164. An Unbendable Will
The sounds of clashing blades reached Arthas’ ears even before they made their way out of the small forest that grew in what used to be the shade of the mountain. It appeared that Commander Hurricane’s plan - to separate King Friedrich from the rest of his army and force him to one-on-one battle in this secluded area - had succeeded; even Serenity, with her admirable historical knowledge, didn’t know if such details of the campaign had come to pass.
“Seems the Commander’s plan had worked,” he commented out loud in a hushed voice, slowing down.
His paladins and Clover followed his lead; this was a hostile territory, and they could hear the sounds of combat.
“Of course it did,” Clover commented, a odd note of warmth in her voice. Arthas caught her giving him a side-wise glance as she asked, “Art thou still sure thou wants to do this?”
“You can ask me that question after we free Commander Hurricane from this spell,” Arthas countered. “After that I might reconsider my idea. Now,” he added, turning to address his paladins, “remember the plan; we take out the echo of King Friedrich first. Depending on how he and the echo of Commander Hurricane react to our presence, we might have to account for the possibility of the Commander attacking us. If that happens, you will have to restrain him with your magic,” Arthas told Clover, who nodded. “He won’t be expecting that. However, this will mean that we have to deal with Friedrich on our own. Serenity and I will try to use the Light to limit his movements, but if we don’t defeat him quickly he will most likely run. Storm, you will have to make sure he doesn’t fly away.”
“Yes Sir,” the pegasus paladin replied, without much enthusiasm in his voice, “I will do my best.”
“Good,” Arthas said, nodding, then sighed. “Of course, there is also a chance that King Friedrich will see us as griffons and won’t attack us. It… would be problematic.”
“Why is that?” Clover’s echo interjected, tiling her head as she voiced her inquiry. “I would have thought such turn of events would make this easy for thee.”
“Because we’re paladins. Killing somebody who isn’t attacking us would be dishonorable. We could take advantage of this and capture him instead, but I suspect Commander Hurricane would demand we kill the griffon king or let him kill him himself, but we couldn’t allow either.”
“Oh,” Clover exclaimed, looking at him with mild surprise. She fell silent for a few seconds, then added, “Thou couldst just tell King Friedrich thou want to kill him, then. Even if he sees us as griffons, he will move to kill thee without any hesitation.”
Arthas looked at her in silence for a few moments, finding himself surprised by the certainty in her voice, as well as the fact that a king would be so willing to kill his subjects, even if they had betrayed him. “Then again,” he thought, “based on what little I have heard about King Friedrich, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.” By all accounts, King Friedrich was a monster; apparently, even in Griffonia he was considered such. Killing a traitor in the midst of battle didn’t sound like something a griffon like him would lose much sleep over.
“That sounds… perfect, I guess,” he replied to Clover’s suggestion. Arthas couldn’t help but notice that the others looked slightly less enthusiastic to the prospect of urging the griffon king to try and kill them. “We will have to see what happens and act accordingly,” he told them, and was proud to see them nod in affirmation, dispelling their own private doubts. Smiling, he nodded as well and turned back towards the sounds of battle. “Let’s go.”
They resumed trekking through the woods, making sure to not make too much noise, although considering the frequency of weapon clashes they kept hearing, neither of the two warriors would hear them from this distance. Said distance, however, kept growing smaller, and very soon a strange sound had been made audible.
WHIISS!!!
“What’s that?” Arthas asked Clover in a hushed tone as they’ve heard two more of those.
“Hurricane’s sword, Windtear,” the unicorn echo replied. “It’s the sound it makes as it cuts through the air.”
With his question answered, Arthas nodded in silent gratitude. “Windtear, the so called masterpiece of Crystal Empire’s Crystal Forge,” he thought, recalling what he had heard previously about Commander Hurricane’s weapon. “I’m curious to see if an echo of that weapon will still have its properties…”
His musings were interrupted by a brief, small flash that shone through the treeline, and was soon followed by the dimmed sound of what sounded much alike to a thunder.
“What the…” Arthas thought, confused, his initial assumption - that it was lightning - being contradicted by the lack of storm. The very next heartbeat, however, the part of his mind who had gotten used to living with ponies reminded him that they could create their own lightnings. “But… there shouldn’t be any pegasi echoes above us, and there are no clouds at this height…” he countered himself in his thoughts. “There cannot be. Clover had said that King Friedrich knew Hurricane would have natural advantage anywhere near the clouds and wouldn’t get lured into a one-on-one combat with him unless it was this close to the ground, where Commander wouldn’t be able to use pegasus’ weather magic…” Arthas recalled, giving the echo a questioning stare.
