Tempest Rime

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Massive-Power-Outage-Hits-San-Diego-OC-129498468.html Apparantly one of the BIG power lines that brings electricity in from out of state went down, and it may be down all night.

Yeah, sorry, I just feel awfully disenfranchised a lot of the time, and I feel a whooole lot better having gotten that off my chest.

WARNING: VITRIOLIC RANT AHEAD Obama's done a piss poor job of bringing in his vaunted "change," and the fanatics who control the "Grand Old Party" are eager to sell our country out, taking out debts in America's name, giving the money to themselves and their backers in the oil and defense industries, and then giving those same people giant tax cuts. Both sides are willing and eager to let America continue its slide into economic depression. They spit on the honor of our soldiers by selling out our military's service to corporate interests like a bunch of mercenaries. Presidential candidates get elected on platforms that they then completely disregard. We're deluding ourselves if we think this is a democracy. The two-party system does its best to try to turn us against each other by getting us to take on the labels of 'liberal' or 'conservative' when 90% of people don't have any idea what those actually mean. They give us the choice between economic collapse under the democrats, or losing our civil rights under the republicans. In reality, we're just choosing between the red and blue faces of the exact same corrupt regime. Money is the only candidate up for election, it's the only God any of our politicians actually worship, and it's the only vote that matters. Advertisements are what actually elect our politicians, not us. Even if by some miracle people were to wake up and actually try to elect someone who wasn't owned by big businesses, there's no way the regime would actually let him get into power, there's plenty of loopholes to exploit, and votes can easily get lost. Basically, politics is a big, over-the-top spectacle meant to keep the masses at each other's throats while we get scammed out of everything we have. The USA will be a third-world country in another decade or so, if it hasn't been annexed by China. The super rich people will flee to Iceland, laughing all the way to the bank. And there's not a thing we can do to stop it if we try, because they already own everything. Of course, knowing Americans, we probably won't even look up from the superliminal brainwashing on our TVs and radios in time to realize it happened at all.

"Ha!" Mal laughed derisively at the Doctor, a rush of schadenfreude lightening her mood. "Serves you right for getting so attached to a big pile of worthless metal." Ignoring his ministrations, she walked past him towards Trixie, who seemed more inclined to actually converse with her, even if the only likely end result of any such conversation was further deepening the antagonism she felt towards the other blue unicorn. She blinked as Trixie spoke of the presence. "Of course I can feel it. A disruption in the localized aetheric fields, but what's-" She was cut off by the rise of a... thing from the sea. In all her trips through the Everfree, she'd never seen anything like this. That made sense, she supposed. Sea monsters would be quite different from the normal forest fauna (and the occasional aggressive flora) that occasionally attacked in that land-locked forest. "Woah, finally, some action." She glared irritably at Trixie. "No call to tempt fate, huh? I LIVE to tempt fate!" With that she stepped in front of the others and let out an inarticulate battle-scream. She unleashed a torrent of viridian flames that chilled the air around them. Unfortunately, she'd already expended a good deal of her emotional energies melting the car, so the flames burned significantly weaker than she'd intended. They washed over the creature, freezing solid the layer of water that was still dripping from it, and catching it partway in the water, freezing it in place until it managed to break through the ice. However, she did little actual harm to it, inflicting moderate burns across its body at worst. It was, sadly, still quite alive in its temporary tomb, and it loosed a muffled roar of rage and pain from within its prison. "Look what you made happen!" Mal snarled, glancing back at the Doctor. "I had to melt a hole in your stupid cart, and now I don't have enough juice left to properly kill this giant, stinking, pile of garbage!"

You're missing a vital option for Joker: Mark Hamill

Mal continued walking slowly towards Bonfire as the pegasus ponies bickered. Then the other unicorn said something that froze her in her tracks. She looked aghast and took a step backwards and gulped, her prideful attitude vanishing instantly, replaced with fear. "WHAT!? No... You wouldn't... You can't. I won't let you! I'll die first!" Panic shone in her eyes and she turned to flee, but she was too late, as the other guards on duty had wasted no time in responding to the flares, and they were right next to the castle, after all. Mal stopped short as another pegasus guard closed off her path of escape, and more guards began to file in from the street. She darted back towards the green pegasus. "S-STAY BACK!" She yelped, a few tears forming in the corners of her eyes. "You can't do this! I didn't even do anything wrong! I... I was just messing around, I don't want to be brainwashed." Fear overcame anger, and though she tried to conjure up flame to defend herself, she found her emotional reserves too low to summon up more than an ember of cold, emerald flame, which she waved in front of herself defensively.

