It was a dark and stormy day in Ponyville.The clouds were blocking most of the sky, leaving little light shining through. The storm was causing so much gloom that even Pinkie Pie was depressed and in Sugar Cube Corner stuffing her face with cupcakes to make herself feel better. Rainbow Dash was up above the clouds in Cloudsdale, not even affected by the storm. Fluttershy was in her cottage having some form of indoor picnic with all her forest critters. Rarity was over dramatizing how she got a little wet from her way back from Sugar Cube Corner to Sweetie Belle. Applejack was in Sweet Apple Acres' barn, trying to judge how much damage this storm will do, if any, to the farm. Twilight Sparkle was busying herself by sorting the books in the library, since they were knocked onto the floor so many times.
"All right Spike, time to sort the "j"s now," said Twilight, finishing putting the last "i" on the correct shelf.
"Okay, Twilight. Here are the "j"s, said Spike, wheeling out the cart with all the books whose author's name started with a "j".
He was having a little trouble wheeling out the cart since it had hundreds of books on it. He never realized, before today, how many authors had a name starting with "j".
"Here, let me help you with those," said Twilight, helping Spike wheel the cart out with her magic. "There, now you can take a break for a while. After the I'm done with the "j"s, it'll be lunchtime."
But then, a loud crack of a lightning bolt boomed right outside the library. Twilight and Spike were thrown from where they were standing, books that Twilight was holding with her magic were flying everywhere, after being released from her spell. They both landed with a thud, Twilight landing on her side and Spike landing on his face. The books had landed randomly on the floor creating a bunch of noise.
After Twilight landed on the floor, the books coming after her, she heard that her and the books' thud had echoed down under the floorboards. At first, she thought this was just a natural wood echo, but when it lasted longer than ten seconds, she started to wonder whether it was natural or not. Curious, she had Spike help her break and lift the floorboards up off the spot. This revealed a deep, dark hole that was only as wide as her and ended farther than she could see.
"Come on, Spike, let's go down and explore," said Twilight, eager to see what was at the bottom of this hole and to enhance her knowledge about the library.
"Okay, whatever you say. But it doesn't seem very safe down there."
"What, is the baby dragon too afraid to climb down the hole and have an adventure?" asked Twilight. "Or is he just using this as a ploy to get out of going on an adventure and to take a nap instead of having fun in exploring this hole?"
"No, but we've never seen this part of the library before. Who knows what could be down there."
"Just stay close to me and I'll make sure nothing bad will happen to you. I guarantee it."
"Okay, fine, I'll go with you," said Spike, reluctantly getting on Twilight's back as she started to go down the hole.
A few minutes later, the smell of water that had been sitting around in the same place for thousands of years, tainted from years of rodents and other pests living and dying in it. It seemed like the hole would go on forever when Twilight put her hoof down on a mossy rock, wet from the tainted water. Once she got her footing, Twilight used her magic to illuminate the hole. She found herself standing in a non-moving stream of greenish-brown water. Then she looked up and saw a path ending in a turn.
With Spike clutching onto her back harder than normal since he didn't want to fall off in the hole, Twilight started to venture down the hallway. At the end, she went with the turn and saw a rectangular room with six doors at the opposite side of the entrance. Each door had a symbol on it that Twilight couldn't out what each one represented. Then she saw a message inscribed on the wall to the right of her.
"Do you know what it says, Twilight? I can't make out any of the letters of it," asked Spike.
"That's no surprise. This was inscribed in an ancient pony writing. Nopony's used it for around one thousand years. Luckily, I studied it early on in my training, when you were only a few weeks old. It says, 'Go through your destiny's door. Now.' There are a few words scratched off so badly that I can't read them. I wonder what this means. Do you have any clue?" asked Twilight.
"I don't know," said Spike, then he started to look for clues with Twilight. After a minute or two, he thought he found something. "Hey, Twi. Look at the symbols on the doors. The one on the far left looks like your Cutie Mark. Maybe that's what it means by 'destiny's door'," said Spike, pointing at the door on the far left with a symbol on it that looked like Twilight's Cutie Mark.
"Spike, you're a genius!" exclaimed Twilight with enough enthusiasm to rival Pinkie Pie's.
Twilight galloped to the door with Spike still on her back. She opened the door with her magic once she got near it. What came out was a shock to her. Blazing candles illuminated this room, blinding her momentarily. She didn't expect this after the previous rooms were pitch black. This room was a hexagonal shape with a ceiling that Twilight guessed was about the same height as the hole she entered in. The length of the room was impressive, Twilight judging that it would take Rainbow Dash around five seconds to cover the distance, however it wasn't as impressive as the height of the room. In the very center of the room, she saw a wooden podium about the same size as her.
"Let's go check out that podium, Spike," said Twilight, wanting to find out what was so special about this room.
"Okay, but let's be careful, Twilight. Remember, there were a few etched out words in the note. They could've made the note a warning"
"Yes, I remember. I'll be careful," said Twilight as she started to gallop to the podium.
I sense great potential in you. The story seems interesting, and I didn't spot many grammatical errors. I would however like to give you a little advice on the style and structure of this chapter.
First off, the opening was a bit poor. Instead of starting with what characters unrelated to the story are doing, you could have jumped right into what's going on in the library.
Another advice I have is on your use of dialog tags(He said, said Twilight, Spike said, etc.). Sometimes it's obvious who is talking, and it's not necessary to point it out. We already know that Spike and Twilight are alone in the library, so in some cases you can drop the dialog tags entirely. Example:
"Come on, Spike, let's go down and explore," said Twilight, eager to...
"Okay, whatever you say. But it doesn't seem very safe down there,"
said Spike, a little timidly."What, is the baby dragon too afraid to climb down the hole and have an adventure?"
asked Twilight..."No, but we've never seen this part of the library before. Who knows what could be down there,"
said Spike.(Be careful when leaving out dialog tags, though. Make sure that the reader won't be confused about who's talking.)
You should definitely keep on writing! I'll be sure to check out your next chapter. Cheerio!
You've caught my interest, I'd like to see more!
Overall it's good for a first fanfic, I hope you continue it.
As far as criticism goes, I'd definitely fix up the opening paragraph. Like Norrie McFly said, it's largely superfluous and it would serve the story better to have the paragraph just be about Twilight and Spike.
Also (and this is just a visual thing), I like it when authors put a space between each paragraph. It just seems to make the whole thing look nicer, and a lot of readers appreciate it.
Like I said, it's a great start, can't wait to see where this goes. I'm 17 years old m'self, so I can appreciate younger authors writing their first stories.
Yeah, I don't know when I'll get my next chapter up, but I'll take your advice when typing it! (also, I don't actually type it as my first copy, I write it out first. So who knows how long it could take. However, I at least have it written down, so I just need to type it in) I'll also revise this one a little (just an fyi, I don't actually have a proofreader, unless you count my brother who only read some of it, so I'm kinda on my own). Most of the first paragraph was filler since my brother said it was "too inconspicuous". The original manuscript was very bad.
Also, I plan to make this into around three stories total, so this specific story will be done in another three or so chapters, then the sequel. I'll eventually be putting an OC into later stories. Hope you enjoy the series and read it all the way through!
2255802
Good work
The best tip I can give is: once you have it typed in, go back and read what it will look like. This allows you to avoid problems with spacing, and also allows you to catch many of the grammatical mistakes you've made. If you need a proofreader, I know 3, four if I count myself. Good luck
Neat. P.S: The end reminded me of Kingdom Hearts a little bit.