Every city had rules or ideals of which nopony spoke, but everypony picked up on very quickly. For instance, except for holiday parties, in the town of Ponyville, sundown meant work’s done and the town came to a standstill until first light the next day. In upper Canterlot, it was those who are here are important, and those who aren’t, are not. By virtue of the literal separation of upper and lower Canterlot, that attitude ensured that the majority of the city proper was snubbed by the upper - fiscally and geographically - ponies of the city.
Mix in the fact that the Princess Celestia and Princess Cadance rarely, if ever, ventured into the lower sector - they flew in or took the royal express train - and that the upper Canterlot patrol routes were highly coveted by Royal Guard members, and you get a situation that considers those who live below ‘unimportant.’
What do you get when you mix an industrialized city, located at a centralized point and with access to a navigable river, that is deemed beneath them by those who make and enforce the laws? The capital of organized crime in Equestria.
A species will always produce those who would exploit the system in place to get an edge, and ponies are no exception. Sure, of the civilized races, ponies were considered the least ambitious and least violent, but that was as a whole.
It was the exceptions that were dangerous. Exceptions that called lower Canterlot home. Exceptions that caused the rule of the streets to be ‘walk fast and don’t be a target.’
Thus, the mare in full makeup and jewelry standing just outside Sparkle’s door, hoof poised to knock when Sparkle opened said door, was all the more surprising. “Oh.”
“Excuse me,” the unicorn mare said. “I was wondering if I had the right place...”
Sparkle narrowed her eyes. “Depends. Who are you looking for?”
“I don’t know her name. The colt I got the address from said she could help me with my... unique problem.”
“Define ‘unique’ and ‘payment,’ and maybe I’ll help.”
“I’m being stalked. I’m sure that stallion knows I’m here right now. He’s always watching me, and he sends me threats. I want him gone.”
“Come in. No sense in you standing in the hall,” Sparkle said after a brief moment’s contemplation.
“Thank you.”
The two walked into the room, which counter-intuitively smelled fresher than the hallway, considering what happened in the very next room back. “Have a seat. Tea?”
The unicorn, who couldn’t have been more than her mid-twenties, straightened out her red dress and daintily seated herself on the dingy couch. “Yes, thank you very much.”
Sparkle’s horn flared for a moment, but nothing tea-related happened. Instead, she simply sat on the other seat in the room, a worn out office chair. “Now, when you say ‘gone,’ how far do you want him gone? Fleeing in fright? Or something a bit more permanent?”
“I... I’m not sure what you mean, exactly. You can take care of him, right? Make him stop?”
“Yesss...” Sparkle hissed. “I... have the feeling I am not quite the service provider you were lead to believe I was. Switchblade, come in here.”
A silver-grey pegasus trotted in from the kitchen, carrying a tray with an old teapot and two cups in his mouth. His face was mostly hidden on one side by his black mane. He set the tray down on the coffee table between the two mares, and then brushed a strand of black mane out of his one visible eye. “How else may I help, Mistress?”
“Tell me, why are you working for me?”
“Because I tried and failed to kill you, Mistress,” he replied without missing a beat.
“And why did you try and kill me?”
“Because I was a criminal, and I wanted what I thought you had, Mistress.” He poured the tea.
“How long are you going to be working for me, Switchblade?”
“Until you dismiss me, Mistress.” The pegasus passed a cup to Sparkle.
“And why is that?” She took a sip.
He brushed his mane aside, revealing an empty cavity instead of an eye. “Because I am dead, Mistress. You took my soul and my eye. There is nothing left for me but you, Mistress.”
“And where are the things I took from you?”
He passed a full cup to Sparkle’s queasy looking guest. “Why, digesting in Thornecrovitar’s stomach, of course... Mistress.”
Sparkle turned towards the unnamed mare. “I ask again, how gone do you want your stalker? An upper Canterlot lady like yourself must be pretty frightened if coming here was the safer option.”
