Philology
---
“…I managed to get us far enough away from the castle that we could hide until Pet snapped out of it. After that, she just flew us down from Canterlot; apparently sixteen hours wasn’t long enough for Dawn to set up tighter air patrols around the city. From there we just had to wander through the Everfree loudly enough to trip a Loyalist warning. When Pet and I got dragged into the main base, AJ just…” Broken Shield laughed, an oddly genuine sound. “She was damned happy to see me alive.”
“How’d she die, then?”
“Hmm?” Broken gave a somewhat mildly-surprised look at Applejack.
“We heard about Fluttershy, Rainbow, an’ Pinkie. An’ Rarity, Ah guess.” The mare shifted herself, levelling her eyes at the scarred stallion. “Y’didn’t say anythin’ about your Applejack.”
“…Ah.” Broken blinked, his grin fading. He raised a hoof and halfheartedly waved it at Pip; the latter stallion stared at him for a few moments before clearing his throat.
“When Lady Dawn determined Broken Shield’s intentions, she began devoting every effort she could to reach him. Once we found where he was hiding, she sent me alongside a dozen Risen earth ponies and unicorns. The resistance was fanatical, but easily dismantled; you were the last line of defence, Miss Applejack.” The stallion coughed. “At the time, I believed that you were simply a mare who had been altered to resemble Lady Tellus. I… dealt with you, similarly to how I had your subordinates.”
The farmmare blinked, but nodded. Broken glanced around the room.
“Well? Anypony else?”
Twilight tentatively raised her hoof. “A little while ago, Pip said that Applejack had gone to join Dawn shortly after you escaped the second time. Assuming that she ever even would, how could she if everypony else was dead?”
“Easy. Take four Risen mares, cast the appearance-shifting spell on them. Instant not-dead Elemental Council members. Plus one for AJ.”
“And how does that spell work, if I might ask?” Rarity spoke up. “You’ve used it regularly, at least since your arrival here, but from what happened in the Boutique, you aren’t changing yourself quite as drastically as Pet claimed she was.”
Broken’s grin returned at that. “No, no I’m not. For either of those.” He took a breath. “I never really learned the spell that changed Pet, that was Dawn’s creation, and not all of us can learn every single spell we come across. Pet had actually figured out her own little disguising spell, that’s the one she used on herself and taught to me, but she didn’t realize that it was different from Dawn’s.” He shrugged. “I’m pretty sure Dawn used hers on me to make me worse than I should be, physically. Just so that she could ‘prove’ how weak I was and promise that she could make it better if I gave in…”
There was a period of quiet before Rainbow suddenly gave a low chuckle. Every eye turned to her.
“I was just thinking. It’s not really funny, but… since your Celestia sun-bombed Appleloosa and Manehatten after she lost Luna, what did Dawn do after she lost Spike and Pet and the rest of us? If she’d already taken down the cloud cities like you said, did she start throwing pegasi in the camps? Set the Everfree on fire? Blow up Vanhoover or wherever?”
Broken sighed. “Actually, she pulled every Risen guard back to Canterlot, had them kill every non-Risen pony still in the castle, though admittedly there weren’t many left after the wall-shattering shitfest she threw, and then she locked it down for three months, her only two appearances being to announce Spike’s death – eight years and seven months after the fact, give or take – and to show off the mare she claimed to be Applejack, alongside the mares she claimed to be the other Elements. There were massive riots and looting in Ponyville and just about everywhere else, a bunch of the still-remaining camps got overrun by their own prisoners and turned into bandit forts, Vanhoover and the remnants of the cloud cities entered open rebellion for the FourHooves and Shadowbolts, respectively, and there were scattered reports that either Gryphonia or Saddle Arabia had invaded Baltimare. My money was on the bridle-biters, they weren’t the ones losing a war against the dragons, but I was a little too distracted to really give a damn.”
Everyone stared at him before slowly turning their eyes to Pipsqueak. He seemed to sense the unasked question.