Clover noticed his gaze, but rather than reply she strangely glanced at him and smirked briefly, before turning her attention towards the fight. Surprised by her reaction, Arthas followed her example, as they made their way to the end of the woods… and noticed two shapes moving not far from its edge.
Signaling to the rest to move even more carefully, Arthas crept from tree to tree, trying to get a better look of the situation before deciding to intervene. He also tried to catch a better glimpse of the two fighting warriors, which wasn’t easy; they moved fast, their figures quickly disappearing and reappearing behind each tree that stood between them and Arthas’ group. It didn’t help that, being echoes, they were partially transparent. Eventually, though, he was able to make them out.
King Friedrich was a powerfully built griffon, easily the biggest one Arthas saw. Of course, prior coming to this island, he had never seen any griffon, so all he had to compare to him were other echoes. As far as he could see, they were different from Azeroth’s gryphons almost as much as Equestria’s ponies differed from Azeroth’s ponies. Aside from the obvious (sapience, speech, and everything like that), they were also smaller, although still bigger than ponies. Friedrich, however, was as big as an Azerothian gryphon. Looking at him through the trees Arthas noticed that he flew almost effortlessly despite the heavy plate armor he wore, which covered everything except his wings, tail and head, speaking of his physical strength. He carried to battle two swords with slightly curved blades, similar to those Arthas had seen many griffon echoes carry; he suspected that such shaped blades made it easier to fight with them in mid-air.
Commander Hurricane, in contrast, wasn’t so physically impressive, at least from so far away. It was hard to tell from such a distance, but to Arthas it seemed that the pegasus was shorter than him. Despite that, he carried a sword - the famous Windtear - that was almost as big as himself with ease while flying around the bigger griffon, and parried each strike of Friedrich’s swords. Unlike the griffon king, he wore a lighter armor, which allowed for a greater mobility, and a helmet.
Arthas continued to observe their fight as he reached the edge of the treeline, signaling for the others to stop. He wanted to assess the situation before taking action. As he noted earlier, Commander Hurricane all but danced around in the air around King Friedrich, he was in constant motion as he struck with Windtear, trying to reach any vital area or the griffon’s wings to limit his movements. To the monstrous king’s credit, he proved almost as equally fast as the pegasus; his eyes almost never left Hurricane, everytime Windtear would come at him, either one of Friedrich’s swords would meet it or he would turn and let the strike hit where his armor would protect him, and then would conduct his own attacks, even if none of them could reach the pegasus. Each time, Hurricane would either move out of the way or parry, moving his sword so quickly that even when Friedrich brought both blades at him he would be unharmed.
“It seems Hurricane has an advantage,” he mused quietly. A thought occurred that this situation felt unusual to him; he was not used to merely observing a battle while hiding practically in the bushes. Banishing the distracting thought, he focused on the combat before him. “I can see clear marks on Friedrich’s armor, but not a single scratch on the Commander…”
His brow furrowed as he observed another exchange of strikes between them. Something felt… off to him, and it didn’t have anything to do with him all but peeping on them. No, something fell off to him about their battle, but for the life of him he couldn’t put his hoof on it…
Beside him, Clover uttered a short sigh of relief. “That’s good to hear. Even knowing Hurricane’s battle skills, I considered it dangerous for him to face Friedrich alone…”
Arthas listened to her with one ear, keeping his attention on the fight, trying to realize what was it that caught his attention. It seemed as if the very history of this battle wanted to deny him that, as the two flying warriors parted, landing on the ground within several yards away from each other. Both were breathing heavily and were in need of a momentary break.
Friedrich, whose face was visible, sneered and growled something at Hurricane in the griffon language while pointing one of his swords at him threateningly. Arthas frowned; the night before they left Ponyville Twilight had loaned him some basic book about Griffen for him so that he could start studying it during the journey to Dread Isle and back, but he had been too busy making all last minute plans and discussing them with his paladins and only browsed through the book. As such, he only understood two words from what King Friedrich had said.
“Skin,” and “mate”.
