Chapter 4-With a Touch of Chaos
I stood in the field, shivering. I looked around the field and sighed. This place held memories for me. It's where I first learned how to control my powers. Misty and I had hung out here. That thought alone upset me. Misty was the changeling queen Chrysalis’s daughter. I had fought against her when I was trapped in Sugercube Corner's basement. One thing that troubled me was that Misty had mentioned something about us “being together”. I didn't remember her showing any affection toward me during my training sessions. But Rainbow teased me about being dense around mares, so I wasn't surprised that I hadn't noticed.
I checked my necklace. I had tried to fill it with emotions as I dashed though the town to get here. It wasn't as full as I would have liked it, but it'll have to do. I sat down and immediately stiffened as I heard a voice from behind me. “Well, hello there.”
I slightly turned my head, “Discord?”
The draconequus laughed. “You got me!” Suddenly, he appeared in front of me. “And you must be Shade?” He snapped his fingers and I turned into Rainbow. “Or Miss Rainbow Dash?” He snapped again. “Or are you Twilight Sparkle?” He snapped a third time. “Or even Princess Celestia? My, my.”
“Cut that out!” I yelled at him, baring my fangs. I could never fully hide my fangs if I was agitated in another form. As I shifted back to my unicorn form, I shuddered. How could I stop him if he could control my powers?
“Oh, angry are we?” He said with mock fear. “Careful. You wouldn't want to lose control, would you?” As he said that, the mark on my neck flared up and I winced.
“What do you want?!” I barked at him, dripping anger. The mark was started to enhance my emotions. Problem is, because it was anger I would fight him. And I knew that I wasn't close to ready.
The draconequus smiled. “Please, Shade. Don't act like you don't know who I am. This is your father, Discord standing in front of you.”
I made a effort to calm myself. “Yes. I've been told that your my father. How did you find me here?”
He scoffed. “When I was free from that annoying tomb of stone and sent the Elements of Harmony on a wild-goose chase, I listened to Celestia talk with her sister. They mentioned letting you go out and see the world. I knew that she wouldn't want you far from her.”
“So tell me, How does a draconequus and a alicorn have a changeling foal?” I asked.
Discord's smile wavered. “Well, it's because of what we are. Our magic couldn't decide what species you were going to be, so it decided on its own.”
He wasn't telling me something. I frowned. “Your magic? Wait.” I suddenly knew what he meant. “Oh, you mean...EW.” I gagged.
Discord laughed. “You are a smart one. In fact, you might even give Twilight Sparkle a run for her bits.”
“Enough!” I snapped. “Why are you here? In fact, how did you even get free?”
“I'm not going to answer the second question. You'll have to figure that out for yourself. As for the first question...” He paused for a minute, trying to read my face. “I need your help.”
“With?” I questioned.
“Chaos.” He bluntly put it. “Listen to me. Because I've been encased in stone three times, my power has grown considerably weaker. But because you are my son, you still have some of my blood. And with that, comes the power to control chaos.”
“And you want me to use my inner chaos to help you take over Equestria?” I asked.
“Not necessarily take over Equestria, but take revenge on Celestia.” He said. “I will make her pay for what she did.” His voice took a dark tone, making me back up.
“What did she do?” I asked.
He looked at me and I saw the fire in his eyes. “She took my son from me.”
Now I was annoyed. I knew that Discord had been frozen 1000 years ago, or somewhere around that time. I also knew that he was frozen again and Twilight had stopped him, with our friends of course. But he said THREE times. There was a third time that nopony knew about. That must have been when I was born! But, why would he want me so bad? Was it simply because Celestia had me all this time? I was in the middle of a fight and I had no idea what the buck was going on! I looked at Discord in anger. Now it was time to get some answers. But not from him. From my mother.
“Sorry Discord,” I said, my eyes flashing magenta and yellow. “Celestia knows that I'd love to help, but she owes me answers. Besides,” I smirked. “I tend to cause chaos enough just by being alive. I don't need your help.”
“So, you would choose that one that lied to you all your life instead of the one providing answers?” he asked calmly.
“Seems legit, doesn't it?” I asked.
Discord looked at me for a long moment, then suddenly smiled. That worried me. “Of course! You've been trained by your mother, haven't you? I just need to show you how weak she is!”
“Good luck with tha-” WHAM! My head burst into pain as Discord rushed forward and punched me in the head. I flew thought the air and slammed onto my side, skidding on the ground. Dizzily, I stood up and glared daggers at Discord. “You just made a mistake, you know that?”
“I was hoping for that.” he said.
