1 The Invasion Festival
The Cadenza Prophecy
by iisaw
Sequel to The Celestia Code, The Luna Cypher, and The Twilight Enigma
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Chapter One - The Invasion Festival
Canterlot is a remarkably beautiful city on any ordinary day, but lavishly decorated for the first International Friendship Festival, it was truly stunning. I flew a slow slalom course as I approached the palace, drinking in the wonderful sights. Colorful banners, flags, and bunting hung everywhere. I could smell the mass of flowers from over a furlong in the air. I felt a swell of pride at how much effort everypony had put into this celebration of peace and goodwill, and more than a little gleeful anticipation of how it would be received by all the foreign delegations and dignitaries who had been invited to attend. I could see the heraldic banners of over a dozen different nations around the edge of the Great Plaza.
To bolster the impression of multi-national participation, I was attending, not as Twilight Sparkle, Third-Tier Equestrian Princess, but as Queen Twilight, ruler of an independent trading nation. I wasn't wearing the nightmarish form that the folk of my city-state were accustomed to, but I did have so much barbaric regalia draped over me that I jangled like a dissonant windchime as I flew.
I glided to a landing on a palace balcony with a clatter and nodded a greeting to the two heralds stationed there to welcome me. "Good morning sirs! Don't bother announcing—"
One flung the doors wide as the other cried out, "Her Royal Majesty, Queen Twilight Sparkle the Great, Princess of Friendship, Bearer of the Element of Magic, Countess of Hoofshire, Protector of..."
He went through the whole ridiculous list, including some titles I didn't even recognise. I sensed Luna's hoof in this ambush-by-protocol, and sure enough by the time I had walked the entire length of the great hall and into the throne room, the herald wheezing to a stop just as I reached the dais, I found my dear demented lover, grinning her head off.
"Welcome to Canterlot, Your Magnificent Majesty!" Luna bellowed gleefully. "All Equestria is honored by your presence!"
"Sorry, but I didn't bring you, or Equestria, any presents," I grumbled at her.
Celestia laughed behind her hoof.
"No presents?" Luna continued, putting on an exaggerated expression of outrage. "Then there is some truth behind your reputation as a stern and merciless monarch?"
"Yup. The evil queen of Twilight Town, that's me. I don't even cover my muzzle when I sneeze."
Cadance joined the fray from where she stood next to the dais. "Oh Twilight, I taught you better than that! Being a tyrannical dictator has changed you!"
I rolled my eyes. "Oh, this International Friendship Festival is off to a great start!"
Celestia chuckled. "Get it out of your systems, now. We need to be all smiles and cooperation at the opening ceremonies."
I glanced over at Rarity—pardon me, Her Exquisite Majesty of Marezambique, Sultana Rarity. "Now's your chance," I told her.
She waved a dismissive hoof. "I never stoop to badinage, dear."
"A little swordplay, then?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
Rarity only had time to give me a wicked grin before Celestia interrupted. "Not in the throne room! Do you girls want a time-out?"
We all had a good laugh at that, and then it was time for us to join up with the other heads of state and parade out to the Grand Balcony.
We made our opening speeches[1] and then Celestia declared the festivities open.
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[1] I know what you're thinking, but mine was very short and succinct, actually. (Spike wrote it.)
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Songbird Serenade's act had just opened on the main stage when Ao streaked down out of the sky and landed in front of me, shouting, "Treachery, Majesty! A fleet of warships approaches, hidden by clouds!" Fortunately, the singer and her band were magically amplified so much that the kirin's warning only reached a short way beyond the little crowd of royals around me. A general panic did not immediately ensue.
Call me paranoid for posting my kirin friend (and a few others) as lookouts in case of trouble, but Celestia's insistence on the absence of any soldiers at the festival, even ceremonial guards, had made my withers itch.
I looked up in the direction Ao had come from, and saw a thick mass of dark clouds moving in on the city with suspicious speed.
"Zashira!" I called.
The zebra[2] mare was at my side almost instantly. She looked a bit weird with a flower wreath slipping down over one ear and a fruity drink in one hoof, but her attitude was all business. "Yes, Captain?"
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[2] She looked like a zebra but was, in fact, a changeling by the name of Khaatarrekket, who was the third officer of my airship, Nebula. Yes, I have a rather complicated assortment of friends.
