayburger being released from captivity.
"...you'll be fine."
The hoofsteps approached once more, and a big red blob stood over her. "What about you, Miss Tempest? Still with us?"
"Y... yeah." Nothing felt broken, at least. "I'll manage."
"Good."
The blob moved, and she felt a sting on her neck. "Well, what do you know," Spy mused as fresh vertigo was added to her bone-deep weariness, "I still had some poison left after all."
She felt his hands close around her body and lift her up again. "...you dirty..."
"My apologies, Miss Shadow, but I think I'm not going to underestimate you anymore. Now, let's see here..." A hand went to her neck, dug inside her clothes. "...no key? Where did you leave it?"
"...n..."
He calmed himself. "Well, perhaps unsurprising that you've lost it. You've had a busy day. We can look into that later. For now..." He started walking, and she could guess his destination. She tried to squirm out of his grasp, but her strength was only slowly returning.
"Ah, here we are. This bit looks much newer than the rest of the door. It must be part of the revised security measures Miss Glow told me about."
She cursed silently. But the door lock had been crafted using cutting-edge thaumaturgy; there was no way he could figure out-
"Now, I didn't hear you speak any pass phrases when you left earlier, and I see no keyholes or whatnot, so some kind of biometric lock seems likely," he continued, almost cheerfully. "So where... ah, this flat plane of crystal looks about right. I don't imagine you lot have discovered retinal scanning?"
What scanning? What? "fsz."
"Quite so. Then is it based on facial recognition, or... ah, no, I see a bit of dirt here at the bottom. Soil, specifically, and not cave dust. Oh, dear, just a hoofprint lock? For a maximum security prison? Well, you're making do with what you have, I'm sure..."
He took her hoof and pressed it against the crystal, which glowed yellow for several seconds, then a bright green. The door rumbled and began to open, and Spy grinned broadly. "Speak, friend, and ex-"
For the second time that day, searing light stabbed into his eyes, and he reflexively lifted his hands to cover them. The sun was still up?! Preposterous! It had been near to setting hours ago!
("Please, sister, I promise I'm feeling much better! Put the Sun down and let's talk about this!"
"Princess, I swear to you, I'm revoking your pastry privileges if you keep this up!"
"NO DREAMS ONLY SUN!")
It was then Spy realized he'd make a fatal mistake. In shielding his eyes, he'd released Tempest. The realization came as a twin impact of hooves to what, if not for centaur anatomy, would have been his stomach. He was thrown back surprisingly far and landed in the big cage next to Cozy Glow's, and its door seemed to automatically swing shut. He quickly moved to open it, but despite having no lock or latch, it seemed to be stuck fast.
"...bugbear... cage." Tempest managed from near the exit. "Won't be... breaking out of... that one." She started dragging herself toward the door and the now-inert locking mechanism.
He swore and glared in her direction, his mind swiftly creating and discarding courses of action. Finally he turned toward Cozy Glow and inspected her cage. "Where's the lock?" he demanded. He hadn't tried to break it off earlier, for fear of alerting Tempest with the sound, but that was no longer a concern.
"It's at the bottom here, jammed against the rock!" she said in a panic. "I can't get to it!"
"Then stand back as best you can." He broke one cage, after all...
She squeezed herself against the opposite side of the cage, and he brought his fist down on its roof. The wood shook from the impact, but despite his incredible power didn't break. He started hammering at it desperately; Tempest was getting closer by the second.
"Hurry," the filly pleaded.
"I know!"
A crack appeared in the wood at about the same time as he heard the doors rumble once more. The mare had succeeded, and was now laying in a heap at the base of the green-glowing lock.
No time left. He grabbed the weakened cage and tried to pull it apart. "Once I get this open," he told her, "fly through the door away from here as fast as you can. Keep low to the ground and look for cover wherever you can. Don't stop for anything."