Pinkie ran along comfortably in the middle of the pack. She'd joined in on a round of songs earlier when Lyra had started them going round, but they had served to quickly wind those who had participated, and Pinkie was no exception. She'd run out of energy to maintain her hopping, and was now merely trotting. A fair number of other ponies started to slow down and take small breathers, so Pinkie figured she'd follow suit. She stepped off the road and took a deep breath, smelling the familiar scents of Applejack's orchards. But wait, there was something else there. Cinnamon, perhaps? She wasn't able to identify it, but it was definitely coming from that ominous-looking little grove just down the hill. Curiously she walked in, struggling to push herself through the thick foliage of the densely-packed apple trees. Funny, she'd been all over this place when they'd helped AJ harvest last applebuck season, and she hadn't noticed any trees packed together like this. It must be new. She finally pushed her way into the clearing in the center of the grove, and found a small shrine, with incense burning. That explained the smell, but Pinkie had been hoping for apple pie. Her stomach rumbled and she reached for an apple. "I can always pay Applejack back later," she reasoned to herself. Just as she was about to take a bite out of it, another apple fell from a branch and hit her on the head. "Ow..." She rubber her head and glared back at her own tail. "No twitching? You're letting me down tail." She attempted to bite into it again and again an apple struck her in the head. "What the... is someone throwing those?" She glanced around the small grove. "Yeeees Pinkie," came a voice from the trees, "for yoooou have not yet done what you came here to do." "What's that? A ghost? And who are you?" Pinkie looked around the grove for the source of the voice, but saw nopony else there. "Uh, I am your spirit guide," came the voice. "So um, yeah, I guess I'm sort of like a ghost, but not the mean kind. Well anyway, I want you to find your purpose in racing today." Pinkie blinked. "Well that's easy, I just wanted to have fun and run with my friends." "No no, that's your reason for coming, but not what you're doing in the race itself. You need to go find your purpose. Go on, go!" "I-" Pinkie started to protest, but one of the trees itself picked her up and tossed her out of the grove. She rolled down the hill, back towards the road. She glanced back at the grove, but it was gone, along with the slope itself... assuming they had ever been there in the first place. The scent was gone too. She wondered what the spirit had meant, stepping back into the race as the now-dispersed racers ran by. She fell in with them, considering the question. Just then, a feathery blur pushed past them. It took Pinkie a moment to recognize the griffin. "Gilda!" She frowned. "Of course! That's my purpose here, to beat Gilda and earn her respect. Then she'll realize what a meanie she's been, and she'll start being nicer to everypony!" She charged after the griffin with renewed vigor, now certain of what she had to do.

Mal's attention snapped back to reality, and she glanced away. "I'm fine. I'm just... great. It's just... being back here. In Trottingham. It's messing with me. It's like... you know how nostalgia makes you feel good about things you used to feel good about? I got the same thing, but for bad memories." She paused. "They're all bad." She didn't mention that she wasn't just talking about the memories of Trottingham. She shook her head as they reached the door to the clinic. "Don't get me wrong," she said as she pushed it open with her magic, "I'm a mean and ornery pony to talk to at the best of times. I'm just also a bit depressed at the moment, and a little tired from throwing magic around earlier. Otherwise I'd probably be even worse. Whatever, it ain't your problem." As they entered the building, an orderly rushed up to them. "Oh you poor dear," the orderly said to Mal, assuming the scarred pony was the more grievously injured, "don't worry, we'll get you fixed up right away." "What? Not me, you idiot, her!" Mal pointed her hoof at the limping earth pony behind her.