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"Get to the ship and bring as many of the special armaments as you can carry!"
"Wait!" Celestia called out, but Ket had already jumped over the balcony rail, growing an impressive pair of butterfly wings in a swirl of amber magic. She lost her floral crown, but I don't think she spilled her drink.
Celestia turned to me as Ket flew off toward the airship docks. "Twilight Sparkle! There may be a perfectly good explanation for this. We will try diplomacy first, and make no overt threats, understood?"
I nodded, looking up at the mass of clouds and roughly estimating their speed. "Your kingdom, your rules," I agreed. "Besides, I don't think Ket will be back with the overt threats before those warships arrive."
Celestia gave me a sour look, and Cadance a worried frown, but Luna's attention was on the cloudbank. She wore a tight grin and rolled her shoulders to loosen them up.
Rarity glanced in my direction and then loosened the waist of her tightly cinched dress. I had thought that the large puffs of crinoline at her sides were probably there to bring her profile more in line with the rest of her winged peers, but I caught the glint of highly polished steel beneath, and realized that her faux wings also served as a very good hiding place for a brace of sword blades.
I knew that she loved being a sultana, and had done very well by her new adopted country, but it seemed she still had a fondness for her piratical phase and thought that attending a summit that included carnivorous species and historical enemies warranted some preparations for—contingencies, shall we say?
I felt a touch of chagrin that I hadn't hidden at least a few useful items under my regalia. My crown did have three magically charged gems that I could call upon for a backup reserve of mana, but they weren't weapons per se.
The other kings, queens, regents, and such had backed into the throne room and were muttering anxiously amongst themselves.
Celestia frowned in thought for a moment and then came to a decision. "Cadance, would you please escort our guests back into the castle to the dining hall? Make them comfortable and do your best to keep them calm."
Cadance nodded and went to herd them away from any possible danger. There was a bleat of protest from the Duke of Maretonia, Sultan Xahjir[3] refused to be parted from his wife, and Queen Csharreee vanished in a swirl of changeling magic, but otherwise it went smoothly.
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[3] Rarity's husband. It's pronounced zah-yeer, but spelled with an X because Zwahili is full of informative prefixes and suffixes, but most Equestrians can't even get a grip on the za/ze determination, so I'm not going to go into it here.
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"Please don't make a fuss, darling," Rarity said to Xahjir. "Here, take one of my blades." One of the nearly hiltless rapier-like blades floated out from under her dress. Her zebra husband took it in an expert reverse-pastern grip and held it close to his barrel where it would be ready, but wouldn't immediately appear threatening.
That's when the first battleship tore through the cloud cover. It was an ugly, armored, slab-sided thing, its engines belching some sort of oily smoke as it came about, slowing and dropping level with the Great Plaza.
Songbird faltered to a halt. Most of the crowd was facing her, with their backs to the open sky, but her expression had them turning in place almost instantly.
"We need to get down there!" I hissed urgently to Celestia. "We need to be ready to get a shield up in case that thing fires into the crowd!"
Celestia leaped over the balcony rail by way of an answer, and the rest of us followed. I levitated Rarity and her husband along.
The battleship slewed through the air and wallowed up to the outer edge of the plaza, colliding with, and toppling three of the open arcade columns along the periphery.
We landed in the open space made by the crowd as they backed away from the smoke and marble rubble. We all readied our magic.
A large metal ramp swung down from the side of the ship to reveal… I almost laughed in relief. It was a small furry creature, not unlike an overgrown pukwudgie, carrying a metal bound box nearly half its size. The magic aura of the box was a simple utility spell, hardly threatening. The creature waddled to the foot of the ramp and set the box down. Then it pulled a telescoping gramophone horn out of the top, and a microphone out of the side.
The creature sounded male-ish when he began to speak, his voice amplified by the box.
"We come on behalf of the fearsome, the powerful, the almighty STORM KING!" Some large banners unfurled down the side of the ship. One was a portrait depicting a yeti-like being.
"Who?" Luna asked, of nopony in particular.
"Never heard of him," I said.
Rarity sniffed. "Is he on the invite list?"
