The Shadow Bolts, Luna's most elite operatives. The hide within her veil of her sacred darkness to keep the light from ever fading. They are what goes bump in the night.
Of course even legends have their rookies, agents with all the skills to get the job done, but who have yet to fully prove themselves in the field.
After traveling magical prodigy Twilight Sparkle brings an ursa minor to a small town, wreaking all kinds of havoc, Princess Luna assembles one such team to bring the rogue sorceress to justice.
Now on their first mission without supervision from a senior mentor, can a clerical research specialist, an overzealous tracker with a shady past, and an ex-recruit turned freelancer find her before she causes more trouble... or worse still, before trouble finds her.
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A story set in RainbowDoubleDash's Lunaverse, starting shortly after the events of Boast Busted and running up to the events Count Down to Crisis
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Special thanks goes to Emeral Bookwise for helping me with this thing.
looks good so far. moar will be required soon though.
Oh yeah, I can see the improvements.
This is gonna be good.
So we have a rookie who scored well in academics but has no field experience, a loose cannon who breaks all the rules, and a grizzled merc who's being dragged out of retirement for one last job?
2368806 Meh. More like a book worm rookie, a rookie who only really cares about getting the job done and doesn't care for empathy, and a young ex-recruit turned freelancer who left after a life changing experience
2368834 So it's not a summer blockbuster action movie then. Oh well.
If the third dude doesn't work for the Bolts anymore, how can he be put on the team?
FP: "Here's your mission. Any questions?"
Deserter: "Uh, yes. You remember that I quit, right? I technically don't need to do what you say anymore."
FP: "Oh, so that's what that means."
Otherwise, I like it. I am intrigued.
2368834 2368806
Actually, the first two sound close enough to the same to me. Though the third is defiantly not grizzled or being dragged out of any kind of retirement, being as Scarecrowbrad said, both young/idealistic and an active freelancer.
2369843
He might not work for the 'bolts so they can't order him onto the mission, but as a freelancer they can still hire him on contract to do a job.
Much better.
Looking good! You've built up my interest in the team. Is Silver Wing the Shadowbolt James Bond? That's certainly how he sounds. Also, is the "House of Silver" the same family as Silver Spoon is descended from?
2372688 Honestly? I didn't think of that. Does she even have family? because if she doesn't, it might not be a bad idea to make that happen. Along with sherrif Silver Star.
It is off to a good ¡ReBoot!*
MLP:FIM as so many nods to ¡ReBoot!
2378823
As I would see it Silverstar would be a very, VERY distant relation, if any at all. A cousin so many times removed he might as well be from a wholly different family. Notably he's not even supposed to be Equestrian, but rather of Caballerian descent, though having lived most his life on the frontiers of Mild West (possibly born on the open plains even).
There is however a Wonderbolt named Silver Lining, who might make an interesting relative to Silver Wing here.
The ShadowBolts are very similar to the Specially Operations the Ministry of Awesome will run in an alterane future in the CelestiaVerse where Zebras and Ponies will destroy each other. Luckily, the future of the CelestiaVerse is already on a different track. One can read about this alternate future of the CelestiaVerse in FallOut: Equestria.
Agent Washing Tub? Is that Caboose I hear?
2485621
Classic!
Oh I feel old now.
Nice reference to S02E19 “Putting Your Hoof Down” during the negotiations. Unfortunately, Merriwether Williams wrote the episode. Both she and Dave Polsky write too darkly and cynically for the show. In an episode by Merriwether Williams, expect all of the ponies to be flankholes, Ponyville to be a deathtrap, and resqueing ponies from certain death in the deathtrap of Ponyville to be considered a bad thing. At least Merriwether Williams is not as bad as Dave Polsky:
Dave Polsky wrote the antiscientific episode S01E15 “Feeling Pinkie Keen” and the episode glorifying genocide S03E03 “Too Many Pinkies”. ⸘How does Dave Polsky manage to get such disturbing episodes on the air‽
One does not have to be dark and cynical, even if one covers heavy subjects:
Meghan McCarthy wrote S02E25 "A Canterlot-Wedding Part # 1" and S02E26 “A Canterlot-Wedding Part # 2”. These episodes had an whole Changeling-Invasion, but are still bright and optimistic. Merriwether Williams and Dave Polsky just cannot write well for MLP:FIM.
2486202 Don't feel bad. Most of the music I listen to is classic rock and I'm still in college
Ah, the classic bugs bunny trick gone wrong.
This is somewhat over the top, I kind of like it.
Hell yeah G Gundam reference.
Over the top pony is awesome
People find Silver Wing amusing? Really? Huh. I must be way more out of the mainstream than I thought...
Though perhaps I'm not being completely fair. I liked Naruto's Gai... though to be fair to him as well, he was usually polite, less putting down. And less of a blowhard, difficult as that might be to believe.
2613517 If people didn't really like the idea of a heroic blow hard, then the Lunaverse wouldn't have a bearer of the element of magic
his granddaddy sang "carry on my wayward foal"?
Aside from a few spelling issues, this is a rather solid little chapter. It establishes SA as being somewhat of a playah and reveals a connection between Twi and one of the agents pursuing her.
2669541 alas, my laptop does not have spell check
2669549
Wait, really?
