The world stretched and warped in unnatural ways as Luna's teleport spell executed. The two mares locked in mortal combat were wrenched bodily from their physical moorings and cast into the void between worlds.
RF?
"Not enough." Luna muttered to herself, her concentration fraying as the spell cycled through potential destinations that matched her initial request.
FO?
"That would help her. No," She groaned. Her attack spell was losing strength. She only had a few seconds to choose a target and ground the teleport before Theta overcame her meagre defences and snatched control of the spell.
HR?
"That one Detached ages back. Why in Tartarus is it still in the list?"
NV?
"Not lethal enough."
CI?
Luna blanched. "The last thing anyone needs is for her to get my beacon. No."
UP?
"They'd help her as well. No."
OB?
"Still No. Come on."
RW?
"Not quick enough."
EF?
"N- Wait." Luna paused the destination feed. It could work, provided they landed close enough to Canterlot to get spotted on landing. It was a risk.
"I'm co-ming to ge-et you widdle Woona," Theta taunted in a sing-song voice, her attack beam closing steadily on Luna.
EF?
It was an acceptable risk. Luna gave her affirmative to the spell.
Confirm EF?
She groaned as she gave the final confirmation. So typical for the Exterior's spell library to have everything ridden with safeties and confirmations. It was something she'd have to remedy when she got back. If she got back.
The spell grounded, the reflective interior event horizon vanishing to be replaced by a panorama of Canterlot. Luna dove to the side as her attack spell failed and Theta's beam of doom lanced past her, clipping the tip of her horn and sending a lance of pain flashing into her mind as she felt it crack.
A nearby building exploded as the beam lanced into it before Theta could shut the spell down. The sound of screaming ponies echoed throughout the city as flames and smoke rose into the sky.
"Oh you naugh-ty little fil-ly," Theta sing-songed, bouncing over to where Luna laid, cradling her cracked horn. "You made me blow up a building!"
Luna cried out as Theta grabbed her crippled horn, sending lances of white-hot agony searing into her brain.
"Naughty fillies get punished!" Theta growled, twisting the cracked appendage, sending a spiderweb of fractures scurrying away from the initial crack, eliciting another howl of pain. "Beg! Beg for mercy!"
"You first," Luna spat, channelling the last reserves of her energy and igniting her horn.
Theta jerked her hoof away with a yelp, the contact point smoking slightly from the intense electrical discharge.
"Is that all you have? Really?" Theta remarked with amusement, licking the burn. "I take it back, you don't need to beg for mercy when you're already broken."
Luna chuckled.
"What's so funny?" Theta demanded, narrowing her eyes. "Come on, I like a good joke as much as the next mare."
Luna looked up and muttered a single, venom-laden word. "Broken."
The spell slammed home an instant later, fired by a gold-and-iron-clad guard. Theta was lifted bodily and thrown into a nearby shopfront, glass and splinters of wood flying everywhere. Luna dragged herself to her hooves, limping out of the line of fire.
"You cheeky little..." Theta muttered as she pulled herself free of the wreckage. "That hurt."
The guard shifted his stance, lowering his centre of gravity and levelling his horn at Theta. Lines of power ignited along his armour, highlighting a plethora of runes and wards inlaid in the metal.
"Ooh, pretty!" Theta squealed. "I want it!"
"On the ground, filly!"
"Not even going to sweet-talk me?" Theta remarked, sneering. “I’m not that easy a mare.”
The guard fired, sending a bolt of yellow magic towards her. She deflected it easily, bouncing the ball into yet another building, throwing even more debris into the air. Growling, she counterattacked with a storm of her own magic bolts. The guard's armour flared as they impacted, absorbing the attack and harmlessly shunting it away.
"On the ground!" The guard repeated, forcefully.
"I. Said." Theta repeated. "I'm-"
The comeback was ripped from her mouth as another attack, far larger than before, slammed home. The shop disintegrated in a cloud of shrapnel and smoke, sending what few spectators that had stuck around scurrying from the scene. The rhythmic beating of heavily encumbered hoofsteps accompanied a further trio of guards running down the thoroughfare towards the disturbance.
Luna cowered behind an overturned wagon, fishing at her neck for her necklace's clasp. She had mere moments left to get it off and trigger the beacon inlaid on the reverse face of the band.
What was left of the store's ruins exploded as Theta discharged an immense kinetic pulse, clearing away the wreckage and affording her a clear line of sight to both the guards and the cowering Outsider. The guards seemed obviously surprised that she was somehow still standing.
"You dun’ goofed," She remarked with a giggle, air around her horn rippling with barely-controlled magic. "My turn."
Theta ignited, her mane switching from its usual poofy pink affair to an uncontrolled inferno of light. Heat spiralled off her wings as the energy output intensified, setting fire to nearby shopfronts.