Coupled with what he had heard about King Friedrich, and that Private Pansy, Hurricane’s mate, had died at his paw in an unspeakably cruel manner, Arthas could easily imagine what the remark had been referencing. He wasn’t surprised when Clover - who obviously knew the language better than him - looked on at the griffon’s echo with shock, which quickly turned into rage, something he hadn’t seen her exhibit before. He doubted she had even realized that her horn had began to crackle with magic.
He was about to address her, wanting to calm her down - not because he feared she would attack Friedrich recklessly (although it would solve a lot of problems if she were to blast him with the full power of her magic), she was far too level headed to do that, even when enraged; Arthas was merely concerned about her - but then something happened that caused his attention to remain on the two warriors. Hurricane straightened, and turned his head towards them, lowering his sword.
Arthas was dumbfounded. He wouldn’t have be surprised if Hurricane had merely glanced in their direction, alerted by the sound of Clover’s magic she unintentionally unleashed in her anger, but the pegasus all but lowered his guard, as if forgetting about the griffon before him.
And said griffon was certainly too experienced warrior to miss this opening. As soon as Hurricane lowered his sword, King Friedrich lunged at him, reading his blades to swing at him.
This happened so fast that Arthas - still in shock after seeing Commander Hurricane look away from Friedrich - and Clover both didn’t have time to react, whether to shield the pegasus or attack the griffon. They were standing too close, and King Friedrich was too fast. By the time they’ve recovered, it was too late for them to interfere.
Not that they’ve needed to. Just before either of the blades could strike him, Hurricane flapped with one of his wings, causing him to raise into the air while spinning around his axis, his sword raised. To his credit, King Friedrich stopped and tried to defend himself, but he moved too slow. In a swift, clean motion, Windtear sliced right through his neck, separating his snow white head from the rest of his body.
As they watched King Friedrich’s headless body fall down in shocked silence, Commander Hurricane flew towards them, sheathing his sword over his back, as if having completely no interest in the fate of his heated enemy. “Clover?” he called out as he landed, his voice puzzled. “What are you doing here?”
Clover stepped out from behind the trees. Arthas, recovered from his shock (at least to some point) signaled to the others to follow her.
“What-” Clover began to reply, looking at Hurricane wide-eyed. “Thou- Thou just killed Friedrich!” she finally exclaimed, pointing at the already disappearing remains of the echo. “Like it was nothing! Why aren’t thou-”
Hurricane, who had removed his helmet, snorted. Underneath it was a face of a dark gray pony, with three scars (looking as if made by griffon’s talons) on the left side of his face over one of his blue eyes, and partially bitten off ear.
“We’ve been fighting over and over forever in this loop, I’ve memorized every way he moves while fighting. Do you know how many times I’ve killed him already?” he asked, shaking his head, then looked at her with renewed interest and mild excitement. “Nevermind that bastard, have you finally woken up? And who are they?” he added, briefly glancing at Arthas and the other paladins.
Clover continued to stare at him for a moment longer, a moment in which Arthas began to piece together what was happening here. However, it was still the echo of the unicorn called “the Clever” who said it out loud, after sighing in both amusement and resignation and facehoofing.
“Of course this spell couldn’t hold thee.”
“So…” Hurricane slowly said once Clover had finished talking. “We’re ‘echoes’ of the real Clover and Commander Hurricane.”
They were all sitting down in a circle at the spot they’ve met. In the short time after Hurricane had killed Friedrich’s echo, Clover had briefly introduced the paladins, then had proceeded herself explaining the cause of their existence and its nature.
Now that he was so close, Arthas could see that while indeed Hurricane was slightly shorter than him and more lean, he wasn’t by any means “physically unimpressive”. He was broad shouldered, and there were very powerful muscles clearly visible underneath his armor; in fact, he seemed more muscular than Arthas was.
“No wonder he could swing that sword so effortlessly”, Arthas mused, briefly glancing at Windtear; though transparent like its wielder, he could see that it appeared as if the blade was purely made out of crystal, with the exception of its hilt. “How does one make such a sword, exactly?”
When Clover nodded in reply, the Commander - to Arthas’ (and everypony’s else by the looks of it) surprise - uttered a calm, relieved sigh. “Well, that’s a relief.”
“Um…” Clover stuttered, a little perplexed. “‘Relief’?”
