Twilight fought off the inevitable wave of nausea as they exited the teleportation bloom, then forced down some water from her canteen. The air here was more moist than she would have expected, even so far up.
“We must depart now, Twilight!” Luna called from her chariot. “There is a telegraph station here. If you need us, send Canterlot a message, and my sister shall summon me. Night Guard, break for the south! Tonight, we hunt Titans!”
There was a flash, and the Princess was gone.
“I do not envy those guys,” Rose said with a shudder. “Where do you want me to land?”
“Good question.” Twilight craned her neck over the edge of the cart and looked over the site. The mountains at the border of San Palomino were just barely visible to the far north. To the west was a monstrous hole in the ground, easily the largest quarry she'd ever seen. The reason for the company's success was evident — the walls of the mine positively shimmered with core-quality gems.
To the east were a few small office buildings, a large depot for shipping out material, and a huge cluster of tents. However, the word “tent” didn't quite do them justice. They were somewhere in between tents and real buildings. Groups of ponies gathered under canopies, each with a kitchen serving food.
Around the entire thing was a fence with multiple security towers and a heavily guarded entrance to the south. Hundreds more ponies were waiting outside the gates, gathered into a single crowd.
“Put us down at the gate. No sense in being obstinate unless we have to be. Besides, maybe the guards will know where Goals is.”
“Roger. Headin’ down.”
By the time they were a few meters overhead, the boos and jeers had already reached a fever pitch.
“Turn around and go home!” one stallion yelled.
“There's enough competition for jobs already!” A mare sneered at them.
“What do you think you're doing, cutting in line?! Get to the back!” That one started a chant, with “Get to the back” being repeated ad nauseum. Then came the rocks, and Twilight decided that was quite enough of that.
Aurora, deploy. Make it noisy.
“Happy to!”
Light swallowed Twilight whole, blazing like a fire and rumbling the ground. When it died down, armor covered nearly every square centimetre of her body, and the crowd was murmuring in awe.
“What's going on here?” One of the guards, a large, male gryphon, opened the gate and stepped through. “What have I told you ponies? You behave, you can camp out here. You cause trouble, you can take your chances in the desert.”
“That sounds reasonable,” Twilight said as the crowd parted a path between her and the gryphon. “But I'm not here looking for a job. My name is Grand Mage Twilight Sparkle, and this is an official investigation of the Crown. I have it on good information that a Mr. Lofty Goals is present at this mine. I need to speak with him, immediately.”
The gryphon, whose name tag said “Baldur,” folded his forelegs. “I assume you have a warrant?”
“Do we?” Rose asked, whispering.
Twilight shook her head. “You are foreign to Equestria, so I'll cut you some slack for not knowing. Grand Mages are the sole law enforcement entity able to operate in Equestria with the powers of the Princesses themselves. Neither warrants nor probable cause are factors in where I want to go or what I want to search. I answer only to Celestia, and have carte blanche to do whatever I need to in order to complete my missions. Which means, if I have to barge in, I have that legal ability. I'm asking that you get him, or allow me entrance to speak with him.”
Baldur scratched his head. “I wasn't informed of any such thing. I'll have to send for somepony to get management permission.”
Twilight sat down in front of the gate. “Do so, quickly. If I start to think you're stringing me along, I'll be forced to take action and enter, whether or not I have permission.”
“I can't allow you to—”
“You won't be able to stop me.”
Baldur staggered at the bravado. “I'll… get a manager.”
Twilight nodded, and started a mental clock as she waited for the gryphon to return. She was about to polish off her fifth gulp of water and tear the gate off its hinges when the metal door cla-chunked and started a slow slide open. On the other side was a medium-sized stock stallion. He had a coat the colour of rust, and eyes of a cold, deep ocean. A formal mane style and suit more expensive than a month’s rent in a luxury Canterlot penthouse told her that this was the stallion she was looking for.
“Lady Sparkle, I presume?” He straightened his tie and bowed. “My name is Lofty Goals. I am the Vice President of Land Acquisitions for the Core Mining Company. You are here about...?”
Twilight signalled Aurora, and the armour glowed and retracted. “I need specific information that your company is likely to posses. It's there somewhere more private we can talk?”
“Of course. My temporary office. Please, follow me.” Goals turned and waved them through, ignoring Baldur's stink-eye. The door closed behind them, and they turned to travel through a series of the tent-buildings.
“Are the ponies outside the gates that much of a problem?” Twilight asked. “It seems odd to have that much security.”
“Well,” Goals began, mulling over his words. “I don't blame them, to be honest. Of all the major mining companies in San Palomino, we treat our employees the best. Come, see for yourself.”
He turned and led them down another row, towards the center of the cluster. A series of pipes had sprouted from the ground in front of them, forming something like a jungle gym, but with vastly more space inside. More than enough for dozens of ponies, as evidenced by the crowd inside. The pipes had holes in them, and cold water was spraying out. Workers, some wearing gear, some not, were basking in the cooling mist.
