And we're about halfway through the mini-arc! I could still use some more guest comics for after this, so I can take a decent sabbatical from comic-making.
On a different note, I'll be surprised if anyone manages to figure out how I came up with the "formation" on the previous page. And by "surprised," I mean "if it takes more than an hour of Googling."
Your most recent character has fallen under the spell of a Night Terror.
Your team dives in to save you.
What do they see?
And what words can they say to help you face it?
Unless we're talking an isotope, but I don't think gallium-74 would last long enough to be directly observable, let alone useful for practical purposes.
Of course, that could be a comment on how long the formation typically lasts.
Poor dice rolls, or the story cuts off during the 'height' of the villains power (this is just a side-story, after all; We'd eventually be going back to the 'regularly scheduled' good-guy pony game), or they start squabbling (I haven't actually read the original comic, so I don't know how it ends), or a number of other ways.
The Power of Teamwork Arc might also apply on both levels more 'meta'; Might apply to them, and would then technically apply to the web-comic, which would mean they're supposed to learn something about friendship, and that might involve tossing a failure at them to prove their current methods don't work.
@NS, got another script waiting in your inbox for your approval. If you need more, I'll try to get you another one beyond that no later than this weekend.
Surprise rounds, and having a plan.
The Power Ponies expected to fight one or two opponents, while encountering six, and didn't know exactly who or where.
The villains expected to encounter the six PP plus Humdrum, knew their plan (they overheard the planning AND watched them from a distance), and had plenty of time to plan.
So, basically, they win initiative through surprise (the real world doesn't really do surprise-rounds, it's more like a bonus to initiative), and then they take out their opponents in decreasing order of initiative (so they never get a turn)
Taking them out in a single round's still impressive, but it's entirely possible the PP could easily do the same if the situation was reversed.
Put differently: This is the POWER OF TEAMWORK!
Heck, it's probably what the 'dumb arc' would be trying to show, if we were watching the hero PoV.
Even though it probably wasn't possible, I was hoping it was all of the bad guys having a tea party (or something that confusing). Even so, still kind of surprising to find all of the bad guys in one spot. ... Wait, that means they had to idea that several super villains had escaped the prison in the first place. What, did Shadowmane completely destroy the prison's communications or something?
Probably. I guess Zapp only has one option at this point, or to pull a Courage card.
On a different note, I'll be surprised if anyone manages to figure out how I came up with the "formation" on the previous page. And by "surprised," I mean "if it takes more than an hour of Googling."