This story is a sequel to The Crystal Caves of Confuzzlation (Iota Force Issue #6)
Fear.
Icy Flight has encountered a number of dangers in her time with the young super-team Iota Force, many of which she rightly found intimidating. However, after a near-drowning, nothing has filled her with so much stomach-twisting, muscle-melting horror as deep water. Despite all her attempts to work past her phobia and her friends' assurances she's stronger than it, she simply can't see past her absolute terror.
So when somepony sends a torrential deluge directly at Ponyville, using weather equipment in a way previously thought impossible as a clear and credible attempt to flood and destroy the town, Icy finds her fear thrust forcefully into her face. Fortunately, it seems that Ponyville is a lot more ready to deal with a crisis than they seem, and a small (no pun intended) group from Iota Force is being sent into the Everfree to deal with the enemy. So, she can trust that things will sorted out soon enough - no need for her to have to put herself in danger, right?
Sadly, no matter how much she wishes she could, Icy simply cannot bring herself to sit back and do nothing. So, with only a couple of friends for company, she must venture deep into the wild, malignant forest and face down an enemy seemingly capable of predicting every raindrop, all without any backup or contact from Ponyville.
No matter what happens, whether the town is saved or destroyed, whether the team wins or loses, whether their opponent gets away, gets captured or takes victory, one thing is undeniably certain:
Icy Flight is having a very, very bad day.
This is the seventh story in the Iota Force series. Reading the previous stories would be helpful and will help give some things context, but hopefully the story will stand on its own. However, just to be safe, a summary of the series' premise, characters and previous stories can be found here.
Edited by Raven618
Cover Art by Mix-Up (Link to his Deviantart page).
You always produce stellar work. Sorry I held this up for as long as I did.
A pegasus filly with dreams of genocide and a board game piece for a cutie mark, huh?
For real though, the greater amount of thought and death you've put into the setting means we kind of have to prevent the Season 8 finale from happening. Unlike most writers with that problem, you're following a group practically custom-tailored to do so. Nothing else changes from moving Cozy Glow to the Eyrie and with her plan much less successful, anyway.
Especially in a world with Equestria's level of controlled weather.
And also even worse.
Even when told directly, it's honestly hard to grasp the idea of a mountain getting destroyed. I don't blame Icy, especially since she's just a filly.
That's the primary expansion when turning magnetism into electromagnetism the way they did to make him a more credible team-level threat, yes. Something that probably happened even earlier in a world where most of your writers can already make lightning.
If you're writing Pinkie Pie correctly, this should describe basically everything she does. And the exceptions are when she's exploiting factors the Twilights of the world don't understand, where it will still work despite being even more strange.
Icy: When this is all over, we are going through every comic I own. When we are done, you will understand why any attempt to keep me out of danger is futile.
Sunny: *pales, due to having a rough idea of just how many comics her daughter owns*
11754211
...
Dammit.
You know, it's frustrating enough that I come up with the idea for a kid super hero team fighting kid super villains within the first half of show's run, but because of my depression, need for editing and unending dithering, I end up putting it out there after the show kinda-sorta uses that very concept, but now I realize that one of the first villains I came up with all those years ago just happens to resemble said canonical villain to an extent that stretches credulity. To be honest, I'm not even mad really, just... staggered by the coincidence.
That said, despite their similarities (didn't even clock the whole board-game thing, since her cutie mark is more representative of dominoes falling than being played with, but good catch), they do provide an interesting contrast - one being able to predict living beings, the other able to predict everything but. Almost makes you terrified about the prospect of them teaming up but... yeah, that ain't happening, for multiple reasons.
Also, I did have a short little vignette in mind explaining why the team (apart from Scootaloo since, well, actual character and all) weren't involved in that whole thing. Can't really put it out there for a... long time, if ever, due to relying on something that happens in story a long way down the road, but... well, let's just say there possible reasons why they might have been indisposed at the time.
While I like how you keep coming up with logical reasons to winnow the team down to a small enough group to write easily, Icy Flight is starting to feel a bit Wolverine-esque in how she's blatantly the main character of what's ostensibly a team title despite not being the leader.
(I would note that she's also the only OC, but your own character synopsis has noted that Lance had no fics to his name for years prior to the story while Archer and Truffle Shuffle aren't much better off)
I repeat, this is more of an "and" than an "or" if you ask me.
11755872
Huh... honestly, hadn't considered that, but I can see what you mean. I mean, obviously I knew she was going to be the primary viewpoint character of the series, at least for the first batch of stories, and I also wanted to establish that not every story needed to majorly involve every team member - something I always liked in many team books and series - but I hadn't considered how those two things would interact.
Well, if it helps, this story is the culmination of the first... well, 'arc' is far too strong a word, but the first rough section I had planned out for the series and the ones after this will be pulling back the focus a fair bit. In fact, thinking about the stories I have planned for the next bit, I can only think of one instance where a character is definitely going to be sitting a whole story out, though that's more an interesting confluence than anything.
In any case, hopefully after this I'll be able to keep her as the usual (though not exclusive) POV character without making her seem like the main character in the same way. Although, between the two arcs, I'm also planning something that... well, it's going to be a bit different and will kind of both do and invert this whole thing, so... well, hopefully that'll work out.
As the melee specialist, yes he should definitely be in front.
Yeah, people keep forgetting they're writing horses. Like the people animating the actual show who don't seem to realizes that equine teats are lower down than humans'.
Which reminds me of a throwaway joke a couple chapters back: is Lance physically capable of laughter? It was a joke about his sense of humor (or rather lack thereof), but his muteness makes this a legitimate question.
Again, horses:
You already had Icy point out how nonsensical this was, so why are you doing it anyway?
Ice magic would be a pretty good place to start. Would also make it pretty effective to hit enemies with, where a simple platform would only accomplish anything if you managed to get it down the target's throat (which is still a very
idea).
(Remember, I'm posting these as I go so the fact that the characters had a similar idea of how to solve the problem is a coincidence)
Like Nanoha deciding it was faster to destroy every wall between her and the villain than actually try to maneuver. And it was, because the White Devil doesn't screw around.
11760679
Fair point, but to be honest, I just kind of imagined Lance doing so, due both to him being a very private pony and not wanting him and the others to get in each other's way. Similarly, Icy's blase attitude, while mostly a matter of species, was also partially a case of a child not understanding certain ways of thinking, hence Archer's comment.
Plus, let's face it, the show itself wasn't always consistent about that.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2022/2/7/2800857.gif
derpicdn.net/img/view/2015/5/16/897162.gif
I basically specifically mentioned those scenes. That's not even where equines keep their tits!
11763229
Ah, my bad, sorry. Was a little too focused on explaining myself to get the reference, it seems.
In fairness to the show, I would assume that was more for the visual gag than actual ignorance. Plus, hey, for all we know, Equestrian ponies might have two sets, one in the normal place and one in the human place. I mean, we are talking about talking about magical, multicoloured talking ponies here, who are we to make anatomical demands?
In any case, here it was, as I said, more a question of character than species. If it had been Icy who'd had to change, she'd have probably just done it out in the open and if it had been Archer, she may very well have jumped off the edge and dangled by a rope to do it, just to see if she could.