Tempest Shadow is still unsteady on her hooves, struggling with the decision she made to turn her back on the Storm King. She isn't sure where she fits in, in the bright and colorful world she left behind as a filly. All she can see is the weakness that peace and tranquility has bred into society, and when a new threat rises up, Tempest Shadow might be the only pony who's willing to face it down.
Written as a commission for Undome Tinwe
Thank you to all my readers, something something like and subscribe and patreon, something about eating food, self-deprecating joke about my sense of self-worth.
Whelp, I’m curious.
Dammit I’m sitting in a Wendy’s right now, you can’t write things that are gonna make me burst out laughing in public like that!
I really like all the character interactions here. And I see that the No Offense treatment is a constant across dimensions.
While Celestia right, it’s also sensible to negotiate from a position of “We could destroy you but we really don’t want to. So let’s be reasonable and don't do anything that will make us.”
The lunacy progresses, the party assembles, we get a coherent explanation for Celestia and Twilight’s behavior...
I do have a major flaw in this plan. The base is full of soldiers. While they may be Caprans, and not fall under the letter of the ‘don’t hurt anypony’ clause, you’ll need a way for them to evacuate.
This was great! Loved it the whole way through. Also there’s no way that Euryale is dead or petrified, so...The Gorgon Strikes Back, maybe?
Ah, I see we're going with the D&D kind of gorgon, not the Greek one.
Nice, very nice. Eurale is wonderfully unpleasant, I hate competent enemies.
Trixie, appropriately, steals the show with her escape act.
I do hope they went back and picked up all the petrified Yetis to restore. Now they’re prisoners, basically, that means they need to be treated as such.
Meanwhile, Equestria could use a proper forward military base. One with proper high quality Earth pony contractors this time. Maybe even hire the yetis. In a non-combatant role unless they want to stay in the army.
You know, it occurs to me that the magic resistant armor the Yetis had could easily have been forged from Gorgon Scales. Good thing that this lot figured out how to work around it this time.
I like this adventuring party. I hope they get up to more nonsense and nation saving in the future.
Goddammit, I wasn't expecting this one.
9874228
Probably. It doesn't feel correct that a gorgon could be affected by their own petrifying breath. Or at least, it doesn't feel right that Euryale wouldn't have taken some sort of precaution.
More to the point though, I'm curious as to how Celestia and Luna are reacting to all of this, considering that their unwillingness to consider things from a point of view that contrasted with theirs would have ended with both of them petrified - again - and Equestria for sale to whomever had the cash for it - again! Maybe the real reason they're turning things over to Twilight and company is because they know that they're actually really, really bad at their jobs and they're trying to bail before people start to final notice.
I mean, if it hasn't already happened after a thousand some years, it probably won't, but you never know.
So basically this:
How much about Yang Wen-li should I know while reading this?
Loved it!
Getting the four unicorns of the Friendshippocalypse together like this is some of the most fun I get from this site. They are all such strong personalities and get to shine in their own ways. The Star Wars references sprinkled throughout just make it all the sweeter. Too bad Disney threw most of that out when they rebooted the franchise.
As always, good work!
Is this like "Battle Beyond the Stars" with the spaceship that looks like a huge pair of boobs and the snarky AI?
bing.com/th?id=OIP.gSy51Keh1JaFL26yIHedVgHaJ4&pid=Api&rs=1
Roger Corman's greatest movie.
Fascinatingly, it also launched several major careers: James Cameron (hired for the effects work, which was praised despite the film's low budget, much of which went to hiring George Peppard and Robert Vaughn) and Bill Paxton (who was actually working on set as a carpenter!) and it was also acclaimed film composer James Horner's breakout production, followed immediately by his score for "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan".
(HAVE ALL THE TRIVIA!!!)
Alondro saunters in, dressed in full pimp garb, "I could direct you to some examples on e621 if you'd li-"
Everyone, literally... everyone... "OH HELL NO!!!"
Alondro :<
That was a solid reference
The cover looks like a StarWarsPoster.
Can't wait for a magical story starting with the words "The Storm Kings TRADE FEDERATION........." XD
"Behold: unicorns!
A group is called a blessing.
We shall be a curse."
In any case, a spectacular adventure of reformed friends. Adagio Brando, a fascinating design for local gorgons, and more Star Wars references than you can shake a stick at made for a fantastic read. (And hopefully this will encourage Equestria to be just a touch more proactive in self-defense. Double-tapping an enemy state doesn't count as unprovoked aggression, after all...) Thank you for this.
Haven't actually read it yet, but I have to give you some props for knowing about Euryale. *hands Golden Harvest plushie* Bonus points to anyone who can entangle the layers of that joke.
9874284
9876094
It's taking the nonhuman parts of the monster and putting something else in its place, which is also what they did with centaurs.
Are they going to need to worry about Medusa or Stheno coming for revenge?
Having Luna being the one to vouch that this previously evil pony is definitely being reformed and should live in luxury instead of serving prison time isn't the best optics for her.
9874284 A D&D Gorgon usually looks more like a metallic bull, as far as I remember. I think this description is from the Gorgon we see in S9.
IDW did a comics special called "The Nightmare Knights," where Luna puts together a group of reformed villains for a dangerous heist-style mission to help Equestria. It was pretty good, but this is better.
9874626
What? No. That's ridiculous! Both Celestia and Luna are retiring because of the many, many years.... of work... they put in...
Man, Luna sits on a throne for like 5-6 years and retires? Is she a Chicago public servant?
Amazing.
Yeah, somebody's familiar with the good old pre-Disney expanded universe. I wholeheartedly approve.
Also, this story is great. Another well-executed action comedy misadventure. How are they gonna get out of this? And is Trixie okay? Time to find out.
That was really fun. Great story.
Fantastic work
No matter where I got I cannot escape the Jo Jo, ....Trixie has a airship?
9874284
The D&D one came from medieval bestiaries (which Gygax was very fond of) which had a tendency to mix up various other creatures from Roman bestiaries, swapping names and descriptions around almost randomly. Sometimes called 'the African Gorgon', sometimes called a Catoblepas, etc.
However, this thing doesn't match the D&D Gorgon physically. The deer bit throws me. If it was a bull-snake like in S9 (which could be the Greek creature known as Ophiotaurus), I would be fine with it as I could see how you could get all the various depictions of Medusa and the Catoblepas mixed together to end up looking like the Ophiotaurus. But a deer? That's new. :)
You are certainly one of the most underrated authors on this site. That was a rip roaring good time. Bravo!!!
9876056
Actually, given the weapon of choice, there's a lot of EU-era SW references. I approve.
I've reviewed your story here!
You've been reviewed
This was fun and the characters felt spot on. Thanks for the read.
ahahhaah, what a funny reference!
Tempest and Starlight are off to do something impetuous, short sighted, ill thought out, and awesome, aren't they?
Yup, we have us a bad mares group of do gooders!
So, I'm assuming Sunset's whole method of bypassing that kind of security is by exploiting certain intrinsic flaws. Notably, eventually everything melts if you pour enough heat into it.
Trixie....... is never going to stop being Trixie, and that is why we love her. Yeah, she's going to be fine.
Also, this is why you bring the Ponies that have Orbital Friendship Cannon firing authority with you for these things
Okay, this was just.... insanely fun and.... yeah I could actually see these character doing most of this. What more is there to say? Loved it!