"Ooohhhh, yesss, I deserve to be punisssshed," Mal hissed at Radiant, scornfully. "After all, I'm certainly guilty of the unspeakable crime of criticizing our Glorious Overlord. What's the punishment for that, nowadays? Death by torture, perhaps? Banishment to the moon is so last millennium." Having made a final jeer at the pegasus guard, she sauntered towards the delivery pony, getting quite close while he eyed the guard. She whispered, "No good deed goes unpunished, Don Juan" in his ear, and grinned sardonically before stepping past him and towards Bonfire. "Well, I suppose I can't exactly stop you from arresting me, but I really don't like people going through my mail. So I'm going to open it myself before you get the chance." She pulled the package open and pulled out the book within. "Hmm, Energetic Geometry in Aetheric Forms. This one's gonna be a dry read, I can tell already. That is, unless a simple book on magical theory is now 'contraband.'" She set the book aside and stepped closer, walking towards the other unicorn with a sneer plastered across her face. "Anyway, I don't plan on being quiet while you drones oppress me. And I know you'd just looove to use force, so don't let my lack of overt resistance stop you. After all, you can just say I resisted and you had no choice. And what's a few bruises on a mare who's already a patchwork of scars, right? And you clearly know best, anyway." Though she made no move to attack, she kept stalking closer and closer to Bonfire, testing to see just how close she could get before he lashed out.

Rather than RPing your score for the current leg, you could look at your score in the previous leg as a reference. After all, everyone starts evenly, it won't be until the second leg where ponies will really start falling behind or pulling ahead. I'm more curious about the actual finish line itself. Whoever wins will want to be able to post their triumphant crossing of the finish line, but we'll need to know who won before that happens. Will there be a 'crossing the finish line'/'post-race wrap up' section for after the actual race posts conclude?

"It's... fine." Mal echoed Dixie's sentiment. "I just thought... you know... earth ponies are supposed to be, like, a bit tougher. Generally stronger legs, longer endurance, that sort of thing. You know, to make up for not getting magic or wings or whatever." She frowned. "Don't you ever feel a bit... limited? Not having magic..." Though she phrased it rather insultingly, Mal was genuinely curious. Her own problems with her magic defined a large portion of her life, and this was the first time she'd actually spoken to any earth pony about it. The clinic was not far at all, and even at the reduced pace to allow Dixie to keep up, Mal could already see it just down the block. "There's the place," she pointed down the street at it, "they're the ones who patched me up when I first came here. Guess they didn't move. I think they were pretty competent, I mean, I didn't die of infection or anything. It's been a while, though, so who knows. Seems like the whole world is rotting, sometimes, doesn't it?" She glanced bleakly back at Dixie.

Pinkie Pie bounded up to the starting line. After watching all the fun last year, she'd decided she needed to join the actual race this year. Not to be competitive, she had no real desire to try to beat them, but Twilight had had a blast last year, and Pinkie didn't want to miss it because she was announcing again. She glanced up and waved amiably in the direction of the balloon floating overhead. She wasn't sure who was announcing, but it was nice of them to take her job so she could run this year. Pinkie checked over herself. Her race number was securely fastened to her flank, displaying the number π for all to see. Where most of the other numbers were printed in black, Pinkies was, appropriately, in pink. The race coordinated had been a bit confused by her number, but had written her into the registry anyway, and now she was right up at the starting line with a whole lot of other ponies. Some of them started doing strange dances, and Pinkie, never one to be outdone, started doing one of her own, not realizing the other ponies were actually just warming up and stretching. "On your marks!" came the voice from above, and Pinkie crouched down, putting on a comically serious face. "Get set!" Pinkie grinned disconcertingly at one of the ponies next to her. "Isn't this EXCITING!?" She burbled happily at her neighbors in line. "Ooh, there's Applejack! Hi Applejack!" She waved at the orange earth pony off in the distance, but AJ seemed not to notice. "There sure are a lot of ponies this year. We're sure to get all the leaves this time." "Go!!!!!!" And then Pinkie was in the air, leaping from the starting line with boundless enthusiasm. She smashed down, colliding with a couple of other ponies in the process. "WHEEEEEEEE HEE HEE HEE HEEE!" She giggled and bounced along, the idea of conserving energy the furthest thing from her mind until she realized she'd actually pulled ahead of the pack. That was no fun, what was the point of running if you weren't surrounded by friends and acquaintances? She slowed down to hang out in the pack, still keeping to her strange, bouncing gait.