“After all is said and done, we don't really pay the best.” Goals took a drink from a nearby water fountain. “But, we offer much safer and more comfortable working and living areas than any other company in the Duchy. Ponies don't die of dehydration or hyperthermia on our watch. We have a maximum workday of eight hours, a maximum workweek of forty-eight hours, and living quarters you can sleep in without sweltering.
“Other companies pay by the kilogram mined. Some even have an auction system for their prospective hires to compete against each other, lowering their wages. Worse, they’ll let miners work as much as they want under the hot sun or baking earth. It's why some have secret mass graves near their sites.”
Twilight's cheeks burned with anger. She nearly broke her pen writing a note to herself to investigate this later.
Goals turned back towards the offices and continued his explanation. “We pay by the hour. Unproductive workers are just fired, rather than paid less. It's still hard work, but at least with our way it's livable. But, it means ponies are always trying to sneak into the camp to try and get hired. Baldur is one of our security officers in charge of making sure that doesn't happen. It's hard to sneak past a gryphon’s sight.”
Rose shook out her feathers. “I imagine so. So they're just looking for work? And they throw rocks at ponies joining the line?”
Goals shrugged. “Sometimes. A lot of them are desperate, but we only have so many spots. We try to keep order, give out water. But the crowd just keeps getting bigger. The company is considering hiring a security firm to kick them out, start taking applications only at certain locations. Off-site locations.”
As they went by another misting station, the cool droplets sent a shiver down Twilight's spine. “Speaking of, how do you get so much water out here? It seems a large cost.”
Goals smiled, and his blond mane only served to make his eyes mad with confidence. “Site 47 is the first of our locations to connect to our own private aqueduct to the Stormlands to the north. Soon, all our sites will. Until then, the others have water shipped in. In another two years, we'll be San Palomino’s largest water management organization.”
Twilight followed Goals in through a pair of glass doors to an air-conditioned office building and passed the reception, then turned to Rose in a whisper. “Stay outside. Make a ruckus if you suspect an ambush.”
Rose saluted with a smile, left the building, and took off to the sky, staggering a bit in her climb.
The remaining two ponies climbed a couple stories and ducked into an office. There wasn't a reception desk, per se, but there was a waiting area of sorts. A pair of blue couches on opposite green walls faced each other, with a rectangular coffee table in between them. Beyond them, a pair of frosted glass doors marked the entryway to Goals’ office.
Also in the room was a large, muscled draft pegasus stallion sipping water from a paper cup next to a water cooler. He had nearly opaque aviator sunglasses, and a suit Rarity might have designed. Moreover, he was white on a level only Celestia could hope to match. Even his mane was an untarnished, pure-as-the-driven-snow white.
“Lady Sparkle,” Goals said, turning to face the other ponies. “May I introduce Arctic Snow, President of the Arctic Security Company.”
Twilight bowed with a smile. “A pleasure.”
Arctic bowed back. “No, if anything it's mine. It's a delight to finally meet the little sister Shining Armor has gone on and on about. And to think, I was going to give Goals here an earful for letting something interrupt our meeting.” He leaned in to not-so-subtly mutter an aside. “Actually, I was going to give him an earful just to annoy him regardless, but now you went and gave me an excuse for it.”
Goals rolled his eyes.
“Um…” Twilight blinked. “You're welcome?”
“Now then, Lady Sparkle, you said you had questions for me about something?” Goals opened the doors to his office and motioned for her to enter, which she did. Inside was a fairly ordinary office for a Vice President, with a desk, bookshelf filled with nondescript books, and filing cabinets.
After taking a seat and putting up a privacy barrier, Twilight cleared her throat and pulled out her notebook. “I'll get right to the point. I have reasonably reliable intelligence that a major pirate operating in San Palomino has a base inside a hollowed out mesa. Your company is the most successful in the Duchy, with by far the richest mines. I'm assuming you have geological data on the mesas west of Sierra Maredre that could help me narrow down which mesa they're hiding in.”
Goals blinked and leaned back in his chair. “Wow. That is rather unexpected, Lady Sparkle. I'm assuming you are referring to Farriér?”
“The same.” Twilight held up her notebook's map and circled the area she needed. “I'm not going to sugarcoat this, Mr. Goals. Lives are at stake; recent hostages. And we both know that the longer we take to take this bastard down, the more likely he'll wind up targeting one of your mines. If this is your best-equipped site, his airship’s guns will tear this place apart in minutes.”
Goals rubbed his chin with a hoof. “I… don't really need convincing, Lady Sparkle. Your word is law. If you want the data, I have to surrender it. But he's been a thorn in the Duchy's side for some time. Why stop him now?”