I started shifting the back half of my body first and used a quick teleportation spell. As I re-appeared behind him, I was fully shifted into Applejack. As he turned, I timed it and bucked him in the face, utilizing all of Applejack's strength. I launched him about 20 feet away from me. Instantly, he was by me again. I tried to buck him again, but he grabbed my back legs and swung me around in a circle. He suddenly let go and I proceeded to fly though the air. I flipped upside down and shifted into Rainbow. Using her speed, I flew toward him. As I sped past him, I smacked him in the face. After I did that about 4 times, he kicked upward just I flew past him. His foot hit me in the stomach and I was sent upwards.
“Ahhhh!” I yelled as I went flying. I hurriedly shifted into a pegasus and accidentally turned into Fluttershy. “Oh crap!” As I realized my mistake, Discord was right by me and he kicked me again. I looked back as I was flying away and I didn't see him. I looked up and he was right above me. He slammed his feet into my chest, sending me crashing into the ground.
Shocked by the pain, my body shifted into my changeling form. My chest was on fire and my back legs felt pulled out of their sockets. I heard Discord yell, “Are we done yet? I kind of need you healthy.”
“I'm not helping you!” I yelled back, wincing.
“Fine by me.” he said. Suddenly, the ground started to rumble under me. Then in a burst of color, I rose into the air. I looked down and saw that it was a geyser...of strawberry milk? What? I rose off the geyser of milk and shifted into Rainbow again. Then I took a bolt of cloud to the face. I shifted my weight in mid-air and landed on my hooves. Looking down, I saw a shadow. I glanced upwards, paled and dashed off as a rock made out of paper slammed down where I was. I walked over and touched it. It ripped like paper, but the rock had left a crater.
My eyes widened. “He's fighting-with chaos.” I heard a whistling noise and looked up to see more paper rocks falling toward me. “Wonderful.” I took off.
Using Rainbow's speed, I low flew around the rocks and avoided them. When they stopped, I flew in the middle of all of the rocks. I felt myself starting to grow weak. “I hope this works.” I thought. Drawing on my necklace, I absorbed just enough energy to heal my chest. Then I shifted into Twilight. I heard Discord doing something, but I was too focused to look at him. I ran thought the paper rock filled field, setting the rocks on fire. When I covered every rock in flames, I started running in circles around them, bunching them all together. I used a fuse spell to completely put the rocks together, then proceeded to preform the hardest part of the spell. I gripped the giant, flaming rock with a telekinesis spell then started swinging it in a circle. I swung it faster and faster, feeling the effects start to take hold of me. My horn felt like it was being pulled from my head, and my legs burned. I was starting to slow down from weariness.
“What's wrong Shade?” I heard Discord yell. “You see, this is why you should join me. All Celestia wants to do is hold you back. You see, the only reason she didn't tell you anything was because she wanted to use you as a weapon.”
“Not...true.” I gasped.
“And you see, Celestia tricked you. She betrayed you to Chrysalis, and told her how to claim you.” I heard Discord laugh. “You're nothing more then a puppet.”
I felt fierce anger rush though me. “I'm. Not. A. PUPPET!” Suddenly, I felt a burst of fire on my neck, and everything faded into red.
. . .
Discord watched as Shade continued to swing the flaming boulder. It seemed like he had finally gotten under the changeling's skin. But as he looked a little closer, he saw that Shade's eyes were glowing red and the mark on his neck was glowing bright green.
“Well, well. What have you done to him, Chrysalis?” he thought. He didn't have any more time to think as Shade let go of the rock and it soared toward him, hitting him directly in the face.
. . .
I watched though a red haze as I saw the flaming rock hit Discord in the face and explode. I smiled, but then paled as I felt the amount of energy that I had used hit me. I fell on my side, panting. I didn't even have the strength to move. Then with a fearful jolt, I sensed that I didn't have enough energy in my necklace to get me up and moving, just enough to keep from dying.
Discord landed in front of me, a bruise on his forehead. “Why wouldn't you just listen to me?”
“Because,” I panted. “I..don't trust..either of you. But..I trust...you less.”
Discord smiled, “Oh well, have it your way. But think about your words when your life is in chaos. Then you will want to learn how to control your true power.” He stepped back from me and disappeared.
I emptied my necklace, drawing in all the energy. I was still too weak to move. As I started to pass out, I thought as hard as I could. If chaos was the power that Discord's blood gave me, what did Celestia's blood give me? And why didn't Discord take me with him? I attempted to move, just a little bit, but it was useless. I sank into darkness, still feeling the burn from the mark on my neck.
Its this some sort of fighting Game?