“I cannot confirm or deny reports pertaining to riotous acts in major cities, internment camp rebellions, the claiming of cities for tribal supremacist rebel groups, nor the invasion of a major city by foreign powers.” He blinked. “In fact, I do not recall anything from immediately before Broken’s second capture up until my orders to prevent his destruction of alternative timelines through any means necessary.”
“That’s a pretty big span a’time, there.” Applejack noted. Pip nodded.
“I have little doubt that Lady Dawn would have wanted to erase any chance that I might remember the deaths of Ladies Thalia and Rainbow Dash, as well as whatever other knowledge of mine she thought might threaten her.”
Broken and Twilight both nodded. Rainbow glanced between them before standing.
“I’m gonna go check on Pinkie. Later, everypony.”
Scattered waves and good-byes followed the prismatic pegasus out the door. Broken glanced between everypony before his eye fell on Fluttershy.
“You got anything to ask, or…?”
The mare nodded slightly, taking a breath before locking her eyes onto Broken.
“How did Pet die?”
Broken blinked. Then blinked again, harder. Then he raised a hoof and put it against his head.
“I… actually don’t know. She was still alive when she cast the time jump spell on me.” He glanced at Pip. “Did you-“
“I and two other Risen guards breached the chamber where you held Pet. You attempted to attack us, injuring one of the others, but I stepped and kicked you into the opposite wall. Pet began to panic, and I ordered her to perform the same spell on me as she had on you. She did so.” He blinked. “The last thing that I remember before the shift between timelines was a rose-coloured spike of magic sprouting out of her temple.”
“Oh. Well, there you have it.” Broken shrugged. Everypony (and Spike, except Pip) had their eyes on him once more.
“You killed her?” Surprisingly, it was Fluttershy again, moving to stare Broken in the eye. “You… you went through all that trouble to get her out of there, you said all those things about how important she was… and then you just killed her?”
“No, I… Faust. It wasn’t a ‘just’ thing.” Broken put his head low, but kept his gaze met with Fluttershy’s. “I was planning to kill her from the second I figured out what she was capable of. If I hadn’t convinced her in the castle, if she’d tried to run at any point, I’d have put her down then and there.” Rarity and Fluttershy gasped. Applejack, Twilight, and Spike grimaced. “It’s not like I wanted to, but she was too dangerous, too important to let Dawn keep. Even after we escaped, if we got caught – or if, say, the Loyalists had been found out and a dozen and one Risen ponies were bearing down on us - I was going to put a barrier around her brain and crush it to nothing. Quick, clean, painless. Because I can promise you that it was better for her to be dead than to go back to Dawn.”
“’Cause’a what Dawn could do with her.” Applejack said, not as a question. Broken nodded.
“And because of what Dawn had done to her.” Rarity added. Broken nodded again.
“If you want to hate me for it, that’s fine. But there was no way – no way - that I was letting Dawn take her back.”
Fluttershy held his eye for a few more moments before sighing and glancing away; everyone else allowed themselves to relax as the tension diffused. Spike seemed to pause halfway to sagging against the wall, his brow raising and head snapping to Broken.
“How were you still there?”
The scarred stallion put his eyes to the dragon, confused. “What?”
“Pip said that he kicked you away from Pet, and then you killed her when she was doing the spell on him. But didn’t she send you to this timeline first? How could you have killed her if you’d already been sent over here?”
“What?” If anything, Broken was more confused. “How could- Did Polished Closet not tell you?”
“Tell us what? Spike’s making a good point.” Twilight noted. Broken glanced at her for a moment before dragging his hoof down his face.
“No, he’s really not. Pip and I didn’t get sent over here, these, we- gah!” He cut off with several mutterings that seemed to relate to Shining Armor and a severe brain injury before sucking in a breath through his teeth. “We used a modified time-copy alteration spell. Takes an imprint of your body as it was when the spell was cast, shoots it to the target timeline, builds a body based on the imprint out of nearby organic materials and magic. I don’t remember anything past when the spell completed because my brain- er, the brain in the- because for all intents and purposes I wasn’t there.” He scraped his tongue against his teeth. “I’m basically a clone of the Broken that had the spell cast on him. Whatever happened to him – me – after the spell was cast? I have no idea and it doesn’t affect me in the slightest. I’m assuming he died because of what Pip said and because I remember planning to split my root.”