"Riiight," said Mal skeptically. She was slightly relieved not to have to physically aid the other mare walking, but paranoia killed her relief quickly. "This way, I'll lead you there," she spoke in slow, measured syllables. "Mind the step up there, wouldn't want you to trip and hurt yourself any more." She led the way down the street, glancing suspiciously back at Dixie with frequency. She also made sure to stand up and away from the earth pony, far enough that she wasn't in immediate range for a potential kick, just in case the injury was a ruse. Still, she made sure to walk slowly enough that Dixie could keep up, in case the injury was real. After glancing around quickly, she strained to think of something to say to the injured pony. "So..." she started lamely. "You're an earth pony. How is that workin' out for ya?"

Mal snorted and her face twisted into a mocking grin. "Seriously? You're injured just from that? What, are your bones made of glass or something? I barely touched you," she sneered, ignoring the fact that she'd hit her own head hard enough to see stars. A thought occurred to her. She could assist this pony to a doctor. Surely, none of her imagined pursuers would suspect somepony helping an injured noble out to be an arsonist. "Well, uh... assuming it hasn't moved since the last time I was here, I do know where a clinic is not far from here. I could..." She half extended a hoof to help Dixie up, but hesitated. "I... could... I guess... help you out. If you want." She slowly extended her hoof the rest of the way with a slightly pained expression. Helping ponies out was far out of her comfort zone.

Mal snickered a little. "I like the way you think. But no, there's a good reason there aren't many robberies in this town, and that's the number of guards. And any pony who'll steal from another pony is also a pony who won't think twice about selling you out if they get caught. A little business isn't worth getting thrown in jail. Besides, I'm perfectly happy not having tons of bits. Money is a trap. It tricks you into putting its own value on yourself, and it ties you down to the material possessions you worked so hard to acquire. Before long, you've sacrificed your very freedom for some worthless chunks of metal and a big, fancy prison of your own design. No thank you. I just work enough to make the bare necessities and buy the things I need to advance my actual learning." She sighed. "I kinda got off on a tangent there. Anyway, when I was just starting out, I started with services. Opening locks is a rare skill, and it doesn't take any real tools for most of them. A few are magically warded, so I gotta use lockpicks instead of just picking them with magic, but they aren't hard to make. From there, I just saved up til I could get this shabbly little place. A few of my specialty tools I had to make myself. Not like, hammers and stuff, those I just buy from the hardware vendors. I make things things like skeleton keys and lockout tools, stuff for bypassing locks." As she spoke, she finished molding the key and dropped it into a bucket of water, where it hissed noisily. "Now the hard part," she said, and she took a file and levitated both the original key and the duplicate in front of her. She began to shave off tiny amounts of excess metal, to make sure the copied key was formed exactly right.

I was never young.

Mal shot a baffled glare at the student momentarily. "What? Ugh, no nevermind, I don't even want to listen to your idiocy for one more moment. I got what I came for, so I'm out of here. This place makes me sick." She paused. "Oh, and by the way, I think I heard a bell ringing a few minutes ago, I dunno if you got a class now or not, but if so you're missing it." Mal sneered one last time at scale and stalked off, heading straight out the gate as quickly as she could without breaking into a trot. She hadn't been kidding about the place making her feel ill. There were occasionally dragons about playing patsy to some of the magic students, and Mal loathed dragons more than anything. She made her exit without a backward glance. (Exit)

Hnnnng! Mal is looking so awesome. Brian's work is amazing!

Mal made a disgusted gagging noise. "Gross, are you for real? I come in here, threaten you, take advantage of you, and your response is to try to be my friend? What is wrong with you? I'm already regretting giving you those bits, they must be sending the wrong message or something. Allow me to clarify. I got what I wanted from you, you are no longer useful. So don't try talking to me, coddling me, and above all, DON'T CARE ABOUT ME! GOT IT!?" She broke into an angry shriek for her final words. She took a deep breath, settling down slightly. "I don't need your pity." She turned to stalk away angrily, but turned around, remembering something. Her voice softened, just a bit, and she muttered slightly sullenly. "I'm Malediction, by the way. If you ever need any locks opened or keys made, stop by my shop. Just... don't bring your stupid fake sympathy along."