The little creature kept on talking, sounding more and more like a carnival barker as he went on, finishing up with another introduction. "...Commander Tempest!" He threw his stubby arms wide in a theatrical gesture, and a tall purple mare in dark armor emerged from the dimness of the ship.
All hope I had that the encounter would end peacefully vanished. The mare carried herself like a warrior and strongly reminded me of another merciless pony who had once very nearly killed me.
"Tempest, is it?" Celestia said in a quietly dangerous voice that I'd rarely heard. "How may we help you?"
The mare began to descend the ramp at a slow, measured pace. In the full light, I could see the jagged stump of her broken horn and the puckered scar that ran down the right side of her face. I couldn't suppress a shiver of revulsion and horror.
Half-way down the ramp, the sneering mare said in a low, menacing voice, "How about we start with your complete and total surrend—"
My blast and Luna's hit her almost simultaneously. Unfortunately, the strange dark armor wasn't just thaumically resistant, it had some sort of active defense. The jagged symbols on Tempest's shoulder and thigh blazed with energy and deflected our blasts right back at us.
Luna blocked her returning shot with a quick snap shield, and I negated mine with a counter spell.
Tempest smiled at us. It wasn't a pleasant smile. "Such powerful magic! I'm going to enjoy taking it from you."
"Oh suffering stars!" I shouted at her. "This again? Why do you lunatics never learn?"
I had begun calling up a teleportation matrix when the miserable mare pulled out a crystal sphere, crackling with dark magic. She tossed it into the air, spun, and kicked it like a hoofball, straight at Rarity.
I snapped a shield up to intercept it, but the accursed thing burned through the shield nearly instantly and struck Rarity on the chest, shattering and releasing a noxious green vapor. She gasped as black crystals began to form all over her body and her four slim blades, which she had been magically thrusting straight for Tempest, clattered to the floor.
Xahjir screamed in anguish and after an instant of terrible shock, I… I really want to underplay my reaction and say I "lost my temper," but the truth is, I gave into an absolutely murderous rage.
A chunk of marble pillar the size of my head slammed into Tempest's barrel, knocking her down and driving the breath out of her. If magic doesn't work, try physics, I alway say. The trick was to put all the magical umph into the rock before it got anywhere near her reactive armor.
Unfortunately, her armor was pretty good physical protection as well. She scrambled to her hooves and produced another dark magic sphere as her ship began to disgorge immense yeti-like creatures that looked very much like the so-called Storm King. Two other ships loomed out of the clouds and began dropping more troops on long lines. I was willing to bet my tail that there were more ships coming in on different vectors to completely surround us.
Tempest kicked the second sphere, this time at Luna. I'm not a slow learner, and I used a big slab of pavement, ripped out of the plaza floor to stop the thing. It worked, leaving the slab entombed inside a crust of a black basalt-like material. Not a typical turn-to-stone spell then. I could only hope that it was survivable.
"Twi! What do we do?" It was Rainbow Dash, flying ahead of Pinkie Pie and Applejack as they all rushed toward me. They had been settling in to watch the concert from a balcony overlooking the plaza the last time I'd seen them. Dash must have carried them both down to the level of the plaza as soon as the action started.
The non-flying creatures of the festival crowd were backing away from the armored yetis, but they would soon be pressed up against the stage with no way to escape. Xahjir and Ao were cutting down the yetis as fast as they could, but more of the big armored beasts were dropping from the airships every second, and it wouldn't be long at all before we were overwhelmed.
"Dash, do whatever you can to stop the ships from unloading. Ket should be here any time with some zebra fire. AJ, help—"
Another sphere of dark magic streaked toward me, and I barely got a chunk of marble in front of me in time. While the black crystals were still forming around it, I sent it back at Tempest as fast as I could. She dodged it, but two of the other five rocks I followed up with slammed into her. I had hoped to knock her over the edge of the plaza, but she caught up against one of the broken pillars. She seemed stunned enough that I could finish giving orders.
"AJ and Pinkie, help drive back the yetis!"
Luna needed no suggestions. She was already severing drop lines and peppering the soldiers with high-speed chunks of stone. Their armor and shields meant that direct magic blasts were ineffective, but she could teleport herself at will, appearing just behind the squads, hitting them where they were most vulnerable. A group that ran down the ramp from the ship to back up their commander all disappeared over the edge as she physically slammed into them. I winced at the sound of the impact, but Luna soared back into the melee with a joyous battle-cry, apparently unharmed by the collision.