Twilight, Rarity, and Spike shuddered. Applejack furrowed her brow.
“Ah’m guessin’ that’s a bad thing?”
“It’s an incredibly painful method of suicide, dear, not to mention quite destructive to one’s surroundings.” Rarity blinked, turning a pale green beneath her coat. “Though in such a situation I imagine that somepony like Broken might see the advantage in it.”
“You imagine correctly.” Broken confirmed. He pulled a thinly-folded sheaf of paper or parchment out from beneath his eyepatch, pushing it towards her.
“And that would be…?”
He flashed her a toothy grin. “Just some details you might be interested in, related to ponies of… mutual interest to us.” He gave a glance at Twilight as Rarity picked up the note. “Nothing world-shattering or mind-breaking, I swear.”
“I’m sure Rarity would tell me if it was.” Twilight replied. Rarity put on a faux-offended air.
“Well of course I would, Twilight! To think that there might be even a sliver of doubt!” The mare grinned before putting up her nose and turning to the door, walking out of the room in the stiffest manner possible. Applejack just shook her head and followed her, with Fluttershy a short distance behind. Broken seemed to loosen himself as the door closed, stretching and cracking his jaw. He stopped when he saw Twilight’s eyes on him.
“Something else?”
Twilight started to shake her head, but paused. “Just… that body’s not your original one, then?”
Broken shrugged. “It may as well be. Last I heard there wasn’t any differences. One of the ones who could check timelines even copied himself to a different timeline, then the copy sent a copy back. Supposedly that’s how they were going to keep mapping past the highest radius pony they had, just have copies send copies and the one at the end of the chain just sends themselves back up, but then they found the timeline-killing blob, and then there was the Revolution…” Twilight was almost glad that he could say the word without a growl, but a grimace still spawned from it. He glanced out the window at the orange sky.
“Damn, that took longer than I’d planned. Think I’d better be getting back to the station before they panic and Celestia comes down and smites me.” He cricked his neck as Twilight gave him a smirk. “What’s on the menu for tomorrow, my most gracious host?”
“Studying.” Broken blinked at her. “Hey, you’re the one who claimed to have been in Gryphonia for the last however-many years. I’m just making sure you can back that up.”
The stallion shrugged. “Fair enough. Might be nice to go a day or two without ending up in chains. Or a hospital.”
“Those were your largely your fault, you know.”
“Your point being?”
Twilight’s retort was cut off as the door slammed open, revealing a distraught Pinkie Pie being hovered over by a concerned Rainbow Dash. The former mare moved to Twilight, pulling books apparently from nowhere and slamming them to the floor in front of the unicorn.
“Pinkie-“ WHAM “-what-“ WHAM “-are y-“ WHAM “-ou doi-“ WHAM “-ng?”
“I’m not her.” Pinkie said simply, her voice strained. “I’m not her, I-I’m not-“
“Pinks, please, you don’t need to-“ Rainbow began, before the pink mare rounded on her.
“I’M NOT HER!” She pulled out another tome and swung it down; it was an inch from the stack she’d made when a rose-coloured bubble appeared in-between, the sudden solidity bouncing the book from her grasp and into the air. Another piece of magic caught it, pulling it over to a blank-faced Broken.
“Primary Structures of Equine Anatomy.” He read off the cover, before his eye flicked to Pinkie with a raised brow. The barrier around the other books moved towards him, sliding across the floor and dragging the encased texts to within hoof’s reach. He picked the one off the top. “Skeletal Formation and Structural Differences between Tribes.” He placed it with the previous one before he cycled through the rest. “Basics of the Nervous System. Equine and Other Neurology. Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Digestion – Now Including Non-Herbivores.” His eye went back to Pinkie. “You’ve been reading these.”