Twilight took her notebook back and folded her forelegs. “I only just recently learned about him. I did so at the point of a gun. He attacked the train I was on, and he was looking for me.”
Goals’ rusty coat grew two shades darker. “If he's willing to attack you, he deserves what's coming to him.” The stallion pushed back from his desk and went through the unlabelled books on the shelf. After a time, he had several of them pulled down. “These have the data. I'll start going through the reports and mark down which are viable. You can go through the others if you want.”
“I will. Thank you.” Twilight tore through the data, which, thankfully, was rich and well organized. There were even charts. Neither Goals’ name nor his cutie mark suggested a geology background, but he clearly had his company pursue everything he was involved in with an incredible dedication to detail. The reason for his company’s success was clear: based on the data, they already had the richest mines in the Duchy.
The treasure trove included information on which buttes were minable internally, which had riches underneath, and which were stable enough to support it all. Still, the sheer number of them in the vast, wild landscape was incredible. There were thousands of buttes scattered about her target zone, and even that was but a small piece of the Duchy.
Discord, Twilight thought. Four thousand years later and his actions are still a pain in the rear. “Okay, I think that's all of them. Two hundred ten viable candidates.”
“I'm sorry I couldn't nail it down further for you.” Goals sighed and plopped his pen on the desk. “That's still going to take you a long time to search.”
“Maybe, but we still eliminated the vast majority of candidates in the region. We'll get him, even if we have to search these one by one. A few Wonderbolt teams will comb through them in a few days, tops. Farriér’s number is up. He just doesn't realize it yet.”
Ka-chu-fzzzzzz!
The buzz faded, and everything went black.
Rose yawned and leaned back against a building, wiping tears from her eyes. “You'd think I'd get used to having sand in my eyes, seeing as I've lived all my life in a desert. You'd be completely wrong.”
She then held down a burp and scratched her back on the edge of a building across from the one Twilight had entered. You'd also think I'd be used to the boredom of stakeouts and waiting in general. Wrong again. Maybe it's because I'm a pegasus, but this still sucks.
She took a few steps from the building, out into the middle of the dusty street, and spread her wings. She didn't take off; she just sat there, feathers spread wide.
Non-pegasi didn't really appreciate streets in the same way pegasi did. Sure, the ground ponies used streets. They were made by and likely invented by them. And sure, pegasi didn't use streets as much, but there was one magical thing about them that those without feathers couldn't quite gap: the wind.
Buildings in a grid layout had a tendency to push air along in a wind tunnel, and the tingle it could give one’s feathers was something else, even among tiny buildings like these.
“Yeah, there we go…” Her feathers and skin twitched while the tingle danced up her back, and the mist from a nearby cooling station added an icy prick to each pin. “That's nice.”
“Wow. You got…” A random earth pony stallion blinked, looking at her wings. “Quite the wingspan there, missy.”
Rose blushed hot enough to melt the ice on her back, then gave him a burning glare. “Not cool. You don't just say things like—”
Rose stopped. Something had changed. It was subtle, but it there was definitely a difference in her sight. Pegasi had sight finely tuned to three dimensions, which needed an accurate sense of light, and that sense told her something got darker. Something to the left, where Twilight was.
She turned, and the other shoe dropped. The building that Twilight had entered didn't just turn off its lights. The entire thing was a black mass; a perfect rectangular prism the size of a city block. No light was coming out, or even being reflected by it. It was a pure, cold void.
“Twilight!” Rose flapped her wings, flying forward and blasting the pony behind her off his hooves. Though she was there in a second, it was too late. The mass was solid as rock, and freezing under her hooves. “Twilight! It's an ambush!”
She hollered and pounded on the darkness with every ounce of magic she could bring to bear, brought up the sound of a full stampede to thunder through her body and the valley, and nothing. Nothing from the void that had swallowed her first friend in years.
Plenty, however, came from the sky.
The ground shook hard enough for Rose to feel it even in the air, and more, closer explosions of fire punched her eardrums seconds later. An airship appeared out of nothing to scorch the earth, raining down shells that erupted with flame on each blast. Two monster turrets were turning the mine into slag, and dozens of ponies were flying out of the bay of the ship.
“Run!”
Rose winced and cringed at the voice, and fell to the ground.
“Run! Fly! They'll kill you if they know you're with Twilight!”
“Argh!” Rose punched herself in the face, pain being the next best thing to cold water. “Shut up shut up shut up!”
“Fly! They'll take you away!”
Rose hit herself again and screamed. Whether it was her ‘inner’ voice leaking out our just her own terror and frustration, it still broke through the sound of shells and panicking ponies, overtaking it all. One mighty flap had her in the air, and surrounded.
Ponies were everywhere. Most were running away from the fire on the ground, but plenty were in the air, some flying for their lives, some flying to take lives.
