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He could kill them easier, yes. He's trying to avoid doing that.Can Grayven really not think of more efficient ways to beat them? If the Illustress was here he'd probably do it with brain-seeking fillaments tipped with X-ionised knives.
I think calling the League in would be a good course of action; I'm sure a bunch of their members would be resistant to the insectoid's effects for whatever reason. And if Ahr'ian is still around they would be good backup to have.
This is not helpful at all.The originals are from Louisiana. Later additions come from a variety of places.
This is much more helpful.This has all been covered in the story, but in summary:
Anton Arcane made them after the original Un-Men turned on him. They're big, aggressive and with Arcane dead they don't obey anyone. Most of them also used to be regular people who were infected by an existing insectoid, and the transformation is very fast. They're kept in Aberrance because Cranius is researching them and... Actually, the site is pretty secure. There are levels of force you can't secure places against.
You introduce Insects as what appears to be utility constructs made from the renegades yellow ring, before having the some different, completely unrelated insects show up in Part 12.I shoot into the sky, colossal construct insects appearing in the streets and grabbing hold of the buildings, both preventing the upper stories falling and blocking further shots with their bodies as I frantically look around for the attacker! Glass sprays from the superheated glass panes as they explode, my shields only covering-.
Two words, subspace pocket dimension.
Iname. Can she get infected? Cause she's got superspeed and PietroQuicksilver was mentioned.
Corrected.Komand'r flies into Koriand'r, embracing her warmly. Koriand'r doesn't appear even slightly put off by that, even though their relationship since Komand'r arrived on Earth two and a half years ago might charitably be described as 'tense'.
I don't quite understand... Why is Ahr'ian doing this? Is he some sort of Atlantean Supremacist upset that Atalantean Biomancy is being used by non-Atlanteanian's? He's just a big jerk? Just for shits-and-giggles???
Thank you, corrected.
Auto-targeting? Huh. So it's not targeting me specifically, it's just taking shots at targets of opportunity. But I've seen Misa dropping people off and it hasn't tried blasting any of them. What's the characteristic it's looking for? It's not how much of a threat it is, because it was blasting buildings when Grayven got here.
No, those are correct.'that you're'
This sentence feels weird
Maybe:
'whoever did this'
Thank you, corrected.
Needs a full stop at the end.
Magic armour plus transformed Earth Pony should let me do what Grayven does
Ah, Sunset. And this picks up just on Circe's arrival. Time for the ladies to magic the shit out of the bad guys... Seriously, to quote Banner in Infinity War: "Haha, now you guys are screwed!"12th July 2012
13:04 GMT -8
I shrug, trying not to look as relieved as I feel.
"Eh. You know."
Heh, not ready for the true close quarters stuff, eh? Understandable, she is still young. It's also refreshing to not have a teenager (or young adult, at this point) to feel as if they're invulnerable.Because I can do control spells and I can do battle spells. But I'm not so good at doing both at once while someone actually tries to kill me. Magic armour plus transformed Earth Pony should let me do what Grayven does and just shrug off people hitting me. But I've seen the scars from where he couldn't and I'm not ready to try that quite yet.
I smile, some of the tension going out of my shoulders.
Always helps to have someone who can check your work, eh? Especially the 'cool big sis' figure in your life."All the better now you're here."
Because I can do this. Probably. But having someone here who's got a lot more experience than me means that I'm less likely to get something really wrong
You can use it as bait if they try to dispel it, eh? The question is whether someone as old as Arion the Elder would fall for that. Then again, he may not consider that anyone but a 'true Atlanean' could manage it.I feel Circe touching my spells with her magic, feeling out what they do and how much effort they're taking. Even without a horn I can manipulate far more magic power now than I could before my transformation, and after I set spells up keeping distinct spells running in parallel is a snap. I thought about making the spell I'm using to prevent elemental manifestations harder to understand, but if we're trying to find whoever's responsible for this attack, then-.
Awww, you can see the 'Eee! Sempai noticed me!' running through her head, can't you? Not discounting the shipping yet, you know."You've made that spell simple to understand on purpose, haven't you?" Circe smiles at me. "You cunning minx."
I tilt my head back, chin held high in pride.
'This' presumably being a casual twist of the spell matrix, eh? 'Press X to smash an attacking enemy.'"Cunning pony."
