This story is a sequel to Yona gets to smash!
But as always, can be read without reading previous entries as it is a simultaneous, separate story.
Hearing recent rumors about Changelings on Gryphus, Thorax decides to send an expedition in order to see if there is any truth in them. He hopes that finding another Hive, and teaching them to share love instead of stealing it, can help the changeling races become more known and accepted in the wider world. And who better to join such mission then Ocellus, who already proved herself in befriending others?
However, the expedition quickly turns into a disaster. Barely escaping with her life, Ocellus is stranded, a stranger in a strange land, alone and scared. Forced into sudden responsibility that she never asked for, the Student of Friendship will find in herself strength and courage she never knew she had, while Pharynx and others scramble for any way to rescue her.
But as she and her friends do their best to spread harmony and peace over the world, the ancient evil stirs...
As usual, references to Equestria at War are present, but knowledge of EaW is not required at all to enjoy the story.
As cool as it'd be to literally saw the concept of war in half like some metaphysical magic trick...I'm pretty sure you meant "sow" instead.
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Fixed, thank you! And about 'sawing' war in half, we can always ask Yona, she seems to have a knack for solving wars in hilarious ways ;).
Oh dear. Then Greneclyf may prove to be the very last place one would want to be shortly.
Or, depending on how you look at it, it may prove to be the exact place one would want to be...
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Well, Ocellus definitely isn't lucky to be there. On the other hand, if not for her, Greneclyf would end up in a pretty bad situation in the end.
But without doubt she would prefer to be in Gallus's place. Or Sandbar's.
Well...excepting the clearly implied age limit to voting--gotta be this tall in order to vote!
*sputters* What kind of criminal investigator are you? Of course you should've examined the body! I can't think of any instance or any crime possible to commit where you wouldn't want to do that!
So on that note...yeah, it's definitely a set-up.
More like every reason to believe the changeling given these circumstances. I have no idea if this cop is in on it or not, but I hope they're fired once this is all over, or at least butted out of conducting any criminal investigations in the future, because they clearly have no idea how this is supposed to work.
Little late for that, captain, considering you were literally dismissing pretty much everything about anything that didn't frame the changeling until now, and I'm pretty sure you're only humoring them now so to be diplomatic and not much else.
Nor have I. Normally, they're actually somewhat competent at things like this, but this one clearly isn't if they're only stopping to consider that things might not be as it appeared at a passing glance ONLY when someone else directly challenged them on it.
Eh, well, at least they're a redshirt. That's what you get for assuming instead of doing an actual investigation!
Well, yeah, but you can't exactly just dismiss it without proof either. I mean, look at them! They're both traumatized and terrified beyond any point where they could be acting, and even if they were, you still have three creatures reported as dead that both need retrieving and confirming that they are actually dead. That all should be more than enough reason to at least play it safe and do some investigating to find out what's up and what's really going down here.
If she's really that distrusting on principle for all changelings in general, how the heck did they ever establish any level of peace, let alone active diplomatic relations, at all? She'd clearly have no motive to if she's that quick to believe any changeling is up to no good, regardless of both the situation or the presented evidence surrounding it.
And he deserved every bit of it...but we're not here to talk about that.
So...this one was decidedly more...intense than the past few. But it was definitely effective!
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Yeah, the investigation was... not as thorough as it should have been, to put it lightly. As you already guessed, more things are happening here then just a misunderstanding.
Well, this character is nicely summed up in EaW as "Politically Connected", meaning they are easier to promote and definitely less effective. As we can clearly see here, and she even mentions later that she spends more time with politicians then with crime cases. So yeah, she is not the best person for the job.
It always pays for politicians to have friends rather then enemies, and covering up their inadequacies with charisma and good smile is part of that ;).