"Ah ah ah!" Theta admonished, pointing at Luna as she fumbled with her beacon. "I'm going to need that. No leaving without me!"
Theta fired a mild kinetic pulse at her, knocking her into a wall and the beacon flying to land between her and the guards, lodging on the sign for a speciality store Luna didn't recognise. She groaned, trying to ignore the aching pain in her everything.
"And now for you." Theta turned back to the guards, only to have her head nearly taken off by a sword wielded by a creature she had never seen before. It was large, almost unnaturally so, with horns sprouting from its head like an elk, only larger and more complex. Pseudo-electrical arcs bounced between the branches in a crude mockery of unicorn magic, a similar cracking aura surrounding the wavy-bladed sword.
"Oh, that's cute." Theta remarked, pulling her own sword from the aether, a pointlessly showy neon-pink affair with a hugely oversized blade easily five times as long as she was, ribbons and streamers flailing from the blade's trailing edge. "Mine's better."
"Ha!" The creature growled, bringing his own blade overhead for a strike.
Theta blocked the strike with ease, showering them both with sparks as the two magic blades struggled for dominance over each other. An unholy screech echoed throughout the square as the thaumic discharge intensified, washing over the two combatants.
"Surprise!" She yelled, lowering her horn and firing a blast point-blank into the creature's face.
*
Luna dove for her beacon at the same moment as one of the guards, sending them both tumbling sideways in an undignified tumble of hooves and horns. The pain in her horn flared again as it slammed against the ground repeatedly. She pulled her hind hooves up, slamming them home into the guard's barrel. A high-pitched moan confirming that her hasty aim had been true.
She rolled back to her hooves, only to stop when the remaining three guards turned to face her, spears raised and aimed. With her horn in its current state, she could barely cast simple spells without the pain crippling her. Outright magical combat was impossible at this point.
She hollered like a madmare, lunging forward in the hope that her frenzied attack would put the guards off-balance and give her at least a slight advantage.
It didn't. The closest guard swung his spear around toward her face in a strike that Luna was barely able to dodge. She slid beside him, hooking her hindlegs around the back of his neck as she pulled his front hooves out from under him, slamming his face into the ground with a sickening crack.
Using the now-downed guard as leverage, she pulled herself into a standing position, catching the first guard's fallen spear with her tail and tossing it at the second guard, granting her a critical opening as he moved to block it. In a single smooth movement, she flipped forward, pirouetted, and bucked the second guard in the face, knocking him out cold.
Her rampage was swiftly cut short as the final guard slammed the shaft of his spear against the back of her head, sending her sprawling into the dirt. She groaned in agony, fumbling at her hooves, trying to regain her footing.
"Surprise!"
She looked up to see Theta blast the elk-like creature in the face ineffectually, the magical strike flowing over its face like so much water. Theta's eyes went wide, clearly surprised at this turn of events.
The creature simply punched her in the side of her face, sending her tumbling sideways. His sword slashed down again, cutting clean through Theta's magical construct blade as though it wasn't even there.
Theta, off-balance and unprepared, slowly backed away from her opponent, attempting to charge another spell. It too was snuffed out as the creature swung his weapon at her, the flat of the blade slamming into the side of her face. Luna winced as something cracked and Theta was again knocked sideways, her face badly bruised and a thin trickle of blood leaking from one nostril.
"Give up?" He asked in a gravelly voice, aiming his sword point-first at Theta's face.
Theta looked up at him with a gaze of mixed hatred and amusement. "If you wanted to play rough, you should have just asked, big boy."
The creature snorted, slipping the tip of his sword under her chin, lifting her face up level with his. "After they get through with you, you'll be begging for this to ease your suffering, princess."
"Yeah, I don't take suffering," Theta sneered. "I dish it out."
She grabbed the blade with her magic, yanking it free of the creature's grip. He stumbled backwards, Theta spinning the blade around to face him, a look of pure malevolence painting her features.
"Like this."
The blade fell from her grip with a thud, falling ineffectually to the ground. She stared at it in surprise, trying repeatedly to reignite her magic and lift the blade again before noticing the silvery-grey band locked around the base of her horn.
The fourth guard backed away wearing a smug look on his face, having snuck up behind Theta and slipped the suppressor band on.
"Oh, that's not fair." Theta whined.
The creature fired an arc of lightning into her face. Theta's body dropped like a brick, unconscious.
Okay, now or never. Luna thought to herself as the guard turned to face her. She ignited her magic, calling what vestiges of energy she had left in a last-ditch attempt to teleport far enough away to give her a chance to trigger her beacon and get home.
Her horn exploded.