And there's an exception for a very narrow band of sympathetic resonances, so that if I do this-
Good to see she's picking up Earth Pony Geokinesis. Helps that she was working with one of the stronger equestrian experts.The concrete and tarmac around us jumps up, forming a short defensive wall.
-then it behaves a little more like a hill or fortress. Not as good as if I reinforced it directly, but it's a lot tougher than it should be. It took me hours to work out how Maud was doing that, but even with the bruises it was time well spent. So if-.
Man, that brings my opinion of Arion the Elder down a bit (not that it was very high to start with.) I'm reminded of a quote from 'Kill Six Billion Demons' about the DemiUrges of the universe using the power of the creator god 'as a man might use a particularly sharp rock.' All that power, and he's using it like a caveman.Everything goes white for a moment and I immediately heal myself, blinking-. Yes! Tarmac beats lightning! This is starting to look like the work of someone who's strong but lazy. I mean-
I start trying to reverse-engineer whatever it was that whoever that is did to hurl lightning like that, my etheric senses running along the channel in the way Circe's did my spell. And I'm not exactly feeling anything impressing. Like I thought, high power and…
Some sort of racial profiling thing, perhaps? It seems the sort of thing Arion the Elder might use. Either purity of blood (read 'how similar to pureblood Atlanteans') or the like... Targetting the buildings is the spell trying to hit those inside? Or some sort of proximity trigger.Auto-targeting? Huh. So it's not targeting me specifically, it's just taking shots at targets of opportunity. But I've seen Misa dropping people off and it hasn't tried blasting any of them. What's the characteristic it's looking for? It's not how much of a threat it is, because it was blasting buildings when Grayven got here.
Sure, Alicorn of Ambition. But even the mightiest Sorceror can still be brought down by a rock in a sock."Sunset, it would be wise to raise your defenses."
Huh?
"Magic defenses? I've already got those."
You don't have some kind of missile-deflecting spell? Then again, Equestrians don't go in for bows much. More thrown rocks and spellbolts. And any deflection spell might not work well on bullets..."No, your shields against direct attack. These buttresses are reasonable, but-."
Oh, darn it. She's right. The few battlemage lessons I was able to persuade Celestia to give me didn't take into account the sort of weapons Earth has. I mean, I'm a small target-
That's a rather vague effect. Bet it costs a lot more energy than a more defined spell, but works much better...I wave my right hand, creating an area around me where all objects and energies are predisposed to avoid hurting people.
-in cover, so I'm not exactly an easy target.
Oh, sure, now she's tempting Murphy. Sheesh. Also: Scary thought.I take a step to the left.
Moving around might be better than bunkering up, but I don't know what magic is bring used here and I don't want to split my concentration. Genomorphs might get converted by those.. insectoid things.
Even Changelings aren't that... Evil.Equestria does not have anything like those.
I turn to look at Circe.
Yikes. Might want to add a spell to warn you to duck. Or perhaps one that forces you to before your reactions can catch up."Is this oka-"
A beam of rainbow light shoots past my nose, disintegrating a neat hole through my dugout.
"-y?"
Remember though: Concealment does not equal cover, nor does cover equal concealment...Okay taller walls now. I don't need to be able to see all that well to keep suppressing the summoning effect.
"I think that it is, yes."
At least she can focus on the important things rather than 'Oh dear Celestia, I nearly got killed!'"What even was that? It-."
Actually, what did it do? Was it homing in on me? There wasn't an explosion when it hit home and I didn't feel any sort of pressure shift that might be caused by teleportation or matter nullification. I spread the area of the safe zone outwards to increase the chance of it 'catching' another shot like that, boost my armour and start trying to examine that spell and the lightning spell for shared elements.
Huh. Like a leader charge, which serves as the channel for the bulk of the lightning? Except noticeably longer between charge and strike...
Let's not try that right on top of you, though. Work at a distance. Preferably a big one."The guid-. Hm." Circe nods. "I think you're right. I think it is."
"Okay, well, I can misdirect it-. Actually."
...'Foreclaw'? Her armour has talons? Interesting.I bend down and pick up a small stone. Yes, that should do… I trace a small sigil on it with my right foreclaw and imbue it with a little power. And throw…
I sails over the area covered by my ward and-.
...Oh, that's significant! By Jove, my dear, I think you've cracked it!And I blink to clear my eyes as lightning hits it. Twice.
And then the rainbow beam hits it.
Almost like reverse thunder... "I'm not overly fond of what follows..."
That was on the rock... Now, what next...I hold my right hand out to the side, draw mana into the material world just over my palm and wai-.