The mare nodded her head vigorously before she froze and started to slowly shake it. “I’m not her, I’m not her, I-“
“Damn right you aren’t.” Broken said simply. The frenetic mare froze again, allowing Rainbow to catch her shoulders. “Cotton Candy was an idiot. She didn’t know anything of what she was doing – sure, it interested her, but she’d never actually bothered to learn anything about it before she started cutting things open. She ‘learned’ entirely through experience.” He held one of the books up. “You want to know these things – they interest you and you’re bothering to learn about them, with a book rather than a knife. That puts you leagues ahead of her, leagues further in understanding precisely how evil what she was doing was.” The book floated over to Pinkie, gently sliding to the floor in front of her. She managed to glance between it and him before he started talking again.
“I’d suggest you keep at it. That way, if you’re stupid enough to end up going with Dawn after all of this, at least you’ll know exactly what you’re doing.” His lips were curved upwards, but the smile was closer to a smug smirk than a reassuring grin.
Pinkie looked at him, then Rainbow, then Spike and Pip and Twilight. Then back at the book. Then she shook her head, twisted, and vanished, leaving Rainbow to fall into her former spot. There were a few seconds of silence before Broken snorted.
“Told you she could already step.” The cycloptic unicorn said, directing the comment at the other one-eyed stallion in the room. A very subtle look of confusion came over Pip.
“I do not recall claiming that she couldn’t, Broken Shield.” He blinked. “And that wasn’t stepping. A close attempt at it, perhaps, but her form was sloppy enough to slow her down significantly. I could have caught her easily had I been directed to do so.”
“You say ‘slow’, you say ‘sloppy’, we say ‘still too fast to see’.” Broken pulled the book back to him, glancing at Rainbow. “Make sure she knows that she doesn’t need to worry about it. If she’s still scared of Thalia enough to just abandon these, I seriously doubt that she’d be stupid enough to go with Dawn.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll do that.” Rainbow shook her head, turning to leave before glancing over her shoulder. “Er…” She moved to say something, but it seemed to catch in her throat.
“Mhmm?”
“Th-thanks. For what you said. Being all reassuring and stuff.”
Broken shrugged. “If she’s more confident, she’s more difficult to sway, and the harder it is for Dawn to get to her the better. If she knows what she’s doing she won’t be able to convince herself that it’s okay to rip apart ponies while they’re still alive.”
“Right, but even then-“
“Don’t worry about it, Rainbow. Just doing what I can.”
The pegasus gave Twilight a halfway concerned look before leaving.
A turn of the moon and sun later, two ponies held each other’s eyes over an ocean of paper and parchment.
“Gavian versus le Glide.”
“Six wars over forty-one years, fighting over a strip of land near the Grand Falls.”
“Won by?”
“The le Glides, now the la Grands.”
“How do two nomadic clans get into a forty-one year conflict over land?”
“They both cycled into the area every seven years or so, in what seemed to be a coincidence but was actually a cover for a series of illicit trysts between the two chiefs-“
“Broken!” Twilight sent a light glare over the textbook she held, meeting the rolling eye of the stallion in front of her.
“Come on, Twilight. I’m just trying to liven it up a bit. Not like I think that’s what actually happened.”
The studious mare’s glare maintained as she huffed. “I know, and I understand, but you need to be careful; this is Gryphonia’s history, and the traditions of the clans in regards to ritual warfare are still held quite dearly there even if ninety percent of the country’s moved past the clan system. Somepony who’d spent a significant amount of time there would have quickly learned not to joke around about that kind of thing.” She shook her head. “You were there for-“
“Claiming ten years, actually six months. I figure I can blame any small mix-ups between here and there on brain damage.”
“That… might work, I guess, but didn’t you learn anything about your Gryphonia’s clan warfare rituals?”