“I w-want him... d-de-d-dead.”
“Are you sure?”
“O-o-of c-course I’m sure! He’s ruining my life!” The mare replied.
“Because he’s right there.” Sparkle gestured a hoof, pointing to behind the mare, where a stallion was menacingly standing. A burst of magic pinned the culprit to the wall, his legs spread apart and his belly exposed. “Switchblade, if you would.”
“Yes, Mistress.” The zombie pressed the hilt of a knife into the client’s hooves. “Kill him, Miss.”
“Yes, Kill him yourself,” Sparkle echoed.
“Kill him.”
She stood.
“Kill him.”
She rounded the couch.
“Kill him.”
She approached the trapped stallion.
“Kill him!”
She raised the knife oh so slowly.
“Kill him!”
She hesitated.
“KILL HIM NOW!”
“NO!” The world shattered like glass. She was seated on the dingy couch, spilled tea spreading across her dress and the couch below. There was no knife, no stalker, no zombie.
“No?” Sparkle asked. “You don’t want me to kill him?”
“What in Celestia’s name was that?”
“A test,” Sparkle answered sagely. “One you failed. A pony that cannot end a life on her own strength does not deserve to order the death of one at the hooves of another. We’re done here; I have no more business with you.”
The guest’s eyes went wide. “But... he’ll kill me!”
“Then defend yourself!” Sparkle commanded at a much louder volume than she had been the whole conversation. “Or get in touch with the Royal Guard! Hire a bodyguard! Flee! Anything!
"I am not the right pony for the job,” she concluded, voice returned to normal. “Good day. Show yourself out, coward.”
“But-”
“GO!"
The mare went.
“Great. I’m going to be late now.” Sparkle took another sip of her tea. It didn’t taste like much of anything at all.
"You better have something better than this, Twi." The speaker slowly slid out from the shadow on the park ground. "It takes forever to escape Canterlot without setting off those stupid traces on me. Honestly, I'd almost rather get talked at by Princess Sunbutt again than go through this again just to have a conversation with you."
Twilight sighed. "I know. Spike can help with single letters-"
"-but we'd rather not put him through the effort of playing messenger for a whole conversation, I know," Sparkle finished.
"Well, there are a couple of options we have available. Astral projection, mana resonance, telepathy-”
"Absolutely not!" Sparkle interjected. "That would drive us insane!"
"I figured as much," Twilight replied. "There is something I've been wanting to try. Princess Celestia taught me about something called sympathetic entanglement, where two objects can be made to interact with one another across space, without any detectable means of communication between them. I was thinking, if we went into a store, bought the exact same typewriter, and overlapped them, we could entangle their parts so they move in unison when one of us types."
"I'll have to trust you on that; this is the first I've heard of sympathetic entanglement," Sparkle replied with a shrug. "The idea sounds sound... And really familiar, now that I think about it."
Twilight giggled. "It would to us, wouldn't it?"
"What do you... Oh. Us."
Twilight nodded excitedly. "Yep. If this works, we could end up pioneering the future of high-speed communications! Think about it, two machines, portable, and with no other infrastructure needed!" She thought for a moment, her eyes darting back and forth as she pondered different scenarios. "You should crash the Grand Galloping Gala," she eventually stated, as if she had just said 'the sky is blue.'
Sparkle blinked. She blinked again, rubbed her ears as if to clean them, and blinked a third time. "What? No, seriously, what?" She put a hoof up to her temple and massaged it. "I know I'm supposed to be you, but even I didn't follow that train of thought."
"Well, the Gala is in four months, so tickets have been distributed already."
"Faust knows how long those nobles take to get ready for a party," Sparkle deadpanned.
"Yeah," Twilight agreed. "Anyway, I'm pretty sure that I can have a functioning prototype of the typewriters working by then. And since some of the nobles and upper class go there to invest on business ventures, it would be a great time to get a sponsor. If you were there, it would help me pitch it, but there's no way the Princess would give you a ticket.."