“Yes, I thought we were ghosts,” Hurricane replied, shrugging. “I thought I’d died to that piece of shit Friedrich here. I’m much happier knowing that I’m some... magical copy, or whatever you’ve called us, rather than having died here. I didn’t die here, right?” he then asked, looking at the living ponies with a frown. Serenity, probably slightly taken aback by Hurricane’s slightly threatening gaze, hesitated before answering, causing the echo to lose interest in them and turn back to Clover. “How long ago did you say that was?”
“Um, it hath been about two thousand years since we- I mean, the real ‘us’, had fought on this island, apparently,” Clover replied with a quick glance at Serenity. “And the ritual that had been disrupted by the ruler of Equestria which hath given rise to us hath taken place about eight hundred years ago.” As Hurricane’s eyes slightly widened for a moment as he learned how long they had been stuck on this island in the constant loop, only to return to normal as he looked away thoughtfully, Clover added, sounding sheepish, “I hath known thou to possess unimaginably strong will, but for thy mind to remain free and stay sane for eight centuries… that’s really amazing. Thou…” she continued, hesitant and looking at him closely, “actually seem… um, a lot… calmer, than before.”
“Apparently, killing Friedrich over and over for eight hundred of years in increasingly more imaginative ways did wonders for my sanity,” Hurricane replied with a shrug. Sighing, he added, “Though admittedly, even that became boring eventually. What you saw now was just me going through the motions, I lost interest in that fight long ago.”
“So that’s what seemed off to me when I watched their fight,” Arthas realized, “that he was bored… well, I suppose I would be too if I fight over and over again the same battle for eight hundred years…”
“So how exactly did the war end?” the Commander asked, changing the subject.
“Well…” Clover started, looking meaningfully at Serenity.
Clearing her throat, the crystal pony replied, “Equestria had pushed on into the heart of Griffonia and won, and you had taken King Friedrich captive.” Hurricane’s brow lifted in silent surprise, but he didn’t interrupt her. “Afterwards, Equestria had made him sign a peace treaty that ended the war and gave Equestria some of Griffonia’s territory.”
“I somehow doubt the real me would take Friedrich captive and just let him go after signing a piece of paper,” Hurricane said, turning over to Clover and crossing is forelegs on his chest. “Or that Friedrich would agree to surrender anything, even if we’d torture him.”
“I’d assumed the real me hath been able to convince the real thou to spare him,” Clover said.
“More like physically stopped me,” Hurricane snorted.
“As for Friedrich… I thought that maybe after his final defeat he realized that he had no hope of winning and wanted to save his subjects from further bloodshed?”
“Nay,” Hurricane replied, frowning. “Friedrich would have gladly sent every single griffon to their deaths before admitting defeat.”
“Well, if thou say so… ” Clover remarked, unsure what else to say.
Hurricane, however, quickly dropped musing on this subject. “Oh well, he’s dead by now. More importantly, did you say ‘ruler of Equestria’?” Commander Hurricane asked Clover with renewed interest… and a frown on his face.
“Yes, apparently…” Clover replied, then turned to Serenity, silently asking her to explain.
“Well, the war and several smaller conflicts that happened in the following decade had showed citizens of Equestria that the Council you had established could work, um, too slowly, so they decided to chose to have a single leader to rule the country,” Serenity said. “Ponies had wanted to choose between you, or um, the real Commander Hurricane, and the pegasi’s form of government, and Queen Platinum and unicorn’s form of government. Aand, um...” she hesitated, no doubt not really wanting to tell Hurricane’s echo that the real him had died before the ponies had decided. (“At least according to the known history,” Arthas thought, recalling what Daring Do had told him.) “Queen Platinum was chosen as the Queen of Equestria.”
Hurricane, who’s brow had slowly risen as Serenity explained, hummed. “Better her than me. Or her father,” he added, with barely hidden disdain in his voice; Arthas noticed how Clover’s eyes went up to the the back of her skull at the remark. “So the current ruler of Equestria is a unicorn that’s Platinum’s descendant?”
“That’s right, Commander,” Arthas spoke up. “Except Princess Celestia - as well as her sister, Princess Luna, as they now rule together - isn’t a unicorn, but an alicorn. And it had been Princess Celestia who had disrupted the ritual on this island eight hundred years ago that created you.”