Thought spellcheckers were pretty much standard issue with even the most basic word processors. Even excluding that, there's a wide variety of free spelling plug-ins out there available for whatever your web-browser of choice may be. So really, there's NEVER any good reason not to have a spellcheck.
2669878 I found one last night, so that shouldn't be an issue in the future
By laptop doesn't have Microsoft office is how
Okay, I'll give Silver a few more chances.
But I'll tell you right nor that I'll laugh once something wipes the smug off his face^^.
About that... I'm almost a bit sorry that he probably won't actually meet Twilight in person; that would be the best chance to give him an opportunity to fight an opponent with more than enough power to give him a run for his money.
2672089 what changed your mind, if you don't mind my asking?
2672151
Good question, actually. He's just the right cocktail of cockiness, rudeness, and overwhelming skill to be absolutely infuriating.
However, we've only seen him in a single fight yet. Other times might go completely different; especially with opponents who aren't so easy to bait, and willing to exploit his ego. It might help to compare him with Rainbow Dash: Both are capable individuals, who have problems keeping their raging egos in check. Rainbow Dash, for her part, regularly struggles with that problem. What's to say that he won't, too? And to find out I'll have to read on^^
And even if it's not a fight, I'm curious whether he'll find himself in social situations that he has problems handling well. So far he's been the dominant part in any that featured him, even with another blowhard like Trixie. Let's see if that keeps up.
lolwut
*snerks* Loved the bromantic moment between Silver and Pokey.
OK, so I finally got round to reading this, sorry it took so long and I'm sorry to say I personally have some concerns with the story and how it's progressing. Sorry, that's just my take. Also this lines doesn't really make sense to me.
My main concerns lie in characterization and background, I don't really feel the characters, in most cases, are really behaving as themselves. Shining Armor especially, with the fedora and everything, that just seems a bit OOC for him. And Luna seemed a bit childish, for lack of better words, when we did see her and I still have trouble believing Fancy could sneak out of the room so easily. I can't say much for Fancy as we've scarcely seen him in the series.
Trixie also feels a bit off, which ties into my other concern; a lot of new stuff seems to have been added to different character back-stories. Midnight's history with the Sparkle family seems a bit out of place to me. Especially her having been friends with Twilight, a large part of Twilight's, from my understanding, was meant to be friendless, lacking an older sister/foal sitter surrogate/friend and isolating herself throughout school, with SH being more or less the only exception, but that they'd grown distant.
Trixie having a history with Silver seems a bit odd as well, I could have dismissed it but her more or less acknowledging him as her best friend, even if formerly/grudgingly, feels rather off to me, before she left Trixie wasn't really meant to have friends and given both of these character personalities and behavior it seems hard to believe they would want to interact or that she would hold fond memories of him. Sorry, again. The set pieces were quite well described though and a good amount of the dialogue was well written and clear cut.
As for Silver himself, I really hate saying this but, he feels a bit like a Gary Stu, i'm sorry, but with his behavior, knowledge and the way characters react to him I can't really see him any other way. I have trouble seeing why any of the cast actually accommodate him, given he attacked someone over criticizing his goggles and his previous & ensuing behavior. Also his using the pre-fall name for Corona, would probably need to be a really good explanation as to why he does not use the name everyone has been using for more or less 1000 years. As for knowledge, what I mean is how he was, without any real information or context, able deduce someone's name and Midnight's, history/views/feelings, along with understanding Twilight's behavior, and Trixie's part in it before she even explained it, something that, unless explained in the report itself, should probably be hard to deduce along with other things like that. He seems to know to much and be too aware without enough explanation, if that makes sense. Again sorry.
If it wasn't just Silver wit this sort of knowledge it would be less of a concern as it would be more about being a Shadowbolt, than being Silver if that makes sense. And as I said, I have trouble understanding why the cast members put up with him, or seem to already having a growing sense of respect for him, along with Trixie's behavior and Luna/Fancy views on his skills/character, along with the agents agreeing to let him stage that elaborate set up etc. The actions scenes were quite well described though.
Another example would be in the descriptions the characters are using for him, As it stands everyone else feels feels a bit flat, like they are there to prop Silver up more than anything else. Descriptions like this also raise my eyebrows a bit (His speed is incredible!, the grey colt thought to himself. He's like a flash! Like a tiger defying the laws of gravity!).Beyond that, some of the exposition feels a bit forced, chapter 2 with Silver would be an example, but other characters revealing their motives, the plot and seemingly a great deal about themselves in dialogue, as opposed to action with very little context feels a bit rushed/forced.
I am sincerely sorry if this review seems rude or if I have offended you with it, that was most certainly not my intent. Best of luck.
Ah. There's one who thinks ahead and sees what Luna and most of ponykind does not. He sees that one day, Corona will be vanquished and that Celestia will be restored. Too bad that he doesn't see that even if she doesn't conquer Equestria, she'll still reshape it by her very presence.
Somehow, I missed the update. Wonky notifications are the enemy of all authors.
Now that I read this chapter, you made a mistake:
Bats are in the order Chiroptera ——— not rodents.
You should update this. :-) It's a good story!
Dear Lord! What is this guy? The pony love child of Domun Kashu and Alex Louise Armstrong?
"You're a claustrophobic!"
"You want a hoof in the mouth? I've never even looked at another colt before!"