Sparkle had her eyebrow raised the whole time Twilight explained her thoughts. "That's... smart... but way out of character for you, Twilight." She gasped and fainted melodramatically. "Oh dear, perfect little Twilight suggesting that I break the rules? What has the world come to?"
"Drama queen."
"Smartass."
"Language, Sparkle."
"Madam! Are you accusing me of possessing an inelegant vocabulary?" Sparkle asked in her best 'Canterlot Elitist' voice, more arrogant sounding than a simple 'Canterlot Elite' voice.
"Indubitably."
"Well, buck you too."
Ignoring that, Twilight asked Sparkle if she would come. The latter replied that she would think about it, and perhaps find an alternative way to get a transferable ticket before simply showing up at the gala. Twilight agreed and settled for a promise of 'I'll try to be there.'
The sisters parted soon after. They had agreed to meet soon in order to get and experiment with their chosen communication tool, but for now, Sparkle had to return to her home before the guards realized that her magical trace had been stealthily transferred to her bed in lower Canterlot.
The fools couldn't hold her if they were a hundred times as competent. She was a free mare! Not that she wanted to live as a fugitive, though. It wasn't worth the effort.
Huh, different little interactions. But certainly one of note to hear. Shame on the thief, but eh, never steal from magi or dragons should be a common sense thing.
Man, I'm really starting to dislike Sparkle, she's a complete ass.
5539562
Wait, I've just realized something: Sparkle has killed another pony. In cold blood.
And then she has the gall to complain about Celestia when she should rightfully be in prison?
As far as I know, theft doesn't have capital punishment as an appropriate sentence.
Is the author asking us to root for the bad guy?
5539600
She was testing the mare for resolve, and then sent her to the guards rather than have the mare have the sin of murder by hiring a contract killer. And while Sparkle has no qualms about killing irredeemable monsters, she had no idea who these ponies were, and no idea of their motivations. Deep down though, she's still trying to be good.
I don't know what else to say, really... I'll try my best to explain everything and make her likable, but If I fail, I'm sorry.
5539605
A pony named Switchblade tried to rob Sparkle at knife-point. Even though I haven't said the exact cause of death, it was still self-defense on Sparkle's part.
This world isn't black-and-white. While heroes and villains exist, everything in between exists as well.
If you haven't picked it up yet, Sparkle only cares about the law in as much as it is useful to her.
5539673 ...By this explanation alone, you have piqued my interest.
I always love grey area stories like Tokyo Ghoul and such.
5539691
Damn, I love Tokyo Ghoul!
Not that I'm taking much inspiration from it specifically, but it's well within the range of media I like to consume and produce.
5539605 Well, its interesting to consider where the law applies here. On one side, yes, she's what amounts to a master of a very forbidden topic. And while celestia can very likely send her into hiding, its a bit of a catch 22. If she does, you have a grand master of undeath, or very near such sitting in a high populated place that all she needs is a single touch to make the trotting dead scenario all to real while she gets the heck away. Or worse, hits something valuable. Like the other elements of harmony in a worst case scenario.
On the flipside, because she is what she is, you have the best way to both ensure no other is going to rise up and do this. You have someone thats training your best line of defense against anyone rising up like that. And can also, because she is very much in tune with the criminal underworld here, alert you to potential plots and issues long before you will know. Criminals know the score.
Still, oversight is an issue with this kind of power, and its a delicate line to tread. To much, and they run, and you get something you dont want, to little, and they can risk slipping in a different manner. But overall, sparkle is someone gifted with a very unique magic set. It really jades you when you are very capable of crossing the intangible over that irrefutable line for folks.
What price would a noble of canterlot pay for a fresh body, and a second life of 90+ years to do as they wanted? It's a crude immortality, but its very close to be in her reach through the texts acquired by the look of things.
