The Wonderbolts are putting on a show in Manehattan and Rainbow Dash just has to be there. But arriving a day early means that she and her friends, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy, have twenty-four hours to whittle away. And what better place to kill time than the mall? In the largest shopping center in Equestria they'll find food, fun, maybe even a new friend. A whole day of hi-jinx and shenanigans.
But unbeknownst to the three friends, something is being hidden within the walls of Manehattan Mall. A dark secret hidden from the masses. And they're about to get involved, whether they like it not.
Chapters (4)
Great story, i highly enjoyed reading it. It definitely deserves alot more views though
3791703
Why thank you!
OH MY GOODNESS THIS STORY WAS THE BOMB
YOU KNOW HOW TO WRITE A GREAT STORY. WOW JUST WOW AMAZING WORK HOPE TO SEE MORE FROM YOU
5/5 mustaches
3847318
Thank you! I do have another story if you want to read that.
3794019
Bravo! Bravo! An excellent and most enjoyable fic. Have a fave and an upvote. For this and it's sequel. I hope both shall get more attention in the future. I shall recommend them
This was amazingggggg and definitely deserves more views and likes! New favorite story lol
That actually sounds fun....except all the shops are locked.
Also, thank you for the joke. I will use it unwisely.
Nice!! This will be interesting. Why does this not have more views and likes?
This was amazing!! Well written and fun the whole way. Zenadine was absolutely wonderful and her rhymes were so cute.
The show needs more zebras. At least so the rhyming thing gets an answer.
Very nice. A simple, feel-good adventure. Though, I'm pretty sure you mentioned in chapter 3 that the guards were all earth ponies.
6753910
Glad you enjoyed it.
I did a quick skim of chapter 3, but I couldn't find any mention of exactly what race the guards were. Either you're remembering incorrectly, or I didn't look hard enough. If you know where exactly it says that, I'd appreciate it if you let me know so I can fix it.
6753917
It says it at beginning of the last chapter
6953163
Ah, well, that explains it; didn't realize it was in chapter four. Fixed now. Thank you.
Well, that was certainly a fun, feel good adventure with a moderate amount of humor and a little action.
I have only one real problem with this.
The central conflict here-all the ponies trapped in the mall-is so stupid as to repeatedly break immersion every time it shows up. I mean, even the central premise is filled with plot holes: forcing anyone who breaks in/accidentally (as is mostly the case) to work for the mall? I mean, it sounds silly but interesting at first glance, but the way it's set up seems preposterous.
First, off they're more or less allowed to roam? I know they have collars to stop them from leaving, but they're not confined to a small, isolated area? I can buy that security during the day doesn't let them roam about, but there's a blatant hole in security between day and night shifts. I'm sorry, but it sounds incredibly stupid that Vault, so bent on saving/making money, allows twenty pissed off ponies that he regularly forces to work and repair items in the Mall.
I know full well that, if I were in that position, I would take every single opportunity during this time to set the mall on fire-of which I'm sure I could track down materials to do so in a mall as varied as this. Considering there seems to be an hour between shifts (based on Rainbow, Fluttershy, and Pinkie's night time activities), there is ample opportunity. Failing that, rampant vandalism.
For that matter, if security is so lax, why don't one of them run out into the public at any point and scream that they're being held captive? I mean, they're clearly not being chained up/locked away if the fact that some of them are out and about after hours (even if it's against the rules).
For that matter, isn't it more expensive this way? Discarding the fact that any repairs are likely sub par, Vault has to pay for all the food and medical care to for twenty extra ponies that cannot do normal Mall jobs on account of them taking the opportunity to escape/tell ponies of their predicament, they can only some maintenance at night under close guard observation, and their ability to actually repair stuff is probably very limited-some items surely can't be repaired without a fully equipped workshop-which, supplying that, also cost money.
Finally, really? In what business oriented mind do you consider the very real risk of law suits and felonies and charges of kidnapping to be worth keeping children and adults hostage in exchange for manual labor? The fact that this is in Equestria in Manehattan, where you directly stated that the authorities are already suspicious makes it all the worse. If Vault was portrayed as insane, it wouldn't bother me very much: the fact is, he has a massive, very successful mall, which implies a good business sense, which implies the realization that numerous charges of kidnapping even if he has the best lawyers is not worth the benefit to his business in the form of manual labor.
Hell, what if the prisoners just flat out refuse to keep working? Go on their version of strike? What does Vault do then now that the ponies are literally useless to him. I know this is a bit weaker-the guards could just activate the collars and hurt all of them, but at this point you go into out right torture or or another solution which would be to kill them if they don't work (which would ironically make the low number of guards plausible-only those that he can really trust not to blab) which would make the fic much darker.
Finally, really? Three guards for this massive mall? Just for basic security-not considering the twenty pissed off prisoners you have going-seems like an incredibly small number. I would have expected at least a dozen based on the description of the mall, especially with the prisoners. Hell, in the right situation (i.e-a whole lot), unless the guards are careful to never be in the same place, the twenty ponies could overwhelm them.
As a side note, Vault was utterly screwed the moment Rainbow and the others stepped into the mall. These are bearers of the Elements of Harmony. Even if security captured them, Manehattan is going to be ripped apart in a few days when Royal Guard shows up in force looking for them after Twilight tells Celestia they've gone missing. This is not even to mention if Twilight or Celestia bring out a locator spell of some sort to home in on them.
What am I getting at here? Well, almost all of the tension is lost when you think about this-no matter what happens, they're going to be fine. I mean, Vault's not a master of dark magic like Sombra or particularly intelligent-he's a moderately successful business pony. There's no way he could possibly compete with even the Royal Guard or police, never the less Celestia, Twilight, Luna, or you get the idea. I wasn't even on the edge of my seat for the remaining portion of this.
I would keep going on, but I think I made my point. The whole plot is colossally stupid. I enjoyed the first few chapters much more than I did the latter couple simply because I couldn't stop thinking about how stupid it is. However, I will admit, stupidity aside, this was very enjoyable and I'm sure it's even more so if you can get past the immersion breaking plot.
7261042
I appreciate that you care enough to take the time to write such an elaborate critique of my story and I can definitely agree that it's certainly not the sturdiest of plots.
The truth of the matter is that this story was simply an exercise for me to see how well I could write a story that focused mainly on comedy. It's far too often that I see writers rely on jokes taken directly from the show for laughs, and I wanted to make sure that if my readers were going to laugh, it'd be because of something I wrote.
So I basically approached this story as if it were a Saturday morning cartoon; entertaining, but nonsensical. It's not a story you're supposed to think too hard about and just enjoy the ride, but I get that that doesn't exactly work for everyone. Covering all of those plot holes would just make the story needlessly long and boring, and may have required rewrites to get it to work out.
But I guess excuses aren't going to change anything now. If you felt that way about the story, I'm sorry. But I thank you for taking the time to read it anyway and for your input.
7262529 I realize from my critique that it sounds like I didn't like the story, which is absolutely not true. I enjoyed it, some of the comedy worked fairly well, and your characterization was spot on. Unfortunately, I have a distinct tendency to overthink these things, and that led to my critique. But, even considering the main conflict, I still had fun reading it.
7262565
I didn't think that you didn't like my story. You stated quite clearly that you enjoyed it regardless. Perhaps I should have used different wording. I just meant that I can understand someone not liking it for the reasons you noted.