“Actually, yes. Two clans would fight until one completely demolished the other, at which point the victorious chief would rip the loser’s head from their shoulders and wear their skull whilst raping their wives or husbands. This… four-decade ‘steal-flag-bonk-heads’ thing is new to me. Besides, it isn’t like I’m giving a seminar on the intricacies of historical Gryphonian politics this evening. Unless you have some reason to hurry on this, I’m fine with taking, oh, I don’t know, more than a day to get through it...” Broken rolled his shoulders as Twilight blinked. “In fact, even if you do have some reason to hurry-“
“Alright, alright…” Twilight raised her hooves. “We can take a break. There is research indicating a certain ratio of rest-to-study that allows for optimal solidification of information in the memory, so… what time is it right now?”
“About four!” Spike’s sleepy voice emerged from under a loose pile of books. He stood up from out of it, yawning.
“And we started at seven this morning, so that means…” The purple unicorn trailed off. “Broken, when was your curfew again?”
“Before dark. Celestia wanted to make sure the guards could see me without killing their night vision.”
“Right.” Twilight was silent for a few seconds before she slammed the book in front of her shut and sent her eyes to Broken. “Well, looks like we’re done for the day. I’m fairly impressed that you managed nine hours of study with only a half-hour lunch break.”
Broken shrugged. “There wasn’t really much to do in hiding if you weren’t on watch or preparing for a raid. Admittedly those took up about ninety percent of your time, but… you learn to deal with boredom and take in information.” He grinned as his eye twitched. “That being said, I’d really, really like to go for a walk.”
“Well, it would probably be good to stretch our legs, get some energy out…” Twilight stepped away from the table, Pip materializing next to her. He and Broken stared each other down for several moments before simultaneously glancing away. Twilight glanced towards Spike, only to find the dragon already asleep again, contorted on top of the books he’d found himself piled in. She shifted him to a more comfortable spot before heading out of the library with the two stallions in tow; Broken took and held a deep breath, only letting it go a half-block away. Twilight glanced over at him.
“You seem to be feeling better. Than you did when you first came here, I mean.”
“Shelter knows what he’s doing; I’ve built enough muscle and fat that I'm close to looking like a pony in my ‘normal’ form now. All the parasites are out, I’m managing to keep the few real teeth I still have, and he mentioned something about artificial ribs before I left the last time.” He shook his head. “I told him that he shouldn’t be putting as much effort into me as he is, but he wouldn’t hear it. If he wasn’t so smart I’d swear he was some kind of mule.”
Twilight winced at the casual speciism, but put her focus on the more pertinent question. “What do you mean that he shouldn’t put ‘so much’ effort into you? You’re an ill pony, of course he’s going to try to help you.”
Broken rolled his eye. “Please. I’d rather he help ponies who aren’t going to die before my daughter is born.” He put a level glance on Twilight. “And yes, I know how long he said I have. I’d say two years is optimistic, but he’s the one who actually cares, so I’ll defer to his judgement.”
“Why wouldn’t you care about how long you have left to live?” Twilight asked, slightly incredulous despite his previous claims on the subject. “And don’t say ‘because all that matters is that I make sure Dawn is dead’ because, newsflash, you have a better chance at that if you manage to live longer.”
“See, that’s just it, though.” Broken slowed as he talked, moving a hoof in wide gestures. “You think of it as me needing to make sure that I stay alive longer so that I might make it to when Dawn comes out. I see it as me needing to make sure that I kill Dawn before I die, regardless of when that death comes. You’re a smart mare, you can understand the difference between those.”
Twilight nodded, slightly hesitant. “I’m focused on you staying alive, you’re focused on killing me.”
“I’m aware that our – me and Dawn - being alive is not necessarily a good thing, while you refuse to accept that.”
“Because you’re a pony regardless of how you feel about yourself-“
“Because you’re afraid to die regardless of who it might save-“
“Emphasis on ‘might’-“
“Emphasis on ‘save’.”
Twilight watched him for a few moments before shaking herself. “This isn’t about saving anypony, Broken, not this part of it. Do you really feel- Do you, or do you not, want to die?”
“…no, I don’t think I do.” The stallion said after nearly thirty seconds of silence. Twilight’s gaze focused more solidly on him, but he met it easily. “But it doesn’t matter what I want.”