A knock on her saddle had Rose's cannons dropping open at the ready. They were squirt guns compared to the cannons on the backs of the pirates, but in a furball, “unconscious” was as good as “dead.”
The first pony in her sights found that out the hard way.
A little pair of bolts arced out haphazardly, reaching for something with tendrils of light. When they found the pony in their path, they wound around and into him, racing up his spine and into his brain.
The stallion vibrated for a second, then fell to the ground, kicking up a nice cloud of dust as he hit.
Pegasi were remarkably resistant to blunt force impacts, like the ones sustained from falls. This protection, however, was based on knowing what was coming. Being knocked out on a fall, while not as lethal for pegasi as others, was still life-threatening. With a heavy-duty cannon like the one that stallion was carrying, anypony taking a hit like that was going to wind up dead.
Rose swallowed back vomit, then said through clenched teeth, “Live by the sword…”
She banked hard left, lining up on a second, then a third pegasus, knocking them all out of the sky before one of them finally woke up and turned his guns on her.
BBBBBRRRRRAAAAAPPP!
Bolts of pure, explosive power ripped under her hooves. If any of them had so much as nicked her, they'd have taken her legs clean off. Best case, she'd bleed out in seconds. Worse, she didn't need to look behind her to know that her bogey was fixing his aim for another burst.
She banked again, this time hard right, and another BBBBBRRRRRAAAAAPPP! nearly announced the removal and destruction of her head. Despite her best efforts to shake him off, moving left, right, and every which way possible, the third burst only missed because the pirate behind her had lousy aim.
Rose dove for the streets below her, lining up with as narrow an alley as her large wings would fit down. Her primaries were brushing on walls, her follower had no trouble firing, and that was just the start. She had “cruising” wings, best for stability and gliding. Wonderbolt turns were literally impossible with wings like hers, and she had just given every advantage to her attacker.
Which meant she had to be perfect, and he had to be sloppy like a tiny pony carrying a gun that was too big for his hide to handle.
She dove to the ground just as the next burst ripped through where she had been, then she snapped her wings to her sides and jumped. She twisted and tumbled about in mid air, leaping into a perpendicular alley. While the pegasus behind her raced ahead and overshot her, she jumped off the wall of a building and back into the air. The other pegasus was stuck circling around, and she had a bead on him.
“Sleep tight!” A crack of lightning went through the air, and just like that, her enemy fell.
“Not bad!”
She snapped around and fired, not waiting to see whether it was a friend or foe.
The stallion grabbed her lightning with a hoof and tossed it aside. His coat was grey, and his mane and beard, jet black and curly. His grin could stab ponies in the heart all by itself, and the look in his eyes would cut them in twain. This was Farriér.
The stallion smacked his lips, electricity arcing over his primaries as he laughed. “I could use a pony like you on my crew. ‘Course, my spy caught you calling for a certain Grand Mage. I bet when she gets out of our little cage, she'll be mighty angry. Best not to be ‘round when that happens; after all, we can always deal with her later. Just about any time we want, in fact.
“So, why don't y'all come with us, now?”
Rose's heart beat faster than an airship engine could spin. This was the pirate of San Palomino, and she was about to say no to him.
“Say yes! Fly! Do anything!”
“AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!” Rose dove forward, and her vision went white.
She was lying on something warm. That was the last thing she felt while the world went away and a voice cackled in her ear.
“That's mighty disappointing. But then, we have ways of negotiating I think y'all will find persuasive. Bring her on board. Gently. Wouldn't want to damage the merchandise, ya hear?”
Twilight blinked. Everything had gone black. The lights in the room, gone. The sun in the window, vanished. There was nothing but void everywhere, and lighting her horn produced only a token amount of illumination; far less than it should have.
“Lady Sparkle, are you still there?”
Her hearing, at least, was fine. “I'm here…” Vibrations rumbled through the floor and into her hooves. “There's no way this is natural. I'm not that lucky. Hang on.” She called forth her magic, and a narrow slice of it, at that. Fighting the Titan, she had to convert her dark magic to light, but here, no conversion was needed. She merely needed a magic circle filled with only one kind of her power: fire.
A red circle hummed to life in the floor, slowly leaking hot, fiery magic. Nearly microscopic motes of flame ate away at something in the air, and in seconds they could see again, at least inside the office.
“What is this?” Goals swatted at the motes with a hoof. “It's everywhere!”
Twilight turned up her nose at the smell of sewage. “Murkyr. A supernatural darkness that absorbs light. By itself, it's harmless. But since it's here, somepony wants us in the dark, figuratively and literally. Come on, let's get out of here and find out what's going on!”
She marched to the door, stubbing her hoof on a table and nearly tripping on a step. There's the real danger of murkyr — not being able to see where in Tartarus you're going. It forces you to slow down, which is likely just what they want. She put more fire magic in her horn and let it leak out to clear the way.