1545117 No it's a scene where Shade gets the buck knocked out of him. What didcha think? dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/lolface_Celestia.png
1539645
Hmm, never got a notification about your response for some reason. Anyway, yeah, the Mary Sue checklist has a few variants.
- Gary Stu: Male variant, pretty self-explanatory
- Black Hole Sue: very common in fanworks, a character who the entirety of canon bows down to for the sake of a half-baked plot. Canon people act completely out of character around them, and they're better than everyone at everything.
- Anti-Sue: If a Sue is someone who's just better than everyone at everything and is always loved, if I flip it around then I've avoided writing a Sue, right? NOPE.
Anyway, as far as the Sue list goes, your main character has/is:
[x] Tragic/dark backstory
[x] Unknown/distressing parentage
[x] Unknown/extreme power level/doesn't know own strength
[x] Offspring of a canon character (bonus "eww" points for making him the son of royalty)
[x] Name that doesn't match canon naming conventions/name that invokes darkness
[x] Backstory/personality revealed via infodump instead of actions (show, don't tell)
[x] Just wants to be normal
[x] Unusual hair color/appearance (It's a changeling, impossible to avoid)
[x] Instantly friends with canon characters with no explanation (you don't set up the friendships/relationships, they just get mentioned out of nowhere)
[x] Obviously setting up a choice between good and evil, revolving around the character, which will affect the entire world
Based on these traits, you're writing a Sympathy Sue; a character who's sole purpose is to be written to prey on audience sympathies and be loved by the reader since no one else does.
Now, THOSE are the typically negative points that indicate the possible presence of a Sue. Just because you're hitting all those points doesn't mean your character is automatically a Sue, though. If you characterize the character and explain and justify all the various traits in prose instead of just dumping them on the reader, then you can make it okay and the character can still be likeable. I think you're doing okay on that front, but you need to be aware of the tropes in any case.
Again, as I said, you're not doing badly. Infodumping the backstory and traits of the main character is your primary sin.
Excellent, I love it, great job
When you releasing the next chapter (I know you have just released this one )
1545182 Oh man, now I'm REALLY worried. It could only take one chapter for me to screw this up now. Thanks for telling me, and I'll work on it.
P.S. Did you read the latest chapter? And if you did, what were your thoughts
Edit: He doesn't want to be normal, per se. He just wants to be able to accept what he is. He only found out he was a changeling 3 months ago.
1545185 I usually take a break for a few days, but who knows?
O_O
1545223
It needs an editor, because there's a few things here and there with the wrong words or missed spellings, but there's a few things I can point out.
This is not the way to do it. This is pretty much the textbook definition of infodumping. You could either show us the scene when it happened, so we can remember it when it happened, or even giving us a glimpse of a flashback would work okay.
This I like. This is a good way to take your character who has, presumably, UNLIMITED POWAH and give him limitations. Limitations, quirks, faults—these are the things that make a character likeable. You can relate to a flawed person. Sues are people who are so perfect that they're pretty much better than the audience by default. No one likes to constantly look at a character who is perfect.
Good author! Have a cookie! codemonsters.de/home/img/news/chip_cookie_icon.gif You might not know it, but this is better storytelling. It almost reads like an infodump, but the key variable is that you're doing it in the character's head, so we're following his thought processes. That counts as showing, paradoxically enough. Basically, we should know what the character knows, WHEN they know it. The only thing I would suggest is that thought processes are generally in italics if it's a first person thing. This is a bit more narrative in feel, so you can prolly get away with not using it here.
Eeeeeehhhhhh... Too laconic. This phrase wouldn't really exist in Equestria, and it's too colloquial in ours. Basically, don't use slang.
The perspective shift is odd, also. If you're going to set up your story to use multiple perspectives, then you have to set it up early and use it consistently. Because you've never shifted like that before, when you change to Discord's POV, it's jarring. You should either find a way to make the story telling from the same perspective, a neutral perspective or leave it out entirely.
1545279 You have no idea how appreciative I am for your help. I knew that writing this character would be hard, and part of the reason for the infodumps is to stress the fact that he is NOT all powerful.
If you want to continue helping me, than I'll be grateful dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/lolface_Celestia.png
1545136 That was exactly what i was thinking..... i totally dind't think this was some sort of Street fighters
Keep up the good work!
Sorry for my lack of editing, school is being a bitch
Good stuff! I'm a little unsure about Discord punching and kicking like a common ruffian, even depowered, but the rain of paper rocks sounds like him.
Listen to OtterMatt, for he is a wise pony. Although, as I've always maintained, cliches are not inescapably evil. Shade doesn't really come across as a Gary Stu to me, despite meeting many of the qualifications. I credit character development and good storytelling.
What does he mean?