“Wh- yes, it does most certainly matter what you want. Broken, you can’t keep thinking like that, like you have to give everything up. You’ve already beaten Dawn, just by coming back and warning us about her. You don’t need to sacrifice yourself any more than you already have.”
The stallion laughed, with something that nearly sounded like mirth. “You say that like I have a choice.”
“But you-“
“Can you heal my scars?”
Twilight’s ear twitched. “What?”
“I want my scars gone. I want them to have never existed, I want the things that made them to have never happened. Can you do that?”
“Wh- no, but-“
“I want to be back in my own timeline. I want the Princesses, my Princesses, to still be alive. I want my sister to be the little socially-awkward bookworm she always was. I want my Equestria to be whole again. I want to see my family again, to kiss my wife and daughter and hold them close and never, ever let them go.” His eye was solid and clear, his gaze locked with hers even as his breath shuddered. “There are many things that I ‘want’, Twilight. But I can’t have them.”
“…and what about what you can have?”
“I’m sorry?”
Twilight swallowed, shaking her head quickly as if to clear it. “What is there that you want that you can have? That isn’t literally unobtainable or no longer existent?”
Broken looked the purple mare up and down before he gave a hard breath through his nostrils. “Two things. First, I want to make sure that Dawn never gains power. Preferably through killing her or you, though causing enough brain damage to render you a drooling vegetable would probably work too.”
“And second?”
“I want to make damned sure that I’m not around when Dazzle is born.”
Twilight’s eyes went wide, her brow shooting to her hairline. Broken seemed to take this as a sign to continue.
“Cadance would hate me, should hate me, for what I’ve become. I’m a violent, sadistic madpony. I don’t deserve to see her or Dazzle again, no matter how much I might ‘want’ to. I’m not so monstrous as to risk destroying Cadance’s trust in Shining by letting her see the pony he’s capable of being.” A thin smile broke across his mouth. “I’ve been able to stop myself, to focus on watching you more than on seeing her. But when Dazzle’s born, when I can see them both, together, happy, safe… I have trouble trusting myself to keep away from them. So I plan to make absolutely certain that I have no chance of ruining their lives any more than I may already have.”
“You’re going to kill yourself. Even if Dawn’s not dead?”
Broken gave a small nod. “I’d planned it for when she was two-and-a-half, when everything first happened to my timeline, because if you hadn’t turned by then then I was fairly sure that I would have trained everypony enough to put you down when she did come out. But you, you actually helped me realize, o-or remember, exactly how much damage I might do if I waited that long.” He took another shaky breath. “I… I want, I guess, to be a scary story, to them. I don’t ever want to be ‘real’, not to Cadance and especially not to Dazzle. Even more so if I end up having to kill you rather than Dawn.”
Twilight was both aware that she probably shouldn’t be as calm as she was whilst discussing her own potential murder and glad that the streets were mostly empty for this conversation. “You’re talking about a lot of possibilities here, Broken. Maybe you’ll need to kill me rather than Dawn. Maybe you won’t be able to stop yourself from seeing them. Maybe Cadance will react poorly to seeing you. And from earlier, maybe you even need to worry about any of this because Dawn coming out is a very, very small possibility given the forewarning you’ve allowed us!”
“…we’re never going to agree on that, are we?” Broken moved his head as if to start shaking it before he suddenly froze. Twilight and Pip stopped with him, the latter mutely mirroring the former’s questioning gaze.
“Broken, are you-“
“That stallion.” His voice was low, but hard enough to cut her off. “I just saw him, walking in the same direction.” Twilight followed Broken’s glare, her eyes finding a rather typical stallion calmly walking down the street.
“So?”
“So how and why the buck did he get far enough ahead of us to get out of my sight, loop back around behind us far enough that I didn’t notice him come back, and then slowly walk up to pass us again, in less than two minutes, without showing the slightest exertion?”
“Maybe it isn’t the same pony.”
“They look bloody identical.”