“You two!” a voice that sounded like Arctic Snow said. “Just what is going on here? You never mentioned this place sometimes spontaneously got darker than my ex-wife’s heart. That is, if she had one.”
“We're under attack. You're going to help me fend it off.” Twilight said flatly.
“Attack? Who in their right mind launches a coordinated assault on a mine of all things?”
Twilight narrowed her eyes, not once stopping her pace. “I can think of just one pony to fit that description.” How she didn't wind up falling down the stairs, she'd never know, but she did it. The three of them left the building while the receptionist cowered under her desk, which was just as well. She was safer there than outside during an attack.
The only problem was getting outside the myrkur to repel it. As Twilight stepped outside, she realized there was no way to know for sure how far it went. The sky, the horizon, everything was pitch black. Then, she bumped her nose on something. “Ow!”
“Something the matter?” Goals asked.
Twilight held up a hoof to stop them from bumping into the same wall, then reached out with it to feel what was ahead of her. Inside the myrkur was a solid black barrier, a shield configured to absorb all the light that hit it. The vibrations outside had picked up — explosions, she had guessed — but the shield itself had a steady, low-frequency throb.
“Can you break it down? Or blow it up?”
“Yes. And we would die in the backlash.” Twilight licked her lips and started digging into the barrier with an analysis spell, and in a few moments she had a trio of circles up representing the barrier’s formula. “Tricky, high powered spell. Whoever did this was pretty good. The formula itself is encrypted, although a better word might be ‘obscured.’ There's a lot of additional, unnecessary steps put in to try to make it hard to comprehend, and thus hard to find a weak point. And before you ask, yes, I can crack it. I just need a little time.”
“I don't know how much we have. A pirate operation can be done in minutes. Which means my employees are dying.” Goals put a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “Please, hurry.”
Snow pulled him back. “Ease off and let her work, Goals. If anypony can break this, it's her.”
“Aha!” Twilight smiled and started working a drill of a counter-spell. “Just as I thought, there's a time limit on this spell, and it's being refreshed part by part in a specific pattern. All I need to do is block the right part from getting refreshed at the right time, and it'll start falling apart on its own.”
She brought the spell to bear and pushed it into the barrier like a knife to a gut, and waited.
Nothing happened.
“Was that it?” Snow asked.
“No spell is perfect. Something went wrong, but what?” Twilight spun her analysis spell circles around a bit, looking for clues. It didn't take her long. “The pattern changed. Just as I was about to break it, somehow the spell adapted itself to my subterfuge and changed patterns.”
“A self-adapting spell?” Goals sat, stunned. “Are we sure this is a pirate attack? I'd think only the best spell casters in the world could pull this off.”
“He's right.” Snow finally took off his sunglasses and put them in his suit pocket. “The only pony I know of who’s capable of a barrier like this is Armor.”
Twilight shook her head. “When you hear wingbeats, think robins, not dragons. It doesn't have to be ‘self-adapting’ if there's another pony on the other side working against us, making the changes to the spell as we fight it. Much easier that way.”
“And how do we fight it successfully?” Goals was fuming, but it was well hidden. A seething, volcanic hatred boiling so far underwater the bubbles almost didn't break the surface. “I have some flank to kick. And of all times for our security chief to be on vacation…”
“Simple,” Twilight said. “If it's a pony on the other end, we don't just exploit the weaknesses in the spell. We exploit the nature of the pony mind, like how it's really hard for us to be truly random… unless your name is Pinkie Pie, but I doubt she's behind this.”
The circles started pulsing and shifting form, one at a time, almost like a slot machine. However, while those had randomness and the law of large numbers to make sure the house always won, this was being shifted around by a pony in real time. Somewhere, some unicorn was trying to stay one step ahead of her.
“There, he's favouring a Lem sigil. Three, two, one, now!” She pushed her counterspell into the circle, and a crack resounded through the barrier. A spiderweb of cracks grew in the void, and crimson light seeped through. Red? It's not sunset yet… Not good. Very not good.
Light flowed over her body as Aurora embraced her and deployed. She pulled back a hoof, and smashed it into the barrier. Shards flew, the spell failed, and sound, light, and fury slammed into her nearly as furiously as a real attack. Instead, it was made only of horror. Screaming was everywhere, and every building she could see, save the office she was in, was on fire.
And there was an airship overhead, cloaked in a storm and firing its engines.
“No… No! Rose!” Twilight cracked through a teleport, launching herself at the ship. Wind whipped at her eyes and tears, her heart tore at itself, and rage filled her soul to well into her horn. Violet light ripped through the air and exploded on a solid wall of a shield.
The shock blew her back, but she turned her pegasus magic on her back and rocketed forward once again. Her eyes caught an unconscious pink pony just before the bay doors closed, and vitriol flowed out in the form of raw power instantly, reaching out for a target. Clouds wrapped around her magic and the ship, swallowing both before a wave of sound crashed into her body.
