This story is a sequel to The Twilight Enigma
With the queen of Twilight Town present, the Storm King's invasion of Canterlot goes badly for his commander and minions. Not satisfied with a mere victory, Captain Blackmane and her friends go on the hunt. Twilight is determined to find the Storm King and make sure he will never be able to harm anyone ever again. It's obviously a mission of reasonable prevention, not murderous revenge. Obviously... Right?
Book 4 of the Alicorn Adventure series.
Sequel to The Twilight Enigma and prequel to The Skyla Pseudonym.
Chapters (7)
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)
11858984
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
11859115
Yes, it will be available in hardcover at some point. Details aren't set yet.