For the first time Hurricane looked on without masking his surprise. “An alicorn? Huh, I guess that explains what had happened to the mountain,” he added, calming down as he glanced at the spot where said landform had been. Turning his attention back to Arthas, he asked, “And you said you four are?”
Since Clover had introduced them only briefly as “four ponies who had helped her regain her senses”, so Arthas wasn’t surprised that eventually Hurricane wanted some further explanations.
“We’re paladins of the Order of the Celestial Light. I’m Sir Lightbringer, Grand Master of the Order,” Arthas began; he decided to not go into further explanations regarding his names or himself, “and those are my subordinates, Knight-Lieutenant Sir Storm Clash and Knights Dame Serenity, Sir Guard Shield, and Sir Tucker,” he introduced each in turn. “We came here for… well, basically, a real combat experience. Barring a few incidents, Equestria has known only peace since your time,” Arthas explain as Hurricane raised an eyebrow questioningly. “The current Equestrian military has an adequate combat training, but training cannot replace experience.”
“So you took those four here so they could gain some experience,” Hurricane finished for him, smirking. “Good thinking. What are paladins?” he added, tilting his head in interest.
“Warriors who wield a special kind of magic,” Clover explained before Arthas could.
“Oversimplified, but accurate I suppose,” Arthas mused.
“They’ve actually been able to stand against me in combat, Sir Lightbringer especially,” Clover added, nodding at the paladin as she praised him. As Hurricane lifted an eyebrow, though, she blushed and cleared her throat. “The magic that binds us hath caused me to see them as griffons, actually. Fighting against them hath forced me to summon Triskelion, and the power of the staff broke me free.”
“Really?” Hurricane asked, sounding intrigued. “You stood against Clover and survived? I’m impressed.” His eyes briefly slided to the hammer strapped to Arthas’ back. “Actually… I have spent the last eight hundred years fighting the same foe; it would be interesting to face against somepony new.” Smirking, he added, “And I would be lying if I said I wasn’t curious to see how somepony who can stand against Clover fights.”
Arthas, slightly surprised by the sudden proposition, quickly regained his composure and smirked back. “Testing myself against the greatest warrior ponies ever knew? It would be an honor, Commander,” he said, nodding in respect.
“I suspect that had been the reason why you came here seeking me,” Commander Hurricane remarked, standing up. Arthas followed his example as the pegasus turned to Clover. “Clover, please teleport to a safe distance with our new friends,” he asked her, putting his helmet back on.
“Of course,” Clover replied, her horn glowing.
“Good luck Sir,” Storm told Arthas, with others nodding, a moment before they all disappeared together with the unicorn echo.
“Ready to see how the greatest pony warrior fights?” Arthas asked Raogrior as he stretched his legs a little. As he sensed the val’kyr nodding, he added, just to be safe, “Make sure to not interfere… and watch over the others in case any echos appear.”
He had recalled how, according to history, King Friedrich had been able to escape Commander Hurricane because griffon reinforcements arrived and distracted the pegasus warrior. Although he couldn’t sense any echo now, during the fight he would be too distracted to pay attention to this possible threat.
“Of course,” the val’kyr replied.
Commander Hurricane, who was fresh from a fight, didn’t need to stretch, and merely stood upright on his hind legs, his wings outstretched for better balance, and drew his sword. “Feel free to come at me, Sir,” he said as Windtear cut through the air, nodding respectfully. “And no need to hold back; even if you’d seriously harm me, by tomorrow’s dawn everything will start anew on this cursed island.”
A slight furrow crossed Arthas’ mien at the slightly protectional tone he sensed in the echo’s voice and in his stance. Despite unsheathing his sword and standing up, he kept his sword lowered, and he almost looked relaxed.
“Well, if half of what they’ve said about him is true, he has every right to be,” Arthas mused. He also recalled how he had seen the Commander fight the echo of the griffon king. “Is he planning to dodge around me too? That would explain why he’s not bracing himself for an attack...” It wouldn’t be the first time Arthas had to fight somebody faster than himself, so despite what he had seen he felt confident he would be able to keep up with Hurricane enough to defend himself and wait for an opening. “With the Light’s help, it will be even easier… but I’d like to see how I measure to him with just my warrior skills alone.”
Having decided that, Arthas quickly lunged at Hurricane, shifting his body weight to his hind legs at the just precise time to land on them in upright position, while with his free forelegs he brought his hammer against Commander from the right.