She nodded up at him from between the bars. "Got it! And I'll come back for you when-"
"No! Just go far away, somewhere they can't find you! Don't worry about me!"
"I'm not going to abandon you, Spy!"
"You must! The only important thing here is getting you away from Tartarus!"
"No way!" She smiled, despite her distress. "We villains have to stick together, y'know?"
He could have said anything. He could have said "I'll find my own way out." He could have said "I'll get them to send me back to my own world." He could have said "I've been in far worse situations than this."
He said "You're not a villain, Cozy Glow!"
Time seemed to freeze around her. "W... what?"
The crack grew wider as he pulled. "You aren't a villain! You're a child! You need a family, not a prison!"
It was, he realized later, something that needed to happen, but here and now it was destroying her world. Her expression ran the gamut from incomprehension to disbelief to sorrow...
...to rage.
Her wingtips went to her mouth and she whistled sharply. "Cerberus!"
As the huge doors continued to close, the ground shook noisily and then the hound scrabbled up from the pit, bits of newspaper dangling from between his teeth. He looked at Cozy Glow expectantly.
She pointed at Spy, who was staring up at the beast in confusion. "Shake him up!"
With a quick bark, Cerberus complied, seizing the larger cage with two of his heads and rattling Spy around like a rat in a barrel. Finally he released the cage and tossed it against the wall; Spy ended wrong way up, stunned and bewildered.
"Now," Cozy Glow continued, "put my cage back on a plateau, then put his on a different one. As far away from me as possible!"
The three-headed hound picked up the filly's cage much more carefully than he had the larger one, and turned to carry her away. Spy saw tears in her eyes as she watched him. "I thought you understood," she said quietly. "I thought you, of all creatures, understood."
And then she was gone. The doors to Tartarus closed with a deep thud, eliminating the last rays of sunlight from the cavern.
What... what had just happened? Why did she react so strongly? He'd known she fancied herself a villain, but to forego escape just because...?
As he sat there, trying to organize his thoughts, he heard hoofsteps approach from behind him. Mare and centaur watched as, in the distance, Cerberus carefully set his charge down and started to head back. "...what happened to her?" Spy asked softly, not really expecting an answer. "What causes a little girl to think she is a villain?"
She sighed. "That's the million bit question, isn't it? Nobody knows. Except maybe the Princesses, and they're not telling." Tempest paused. "For what it's worth, though, I was rooting for you."
"Then-"
"Not to get out, obviously. But... with her. She needs a friend. A real friend, not one she's twisted around. You're the closest thing she's got."
He didn't answer. Cerberus returned, and carried his cage deeper into the cavern, toward a different stairway.
Then he heard a slow, sad guitar playing a familiar tune. Her voice rose in song. "Villain to villain..."
He snorted. "Oh, good. A reprise." He couldn't worry about that, though. He had more on his mind than impromptu enforced musical routines.
"Villain to villain..."
He would have to rethink his plans for tonight if he was going to salvage the situation. It would be self-defeating to try to employ the Tirek persona again. "No use for disguise," he mused.
And then, without thinking about it, without ever even realizing it, his voice shifted into a clear, opera-quality tenor. "My last recourse is to talk to the horse..."
Then, despite his dejection and despair, he found himself smiling a most malicious, wicked, evil smile. "...and give her a big... SURPRISE."
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That was a great fight scene. I loved the tactics involved. I did not expect Cozy to react like that though. I guess Spy was right earlier about her being enabled, which doesn't go well with her desire to be seen as a villain. Still, to prefer that cage over freedom...
Let us hope this won't be the death of Tempest.
seriously though, what happened to Cozy to be like that? Until canon say otherwise, my headcanon would be DWKs one: "not enuff"
moar, sooner, gib
This was amazing and more magic for spy I guess. You have done a great job with the spies personality being in what is his polar opposite acting realisticly.
There's an extra space between 'sentient' and 'ungulate', but the actual reason I quoted this is: a hint that Spy will return home at some point? It could go either way, I suppose, but the '1987' makes me wonder.