Yeah, funny thing. Canonically in EaW, situation between Greneclyf and it's neighbors is so bad, that if Gytha does even one thing to protest - a small verbal protest even, or defending her people who are being arrested and lynched - entire Riverlands throw changelings out, prohibit them from returning and generally become very unfriendly. It's that bad. Everyone gave them benefit of the doubt, sure... but only if they do literally nothing to stand up for themselves. They were paranoid beyond belief, and (in some cases) racist on top of it.
And here, in this story, the situation is very similar (if not worse) thanks to some very bad things, as we see in this chapter. Someone wants Greneclyf to fail, and has some... special means to ensure it, as we see.
Oh, that Prince really deserved it. I won't lie, having him fall off that hill in Yona's story was hilarious. First time I ever wrote a story with Comedy tag, but it proved to be really nice change of pace. Especially compared to poor Ocellus.
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To be frank, she was the worst person for the job. I don't think I can convey fully just how much she dropped the ball for...basically everything in that whole situation. I don't really see how she could have even gotten to the role and rank she did, because there's no way she could've without that ineptitude becoming blatantly apparent well before then...unless she was just given the post out of sheer nepotism rather than actual genuine skill, which would then raise many unflattering questions about how their overall government operates that I don't think was your intent.
In any case, it stretches believability a bit too much, which is probably why I focused on it so much. I think instead of trying to justify why she would do (or rather NOT do) all of this as...just because she's bad at her job, it'd probably be smarter to provide in-story a plausible explanation as to why all of these obvious signs of baddies were missed, something other than "they just didn't think to check" because clearly that doesn't go far enough for this scenario.
It's not game-breaking for this fic, of course, but something to note regardless.
*shrugs* Just didn't really have anything specific I felt worth commenting on the fight scenes. They were fine and did what they needed to, so there wasn't really much else to say.
The only thing I can really think of to note about them is that they were a bit more "telling" than "showing," but I'm not really concerned about that in this instance, because you were clearly going for a profound, thought-provoking, philosophical sort of approach to portraying it for thematic reasons, which naturally is going to lean a little more "telly" than "showy," so I wouldn't loose sleep over it.
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Yeah, not my intention. Looking back at it, I should have fleshed out how some people there had an agenda in getting Greneclyf to fail for political and ideological reasons (so not everything there was just some ancient evil force), or drop the incompetence a little bit. Since I did neither, the situation looks a little out of place.
I can only say that a), there are more political reasons behind it, mostly boiling to some people wanting to get easy political credit over 'those bloody foreigners' issues, but I skimmed over them which was a mistake, and b) I promise to do better next time :). Thank you for the feedback, it did help me improve my writing in the future.
Yeah, this scenes ended a little heavy-handed at times, but I like them still. Will do my best to improve in the future, though.
That's actually kind of scary kind of reminds me of Legend of Zelda Wind Waker when you have no idea what's in the ocean
kind of reminds me of this monster
You got this Ocellus and I'm sure your friends will be proud
Oh wow that's the second time that Luna helped one of the kids but unfortunately whatever this island is too powerful for her to get to Ocellus
Wow what a way to start out her summer vacation so Ocellus was on a ship going to a new country apparently there are other changelings there and she was hoping that maybe she could reason with them and also become friends with them and she was a little nervous when thorax chose her to do this even from a pep talk from Pharynx a little blunt but still she figured she can do this and everything is going okay well until later there was a sea creature attacking the ship with the changelings and the ponies having to abandon ship and Ocellus was still in the show paralyzed in fear And basically transform into a rock to hide but once it was silence she found herself she was in the ocean and the ship was gone including the ponies and changelings and now she's alone not knowing what to do but she believes her friends will get her through this even if they're not there so she swim to land and she finally made it but she was pretty exhausted when she fell asleep she was having a nightmare a really bad one and it's more aggressive than ever she tried to call out for Princess Luna to save her and she was there but unfortunately something more powerful is blocking her so Ocellus was on her own meanwhile Luna told thorax what was going on but now he felt guilty for letting the other changelings and the ponies and even Ocellus in danger even some of them were killed and Luna felt even more guilty for not giving out information which that's pretty bad and it looks like thorax has to do something about this I wonder what he's going to say to his brother