When the bells stopped ringing in her ears, she was on the ground in the middle of a crater. Pain, pins, and needles drew lines up her forelegs as she got them under her. The sky was filled with smoke, but there was no ship, and no Rose.
Twilight sucked in a breath through her teeth and wiped blood off her lips. “That does it. I'm not leaving this desert until I wipe that piss stain out of existence.”
I look forward to when you (hopefully) have this published as a physical book. It's one of the best written stories on the site. You are masterful at creating a scene. Every chapter, I can see in my mind what's going on. It's like reading a movie. Everything is flowing at a pace that feels right.
Thank you for creating this art for us.
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also buy it
Amazing as always! Something I could never hope to do. Thank you creating this story to share with everyone, keep it up CV!
Is it bad that I can see Twilight being the type slowly become a military mare? Not just in the fanfiction, but in the show too. It makes sense too, because of her brother.
Stupid Farrier, every pony you kidnap is just going to make it hurt worse when she catches up
Cliched though it is... that sure escalated quickly.
8582897
I AM INNOCENT! SURELY THERE'S NO COINCIDENCE THERE! I WAS IN THE BACK! ALL I HEARD WAS YODELING!
8582836
Probably, he's trying to bait her into a trap. He may wish that he was not so successful
I am really enjoying this story! In particular I am greatly enjoying the learning process Twilight is having to make on her road of ascension and I enjoy the depth you've given to approaching magic :) thank you for sharing!
Dear mister farrier
i write this letter to humbly inform you that
i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/036/798/b0a.jpg
and that
i.ytimg.com/vi/Y-GH7nlLxlw/maxresdefault.jpg
sincerely Grand Mage T. Sparkle
Man, I wonder what gives Farrier his confidence. I mean, does he believe that she can never find his base of operations? Does he think her incapable of getting him into a situation where she has a fair fight with him? Or is it just that Farrier is totally incapable of conceptualizing the possibility of losing? I really do love this story.
"them that those without feathers couldn't quite gap"
"them that those without feathers couldn't quite grasp"?
"thing was a black mass; a perfect rectangular prism"
"thing was a black mass, a perfect rectangular prism"?
"Hope you all like this one, and thanks again for sticking with me!"
Aye, I think so! And you're welcome. :)
8582897
Oh mare, I didn't catch that the first time through.
It burns, but it's a good kind of burn.
He is very ballsy but not very smart.
I am enjoying Twilight's vengeful side. And also that it feels natural, not just suddenly making her a murder hobo. There is always a reason for when she lets loose.
8583048
Not quite. She will not kill him. Or not "just" kill him. She promised him she will get creative with the punishment. And after this, she will get really creative.
Evidently, Farrier thinks he has an ace up his sleeve to deal with an enraged Grand Mage AND Princess Luna.
Well, Sowing the wind and all that. Twilight may not have access to Tartarus, but I feel that Farrier will be hating his continued existence for a very, very long time and no way to just end it.
8582904
Yodeling intensifies
Loved this chapter. The magic-circle scenes are always good
8583278
i feel she will considering this pony ha no remorse he needds to be put down and with the whole sword arc before this i feel it will happen
8583387
Actually, the way things arte going at the moment, Twilight might just find a way to Tartarus. A smallish way. That Ferrier doesn't quite fit.
"Pain in the butte, thank you. If you're going to curse my name, at least acknowledge the pun."
In any case, it's nice to see somepony decent in position of power in San Palomino. And when Farriér finally gets taken down, it's going to be one of the most satisfying moments in pony fiction. Now if Twilight could just keep her cool around him...
Hmm. Maybe that's his ace in the hole. His atrocities drive alicorns so crazy that they make dumb mostakes around him.
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I mean ... from what we have seen so far he isn't wrong to feel the way he does. His intelligence is easily ahead of what is available to Twilight (He knows all about her movements while she knows next to nothing about him), the one time they fought he handed Twilight her flank, he has a whole crew backing him up who could hand her her flank, and his ability to get things done swiftly and decisively far exceeds that of Twilight's. There is no real reason for him to fear Twilight specifically, because she really isn't all that impressive and he has been very successful at leading her by the nose.
The one thing he ought to be afraid of is her (supposed) ability to call in the army, but since it's pretty much a given that he is in cahoots with whomever is actually running the duchy and the local military, there is no saying what actually would come of that, or that the local fort wouldn't turn on her. Or at least warn Farrier so he could get away in time. Him being connected to the Majestics feels like a real possibility.
Given all that, I get the feeling that he actually wants Twilight to search for him and potentially find him ... because as he said in this chapter, they could deal with Twilight at any time if they wanted to. Which definitely rings true from what we have seen. If they wanted her dead or captured, they could have accomplished either objective easily enough in this chapter. They clearly don't care about Twilight, because she is more or less a non-entity by herself ...