I dunno about that, but I suspect I know why she's so insistent on being a villain now: if she isn't a villain - if she isn't an irredeemable cartoon bad guy - then she's a little girl who's done terrible, terrible things. And what's worse? Being a cartoon bad guy with the credentials to match? Or being a filly who's literally been condemned to hell?
11038260
There doesn't seem to be an extra space there. Maybe it's just your reader making it look weird.
And, well, I already hinted that Spy would go home fairly early on - the intro to chapter 5 ("Sorry to horn in unannounced"), to be specific, so no new information there. As for 1987, that's the canonical year of Scout's death, per literal word of God.
11038275
It only appeared in the comment editor, so maybe FIMFiction hides excess spaces automatically?
This is a test of that. ...yup, it hid the extra spaces. Hmm, lemme try something else...
HOLY FANTABULOUS FISH BATMAN!!! That was stupendously superb! I look forward to see how this dastardly dressing assassin will fare now
Oh Spy, don't you know? Family is temporary. A life sentence with another prisoner? Now that's forever.
Hot damn, what is Cozy Glow's deal? Is she trying to live up to legacy?
Oh, now this is interesting. If I copy and paste the text from my previous comment into Notepad++ or something, there's only one space between 'This' and 'is'. If I copy and paste it into this editor, though, the extra spaces I put in show up. How in the world does the site do that?
Yes.
I miss this
And that’s the moment that he knew, he messed up.
Let's see what kind of self-blame she's carrying...
Though, he did inadvertantly tell her she's not good enough to be part of his family. Hrm.
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I don't see spaces?
But in general copy\paste actions in webpage content can be controlled.
Ooo, fascinating.
Great chapter
the funny thing cozy doesn’t realize is that spy isn’t inherently a ‘villain ’. Criminal definitely, but at the end of the day spy doesn’t dream of taking over the world or has delusions of grandeur, he only wants to get paid and see scout’s mother
Oh well lets see how he can fix this.
Kind of feels like a cheat, that she's able to just cover her body in actual electricity like that.
Even Pegasi are show to be mildly effected by electric shocks caused by lighting, and they work with the stuff, to say nothing of Unicorn vulnerabilities to each other's magic.
I don't want to know what that is, do I? It appears to be mucus? Is that right? Please tell me it's just mucus.
She is too! She's a lovable little something or other. You take that back Spy.
Isn't the whole point of this escape, that he doesn't really trust the princesses to find Cozy a good family anyway? I think the goal and the method are self defeating here.
So even Spy is human. He says dumb stuff when his guard is down, and he isn't thinking things through.
One has to wonder what level of control over Cerberus, Cozy has, and whether this whole thing could've been a lot easier then it was, had her influence with him been taken into account.
Then again maybe he would've sided with Tempest, although I can't imagine why, given the portrayal of his and her personalities, and their working relationship.
Come on Cozy! You were the ambitious one! You were supposed to ditch Spy, and come up with a brilliant plan to upstage him, not sit on your tail and twiddle your hooves because you were angry!
What happened to that brilliant filly that I used to know?
I mean technically, you almost died, but still!
So looks like the story isn't over yet. Interesting.
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I think humors is being used to refer to fish guts here, in the medieval era the four humors were the bodily fluids believed to be responsible for health and well-being. If you were sick it was blamed on having too much of one or another hence bloodletting. I know three of them are blood, yellow bile, and black bile, I don't remember the 4th but that's probably for the best
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According to the graph I read online it was Phlegm. Also both Black and Yellow bile, so nice to know I was in the ballpark there, and that it wasn't anything worse than fish guts, even though that is admittedly, still pretty terrible.
Thanks so much for the reply!
Well played. I never thought Spy had that level of pun in him at the end.
So close, and yet so far...
Amazing chapter as always.
THAT was a twist
*crit*