She is harsh, because the moral choices she has to make have rather harsh consequences if she isnt in control. The fact earlier dark magic is mentioned to have some emotional highs associated with it. And why its corrupting for those without the innate wards. (Think of it like the dark side, it has those emotional boosts when its used.)
As for celestia, well.. While she's been seen rather, draconian. I don't have quite enough here to condemn or support her. Not really. Yes, her views are plain. But her reasons why are not. I hope that makes sense.
Sorry for the wall of text, but hope that helps?
5539627
And just like that, a thousand little red flags have just popped up in my head.
Who even talks like this? Dude...are you okay?
So, it's okay for Sparkle to be prejudiced against ponies based on their names, but it's unfair for other ponies to treat her badly based on her magic. Or on her actions, given she's apparently a confirmed killer herself.
So, the apparent supreme master of dark magic couldn't just blow off a limb and retreat, couldn't overwhelm his nervous system with pain and flee, and couldn't use one of her amazing illusions* to convince the thief she was dead and trap him a cage as soon as he got out of the house?
Why are you so emotionally invested in my opinion? Even if I were to completely hate her, why would that necessarily make the story worse? There's plenty of hateable characters out there who are crucial to the story they're in (see Joffrey Baratheon). Unless she's an absolutely crucial part of this story, in which case I'd advise you to take a good, long, hard look at what you want to write.
*Seriously, what the fuck is up with Sparkle being so good at illusion magic? I'd understand if that was her specialty, but it isn't, and even the canon Twilight Sparkle needed props and disguises to fool Trixie.
5539827
1. That sounds weird even to me, now that I read it...
2. Would you ask the person robbing you their name? But, seeing as names and talents go hand-in-hand, I named the thief Switchblade because he was an antagonistic character...
And it was wrong of ponies to be prejudiced towards her when the timeline split, but now it's justified. Still doesn't mean she likes it.
3. Self-taught dark mage who wasn't quite yet physically mature yet has a knee-jerk, instinctive reaction to a perceived threat to her life and fires a (natural) weapon that is easier to use on "kill" than "stun." You try shooting someone in the face with a gun and NOT killing them, and you'll have a good idea of what happened.
4. I get emotionally invested when I read negative comments because a) I wrote the story and b) when you point out one bad thing, I see three more. Self-doubt, really. (I also love to debate.)
5. It's not so much a "you see what I project" type illusion - there was never a pony's image detected by the mare's eyes - but a "I'm making you hallucinate/utterly misinterpret the signals from your eyes, though you could shrug it off if you knew how" sort of thing. It's exactly what was on Sombra's door, minus the "worst" fear thing. My headcanon is that they both learned it from the same book.
5539787
Hit the nail on the head.
I haven't even read the story yet but the description made me say: "DUDE, this sounds AWESOME! I need to read this now! XD So unique!"
5539827
Because Twilight Sparkle doesn't have to use illusion magic on a regular basis to avoid having people run screaming from her all the time, while Sparkle probably had to starting very young; maybe even as young as the original split (8 years old).
You could argue that complex illusions like what we've seen from Sparkle are dark magic because they fool all the senses and are designed to cause extreme fear. We've also seen Nightmare Moon use such illusions with the scary trees in The Mare In The Moon.
Trixie was also quite capable of illusions with no props and disguises because she was a show-mare, no? She also had a lot of practice; Or rather, it was her special talent of showboating.
5540011
Expect lots more jargon. That's just how I write.
This is...possibly one of the best stories I've read in awhile....seriously NEED MOAR
5539985
It's in how you write it, really. An illusion can work by making someone see something that isn't there, or by making a fake image that can be seen. The first fucks with the mind of the observer, the second doesn't.
5539985
5539915
.5 Okay, you guys have so far managed to completely miss the entire point of my criticisms.
I don't care how the fact that Sparkle is good at illusion magic is justified, in-story.
I want to know how it's justified narratively.