I heard a roar from above and looked up to see an immense beast crouched on top of one of the battleships. It was a bear-like creature with wings and eight clawed arms, all furiously ripping armored plating off the top of the envelope. As I watched, several others like it appeared and began attacking other vessels and attempting to push them away from the city.
I smiled. It was a shame Queen Csharreee hadn't brought more than a half-dozen attendants to the festival, but the changelings were a huge help, nevertheless.
The flare of prismatic light and the accompanying concussion from behind us was another bit of good news. I took a quick glance over my shoulder and confirmed that Rainbow Dash had timed her sonic rainboom perfectly. She had almost made contact with the airships approaching the castle from behind us when her thaumic field snapped. Two ships were slewing around wildly and one had actually shed one of its huge armored plates and was nosing down into an uncontrolled dive.
Dash's rainbow trail arched upward as she gained altitude for another pass.
I had adjusted my tactical thinking to assume that our rear was covered when that damned-to-Tartarus evil mare pulled another surprise out of her… Well, out of her broken stub of a horn, actually. She had no way to channel or control her magic, but that didn't mean she was lacking in raw power.
She unleashed a blast at Rainbow that would have cooked her if it had been a direct hit. Tempest led her target, as is second nature for any experienced fighter, but nopony understands just how insanely fast Dash is, particularly a pony that had never seen her in action before. Tempest's bolt detonated quite a ways behind her. The blast was enough to tumble Dash through the sky, but I was sure that she'd quickly recover and get back to doing what she did best.[4]
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[4] Being awesome, of course.
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Getting back to what I did best was a good plan. The battle surrounding me had become too chaotic to keep track of, let alone control, but I could complete one very important task. I could eliminate the biggest single threat we faced.
The five tons of solid marble I dropped on top of Tempest should have done the trick. Incredibly, even as battered and bruised as she was, she still managed to roll out from under the section of pillar I teleported over her head before it crashed into the plaza.
I was in the process of getting a bigger hammer when I heard a deep bellow from behind me. "YAK SMASH!"
Oh good, it's Rutherford, I thought. I hope he gets his subjects pointed in the right direction.
I needn't have worried. The yetis, being the largest things around, immediately captured Rutherford's attention. Their shields didn't do much to protect them from several tons of gleeful yaks, and bunching up in a defensive wedge only made them easier to hit.
But that still left Tempest.
Using levitated slabs of stone continued to be a good way of blocking Tempest's horn blasts, but it was getting to be a bit hard on the plaza pavement. I had to switch tactics.
I dropped the pony-sized chunk of marble I had pulled out of the floor and sagged half-way to my knees, gasping and feigning exhaustion. It worked like a charm.
Tempest grinned and produced another of the black magic spheres. "Goodbye, Princess," she said with a sneer as she tossed the thing into the air, preparing to kick it in my direction.
I drew on the power of my reserve crystals just to make sure nothing went wrong, and teleported a sizable chunk of the Canter River to a spot just over her head. Knowing how fast the nasty mare was, I didn't rely on gravity to do my work for me that time. I added as much inertia to the water as I could pull from the crystals, and the whole mass hit the floor with such an impact that many nearby ponies were bounced off their hooves.
The enormous boom of tons of water slamming down onto the plaza drew nearly everycreature's attention, and the attacking yetis quickly realized that the sodden, unmoving lump on the shattered pavement was their commander.
"Surrender now," Celestia said. She sounded calm, even serene, but anypony who knew her well could tell how absolutely furious she was. I suddenly realized that I hadn't seen her take any action during the fight. She hadn't even moved as far as I knew.
Aside from the sounds of crumbling masonry and collapsing airships, there was a moment of silence. Then, the little creature, who had apparently been hiding behind the amplification box the whole time, jumped up and ran screaming for the flagship's ramp.
Celestia's horn pulsed once, and a gout of plasma, too bright to look at directly, streaked into the big, open bay of the ship. I could feel the heat of it as it passed, even dozens of lengths away. The ship exploded into flames, and the entire vessel began to break apart as it rolled off the edge of the plaza and dropped out of sight.
