The Remains

by zekromthepokemon

Chapter: 1

Author's Note:

This is my first dwelling into this genre so, be harsh with your criticism. Tell me ALL the ways I can improve this story and get better with my writing overall.

Thank you

A hooded figure stood silently on the beaten grounds of the destroyed town, his purple tail poking out of his cloak. While the gray, clouded sky and the hood hid a lot of his face, you could still faintly see a frown.

He walked through the place he had once called home. The broken town didn’t retain any of the old charm that once lit up the place. As he walked through the ruins, he recalled places where happy memories had taken place. Spike would almost smile at some of them, but the more recent ones immediately stopped him, crippling any joy that Ponyville once brought him. He looked at Carousel Boutique, seeing the pictures of dresses and hats hanging in front of it, remembering all the times he had been there helping one of his favorite mares. He dashed the thought away as he walked up to the door and hopped through the shattered glass.

He slowly walked through the shop with his eyes silently swishing about, searching for something. Spike noticed the mannequins and rolls of thread strewn about the shop. The dragon stopped, then suddenly ran into a corner of the shop and opened a chest. He grabbed a nearby candle and carefully lit it using his breath. The contents of the chest glittered in the light. One claw quenched the flame while the other closed the chest and began to carry it over his shoulder.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH MY GEMS?”

He dropped the chest in surprise and it broke open, the rubies and emeralds spilling out onto the floor. Spike’s theory was correct, but he wasn’t exactly happy about it. He turned around in a defensive position and began to assess the threat. A silhouette of a mare stood in front of him.

“I’ll kill you for trying to take my gems, you brute!”

The mare jumped and began to wail on him, aiming mainly for his head. While some of the blows did hurt, most of them were pretty pathetic. Spike threw the mare off in annoyance and pinned her down by her forehooves.

“Listen, I really need these gems and-” He stopped when, with the little light in the room, he noticed that the coat and even the horn that protruded from her head were white. Spike got off of her and rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment.

“Sorry, Rarity.”

“How do you know my name?! Are you a spy? That last attack wasn’t my worst and-” She saw his tail behind him.

“Spike . . . I thought . . .”

“Yeah, I thought the same thing about you,” he interrupted. Spike pulled out the candle and lit it again. He set it down on a coffee table in front of a couch, then plopped down and patted a spot beside him. Rarity sat down beside him and neither of them said anything for a few minutes.

“Why’re you still here?” Spike asked, breaking the silence, “He could come back any minute.”

“Tirek's not coming back, Spike. He’s probably already off destroying the other kingdoms adjacent to Equestria.”

“No, he already did that,” Spike said glumly.

“Really?” Rarity asked, looking up at him with intrigue.

“Yep, it was pretty easy after he drained Twilight. He drained Chrysalis and The Gryphon Queen, and after that he destroyed the entire land trying to make sure no one could survive to defeat him.”

“It’s overkill if you ask me. He already took the four princesses’ magic and even Discord's, of all creatures, but that somehow isn’t enough?” Rarity crossed her front legs and rolled her eyes.

“Well, there are actually some artifacts that can-”

Spike was interrupted mid-sentence as they both heard a thump. Another thump came, and this time it shook the room. It began to thump consecutively. Spike looked at the floor and closed his eyes. Rarity got up and was about to walk over to the window, but Spike put a claw on her shoulder. She turned around and he nodded back to where she had been sitting. She shook her head and crept to the window. Looking outside, she saw a gigantic gray leg. She opened her mouth to scream, but Spike rushed over and covered her mouth. He dragged her back to the couch and resumed hanging his head.

“Show yourself, being. The draining will be quick. You don’t want me to look for you or I’ll make sure it is long, tortuous, and especially painful,” Tirek boomed from outside. The room shook again as he got closer. “I can feel the magic coursing through you. It won’t be too long before I find you.”

Spike looked up with determination on his face. He grabbed some gems off the floor and stashed them in his cloak.

“He’s too close. We have to go,” Spike said.

“Okay.” Rarity said, hopping onto Spike’s back. He went up to Sweetie Belle’s room and looked around. He saw Sweetie Belle in her bed, completely still and unmoving. He went over to wake her up, but Rarity patted his back.