Sparkle is just as good, if not better, at something another character has trained in all her life. AND she's a master of dark magic. AND she casually disrespects the Princess, her older brother, her lighter self, etc, WHILE simultaneously griping about how everyone's out to get her (for something which she knows is dangerous, with good reason).
And let's not forget how she killed a home intruder in supposed self-defense; oh, wait, even in the US, and definitely so in Europe, if I kill a home intruder then I go to jail for manslaughter. That's, like, an actual thing that happens. If you kill a thief, you're going to trial, no matter what led up to it.
Which, of course, she bragged about, while in a pacifist society, while refusing a job even though she's hurting for money (she could've just said to the pony that she would've scared the stalker).
And of course, whenever she needs a new skill, she can produce it out of her ass under the magic words "oh, it's because she had to be more pragmatic". Oh, and she can still keep all of her canon abilities because her double is passing her notes.
Nevermind the fact that if she were truly more pragmatic, she probably wouldn't have had as much time to study.
Face it: Sparkle has no weaknesses, no faults, and everything comes all too easily to her.
(say, where did she get those forbidden tomes of power from, those who have the potential to turn an ordinary unicorn in a master of the dark arts?)
Sparkle is a Mary Sue.
But on its own, that's not a bad thing; like I wrote before, some stories can work anyway even with a Mary Sue protagonist.
Except.
Except.
There is absolutely no conflict in this story.
Whatever Sparkle wants, Sparkle gets. There are no possible villains who could ever put a dent in her. She outfoxes Celestia, who's had ten lifetimes to learn intrigue, she makes her older brother puke his guts and scare him to death (even though they presumably lived together all their life).
I cannot, for the life of me, imagine this version of Twilight Sparkle making a joke that isn't mean spirited or sarcastic; I can't imagine her being embarrassed, or hesitant, or fearful. I cannot imagine her pooping. I cannot imagine her making a mistake. I cannot imagine her being humiliated.
And that's boring.
Oh, and finally, the little cherry on top of all this: what about Twilight?
The light magic user, I mean. You went out of your way to specify her cutie mark is different from canon!Twilight Sparkle, you've had her interacting with her double all her life, her specialty is in light magic, not all magic...and she's functionally identical to canon!Twilight Sparkle.
Why bring the different cutie mark at all if you didn't want to do anything with it? Wouldn't she be beyond horrified at how her darker sister is being treated by Celestia, and run up the stairs to yell at her for how evil she is for persecuting dark magic users without a cause? Why the fuck have both Twilights told the Celestia's about the other world if they've always had the means of demonstrating it (that is, dragonfire and thorn/spike plus Celestia and dead languages), since that would've made Sparkle's life so much more bearable?
Just.....ARGH!
5539787
It doesn't help, not really :-/
Mainly because, in my original comment, I was gauging the morality of the action, not its legality.
Even so, like I said in another comment, if at night you find a thief in your house and shoot him dead, you're gonna be in deep shit with the law.
But anyway; you....explained to me why Sparkle is being treated the way she's treated which...wasn't what I was confused about? Although, now that you mention...because of who she is, Sparkle is quite intelligent; wouldn't she ALSO understand this reasoning, and thus understand Princess Celestia, and thus, not gripe like an overentitled teenager over her treatment?
I love it so far!
I really enjoy the banter between Sparkle and Twilight, and I hope there will be more focus on their relationship in the future. This story has tons of potential! Personally I hope its does not become a "must save Sparkle from corruption" story or something like that, but hey! Il read it regardless what it becomes.
Also, love the smaller side stories, with Sparkle teaching and the visit from the noble. Hope to see more of those interactions, as I feel it makes her so much more fleshout! Its kind of like mini-episodes (kind of like character development fillers).
Keep up the good work!
5540410 Actually, in most states, if you shoot a criminal in your home, and can prove that you gave adequate warning before you fired, you generally won't get in trouble for it.
Make sure you have evidence that you gave adequate warning first though.
5540881
Thank you.
I really do need an editor...