The little creature on the ramp turned away from the now molten end that had been attached to the ship and stared at Celestia with enormous eyes.
"No escape," she told him. "Only surrender." Her voice was low and soft, but it was pitched to carry across the whole plaza. Several more of the battleships, some trailing green flames as they sank, added a nice bit of emphasis to her words.
The little yeti dropped to his knees and then fell flat on his face. After a moment, the big ones began throwing down their shields and weapons.
"Wise choice," Celestia commented.
Luna popped in next to me, her coat shining with sweat and a fierce grin on her face. "Ha! By Typhon's teeth, was that not a battle to stir the blood?" She looked around and spotted Tempest. "Hast thou slain the villain, my love? 'Tis a pity; she fought well and cannilly."
I would have kissed her, but we were in public.
"Let's see," I said. I walked over to where Tempest lay sprawled. "Be careful of that," I told Luna, pointing to the crystal sphere full of roiling dark energy. For a wonder, the waterfall hadn't broken it. I assumed there might be some kind of unknown triggering mechanism, so I made sure to keep well away from it.
Tempest's armor wouldn't let me scan her, so I physically ripped a shoulder plate off her rig and stuck my hoof against her barrel under her foreleg. "No, her heart's still beating. That's good, because she can tell us how to reverse that dark stone spell. If it is reversible."
"Ah…" Luna looked back over her shoulder at the black crystalline form of Rarity. "I think Sultan Xahjir will have her blood if it is not."
I nodded. "If it's not, I'll hand her over to him on a silver platter, and watch."
Luna gave me a gentle hip bump.
Cadence swooped down next to Celestia and said to her, "Shining is coming with the palace guard. They're bringing magical restraints and shackles. The Wonderbolt performers are—"
The only Wonderbolts in the city that day were the elite squad that were there to perform the aerial show, but they were already arriving with stretchers, first aid kits, and as many pegasus volunteers as they could muster.
Queen Csharreee and her attendants were helping to herd the yetis into compact bunches. She seemed to think that giant border collies were just the right aspect for the job.
The rest of the girls worked their way through the chaos and gathered around me. "Where's Fluttershy?" I asked.
Applejack snorted in disgust. "As soon as things got hoppin', Discord popped in, nabbed her, and skedaddled. That sidewinder coulda turned all o' them battleships to cheese or sumthin'!"
"Well, at least she's safe," I said. Would the yeti's anti-thaumic armor work against chaos magic? It was something to think about.
Shining Armor arrived with the guards and they gathered around Tempest. "Use the best suppressor you've got on her and then get that sphere into a containment box. Don't touch it directly or use magic on it," I told them.
A young guard pony knelt near Tempest with a suppressor ring in his hoof. "Not much of her horn left to get a grip on," he said. "She might be able to shake it off."
"Tie it on," I said, and pulled some of the bunting off the edge of the stage, tearing it into strips as I floated it over.
"Gimme the rest o' that Twi," AJ said. "I'll hog-tie her good an' tight"
Shining edged over to me. "You okay, Twi?" he whispered.
I looked around at the carnage. "If Rarity's okay, I'm okay. So—we'll just have to wait and see."
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Woohoo!
Straps in.
Actually, now's as good a time as any to go revisit the Skyla Pseudonym.
Welp, I somehow doubt Tempest is gonna be conquering much in this timeline.
I have a boilerplate post about the my observations of the Movie Invasion.
Lot's of people have a problem with the Movie's invasion of Canterlot. Claiming in makes the Equestrian military hopelessly incompetent. Perhaps, but I argue all it takes is one small extension of logic from what we see in the movie to explain it. In the movie we see the following: Tempest Shadow is armed with mysterious stone spheres that can bypass the shield of an Alicorn and turn them to stone. When Twilight and company flee Twilight's magic is reflected by the shield of a random nameless storm soldier and the reflected bolt is powerful enough to completely obliterate the stone bridge the ponies were standing on. The Storm King calls the Staff Of Sacanas his "latest acquisition." It is revealed that the Storm King attacked Mt. Aris to obtain the Pearl of Transformation. When Tempest captures Twilight she possesses a cage capable of imprisoning her and rendering her magic impotent. In the tie-in media like the books and comics it is revealed that stealing a nation's powerful magical artifacts is the Storm King's standard motive for invasion. "If it glows he wants it." Also that the Storm King has invaded "all the lands south of Equestria." All together this implies that the Storm King's army is practically swimming in major artifacts of power. Therefore all it takes to exonerate the Equestrian military is one more powerful artifact to cloak the Storm Fleet from detection. Then they lose to a force ambushing them from inside their own defenses with said force having them massively magically outgunned. Making the Storm Army an outside context threat on par with Discord or Tirek they never possibly could have prepared for.