But poking and prodding her enough might just draw out Luna (which has already almost happened), or force Celestia to make some move the Majestics (or other dissenting forces) could take advantage of, which is probably what's happening here. That's probably been the objective of his employers from the very start, ever since he first bombed Twilight's train (with her living or dying through that never being a major concern of his, apparently) - using Twilight one way or another to force the Crown's hoof in some way and get it to do something that can be capitalized on. Twilight herself doesn't really feel like she matters in the equation, save as a catalyst through which they can agitate the government.
You just past the 500k word mark. Congrats
When Twily calls you a "piss stain" cancel Christmas Mutha Fucka, That's yo ass!
Well, when Twilight finally catches up to Farrier, it will be glorious
he's just lucky he has hostages, a unicorn of twiligths power she could just start nuking mesa's otherwise.
Okay, how has this guy not taken over Equestria? Sure, the alicorns are much better fighters than they are in canon, but a guy who's this competent would easily be able to find a way around that. This kind of curb-stomp success is starting to remind me of Tempest Storm from the movie, only without a narcissistic Jar Jar Binks as a second-in-command.
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Probably a mix of his limited lifespan (he can't be older than a handful of decades, not enough time to conquer Equestria through this leve of subterfuge, and partially because at some point if he becomes enough of a pain in the ass, the princesses might start wondering about the concepts of "acceptable collateral damage", "extreme prejudice", not to mention getting far more resources allocated at going after him. Specifically.
This is gonna be good! I won't pity Ferrier when he encounters Twilight.
Reading the comments, a lot of people here seem to be convinced that once Twilight catches up to Ferrier, she's gonna smack a bitch.
But based on her past performance, ever since this story arc started, she's sure been losing and letting herself be jumped at a lot.
I suspect that even if she wins in the end, it's gonna be some sort of a deus ex machina resolution.
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Is he? He's said that he has to obey Twilight because her word is law, in a duchy that values total freedom from authority above all else. He casually mentions that his security chief is away on vacation, right when an organized pirate raid happens. And Farrier mentions that his spy heard Rose shouting for Twilight. Goals shows concern for his employees, while a veritable mob of potential replacements are waiting outside; he also mentions hiring a security company to drive them away. And a very talented unicorn knew that Twilight was inside that specific building, despite Twilight and Rose getting teleported to that site by Luna.
Methinks he's not as nice as he seems.
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He's still expressed the most concern about employee welfare out of everyone in San Palomino who can actually do something about it. (That is to say, he actually expresses some concern about employee welfare.) There could definitely be moles in various parts of the mine, but Lofty seems like one of the less likely candidates.
Yet another wonderful chapter. May there be many more forthcoming.
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Lesser of two evils does not make either anyone less evil overall. A villain is still a villain even if he is less cruel then others. Besides, the most dangerous villain is not the one the twirls their mustache and laugh evilly, but the one that cloaks themselves in good deeds that serve their own purpose that seem bedevilment but are not. Or does the McCarthy Period not ring any bells where he had his enemies arrested in the claims of fighting the communist threat in the 1950s. I suspect there is no such thing as good people in San Palomino when it comes to people in power and Goal maybe playing a much longer game. Perhaps by playing both the Crown and Pirate side so he would be the only mining power in the region.
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A good number of villains never realize what they are doing it wrong, or willingly compromise for "the greater good". Of course once you start it's too easy to just keep compromising, eventually the goal is lost the the means start to be all there is. McCarthy believed communists were out to destroy American, and was willing to ruin innocent lives to achieve his goal. That's in no way defending the communist witch hunts, finding your enemies is easy when your picking them yourself. When a villain looks at himself in the mirror he sees a hero.
I have to wonder, are you a programmer or something? This sounds like the spell is actually a program that's been obfuscated, haha.
O shit Twilight would need to calm down to just be pissed, farrier is a dead pony walking.
now the question is not when or if but how he is going to die.
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Yup. I have a degree in computer science. Sadly, with the injury in my hands, I am unable to pursue that career field. -_-
Man, I am really looking forward to the possibility of Twi calling in the big guns and getting this guy shut the hell down... Farrier was able to tell that Twi was there and did things to actively enrage her, but he has no idea that Luna is operating in the region, and a few chapters ago we heard Shining was as well... it really is only a matter of time that one of them will get a crack at him, even if he is able to take out Twilight... And if he somehow has a plan for that, then he really should already be ruling Equestria with an iron hoof.
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Maybe a lot of it's wishful thinking.
But okay, narratively speaking, Farrier had to start off the arc by establishing his threat, and so he's got OP lightning? Then, narratively speaking, Twilight can come back and finish it, by fighting smarter, not harder. While not showing off as much intelligence as one might expect was also a complaint in earlier arcs, this is one area where we know she has strengths, especially given time to plan. (Seriously, the first fight was her just trying to brute-force things, which even in the show never works.)