Luna shrieked in agony as fragments of horn fell to the ground in front of her. Her brain felt like it was on fire, waves of pain radiating away from where her horn used to sit atop her head.
"Well, that will make our job easier."
She turned her gaze up into the face of the creature, eyes blurred with tears of pain.
"You will not find me easy to break, monster."
"Oh, I should hope not, Princess." He remarked. "I don't know how you managed to escape, but rest assured it won't happen again. You will be taught the lesson that your kind deserve."
Luna sneered. The creature was too close for her to escape cleanly if she triggered her beacon now, and she couldn't let them have access to it, lest they discovered the secrets it held.
She spat in his face, masking her bringing her fetlock down on the beacon and shattering it. He glared back, saliva dripping down his face.
"You'll regret that."
"Oh shut up and get it over with."
"Happily. Flash?"
She turned just fast enough to see the butt of the final guard's spear slam into her face before the world went dark.
She spit in his face, masking her bringing her fetlock down
Shouldn't it be Spat?
I completely forgot what the destinations meant, I can only guess that FO would be Fallout but... I can't get any other description in my head yet and HR for well... Human Resources I need a list
Oh.... No...... Please tell you didn't- no......
Ohhhh dear. What is EF? What is the elk-thing? Is it a caribou? Please dear god don't let it be a caribou.
Sorry, friend but i'm pretty sure it's a caribou, and I was right. Welp. I was pretty sure i'd be right. ...I'm just not happy about it.
4351752
Assuming the two letter codes do refer to specific universes, rather than arbitrary labels for universes without any detail yet thought of by Arania (let alone already written by other authors), then we really need a glossary or something.
Only 676 codes to list
4351813
4351780
Now now, we mustn't yet despair. This only has a rating of teen, with no sex tag.
Oh, who am I kidding. It's the bloody caribou. NOOOOOOOO!
4351780
4351834
4351881
I always find it a bit weird when people use 'Caribou', since I'm an Australian, and we call them 'Reindeer'.
...How exactly are reindeer supposed to be threatening? ...I'm missing something here, I think...
Do please fill me in.
4351901
Caribou take over Equestria in the Fall of Equestria universe (not the similarly-named Fallout: Equestria universe) and proceed to turn all of the Equestrian females into mind-wiped sex slaves, de-horning the unicorns. They either kill the princesses or enslave them as well.
It's mostly a series of kinda-ugly clop images on derpibooru.
4351962
...Huh...
That's... a thing.
While I'm usually loathe to outright state what I'm planning for Outsiders, you can rest assured I certainly don't intend to take it in that direction. That'd be... I'm not sure what exactly.
I'm curious about how your multiverse is built. I'm hoping you'll explain more as the chapters progress. This has the potential to become truly epic.
4352030
I understand. I have a teenage daughter that has grown up with the American (USA) educational system. It wasn't very good when I was in school and has only gotten worse over the years.
The only reason my grammar and spelling is as good as it is, is simply that I read. Never stop learning.
The author of this story uses many idioms that are popular in literary English. The Grammar is pretty good, no weird changes in tense that I noticed. The spelling and choosing the correct homophones needs a little work but even the best authors have editors to correct mistakes.
How did I get somewhere completely different in five seconds? And if I could, couldn't they?
I've just read through this story, and while I'm interested in what's going on and have a general idea of the concept, I think the details are going completely over my head. Can somebody help me? Maybe give me a little bit of a cliffs notes?
4352150 Think you're walking down a street, and you look over to one side, and see a pony entering in a shop. Five seconds later, you look the other direction, and see the same pony entering another shop.
4351901
I'm not sure why you replied to me here, as I made no reference to caribou/reindeer.
(As it so happens, I am also Australian.)
This is getting a bit too cryptic.
4352215
Multiverse of some sort, Twilight gets dragged by Twilight outside, and shenanigans. This Luna fights a deranged, alicorn Pinkie and teleports them to a different universe, where she apparently believes has a better chance of subduing said crazed pink monster. It does, but this place appears to hate alicorns in general, and procede to capture Luna.
4352928
Well, yes, I gathered all of that. I know what's HAPPENED, I just don't understand the context of the world or the situations behind what is happening so much, or what our cast is doing or intending to accomplish. You know. Backstory, motivations, world characteristics, things like that. As far as the sequence of events so far in the story goes, yeah, I get all that. It just seemed like other people had a better idea of where they were going and what not.
4352612
Hmmm... While the concept is interesting, if the author is already six chapters in and still hasn't explained the context of the story, I have to say I'm a little perturbed. I assumed that it had been better explained and I just missed it because I was reading the story last night at 5am in a sleepy haze, especially since other commenters seemed to get what was happening better than I did. But if context hasn't been explained yet, I'd say it's high time we got some thorough exposition up in here.