Tempest sighed in relief as the other two left the room to apologize to the mayor. She was already going to have to file a report on the accidental storm, the last thing she needed was to tack on responsibility for the personal insult of destroying the mayor's office. And since Mr. Rockefilly had seemed quite reluctant to help with the actual cleaning, at least this would get him out of her hair while she did it. Cleaning up the mess wasn't hard anyway. She fell into a sort of fugue, losing track of time entirely as she cleaned, and before she knew it, the task was complete. The room looked cleaner than it had before the incident. She smiled in satisfaction at having everything in its proper place one more, before turning to the two out-of-towners. "Alright, good-as-new. Now, then, follow me. We can head down to the market, the ice cream vendor should have her stall out there, and I can show you some of the highlights of town." She stepped out, leading out the door and down the main street to the market square. It wasn't far at all, and in a matter of minutes she was leading them straight to the vendor herself. "Alright, just order whatever flavor you like, it's on me."

Mal spat when the Doctor tried to deny the existence of a library he'd already mentioned and ditch her. When they all piled in, Mal had only a short window of time to act as the cart took an extra few seconds to start up. She grabbed onto side of the machine and held on as tightly as she could with her legs. The contraption sputtered into life and accelerated at an improbable rate. Mal nearly lost her grip immediately, but somehow she managed to stay on nearly all the way to the ruin, only finally losing her grip when the cat hit a bump while making a turn towards the ruins. She went flying into a shrubbery, rolling a few times before coming to an angry, bruised, and slightly lacerated stop. She paused for a moment to pull a few thorns out of her flesh before standing up and stalking towards the vehicle. As they milled about, clearly not expecting her to have caught up just yet, Mal stalked up to the cart and ducked underneath it. Mal turned her glare up towards its mechanical underbelly. Its speed could be useful, but it could also be used against her, and she wasn't about to let that happen again. "All right, Doctor," she muttered to herself, "you want to be evasive? Evade this." She focused her flames into a baseball-sized orb and forced it straight up, through the thickest part of the contraption. She was no engineer, but she knew enough about machines to know that the more complex it was, the more damage a simple problem like say, a giant hole, could cause. Mal's fireball ate a clean hole straight through, burning through metal like it was paper, and leaving a powder of metallic ash under the cart. A strange-looking liquid leaked out onto the ash, which was unusual, as most liquids froze when exposed to her flames, but Mal wasn't about to complain. Leaking fluids probably meant she'd hit something important. Reassured that they wouldn't be able to speed off without her again, she rolled out from under the vehicle and stood up, pulling her flaming orb through the last layer of metal as she strode towards the Doctor. She let her focus drop a fraction of a second before nullifying her spell, and the flaming orb blossomed into a small explosion with a bang before vanishing. "I hope you didn't think that was going to dissuade me," she snarled at them. "All you did was make me really pi-uh," She stopped short, when she finally noticed the strange aura the other ponies had been complaining about. "What the heck's wrong with this dump? What did you do?" She glared at the Doctor, already deciding that he was to blame. (Edit: Oops, I saw that Trixie went into the cafe, but didn't see her come back out and thought everyone was in there. Fixed)

"Woah, back off there buddy," Mal said, pushing his hoof off of her. "Just 'cause you helped me out doesn't mean we're friends or anything." She spat the word as if it was an obscenity. She did a quick assessment to make sure all her body parts were still there. Or still absent, in the case of her missing eye. "I'm fine, really. It didn't even hurt quite as much as some of these scars, either. I don't need you babying me. I'm tougher than I look, and I think I look pretty darn tough. I read the book plenty of times, I was just missing the one spell. Even then, the interaction between the way my magic works and this spell was off, there was no way I could have predicted that. The important thing was that anything happened at all." She frowned at him. "I don't have anypony who cares what happens to me, and I don't care what happens to anypony else. And that's exactly the reason why. I don't want other ponies tying me down, limiting my freedom. It's my life, I'll risk it if I want to. Now seriously, stop being such a downer. This is the first breakthrough I've had in years, every other spell I've done that with a big, spectacular nothing whatsoever. If the spell can backfire like that, it can also go off properly with the right modifications." She said it like it was going to be easy, but reworking the entire matrix to accommodate an unknown element was going to take more work than she could think about right now.