Yeah probably that's what she needed right now
Either she was pretty young back then but yeah it was pretty cool how things worked out pretty well
Aww that's actually a pretty good lesson of paying it forward 😊
I mean I wouldn't believe that sometimes people needed help but it doesn't make them weak
Okay things just happened so quickly but it looks like it's also working out for Ocellus despite the mishap what happened and she found out there are other changelings in this island and despite the injury she walked with them and met with the chief of the village name Ixodida and she looks welcoming even though she scold the changelings for injuring Ocellus but she said it was an accident what that said both of them went inside to have this conversation and Ocellus told her about the information how her Hive became but they are right now because they decided to show love and Ixodida was pretty surprised about this and she can even felt the love from the young one so they had to talk with a queen about this the queen name Gytha and her talk about this how Ocellus can actually share love and she has a very strong amount of it which it worries the queen because she doesn't want to hurt her but Ocellus really want to help out but I guess until then she really wants to talk with King thorax once this is all situated especially she has to deal with this about a creature being guilty for something meanwhile back in the Equestria King thorax talk with the other leaders from different countries discuss a search and rescue going to the fact how dangerous to go to those parts of the ocean but apparently some of the Navy captains really looking for Action despite how dangerous it is well let's just hope they know what they're doing because something tells me things are not going to get easy
Penguins that's right I remember there was a penguin in My Little Pony but it was on generation one or two I think
And that's right even if you're strong it's always good to have allies with you when you need help
Whoa like a zombie or something that's kind of scary
Now it's time to sound like a horror movie poor Ocellus this is not what she wanted to do for her summer vacation
Awww that was actually kind of sweet of that pony water lily to comfort Ocellus after experience that horrified creature
That actually kind of reminds me of that scene from Little Mermaid
Is
Wow that kind of reminds me from that movie Puss in Boots the first one at least
heck yeah
I guess it's going to be smolder's turn to tell her side of a story
Yes that is very true because despite the victory that the heroes have they will always be evil out there waiting and plotting until the right time
Oh wow what a mix emotion going on here but wow that was amazing epic story here I'll try not to fill up too much but anyway so the three Nation who are assisting the changeling hive setting sail to save Ocellus and pharynx is very determined to do that but unfortunately they got delayed because of that creature from the depths of hell attack them and all of as best as they could but unfortunately it's starting to be coming too much and a lot of creatures got killed by it but they refuse to give out no matter how the dire situation it is and even pharynx never give up as well he concentrated all the love and everything to transform into a bigger creature that no changeling couldn't ever do and to the creatures surprise pharynx transform himself into a huge dragon and even blast him with all the power he measured to disintegrate that thing and won over the creature which that's pretty amazing how you did it and it's always nice to see other three Nation working together despite the differences they have meanwhile Ocellus and the other changelings still wanted to make sure that the innocent wasn't accused for a crime that he didn't do but once they talk to him he said something that the pony that he had an argument with was not even alive like he was dead inside which that makes it more creepier then despite her fear she wanted to see the grave Aperygota and Ocellus and one pony named fine and the other two guards making sure they find any source of this mysterious attack but unfortunately they were attacked and both of the changelings ran going to the fact whatever is killing them is no match for it and Ocellus really try to explain what are the leaders name water lily there was another creature out there but something they cannot explain before things got escalated and which it will be soon the fine came back thinking that he was alive but unfortunately this was not him and even the ponies and creatures felt unnerve about him and he even reveal himself that he was death even admitting to Ocellus that he was responsible for the attack of her ship she was so scared knowing to the fact that this creature would kill her right now but water lily protected her despite the fear that she has as well and he has to admit that she was a fool and he was going to finish the job but luckily it was interrupted and everybody was on high