At any rate, he has to go down sometime, and deus ex machinas aren't this story's thing (quite the opposite).
Im all caught up and i think im with twilight, farrier needs to go away. Permanently
Loving this as usual. Just have difficulty expressing that love as anything other than nitpicks. So!
I can't remember if it's that Twilight can keep that count in her head, or that she can use a magic counting function.
Already been pointed out, but I don't think that's a verb.
Has that already been defined? Whatever, it explains itself in context.
Simply amazing I've spent a total of seven days on and off reading from chapter one to the current, and you have me widely impressed. Kudos!!
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"Lesser of two evils" makes one party/side/choice by definition less evil. The McCarthy Red Scare witch hunts were not as bad as the purges of Stalin or Pol Pot, for example.
So Lofty Goals doesn't care too much about the ponies clamoring to join the company, as long as they don't literally kill each other on his doorstep. We don't know how well he treats workers who get hurt on the job—does he help them recover or fire them if they can no longer be productive? But either way he's not as bad as the companies that work their employees to death, assuming that information is accurate, and a lie there would be likely to backfire badly.
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"Gap" does come in verb forms, but the context does not seem to fit any of them.
In English, one definition of "furball" is as a synonym of dogfight (as in fighter airplanes, not dogs).
To be brutally honest, this story is trying my patience.
It's one thing for the protagonist to be in over her head. It's another thing for the protagonist to be outplayed every single step of the way. At ths point, there are two super-secret organizations with access to world-breaking, mostly uncounterable, and functionally undetectable magics, practically unlimited resources, and absolutely no discernable morality or guiding philosphy. And so far, all Twilight has actually seen of them are faceless henchmen and cat's paws.
Not that it even matters, because at this point Twilight has proven useless under most circumstances. So far, she's proven to be useful against low-level thugs, (when she gets the drop on them), and world-ending calamities. For everything else, she gets rocked, chumped, brushed off, or outplayed. When she's powerless to act against a rock-stupid, sanctimonious irritant like Phantasm, what good is she? (And yes, I know that was actually one of the "good guys," but come on.) None of that would mean much if she'd actually evolved, developed, or changed as a result of her constant failure, but that's still pending.
This is starting to feel episodic, and not in the good way. I mean, there's still plenty to like, but I've reached the point where I'm almost skimming more than I'm reading, and that often spells the death knell for my interest in a story.
So now magic is like computer code. Never thought I'd see the day Twilight figured out that magic was basically 1's and 0's.
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This. I'm not bothered by the background organisations because their presence in the world seems to intersect with Twi's only slightly, but Farrier and his goons have far too much plot armour for characters that basically only exist to be inconvenient. Their victories have been way too easy, and way too conveniently plot-targetted to be believable. I mean, come on, the Big Bad himself just popped up to kidnap Rose while Twi was stuck in an inconvenience bubble. Any in-world reasons feel like an afterthought - that entire scene seemed to only exist to make that kidnapping happen.
The key to good villain encounters is to use plot twists and surprise powers sparingly, with foreshadowed and well-established reasons. For example, maybe Farrier was raiding the mine and had no idea Twilight was there? Rose got kidnapped not because she was with Twilight but because he was gathering more slaves, and Twi being delayed by the murkyr was an unfortunate coincidence. Also, have we even seen the murkyr before? Were there hints that Farrier could deploy it, or that his ship has an Alicorn-resistant shield? Remember that you can foreshadow things to the audience without having the characters recognise their significance or even being around to see it. Not everything has to be a sudden reveal.
You did this well in previous chapters, CvBrony, cutting away when appropriate and establishing things without being blatant about them. Those are the chapters that hooked us, maybe you could give it all a re-read and find a way to bring back some of that magic?
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Re: Worship
It's important to remember that Celestia said that. Other Alicorn rulers might not be so..... benevolent. With the world's expansion, there's reason to believe that there are other Alicorns out there.
As for Celestia's decisions, there isn't much info one way or another. I'd hedge my bets that she avoided direct combat wherever possible in favor of strategic moves and superior tactics. Politics, Armed forces. If Twilight's missions are anything to go by, it seems Celestia has spent much more time putting out raging bonfires and preventing even worse messes rather than governing an empire with an iron hoof.
There's a lot of power in the Aristocracy, and some of them have left a lot of messes that Celestia hasn't bothered to clean up yet.
but hey, with her limitations she kept the inner territories safe and a lot of ponies have a really great life! It's just that this story mostly focuses on areas that are a direct result of Celestia's failures as a ruler rather than her successes. Keeps things interesting!
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dude do you notice i dont give a fuq
also necro comment is necro keep bitching about a 2 year old comment either way i deleted it
happy still boring pony is boring