The problem that actually makes the movie incompatible with a bunch of fanfiction universes is different and much harder to resolve. In the movie and show Skystar and Silverstream act like they have no memories of the surface. Skystar is presented as the same age as the Mane 6 and Silverstream is portrayed as roughly late high school to early college age. Meaning that the Storm King attacked Mt. Aris over a decade ago. Princess Celestia knew of the Hippogriffs and considered them friends but was unaware they had disappeared years before Nightmare Moon's return. Note the "Storm King invaded all the lands south of Equestria," mentioned above. Yet no one in Equestria has ever heard of him. Canon Equestria appears to be very isolationist and insular with very little contact even with its immediate neighbors. Now a country as large, wealthy and technologically and magically advanced as Equestria being so ignorant of the outside world may be hard to swallow, but much evidence of the show supports it. Recall how the citizens of Ponyville freaked out over Zecora or how Rarity called Iron Will a "monster." Twilight's knowledge of Griffonstone was over a century out of date. In most of Equestria Daring Do is among the most popular book series and is considered fictional. In Somnambula everyone knows who Daring is but have never heard of her books. This level of ignorance is apparently mutual in the rest of the world. In the movie tie in comics the Storm King never heard of Equestria or its Princesses until Tempest Shadow tells him, and in the movie itself he knew nothing of their power over the Sun and Moon until the Staff Of Sacanas gave it to him.
By contrast in many fanfiction worlds Equestria is as globally connected and important as you'd expect the country that controls the Sun and Moon to be. With extensive networks of sophisticated communication, diplomacy, and trade. These versions of Equestria would logically have learned of the Storm King years ago. The mass economic disruption caused by his regular invasions alone would have gotten their attention. When you add his M.O. of stealing and stockpiling magical WMDs and Celestia would have had to be a complete fool not to intervene long before the events of the movie were possible.
Of course in this story.
So has the Storm King been operating for a much shorter period in this reality? Is Mt. Aris fine or nonexistent in this universe? Or does one of the artifacts I mentioned hide his existence until he attacks?
A new one? Very much looking forward to how this goes.
Oooh, new one! Hopefully this one gets a print on completion too!
yassssss :VVVVV finally, after years of waiting
WHAAAAAAT?!?!?!?!
A NEW STORY IN THIS SERIES?
I! AM! IN!
11855042
I'm so glad that you mentioned that your comment was boilerplate and not something you had come up with on the spur of the moment. Otherwise, I would have been horribly jealous of your memory and powers of analytical thought.
I agree with your observations and analysis, and as this story goes on, you'll see that I've tried to account for the canon facts (comics, too) as well as I can, and in a reasonable way.
11855042
Honestly, there's a case to be made that Celestia's attitude towards the external world aside from positive diplomatic approaches is a stance of deliberate and studied disinterest. She doesn't want to know, she doesn't care to know, and won't listen unless you send an ambassador to buttonhole her directly. And it's entirely possible that there's an entire bureaucracy in Canterlot dedicated to amusing delegations with the idea that they're engaging with her diplomatic corps, and making progress towards an actual meeting with the Eternal Princess.
IE, the Chinese model, on immortal steroids.
My own stories, I left breadcrumbs hinting that the Storm King and his gang of gangly yeti and dragooned parrots have mostly disappeared into the general background hum of the piratical chaos of normal world politics as far as Equestria's incredibly neglectful diplomatic establishment is concerned. And that Celestia's accidental, de facto world-spanning empire makes the British imperium look like a focused, deliberate, generational project of a league of chessplayers and conspiratists in comparison.
This is gonna be good.
11855074
Ooh, an interquel. It's been too long since I've read the series, so I'm thankful of the reminders of who the OCs were.
its back!!!!
Yay, the entire gang's there! A great opening, can't wait to read more.