I type this mostly in gdocs on my iPad since I'm out and about a good bit. Google docs mobile is horrible for editing.
Damn, I was going to call you out on that Typewriter. Fringe was one of my favorite shows.
5540410
Reason and feelings do not always (if even rarely) walk hand-by-hand. Just because she rationally knows the whys and hows of how she's treated does not mean she can control how she feels about it. She is, after all, quite collected about it.
And about she getting everything she wants... this is a quite minimalist story, at least when considering "page time". We see only a few small glimpses of the story, with much left to imagination. How hard was for her to get those books? How does she deal with the treatment? What about Shinning X Cadence? We DO know they are together, but how does the princes of love see the foal she sat being such a feared necromancer? What did Sparkle do to be treated like that (hint: wille179 already said it will be revealed)? How did Twilight deal with it, a filly seeing her double, her SISTER, being ripped from her own family by her own hooves, with no choice on it? Being the one "blessed" with light?
Basically, there is a metric fuckton of stuff that has not been shown because of the style the author chose (the fact that it could take up to a couple hundred thousand words to get to Nightmare Moon alone does say much about said choice). And that is not necessarily bad. In this story, I'd say it actually enhances it a lot.
On being a Mary Sue... I've seen few of such moments that actually go that far. Hell, she didn't even TRY to fight NM. She knew it'd be useless. Outfoxing Celestia? She only knows deeply the laws that rule her life, Sunnybut has a nation to rule. A room-wide nice ilusion? How many time did she have to prepare it? She may well have enchanted the room itself spending a lot of time and/or materials on it. Not all magic is done on the spot. Wasting an entire class like puppets? Acting & driving oneself to the limit. Also, a class, not a battle. Fighting dirty helps a lot.
All in all, she is less of a mary sue than you make it sound. Or, putting it better, she CAN be less of one. Or more. The untold story I mentioned earlier? That leaves a lot for or imagination, and that can be the trap when evaluating that. Depending on what our minds put there, she can be anything from worse than Med'an (ok, not THAT much, but close) to grittier than the Dark Knight. I like to imagine closer to the latter.
On that matter, it almost seems like a 'Slice of Life' tag is appropriate, considering the episodic feeling of the story. Those are just my 2 cents though.
Also, fave'd. I like what this story proposes a lot, and do want to see where it will go. Just don't dare making it shorter than a couple hundred thousand long, k?
>A specie will always produce those
You're the first person I've seen (other than me) to use 'specie' as the singular form of 'species'
Althœ perhaps 'specy' is more consistent? Eh, it looks weird
The best part is that this is totally real and has been done multiple times before, though not on the scale this implies. Google 'quantum entanglement' it's some freaky cool stuff. Potential uses include possibly unbreakable encryption, and instant communication on galactic scale because nothing is actually traveling through space. If you've ever read Ender's Game, its exactly like the ansible. It's not really two objects interacting, its basically 'glitching' the universe so that there are two particles that are actually the exact same particle. When something happens to one, that same thing happens to the other because they're the same particle.
5548153 Actually, entanglement can't be used to break the speed of light barrier, so, even though it does serve a useful purpose with not needing to detect photons from different wave lengths, its use on the cosmic scale is somewhat moot.
5542141 When I saw that my brain stopped working for a second.
This is why I shouldn't start new stories before bed: They turn out to be awesome and I'm up hours past when I wanted to go to sleep reading them. I hope I don't need coherent thought tomo-- this morning.
As soon as I saw the idea for the typewriter I was like, "Friiiinge" in my head.
6249546 i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/107/432/i_hug_that_feel.png
7122175 indeed
7128080 indeed
Species
-E
This is great! I love that fringe reference.
7293405 indeed
Stalker.
That rejection last chapter.
And secret test of character.
No.
8098816
Indeed.
Considering that the ZFT is canon to IDWs multiverse, you could conceivably pull something from Fringe with precedent.
8318611
Indeed
8922440
Indeed
9772083
Indeed