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Previous >>3333901

Treachery and deception had proven to be the strength as well as a weakness of the changelings, having been used against them by the Pharynx and his fellow condemned squad members who failed to retrieve Thorax. However, with Gaster still injured and needing recovery assistance the likes of which only Rainbow Dash and Spitfire’s new friends claimed to be able to provide, a new alliance was forged amidst their hasty attempted execution via exposure to the stagnant Darkness that had pooled together like small lakes and streams of deadly oil in the mountain’s interior.

So, while Pharynx had triggered his former swarm into engaging him in combat, luring the windigo’s fury and creating chaos, Haltere and Elytra raced off to retrieve their fallen hive member, Gaster. However, the tasks would be easily reached, and they needed time while not being distracted in a combat zone. That’s when Spitfire, having taken less damage from the extremely cold weather outside that ravaged her wings, stepped up to confront a changeling who was out looking for revenge from a lesser-known battle that took place after the Canterlot invasion.

Back in the cave of Mount Everhoof

Spitfire stood ready, confident, yet unsure of the danger she was confronting. This changeling was large for one of their kind, and it would be her first one to fight, at an extreme disadvantage at that. Yet, she had to hope prior lessons would work in her favor.

“Just fun for you?” She playfully asked. “I don’t know about that. Watching you getting blasted was fun for me. I’m sure a few hits to your smug ugly face will be a nice treat after having to deal with that twerp of a leader you’re hanging out with over there. Now, come on. You gonna stand there and bluster your feelings to me all day or try to kill me with your rank breath you keep crying your poor-me stories about. I hear enough sob stories training rookies in flight camp. Didn’t know the changeling army was filled with so many cry-baby softies.”

At that, Bulky lost all of his composure and lunged in at his target.

“You little runt!”

Bulky dived in, throwing a wide-sweeping haymaker. Spitfire dipped back and slid into her fighting stance again, quickly studying his movements. His recovery was fast, pulling his right hoof to swing a string jab of his left hoof at her face.

She sidestepped his jab, feeling the air push past her mane with the force meant to take her out. She could tell he was like her not long ago. Headstrong, angry, and had a point to prove, not choosing his targets or working with a strategy that she could see, but then he came rushing in, a flurry of punches, swinging wildly.

Her head moved side to side, ducking and dodging each telegraphed swing, but he was picking up speed.

“Shit,” she thought to herself. “I’m not ready for this.”

Her forelegs rose up, absorbing the next strong series of blows, knocking her back and driving her away from the group.

“Not so tough, are ya, pony!” Bulky shouted, rushing in to grip Spitfire’s right foreleg and striking down with a right cross she couldn’t avoid.

Spitfire raised her left foreleg and took the hit. Bulky’s punch plowed into her foreleg and smashed into her face with enough force to cast her out of his hold. The blow had her spin to the ground and skid to all fours, but she immediately stood back to her ready stance, shaking off the pain in her left foreleg.

This wasn’t the ideal matchup, and she’d have to change up her tactics from her air-style combat to fit her grounded situation, but she could see a way out of this.

“Oh, please,” she mocked. “I’ve had hail storms hit me harder than this. Now, if you were a seasoned soldier in the Twilight Guard, you might have me worried. Those mares know how to throw down. This?” She shook her hoof again, trying not to let the pain show through. “We might have to call you numb skulls over to give the newbies a warm-up. I thought you were supposed to be tough?”

Bulky snorted, the back of his shell opening up to let his wings rattle, sounding off his agitation.

“Cocky little fly pony. There’s a reason we never bother with you show ponies. Now I’m really gonna wipe that ugly smirk off your face.”

Next>>3355427

As expected, this image presented a lot more challenges than normal. First, changelings. Bulky is unlike so many other changelings. He’s far bigger than the others, standing a whole head taller than the others, on top of having a massive, muscular frame. Also, he’s the only changeling I’ve seen so far that has his fangs projecting out from the bottom jaw instead of the top, but that’s probably because his character design gave him a bit of an underbite.

Next came the difficulty of Spitfire in uniform. Not just a uniform, but a damaged one at that. In the story, she was missing a sleeve for this portion, but I couldn’t put that in as a prompt that was ineligible for the AI. So, I had to piece together her uniform and blend it all together. Also, I had to reuse the goggle assets I was able to make work in a previous picture for this one. Getting the second lens behind her bangs almost didn’t happen until I stopped having a stroke-moment and figured out how to reshape it.

Lastly, the damn windigo in the background. The proportions on those bastards are so hard to get down and make look right, and I don’t think I did a great job on this one. Sure, I got the idea of what was happening across, but I would have liked to have done better. Sadly, I couldn’t really figure out how to render the body type down with the flowing mane, and then most of the details were lost when scaled down anyway and would be put in the background.

More lessons learned.