This Cadance can teleport ... interesting. Did battle hardened Twily insist she learns some useful magic?
One appears to have slipped through the cracks
pegasus volunteers
11855258
Oops! Thanks for the corrections!
11855033
Twilight's bed, maybe.Is that Twilight in the cover art? I recognize Tempest, but not the other pony. Not been reading this series, so I probably missed who that is.
11855322
Yes, that's Twilight in disguise. You really need to read The Twilight Enigma at least, and know that Twilight and Luna are a couple in this AU to have a hope of understanding this story. It's not a good starting place for the series.
11855333
Cool. And thanks 😁.
My excitement is not explainable.
But I am here, and I am happy.
:D
Wooooohoo! I gotta go reread the previous ones now but this is already exciting!
i'm happy to see the stories backwhere they belong, :D for real Issaw, i love these, only reson i stopped checking in with these was because you removed them, :C
YES! YEEEEEEES!
Please tell me that this will make it to print...
Wonderful to see you back in the saddle. And yeah, Tempest made some truly dire miscalculations. Eagerly looking forward to seeing where this goes from here, especially since it raises the question of what contingency plans the Storm King might have if the decapitation strike didn’t work (assuming he ever bothered to do so.)
Oh! These are on Fimfic now! I'll finally have an opportunity to read past the first one.
YAAAAYYYY!
And another book to my shelf in the future. Right on, then!
11855619
That is my intention!
Love to see you writing again.
It may have been so long that I have no idea what happened in any of the previous stories, but I love where this is going. Rock on, my dude.
I. Am. So. Excited!!
I can't even believe my eyes. Not only are you and all your fics back, but a new tale as well?!?!?!?!?!?
11856217
)
If I want good things in the world, I have to do my part by making and sharing good things! (I read that in a fortune cookie once.
OH SNAP I KNOW WHAT THIS IS! WOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
(Heh, sorry, I saw the cover and title and just knew instantly what this story was before I even clicked through. Looking forward to reading it!)
I was initially surprised that Rarity was no longer an Alicorn, but after reading the previous book. Rarity accepted Twilight's offer of gem-based immortality provided by the Crystal Engine. But she threw away her wings.
11856380
Yes! It's more that she didn't request them back again, but that's essentially correct.
I love the revival. Now let's hope for some continuation on the Players and Great Game story thread.
11855731
He infamously didn't know that they controlled the Sun and Moon, so it's probable that Tempest did literally all of the planning on her own.
So, when do you think you'll have the hardcover book version ready to buy? Asking for a friend 😁
11857046
Just a guess, but approximately 35 seconds after the last chapter posts here.
That title sequence seems familiar...huh, iisaw is the author...wait, WHAT? What did I miss?
Have yet to get around to reading the previous books because Video Game Addiction is a thing, but guess I have more reason to start reading again.
11857610
Yikes! Yeah, you really need to read The Twilight Enigma at least to understand this story! I've included character and situational reminders here for people who haven't read the prequel recently, but I don't think they're enough to fill in all the gaps.
Take my word for it, I've walked Twilight step-by-logical-step to being the bad-ass warrior, pirate captain, and "evil" queen that you'll find here. Or don't take my word for it; check out the series and decide for yourself! (They're quick reads.)
This?
Is gonna be good.
Prediction time - Twilight's engineered brand of immortality will mesh badly with the stoning spheres, leaving Rarity entombed unless someone goes and deals with the Storm King.
And now I'm here!! Looking forward to this one immensely, very good opening chapter.
Wow. This series was impressively concise so far!!! The greatest pitfall of most amateur writers is to write too much, but you've managed to get the art down to a T! Nary a word is wasted.
(I just binged the whole thing start to here; I'll read the Skyla Pseudonym tomorrow)
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I'm so glad you're enjoying it! I don't know if you're aware of them, but there are some short side and related stories in this AU. If you've just finished The Twilight Enigma I'd recommend On the Rocks and The Quest next, and then Tales from Twilight Town after The Skyla Pseudonym.
Will this also be turned into a hard cover?
I've been wanting to buy your books off the Ministry of Image, just curious of the details for the fifth (fourth actually I think) book before I do.
Sending positive vibes, <3
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Yes, it will be available in hardcover at some point. Details aren't set yet.