Quicker than the eye could follow, the echo passed the sword from his right forehoof to his left and raised it in defense. The hammer stuck it… and stopped. Arthas’ eyes bulged as he felt the force of his blow stop, with Hurricane not as much as budging.
“Is that all?” he asked, his tone a mixture of amusement and disappointment.
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Ooooooooh, shit's about to get REAL.
Wait, I just realized... King Friedrich... King FRIED RICH
I mean really? Seems like the last thing you would name someone who is part bird
Looks like we're going up to DBZ levels of power for this pony, er, echo.
9500262
Apparently he did kill dragon aspects single-hoofed, after all.
Didn't expect this plot twist.
9500252
Probably how Celestia 'convinced" him.
Though in truth I think it is Celestia doing some historic revisioning, to some end goal.
Well, Arthas, you took him lightly, and you are already aware your abilities are waning. Need to shape back up, too many papers you've been writing!
A simpel yes no question thats bothering me for ages.
Will Artas HAVE to use Deathknight magic again and will he use it?
9500422
yes no.
XD
9500579
This answer made it even WORSE!
Is this a no or is it a maybe?
I can honestly say I wasn't expecting Hurricane to be awake all this time. Why did he not try to get off the island on his own any time over the past 800 years? Or did he, only to find he couldn't leave?
And I am curious why Hurricane doesn't have Ye Olden Speak while Clover does. Is that a dialect difference between the tribal kingdoms of the time?
Anyhow, thank you very much for the update! I always enjoy seeing this story update.
Great update.
Hey you plan to keep writing after season 9 ends right?
9500963
Hey I'm all for that also, but story-wise let's get through season 3 first, eh?
9500902
ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, i told you i suck at anagrams, xD
Can't wait to see how this fight turns out... and perhaps see if Hurricane will gift Arthas Windtear after their duel. After all, Guard did get his new shield from fighting Rockhoof's echo, so maybe the same can happen here.
Hurricanes got fed up haaving to deal with KFC every day, now he has Sir Lion Steak to get his teeth into instead?
9500242
Pretty much yes.
9500252
Friedrich is a German name (english version would be Frederick; I think it actually originated from Friedrich). I named that character after Friedrich II (the Great), King of Prussia. Because while he had been a great king of Prussia, he had been a MASSIVE, COLOSSAL F***ING D*CK to my country and it had been mostly because of him that my country, who had been a superpower mere two centuries earlier, had been split between three countries for 123 years (well, actually, the most fault fell to Polish idiot nobles; "Hey all, let's start having elections for kings! And we chose the one who promises us most privilages and shit! And lets allow a parliaments session to be broken by just ONE persons for whatever reason! That's the road to f***ing awesomeness". F***ING ASSHOLES!). So, you know, having a little payback by making about the only tyrant this world had seen have the same name.
9500262
Funny, I'm thinking about joking in the next chapter (once you'd see what he's capable of) about this character being a union of several anime characters, but none of them were from Dragonball ;p
9500311
Hm, I don't think I had refered to her as Equestria's Dragon Aspect... buuut that was so long ago and I am too lazy to check to make sure ;p
9500393
What a twist!
9500407
Um, Celestia was born almost a millenium after the guy died 
Not sure what you mean there
9500409
More like too many conversations, aside from that fight with Ursa (which admittedly was slightly too bullshitty on my part), the last fight before Illidan's image had been a sparring with Wind Reaver, and before that King Sombra. There's been way more dialogues scenes in this story than action scenes for some time
9500422
If Arthas tried, I think he could use some of his death knight powers. However, most of death knight abilities and power come from their runeblades, and Arthas doesn't have that. Also considering how intuned to the Light he became, I doubt he would resort to that. Not to mention that this would slightly shaken his "devotion to the Light", he would feel guilt and shame and stuff and it would weaken his resolve, therefor his connection to the Light would grow weaker. And he understands that, so I doubt he would risk it.
9500579
Pretty much, yeah
9500786
I think he was just making a guess ;p
9500795
Will explore in next chapters why he didn't leave.
Yeah, I figured that with the whole warrior culture, the pegasi wouldn't speak so "officialy" and be more plain.