4354008
I understand your confusion. I have a similar concept in the works, and I kinda struggle between info dump and mysterious man of mystery. Info dump turns people off, but sometimes, people just don't want to talk about their history because they're afraid to, are just jackasses, or never had a chance to.
My character is of the jackass variety.
4354081
There doesn't necessarily have to be an outright infodump, though in the case of this story it would probably be acceptable since Twilight in this story is an author surrogate in a situation where she would have a reason to ask a bunch of questions about the basic fundamentals of the world she's found herself in and it would all be perfectly legitimate...
...I'm just saying that it's been six chapters and we've not even gotten the barest of scrapings of exposition. The only things we as the audience know is what we've gleaned from what's going on. And while that's not a bad way to get information across, in the case of this story, it's far too slow. Exposition is not a toxic thing that needs to be avoided. It has its place, especially in fantastic and strange worlds where we might not even understand the basic fundamentals of the universe, such as this one.
4352659
I do seem to have misclicked somewhat when doing that reply. Apologies.
4352424
This chapter is intended to lead on from chapter 3's fight scene, showing what happened to Lunatic, rather than a stand-alone out-of-nowhere affair.
As for the horn thing, that's mostly just the style i was running with for this fic (more of a semi-mechanical view where the horn can be damaged or 'malfunction' in this case), though it is setting up for some stuff later on.
4354008
4354220
I'm sorry if the pacing and exposition is a bit slow. There are a few reasons for it-
Firstly, As I mentioned in an earlier comment, my earlier forays into fiction-writing prior to Outsiders tended to edge a bit too much into info-dump territory, and it tended to sour the narrative somewhat. In trying to rein that instinct in, I may have gone too far in the other direction.
Secondly, most of my personal favourite novels and stories are written by authors who have a similar tendency to be a bit sparse with their exposition, and since it's something that I personally like as a reader, that style tends to bleed somewhat into my own recent work.
As always, though, I appreciate the criticism and suggestions (First fic published on the site and all). Every little piece of advice helps!
4354483
(Responding to the last part of this comment)
I don't have an issue with your rate of exposition, or at least I don't think that's the problem. I think the problem is how jumpy your narrative is, and the result is having many under-explored characters.
The world looks promising enough that I'm willing to forgive that for now.
HR
Hmm... Reaching far, and vague speculation, buuut...
H.ard R.eset?
"That one Detached ages back." (Either has something to do with when the alternate timelines are severed, or a story finishes maybe...)
>Hard Reset 2 on authors favorite/update list (Potentially why it would still be on the list?)
It's on my mind since I very recently got around to reading the Changeling Queen Twilight story.
Thus, I bet 20 gold that HR is the Hard Reset universe!
4352021 I'm reminded more of the deer from "It's a Dangerous Thing, Going out your door", actually. Nice to see some of the other races getting some representation.
Well it's nice to know Woona isn't quite dead yet.
4364411
For the record, this story's on the favorites list of the Hard Reset 2 author as well.
I do think there's something to your logic here, especially considering the "detached" mention. The main argument against it would be that it would be fourth-wall-breaky — although they might be arbitrary letter designations that just so happen to map to audience Easter eggs …
4352021 Certainly a stunning coincidence though, isn't it?
Okay, since to my knowledge, a list was never made:
RF: Rainbow Factory
FO: Fallout: Equestria - Within Equestria, the subtitle becomes redundant, and it makes more sense as a two letter than (Fall of). Additionally, within the setting, Alicorns can feed off Thaumic radiation to become more powerful, explaining Woona's comment.
HR: Hard Reset, as stated above.
NV: Hard to tell - Nevada, New Vegas, and New Version are the only hits I could find. None of them seem suitable. Any suggestions?
CI: Again, no idea - Criminal Intent, Confidence Interval, and Crimson Ink were the only hits. 'Luna blanched. "The last thing anyone needs is for her to get my beacon. No." ' This line reminds me of how people think of FiO and the Optimalverse, but the name doesn't fit super well.
UP: Is of course, very difficult to Google. No idea.
OB: No idea, and Woona gives no clues either. Fimfiction seems to find Obsolescence too much to be of use.
RW: Somehow slow to be deadly. All I could find was ReWrite.
Some of these could be slang terms for 'verses, or may not all be real references, though that seems unlikely. That's three of seven found, at least. Pleasantly surprised by the lack of overt reference to TCB and FiO as Fall worlds.
enough,"
No," she
Bastards better not be able to keep a hold on Woona. Any Woona, not just this one.
Remind me to burn a few versions of that universe to the ground, later.
Waaaaiiiittt…. Broken horn… Lightning… When was the MLP movie released again???