alerts leaving water lily and Ocellus days and scared but she comfort the young one which that's pretty nice after that event everybody become higher alert this time even having the changelings can sense feelings if there's something wrong help out as well but it looks like he was not done yet he even came to the Village of the changelings and the queen Gytha stood her ground against the creature known as death and his full Army of the undead and she thinks she doesn't need his protection anymore and he became a huge threat to everybody in this island and it looks like he was going to make an example of her especially telling the truth about their formal Queen which they would devastated hearing that she would do something but not out of will she felt lost and confused and even scared but Ocellus have the courage to stand up to him once again despite how scared she is but of course he had enough with her and he was going to kill her like in the spot but Gytha saved her and throughout her life she felt like she couldn't do but at this point she doesn't want to die she wants to protect everybody that she loved and everybody in this island despite how powerful he is she will not fail and she left all the love power flow into her and she unleashed the power against him and he was gone but unfortunately this is not the last time we're going to see him again but they celebrate after the change of the queen and also the other changelings as well knowing to that they are free from the darkness and it looks like the Cavalry made it pharynx was just so happy to see Ocellus to be okay and it looks like everything turned out pretty well even the leaders from different tribes of the island came together and became friends so I guess friendship is Magic and they also offer everything to Ocellus but at that point she just wants to be home with her friends and family that is pretty hectic to how much she went through but somewhere in the deep dark area apparently there are other ones who will cease to Darkness into the world a pony name Rosa Maledicta was thinking after the failure of Conquering the changeling land and she was interrupted by one of her Pony named Vincent but she wasn't fooled that this isn't him and the creature I think I feel like I know is death was pretty surprised that she wasn't that weak but unfortunately he made his Escape knowing to the fact they will meet again but she hasn't dwelled this for long because now she has a plan on trying to plan an attack not just only those islands but also Equestria dang I must admit Ocellus and silverstream went through a lot but they were pretty strong enough to go through this I wonder what smolder and sandbar been doing since last summer guess that's another story keep up the good work
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You have good taste in games! My first thought when I think of scary Zelda is Majora's Mask, but Wind Waker is also very unsettling at times.
Not far from what I imagined, actually, just even more tentacles and scarier. Imagine this, but in an M-rated horror movie, and that's perfect. (For those who read it in the future, if link decayed, it was Big Octo from Wind Walker).
You know it :)
Sadly :(. Poor Ocellus.
Oh yeah, with full help from Equestria, everything would be much easier to solve. Alas, things are not that easy.
Ocellus is simplifying it a bit, but even the little grubs in the hive got transformed as well. Amazing what sharing instead of just taking can do for everyone :).
You can always count on the Element of Generosity!
It's not even a matter of being weak, but being perceived as helpless. Even if they can fight back, if everyone thinks they are weak and easy target they will be attacked sooner or later. It's better to show that they are strong, to make sure no one attacks, then to be forced to defend and risk lives.
They won't, sadly for Ocellus.
These penguins come from EaW, but they're probably at least slightly inspired by their older counterparts.
Thank you, now I know what I will listen to while writing more of Death :). Haven't seen the movie yet, but it's supposedly very good so I probably will.
100% true.
I like that song. Thanks for sharing it with me.
Funnily enough, when writing Pharynx, my EaW playlist I listen to while writing switched to the badass changeling theme, "Hivemind" by Radiarc. It made all Pharynx scenes even more amazing to write :).
Poor girl really got the worst adventure out of all Student Six :(.
She is really nice and sweet. She was a teacher before she became politician, and she really does her best to help everyone in her country.
I don't think there is anything else I can add here. I'm happy you liked this moment :).
Also, typo fixed, thank you!
Yep, that confirms it, our tastes are very similar indeed :). I love Sailor Moon, myself. I watched original Sailor Moon, then watched R, S, Stars and SuperStars. Still love them to this day.
But there will also be more heroes ready to fight it. And thanks to Ocellus, as we see, situation in Greneclyf and around it already changed for the better.
They are much stronger then they seem. And they did an amazing job, both of them.
Smolder's story is up, Sandbar is next. And then the final story, which I hope to finish before the end of February.