“Don’t wake her up,” Rarity said with glee in her voice.

“Why n-”

“The Sugar Sands are simply . . . divine Mr. Cupcake,” Sweetie mumbled in her sleep.

“She’s happier when she’s asleep.”

Even though Spike wasn’t looking at her he could feel the smile that Rarity had on her face.

Instead of waking her up he just scooped her up and plopped her on his back with Rarity.

A loud crash then came from downstairs.

“You’re almost out of time to give yourself up,” Tirek said.

Spike jumped out the window and began to run.
“There you are!”
Tirek began to walk toward Spike. Rarity looked at Tirek with fear. He was now so large that she couldn’t even see his face.

“Stop running, little dragon, your draining is inevitable,” Tirek bellowed.

A giant gray hood then landed in front of Spike, stopping him in his tracks. Spike fell to his knees and waited for the monster to rid him of his magic.

Comments

[Hillbe]

nicely done , good pace. fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2015/058/a/c/when_twilights_away_by_hillbe-d8jpwti.jpg

[raptordile]

Flop you universe and ungodly cliffhangers! Wait in the show Tirek didn't kill or even harm for that matter when he drained ponies. So does he kill the magicless husks or in the show did he just drain most not all of their magic? What kind of magic do dragons have? Can he be drained? How old/big is Spike now? Does Tirek move the sun and moon? CAN he move them? How does Tirek deal with non-magical creatures? (if in your story some creatures don't have magic that is, but to my knowledge all native equestrian creatures have magic)

Looking forward to the next chapter!

Put a raptor is this fic somewhere because...uuu... raptors are cool.

[zekromthepokemon]

I'm sorry but, this reply is very comedic. I'm sorry if that detracts from the serious tone of the story but, it' kinda in my nature.

S***, I forgot about the AU. Lemme fix that annnddd . . . done!

In my eyes he killed them indirectly. You see how the magicless husks (not including the Mane Six because their OP) just fall to the ground and not move or really do anything at all? I think after a while you died because you couldn't eat or sleep or anything that you needed to do.

Dragons don't have magic but, Spike still has the magic from being a living post-office. If he didn't then I would probably resorted to having book horse in this story.

He can step on non-magical creatures or eat them. pretty much anything you could do as a giant centaur demon.

To close I would like to leave you with word from my people.

5711051

[GhostofSandwich]

Hey, I'm here! Decided to start with the shortest story first; I needed to get into a reading mood.

Ahem...

I found the premise of the story interesting, as I'm a fan of "what if" scenarios, especially those that end in a hopeless scenario. I'm well aware that this story is a good number of months out without an update, but it has promise, if done correctly. On that note, a few things could definitely be done better.

1: This has the tone of an emotional story, and as such, it will rely highly on descriptions and character building. This is a genre where you want to take your time and make the reader feel as if they are there. For example, when Spike discovered Rarity, I was expecting at least a paragraph describing his emotions. I mean, he just found an old friend, and one he was hopelessly infatuated with nonetheless. It was all in all underwhelming.

2: You didn't state that Spike had grown, so when Rarity jumped on his back, all I could imagine was Rarity flattening a poor baby dragon.

3: Pacing. I covered this in the first note, but seriously, pacing is extraordinarily important in a story like this. It seemed that it was moving on before I was even able to fully imagine the destruction all around. Describe the environment more, but try to not be overwhelming with details. Just enough to give a image the readers can see. Now, as a writer myself, I know that pacing can sometimes be a problem, because writing is much slower than reading. What can be read in a matter of a minute can seem like an hour to us if we get stuck or need to go back and re-write something. Always be sure to read over the scene after taking a break and see if you can't imagine it using just the words.

Other than that, it all seemed nice. As I already said, I'm a sucker for deep stories, and this one has the ability to be something great. I'll give it a 61/2 out of 10 mustaches.

If left anything out that you would like to hear more about, please let me know

[zekromthepokemon]

6368689 Sorry for replying like months later but, I'd like to thank you for putting this down. It's not in my notifications anymore so, I know I saw it but, I guess I forgot about these criticisms somehow and I don't know why so, I'm going to incorporate this into the next chapter (which I'm writing on and off right now). Even though this was for the trading thing on Authors Helping Authors I still want to thank you.