Lightning strike. And two, three, four, f-.
So the beams track active mana, not passive stuff like people's souls. Which explains why it's not targetting fleeing civilians: they're not mages.The glowing ball winks out as the rainbow beam shoots it through the middle-. Through the middle because the ward is only protecting living people and a ball of energy isn't a living person.
I pour mana into my right palm, raise my left hand and conjure a beam of light-.
Circe, there's encouraging, and then there's patronising. You're walking a fine line there.Hah! I curved around! That's pretty clever. Once we're finished here I'll do a proper analysis and work out-.
Circe pats me on the head.
At least she kept Sunset from getting distracted. That would get people killed."I'm sure that's very interesting, dear, but perhaps you should focus on the here and now?"
"Right, okay. It look like-. Grayven?"
And active magic at that. Because it doesn't seem to be tracking Iname or Grayven..."Listening."
"The lightning and rainbow beam home in on magic. If you-"
You better hope it works...I pull more power into the world, but this time surround it with a minor dampening spell so that it won't look like it's there.
One.
All quiet? Looks like the gamble paid off."-hide anything magical with a disguise ward, the spells shouldn't trigger."
Two, three, four… Five.
Not that Grayven really uses all that much magic, beyond Godspeech. Much like OL, he's not really suited to the finer Arts.
Craaaap. I hope they're well-contained. Because that's a biohazard just waiting to bite back...She leans towards me. "Yes, I am."
"You've got lots of experience undoing human transformations. Would you mind having a go at some of the locals? We… Didn't get to all of them fast enough."
Phrasing's a little awkward. Perhaps 'impressive' or 'to impress me.'
Hah! It curved around!
Then again, he may not consider that anyone but a 'true Atlanean' could manage it.
Man, that brings my opinion of Arion the Elder down a bit (not that it was very high to start with.) I'm reminded of a quote from 'Kill Six Billion Demons' about the DemiUrges of the universe using the power of the creator god 'as a man might use a particularly sharp rock.' All that power, and he's using it like a caveman.
Circe, there's encouraging, and then there's patronising. You're walking a fine line there.
Not that Grayven really uses all that much magic, beyond Godspeech. Much like OL, he's not really suited to the finer Arts.
Thank you, corrected.
Without wishing to get too far into pony racial politics, Alicorns are Earth Ponies, Unicorn Ponies and Pegasus Ponies.I thought she transformed into Alicorn? Doesn't that already make her as strong/tough as an Earth Pony?
Given how Celestia likes to suppress information, I'm not sure that Sunset has actually heard of the changelings.
She's still not entirely used to having wiggly worms attached to her monkey hooves.
Sunset left Equestria as a student, and hasn't actually encountered that much weird stuff in Equestria outside of books. And she mostly focused her studies on pony magic.Such a casual outlook to fighting animate stone and lightning bolts. Then again, given the weirder things in Equestria, I'm not surprised she's blasé about it.
Thank you, corrected.Phrasing's a little awkward. Perhaps 'impressive' or 'to impress me.'
Hah! It curved around!
Oh, no. She's not a sociopath.She's a three thousand year old sociopath that turned thousands of innocents into animals.
She probably can't do better than that.
I suppose that depends on how you look at it (and on what actions definitely took place on Earth 16). If you're referring only to stuff she did in this story, of course, then it's fortunate that we can directly ask the author, because that seems not to have been his intention. This may be a difference in ethics between reader and author, though.Fine, borderline-sociopath then.
Her actions do suggest a lot of sociopathic tendencies.
Given how Celestia likes to suppress information, I'm not sure that Sunset has actually heard of the changelings.
Like what? Serious question. She told Grayven why she started killing people, and it was self-preservation. Her emotional reactions to other characters are relatively normal. I though, anyway. I mean, she's not particularly nice to people she doesn't know, but in human history that's pretty normal.Fine, borderline-sociopath then.
Her actions do suggest a lot of sociopathic tendencies.
I... Don't think she was there? Alright, she's probably heard of them by now, but she doesn't have any details.The Genomorphs came through the portal as changelings, was Sunset just not around for that at all? Seeing what happens to a synthetic novel species seems like something she'd want to monitor.
Do you think that all historical slave owners were sociopaths?Turning people into animals and enslaving them.
Lacking any regret or remorse for any lives she has destroyed.
Do you think that all historical slave owners were sociopaths?