Twilight blinked, once more glancing at the stallion in question. “…does he have the same cutie mark?”
“Ye- ah. Um.” Broken leaned forward and squinted. “…damnit.”
“I’m willing to bet that they just look alike. You might be surprised how similar a lot of ponies look around here.” Twilight walked over and gave him a light pat on the shoulder. “It’s not like Dawn’s changing ponies around yet, right?”
“Right. Of course.” Broken took a breath. “Sorry about that. Paranoia probably got the best of me.”
“Well, you didn’t jump and attack him, so you were just being observant. I’m not going to tell you that that’s a bad thing.”
A small grin formed on the side of Broken’s face, and his steps ever-so-mildly gained a small bit of energy. Pip, on the other hoof, had slowed significantly, lagging behind the both of them; Twilight let Broken trot ahead a short ways as she checked on the stoic stallion.
“Is everything okay, Pipsqueak?”
The stallion blinked, head moving as if to nod before grinding to a halt and slowly shaking instead. “I- n-no. Miss Twilight. I do not think that everything is okay. I apologize for not saying so sooner, but...”
Twilight’s brow furrowed. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt, is your head-“
“I am as healthy as I can be, Miss Twilight.” Pip stated before vigorously shaking his head. “But… you asked Broken Shield if those two ponies had the same cutie mark, and he answered uncertainly, correct?”
Twilight could feel a small amount of ice building in her stomach alongside a small head building in the back of her skull. She pushed them both down, not wanting what she was expecting him to say to be true. “Yes… yes, he did.”
The stallion swallowed. “I saw their cutie marks, Miss Twilight. They were identical. Which is only a part of the problem.”
“And what problem would that be, Pip?” She asked quietly, keeping as much ice out of her voice as she could. Pipsqueak took a breath before responding.
“The second one wasn’t a pony.”
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DUN DUN DUUUUUUNNNN
Nice to have some questions answered and left on a good note. Like how you manage to create a situation in the end were more
questions arise and keeps the reader interested in the next chapter.
Changelings.
5716216 Aaaaand you just made me imagine Pip stepping through a whole swarm of Changlings with Chrysalis being like
5716216
5716442
Let it not be said that I forget significant plot threads.
Now I'm not saying changelings, but...cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/19461541.jpg
Odd, I keep on missing chapters somehow
Oh well, what can you do about it?
Anyhow, I really don't know where this story is going anymore. Sending a clone into the past/alternate universe doesn't have quite the same impact as actually travelling there yourself, at least to me. Not to mention how lightly Broken tells it. "Oh yeah I'm actually a clone, did I forget to mention that? I'm actually a tad disappointed by that. But just a tad
5717963
The 'clone' thing was mentioned in chapter 1, so it's honestly going in almost the same direction as I'd planned at the start (at least in that area). That's also the reason that Broken's so casual about it - he'd already told Shining, so he figured that Shining had told the rest of them. Not his problem if they had no idea what he was talking about.
Were there a possibility for Broken to have actually gone through without a clone, he'd probably have taken it. But the time-copy alteration method was the only one that had been developed, and there wasn't much importance placed on developing alternate methods - given that it allows for gathering information in other timelines, amongst other things, while also making it impossible to actually lose one of the rather-rare ponies who can take themselves and/or others to the other timelines (given that even if the one in the alternate timeline gets killed, another of the exact same pony can be sent), Celestia wasn't much interested in fixing what wasn't broken.
5718891 Fair enough, though it's been a long time since I read chapter 1. Might have to revisit that one of these days.
Man, seriously, fuck you and your cliffhangers, you brilliant bastard you.
Oh man, what a great chapter. Looks like we have wrapped up the flashbacks, finally understand everything about the world of Rising Dawn, and now get to see Broken and Pip team up to obliterate the changlings. It will be truly awesome.
Changelings VS Broken Shield = Lots of dead changelings.
Changelings VS Dawn!Pip = Lots of dead changelings.
Changelings VS Broken Shield + Dawn!Pip = No more changelings.