"Yessss! Color isn't important for this, though it can be for normal spells." Mal grabbed the loose pages with her magic and began to leaf through them, levitating them in front of her in rows that spiraled around her and her unwitting accomplice. With a sense of profound accomplishment she found the spell she needed in a matter of moments, and she turned around towards the administration building, across the courtyard. Her horn glowed as she focused her magic, only too happy to be testing out the spell in what could prove to be a spectacularly destructive manner. Strange black spots began to appear in the air around her, seeming to soak up all available light in their immediate vicinity. Strange, those weren't part of the spell she was trying to cast, at least not one mentioned in the text. Mal had barely had time to register this fact before the spell fizzled catastrophically. Strange bolts of black lightning streaked silently from the black spots, soaking up sound in similar amounts to what actual lightning would have produced, causing her ears to ring in the sudden silence. The bolts lanced directly into Mal's horn, and her senses went into overload. Her vision went completely white, she could even see the whiteness in her missing eye. She felt waves of intense pain go through her, and she felt as if she couldn't breathe. As quickly as it had happened, the silence receded, and she realized the reason she couldn't breathe was because she was screaming. She managed to stop screaming and gasped for air, still shuddering as smaller bursts of pain echoed through her. Adrenaline, the only thing that had kept her standing, slowed down, and she collapsed. She managed to glance around to survey the damage, noting with frustration that there seemed to be no collateral damage whatsoever. Her spell had completely backfired, and in some bizarre, completely unpredictable manner. But, she realized, she had at least managed something. She grinned at Scale. "It... worked," she managed to gasp out, "...sorta." This spell was gonna take a long to to adapt into something usable, and the end result would likely be completely different from the volcano spell she'd been trying to cast, but it was a step forward. The first real step forward she'd taken in her magical pursuits since before she'd gotten her cutie mark. In spite of all the pain, she felt the happiest she had in... well, as long as she could remember. She struggled to her feet and scooped up the loose papers, now scattered about her, not bothering to organize them. She could do that later. There wasn't enough room in her bag for all of them, so she pulled out her coin bag and tossed the whole thing to Scale, feeling uncharacteristically generous in her elated mood. "Here, these were just weighing me down, anyway."

Tempest looked dejected as the filly declined her offer. Was it her wings? Maybe PeaBee didn't think she would be a good teacher. She glanced back at her wings, and then at PeaBee's. Tempest's wings were perfectly matched for her diminutive size, but PeaBee's were almost larger than hers already. She shook her head, she was overthinking things again. Maybe the kid just didn't feel comfortable flying when none of the rest of her family could. Or perhaps she really did feel like there was no reason to fly. That weird pegasus who Miss Dash was friends with was almost always on the ground. She resolved to try to speak to the filly's parents about it if she got the opportunity. After her long silence, she finally spoke. "Yes, well, that's... your choice then. And yes, you should probably appologi- wait, did you say upstairs?" She looked mortified. "Oh dear, that's the mayor's office." She glanced at Max. "Hmm, there's a thought. Mister Rockefilly, if you take responsibility for the mess with the mayor, I'll handle your third of the cleaning while you're up there. Deal?"

Mal frowned. She wasn't in the fray herself, which was disappointing to be sure, but at least there was a fight. She was a little surprised that the delivery pony had jumped in for her, it was more than most ponies would do. Unfortunately, it left her at a bit of a loss for what her next move should be. The giddy feeling didn't do much to help her think, either. She desperately wanted to call up a shower of flame to spray over everyone in range, but her good sense still managed to maintain control. A triple-equicide was an awfully difficult thing to cover up, and... she'd almost kind of feel bad about killing the misguided pegasus who was actually trying to help. She sighed in exasperation. Well, even if she had no excuse to get into the fight itself, it would at least be more interesting to watch than anything else she'd had planned. She glanced towards the other unicorn, but he too seemed focused on the two pegasi for now. She sat down and watched the other ponies impassively for the moment, though she kept an eye out in case they decided to bring the fight close enough to include her.