Aw, thanks^^
9500963
Well duh! I didn't spend six years on this story to quit it just because the show decided to end and apparently start a remake with 5th generation (at least they could change the character's names and colors for crying out loud!)
9501092
UUuugh, been stuck in this season forever...
9501229
To be fair, most of the people who read this story play WoW, and the whole Matthias Lehner thing had been introduced there, so it's possible they're not good with anagrams either ;p
Oh sorry, been meaning to reply to your first comment asking about that
9501766
The Windtear here is an echo, not the real sword
9502088
Aaaand now I am thinking about showing a griffon character named Sanders, thanks ;p
9504469
?
9508999
The problem when you are way too excited to read something and its way late, is sometimes one happens to misread things, my apologies I reread where I had thought I saw a contradictory timeline statement.
9508999
i have played WoW, just didn’t reach that far, :P
9508999
Glad to hear it, saying goodbye to FIM will be hard enough for me, not ready to give up all my favorite fics yet. I will not follow G5 if it doesn't involve Twilight and her friends, those six are the sole reason I love the show so much.
I am always happy when this updates. Can't wait for the next chapter!
There's the unbendable will and there's The Unbreakable Will. Great sword for cosplaying.
9535384
At this point in the story, It's a bit difficult to imagine Rainbow as a monk unless she gains more mental discipline. AJ I can see as a monk though...probably a brewmaster monk. I don't have any vision for Rarity yet as things are now.
Right now, I have no idea how you plan to introduce locks or DKs (unless you plan to convert Tucker or something since I'm pretty sure his hoof blades count as dual wielding 1h swords) if at all.
With Arthas' friends and associates gaining WoW class jobs, he might as well open up Equestria's first guild.
9535591
I dunno, seems like she would fit well with the Huojin monks. Still, I had originally planned her to be a "prestige class" Wonderbolt (not a spoiler since her wanting to become a Wonderbolt is still canon in this story ;p), only recently I've started considering that maybe I could make her more "monk" like on top of that. AJ I see more as a warrior... with a lasso. Considered her becoming a shaman but nah, she's foremost a farmer and I feel like being a shaman would conflict with that, unlike being a warrior. As for Rarity and Pinkie, you'll have to wait a bit longer ;p
I plan to to have the world of Equestria (side note, been thinking more and more about maybe changing it to Equus or something and leave Equestria to be just the name of the country... I mean, it is sorta confusing) to have all the classes we know from WoW. Admittedly, you will have to wait a looooong time for DK, and even longer for DH. Not telling who becomes who. But lock will come around much sooner.
Guilds don't really exist "in lore", and Arthas and Mane6 and rest are already sorta part of Equestria's defenses and such... it would be like having Mathias Shaw join a guild, sorta
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The reason I see AJ as a monk is because of her daily chores and the fact that she bucks trees regularly may be considered part of a monk's training regimen. Her decent alcohol tolerance is what made me consider the brewmaster spec.
I didn't consider Rainbow as a monk because she has a hard time focusing on things that would not interest her which shows a lack of mental discipline and I think even a Huojin monk needs at least that to focus their chi. It's not like Huojin monks are trained like the antagonists from the Karate Kid movies, they are just more eager to take action.
Edit: Part of me wants to consider Rainbow as an outlaw rogue. I don't consider the class to necessarily be as stealthy as the assassin and sub specs as it is more of a pirate spec and many consider pirates to be awesome so it might catch her interest. One can buy temporary loyalty through this spec and abilities like Roll the Bones carries some risk in a combat situation and she does strike me as a bit of a risk taker.
Pinkie I already see her as a fury warrior. You practically hinted at that when she went on a rampage as Pinkamena and later performed a Charge on Arthas when he was training initiates.
Also, if you intend to add Starlight Glimmer, I pretty much see her as an arcane mage because arcane is the magic of Order and the fact that she is so willing to mess with time just makes the spec more fitting for her.
Good chapter
Next chapter?
By the way I do not see Twilight as being accepting of Arthus past. She just lacks the ability to understand what he did. She has lived a sheltered life.
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He is weakened because he was put into a new body which he has never fought a skilled opponent in. Most of the strong oppenants like chrysalys he has faced and even celestia are the types who instead of using skilled fighting techniques use magic to overpower their problems.
So much for my "Hurricane had rainbow hair" theory. :P
Or wait... the hair color wasn't mentioned... though it probably would have if it was. Ah well.